Wikipedia:List of media personalities who have vandalised Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A number of media personalities have either strongly encouraged people to vandalise, or have actually vandalised, Wikipedia. They include:

  • Stephen Colbert, television comedian, strongly encouraged viewers to vandalise the Elephants article, instructing them to write that the number of elephants has recently tripled in order to confound liberal scientists.[1]
  • Sarah Lane, on the live June 12, 2003 episode of The Screen Savers, wrote on the Wikipedia page on monkeypox: "Sarah Lane is totally cool and does not have monkeypox."[2] She later wrote "Sarah Lane is a cool Screen Saver. Down with Monkeypox."
  • Scott Mills and Mark Chapman, BBC Radio 1 DJs both vandalised and strongly encouraged their listeners to vandalise the article on Edith Bowman.[3]
  • Ivor Tossell, Globe and Mail journalist, wrote a news article on how he vandalised the human article, and then how a contributor provided a polite response asking him to stop. He wrote that the article "launch[es] into a 7,000-word list of things that most bipedal primates are already aware of" and roundly criticised it for making obvious statements. Tossell said that, "I snapped. I clicked the 'Edit' button, and anonymously revised that first line, so now it began, 'Humans -- hey! That's us!' And off I surfed, content that I'd given the self-righteous encyclopedians a poke in the ear." [4]
  • Eric Zorn, journalist for the Chicago Tribune, created the article Zorn's law (like a Godwin's law), but it was soon deleted.[5]
  • According to NBC-owned-and-operated television station WCAU in Philadelphia, network anchorman and reporter Vince DeMentri vandalized his own article to say he had 27 children. The WCAU article says that "his IP address was registered [by Wikipedia] for security purposes"[6], which is misleading: his IP address was recorded in the article's history page, as is always the case when an editor has not logged in with a Wikipedia account.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic included a faux clip of him vandalising the article of Atlantic Records on the music video for his single "White & Nerdy"; this was probably intended to be realized as a "revenge" of sorts against the record label for blocking the release of the parody "You're Pitiful" on his album Straight Outta Lynwood. This "revenge" was then enacted on the Atlantic Records article by several editors.[7]
  • Alexander M.C. Halavais, assistant professor of communications at Quinnipiac University, added inaccurate material to 13 articles. [8]
  • Ryan North, online web-comic writer, has twice been involved in Wikipedia vandalism. The first act occurred on July 25, 2006, when he changed the article on Evil to read "Irish Evil." [9] More recently, on November 8, 2006, he created a tongue-in-cheek webpage imploring vandals to only vandalise the article concerning chickens, thereby making Wikipedia completely factually reliable for "every topic in the universe except chickens". [10][11]
  • Tony Martin and Ed Kavalee, hosts of the Australian morning radio show Get This, regularly review their respective Wikipedia articles and that of their show, and discuss the latest vandalism that has occurred, encouraging their listeners to continue to vandalise the articles.
  • The Guardian newspaper's online football (soccer) column, The Fiver edited Chelsea F.C. winger Arjen Robben's profile to say that he "is an accomplished scuba diver, a model-submarine enthusiast and the owner of a pet parrot named Greg Louganis" to suggest that he dives, or simulates being fouled to con referees.[12]
See also: Wikipedia in popular culture

[edit] References

  1. ^ It should be noted that this was done in character from The Colbert Report, not as himself.Stephen Colbert vs Wikipedia
  2. ^ Sarah Lane (June 19, 2003). "Sarah's Blog Report: June 2003". G4.
    Sarah's edit was made on 09:46, June 13, 2003 (diff)
  3. ^ Andrew Orlowski (19th January, 2006). "Wikipedia editing hobby goes nationwide", The Register.
  4. ^ Ivor Tossell (June 24, 2006). "Here come the Wikipedia police". Globe and Mail, Globe and Mail update.
  5. ^ Eric Zorn (July 5, 2006). "There oughta be a law against stale retorts", Chicago Tribune
  6. ^ "How Accurate Is Information On Wikipedia?" (July 27, 2006), WCAU.
  7. ^ Adams, Cameron. “Weird Al Yankovic.” Herald Sun, October 5, 2006.
  8. ^ Read, Brock (October 27, 2006). "Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?", The Chronicle of Higher Education. Accessed 25th October, 2006.
  9. ^ North, Ryan "now folks can't get mad at me for tacitly endorsing funny wikipedia vandalism because fictional jimbo wales HIMSELF is all for it. good ol' fictional jimbo wales! he's the most accommodating instance of jimbo wales that i know of."; page history- [1]
  10. ^ North, Ryan " fictional jimbo wales, you old charmer! PS: CLICK TO SEE WHAT I DID YESTERDAY. I WROTE A MANIFESTO."
  11. ^ North, Ryan "Every Topic in the Universe Except Chickens"
  12. ^ Doyle, Paul. Glendenning, Barry. "The Fiver" July 6, 2006.
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../l/i/s/Wikipedia%7EList_of_media_personalities_who_have_vandalised_Wikipedia_c097.html"