Talk:List of common misconceptions

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Archives (index): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35Auto-archiving period: 30 days

Inclusion Criteria A rigid consensus on inclusion criteria for this list has not been reached. It is preferred to propose new items on the talk page first. Any proposed new entries to the article must at least fulfill the following: The common misconception's main topic has an article of its own. The item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception. The common misconception is mentioned in its topic article with sources. The common misconception is current, as opposed to ancient or obsolete. If you have an item to add that does not fulfill these criteria but you still think should be included, please suggest it on the talk page with your rationale for inclusion.

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (center, color, defense, realize, traveled) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

	List of common misconceptions is a former featured list candidate. Please view the link under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. Once the objections have been addressed you may resubmit the article for featured list status.
Article milestones Date Process Result October 29, 2006 Articles for deletion No consensus March 24, 2009 Articles for deletion Kept February 8, 2011 Articles for deletion No consensus April 25, 2011 Featured list candidate Not promoted September 26, 2018 Articles for deletion Kept December 22, 2023 Articles for deletion Kept Current status: Former featured list candidate

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This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations: "The end of Wikipedia as we know it?". Irish Times (subscription required). 8 August 2011. Retrieved February 21, 2013. Here's our Wikipedia Articles Worth Reading (first listed) Toby Manhire (February 14, 2013). "Common misconceptions: 10 of the best". New Zealand Listener. Archived from the original on February 21, 2013. Retrieved February 21, 2013. ... one of its best pages ... Alexis Kleinman, Maxwell Strachan (January 14, 2015). "The 49 Most Entertaining Wikipedia Entries Ever Created". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 8, 2015. Nick Douglas (August 15, 2017). "Get Smart With Wikipedia's List of Common Misconceptions". LifeHacker. Retrieved September 10, 2017. Ellie Bate (November 22, 2017). "What Totally Fascinating Wikipedia Pages Have Kept You Reading All Night?". BuzzFeed. Cecily Mauran (February 5, 2022). "10 Wikipedia rabbit holes to fall down instead of doomscrolling". Mashable.

To-do list for List of common misconceptions: edit · history · watch · refresh · Updated 2022-12-05 Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Copyedit : Remove instances of "misconception" and other such phrasing.

Section sizes Section size for List of common misconceptions (5 sections) Section name Byte count Prose size (words) Header Total Header Total (Top) 846 846 89 89 Lists 393 393 4 4 See also 611 611 0 0 Further reading 1,942 1,942 0 0 External links 501 501 0 0 Total 4,293 4,293 93 93

List of common misconceptions has been linked from multiple high-traffic websites. All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history. Table 4 January 2011 xkcd link Traffic 12 January 2011 Boing Boing link Traffic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_ar_chistr#Misconceptions Benjamin (talk) 06:33, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The same article page might say 2 contradicting things concerning leads in pencils.

1. The Fisher Space Pen was not commissioned by NASA at a cost of millions of dollars, while the Soviets used pencils. Pencils posed a major risk to astronauts due to the release of substances such as shavings and pencil lead being a flight hazard.

2. Although the core of a wooden pencil is commonly referred to as "lead", wooden pencils do not contain the chemical element lead, nor have they ever contained it; "black lead" was formerly a name of graphite, which is commonly used for pencil leads. ~2025-39278-23 (talk) 08:39, 8 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"pencil lead" in the first quote refers to the "lead" inside a pencil, which is not the chemical element lead, which is explained in the quote from the second entry. I don't see a contradiction. Catfish and sea horses are neither cats nor horses, similarly pencil lead is not the chemical element lead. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 20:20, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The gentleman can be credited with the invention of the phrase "flying saucers". To differentiate between him describing something as "flying like a saucer" and subsequent descriptions in the media of "flying saucers" is overly pedantic. ~2026-80606 (talk) 23:56, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the thing. We can't read your mind. A wee bit of context would help. What in the hell are you talking about? Sundayclose (talk) 02:13, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

... calm down. The entry is "American pilot Kenneth Arnold did not coin the term flying saucer; he did not use that phrase when describing his 1947 UFO sighting at Mount Rainier, Washington. The East Oregonian, the first newspaper to report on the incident, merely quoted him as saying the objects "flew like a saucer" and were "flat like a pie pan"." In List of common misconceptions about history. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | edits) 02:25, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The editor who started this thread is correct: the entry is overly pedantic, and the article would be improved by removing that entry.

Entries like "It is a common misconception that the Earth is round. In fact, it is an oblate spheroid" only serve to diminish the articles we have in this space.

For context, the entry is

American pilot Kenneth Arnold did not coin the term flying saucer; he did not use that phrase when describing his 1947 UFO sighting at Mount Rainier, Washington. The East Oregonian, the first newspaper to report on the incident, merely quoted him as saying the objects "flew like a saucer" and were "flat like a pie pan".

Mr. Swordfish (talk) 02:37, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It does depend on how the sources are describing it. I'm a bit wary of excluding something as subjective as "pedantry" misconceptions, I would like to see a more robust explanation than "it's an improvement" and some formalization into the list criteria rather than having the formal list criteria and a secret, second list criteria only known to insiders. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | edits) 02:49, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that we should reflect "how the sources are describing it" In this case, the first cite is an article with the title

"The Man Who Introduced the World to Flying Saucers".

The second source has the secondary title as

"Seventy years ago, Idaho pilot Kenneth Arnold saw something near Mount Rainier that brought the term “flying saucers” into the lexicon..."

I don't have access to cite 3, but cite 4 is titled:

"64th anniversary of flying saucers at Mt. Rainier"

I can't find anything in any of them that says "Kenneth Arnold did not coin the term flying saucer" Seems to be WP:SYNTH as far as I can tell. Overly pedantic WP:SYNTH.

Perhaps someone can produce a reliable source that unambiguously directly supports the assertion that he "did not coin the term", and at that point we can debate whether it outweighs the currently cited sources, but until then that entry needs to go according to WP:PROVEIT. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 03:37, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the entry for failing verification. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | edits) 03:51, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted Rollinginhisgrave, and was re-reverted by them with a link to this discussion. Having read it, I now agree that the entry consists of synthesis and that it shouldn't be included. Chess enjoyer (talk) 04:57, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Why is boredom linked from the entry dated 3 February 2011 in the Template:High traffic header? Renerpho (talk) 18:08, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unsure what you mean. Do you mean that the link goes to the wrong article? Sundayclose (talk) 18:36, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If you click on the link, you'll see that the third high-traffic site is www.i-am-bored.com. But to the left of that, the name of the site links to the Wikipedia article about boredom. And in contrast to the other two websites, there's no Wikipedia article about that site. So, yes, the link goes to the wrong article. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 18:49, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I'm being dense, but each of the links goes to a Wikipedia article. One links to an article about a webcomic, one links to an article about the website boingboing.net, and one links to a redirect that takes you to Boredom. The website www.i-am-bored.com is a malicious website, and Wikipedia has a rule against linking to such websites. I suspect in the past the link went to the website but was changed because of that rule. I think it would be best just to get rid of that entry. Sundayclose (talk) 19:10, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If it's a malicious website, I'd be in favor of getting rid of the entry. The way it is right now, if you go to that entry and click, not on where it says "i am bored", but to the right of that, where it says "link", that will take you to an archived copy of the i-am-bored.com website that's on archive.org. (The links that say "link" generally take you to the website itself.) — Mudwater ^(Talk) 19:53, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Mudwater. Yes, that's what I meant. I've removed the entry for now. If there's good reason to add it back, we can easily do so, but I think the template doesn't expect that a "high traffic site" isn't notable enough to have their own article (resulting in what's essentially an WP:EASTEREGG link). Renerpho (talk) 08:53, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me. Thanks. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 11:19, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Given the total, unwieldy unenforceability of criterion 3 (The common misconception is mentioned in its topic article with sources.), is there any appetite for trying some template magic to see what is not mentioned at the topic article? For instance, putting the text and sources of the misconception at the topic article in a template and naming a parameter, then having the same on list of common misconceptions so removals can be highlighted. Without any way to see if text has been removed from a topic article, I don't see how the criterion can be considered meaningful. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | edits) 23:53, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have examples of entries that fail criterion #3? Normally, when an entry is added the various editors verify that it has met criterion #3. As you say, there's no easy way to verify that the material remains in place at the topic article, but how often does this happen? IOW, is this actually a problem? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 00:40, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely saw it several times when I was going through the topic articles in late 2024. I don't feel particularly inspired to run through 500 entries again to find more examples, but we can indeed know that this happens, and can be expected to happen more as the list gets larger and articles continue to evolve. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | edits) 00:49, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]