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{{GA nominee|19:02, 28 July 2009 (UTC)|page=1| subtopic=Culture and society|status=}} {{GA nominee|19:02, 28 July 2009 (UTC)|page=1| subtopic=Culture and society|status=}}
{{FailedGA|20:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)|topic=|page=}}


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Revision as of 20:17, 12 August 2009

Munchausen by Internet is currently a Culture and society good article nominee. Nominated by an unspecified nominator at 19:02, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

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Good articlesMunchausen by Internet was nominated as a good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (August 12, 2009). There are suggestions below for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.
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A fact from Munchausen by Internet appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the Did you know column on 3 August 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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"Kaycee Nicole"

Many of these links, except ones to the Wired article and to a blog, appear to be dead.99.240.139.189 (talk) 06:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Melanie Johnson

While reading this article I noticed something curious - the line "In 2008-9, 16-year-old Melanie Johnson from Thunder Bay, Canada claimed to suffer from many diseases through MSN." seemed to have nothing at all to do with the citation given. Reviewing the history, it would seem the user Imissyoumostofallmydarling inserted the line after the information the citation was meant to refer to. The actual information, then, was ironically removed for being uncited. I have since reversed this error. My money's on Imissyoumostofallmydarling actually being Melanie Johnson, and I will be watching this page just in case. --74.170.53.76 (talk) 08:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


My concern is that losing one's spouse isn't a class case of Munchausen--which is usually more about faking an illness. There are other good refs n that Viillage voice article. Maybe discuss one of the others?

More broadly, I think we don't want to list every person who fooled people and get into tabloid-ish details. We want to describe the phenomenon more neutrally and clearly.

Asbruckman (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC).

Sources, sources, who's got the sources?

The following paragraph in the article has no sources, but makes remarkable allegations about persons (or personas, anyway) that may be living persons:

Emma revelled in the sympathy of other mothers, despite the person who invented her not having any children of her own at the time. Emma Bowyer claimed to have a ten month old daughter while imminently expecting twins, which had been conceived shortly after the daughter was born. As the twins came to term, Emma claimed to have complications and one of the twins died. She later gave birth to the other twin. Later, her second twin died, and soon afterwards, Emma was pregnant again, with yet more twins. This caused people to become extremely suspicious and ask questions, and soon the story started unraveling. By this time, a "friend" had posted in her own name, on Emma's behalf, and a Robert Bowyer, supposedly Emma's airline pilot husband, posted to update members on her progress. Robert Bowyer, as was later discovered, didn't exist either. Emma's inventor also signed up to the site under other names - Jo74 and Kerrytwinkle.

Can anyone justify the presence of such an unsourced paragraph, apparently entirely net.drama, in a Misplaced Pages article? --FOo (talk) 06:56, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree it needs more sourcing. I've looked through all of the sources for the Emma Bowyer section and none of them look like reliable sources to me. I've removed all of the Emma Bowyer info from the article. –Megaboz (talk) 17:55, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Possible defacement (or really poor use of english)?

"claimed her husband had been killed in a plane crash to garner an orgasm."

No 'orgasm' is in any source material. Defacement, or really poor grasp of english? I'm not sure but I'm guessing this doesn't exactly belong —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.181.120.80 (talk) 08:01, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

"was first coined"?

A minor point, I know, but still. The 'Characteristics' paragraph tells that the term "was first coined in 2000, by Marc Feldman in an article". That should be rephrased. With all respect for Feldman, he was the nth person to invent the term (I saw it between 1995 and 1997, but guess it's almost as old as the newsgroups). A possible solution may be to state that this was the first use of the term in a scientific article, or something along those lines - if this is indeed the case. Wurdnurd (talk) 12:33, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I hate the word "coined" anyway. I adjusted the sentence to reflect when it was first published in medical literature. I'm sure you know unless a source states when the term was first used, I have to go with the most reliable source. --Moni3 (talk) 12:41, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Münchausen by Internet/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Unclear writing. Way too formal. In short, hard to read. The second paragraph has no references (perhaps OK in a short lead, when the info is reffed below, but not in a long lead). It looks like the bulk of the article is based on the work of a single person (Feldman), but that's not clear from the beginning. The main need is for more natural language. Noloop (talk) 20:06, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

As I understand it, in simple language, this subject is: Making up stories of serious medical conditions, presumably to get attention. And doing it on the Internet. So...1) That can be said in a way that is easy for readers to understand quickly, but this article doesn't. 2) Why isn't this a section in the article on Munchausen syndrome generally? Not sure it needs its own article. Enlighten me! Noloop (talk) 20:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
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