It's interesting that so few people caught on (especially considering how often these kind of pranks are pulled) but I'm not sure the article proves anything other than what we already know; that it's tough to get published, even if you're Faulkner. Or someone ripping him off.
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It doesn't even prove this much, or anything close to it. A writer who pulls this silliness should at least be smart enough to send a current story by a current writer.
Style matters, content matters, etc. A story that was easy to sell when Faulkner was alive is likely to be an impossible sell now, even if every sentence is updated start to finish.
And you never, ever know whether an editor caught on or not. Editors sometimes don't catch on, and so what? An editor is supposed to recognize every short story by every writer who ever lived? Or think a story as old as this one fits in a current magazine?
Do you think a story by Melville or Dickens or even Jack London would have fared any better? Good is not good enough. A story must be good, and must fit today's world in every way.
But even when they do catch on, odds are still good that they won't mention it, and nothing means less than what a rejection says. Rejections often aren't even written by the same person who read the story, or they have a predetermined sets of flaws listed, which may or may not be pertinent.
People who pull this stunt simply have no common sense, and no understanding about publishing at all. They always seem to think they're the first genius to try this, but I first saw it pulled forty-two years ago (The writer did send a contemporary story, and the editor caught it at once. He didn't tell the writer he caught on, but he did.), and it was as dumb then as it is now.
