"May I suggest that you try the space cadet organisation."

I had a journalist's query about a Scottish hoaxer/loon called Alan Mcilwraith, who evidently pissed off his co-workers so much with his delusions that they investigated him themselves and called the papers. Since he'd written a Wikipedia article about himself, I got an email.

It's an interesting study in how Wikipedia deals with hoaxes — patient and careful the first time around, less patient the second, shoot on sight the third.

( Query from the Times )

I had a look through the article history and wrote up the ( fascinating tale ... )

The Times article this morning barely mentions Wikipedia (our main involvement is that he wrote an article on himself and stuck it up at his desk at work), but I got a nice email back from the journalist, so hopefully I've educated someone as to how these things work out in practice.