Also, what is the link you supplied supposed to show? To me, it's like someone who, hearing the accuracy of Genesis' creation story challenged due to lack of supporting evidence, replies, "Yes, but Exodus says the same thing." It's the same source making the same claim, with no corroboration.
You imagine that someone would have pointed out an honest mistake, but that could take time. Is absence of an immediate counter-demonstration proof (or even evidence) of truth? I don't think it works that way. See Fleischmann–Pons.
I understand your point, but this is different to Fleischmann–Pons because of Google's capacity to change things.
In any case, http://searchengineland.com/google-disables-url-removals-aft... appears to indicate that Google has disabled the tool and are investigating. That indicates to me that it isn't totally fake at least. Maybe it only happens in some circumstances, or maybe there is some other explanation, but I doubt Google would disable the tool completely if what he claimed didn't have some basis.
FWIW, I just submitted a removal request via GWT for a page on my own site, and the request was accepted without complaint and is pending. Maybe Google turned the tool back on already.
I tried a request for a page on my wife's site, via the prescribed URL mangling, and it was silently ignored.
re: Google's capacity to change things, that's exactly what I thought should trigger more skepticism: Not only has no one repeated the experiment -- no one ever can. Now it's history, and that can get murky.
But thank you for the link -- another voice is good evidence in my book.
You imagine that someone would have pointed out an honest mistake, but that could take time. Is absence of an immediate counter-demonstration proof (or even evidence) of truth? I don't think it works that way. See Fleischmann–Pons.