# Have you vandalized Wikipedia? Tell us! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 13, 2007, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-vandalized-wikipedia-tell-us/429792 "2007-12-13T00:48:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CaerieD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@CaerieD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaerieD)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-vandalized-wikipedia-tell-us/429792/41 "2007-12-14T03:09:16Z")
I’m always the one fixing articles on Wikipedia, rather than vandalizing. Some of them are very clever and some are just stupid and random. The really random ones are my favorites, though. Such as this one I found tonight: [QUOTE=Wikipedia article on Jack Daniel’s] In 1984, a rockstar named Ray, now a homeless drifter in Albuquerque, New Mexico, downed an entire bottle of Jack Daniel’s before a gig after saying, “fuck it…” Unfortunately for Ray, during the show, his intoxication caused him to mess up his lyrics. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![NajaNivea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/22d042/32.png) [@NajaNivea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NajaNivea)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-vandalized-wikipedia-tell-us/429792/42 "2007-12-14T05:51:34Z")
[QUOTE=GuanoLad] Usually random acts of vandalism are there just to see how long they will be around before they’re corrected. The ones who restore bad information (or badly written, or uncited) are those who actually believe the stuff they’re adding is worthy of the article. [/QUOTE] I meant Wiki rejecting my edit–somehow I thought one post mentioned that there was a proper process to editing Wiki articles, and that not following protocol means the edits get reversed. I may have been hallucinating that entire concept. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Sensitive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58956e/32.png) [@Darth\_Sensitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Sensitive)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-vandalized-wikipedia-tell-us/429792/43 "2007-12-14T06:59:32Z")
I think I may have told the world that the population of elephants has tripled. And once replaced a widely templated image with something completely unrelated. :o But I generally do wiki-gnomic stuff as an anon. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-vandalized-wikipedia-tell-us/429792/44 "2007-12-14T17:28:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Check out MEBuckner’s link above. The problem isn’t with the ‘purity’ of the addition, it’s with the verifiability. If Linnaeus actually did name the flower after the female pudenda, I’m sure there’s some sort of documentation on that, beyond your memories of hiking through the countryside. > > Wikipedia editors just aren’t as patient as Dopers are: they deal with so much original research that they revert rather than request a cite. Go put your factoid back in the article, and add a soure for it. I’m sure it won’t be reverted. But some of the termites get too obsessive about this. I once corrected a minor error about what color a bridge was. Somebody posted I needed a cite. I explained that I lived a mile away from the bridge and could see what color it was. So they reverted my correction because it was “original research”. I asked if it would be acceptable for me to start a website called _“What Color the Bridge in My Town Is”_ and then cite my own website as an authority. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2007, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-vandalized-wikipedia-tell-us/429792/45 "2007-12-14T17:42:22Z")
I’ve inserted “black research” into several Wikipages on subjects that are dear to me. What do I mean by “black research”? Not my original factfinding, but useful and interesting stuff from sources like SDMB or other web boards that’s not likely ever to be referenced in “acceptable” form. Maybe some of it will turn out to be erroneous or even folklore, but I only spread info from posters whose expertise and knowledgeability I trust. If it doesn’t pan out, I take it down. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-vandalized-wikipedia-tell-us/429792.md?page=2)