The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus.  Sandstein  22:00, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Edward Owens (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Even though this page now shows it was created as a hoax, it's creation falls squarely into WP:HOAX & WP:MADEUP and I was tempted to CSD it as such. Even though the hoax itself has now started to garner some third party sources and blogs, this page in itself is certainly NN as anyone with a modicum of intelligence understands that fake information can be easily added to Wikipedia, and is no different to the hundreds of hoax pages created daily. ^Khukri 12:59, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Insufficient notablity. If someone wants to merge to a hoax list article that would be okay with me. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:42, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and retitle as Edward Owens (hoax), as the hoax is what would properly be discussed in the article. We do not speedy delete articles about hoaxes. Discussion of the hoax in the Chronicle of Higher Education is sufficient for notability , as the most reliable source for the material it covers. DGG (talk) 23:18, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:00, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep & retitle Per DGG. The Chronicle story[1] is enought to prove notability - it wasn't just Wikipedia being hoaxed - and rarity. Hoaxing as a teaching device is not common.John Z (talk) 00:42, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete non-notable hoax that didn't seem to fool anyone particularly important, or have any measurable impact. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:24, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per all the reasons already noted. There are certainly hoaxes that meet notability...this isn't one of them. Trusilver 01:05, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

if the major publication in the subject field reports the hoax it shows its significance. I trust their judgement more than ours. DGG (talk) 08:24, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep-- Notable hoax not only in the academic world, the Chronicle story, but also in the internet realm.--Jmundo (talk) 03:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep-- This article must NOT be deleted, even though the damage has already been done. Anyone who read this article, or any reference to it, prior to the revealing

of the hoax will now have a set of false beliefs about the past. Only if a searcher returns to this article, or one derived from it, can the hoax be discovered. There remain other references to the so-called pirate, even within Wikipedia, that do not indicate that the story is false. The students may have thought what they were doing was instructive, but they quickly lost control of the information. So Wikipedia needs to retain the corrected article as at least a last resort attempt to correct the fraud and lead searchers to the truth of the matter. T. McFadden —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.52.218.40 (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Google Edward Owens. The First three pages are about the Hoax, and most of the people mentioning the hoax are involved in the academic world in one way or another.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.