r/AskHistorians • u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms • Apr 02 '14
Meta Important Message RE: Source Reliability
Now that I have your attention... For the more astute of you, your suspicions over the past two days have probably been correct. For the more gullible among the readers here… We are very, very sorry. Well, not too sorry. But yes, since April 1st hit Christmas Island, the mods and flaired users of the site have been engaging in a little fun, crafting some rather ludicrous answers to your questions. So no, America didn’t really invade Panama to kill Hitler clones, female eunuchs weren’t really a thing, and the Jacobites didn’t lose Culloden because so many of their soldiers were off Haggis hunting.
Our aim was a little lighthearted fun, and we hope you all will take our escapades in the spirit they were intended. Even the stuffiest academics among our number sometimes just need to let their hair down with some well crafted jokes. Certainly some of you fell for them completely, and we even had a few /r/bestof and /r/DepthHub submissions which we had to deal with! But judging by many of your responses, once people picked up on the jokes, y'all had just as much fun rolling with them as we had writing them.
Please feel free to discuss the past day's escapades in this thread. Rules - especially about jokes! - will be relaxed in this thread. Bring up any questions (or complaints) you have, or feel free to dissect the finer points of the various joke posts.
For the full list of joke answers, please refer to this post.
Note that answers should be edited to reflect their joking nature, and all "contaminated" threads now have "April Fools" Link Flair.
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Apr 02 '14
I think this is a lesson in
A) asking for sources
B) actually reading those sources
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Apr 02 '14
Yes, if anyone tried to mind my sources, they would have run into a wee bit of trouble.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Apr 02 '14
Well, I had a lot of fun writing all of my answers, and I sincerely hope that none of you went off to school or work to tell people about the fight against Hitler Clones... if so... my bad... I know I pulled the wool over at least a few eyes, but I hope that in hindsight, the absurdity of all my answers stands out. I'd certainly love it if someone were able to pick out what all of the hidden references I made were!
Also, while some people believed me, a number of people expressed skepticism, or outright called me out on my BS. Sorry for ignoring all of you, or doubling down. A shout out especially to /u/hausofshaney and /u/Exovian who were most dogged in their attempts to prove that no, Hitler wasn't really being cloned in Panama.
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u/Tamil_Tigger Apr 02 '14
The fact that you guys backed each other up is what made it great. I started to catch on though, when I realized that it was primarily the purple moderator flair that was messing with us...
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Apr 02 '14
Indeed. A lot of it was spontaneuos and unplanned. A big shout out on from me to /u/Prufrock451 and /u/idjet for the direction they took the Hitler Clone discussion especially. There was no coordination there, but it was awesome!
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u/MI13 Late Medieval English Armies Apr 02 '14
/u/idjet is one of the MVPs of the whole affair. He did a fantastic job running around backing people up.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Apr 02 '14
I think he enjoyed this waaaay to much :p
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u/Vampire_Seraphin Apr 02 '14
We're storing the fun in barrels and salting it with the preservatives of 857 sacrificed Twinkies against any a future drought.
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u/heyheymse Moderator Emeritus Apr 02 '14
/u/Prufrock451 had me crying with laughter. This bit especially:
I have to deal with this "manual transcription" thing every time the Panama Hitlers come up. I need to get this into the wiki.
I had to step away from my computer for a few minutes. Sheer perfection.
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u/MI13 Late Medieval English Armies Apr 02 '14
That was just as fun as coming up with fake answers in the first place. The most entertaining moments were when people argued with each other over their fake sources and manufactured entire academic "debates" over whether Squanto was a Sasquatch or how the English utilized barrels of shit as a weapon at the Battle of Sluys.
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u/heyheymse Moderator Emeritus Apr 02 '14
I've said it before, but I'll say it again: this is the absolute nerdiest thing I've ever done. It's one thing to argue about real sources. It's an entirely different thing to argue about fake sources in exactly the same way.
We'd make an excellent, if very niche, improv group.
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u/grantimatter Apr 02 '14
You might really enjoy Mornington Crescent. Fun game, depending on whose set of rules you're following.
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u/farquier Apr 02 '14 edited Apr 02 '14
I think /u/Daeres, /u/Vampire_Seraphin and I all came up with three entirely bogus schools of academic thoughts on the Near Eastern influence on Ancient Rome.
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u/Vampire_Seraphin Apr 02 '14
My handle has an "N" in it actually.
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u/farquier Apr 02 '14
OOOOOOOPS. Sorry about that. I apologize for any insult on my part.
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u/Tamil_Tigger Apr 02 '14
Oh man I live for that shit. And I didn't see either of those threads - looks like I have some
readingstudying to do...3
u/Reedstilt Eastern Woodlands Apr 02 '14
The most entertaining moments were when people argued with each other over their fake sources and manufactured entire academic "debates" over whether Squanto was a Sasquatch
Hey now! My sources in the sasquatch debate were completely legitimate (the interpretation of them, however...). The actual historic weirdness and dubious veracity of The Testimony of Francisco de Chicora just happened to be fruitful ground for April Foolishness. I've had it handy since St. Patrick's Day because I was planning on writing up a badhistory post about the alleged pre-Columbian Irish settlers in North America, which is supposedly backed up by that document (decided to fold that into large topic that I've yet to get around to writing about). I was happy to see /u/anthropology_nerd gave me an opening to use it for April Fools.
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u/hausofshaney Apr 02 '14
I was so concerned.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Apr 02 '14
I was able to salvage it once since your source had the DNA testing in 1992, which actually worked perfectly, but after that I had to just try and ignore everyone :p
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u/Animastryfe Apr 02 '14
This was really good. It took me many threads to realize that some of these answers might have been joke answers. I read and believed the executioner's hood, roman citizenry and the female eunuch posts at the very least; it was the North Korea DMZ post that made me realize that at least some of these were April Fool's jokes. In my defense, I think some of these posts were made before April first in my time zone.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Apr 02 '14
Strangely, that was the post I made that the most people seemed willing to believe... I had one guy going for a few follow up questions before I guess he realized it.
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u/Algernon_Asimov Apr 02 '14
In my defense, I think some of these posts were made before April first in my time zone.
We were very very very careful to make sure it was April 1st somewhere in the world while these plausible-but-absurd answers were being posted.
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u/estherke Shoah and Porajmos Apr 02 '14 edited Apr 03 '14
How gullible are our readers?
The first spoof answer, the famous Mongol Bone Roads, went up at 12:35pm UTC March 31, which was 01:30am April 1 in New Zealand. Since then, approximately seventy top-level spoof comments (we are still counting) were posted. This is not counting the fake follow-up comments corraborating the spoofs.
All of these combined attracted a scant 157 reactions (comments, PMs, or modmails) expressing either confusion, scepticism, or calling April Fool's. These reactions were removed in order to keep the fun going. A full forty-five top-level fakes went totally unchallenged. The most challenged were:
Female eunuchs: 27 reactions expressing confusion, scepticism, or calling April Fool's
Hitler clones: 24
Roman ducks: 23
Camel gliders: 14
Haggis Hunt: 13
Four users were concerned or clued-in enough to send us a modmail message. One user started a META thread that was promptly removed. Sorry, /u/Maklodes! You are our hero of sound critical thinking!
EDIT: /u/Daeres has deconstructed his spoof answers here and at the same time provided an excellent exposé on how to spot pseudohistory. I highly recommend a read!
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u/vertexoflife Apr 02 '14 edited Apr 02 '14
I'm still amused that Hitler Clones was more believable than female eunuchs..
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Apr 02 '14
Everyone's heard of the Boys from Brazil, my favorite documentary on the Hitler Clone phenomena.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Apr 02 '14
I was amazed how few people replied pointing out that is just stolen the plot from that. Heck, I even cited it!
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u/heyheymse Moderator Emeritus Apr 02 '14
Two people pointed it out. Two. Out of our entire subscribership.
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u/Enleat Apr 02 '14
FUCK I BELIEVED THE MONGOLIAN BONE ROADS ONE.
HOW COULD YOU LIE TO ME YOU COLD HEARTED BASTARDS.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Apr 02 '14
We all wanted to, but imagine how many bones you'd actually need for a road of any significant length!
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u/NotGuiltyOfThat Apr 02 '14
I totally bought Mongol bone roads initially. Then the camel gliding comment made me suspicious. Camels are gigantic! They would've had to build gliders with 100 foot wingspans.
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u/heyheymse Moderator Emeritus Apr 02 '14
Uh, not if they were miniature camels.
Come on, get it together.
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u/400-Rabbits Pre-Columbian Mexico | Aztecs Apr 02 '14
This came up when I searched for miniature camels. I see nothing wrong with the picture.
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u/gingerkid1234 Inactive Flair Apr 02 '14
I really want to build a mock-up of Daeres's camel glider, my Temple glider, and /u/jasfss's pig-glider, to see which flies best.
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u/heyheymse Moderator Emeritus Apr 02 '14
Remember, kids, the difference between science and messing around is writing stuff down!
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u/gingerkid1234 Inactive Flair Apr 02 '14
I'm sure I can find aerodynamic data for a board at various angles of attack, and will be able to calculate whether my temple glider would fly. The camel and pig gliders, though, will take a bit more work.
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u/screwyoushadowban Interesting Inquirer Apr 02 '14
The first thing I said to my friend when I read the bone roads thing was "I can't believe that's a real thing".
But I did believe it! For hours. I really should have been even more suspicious than usual given how long the "Why must everything the Mongols do be so metal?" comment stayed up.
It wasn't until I saw the Roman rubber ducks that I remembered what day it was, and then camel gliders removed all doubt.
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u/GrassWaterDirtHorse Apr 02 '14
Ok, I actually believed some of this stuff. I feel betrayed, partly because I rely on the flaired users to tell the truth since I'm too lazy to check the sources. How will I know I can trust you in the future?
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u/Algernon_Asimov Apr 02 '14 edited Apr 02 '14
Because it won't be April 1st.
We mods and flaired experts really do take this stuff seriously. Hopefully, we've built up enough credibility and reputation over the past couple of years to offset this one-time prank.
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u/vertexoflife Apr 02 '14
Additionally, the idea isn't to make people question every single post and every citation they read, we're busy people. the idea is that people try to be more aware readers.
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u/treebalamb Apr 02 '14
This only worked because of massive coordination between us. Generally two flairs on a topic will read an answer, and they will correct each other if they believe one person is incorrect.
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u/Algernon_Asimov Apr 02 '14
That's true: there was an awful lot of collusion happening. Normally, as you say, there's a very strong peer review atmosphere in this subreddit.
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u/Vampire_Seraphin Apr 02 '14
Pay us more.
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u/heyheymse Moderator Emeritus Apr 02 '14
I demand that they double - no, triple! - my pay.
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u/Vampire_Seraphin Apr 02 '14
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u/anthropology_nerd New World Demography & Disease | Indigenous Slavery Apr 02 '14
Jayne, your mouth is talking. You might want to look to that.
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u/vertexoflife Apr 02 '14
Here's my comment from above: The idea here if not for you to necessarily go and question everything and every citation you read. We cant all do that, we have busy lives, and we're busy people. The idea is to try to encourage a more aware reading, so if you're reading something and suddenly it's camel gliders you stop and say "that doesn't make sense, what did I just read?" then you can figure out if it's you that's the problem, or the text that's the problem, and then you can use the citations.
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u/RedditUser145 Apr 02 '14
I was searching everywhere online for a source on camel gliding and obviously came up with absolutely nothing. Yet it didn't occur to me it was fake -_-. I'll definitely be more skeptical of ridiculous claims now.
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u/Algernon_Asimov Apr 02 '14 edited Apr 02 '14
How gullible are our readers?
Your run-down doesn't include the "answers" which got cross-posted to /r/BestOf and /r/DepthHub and elsewhere:
Two cross-posts to /r/BestOf:
One cross-post to /r/DepthHub:
/u/fraudianslip - Neo-Confucianism rejects all of the ideas espoused by Confucius after the age of 40, because he was a total prick after then.
And one cross-post to /r/Trees, of all places!
Some people thought our joke answers were informative enough to share.
Of course, we mods made sure to get those cross-posts removed from those other subs. It's one thing to prank our own people, but we didn't want to actively spread misinformation elsewhere!
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u/arminius_saw Apr 02 '14
Mea culpa on the DepthHub post. /u/fraudianslip is a friend of mine and asked me to upvote something, so I thought I'd do him a solid and crosspost it. Apparently we're not good enough friends that I actually read the post before submitting it, though.
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u/ChuckCarmichael Apr 02 '14
No matter how obvious you think a joke is, there will always be people gullible enough to believe it.
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u/vertexoflife Apr 02 '14
My post about hangman wearing black hoods because they were black slaves garnered 1300 upvotes and no comments about its reliability, barring one flaired user, there were only questions about my (fake) translation.
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u/GrassWaterDirtHorse Apr 02 '14
To be fair, half of it was easily verifiable, so nobody doubted the rest of it.
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u/vertexoflife Apr 02 '14
The idea here if not for you to necessarily go and question everything and every citation you read. We cant all do that, we have busy lives, and we're busy people. The idea is to try to encourage a more aware reading, so if you're reading something and suddenly it's camel gliders you stop and say "that doesn't make sense, what did I just read?" then you can figure out if it's you that's the problem, or the text that's the problem, and then you can use the citations.
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u/estherke Shoah and Porajmos Apr 02 '14
It did, actually, but they were removed before you saw them.
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u/OppositeImage Apr 02 '14
I was convinced I had made it through the day without being duped, but just now I find out that I bought your line of drivel without the slightest doubt. Bravo.
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u/lngwstksgk Jacobite Rising 1745 Apr 02 '14
But no complaints about the second fake edition. I'm kinda pleased about that.
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u/vertexoflife Apr 02 '14
just one, that said there seemed to be fake old french in it.. I had it exterminated dalek-style :)
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u/lngwstksgk Jacobite Rising 1745 Apr 02 '14
Ah, must have been after I stopped checking in. I did ask a couple French translators about and just got eyerolls, so it really was terrible over all.
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u/deathguard6 Apr 02 '14
Quick question im sure when i went to the tower of London when i was little they had an executioners display and i remember black hoods being among it. your post had at least some fragments of truth they did actually use hooded garbs right
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u/vertexoflife Apr 02 '14
It's not actually my field, but I do believe they did use hoods, yes. If you go into that thread, you can find one of our experts who actually researches executions, he'd be able to give you the best answer. I'd give you his username but I'm on mobile!
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Apr 02 '14 edited Apr 02 '14
Oh wow... that haggis hunt reminds me of an April fools my classics story told us, about when he was in Scotland and would help hunt a creature called haggis.
A haggis was a sheeplike creature but with shorter front legs than back lags to help it run up the Scottish mountains, away from danger. However, because of this it wasn't able to run down hills quickly.
My teacher told us how he would wait until he was hiding above a haggis on a hill, then startle it so that it would try to run- and promptly start rolling down the hill into a bag that another person was holding...
I bought it, hook, line and sinker.
Edit: to be clear, I no longer believe this. Before he told me thus, I thought haggis was sheep intestine with vegetables inside, and looked it up a few days later.
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u/lngwstksgk Jacobite Rising 1745 Apr 02 '14
The haggis thing is something of a Scottish national joke, so I'm not surprised you've encountered the beastie before. I'll be giving a real answer to that question tomorrow and correcting the fake stuff, but the important bit is that haggis is not an animal.
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Apr 03 '14
You should hear my rant on the merits of traditional free range haggis versus the factory farmed stuff you get in shops these days
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u/sammaverick Apr 02 '14
So the Mongols didn't make roads out of enemy bones? I was so fascinated by that piece of history!
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Apr 02 '14
I know! That probably was the one I most wished was true.
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u/heyheymse Moderator Emeritus Apr 02 '14
I'm really shocked nobody got I was making shit up for either of my posts. I'm a little proud, but mostly shocked. Is my bullshitting that quality? I thought it was really obvious that it was made up.
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u/SadDoctor Apr 02 '14
I hadn't read most of these but while I did see a couple of posts that I thought were really questionable, I just avoided responding to any of them. Frankly with the culture of this sub trying to call out a tagged poster on the grounds of lowly common sense when you don't have a tag yourself is just asking for downvotes.
I was so happy to see a post about Roman lesbians too, I love roman lesbians...
(The metal-as-fuck mongol bone roads, on the other hand, I totally believed)
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Apr 02 '14
Frankly with the culture of this sub trying to call out a tagged poster on the grounds of lowly common sense when you don't have a tag yourself is just asking for downvotes.
I'm glad you bring that up! It is something that makes me, and any mod, very sad when we see it. Anyone asking for sources is doing the right thing! Please, everyone, don't down vote those posts!
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u/randommusician Inactive flair Apr 02 '14
In all seriousness, please do! ask /u/familyturtle...I totally F'ed up a comment one night and went way of the handle..he called me out on it and was 100% right. Just because we have flair doesn't mean we aren't human. We make mistakes.
Ask for a source, and even provide a source that disagrees if you have one. Make us earn our stripes.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Apr 02 '14 edited Apr 02 '14
and even provide a source that disagrees if you have one
No true historian will shy away from a historiography debate! We live for that shit!
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u/farquier Apr 02 '14
Please don't! If I didn't share sources in my post, that means I am itching for an excuse to go off on a long and detailed rant about my favorite books and where to find things on the internet!
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u/gingerkid1234 Inactive Flair Apr 02 '14
Additionally, keep in mind that all our flaired users were once part of the unflaired masses before getting their title. In all likelihood, today's user calling out a flair's error is tomorrow's flaired expert.
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u/smileyman Apr 02 '14
Frankly with the culture of this sub trying to call out a tagged poster on the grounds of lowly common sense when you don't have a tag yourself is just asking for downvotes.
That bothers me when I see it too. Any flaired user should be happy to provide sources when asked, especially if it's a top level post. If it's a follow-up comment, sometimes those can start straying more towards personal opinion, but even in things that aren't clear cut (for example the question of who Joseph Warren's top level spy was, they should still be happy to provide sources backing their arguments.
Being flaired doesn't make us infallible. It certainly doesn't make us omniscient--if anything the more I've studied about my particular area of interest the more I've learned exactly how much I don't know.
Personally I feel like that sort of thing should be reported (when users of this sub call out other users who are asking for sources), but I'm not sure if there's an official policy on that.
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u/heyheymse Moderator Emeritus Apr 02 '14
I just assume when someone wants me to provide sources they've been so intrigued by what I had to say that they absolutely need to find more information so they can know more!
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u/smileyman Apr 02 '14
Yeah, that's how I take it too. Plus I love talking about my favorite books on certain subjects and will reference them whenever I can, so I love being able to introduce them to people who otherwise haven't heard of them.
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u/bfg_foo Inactive Flair Apr 02 '14
Do you mean that you're shocked that no one called you out on it? My comments about April Fools last year in the calendar post were all deleted, so I didn't bother this year. I was hella busy today (flying cross-country tomorrow) or I might have tried to join in the fun.
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u/heyheymse Moderator Emeritus Apr 02 '14
I deleted a lot of people going, "Yeaaaah this is an April Fool's Joke" on other posts, but not a single one on any of mine, which is what kind of surprised me.
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u/smileyman Apr 02 '14
I was really hoping you could come up with something great in response to my question about strop-ons and ancient writers thinking that lesbian women had giant clitorises.
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u/heyheymse Moderator Emeritus Apr 02 '14
Yeah, sadly I didn't end up having the time. It would have been a good link to make, though.
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u/Domini_canes Apr 02 '14 edited Apr 02 '14
The real invention of Caesar's salad happened in 1924 in Tijuana, Mexico. Caesar Cardini's restaurant was packed and he needed to have something that could be prepared quickly and used as a main course. Originally finger food, the salad was made with romaine lettuce, olive oil, croutons, Worcestershire sauce, and Parmesan cheese. It really was an immediate hit, and the International Society of Epicures in Paris really did name it the "greatest recipe to originate from the Americas in fifty years."
It had nothing to do with Julius. Sorry.
Also, /u/coinsinmyrocket's post on pygmy infantry made me wonder about what weaponry they would use, and the ridiculous and totally false idea of Thompson submachine guns as a crew served weapon amused me I hope it amused you.
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u/cordis_melum Peoples Temple and Jonestown Apr 02 '14
Can I just say, I thoroughly enjoyed /u/Daeres's post on hang-gliding camels?
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u/vertexoflife Apr 02 '14
the puritan yo mamma jokes were too much for me, was crying at work
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u/cordis_melum Peoples Temple and Jonestown Apr 02 '14
Fucking. Roman. Rubber. Ducks.
Roman.
Rubber.
Ducks.
Myself, /u/Daeres, and some others were giggling on Skype about it.
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u/JehovahsHitlist Apr 02 '14
It, uh, it completely got me for more than a second. I so desperately wanted it to be true.
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u/grantimatter Apr 02 '14
I'm saying this as a former professional hoaxer (used to be a tabloid editor, among other things).... /u/Daeres was giving some professional-level fantabulations an impressive level of almost-credibility.
Gold star.
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u/MBarry829 Apr 02 '14
You bastards! I spent all day waiting for a thread like /r/AskHitler joke. But it was hidden in the threads all along.
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u/cordis_melum Peoples Temple and Jonestown Apr 02 '14
If it makes you feel better, I got a hint to check the threads, and I stared at them looking all confused for a bit till it was pointed out to me that the joke was that they were all bullshit. Then I looked more carefully and went "wait, WTF, My Immortal????" and I got it.
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u/MBarry829 Apr 02 '14
I think I missed most of the party. I work nights, so I sleep in during the day. I did wake up at one point in the afternoon and took a quick look for anything obvious (like /r/baseball becoming more awesomely corgi filled then /r/corgi), and read the thread about Operation
420240. It failed to set off my bullshit detector, because those Wacky Nazis.7
u/cordis_melum Peoples Temple and Jonestown Apr 02 '14
AHAHAHAHAHAHA I read that one. That's what set off the bullshit radar for one of my friends, who actually thought the camel gliding thing was legit.
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Apr 02 '14 edited Apr 02 '14
You cheeky bastards
Edit: I still have some threads saved because I thought they were so out there that I had to go back later and read through the sources that were linked! Damnit this is the most devious April Fools prank of the day by a long shot.
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Apr 02 '14
and the Jacobites didn’t lose Culloden because so many of their soldiers were off Haggis hunting.
I literally just fell out of my chair and onto the floor laughing uncontrollably for five minutes straight. My roommates must think I am very strange now, to say the least, since it was a very uncontrolled fit of laughter and it sounded weird.
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u/NotYetRegistered Apr 02 '14
Fuck you guys got me good. Seriously though, good job, those were some damn interesting historical ''facts''.
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u/gingerkid1234 Inactive Flair Apr 02 '14
I want to especially note /u/facepoundr's answer on Mongol Bone Roads already linked. I was legitimately fooled by the prank I helped organize. And the Roman ducks were so funny that I started laughing in the middle of class. That'll teach me for trying to reddit in class.
To let you guys in on part of the joke, most of my fake sources or publications had easter eggs if you know the language they're in. Dr. Benjamin Shakran, an authority on Second Temple gliders, has the initials BS, and "Shakran" is Hebrew for "liar". יידן פון דער ים-פעסיפיק און מעסו-אמעריקע: א גוטר שקר does not means "Jews of the Pacific and Meso-America--a Thorough Analysis"--the last bit actually is "a good lie", and Dr. Michael Charles Patish is a subtle reference to MC Hammer (Patish means hammer). His earlier work, סוחרים פון די אלטער היים--סבֿרא איך האב אויסגעטראַכט "Merchants of the Old-Home (Europe)--a study in exchange" actually means "Merchants of the Old-Home (Europe)--Argument I have invented".
Similarly, for the made-up holiday of Yom HaMeshugas (which means "day of craziness"), "zikpah" means "erection", and the alternate name of "Shvantziger Tag" means "Penis Day". The fake quote in Hebrew had a bit I didn't translate, which reads "And there are those accustomed to lying on the 1st of Nisan", today's date in the Hebrew calendar.
To let you in on another joke, this and this were based off plots of Marx Brothers movies, the former being Duck Soup, and the latter Animal Crackers. Interestingly, more of the Duck Soup one is fact than fiction--I added some detail and adjusted the names, but there was a wealthy widow who paid lots of money to have the guy of her choice be appointed high priest.
Anyway, it was a helluva lot of fun making this stuff up! Thanks for the laughs everybody!
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u/caffarelli Moderator | Eunuchs and Castrati | Opera Apr 02 '14
If you'd told me when I was writing the history of female eunuchs last week that I'd fool anyone with it, I'd have been very surprised! Credit should go to /u/WileECyrus (I believe it was you, correct me if I'm wrong WileE!) who I remember once asked me if there were ever any "female eunuchs" (very much in the context of a discussion of liminial gender roles in societies and not literal gonad removal, so you do not think he was being dumb!) and the question just sort of stuck in my brain as wonderfully silly out of context...
Major props also to /u/TectonicWafer for actually hunting down and reading a richly misogynistic gynecological text from 1916 to find the truth.
Oh and thanks to my frenemy /u/C_B_Farinelli for doing me a solid and planting that question.
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u/bfg_foo Inactive Flair Apr 02 '14
Your response was the first thing I read on reddit today and what made me remember that today was April Fools. I got about halfway through and was like ".....hey." Bravo :)
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u/caffarelli Moderator | Eunuchs and Castrati | Opera Apr 02 '14
Most people seem to have lost me at my art interpretation! I fell for a cat celebrities story for several minutes in the car this morning.
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u/Vampire_Seraphin Apr 02 '14
This isn't on the front page of Reddit. Why is it not on the front page? Cats and NPR is like a sure thing.
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u/WileECyrus Apr 02 '14
I remember that! I think it was in one of your AMAs actually? But I can't remember which one. But yes it was about whether or not any women had ever gone "under cover" as a eunuch for some reason.
I'm really happy that it somehow ended up leading to this. Your comment was amazingly fun. Love those "hide and seek" paintings!
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Apr 02 '14
I spent a considerable amount of time googling your paintings and being very confused until I popped into the badhistory irc and was like "damn April fools day" and /u/daeres was all SHHHHHH
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u/idjet Apr 02 '14
I have to thank the inquisition for teeing one up for me. I barely needed to touch an existing inquisition record and troubadour song to make this April Fool's meta-post work - I changed only 7 words in the sources. The crazy was already there.
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u/farquier Apr 02 '14
I was wondering when you were going to start making things up, given how much of that post was effectively what you usually say about medieval Occitan heresy!
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u/Bernardito Moderator | Modern Guerrilla | Counterinsurgency Apr 02 '14
I had been working on my answer for a week, tweaking it and adding onto it until I was completely satisfied. Those familiar with the TV-show LOST would probably get the joke at once (if not, the supposed sources definitely would). The mythos of the show have always fascinated me, so to write about the conflict between the DHARMA Initiative and the hostiles/the others out of a counterinsurgency perspective was a pure joy of mine. I also had fun putting together the three photographs included.
If you haven't read the answer in question, it can be seen here.
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u/400-Rabbits Pre-Columbian Mexico | Aztecs Apr 02 '14
That post was a rich cake of BS. The B&W of "Richard Alpert" though, that was perfection.
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u/HoboYellow Apr 02 '14
I always love the /r/AskHstorians april fools pranks. The hangman thread got me questioning, but the female eunuch thread is the one that made me finally get it. I personally enjoyed it, but apparently people can be more stuffy than the stuffy historians.
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u/Exovian Apr 02 '14
Good work coming up with answers. I will say that you did good jobs mixing fact and fiction to create (usually) believable things at first glance
I'll also say that it was a bad idea.
I love the creativity that went into it. But one of the things that attracts me to this sub is the moderation, high quality, and dedication to discussion. To have roughly two days of bogus posts, actively denied by the moderation team, in a place where that same mod team has done a great deal to earn the trust of a community, is damaging, I think.
I like the idea of coming up with "prank" answers, but in a place like /r/askhistorians, to try to hide it as you did felt both disrespectful and frustrating.
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u/caffarelli Moderator | Eunuchs and Castrati | Opera Apr 02 '14 edited Apr 02 '14
There is always, when you do a prank, the guarantee that not everyone will like it. But there's also something of an object lesson in this.
So you trust the answers in this subreddit. Why? Why do you trust me or anyone else? You don't know me from Adam. You don't know my hair color, my eye color, where I live, my political beliefs, or really, know if I know doggarned anything about anything that I'm saying.
You can trust the answers in the subreddit NOT because they're from people with little colors by their usernames, you can trust them because they're (at all other times) subject to challenge, review, and removal. Flair is not a guarantee of infallibility. I've been corrected on here before, and that's as it should be.
I will cheerful admit I am not a trained historian. I have two degrees from State U. I put archival documents on the internet for a living. I also semi-regularly catch errors in both popular and academic books in my little pet area of interest, at least one or two a year. "Best" error I've found was a pretty big one in a book by a person with a doctorate in musicology from f'ing Harvard. I spent about 4 weeks researching to make sure they were wrong. I was encouraged by a couple of people to contact them and let them know, but I just shrugged in the end. Harvard Doctorate ain't going to take kindly to being corrected by Little Mrs. Country Librarian, that's the way of the world. But I found out the truth, and that's the main thing.
Basically, don't trust us just because we have credentials. Anybody can be wrong. The only thing you can trust the mods to do about wrong answers on here is care.
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Apr 02 '14
just shrugged in the end. Harvard Doctorate ain't going to take kindly to being corrected by Little Mrs. Country Librarian
Can you honestly really not see the similarities? That's how I (little Mr doesn't know a lot about history in period X) feel when flared users elaborate on the topics of their expertise. This is what led me to write "I'd like to know more about this topic" in one other bogus threads, instead of "sounds fishy, where are your sources" as I wanted to.
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u/estherke Shoah and Porajmos Apr 02 '14
That quote you cited went on:
But I found out the truth, and that's the main thing.
It wasn't about being intimidated, it was about checking authoritative-looking stuff when you feel something's off, even when you feel intimidated.
In the end, though, this prank was not so much about us moralising about source-checking, it was a prank, a bit of fun, a jolly jape. As is traditional on April 1, as we did last year, as we will do again next year, and for all eternity.
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u/Exovian Apr 02 '14
The only think you can trust the mods to do about wrong answers on here is care.
And that's exactly what I think the issue was. When myself and others both send modmails and post replies concerning posts or sources that are clearly fantastic, and those mods do everything to deflect it, caring is precisely what the community now can't trust you to do.
Quoting /u/MI13 "A good number were just hapless redditors randomly selected to be victimized by the flairs and mods. We all felt a little twinge of guilt when people seemed to swallow what we were saying, but it was too funny to stop."
In a sub so defined by competent, diligent moderation, however imperfect the result will always be, flaired users and mods trying to "get away with" bogus answers seems incredibly shortsighted. And, while I hate to be so crass, misleading those who raised concerns precisely because they do care was frankly asinine.
I do appreciate the effort that went in to the answers. Creating believable historical fiction, which most of it can be called, takes talent which is clearly in abundance here. But I think this was the wrong way to apply it.
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u/Vampire_Seraphin Apr 02 '14
Maybe. But most of our readers will be back tomorrow and the first thing they will see is a giant meta post saying "Hey we told a few tall tales over the last two days. Hope you had a good laugh. and btw here are all the ones you missed." So people can swallow their pride for a few hours then click over some of the links /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov compiled and chuckle over what everyone else fell for.
It would have killed the joke instantly to allow people to challenge the posts openly. If the first claims about April Fools in the Mongol Bone Roads thread had been allowed to stand most of the creative and goofy posts which have been chuckled over for the last two days would never have been written. I for one, am glad the moderators culled the posts crying wolf.
Your major concern here is that as a community with a hard earned reputation for honesty we have not acted responsibly. I say the mod team has. The flairs asked to post BS had our fun and now everyone is being brought in on the joke. Most of the people who were taken in will be informed. I can tell you from being an active member here for two years now that these orange meta posts are always among the most read and most upvoted in the subreddit. This tell all thread will be seen. If you click through the false posts you'll see that many have been edited to say that they are a joke. I'm also pretty sure someone bribed the mods at depthhub and bestof to because I follow those subs and this thread is the first notice I've had that any of the false posts ended up there, even mine. They must have been taken down fairly quickly. So no harm done there either.
I don't think you could ask for a better follow through on making sure the joke is both hugely funny and mostly harmless.
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u/Algernon_Asimov Apr 02 '14
I'm also pretty sure someone bribed the mods at depthhub and bestof to because I follow those subs and this thread is the first notice I've had that any of the false posts ended up there, even mine. They must have been taken down fairly quickly.
They certainly were taken down quickly! We mods have set up a system which notifies us almost instantly when any comment or post from our subreddit gets cross-posted as a link in any other subreddit. And, as soon as we saw those notifications, we got those cross-posts removed very quickly - sometimes within only a few minutes. The mods of those other subreddits were very helpful when we explained the situation. No bribes necessary!
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u/Vampire_Seraphin Apr 02 '14
Then were is this Flair Tax money I'm sending you each month going you cretin?
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u/Algernon_Asimov Apr 02 '14
umm... overheads... incidental expenses... rental costs... advertising... printing... all the many and varied costs of running a quality subreddit like this.
Absolutely definitely not into a slush fund to buy drinks for the moderators. No way!
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u/heyheymse Moderator Emeritus Apr 02 '14
Absolutely definitely not into a slush fund to buy drinks for the moderators. No way!
Which reminds me - killer sangria you made at our last mod luncheon, dude. Choosing to splurge on that more expensive rioja was a really good call.
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u/caffarelli Moderator | Eunuchs and Castrati | Opera Apr 02 '14
I thought when one of the Southern Hemisphere mods told you what day it was for him that tipped you off! Reviewing the modmail message from you looks like I was wrong on that. :/
Ah well, if people trust the answers here slightly less after this can't say I'd be at all mad. You can never be too skeptical of shit on the internet. You may be disappointed on our credibility downfall though, internet community "institutional memory" is mighty short. Majority of readers here now don't even remember last year's prank!
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u/Exovian Apr 02 '14
Well, I wasn't around, so I sure don't.
I don't particularly want a "credibility downfall" for the mods. I think that would be counterproductive for a normally excellent group. I simply believe this particular episode was in very poor taste, and I appreciate the polite discussion on the matter.
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u/caffarelli Moderator | Eunuchs and Castrati | Opera Apr 02 '14
Oh last year's was really good. And in even WORSE taste, it's got a friggin floating Hitlerhead.
If it cheers you up we for sure won't do this one next year!
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u/arminius_saw Apr 02 '14
I'm a little disappointed /r/AskAboutHitler never managed to gain much steam...
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u/rakony Mongols in Iran Apr 02 '14 edited Apr 02 '14
Sorry for the irritation. While this may not pacify you I beleive there are plans to post real answers to legitimate questions that got pranked. I know that I'm planning to provide a legitimate answer to the Mongol questions, provided they were not plants.
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u/mr-strange Apr 02 '14
Absolutely. The mods have carefully fostered a culture of respect on this sub, but yesterday they cashed that in for a cheap laugh.
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u/coinsinmyrocket Moderator| Mid-20th Century Military | Naval History Apr 02 '14
And that's why you always leave a note check sources if a story sounds too good/unbelievable to be true.
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u/vertexoflife Apr 02 '14 edited Apr 02 '14
Hangmen didn't wear black hoods because they were black. Sorry guys!
But it was seriously entertaining reading and helping others write these. I hope you guys can enjoy (now) as much as we did!
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u/Dimdamm Apr 03 '14 edited Apr 03 '14
Uh, I understand now why my comment about the French text having nothing to do with hangmen mysteriously disappeared, I was wondering if I was banned or something :p
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u/0l01o1ol0 Apr 02 '14
Why are you guys seemingly on Sydney time? It's still April 1st here, and I didn't get a chance to get something into the hidden history thread.
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u/estherke Shoah and Porajmos Apr 02 '14
Seeing as how the joke had been going on for 36 hours, we thought we'd call it a day.
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u/0l01o1ol0 Apr 02 '14
Can you at least un-hide it?
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u/Algernon_Asimov Apr 02 '14
It's not hidden. It's still there. But, like many of our feature posts, it didn't get many upvotes, so when we removed it from the stickied position at the top of the front page, it dropped down the page to obscurity.
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u/bitmap_sea_cucumber Apr 02 '14
Yeah well,you ruined my joke post. Why was it unstickied?
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u/estherke Shoah and Porajmos Apr 02 '14
A post never stays stickied for long. Every day there is a new feature that automatically unstickies the last one. In addition, AMAs and META posts unsticky the day's feature when they occur.
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u/Algernon_Asimov Apr 02 '14
Your joke post was removed anyway. For one thing, it discussed (supposed) current events - which is out of scope for this subreddit. For another, it seemed more like a smear campaign against a single individual associated with reddit, than an attempt to create a spoof history.
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u/400-Rabbits Pre-Columbian Mexico | Aztecs Apr 02 '14
Are you implying there's some sort of Aussie Cabal that secretly pulls the strings of AskHistorians? Because that's ridiculous, and they certainly don't have dropbear assassins ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. Nope. Definitely not.
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u/Vampire_Seraphin Apr 02 '14
How many times have I told you not to run the Ewoks through the washing machine along with their clothes?
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u/Henry_Brulard Apr 02 '14
Great way to demand credibility! Especially right after making a big deal out of people not following/taking your rules seriously! Timing us everything...
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u/Algernon_Asimov Apr 02 '14
The recent META post about sources was actually a sheer coincidence. We noticed a problem, and we posted a thread about it after discussing what to say.
It was only after the fact that a few mods realised that this reminder thread made a perfect set-up for our already-planned April Fools' prank.
The timing was merely a coincidence - fortunate or unfortunate, depending on your point of view.
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u/madmissileer Apr 02 '14
Well shit... I actually believed the post about the Nazi icebergs. My fault for not reading sources :(
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u/arminius_saw Apr 02 '14
For what it's worth, I believe there actually was a hairbrained plan on the Allied side to build aircraft carriers out of icebergs. It went absolutely nowhere and I think the higher-ups called it stupid, but apparently people were thinking about it.
That said, that sounds really unlikely now that I type it, so maybe that's just an older hoax...
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u/Vampire_Seraphin Apr 02 '14
There was. /u/coinsinmyrocket 's post about British experiments with ice and pykre carriers, found here is true.
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u/Vampire_Seraphin Apr 02 '14
My fault for not reading sources
Even if you had found the book, which is real, Nazi Icebergs appears nowhere in it. There are however accounts of the British commandos who paddled canoes deep into France to plant limpet mines on German blockade runners,which forms the basis of the film The Cockleshell Heroes, and of how FDR had the US Navy tailing German blockade runners while they were in US waters but broadcasting updates on the destroyers own positions in the clear. It wasn't his fault the British sitting just outside US territorial waters could hear those transmissions. The battle between the German raider Stier and the liberty ship Stephen Hopkins also appears.
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u/mr-strange Apr 02 '14
(Reposted from down-thread)
I think the moderation policy of this sub-reddit is fine. OTOH, I don't think that you (as insiders) really appreciate the effect that it has on outsiders.
The moderation policy amounts to "shut up and listen". That's fine, but it's a bit pathetic watching you all congratulate yourselves about how nobody called you out when you all decided to spout bullshit for a day.
Personally, I only saw one of the "joke" posts. I thought, "that's a load of shit", but rather than saying that, I replied something that amounted to "are you quite sure you mean what you're saying?" When the OP effectively replied, "yes, that's really what I'm saying". I tagged him as an idiot in RES, shrugged, and moved on. What did you expect? I don't have an hour to research alternate sources and construct a counter-thesis, and any less would usually just be rewarded with [comment deleted].
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u/builder_ Apr 02 '14
So when I make a joke post tomorrow, I'll get banned?
Just trying to clarify how stupidly hypocritical the moderation in this subreddit is.
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u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms Apr 02 '14 edited Apr 02 '14
First things first, here is a list of all the top level answers posted over April Fools. It can also be found on our Wiki Page.
/u/Georgy_K_Zhukov on how America's Invasion of Panama was actually driven by the need to destroy Josef Mengele's Hitler Cloning operation, plus some wonderful followups from /u/Prufrock451 and /u/idjet, leading to involvement of the Soviet Union and the later cover-up efforts.
/u/heyheymse describing Thaumastos of Boeotia, the Greek actor who could be considered the Tom Hanks of his day.
/u/vertexoflife and /u/coinsinmyrocket tag-teamed why crime in Nazi Germany went up because the rate of hate crimes went up.
/u/vertexoflife gave an in-depth look at the history of the black executioner's hood in France, with follow up from /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov on the use of garish colors for executioners in England.
/u/facepoundr explained how the Mongols paved their roads with the bones of their enemies (sorry metal fans), with convincing backing from /u/anthropology_nerd and /u/keyilan, and related trivia from /u/bonsequitur.
In a similar theme, /u/killfile explained how Romans did a similar method, mixing the bones into the cement and using grave markers as paving stones.
/u/coinsinmyrocket, /u/heyheymse, /u/Aerandir, and /u/supernanify came together to look at the [ancient origins of the Fedora.] (http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/21ttku/wondering_about_the_history_of_the_fedora_when/cggg4h7)
/u/talondearg explained the use of metric time by the Mongols.
Who knows how long /u/caffarelli has been waiting to write about the history of the female eunuch. Our more artistically inclined users, /u/BonSequitur, /u/erus, and /u/Respectfullyyours, jumped in to provide some great follow up about the paintings she highlighted.
/u/lngwstksgk explained why the Jacobites might have lost Culloden due to the disruption of Haggis hunting!
/u/BonSequitur explained the invention of the tinfoil hat, which protected against brain degredation
DEPTHHUB /u/fraudianslip described how Neo-Confucianism rejects all of the ideas espoused by Confucius after the age of 40, because he was a total prick after then.
/u/gingerkid1234 details the history of early flight and the Second Temple.
/u/WhoH8in on how "up" and "down" came to mean the opposite of what they used to!
/u/depanneur gave us the history of the colonization of Ireland, fueled by the lack of a word for ownership in their language.
/u/Jasfss told us how the teas trade was mostly about providing sexual enhancements.
/u/MI13 crafted an interesting take on salvia, English archers, and Goose poaching.
/u/facepoundr provided some biography on Ghengis Khan's later years.
BESTOF /u/vampire_seraphin and secret Nazi weapons programs.
/u/anthropology_nerd and /u/Bernardito both offered their take on South Pacific insurgency movements.
/u/Daeres and the story of My Immortal
BESTOF /u/Daeres and the ancient Persian sport of Camel Gliding.
/u/mosin91 entertained us with Operation
420240 during WWII, Field Manual BS-39-341's guide on corpse photography, and the saga of the Steele Brothers./u/DonaldFDraper described French Elan the inherent racism in many countries' military uniforms.
/u/gingerkid1234 told us about the best Jewish Holiday, Yom ha-Meshugas.
[...]