Talk:History of Wikipedia

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"Tellingly and laudably, Wikipedia's entries on its own history and the roles of Wales and Sanger have turned out, after much fighting on the discussion boards, to be balanced and objective." — Isaacson, Walter (2014). The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. Simon & Schuster. p. 440. ISBN 978-1476708690.

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Ironic...

Quote from the #Effect on biographical articles section:

In February 2009, when Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Buhl-Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg became federal minister on 10 February 2009, an unregistered user added an eleventh given name in the article on German Wikipedia: Wilhelm. Numerous newspapers took it over. When wary Wikipedians wanted to erase Wilhelm, the revert was reverted with regard to those newspapers. This case about Wikipedia reliability and journalists copying from Wikipedia became known as Falscher Wilhelm ("wrong Wilhelm").^[1]

This is an ironic statement. That name (specifically the supposed last name "Buhl"), which was added to Wikipedia in 2016, and to this article in 2019,[1] turns out to be wrong. It had been copied from the German Wikipedia by an unregistered IP user. The German Wikipedia had it from an unreliable source. Since then, "Buhl" has been added to countless Wikipedia articles across multiple languages, and has spread to reliable sources far and wide. See here for the details, particularly the "An independent, reliable source!" section (the full story is too long to repeat). And the sad part is, Wikipedians knew about the correct name and the potential pitfalls in 2009, but failed to preserve that knowledge.

That the English Wikipedia article also contained yet another fake first name ("Friedrich") from October 2020 until today[2] just adds one more layer to this story. Renerpho (talk) 07:24, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "Wikimedia Deutschland press release" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 December 2010.; ORF Futurezone Archived 29 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 27 May 2010.

[1] "Wikimedia Deutschland press release" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 December 2010.; ORF Futurezone Archived 29 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 27 May 2010.

[1]

v t e History of Wikipedia
By year	2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2023 2024
Wikipedians	First Settlers Wikipedians with articles (cat) Missing Wikipedians Deceased Wikipedians