I think a Hoax Bin is a fantastic idea! We categorize everything else, why not bunk?
Hm, but it also might be a worthwhile idea to put a thread together on known/suspected hoax sites. Not to blacklist them outright, but to have a concise list of sources that are less than trustworthy, or outright fabricators. Icing on the cake may be for one of our analytical members or well-researched members to draft up a little how-to for spotting BS news stories, if possible. For me, that kind of stuff just jumps out at me when I see it, but it's hard for me to define to others in plain English. It may not be very feasible to accomplish, but it's a nice idea to have for referencing.
Queen of English Language Mangling, Master of the Edit button
I like the hoax bin idea, too. There are certainly some sites out there that don't make it clear that they are satire and have stories that are just plausible enough to be believed. There are also some that are flat out bad with posting stories cut from whole cloth and it would be nice to have somewhere to put things that have been shown to not be true, even when they do seem like they could be. It can be easy to get fooled, I know that I've fallen for stories that sound believable, and with further research or a tip off from a friend found that they weren't factual.
I do like even more that it wasn't pointed out in a mean or ugly way and there was no follow up dragging through the mud of the person who made the opening post. It makes me even more grateful to be a member of this group who treat each other with respect and, if mistakes are found, point them out gracefully without trying to embarrass anyone.
That said, this story was one that I could see how it could be true, because of the Anthony Stokes situation that Adjensen posted a link to. I read about that just a short while ago and it was still in mind when wondering if it does go the other way, by having power and money, since it had happened just from social pressure.
After all that hoopla, the guy blew his second chance at life, when that heart should have gone to someone else truth be told Ruining that person's chance as well......how disappointing
Such a shame
It is so tiresome to hear all the time certain group of people holler "racism" just to get their way, knowing that all they are doing is 'pressuring' people to cave in out of fear of retaliation
And all along it didn't have anything to do with race at all (most of the time it doesn't, they just know how to how to play the game)
Sometimes things are put into hoax bins because the cause is misinterpreted and someone comes up with the wrong conclusion. But the incident may be real and could be explained if you disregard the conclusions that have been made. But people run with the fact that the first person's conclusion was wrong and it gets tossed into the hoax bin before things get deciphered.
Just because someone posted a hoax that was similar before or someone calls a similar incident a hoax does not mean that it is related to the incident. That doesn't mean it is not a hoax though.
I know people who would start a hoax just to convince others not to pay attention to what they are doing wrong, steering public perception away from saying what they are doing is going to effect anything. If everyone is convinced that the evidence is wrong or unrelated, they can keep doing what they have been doing.
I just had a guy come over and he handed me a copy of the laws governing fishing on rivers on public land. He was trying to tell me you could go up to thirty feet from the river on others land and fish and if they complained you could call the DNR and get them in trouble. Now, he gave me the evidence, and I read it. It does not say anything like he was telling me, just that while wading down the river from the road, you could go onto the bank. Now, he knows that if people think this is true, they will tell others and he carries this paper around when he is doing this thinking people will believe his interpretation without reading the letter. He will bitch and complain that he will call the DNR and get them in trouble when he in essence is trespassing. I read the law, not listen to his interpretation of what he wanted it to say. He was trying to talk me into doing this when fishing. I ask the homeowner if I can fish on their land when stream fishing, they are neighbors. They have said OK but tell me I am doing it at my own risk and be careful. I would not sue them if I got hurt streamfishing but I suppose some people would. Some people would try to sue a bear if it chased them in the woods.
So this misinterpretation that he gave me was a real life hoax and whether his interpretation is flawed or he desired to deceive people is the only issue. I know this guy, he shoves misconceptions in people's faces so he can do anything he wants. He lawyers up when he gets caught doing something wrong or shows the evidence and the legal system lets him go because they believe he was misinformed. Meanwhile he gets away with it. I actually dislike this kind of criminal mind because these people keep doing the same thing over and over and the law just thinks they are dumb when in fact they are smart cons.
Now big business would want you to think that something is a hoax if they are doing something that is questionable and want public sentiment to ignore what they are doing. They employ people sometimes to do damage control and promoting exposure to another incident that was shown to be a hoax by others gets people to believe that those challenging their practices are not using evidence that is real. Every incident is different and can have different causes. You need to evaluate things with an open mind and look at the evidence presented. You have to consider misinterpretation of the evidence and check out alternative causes, verifying that the cause listed is real then trying to evaluate whether there is a reason someone would want to deceive you. I have found that once in a while a compulsive liar will tell the truth or a half truth. Look at politicians, if every word that came out of their mouth was a total lie, nobody would believe them.