Wikipedia Vandalism Done Right

I think everybody should, at least once, try their hand at Wikipedia vandalism.  It is juvenile, but can be fun.  I think as long as you don’t go absolutely nuts, you can get away with it quite awhile before your IP address is banned from editing.  First of all, be at least somewhat clever with it.  Don’t just fill a page with profanities or something like that.  It’s very bad form. 

The object of the game is to get your revisions to last as long as possible.  The best way to do this is to modify obscure entries or make small, almost hidden changes.  I’ve put together a guide below to give you some ideas.

·         The screen shot change.  This one is only good for seconds before someone in Wikipedia land fixes it.  It is usually targeted to send to a particular person.  It is also the most juvenile entry on this list and the likeliest to get you banned.  The idea is to change an entire page, quickly capture a screenshot, and email it to your target.  If you take longer than a minute, your change will be removed.  An example would be taking the Tennessee Volunteers article and replacing the entire contents with “ARE GAY” in big orange letters.  Grab the screen print and email to your annoying Vol fan friend with a snarky statement about always suspecting something like this.

·         The Mad Lib revision.  Remember Mad Libs?  Those books where you filled in missing words in the story to make it funny.  As a child, we generally just used words like stinky, pee, poop, fart, gross, and booger over and over again to hilarious effect.  As adults, we can add adjectives to Wikipedia entries.  Just take an existing article and fill it up with almost correct sounding adjectives.  So, an excerpt from the article on Ben Franklin goes from:

Franklin, always proud of his working class roots, became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies. He was also partners with William Goddard and Joseph Galloway the three of whom published the Pennsylvania Chronical, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British monarchy in the American colonies.

To this:

Rotund Franklin, always proud of his upper working class roots, became a dirty newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the foulest city in the colonies. He was also sexual partners with William Goddard and Joseph Galloway the three of whom published the Pennsylvania F’in Chronical, a satirical newspaper that was known for its sadism and revolutionary sentiments and false criticisms of the swishy British monarchy in the whisky drinking American colonies.

·         Source revision.  This one is pretty limited in scope, but it is designed to last a long time.  I mean who ever checks the sources at the bottom of the page?  Although if someone did, they may be surprised to find that some of the information of the article came from such scholarly works as “Completely Made This Part Up”, “My Butt”, “Work of Pure Fiction” or “What the Hell Are You Doing Reading the Source List, Poindexter?”

·         Might be true revision.  The amount of time this one lasts before being removed is mainly dependent on the obscurity of the article.  If the article is a well known, often accessed subject, your change probably won’t live for a long time.  The strategy here is to add a sentence containing a fact that might be true.  You get bonus points if you footnote it to a source you made up (see last bullet point).  Here is an example from the entry on “New Coke.”  The bolded sentence was added.

The results of the taste tests were strong — the sweeter mixture overwhelmingly beat both regular Coke and Pepsi. Then tasters were asked if they would buy and drink it if it were Coca-Cola. Most said yes, they would, although it would take some getting used to. A small minority, about 10-12%, felt angry and alienated at the very thought, saying that they might stop drinking Coke altogether.  Further, 2% rejected the taste of the new formula, because they claimed that they could no longer taste the cocaine, the amount of which had been significantly reduced in the new mixture.

·         Notable Alumni.  This is one of my favorites.  Pretty much every college and a lot of high schools have a Notable Alumni section.  Just add your friends and coworkers to the listings for the schools they attended.  If it fits the existing template for the page, put their job title.   So between Nobel winners, Hollywood celebrities, and powerful CEOs, you come across “Ted McLaughlin, Director Regional Sales.”  These entries tend to last a really long time before a Wikipedia editor get annoyed enough to remove them.

·         Semi Famous people with the same name as someone you know.  For example, Mark Adler is a member of the Canadian House of Commons.  But it would be perfectly correct to add a section to his article to cover the fact that Mark Adler could also refer to another guy who attended the University of Georgia in 1995.  He used to enjoy getting drunk on the porch of his frat house and chasing after joggers that passed by on the sidewalk.