How one of Wikipedia editors revealed the “largest self -promotion” in the history of the site

“Is it very important and this is the first that I hear?” One request. “Is it Polyglot Superfan who wants everyone to know about his writer/favorite composer?

Investigation

The Wikipedia editor who goes to “Grnrchst” recently decided to discover, dining the articles about Woodard and any modifications that put his name in other articles. The results of this prolonged and bored investigation were written in August 9 edition of the markIt is a newspaper run by volunteers on the Internet around Wikipedia.

The GRNRCHST’s conclusion was directly: “I discovered what I think was perhaps the largest individual self -promotion in the history of Wikipedia, extending over a decade and covered up to 200 accounts and even IP agents.”

A network of accounts of unusual interest in Woodard has been identified, and its activities have been assigned over the past decade. Starting in 2015, these accounts were entered the name Woodard “to at least 93 articles (including” Pliers “,” Brown Pelican “and” Bundesautobahn “), and often referring to self -published sources by Woodard himself. This was only in the English version of Wikipedia.

From 2017 to 2019, accounts were established “Articles on David Woodard in at least 92 different languages, and create a new article every six days on average … They started with European Latin developmental languages, but they soon outperformed other families and texts from all corners of the world, they write to fit with anything for its formation, all of which will move to anything else (easily 90 percent or or or More).

“This amount of translations across many different languages will mean that this person is one of the most multiple languages in the history of mankind, or it was unwanted automatic translations; the other is likely.”

After a decrease in the activity, things rose again in 2021, when IP addresses from all over the world began to create Woodard references and articles again. For example, “titles from Canada, Germany, Indonesia and the United Kingdom and other places added some trivia around Woodard to all 15 Wikipedia articles about Calea Ternifolia“

Then things became “more sophisticated”. From December 2021 to June 2025, 183 articles were created about Woodard, each in Wikipedia, a different language and each unique account. These accounts followed a pattern of behavior: they were created, “often with a somewhat general name, and they made a user page with one image on it. Then they made dozens of simple adjustments to unrelated articles, before creating an article on David Woodard, then made dozens or more simple adjustments before they disappear from the platform.”

GRNRCHST believes that all activity was aimed at “creating as many articles as possible about Woodard, and publishing pictures and information about Woodard to the largest possible number of articles, while hiding this activity as much as possible … You have believed that David Woodard himself, or anyone close to him, was running this network of accounts and IP addresses for dangerous land purposes.”

After the GRNRCHST report, Wikipedia International rulers 235 articles on Woodard were removed from Wikipedia counterparts with a few users or officials. Wikipedias was the largest free to make their community decisions, removed 80 other articles and banned many accounts.

“A full decade of self -reinforcement has been declined by an individual network in just a few weeks by our society,” GRNRCHS pointed out.

In the end, only 20 articles on Woodard remain, such as this In English, which does not mention controversy.

We were unable to communicate with Woodard, who protects the personal password only with a password and is available “by calling”.

Could it be the whole thing of a kind of “artistic project”, where real control is exposed and written? maybe. But regardless of the motive behind the efforts made by the contract to strengthen Woodard on Wikipedia, the accident reminds us of the extent of the effort that some people want to put in open projects or a public confrontation for their own goals.

This story was originally appeared on Art Technica.