Way back before most of you were born (1977)
I was studying for my undergraduate degree in geology and got a cool summer job in minerals exploration. The company used to hire a bunch of university students because we were cheap and would generally do whatever we were told.

One of the summer grunts was not the sharpest tool in the box, not he brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, and for him anyway, the light was on but no one was home.

I had him believing that the fake "leather" naugahyde vinyl came from the Australian Nauga which was the marsupial equivalent to a dairy cow. He fully believed this so for the rest of the summer we made up other marsupials. He went back to school in the fall to study biology with his new found knowledge.

The internet and Wikipedia has really made it much harder to fool even the least sophisticated.
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 19:47, 11 replies)

Wikipedia is wonderful for this.
You create a new user, through a proxy, and create 'Nuga' - in the sandbox, or offline, with some nice photoshopped pictures.
Then, just before you tell the person the story, you bring it live.
If it's not linked in, it will be some time before anyone else sees it, and you can nuke it with only your victim being taken in.

en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Speed_record&action=historysubmit&diff=254090248&oldid=247654617 however is the furthest I've gone in wikipedia trolling, when creating a new page.
(speedevil, Fri 4 Mar 2011, 20:30, closed)

If any of the more zealous admins are around, it'll have been deleted by the time you finish pressing "submit".

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Sat 5 Mar 2011, 17:19, closed)

I don't believe it
Spend any time on Yahoo! Answers and you'll see the WWW hasn't made any difference. If anything it's made things worse as they get their "information" from woo-woo sites "doom in 2012" and creationist lie factories "atheists claim universe created in big bang from two atoms / rocks colliding".

The sheer fuckwittery displayed can only be accounted for by trollery, deliberate lying,juvenile years or adult stupidity. Ever seen Conservapedia?
(Redemption blamed it on the Bossa Nova since, Sun 6 Mar 2011, 5:40, closed)

Fuck me. That is spectacular
I am scared for the world
( kappynitty doubled your entendre on, Sun 6 Mar 2011, 13:19, closed)

That is seriously scary!
Check out the entry on dinosaurs!

I have never seen the term "creation science" used seriously before, and there it is - about 7 times on the first page.

I would never have imagined that censorship of the internet could possibly be a good thing, but really - there could be children reading that stuff!
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 14:15, closed)

It describes itself as a resource for home-schooled children
I would be far happier if one could just dismiss them as nutters and say live and let live, but the sad truth is that groups like this have enormous influence over Republican American politics. Just look at how much of the front page is given over to political discourse. It's insane.
( kappynitty doubled your entendre on, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 14:59, closed)

Well...
... I suppose that so long as they remain isolated from the rest of society it won't be too much of an issue!

That's appalling.

I only had time to look at a few pages, but I loved "feminism" - feminists do things like:

shirk traditional gender activities, like baking[7]

(I'm a bloke and I love baking)

More seriously though, the page on deliberate ignorance is utterly petrifying. It would be hard to concoct a page more terrifyingly wrong than that one.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 19:00, closed)

If only they were remaining in their own loony bullshit daydream
"Founded initially in November 2006 as a way to educate advanced, college-bound homeschoolers, this resource has grown into a marvelous source of information for students, adults and teachers alike"

Seriously, most of the time if I find something on the web that I don't like then I'm happy enough to just shrug, walk away and leave them to get on with it. But that site..... ah, it just makes me feel so uneasy. And the absolute shite that they're spewing... it shocks me that people could believe it, when it screams its obvious ignorance.

Gah, I could rant in this vein for a while, but I won't.

As I said, I'm mostly happy to let people do and think what they like, but that site makes me want to intervene, to drag its patrons kicking and screaming to the truth. Or at least away from the lies. But where the chuntering fuck would you start?
( kappynitty doubled your entendre on, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 21:19, closed)

I'm scared, very scared. This is what the George Bush (I and II) years
have wraught. I'm sorry, very sorry to the rest of the world. Please forgive me or at least don't hate me personally.
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 23:12, closed)

I don't think we can hold you personally responsible...
... unless of course you are an editor on that site, in which case you should be ashamed of yourself.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 11:28, closed)

ashamed of yourself on fire
( kappynitty doubled your entendre on, Tue 8 Mar 2011, 12:55, closed)