Talk:List of impostors/Archive 1

Archive 1

Presumably old, undated comments

I have found one mention of a Canadian Member of Parliament or minister who was a cross-dresser and fooled people for couple of years but I could not find any details, even the name. I have also lost a name of Swedish government minister who hid his illiteracy. Then there was an US male athlete who pretended to be female sometime in the 1930’s.

Skysmith Skysmith

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Is it really fair to describe the "women living as men" as impostors? Did they self-identify as men,[sic] i.e. were they transgendered? - Montréalais

Very good point. However, we do not actually know the truth about their thoughts, only the fact that they misrepresented their sex (and I can understand their reasons in male-dominated professions). Skysmith

Fake chinese

Who was the man who impersonated a Chinese circus performer? lysdexia 01:01, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Chung Ling Soo was more of a stage name of William Robinson than outright imposture - although he did maintain his facade most of the time - Skysmith 08:37, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

John Howard Griffin, et al.

I dispute categorizing JHG and similar individuals (who went "under cover", as it were, for the purposes of research) as "impostors". Does anyone else share my POV on this matter? Of course, there's also the inherent subjectivity in the classification of anyone as an impostor, but that's a separate issue. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 22:32, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

• Very good point, actually. Often long-time impostors, regardless of their motives, intend to remain in their assumed role at least until somebody reveals the ruse. Those who assume some other role temporarily for fraud (like Wilhelm Voigt) or for the hoax of exposure (like Joey Skaggs) or for investigative journalism are bit more problematic cases. In effect they are "temporary impostors" but the difference is hard to define. What do you think, could it be useful to include a section about using sort-of-an imposture for some specific purpose? - Skysmith 09:25, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

the Chameleon

I am unsure of where to place Frederic Bourdin the Chameleon -- can someone please add him to the correct section... check out the article at BBC here ~ RoboAction 18:48, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Danny C of Sha Na Na

For those of you who know his story [1], how should he be classified on this page?

Needs a little cleanup

This article needs a little clean-up. For example, look at the following sentence. "Impostors are usually aware of not being who they say they are; they are not the proverbial lunatics who think they are Napoleon." Wikipedia should not be written in a conversation tone. Captain Jackson 06:16, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed. I'm removing the following sentence. I can't figure out what the sentence is supposed to mean. Perhaps someone can rewrite it and put it back in. SnappingTurtle 16:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

“ Only if a significant part of their past is fabricated, like that of George Dupre who claimed to have been an SOE agent in World War II, they approach the admittedly hazy border. ”

Removed Ward Churchill

I removed Ward Churchill today. Since the claim in earlier versions was that he had based his career on claiming Indian ancestry which is not true. He has claimed Indian ethincity based on choice and based his career on academic work which has in turn been questioned. He may turn out to be considerded a bad scientist further along but for now and forever more he is not an imposter.Zumbiz 13:29, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Druce Portland case

Would this fall under the imposters category? Several of the stories in court were total fabrications and people claiming to be where and what they were not (or that others were). Jackiespeel (talk) 16:26, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

People who "went native"

Do most of the individuals listed under this heading belong here at all? In several cases, it would be far more accurate to describe them as cases of adopted ethnic identity (or, yes, "going native"). Some of them may have engaged in various degrees of dishonesty or fudging about their background, but putting them in a page under "impostors" makes little sense in some cases and is grossly unfair in others. Feketekave (talk) 12:02, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Psychiatric patients

Is a person in a psychiatric institute who claims to be Napoleon an impostor? I mean, must a person lie to be an impostor? Andries (talk) 18:19, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

see Talk:Binjamin_Wilkomirski

Military Imposters

Changed the section on James Shortt to include his bogus claims to knighthoods and titles, as well as higher qualifications, and mentioned his association with Terence MacCarthy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.156.180.229 (talk) 07:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Emmelie de Forest

Emmelie de Forest should definitely be in the list. СЛУЖБА (talk) 02:04, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

No, definitely not. For multiple reasons: 1) It has not been proven, that her (family's) claims are false - if there is no proof found for a claim (yet) that doesn't equal a disproof! 2) She hasn't been charged with anything let alone been convicted. 3) Supposedly she has been raised by a family believing in this lineage, so she did never made this up as a story 4) WP:BLP ... --Trofobi (talk) 21:32, 21 May 2013 (UTC) ambiguous wording fixed --Trofobi (talk) 18:11, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Both of you stop it now. Charged? Being on a "Impostor" list? Do you both hear yourself, it sounds ridiculous. This is a young singer who has heard stories from her family and relatives of this possible royal ancestry. She ofcourse will mention this to gain some publicity. And for you two to go on and on about her being an impostor and even go so far as mentioning "charges and convictions" just proves how ridiculous all your baseless accusations toward this singer is. --BabbaQ (talk) 22:19, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Move to "List of Impostors"?

It looks like a list, and is "list-class" on WP:WikiProject Biography's quality scale. It includes only a single sentence on impostors in general, and I'm not sure how much more you could say. Jfmantis (talk) 01:07, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Ok...I'm going to go ahead and move it. Jfmantis (talk) 01:27, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Redlinking imposters

We have a few redlinking imposters in this article. Isn't the norm to remove them on the basis that notability must first be established via an article, before individuals are added to notable person lists? Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:26, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

@Yopie: Per your good-faith restoration of content here, I'll point out that one of the subjects is not sourced at all, the second is sourced, but both people are redlinked, which means that neither have yet been established to be notable. Per anecdotal evidence, we typically don't add people to lists unless they have their own articles, and have been determined to be notable, and it is especially problematic for people who are still alive. Interested in counter arguments. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 00:53, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Question:

Would it be correct to include cases such as those of Joseph Newton Chandler III and Lori Erica Ruff in this list? They both took on the identities of deceased individuals at some point in their lives. Their motivations aren't necessarily known, but they both definitely pretended to be people they weren't. I just wanted to check to see if there was a reason not to include them, I suppose. Crossark (talk) 01:44, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Archive 1