About WrongFacts

Why This Exists

You were taught things in school. Confidently. By adults who believed them too. Turns out, a solid chunk of that information was wrong. Not maliciously wrong (usually), but wrong in the way that happens when a fact gets repeated enough times that nobody bothers to check it anymore.

WrongFacts is an encyclopedia of those moments. Debunked myths, urban legends, outdated science, and misconceptions that millions of people still carry around like facts. We're not here to make anyone feel stupid. We believed most of these too. The whole point is that knowledge moves forward, and it's actually kind of fascinating to see what we used to think was true.

How We Pick and Verify Facts

Every entry on WrongFacts goes through the same process:

• Sourced: Minimum 2 credible sources per entry. Wikipedia, peer-reviewed research, academic institutions, established fact-checkers like Snopes. If we can't source it properly, it doesn't go up.
• Categorised: Tagged by content type (Urban Legend, Debunked Fact, Mandela Effect, etc.) and subject area (Biology, History, Medicine, and so on)
• Confidence-rated: "Fully Debunked," "Revised," or "Still Debated." If the science isn't settled, we say so. No fake certainty.
• Scored: Popularity and surprise factor ratings based on editorial assessment. How many people believed it, and how surprising is the truth.
• Contextualised: When it was believed, when it was corrected, and why the correction happened (new evidence, reclassification, someone actually checking, etc.)

Editorial Standards

The bar is simple: would you trust this if you found it through Google? Every fact page has minimum 200 words of unique written content, cited sources, and an honest assessment of the current scientific consensus. If something is still debated, we flag it. If we're not sure, we say that too.

The tone is curious, not condescending. We're genuinely interested in why these myths persisted, not just that they did. The most interesting part of a wrong fact is usually the reason everyone believed it in the first place.

Our Sources

We draw from Wikipedia's misconceptions database, Snopes (the authority since 1994), PubMed and NCBI for medical claims, McGill University's Office for Science and Society, academic journals, historical archives, and primary sources like historical Encyclopaedia Britannica editions. Community submissions are moderated and verified before publication.

Community

WrongFacts is community-supported. The public submission form is paused while we rebuild the moderation queue. In the meantime, you can email submissions and corrections to admin@refdat.com and they'll be reviewed before going live. All published submissions get credit unless contributors request anonymity.

Part of RefDat

WrongFacts is part of the RefDat network. The rest of the network focuses on reference data: Australian Postcodes, Climate Data, Product Reviews, and Unit Converters. WrongFacts is the odd one out. It's the one that's actually fun.

Contact

Questions, corrections, or a fact you reckon we missed? Email admin@refdat.com or see the contact page.