On the eve of its 15th birthday, Wikipedia has published a list of the most-edited pages within its vast repository of knowledge.
Topping the list, somewhat unsurprisingly, is former US president George W. Bush, whose page has been edited an astonishing 45,862 times.
A polarising figure during the site’s early days, Bush has probably fallen victim to the familiar pastime of Wiki vandalism as much as anyone.
Many of the changes took place between 2004/5 during the ongoing Iraq war, as you can see from the arguments in the edit history.
The next entry in line is the ‘List of WWE personnel’ page (42,863 edits), which reflects the fast-changing world of professional wrestling where folks are hired and fired on a day-to-day basis.
Rounding out the top six are the United States (35,742), Wikipedia itself (33,958) and Michael Jackson (28,152), with the King of Pop racking up more edits than some bloke called Jesus (28,084).
In total the site’s 5,053,647 articles have been revised 808,187,367 times.
“Parsing those edits by year brings into focus a fascinating evolution of the current millennia online, revealing not just what people clicked on or read or even shared,” the non-profit organisation wrote on its official blog.
“The most-edited articles show what Wikipedians created and shaped and gave to the world as this millennia began to unfold.”
The full list is as follows:
- 1) George W. Bush (45,862)
- 2) List of WWE personnel (42,863)
- 3) United States (35,742)
- 4) Wikipedia (33,958)
- 5) Michael Jackson (28,152)
- 6) Jesus (28,084)
- 7) Catholic Church (26,421)
- 8) List of programs broadcast by ABS-CBN (25,188)
- 9) Barack Obama (24,708)
- 10) Adolf Hitler (24,612)
- 11) Britney Spears (23,802)
- 12) World War II (23,739)
- 13) Deaths in 2013 (22,529)
- 14) The Beatles (22,399)
- 15) India (22,271)
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
