[r-t] Hoaxes

[Philip Earis]

"You argue minimus in hand with only two ringers would be too easy to hoax." 
No I didn't and only a fool would suggest I did. I said "there are those who 
can ring four-in-hand, so what is to
stop anyone claiming a peal of minimus four in hand?". It is very difficult 
to prove s(he) didn't.

We're getting a bit side-tracked from ringing-theory here.  I'd much rather 
be seeing messages on new compositions, methods and ringing ideas.

For what it's worth, I feel Robin is correct on the narrow specific case 
here but in doing so betrays a mindset which I find hard to support.

Yes, it would indeed be hard to prove that a claimed handbell peal by one 
ringer actually happened.

But why do we need to be so concerned about the need for proof?

To give a different example, when a conductor of a peal of say spliced major 
sends up a peal, what proof do we have that they called the exact 
composition?  Perhaps they (either inadvertently or knowingly) mistakenly 
called a lead of Cambridge instead of Yorkshire, maybe introducing falseness 
as a result. What proof do we have at all? In many cases, none.

Should we demand that all peals are recorded and every row listened to and 
analysed carefully (who would do this?) before a peal can be published? This 
just isn't workable.  Ringing relies on trust and self-reporting, and a 
fixation with absolute proof is a smokescreen.