Snopes.com
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Type of site
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Reference pages |
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| Owner |
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| Created by | Barbara and David P. Mikkelson |
| Editor | Brooke Binkowski, managing editor |
| Website | www |
| Alexa rank |
 1,515 (September 2016[update]) |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Required only on forums |
| Launched | 1995 |
| Current status | Active |
Snopes.com /ˈsnoʊps/, also known as the Urban Legends Reference Pages, is a website covering urban legends, Internet rumors, e-mail forwards, and other stories of unknown or questionable origin. It is a well-known resource for validating and debunking such stories in American popular culture, receiving 300,000 visits a day as of 2010.
Snopes.com was created by Barbara and David Mikkelson, a California couple who met in the alt.folklore.urban newsgroup. The site is organized by topic and includes a message board where stories and pictures of questionable veracity may be posted.
David Mikkelson used the username "snopes" (the name of a family of often unpleasant people in the works of William Faulkner) in the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban. The Mikkelsons created the Snopes site in 1995 and later worked on it full-time. By mid-2014, Barbara Mikkelson had not written for the site "in several years," and David Mikkelson hired employees to assist him from Snopes.com's message board. The Mikkelsons divorced around the same time, and Barbara no longer has an ownership stake in Snopes.com.
A television pilot based on the site, called Snopes: Urban Legends, was completed with American actor Jim Davidson as host, but major networks passed on the project.
Snopes aims to debunk or confirm widely spread urban legends. The site has been referenced by news media and other sites, including CNN,Fox News Channel,MSNBC, and Australia's ABC on its Media Watch program. Snopes' popular standing is such that some chain e-mail hoaxes claim to have been "checked out on 'Snopes.com'" in an attempt to discourage readers from seeking verification. As of March 2009[update], the site had approximately 6.2 million visitors per month.
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