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WEMSI - Internet Virus Hoaxes wemsi.org | television advertising is a grand hoax... winhs.org | Narconon Drug Rehab - Psychiatric Drugs - The Hoax narconon.ca | Hoaxes healthread.net |
 The Henryk Batuta hoax was a hoax perpetrated on the Polish Wikipedia from November 2004 to February 2006.
[edit] HistoryThe perpetrators of the hoax created an article about Henryk Batuta (born Izaak Apfelbaum), a fictional socialist revolutionary and Polish Communist. The fake biography said Batuta was born in Odessa in 1898, participated in the Russian Civil War. The article was created on November 8, 2004, and exposed as a hoax 15 months later when on February 1, 2006 it was listed for deletion. The article was ten sentences long while it existed on Wikipedia. It gained some prominence after stories about it appeared in prominent Polish newspapers (Gazeta Wyborcza) and magazines (Przekrój), as well as a British one (The Observer). The article also falsely claimed a street in Warsaw was named "Henryk Batuta Street", after the fictional communist official. The anonymous hoaxers who created the article, according to the press calling themselves "the Batuta Army", allegedly wanted to draw attention to the fact that there are still places in Poland named after former communist officials who do not deserve the honour. The hoax was exposed when the article was listed for deletion. Even after the article was exposed as a well organized hoax, its perpetrators tried to convince others of its authenticity by providing false bibliographical information and even by uploading a doctored photograph of a street name "ulica Henryka Batuty" (Henryk Batuta Street). The mystification was "officially" exposed and confirmed on February 9, 2006, when the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza and weekly Przekrój published their articles about the hoax. There is in fact an "ulica Batuty" (Batuta Street) in Warsaw [1] However the name actually comes from the Polish word "batuta", which means "conductor's baton". [edit] Content of the hoax articleThe hoax article as it appeared on the Polish Wikipedia on February 1, 2006 when the article was finally exposed as a hoax[2].
English translation:
[edit] Batuta as an example of using Wikis as referencesIn academic discussions, this story is occasionally referenced as a warning against allowing use of wikis for reference due to the previous examples of unquestioning researchers. The notion of, "I read it on Wikipedia, therefore it must be true," is immediately discounted by the story of Henryk Batuta and the ensuing events. It must also be noted that the power of any wiki is the ability to update this information after independent research or discussion. An example of this case existed in an ISTE round table discussion on November 18, 2008, where educators argued for and against allowing students the use of community generated tools for research. In the meeting some supported only Academe-generated sources in the discussion (1st Proposition: Skagen Vita), while others argued for allowing the use of Wikipedia for preliminary research (1st Opposition: Prospero Linden, 2nd Opposition: Inventing Tomorrow). More directly, some stated that wikipedia should not be quoted as bibliographical reference, but should not be ruled out of the research process altogether (1st Proposition: AJ Brooks); while an understated argument exists to allow bibliographical references to Wikipedia when specific conditions are satisfied (1st Opposition: Gravity Folsom). The two conditions which are mandatory in the final argument are:
As the meeting took place in the Virtual World of SecondLife, there is no record immediately available to investigators outside of SecondLife except for this Wikipedia entry that the Henryk Batuta story has been used as a tool for debate. Since the discussion was a reference and criticism of the Henryk Batuta hoax and not arbitrary commitments to the story itself, the point is debated that it could be referenced as a secondary source. [edit] References[edit] External links
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