'Revealed', the single largest self-promotion operation in Wikipedia's history

An investigation into Wikipedia 's most-translated articles has revealed what appears to be a self-orchestrated promotion campaign by one individual, a composer named David Woodard . For a time, Woodard's Wikipedia entry had more language translations than any other article on the site, including those for countries like Turkey and the United States. His entry had 335 language translations, surpassing Turkey (332), the US (327), and Japan (324). This put him ahead of commonly searched terms like "dog" and "Jesus."

A Wikipedia editor named "Grnrchst," investigated and discovered that over a decade, hundreds of accounts and IPs inserted Woodard’s name into articles, created pages about him in over 90 languages, and spread references across the site. However, Wikipedia has since removed more than 300 articles and banned numerous accounts. About 20 articles remain, with the English one not mentioning the controversy.

The composer, who is known for his "prequiem" written for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and his interest in a defunct Aryan colony in Paraguay, had a significant digital footprint that confused online communities. According to a report by Ars Technica, questions arose on sites like Reddit, with users wondering about his prominence and how he achieved such a ranking on the platform.

What makes this operation unique

Woodard's Wikipedia Page : For a brief period, David Woodard's page was the article on Wikipedia with the most language translations. It had entries in 335 different languages, exceeding the number of languages for entire countries like Turkey (332 languages), the US (327 languages), and Japan (324 languages).

Comparison to Other Popular Entries: His article also had more language translations than several other popular entries, including:

• Dog (275 languages)
  
• Jesus (274 languages)
  
• Cat (273 languages)
  
• Adolf Hitler (242 languages)
  

The Rise and Fall: A few months ago, his entry did not have the position at the very top. The rapid increase in his article's translations led many to suspect a self-promotion campaign , possibly aided by automated or AI tools.