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Wikipedia Announces the Most Edited Articles of 2016 (npr.org)

Posted by BeauHD on from the developing-news dept.

Wikipedia has revealed its most edited articles of 2016. Believe it or not, the two most edited articles of the year were for Deaths in 2016, which was edited 18,230 times, and Donald Trump, with 8,933 edits as of December 21. NPR reports: Some are completely unsurprising -- like the articles about Brexit, the Panama Papers, the Orlando nightclub shooting, and other recent and controversial news topics. The popularity of editing others is somewhat more mysterious: like the article for RuPaul's Drag Race, and one for a fictional character named Beverley Gray -- the subject of a series of 26 mystery stories written between 1934 and 1955. The article on Vincent Van Gogh was also edited thousands of times in 2016, as editors reportedly sought to clarify misunderstandings about the artist in hopes of achieving "featured" status for the page. The most edited article by far was for Deaths in 2016, which was edited 18,230 times. David Bowie, Janet Reno, Gwen Ifill, Leonard Cohen, Fidel Castro, Muhammad Ali, John Glenn and Prince are among the notable people who died this year. Donald Trump's entry was second, with 8,933 edits as of Dec. 21. If history is any indication, there's a good chance the president-elect's Wikipedia page will come under even more scrutiny: The Wikimedia Foundation revealed earlier this year that George W Bush's article has the most edits of any article in English in the history of the site, with 45,862 revisions at last count.

6 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. What I love by ckatko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is that just because something is edited the most, doesn't mean the article is of high quality, or importance. It seems far more likely that Donald Trump's wiki is more of a proxy war for people's frustrations with politics, and the "Weapons" are cleverly twisting Wikipedia's rules to get what you want.

    I'll be surprising nobody but the most staunch biased people, that Wikipedia has plenty of great articles but you NEVER go to the "dark side" of Wikipedia... which is anything hardcore liberals might find interesting and worthy of "parking"--sitting on an article, watching any changes, and ferociously fighting any changes you don't like. As long as the parking-person is more willing to fight than you are to see the truth (almost always), then they win. And Wikipedia becomes this world of dicks fighting turf wars over control of mere words.

    I'll never forget reading the article on "Political Correctness." It was horrific. Like entering a completely different (hence "dark") Wikipedia. It called PC a "pejorative" word (you know, like a hate word used to hurt someone). It argued that PC didn't actually exist AND that it was actually a good thing at the same time. It didn't even try to be rational and in the the talk pages? They "ruled" that any professor, article, or idea they didn't like was "violating Wikipedia's rules". Rules they didn't apply to their own links to radical blogs with readers in the dozens.

    I'm no fan of that conservative wikipedia (ew...) but man, it sure would be nice if people were as fair and rational as they claimed to be. It doesn't help when the heads of the project at Wikimedia don't call them out and try to stop it. You know, "it's only 'wrong' if the dicks are saying things you don't agree with." Which strikes me, as an adult, and an outsider, as rather sad. A willful corruption of a wonderful idea "for the greater good."

    And I say all of this AS A LIBERAL. But I'm honest first, and political second. I honestly don't understand why people are so willing to obscure facts, and twist Wikipedia guidelines to push their agenda. It's like trying to put my head into that of a serial killer, or an alien. I can't even begin to figure out why people do it. Isn't the truth a noble goal in, and of, itself? And wouldn't you want to be on the side of the truth, even if it goes against your preconceived ideas about the world? Oh well...

    1. Re:What I love by DonaId+Trump · · Score: 4, Funny

      ...sniff...

      WRONG

    2. Re:What I love by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'll be surprising nobody but the most staunch biased people, that Wikipedia has plenty of great articles but you NEVER go to the "dark side" of Wikipedia... which is anything hardcore liberals might find interesting and worthy of "parking"--sitting on an article, watching any changes, and ferociously fighting any changes you don't like. As long as the parking-person is more willing to fight than you are to see the truth (almost always), then they win. And Wikipedia becomes this world of dicks fighting turf wars over control of mere words.

      I'm not sure why you're calling out "hardcore liberals" here. I have no doubt that hardcore conservatives also "park" in the way you describe.

      I'll never forget reading the article on "Political Correctness." It was horrific. Like entering a completely different (hence "dark") Wikipedia. It called PC a "pejorative" word (you know, like a hate word used to hurt someone). It argued that PC didn't actually exist AND that it was actually a good thing at the same time. It didn't even try to be rational and in the the talk pages? They "ruled" that any professor, article, or idea they didn't like was "violating Wikipedia's rules". Rules they didn't apply to their own links to radical blogs with readers in the dozens.

      I just did a quick read of the Wikipedia article on Political Correctness. It's an exhaustive (exhausting?) historical and academic treatment of the term, but I don't see that it's "horrific." The supposed inconsistencies are easily seen as the various contradictory uses of the term in various historical contexts. I didn't see anything about the supposed controversies in the talk pages. Care to enlighten us with links?

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      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    3. Re:What I love by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Informative

      You should check out the gamergate page. Not only have dozens of editors been banned for edit warring, but the entire thing is a complete mess where even factual information is removed because it's contrary to the people who are pushing a narrative. That's the same article where a dozen hardcore feminists were banned for edit warring, and it's gone to abcom at least 3 times because of progressive parking and edit warring. It's pretty sad when "know your meme" and "encyclopedia dramatica" have more factual articles.

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      Om, nomnomnom...
    4. Re:What I love by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I suppose my disappointment is not so much that I spent five minutes trying to help and my help was then rejected, it's that if that happened to me on something where I know WP was wrong before and my change was right, then clearly I can't trust other articles on subjects where I'm not an expert in case the same thing happened. I imagine those operating WP would be the first to say you shouldn't trust WP as a primary source anyway, as I think they always have, but still, rejecting objectively correct changes damages the credibility of WP as a whole.

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      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    5. Re:What I love by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I suppose my disappointment is not so much that I spent five minutes trying to help and my help was then rejected, it's that if that happened to me on something where I know WP was wrong before and my change was right, then clearly I can't trust other articles on subjects where I'm not an expert in case the same thing happened.

      Yeah, spend a few years editing on and off (as I did, several years back), and you'll realize how common this problem actually is.

      I imagine those operating WP would be the first to say you shouldn't trust WP as a primary source anyway, as I think they always have, but still, rejecting objectively correct changes damages the credibility of WP as a whole.

      The problem isn't just the rejection -- since you CAN usually fight enough and escalate the situation enough to get the correct information into the article. Depending on who you're fighting, this might be rather simple or could take a detailed knowledge of Wikipedia procedure and many hours of time investment.

      That's all problematic in and of itself... but the larger issue is that even if you fight to get something corrected, there is absolutely NO guarantee it will stay that way. This is a particular issue with stuff where there's a popular "consensus" on an issue, but the subject experts realized that was wrong decades ago. (This is particularly true in many humanities disciplines, like history, where stuff "everybody knows" is frequently wrong. And there are often plenty of non-specialist sources written by otherwise reasonably reputable people where you can still find the old "myths" propagated.)

      So, you spend a few days and a lot of effort to get the "right stuff" in, but then a year from now some idiot comes along with some popular citations, rewrites the article, and throws out that stuff you fought so hard to get in. It's not just wasting your effort to get stuff in -- it's then committing to perpetual policing of the content. (And thus it's no wonder why many editors start getting attached to pages -- they themselves probably made some improvements over whatever idiots they kicked off years ago, so they get overprotective.)

      Say what you will about the reliability of old paper encyclopedias or their bias or errors too. Sure, that stuff existed. But they didn't spontaneously generate new errors on your shelf so that you never knew whether a given article got better or worse since the last time you opened the book.