Indianapolis man is first to make 1 million Wikipedia edits
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An Indianapolis man who is one of Wikipedia’s crew of volunteer editors has become the first to edit the online encyclopedia a million times - averaging 385 edits per day since he began in 2005.
Justin Knapp, 30, has edited pieces about politics, philosophy and pop culture.
“Being suddenly and involuntarily unemployed will do that to you,” the Daily Mail quoted Knapp, who has degrees in philosophy and political science, as saying.
Knapp’s millionth edit was flagged by Wikipedia chief Jimmy Wales.
“To you and all who commented it’s more than mildly embarrassing, but very sweet of you,” Knapp said.
The online encyclopedia used to be open to edits by anyone, but is now edited by a crew of around 90,000 volunteer editors who remain signed in, so they are ‘accountable’ for their edits.
Knapp’s closest rival is Neil Edwards from Wales, in the UK, who has more than 600,000 edits.
Knapp’s achievement comes as it was revealed that up to 60 per cent of corporate Wikipedia entries contain factual errors.
According to new research, up to six in ten articles on Wikipedia contain inaccuracies.
Companies complain that contacting Wikipedia editors is often nearly impossible.
Once a mistake had been spotted, getting it sorted posed further difficulties - one in four complaints to Wikipedia never received any type of response.
Others said it took ‘weeks’ to get an answer although Wikipedia itself claims all requests for corrections are dealt with between two and five days.
A study into, specifically, company information on the massively popular website discovered 60 per cent of articles had factual errors.
The number of factual errors shows just how unreliable it can be to use the online resource as a sole means of digging up information.
Yet millions base everything from school homework to corporate presentations using facts and figures they have gleaned from the site.
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