Where was Donald Trump’s father born? Did he graduate from Fordham University? And if not, can it still be considered his alma mater? Is there such a thing as “Trump ideology”? And what photo best represents him?
These are some of the questions quibbled over by Wikipedia contributors in the 200 edits made to Donald Trump’s page just over the last week.
Wikipedia is a crowdsourced encyclopedia, created and maintained by a cadre of dedicated volunteer editors who day in and day out watch the pages they care about. A list compiled by Wikimedia, the foundation that oversees the encyclopedia, shows the English pages they argued over the most this year, published in a blog post on Dec. 21. It provides a glimpse into the year’s obsessions, as seen through the eyes of the self-appointed keepers of the internet’s collective knowledge.
Donald Trump’s was one such highly edited page. So were pages on the Panama Papers, Kanye West’s album The Life of Pablo, and the number of bad guys in the fictional world of Transformers.
Wikipedia is one of the most popular sites on the web, so presumably what matters to its editors matters to everyone. Pages that get pored over could actually be more balanced, while pages that editors choose not to develop leave us in the dark. For the past decade, the year’s deaths have been the number-one edited pages, followed usually by big or controversial news items of the year: the civil war in Libya in 2011; the Pacific typhoon season in 2013; and Sarah Palin in 2008. In 2014, the Malaysian Airlines flight, ebola, ISIS, and the shooting of Michael Brown made the top-10 list.
The list also provides a window into the rather opaque and hard-to-access culture of the people who edit the largest English encyclopedia the world has. Technically anyone is free to edit the site, but the argumentative and often combative culture can keep new users out. Editors can join anonymously, but the bar to actually making a contribution that sticks is high, so even though there are 29 million registered editors, only about 130,000 are active. About 10% of the English editors were female in the last big survey of the editors conducted by the foundation, in 2012.
The editors tend to gravitate toward certain broad categories: entertainment, sports, and world events. Number 24 on this year’s list, two slots below Brexit, is the Miss Universe contest. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) shows up twice on the list, and indeed is the second most edited topic of all time, right after George W. Bush and before the United States.
Here are the 100 most edited English pages of the year:
Rank | Wikipedia article | Number of edits in 2016 |
---|---|---|
1 | deaths in 2016 | 18,230 |
2 | Donald Trump | 8,933 |
3 | list of Hillary Clinton presidential campaign endorsements | 6,527 |
4 | United States presidential election | 6,162 |
5 | Republican Party presidential primaries | 5,715 |
6 | 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting | 5,540 |
7 | Bailando 2015 | 5,342 |
8 | list of Donald Trump presidential campaign endorsements | 5,328 |
9 | 2016 in sports | 5,277 |
10 | 2016 in South Korean music | 5,074 |
11 | Beverly Gray | 4,957 |
12 | statewide opinion polling for the United States presidential election | 4,743 |
13 | Panama Papers | 4,659 |
14 | 2016 in Philippine television | 4,600 |
15 | 2016 Pacific typhoon season | 4,244 |
16 | 2016 Atlantic hurricane season | 3,874 |
17 | Democratic Party presidential primaries | 3,736 |
18 | Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice | 3,593 |
19 | The Life of Pablo | 3,574 |
20 | Vincent van Gogh | 3,551 |
21 | Donald Trump presidential campaign | 3,513 |
22 | United Kingdom European Union membership referendum | 3,433 |
23 | 2016 ATP Challenger Tour | 3,412 |
24 | Miss Universe 2016 | 3,358 |
25 | A.J. Styles | 3,357 |
26 | WrestleMania 32 | 3,307 |
27 | occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge | 3,289 |
28 | 2016 Nice attack | 3,262 |
29 | 2016 in film | 3,236 |
30 | Views | 3,168 |
31 | 2016 Pacific hurricane season | 2,848 |
32 | 2016 | 2,773 |
33 | El Coyote | 2,715 |
34 | Transformers: The Last Knight | 2,711 |
35 | list of 2016 albums | 2,703 |
36 | Manchán of Mohill | 2,702 |
37 | list of most viewed YouTube videos | 2,698 |
38 | Big Brother 18 | 2,691 |
39 | list of original programs distributed by Netflix | 2,603 |
40 | protests against Donald Trump | 2,592 |
41 | The Jungle Book | 2,582 |
42 | The Voice | 2,567 |
43 | 2016 in American television | 2,566 |
44 | list of WWE personnel | 2,559 |
45 | RuPaul’s Drag Race | 2,554 |
46 | athletics at the 2016 Summer Olympics – qualification | 2,508 |
47 | 2016 WTA Finals | 2,490 |
48 | Finding Dory | 2,472 |
49 | DC Extended Universe | 2,467 |
50 | 2016 Turkish coup d’état attempt | 2,464 |
51 | The Voice | 2,458 |
52 | RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars | 2,414 |
53 | Lonnie Mack | 2,351 |
54 | 2016 WTA Tour | 2,335 |
55 | 2016 ATP World Tour | 2,327 |
56 | Star Wars: The Force Awakens | 2,320 |
57 | Planet Nine | 2,318 |
58 | list of Autobots | 2,276 |
59 | X-Men: Apocalypse | 2,271 |
60 | American Idol | 2,258 |
61 | Deadpool | 2,257 |
62 | The X Factor | 2,252 |
63 | Forcade | 2,236 |
64 | nationwide opinion polling for the United States presidential election | 2,227 |
65 | Pokémon Go | 2,219 |
66 | America’s Got Talent | 2,216 |
67 | Zootopia | 2,202 |
68 | Jordan | 2,201 |
69 | Captain America: Civil War | 2,188 |
70 | 2016 Brussels bombings | 2,187 |
71 | political positions of Donald Trump | 2,185 |
72 | Great Britain at the 2016 Summer Olympics | 2,140 |
73 | Nuestra Belleza Latina 2016 | 2,138 |
74 | United States at the 2016 Summer Olympics | 2,120 |
75 | 2017 in sports | 2,118 |
76 | Muhammad Ali | 2,115 |
77 | Sausage Party | 2,112 |
78 | list of earthquakes in 2016 | 2,107 |
79 | Hillary Clinton | 2,082 |
80 | Independence Day: Resurgence | 2,081 |
81 | EgyptAir Flight 804 | 2,081 |
82 | newspaper endorsements in the United States presidential election | 2,072 |
83 | Dangerous Woman | 2,065 |
84 | list of current champions in WWE | 2,055 |
85 | The Revenant | 2,044 |
86 | Bailando 2016 | 2,019 |
87 | 2016 AFL season | 2,015 |
88 | Brexit | 2,014 |
89 | Big Brother Canada | 2,007 |
90 | Bigg Boss 10 | 1,997 |
91 | list of terrorist incidents | 1,983 |
92 | garage rock | 1,965 |
93 | Ghostbusters | 1,960 |
94 | list of American Horror Story characters | 1,958 |
95 | Edge | 1,957 |
96 | India at the 2016 Summer Olympics | 1,953 |
97 | list of Decepticons | 1,930 |
98 | Legalism | 1,929 |
99 | David Bowie | 1,928 |
100 | Twice | 1,924 |