Information, Disinformation & Misinformation

Unlike a printed book which have an editor or a team of editors and which puts the author, who generally has some credentials, under the scrutiny of his peers, a website is a notoriously unreliable source of information. Anyone can make a website and can put almost anything he wishes on it.
While most people who make chess websites seem to be earnest, sometimes they are either lazy/sloppy/inept or they make mistakes simply because they have no one to double-check their writing and their facts. Then there is just simple human error. The end result is that sometimes there's misinformation as well as disinformation which is accepted as fact. It's hard to know the difference between real facts and pretend facts.

Here's some examples of different types of Chess misinformation:

The Complete Fallacy:

"Mason made 144 moves in succession with his Queen against Mackenzie at London in 1882."

I've often seen this little statement presented as a truth.
Here's two instances -       1     2  

The Unsubstantiated:

"Checkers is for tramps." -Paul Morphy
I've often seen this quote.

here's some instances-       1     2     3     4     5     6  

This seems like a bizarre statement and very un-Morphy-like, enough so that it can't just be presented with out citing the source or at least explaining the situation under which it was uttered anymore than it can be accepted at face-value. But, although I looked extensively, I've never found either any explanation or any source. It may very well be true, but unless somone can show something akin to proof, I think anyone who might use it to be a bit superficial.

The Too Unbelievable To Be Believed:

"The world`s record for checkmating on the unprotected last rank is held by Paolo Boi, who won 9,647 games by this maneuver."
I've seen this "fact" only in limited places, thank goodness. -        1     2  

Now you have to know something about Paolo Boi and about chess at that time. He lived from 1528 to 1598 and during his life, he was the world's best chess player. Being such, he traveled continuously, looking for opponents, and, more importantly, patrons. Since chess was untimed, it wasn't unusual for a game to last all day. With all that traveling (on foot or donkey) and such long games being the norm, I would find it hard to believe he ever played more than 100 games in any given year and certainly not 9,647 games in his lifetime with the same result. Second, how could anyone come up with such a figure? most games by Boi seem to have been lost or never recorded. It's almost impossible to find any game by Boi, leading me to beleive there aren't many to be found. So this "fact" seems a bit silly in light of all this.

Myth presented as Truth:

an example:

"Paine, Thomas (1737-1809)
American Revolutionist saved by a game of chess. Paine was arrested for favoring the exile, rather than the execution, of King Louis XVI and about to be guillotined in Paris in 1794. His wife went to a cafe frequented by Robespiere and defeated him in a game of chess. Robespierre challenged her again and promised to grant any wish she made if she defeated him again. She again won and got her husband's life spared. Tom Paine wrote 'The Rights of Man' and 'Common Sense.' "
Quoted verbatim from   here  

I researched four or five bios of Paine and each one gives a similar account, but not the one above: e.g. "he later fell foul of Robespiere who imprisoned him and listed him for the guillotine. Only a fever and the fall of Robespierre saved his life."
or
"Liberated on the fall of Robespierre, Paine returned to America".

Looking into the life of Robespierre, I found a legend that "during the summer of 1793 he was supposed to have granted a condemned man freedom after losing to his fiancée/wife at the Café de la Regence." In 1944, Ripley's Believe It or Not claimed that Thomas Paine was this person. However it was later proven that "it was an American delegation that solicited the release of Thomas Paine from prison. Paine was protected by Monroe, the American minister in France at the time." Yet the myth lives on, thanks to the internet. [one source says the lady was Jacqueline Armand, the fiancée of a duke about to be guillotined; another source says it was the wife of the Marquis de Merin who defeated Robespierre; yet another source claims that the condemned man was a young French officer and his savior was a young girl who was neither his fiancée or wife]