User:ReaderofthePack/Warren Chaney

This page is an overview of the case of Warren Chaney on Wikipedia. For an in-depth look at the process, please visit User:Rhododendrites/Chaney. For a complete list of the associated sockpuppet accounts, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sinclairindex.

Created articles

Overview

In 2011 a user by the name of Sinclairindex signed up with an account and created an entry for Warren Chaney, along with other entries. Around this same time two other accounts signed up and began editing on Chaney related matters and even created some pages of their own. Multiple images were also uploaded to Wikimedia Commons purporting to be from the various productions. The articles were all substantial and lengthy and the reference sections were crammed with sources from various outlets, all of which might appear legitimate at a passing glance. These articles went largely unchallenged until 2015 and during that time Sinclairindex and his socks busied themselves with embedding links to Chaney, his productions, and his wife into Wikipedia.

Detection

The Chaneyverse (as dubbed by Dbrodbeck) first attracted serious editor attention on December 2, 2015 when the editor Dbrodbeck nominated Chaney's book Dynamic Mind for AfD. Interested editors quickly found that although the article made grandiose claims, these claims were blown dramatically out of proportion. This AfD was followed up with one for America: A Call to Greatness and Magic Mansion, as well as the other articles concerning Chaney. This additional editor attention showed that the articles had several issues with notability and verification, leading to Rhododendrites to form a page in his userspace to coordinate the investigation.

Investigation

With all of the articles in the Chaneyverse up for deletion in one form or another - including the one on Chaney himself - editors began to question whether any of the claims were legitimate. As mentioned above, sources that appeared legitimate were quickly shown to be false, as a link purporting to be box office information from Box Office Mojo proved to be a link to IMDb that did not back up the claim at all. Searches using search engines and outlets like Google, Bing, and academic databases did not provide the sourcing required to show that Chaney's films or military TV show existed. What few references could be found were either direct quotes from Chaney, links/coverage that did not exist outside of his personal websites, or sourcing that was reliant on the Wikipedia articles. This proved to be troublesome, considering that the articles alleged that extremely well known actors such as Mickey Rooney and Charlton Heston were involved in one of his films and that his TV series for AFRTS was supposedly ground breaking and had over 100 episodes.

Further investigation and contact with the related organizations brought back no results that would help affirm notability for Chaney's work or prove existence for the items believed to be a hoax. Some of the organizations did not respond, but ones that did (NARA and AFRTS) did not unearth anything new.

Images

During the investigation and deletion discussions several editors questioned the images' legitimacy, as the images for some (specifically ones for Magic Mansion) were quite clear for images that were taken from a television show in the 60s, especially one where there were no existent recordings other than some "damaged kinescopes". The images were subsequently put up for deletion at Commons on December 22, 2015 and were all deleted four days later.

On December 24 the editor Ninetyone posted to Rhododendrites's Chaneyverse page at User talk:Rhododendrites/Chaney#Found the title card image, saying that they found an image of the mansion from the Magic Mansion title card. The image in question was of the Magic Chef Mansion in Saint Louis, Missouri and looks to be the same mansion, with only a few differences. Other images have been questioned and appear to be potentially taken from stock images on the Internet.

Off-Wikipedia content and other concerns

One of the main impediments with the content was that there were some false positives that kept coming up in a Google search, namely listings in places like IMDb. These listings were eventually removed after it was brought to the site's attention, but it did cause some confusion since some outlets relied on either IMDb or Wikipedia for their information. The other issue was that there were some news stories that listed Chaney's accomplishments, however these were almost solely limited to one small, local newspaper that only relied on direct quotes from Chaney. This meant that if the content was a "long con" and that the content was a complete or partial hoax, that debunking the claims would be more difficult since few people are willing or able to put in the work and commitment necessary to keep up the facade.

On December 23, 2015 the Magic Mansion AfD was mentioned in a Gawker article that compiled the best deleted articles of the week.

Final thoughts

While it's tempting to dismiss everything in the Chaneyverse as a complete hoax, there is some evidence to suggest that there is a grain of truth to some of the claims. For example, there is some pre-2011 coverage to suggest that Chaney did create films by the name of Haunted and The Broken Spur. However the content in the articles was so overly puffed up that it takes that grain of truth and turns it into an article that's so wildly disproportionate to the truth that it's about as good as a hoax. (Whether or not the TV show is real or not is still in question, however.) We may never be able to satisfactorily prove the existence or truth behind all of the articles.

What these articles do show is that it's very important to verify content and the sources. It's easy to look at the amount of sourcing in an article and, upon seeing 30+ sources in an article (Magic Mansion), assume it's notable and not progress further. There is a pre-occupation with notability on Wikipedia and while it's obviously important, it's not just notability that needs be checked and proven. It's equally important, if not more so, to ensure that the material is accurate, as false information can do more harm in the long run, as many rely on Wikipedia for information. An article with partially or completely incorrect information is more harmful than someone adding an article for their father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate's garage band. False information tends to be included in books - even academic books - if the material seems innocuous and appears to have been vetted and approved, such as in the case of the article for The Travails and Tribulations of Geoffrey Peacock, which remained on Wikipedia for 6 years and was listed in several other websites and locations, even in one printed book.

Minor update

Since I last wrote this more information came to light. Myself and other editors did some research and received evidence that seems to confirm that many of the claims on Chaney and the related articles were false. One editor commented on my talk page that AFRTS frequently re-runs programs that mention or relate to Japan, so they would have re-run Chaney's Magic Mansion if it existed, meaning that there would be some clear, official record of the show's existence somewhere. My investigations into the journals Chaney supposedly edited also bore some fruit, as I managed to find the first editor of the Academy of Management's Health Care Division's original journal. The editor stated that he was unaware of either Chaney or the Health Care Communique - and that he remained aware of other journals in the same field because the group would refer papers to one another when there was an overflow of quality papers.

Another update

I've been slow to update this, but last year I was made aware that Magic Mansion was mentioned in some pages of the Pacific Stars and Stripes newspaper. The clippings in question were two articles that mentioned Chaney and Magic Mansion briefly in passing and two TV listings with Magic Mansion listed as airing.

While this does point towards Magic Mansion existing in some format, it doesn't prove that the Magic Mansion as it was described in the article actually exists. For one, it's still extremely suspect that none of the episodes are available in any format - and that there is no readily available in-depth coverage of the show. For a show that had 120 episodes and ultimately had a production cost of 3 million dollars, you'd think that there would be more mention somewhere. The other piece of evidence that argues against the existence of a show as described in the article is that the TV listings show that Magic Mansion only had a 30 minute time slot, contradicting claims in the article that the show was approximately an hour long.

This evidence points more towards there being some type of show, but likely something along the lines of a public access type of gig where Chaney did magic tricks in front of a camera. Something fairly low or no budget that was performed live and didn't keep recordings, which lends credence to my thought that many of Chaney's claims have a small grain of truth to them that was then layered in false claims. I'd love for someone to do a truly deep investigation into all of this, as the Chaneyverse has to be one of the most fascinating mysteries I've come across.