Wikipedia coverage of death

Last updated

Sydwhunte was the first to update the Elizabeth II Wikipedia article following her death. Screenshot of Elizabeth II Wikipedia article.jpg
Sydwhunte was the first to update the Elizabeth II Wikipedia article following her death.

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]

Related Research Articles

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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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Kissinger</span> American diplomat and scholar (1923–2023)

Henry Alfred Kissinger was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Wikipedia</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">House of Tudor</span> English royal house of Welsh origin

The House of Tudor was an English and Welsh dynasty that held the throne of England from 1485 to 1603. They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd, a Welsh noble family, and Catherine of Valois. The Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and the Lordship of Ireland for 118 years with five monarchs: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The Tudors succeeded the House of Plantagenet as rulers of the Kingdom of England, and were succeeded by the Scottish House of Stuart. The first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, descended through his mother from the House of Beaufort, a legitimised branch of the English royal House of Lancaster, a cadet house of the Plantagenets. The Tudor family rose to power and started the Tudor period in the wake of the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), which left the main House of Lancaster extinct in the male line.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wiki</span> Type of website that visitors can edit

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">English Wikipedia</span> English-language edition of Wikipedia

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wikinews</span> Free-content news wiki; project of the Wikimedia Foundation

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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.

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References

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  2. Mannix, Liam (13 September 2022). "Evidence suggests Wikipedia is accurate and reliable. When are we going to start taking it seriously?". The Sydney Morning Herald . Archived from the original on 6 March 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  3. Harrison, Stephen (16 August 2018). "Meet the People Who Quickly Update Wikipedia Pages When a Celebrity Like Aretha Franklin Dies". Slate Magazine. Archived from the original on 1 November 2022. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
  4. Thomas, Rhys (5 October 2022). "Inside the world of Wikipedia's deaditors". The Face . Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
  5. 1 2 McNamee, Kai (15 September 2022). "Fastest 'was' in the West: Inside Wikipedia's race to cover the queen's death". NPR. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  6. Samora, Russell (August 2018). "Life After Death on Wikipedia". The Pudding . Archived from the original on 23 February 2023. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
  7. Rosen, Rebecca J. (6 February 2013). "If You Want Your Wikipedia Page to Get a Ton of Traffic, Die While Performing at the Super Bowl Half-Time Show". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 27 February 2023. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  8. Steiner, Thomas; van Hooland, Seth; Summers, Ed (13 May 2013). "MJ no more: Using concurrent wikipedia edit spikes with social network plausibility checks for breaking news detection". Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on World Wide Web. pp. 791–794. doi:10.1145/2487788.2488049. ISBN   9781450320382. S2CID   15540545.
  9. Lukpat, Alyssa (18 September 2022). "When Queen Elizabeth II Died, Wikipedia's 'Deaditors' Were Ready" . The Wall Street Journal . Archived from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
  10. Parsons, Jeff (9 September 2022). "How Wikipedia responded when news of the Queen's death broke". Metro. Archived from the original on 17 December 2022. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
  11. Huggins, Katherine (30 November 2023). "'I'd put that on my resume': Wikipedia editor brags she was 'the girl' who changed 'is' to 'was' on Henry Kissinger's page". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 1 December 2023. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  12. Rose, Janus (30 November 2023). "Wikipedia Editor Who First Noted Henry Kissinger's Death Has Become an 'Instant Legend'". Vice. Archived from the original on 1 December 2023. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  13. Snyder, Chris (26 January 2009). "Jimmy Wales Pushes For Flagged Revisions After Fake Death Reports". Wired . Archived from the original on 30 December 2012. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  14. phoebe and HaeB (7 June 2010). ""Pending changes" trial to start on June 14".
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  17. Naik, Hiten; Johnson, Maximilian Desmond Dimitri; Johnson, Michael Roger (15 June 2021). "Internet Interest in Colon Cancer Following the Death of Chadwick Boseman: Infoveillance Study". Journal of Medical Internet Research. 23 (6): e27052. doi: 10.2196/27052 . PMC   8277405 . PMID   34128824.