{{guideline|WP:HOAX}}
{{Guideline in a nutshell|Don't deliberately post hoaxes or unverifiable content on a page. Articles about notable hoaxes are okay, if the hoax is recognized as such.}}
{{Guideline list}}
A Hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. Since Wikipedia is an "encyclopedia anyone can edit", it is sometimes abused to perpetrate a hoax.
==Do not create hoaxes==
Please do not attempt to put misinformation into Wikipedia to test our ability to detect and remove it. This has been done before, with varying results. Most hoaxes are marked for deletion within a few hours after they are created. Some Wikipedians suspect that the majority of hoaxes here are attempts to test the system. Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point.
Hoaxes in Wikipedia are considered vandalism, and perpetrators of a hoax are subject to blocking and banning.
If you are interested in how accurate Wikipedia is, a more constructive test method is to try to find inaccurate statements that are already in Wikipedia, and then to check to see how long they have been in place and, if possible, correct them.
==Verifiability==
Wikipedia requires articles to be verifiable. The burden is on the article author to prove the claims in the article. Thus it is impossible to continue a hoax once it is under scrutiny of Wikipedia editors if it is not already believed by the general population external to Wikipedia. (And if a hoaxer has already successfully tricked the general public, then he/she need not create an article himself; someone else will do it.)
==Hoaxes vs. articles about hoaxes==
Wikipedia does have articles ''about'' notable hoaxes describing them ''as'' hoaxes, such as Piltdown_Man. This is completely different from an article presenting a hoax as factual. Hoaxes must be notable to be included in Wikipedia – for example, a hoax may have received sustained media attention, been believed by thousands of people including academics, or been believed for many years. Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day.
==Dealing with hoaxes==
If you see an article that may be a hoax, mark it with the '''{{tl|hoax}}''' tag and nominate it for deletion. For more information, see Wikipedia:Vandalism.
Note that hoaxes are ''not'' speedy deletion candidates. It is not enough for just one or two editors to investigate a hoax. There have been cases in the past where something has been thought to have been a hoax by several editors, but has turned out to be true, and merely obscure.
==See also==
* Category:Suspected_hoax_articles
* List of hoaxes on Wikipedia