George Mason University's historical hoaxes

With the latest hoax exposed, Wikipedia deleted the two entries about Alice Walsh and Diamond Flossie which had been written by the students' sock puppets. The professor and students claimed that the subjects were factual, but Wikipedia found them to be of insufficient notability. Wikipedia administrators did raise questions about the course's situational ethics, as Kelly's class committed Wikipedia vandalism, possibly legitimizing actions of a similar nature. Kelly did not express regret in this matter; "I don't think there were any real victims here", he blogged: ==Results==

Yoni Appelbaum wrote in The Atlantic an article, "How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught by Reddit", in which he compared the serial killer hoax and the last pirate hoax. In his article, he hypothesized why the 2008 hoax was successful, while this hoax failed in minutes. One answer he suggested was that Wikipedia has a trusting community, while Reddit has a more critical and skeptical community. However, as of February 2015, Kelly continues to delve into topics dealing with editing and/or manipulating Wikipedia in his digital history class at George Mason University. ==See also==