The Yuri Gadyukin Wikipedia Hoax (2013) | Hacker News Reader

The Yuri Gadyukin Wikipedia Hoax (2013)

kernelmag.dailydot.com

91 pointsantigizmo33 comments

By the end of the article it had crossed my mind that Boyter and Ducker (the perpetrators of the hoax) were themselves fictitious characters, and that the article itself was part of a larger hoax.

Oh wow. Sure enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Boyter

If you read the deletion log, it was deleted simply because he's not notable enough yet. There may also be an element of retribution, because the deletion log also mentions the hoax.

it seems to suck that the page is deleted out-right. I would rather that the page altered to reveal that it was all a hoax, but still describe the ficticious person, and perhaps also describe how the hoax was perpetrated. Those tidbits are rather interesting, and would be a shame to have all been lost in the next few decades.

I agree.

It's interesting to note that Wikipedia does this for other pages that were "based on real facts" or were hoaxes. The one that comes to mind right away is Blair Witch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project

The movie's official website featured fake police reports and "newsreel-style" interviews. These augmented the movie's found footage style to spark debates across the internet over whether the movie was a real-life documentary or a work of fiction.[30]

Apparently when its their OX getting gored its not ok.

Articles about hoaxes need to meet same notability standards as other Wikipedia articles. If other newspapers write widely about the Gadyukin article and it becomes a famous example, then an article about it will presumably be created.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Do_not_create_hoaxes...

Is there an archive of deleted Wikipedia pages, or are they gone forever?

http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/Yuri_Gadyukin

Nice one, thanks. What I meant was, do Wikipedia themselves keep an archive or are the articles basically zapped forever?

It appears that Wikipedia does keep an archive ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Viewing_and_restorin...

However ...

> A message by Wikipedia system administrator Brion Vibber from January 2007 warned that deleted revisions could theoretically be cleared without warning at any time, and a script exists to perform this function. However in practice they have only been cleared twice, both times due to technical issues – once on 3 December 2003, because the Wikipedia database was transferred to a new server, and once on 8 June 2004 due to a database crash.

This is, of course, different from the revision history for an article, which shows each edit and is available for public inspection, e.g., ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deep_learning&off...

>Only administrators, checkusers, and oversighters can view the content of deleted pages.

Almost, but no cigar :(

Here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wi...

This raises the question, could Wikipedia reference itself in the past when it's an historical article about itself?

I would guess not, That would constitute original research or perhaps a primary source.

Rather than reference itself it would prefer to refer to sources that refer back to Wikipedia.

Is there any proof that this Wikipedia page actually existed for a significant time?

https://web.archive.org/web/20130321015446/http://en.wikiped...

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wi...

Wikipedia claims Yuri's page lasted for "3 years, 7 months"

How do we know if that is true? I'd trust the article's diffing history, though. But that is gone - just as the text of the article is nowhere to be found.

The article was moved from its original location to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wi... . Its edit history is intact there; click "View History" at the top there to see it.

"Now I'm a believer ..." [1]

Sources:

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfuBREMXxts

This is hilarious:

"Following the controversy of Where the Tractor’s Roam, Gadyukin’s arrival in London was received with great expectations. His first production in the UK was Waiting… in 1956, a project born out of a desire to film Samuel Beckett’s stage play “Waiting for Godot”. Beckett however, was unhappy with the textual changes Gadyukin proposed and withheld permission for an adaptation. Gadyukin’s film is a testament to his ability to tread a fine line, being very close to Beckett’s play in places but always with sufficient alterations to avoid a lawsuit. Waiting… was both experimental in narrative and formal terms, much of the dialogue being a mix of English and Esperanto. Despite a warm reception from European festivals Waiting... met with mixed reviews from the British press and did little business."

I had a feeling that Gadyukin sounded wrong, and sure enough. So I guess they were foiled by not having basic Russian knowledge.

It doesn't sound wrong, actually. It's a surname produced from the Russian word for "viper" (гадюка), which would make it unusual due to negative connotations, but not incorrect.

Ah, okay. Still, it's not a real surname, which caught them out.

After 3 years.

Or rather posts in Russian.

Reading this article reminded me of the "Nate Tate" art hoax (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Tate:_An_American_Artist_1...)

This article was originally published in The Daily Dot in 2013:

http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/wikipedia-hoax-yuri-ga...

This is a re-print.

Thanks, we added 2013 to the title.

Lovers of hoaxes should read about Ern Malley.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ern_Malley

As the article points out, Ern is more famous than either of the hoaxers. The hoaxee Max Harris is also more famous.

Reminds me quite a bit of Neal Stephenson's Anathem - the concept of bogons, introduced in one of the later chapters.

What I find more interesting is that the site recycled an article from two years ago and posted it with today's date.

Borgesian indeed. :)

reminds me of "Benjamin Breeg"

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