Editors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia tend to update Wikipedia articles with information about deaths quickly after people die. [3] [4] Web developer and Wikipedia editor Hay Kranen coined the term "deaditor" to refer to these editors. [5] Articles about people often have large spikes in views just after they die. For example, the article about designer Kate Spade averaged 2,117 views in 48-hour periods before her death. In the 48 hours after her death, it got 3,417,416, an increase of 161,427%. [6] [7]
Media have remarked on the site's quick updates after the deaths of people such as Michael Jackson, [8] Elizabeth II, [5] [9] [10] and Henry Kissinger. [11] [12]
In January 2009, in response to false death reports on the English Wikipedia articles about Robert Byrd and Edward Kennedy, the site's co-founder Jimmy Wales proposed that pages be moderated using Flagged Revisions, a form of protection under which certain revisions of a protected page must be accepted by an experienced editor before becoming visible to readers. [13] The feature, known as "pending changes" on English Wikipedia, was first implemented in 2010, though by 2021 it was not widely used on biographies of living people and was unmaintained. [14] [15]
When a subject of a biography dies of a disease, its progress may also be described. [16] [17]
The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The encyclopaedia is maintained by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 contributors. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, which spans 32 volumes and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition. Since 2016, it has been published exclusively as an online encyclopaedia.
Henry Alfred Kissinger was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as United States Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977 and National Security Advisor from 1969 to 1975, in the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
Wikipedia, a free-content online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers known as Wikipedians, began with its first edit on 15 January 2001, two days after the domain was registered. It grew out of Nupedia, a more structured free encyclopedia, as a way to allow easier and faster drafting of articles and translations.
Time is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on March 3, 1923, and for many years it was run by its influential co-founder, Henry Luce.
A wiki is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or limited to use within an organization for maintaining its internal knowledge base.
Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She was the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth II.
The English Wikipedia is the primary English-language edition of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15 January 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition.
An obituary is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. According to Nigel Farndale, the Obituaries Editor of The Times, obituaries ought to be "balanced accounts" written in a "deadpan" style, and should not read like a hagiography.
Wikinews is a free-content news wiki and a project of the Wikimedia Foundation that works through collaborative journalism. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has distinguished Wikinews from Wikipedia by saying, "On Wikinews, each story is to be written as a news story as opposed to an encyclopedia article." Wikinews's neutral point of view policy aims to distinguish it from other citizen journalism efforts such as Indymedia and OhmyNews. In contrast to most Wikimedia Foundation projects, Wikinews allows original work in the form of original reporting and interviews. In contrast to newspapers, Wikinews does not permit op-ed.
The German Wikipedia is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia.
Sir William Hartley Hume Shawcross is a British journalist, writer, and broadcaster. He is the incumbent Commissioner for Public Appointments. From 2012 to 2018 he chaired the Charity Commission for England and Wales.
James "Scotty" Barrett Reston was an American journalist whose career spanned the mid-1930s to the early 1990s. He was associated for many years with The New York Times.
Elizabeth II was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She had been queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during her lifetime and was the monarch of 15 realms at her death. Her reign of 70 years and 214 days is the longest of any British monarch and the second-longest of any sovereign state.
The Japanese Wikipedia is the Japanese edition of Wikipedia, a free, open-source online encyclopedia. Started on 11 May 2001, the edition attained the 200,000 article mark in April 2006 and the 500,000 article mark in June 2008. As of October 2024, it has almost 1,435,000 articles with 12,753 active contributors, ranking fourth behind the English, French and German editions.
Flagged Revisions, also known as FlaggedRevs, is a software extension to the MediaWiki software that allows moderation of edits to wiki pages. It was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation for use on Wikipedia and similar wikis hosted on its servers. The term is also sometimes used for the editorial policies related to operation of that extension when active.
Operation London Bridge was the funeral plan for Queen Elizabeth II. The plan included the announcement of her death, the period of official mourning, and the details of her state funeral. The plan was created as early as the 1960s and revised many times in the years before her death in September 2022.
The COVID-19 pandemic was covered in Wikipedia extensively, in real-time, and across multiple languages. This coverage extends to many detailed articles about various aspects of the topic itself, as well as many existing articles being amended to take account of the pandemic's effect on them. Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects' coverage of the pandemic – and how the volunteer editing community achieved that coverage – received widespread media attention for its comprehensiveness, reliability, and speed. Wikipedia experienced an increase in readership during the pandemic.
Coverage of American politics in Wikipedia is a subject that has received substantial attention from the media. Since its founding in 2001, Wikipedia has provided coverage of five United States presidential elections, and six mid-term elections at the federal level, as well as numerous "off-year" state elections and special elections.