“It’s very important and this is the first one I hear?” One asked. “Is it a superfan polyglot who wants everyone to know his favorite writer/composer? Is someone who uses the IA to artificially increase the metrics of the performance of this boy?”
The investigation
A wikipedia publisher who goes to “Grrchst” recently decided to find out, immersing himself in depth in the articles on Woodard and in any modification that has placed his name in other articles. The results of this long and boring investigation were written in Edition of 9 August of the cartelAn online newspaper managed by Wikipedia.
Grrchst’s conclusion was directed: “I discovered the one I thought could have been the largest self -freedom operation in the history of Wikipedia, which lasts over a decade and covering up to 200 accounts and even more IP addresses by prosecutor”.
A network of account has been identified with an unusual interest for Woodard and its activities in the last decade have been mapped. Starting from 2015, these accounts have entered the name of Woodard “in no less than 93 articles (including” Pinze “,” Pelican brown “and” Bundesautobahn “), often referring to the sources self -published by Woodard himself.” And that was only in the English version of Wikipedia.
From 2017 to 2019, The Accounts “Created Articles About David Woodard in AT Least 92 Different Languages, Creating in New Articles Every Six Days On Average … they start off with Latin-Script European Languages, But Quickly Branched Out Inther Families and Scripts from all Corners of the Globe, Even Writing Articles in Constructed Languages; they Also Went from Writing Full-Lenger Articles Translations, to Low-Effort Stub Articles, Which would go on make up the Vast Majority of All Translations (easily 90 percent or more). Kirundi.
Grrchst concluded that “this amount of translations in so many different languages would imply this person is one of the most advanced polyglots in human history, or were translations of spams machines; the latter is more likely”.
After a reduction in the activity, things increased again in 2021, since the IP addresses around the world have started to create references and Woodard articles. For example, “addresses from Canada, Germany, Indonesia, United Kingdom and other places have added some curiosities about Woodard to all 15 Wikipedia articles on Calea Terernifolia. “
So things have become “more sophisticated”. From December 2021 to June 2025 183 articles were created on Woodard, each in a different language of Wikipedia and each with a single report. These accounts followed a model of behavior: they were “created, often with a fairly generic name, and made a user page with a single image.
Grrchst believes that all the activity should “create as many articles on Woodard as possible, and to disseminate photos and information on Woodard to as many articles as possible, while hiding the activity as much as possible … I came to believe that David Woodard himself, or someone close to him, had been operated on this network of reports and IP addresses for self-promoing purposes.”
After the report of GRNCHST, Wikipedia Global stewards Removed 235 articles on Woodard by Wikipedia requests with few users or administrators. Larger Wikipedias was free to make their own community decisions, and another 80 articles removed and prohibited numerous accounts.
“An entire decade of dedicated autopromotion by a single network has been canceled in a few weeks by our community,” Gorrchst observed.
In the end, only 20 articles on Woodard remain, like This In English, which does not mention the controversy.
We were unable to get in touch with Woodard, whose personal website is protected by passwords and available only by invitation “.
Could everything be a sort of “artistic project”, with the real exposure payoff and to be written? Perhaps. But whatever the reason behind the ten -year effort to increase Woodard on Wikipedia, the accident reminds us how effort some people are willing to make pollution of open or public projects for their purposes.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
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