# Was this Wikipedia page hacked? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 4, 2020, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104 "2020-05-04T03:20:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/1 "2020-05-04T03:20:31Z")
Here is the Wikipedia page for the 1992 Republican Convention. This is not a political thread. > **[1992 Republican National Convention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Republican_National_Convention?wprov=sfti1)** > > The 1992 Republican National Convention was held in the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, from August 17 to August 20, 1992. The convention nominated President George H. W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle for reelection. It was Bush's fourth consecutive appearance as a candidate on a major party ticket; only Bush and Franklin D. Roosevelt have been nominated on four consecutive presidential tickets. Richard Nixon and Roosevelt were nominated five times, but not consecutively. > The two finalist ... The first part of the page is exactly what I would expect. But then it goes off on a bizarre tangent around the 6th paragraph. The person giving the Pledge of Allegiance wouldn’t normally be mentioned as that is complete trivia unless something controversial happened. But then there’s a long paragraph with way too many details about the food vendors. Anyone who was at the 1992 Republican convention is probably at least 50 years old today, are they still carrying a grudge about an overpriced hot dog? Normally, I’d expect more details about speakers at the convention, controversial platform issues and the like. If I read an article about the 1992 World Series, I wouldn’t expect in depth details about such trivia as the concessions. Can anyone who’s good with Wikipedia see if this is someone’s idea of a joke? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/2 "2020-05-04T04:32:05Z")
Looking at the page history, that stuff has likely been there for a couple years at minimum and probably a few years longer. I’m not going to look at every change made, but pretty much all of them since 2018 have been small edits in terms of net change in character count, so it’s unlikely lots of text was added. Well, it could have been added if they removed a similar amount of text at the same time. I’m not sure it counts as vandalism anyway but rather unnecessary detail. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/3 "2020-05-04T11:30:36Z")
The edits you’re asking about were made by WhisperToMe on February 6, 2012. Nobody since then has taken exception to the material. It’s irrelevant to speak of Wikipedia being “hacked.” Its source code is wide open. It gets vandalized and then it gets unvandalized. Nobody else seems to think those edits were vandalism. Wikipedia editors are told to [assume good faith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/4 "2020-05-04T13:15:23Z")
And even when changes get made that shouldn’t be, they only get reverted when someone notices and cares. The whole reason why that digression is irrelevant is the same reason why it’s still there: Because very few people any more care about the 1992 Republican National Convention. But, apparently you do care. So you can put in a notation that the food vendors are not notable, and ask in the discussion page if there’s a reason for that to be there. If nobody says otherwise, you can take that part out. Or maybe start an edit war with the person who got ripped off over a hot dog, with casualties numbered in the single digits. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/5 "2020-05-04T14:44:08Z")
You can search on the text and see that it’s already spread across the internet, so the information will never disappear. Except for the newspaper website in the citation, that doesn’t produce the original article, if it ever existed. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/6 "2020-05-04T14:47:22Z")
That’d be a problem if the information were actually _bad_. But the complaint here seems to just be that it’s irrelevant for Wikipedia. Presumably, the OP doesn’t have any problem with, say, someone complaining on a blog about the food vendors at the '92 convention. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/7 "2020-05-05T06:20:21Z")
If you think it’s irrelevant, just edit it out yourself. If someone else cares, they’ll come and revert it. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/8 "2020-05-05T12:33:04Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > If you think it’s irrelevant, just edit it out yourself. If someone else cares, they’ll come and revert it. Agreed. Just _hack_ into it by clicking the “Edit” button in the top right corner and you can make all the changes you like. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/9 "2020-05-06T20:08:13Z")
> [@bear\_nenno](#): > > agreed. Just _hack_ into it by clicking the “edit” button in the top right corner and you can make all the changes you like. 😃 Good one, LOL 😃 ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2020, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/10 "2020-05-06T22:27:51Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > Can anyone who’s good with Wikipedia see if this is someone’s idea of a joke? Just in case it wasn’t made clear, anybody can edit any Wikipedia page (although I believe there is a rule against editing a page if the page is about you). So “hack” isn’t really a concept in Wikipedia. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/11 "2020-05-07T15:54:03Z")
This is probably IMHO stuff, but if I do extensively edit the page and take out the food nonsense, is it considered acceptable for me to basically take a high school student approach to my research? I’d basically be using the definite book on the 1992 election as well as what I can find online from the news magazines, NYT/WaPo and whatever convention footage has made it to YouTube. I don’t have access to an academic library. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/12 "2020-05-07T16:54:18Z")
There are plenty of articles on Wikipedia on topics for which there is no academic research. And I’m not sure what better source there could be than archives of the relevant newspapers (probably also including the local paper of whatever city it was held in). ---
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/13 "2020-05-07T17:16:52Z")
Okay, I removed it. Anyone can revert my edit if they feel those were important enough details to include. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/14 "2020-05-07T17:33:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The whole reason why that digression is irrelevant is the same reason why it’s still there: Because very few people any more care about the 1992 Republican National Convention. One thing I’m always baffled by is not the number of articles that are there on wikipedia, but how _many times_ an article on the 1992 RNC, for example, has been edited in the just the [past few years](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1992_Republican_National_Convention&action=history). ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/15 "2020-05-07T19:56:17Z")
Yeah, but lately how many of those are automated routine housekeeping edits by bots? Those are always on the rise. **Jet Jaguar** used the right Wikipedia buzz-concept (the actual buzzword is “not notable”) for removal of sourced content. Calling it “not noteworthy” is synonymous and will suffice. If you have a published book on the subject, just cite that, using the book cite wizard, and your edit will stand the tests of time and peer editor review. Be sure to include the accurate ISBN and all other bibliographic data, most or all of which can be found on the reverse side of the title page. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2020, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/16 "2020-05-07T20:26:36Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > This is probably IMHO stuff, but if I do extensively edit the page and take out the food nonsense, is it considered acceptable for me to basically take a high school student approach to my research? I’d basically be using the definite book on the 1992 election as well as what I can find online from the news magazines, NYT/WaPo and whatever convention footage has made it to YouTube. I don’t have access to an academic library. Honestly, that’s probably more work than most would put in. You’re fine. Wikipedia is largely a work of incrementalism. Your edit doesn’t have to be the seminal work on the topic, just make the article better in some small way. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/17 "2020-05-08T15:49:58Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Yeah, but lately how many of those are automated routine housekeeping edits by bots? Those are always on the rise. No idea. I’m not in the wikipedia community, and frankly I don’t know how I’d recognize housecleaning by bots, or even what kind of ‘housekeeping’ they do. I haven’t clicked through the diffs for the various changes, but I imagine they’re all someone minor. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/18 "2020-05-08T17:28:05Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > One thing I’m always baffled by is not the number of articles that are there on wikipedia, but how _many times_ an article on the 1992 RNC, for example, has been edited in the just the [past few years](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1992_Republican_National_Convention&action=history). 1992 was the last time a Republican President was defeated and held to one term, so there’s probably additional interest in it over the last few years. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/19 "2020-05-08T17:47:49Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Honestly, that’s probably more work than most would put in. You’re fine. > > Wikipedia is largely a work of incrementalism. Your edit doesn’t have to be the seminal work on the topic, just make the article better in some small way. But do take small bites, and be prepared for rejection. A few weeks back, I spent a couple of hours completing an article in (English) Wikipedia about a well-known Québec topic, based in large part on the French page about the same topic, and my edit was reverted in a few minutes by a human editor because I didn’t include any cites. It is, apparently, better to have a skeletal entry that only mentions a few trivial (but well-cited!) events, without context or connections between them, even if it means skipping most of the 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104/20 "2020-05-08T20:49:06Z")
Couldn’t you cite the same sources as the French-language page? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-this-wikipedia-page-hacked/853104.md?page=2)