Those who edit Wikipedia are the quickest to announce the news of the deaths of all personality types. We’ve seen this many times: the death of the queen of England Elizabeth II it can be said that it is one of the latest cases.
While some turn to social networks like Twitter and others to official channels like the BBC for the latest on Balmoral Castle, others use Wikipedia as a method of information. The platform editor only takes a few minutes to change the verb ‘is’ to ‘is’ and in placing date of death from the king.
Annie Rauwerda, creator of Depths of Wikipedia, the Twitter account that talks about what is behind the famous Internet encyclopedia, explains in the thread what happened last Thursday. As if it was a press piece, users commented that editors were debating what image to use, how to write her Elizabeth II entry on Wikipedia after her death and what name to give to what was then Prince Charles, whose name as king he was. unknown.
lots of memes about the quick wikipedia editor — a short thread about what happened on wikipedia a few minutes after his death was announced pic.twitter.com/raKcdWiP4W
— wikipedia depth (@wikidepth) September 9, 2022
What goes on behind the modified Elizabeth II page on Wikipedia defined as “quite interesting”. “Once someone dies, Wikipedia usually uses a good historical photo rather than a recent photo of an old man,” explains Rauwerda.
The Wikipedia editor who started the conversation to select the ideal image clarified that it might be “a little early to discuss” the topic, but he considered that they could go ahead and think before the announcement of “a suitable image for use in the information box”.
‘London Bridge Wiki Project’
Rauwerda talks about the Wikipedia project which is analogous to Operation London Bridge aimed at the death of the Queen of England. In total, six members started to create a new entry titled ‘Death of Elizabeth II’ and ‘Reaction to the death of Elizabeth II’.
The editors even debated whether these pages should be merged or not, and ended up choosing to be separate entries. It should be noted that all this work was done selflessly: “Everyone is doing this for freeThey just think it’s fun and important.”
In addition, Carlos III would soon become king of England, but his proclamation would not take place until a few days later. For this reason, the name to be given is still unknown and the editor must choose between calling it Carlos III or ‘Carlos, king of England’.
The creators of Depths of Wikipedia wanted to show the work behind the platform through Thursday’s event in particular: “I think it shows that, in high-pressure situations, Wikipedia’s standards still produce relatively accurate results. To me, this is very inspiring, See how Internet works together”.
The user explained that Wikipedia usually feels like you are on a deserted islandbut today’s major events allow him to embody the “big community of people” behind the network’s large encyclopedia edition.
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