Name: Olga Paraskevopoulou & Ilektra Pavlaki Student Numbers: 6248217 & 6247156 Course: Digital Methods for

Internet Research, Universiteit van Amsterdam Final Assignment Supervisors: Prof. dr. Richard Rogers, Eric Borra, Michael Dieter Date: 23/12/2010 Email addresses: olga.skp@gmail.com / elektrapav@yahoo.gr

Identifying authorship driving forces in Wikipedia: the case of the Gulf Oil Spill incident within the BP entry
Wikipedia, founded in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, nowadays constitutes the largest free, collaboratively authored encyclopedia in the world, surpassing the 600-year-old Chinese Yongle Encyclopedia, known as the largest collection of general knowledge ever compiled1. Based on the wiki software, the interaction of million users around the globe and its multilingual platform, Wikipedia has been growing exponentially in popularity and is currently holding the 7th place in the world2, counting over 3.4 million articles in the English edition3. The researchers interest in Wikipedia stemmed from an earlier report that they conducted, in which they investigated how societal controversies over sensitive issues are reflected in Wikipedia, through the exploration of its articles history. In this first report, the

TIME (2009) Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? Available at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1924492,00.html 2 Alexa, The Web Information Company (2010), Site Info: Wikipedia.org, Available at: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org# 3 Wikipedia,The Free Encyclopedia (2010), Article: Wikipedia. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

researchers selected as a case study the Wikipedia entry of the global oil and gas company BP p.l.c. More explicitly, they reviewed part of its editing history, in order to examine how the editors dealt with the controversial issue of the Deepwater Horizon Spill in the Gulf of Mexico and to study whether and to what extent the neutral point of view was preserved during the given time period. The process and findings intrigued the researchers to examine more thoroughly the editing behavior, the quality of content and user hierarchies within the specific section of the BP entry. Thus, the present report will pursue to identify the authors of the specific Wikipedia entry, as well as the user group that protected the quality of content during the examined period.

Authorship, Content, Quality Preservation: Who is behind? Wikipedia isnt as shocking as you think. In fact, its just like any other project: a small group of colleagues working together toward a common goal4 Jimmy Wales

Before Wikipedia, nobody would have believed that an anonymous band of strangers could create something so useful.5 Farhad Manjoo TIME.COM

One of the most common debates over the phenomenon Wikipedia stems from its own slogan: the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit6. Who is included in that anyone statement after all? Is it utopian to talk about openness of Wikipedia? And if the case is that anyone can edit, should someone trust what is written on its digital pages? In short, does Wikipedia have such high quality content to deserve the suffix pedia? The answers given by researchers, theorists, writers, academics and bloggers vary. To its supporters, Wikipedia constitutes a valuable research and reference source, as well as an inspiring paradigm of what can be achieved by collaboration and by sharing of knowledge globally via the Internet. In their point of view, the editing system of Wikipedia is an example of online democracy, within which experts and amateurs manage to cooperate harmonically,
Wales cited in Schwartz, Raw Thought (2006), Who Writes Wikipedia? Available at: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia 5 TIME (2009) Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? Available at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1924492,00.html 6 Wikipedia,The Free Encyclopedia (2010), Wikipedia: Main Pages. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Pages
4

producing knowledge of high quality. Love after all, as Jimmy Wales stated, makes it possible for people to set aside a lot of personal differences and disputes of the kind and just compromise to keep getting the work done.7 Wikipedias detractors however have not only been questioning the scope and balance of quality of the content (Schneider - 2005)8, but also criticized it sharply for encouraging amateurism and drowning expertise. Moreover, the open-content nature of Wikipedia that entitles any user, expert or not, registered or anonymous, to contribute by adding or deleting content, has been frequently targeted for increasing the possibility of policies violations, vandalism attacks and addition of non encyclopedic content. Others not only have questioned the value of the anyone can edit philosophy, but describe it as an ideal that could never be materialized. As expected, competitors of Wikipedia were on the side of its detractors. Citizendium, an online wiki-based encyclopedia created by the co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, describes Wikipedias editing system as part anarchy, part mob rule9. At the same track, Jorge Cauz, the president of Britannica, stated that its a very difficult task to do an encyclopedia without having the ability to differentiate between experts and the general public10". The Executive Director of MITs Media Laboratory, Walter Bender, also favored Britannica over Wikipedia11, claiming in 2001 that the latter, like all free online encyclopedias, will never be able to reach the
Wales cited in Goodwin, J. Goodwin (2009). The Authority of Wikipedia, Department of English Iowa State University Ames 8 Schneider cited in Chesney, T. Chesney (2006). An empirical examination of Wikipedias credibility," First Monday, 11(11), November 9 Sanger cited in G. Ini, Camera (2008), How and Why to Edit Wikipedia, Available at: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=72&x_article=1485 10 Cauz cited in Hefner, New York Times (2006), Growing Wikipedia Refines Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy, Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki .html 11 Bender cited in Heim, Technology Review (2001), Free the Encyclopedias, Available at: http://www.techreview.com/web/12586/?a=f
7

former in scope and depth of editing. However, it must be noted that this statement was made in 2001, only a few months after Wikipedias launch, when its editing system (accounting to present date for over 3.5 million articles only in the English version) had not been fully developed. Through these controversies however, one could notice that both sides, supporters and detractors, are looking for the answer to the same question: Who is the primary author of Wikipedia? On a further analysis, this core issue leads to other significant questions: Can we trust the authors of Wikipedia? Are they (and their sources) reliable? Who ensures the quality of the content? Wikipedia, via its co-founder and promoter, Jimmy Wales, has given an answer on the question of authorship- and indeed a definite one: the author of Wikipedia is not the many. As Wales has repeatedly stated in his talks, the actual bulk of Wikipedia is being written by a small group of people12, who is familiar with its editing system and dedicated to the development and improvement of its content. Despite the common belief, Wales claimed that the majority of individual users just contribute minor changes or protect pages from vandalizing attempts. To prove his argument, he carried out a simple study (2005), counting the edits of the contributors. The results confirmed his theory since he found that over 50% of all the edits are done by just 7% of the users 524 people. And in fact the most active 2%, which is 1400 people, have done 73.4% of all the edits.13"

12

Wales cited in Schwartz, Raw Thought (2006), Who Writes Wikipedia? Available at: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia 13 Wales cited in Schwartz, Raw Thought (2006), Who Writes Wikipedia? Available at: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia

Wales striking statement was not taken for granted though. The activist, writer and web developer Aaron Swartz14, motivated by Wales theory, which became known as the Gang of 500, carried out further research and published the results in his article Who writes Wikipedia? However, instead of just counting edits, like Wales had done in his study, Swartz took also under consideration the factor of content addition, measured as the number of characters contributed in each edit. Swartz ran his survey in several randomly selected entries and concluded that the results generated via the two aforementioned methodologies, varied significantly. More explicitly, when edits were counted, a small number of registered users (with numerous contributions in the Wikipedia website in general) seemed to hold the top positions in terms of contribution, confirming Wales claims. When the focus was on content however, anonymous users appeared to have made more significant contributions than the registered ones. Thus, the research concluded that committed, heavy-editing Wikipedians may outbid anonymous users in number of edits, but the actual content is created by the latter. Swartz attributed the large number of contributions of registered users to their interest as insiders in ensuring the consistency of the articles and in retaining the high quality standards of Wikipedia in general. For that reason, most of their edits are devoted to formatting others contributions and to policies preservation. Swartz recognized the importance of these activities, but claimed that even if all the formatters quit the project tomorrow, Wikipedia would still be immensely valuable. Moreover, he underlined that Wikipedia should make the editing

14

Raw Thought (2006), Who Writes Wikipedia? Available at: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia

procedure more rewarding for anonymous users and its interface friendlier, in order to attract more contributors. Swartzs findings constituted the starting point for a new, more expanded research (the sample included over 58 million revisions from more than 4.7 million wiki pages). In their publication in 200715, Kittur, Chi, Pendleton, Suh and Mytkowicz attempted to find the editing force of Wikipedia. To achieve that, they carried out a comparative analysis of distribution of work among elite users, like administrators and heavy editors, and common users", using as metrics the number of edits and the change in content. The researchers found that even though both population and content of Wikipedia were growing exponentially, the percentage of edits published by elite users, as defined above, was decreasing. This shift was ascribed to the rise of novice masses (users with less than 100 edits), whose population, influence and number of edits appeared to rise significantly. However, the retrieved data showed (contrary to Swartzs results) that the more experienced the user, the more content is contributed, suggesting that common users did not contribute in the addition of new content as much as the administrators and heavy editors. Based on their findings, the researchers viewed Wikipedia as a dynamic social system, founded upon specific hierarchies and structures, which encourage the enlargement of bureaucracy. Finally, they stressed the importance of the shift of influence from elite users to novice masses and the impact it may have on Wikipedias future.

15

Kittur, A.; Chi, E. H.; Pendleton, B. A.; Suh, B. ; Mytkowicz, T. (2007, April 28 - May 3). Power of the few vs. wisdom of the crowd: Wikipedia and the rise of the bourgeoisie.Alt.CHI at CHI 2007; San Jose, CA.

Another study that examined this ongoing swift of influence and acknowledged the prominence of anonymous users as authors of Wikipedia was performed at Dartmouth College. In 2007, Denise Anthony, Sean W. Smith and Tim Williamson16 started a research in the French and Dutch versions of Wikipedia, focusing not on the quality of Wikipedias content in general, but explicitly on the quality of its contributors. For the purposes of this study, users were divided in Zealots and Good Samaritans, and then the two categories were compared in terms of contents quality level, measured quantitatively as the rate of each contributors content retained in the current version of the topic article. The first category (Zealots) included the registered users, who are considered to be deeply committed to the Wikipedian community, highly active in contribution, as well as adepts in the editing of Wikipedias articles. The category of Good Samaritans on the other hand, consisted of anonymous users, subdivided in those who had the expertise but made only few contributions to entries related to their field of interest and in the contributors who had high participation, but made less substantive changes. The results of the research surprisingly showed that while registered users were adding more content, anonymous users scored higher in the quality measurement. It was also found that quality among Wikipedia entries varied, with some being complete and adjusted to the encyclopedic standards and others being edited in an amateur style. An interesting aspect in the theory of Zealots and Good Samaritans was also the researchers attempt to associate content quality with users motivations. Based on previous studies, researchers claimed that the main reasons for which users get interested in contributing to Wikipedias entries are the low
16

Anthony, Smith, Williamson (2005 (Preliminary) 2007 (updated)). The Quality of Open Source Production: Zealots and Good Samaritans in the Case of Wikipedia, Department of Computer ScienceDartmouth College, Also available at:http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/reports/TR2007-606.pdf

cost of participation, the building of strong reputation and the commitment to the Wikipedia community. Despite its surprising findings, the theory and the validity of the results were questioned by John Timmer17 (science editor in the website Ars Technica), who characterized the methodology as problematic. Aaron Swartz was also skeptical, underlining the focus of the research on registration and number of edits and the usage of bizarre terminology and methodology18. It must be noted that all studies cited above tried to find the answer on the issue of authorship, focusing exclusively on the role of human agents. A different perspective was given though by Sabine Niederer and Jos van Dijck19, who shifted the focus from the human resources and studied Wikipedia as a sociotechnical system, defined by the complex interrelation of humans, automated technological tools and protocols. According to the researchers, without the latter (tools and protocols), content quality within Wikipedia articles could not be easily maintained, consensus editing could not be achieved and the cleaning-up of vandalisms would be much more difficult to manage. Thus, its in this technomanagerial system where Niederer and van Dijck see the reason for Wikipedias success and vitality. As they mention without the implementation of this strict hierarchical content management system, Wikipedia would most likely have become a chaotic experiment. In addition to these, the researchers concluded that Wikipedia is co-authored by bots.
17

Ars Technica (2007), Anonymous "good samaritans" produce Wikipedia's best content, says study, Available at: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/10/anonymous-good-samaritans-may-produce-wikipedias-best-content.ars 18 Raw Thought (2006), Who Writes Wikipedia? Available at: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia 19 S. Niederer and J. van Dijck (2009). "The case of Wikipedia: Wisdom of the crowd or technicity of content?" unpublished ms.

The results generated by the aforementioned researches fed the debate and intrigued journalists, writers and bloggers to join the discussion. Some criticized the decision-making platform, identifying anonymity with irresponsibility and non-registered users with mobs (A. Charles Muller20, 2010; Jaron Lanier21, 2010), while others viewed Wikipedia as a successful outcome of collaborative production. Clay Shirky for instance refers to it as perhaps the most famous example of distributed collaboration today22. Overall, many different approaches have been attempted on the effort to find the editing force of Wikipedia and to assess the value of the added content. The question is: How Wikipedia responds to all these critiques? How Wikipedia shields itself: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and an online community at the same time, since it is totally dependent on the contributors motivation to add content or create new entries. Due to this twofold nature, Wikipedia has constantly to secure the quality of its articles but also to enhance editors interest. To achieve that and to protect itself from criticisms over the quality and reliability of the articles, Wikipedia has built a complex system of hierarchy and restrictions. At the same time, it develops new tools that aim to strengthen the community bonds, but also to attract new contributors. Looking more closely at the hierarchy of Wikipedia, it becomes apparent that the anyone can edit motto in some cases could be replaced by the anyone can edit, but under
20

Acmuller.net (2010), Wikipedia and the Matter of Accountability, Available at: http://www.acmuller.net/wikipedia.html 21 Jaron Lanier (2010). You are not a Gadget: A Manifesto, New York: Alfred A. Knopf 22 Shirky C (2008) Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. New York: Penguin

certain conditions. In fact, users are divided in categories with different permission levels. More explicitly, as Sabine Niederer and Jos van Dijck report, blocked users have the least permissions, for they can only edit their own talk page; anonymous users have fewer permissions than registered users, who, in turn, are at a lower level of permission than bots; bots are just below administrators (admins), who occupy the highest level in the elaborate Wikipedia bureaucracy; system administrators (or developers) have the most permissions, including server access23. Thus, it can be concluded that Wikipedia not only is not ran by anarchy as it has frequently been criticized, but is strictly organized. The question that emerges though is whether this hierarchical order affects the editing procedure. In a case of conflict for example, does an edit made by an anonymous contributor have the same chances with one made by a registered user to survive? Who decides which entries will be deleted? The researchers in the present report examined these issues in the BP Wikipedia entry and concluded that hierarchy plays a definitive role on the content addition procedure. They also observed that most disputes were resolved by registered users and specifically by heavy editing editors or administrators. After their interference, in most cases the disputes were given an end. More examples will be documented in the Results section. In addition to the development of a hierarchical system, Wikipedia responds to the critiques, by creating tools that protect the quality of the articles but also engage its readers active participation. The most recent example is the development of the Article Feedback Tool in September 2010.
23

S. Niederer and J. van Dijck (2009). "The case of Wikipedia: Wisdom of the crowd or technicity of content?" unpublished ms.

Wikimedias Public Policy Initiative team introduced the Article Feedback Tool (currently being on a test-run till December and available only for the most trafficked articles within WikiProject United States Public Policy) in order to allow users to submit ratings on articles. More precisely, the users are invited to give feedback on sourcing, completeness, neutrality and readability of the Wikipedia entries. Non- surprisingly, the questions that rise with the prospect of deployment of such a rating system are plenty: is it going to contribute to the improvement of Wikipedias articles quality or will it enhance subjectivity? Do the readers actually have the ability, the knowledge or the expertise to assess encyclopedic content? What would happen if bad-intentioned users tried to take advantage of their assessment power to promote own interests? Wikimedia Foundation claims that the new tool will prove useful to both readers and editors, since it's a way to increase reader engagement at a very basic level by gathering feedback from readers on what they think [...] and at the same time, it provides Wikipedia editors another easy way to see which articles might need improvement24. The team that created the tool though didnt rule out the possibility of abuse, either by users attempting to game the system or by readers who would give low rating to high-quality articles, driven by their own inexperience or ignorance25. Regardless the critiques however, both the deployment of such tools and the building of an organizational system, show that the answer to the question Who is the author of

24

Pantages, communications officer of the Wikimedia Foundation, cited in M. Melanson, ReadWriteWeb (2010), Wikipedia Introduces Article Feedback Tool, Available at: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikipedia_introduces_article_feedback_tool.php 25 Wikipedia,The Free Encyclopedia (2010), Wikipedia: SignPost, Experiments with Article Assessment, Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-09-13/Public_Policy_Initiative

Wikipedia? is of crucial importance for Wikipedia itself, since it has to adjust its design on the needs of the existing authors but also to update it so that it attracts more contributors. The Research Question: Having studied the positive and negative opinions over Wikipedias editing system, as well as the methods that Wikipedia has evolved to shield itself, the researchers were intrigued to investigate what happens in the case of a controversial issue. Who is the author and who protects the quality of the content? In this context the present report explored the editing history of the global oil and gas company BP p.l.c Wikipedia entry from the 21st of April to 31st of May 2010, in order to investigate how Wikipedians dealt with the controversial issue of the Deepwater Horizon Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. More explicitly, researchers focused on the revision history of the specific entry to identify the authors and to measure the quality of content, examining two main issues: a. How and to what extent is the quality preserved during the given time period? To answer this question, researchers studied the neutrality and substantiality of contributions, the type of edits that users contributed, as well as the life span of vandalism attacks. b. Who are the quality guards? Researchers observed the user pages, the number of edits and the editing behavior of administrators, registered users and anonymous authors and compared their interest in contribution during this critical period, as well as their level of vigilance. Bots were also included in the exploration of the latter. Methodology: For the completion of this particular case study, the term BP was searched in the English version of Wikipedia, in order to examine the editing history of the entry for a

specific time period, as seen through the View History page. The selection of the specific Wikipedia entry is based on the same criteria as explained in an earlier report carried out by the researchers26. Those criteria were defined as follows: Criticism for article spinning: BP (previously BP Amoco) has been criticized in the past for attempting to change its Wikipedia entry, in order to reflect a more positive public image. According to Chicagoist, the Wikipedia Scanner revealed that on August 23, 2007 a computer at the IP address 63.84.4.0 registered to BP Amoco27 and added a corporations announcement to the entry. While it was never proved that this was a coordinated move, the researchers took it into consideration as an indication of social controversy via Wikipedia. Article marked as semi - protected: The current version of BPs Wikipedia entry is marked as semi protected, preventing edits from anonymous users (IP addresses), as well as edits from any account that is not auto-confirmed (is at least four days old and has ten or more edits to Wikipedia) or confirmed28. However, the semi-protection blocking mechanism has been added and removed more than once during the researched time period. The examination of the semi-protection mechanism in the entry of BP is crucial for the following reasons: a. such protection is deployed in pages that are subject to significant vandalism or violations of content policy. Thus, the researchers were interested in investigating how and to what extent the neutrality of content was maintained before and after the implementation of the mechanism b. The mechanism imposes the blocking of anonymous users. However, as reported in the Results, they appeared to have significant content contribution, since
26 27

See Exploring the History of a Wikipedia Article: the case of bp entry, conducted on 11th of December, 2010 Chicagoist (2007), BPs Wikiality. Available at: http://chicagoist.com/2007/08/28/bps_wikiality.php 28 Wikipedia,The Free Encyclopedia (2010), Wikipedia: Protection Policy. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protection_policy#semi

they were found to be the ones that contributed most in terms of content addition, throughout the examined period. Corporations controversial image: BP has tried over the years to promote an environmental-friendly and more human-centered profile. However, its involvement with a number of environmental controversies and especially with the Deepwater Horizon Spill has raised harsh criticism. Thus, the present report seeks to examine whether the social controversies concerning BPs activities are also reflected to its Wikipedia entry. To these parameters, it must be added that the corporations Wikipedia entry was selected over the Deepwater Horizon Spill entry, since the researchers aim was to study the impact of a specific incident on the corporation as a whole, as seen through the Wikipedians reaction. Moreover, the researchers assumed that it would be much more likely for vandalism attacks to occur in the Deepwater Horizon Spill entry, due to the specificity of its content. As far as the research method is concerned, the researchers explored how BPs Wikipedia history was developed from the 21st of April, 2010 when the first edit after the explosion on BPs Deepwater Horizon oil rig (20th of April) was introduced, until the end of May, which appeared to be the month with the most contributions and controversies in the whole history of BPs Wikipedia entry. More explicitly, the revisions for the given time period (as provided through the difference between revisions option in the history page of BPs Wikipedia entry) were examined one by one. Out of those, edits considered to be related to the Gulfs Oil Spill incident and to the research claim were further analyzed; the edits that were selected were made in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill section of the BP entry or were edits that affected how the companys general

information was communicated to the public (i.e. image, logo, slogan, the introduction of page). Thus, other edits concerning BPs history, previous incidents and information, non-related to the Oil Spill, were excluded. After the selection of edits was completed, researchers compiled a list of all users that were involved in the editing history. For the purposes of our investigation, users were categorized by number of edits and the type of edit that they contributed (content, reverts, vandalisms, minor changes). Also, users were examined one-by-one to gain insight into their editing behavior and experience on Wikipedia. For the purposes of this research, the View History page of BPs Wikipedia entry was selected over the History Flow Visualization Application, for the following reasons: Edits limitation: The Application generates results only for 100 edits. However, the contributions made throughout the selected time period (20th of April 31st of May) overbid that number. Randomness of results: The Application doesnt generate results for specific time periods, but only random results. Thus, it wouldnt provide valuable results for the purposes of this report. However, in order to conduct the present research, the Wikipedia Edits Scraper and IP Localizer tools were used, in order to retrieve the revision history results. It must be noted that the results retrieved were not found to be consistent and did not provide all the information needed to support our investigation. Thus, the researchers reviewed and cross-checked one-byone all revisions in the Wikipedia history page. The tool was used however, to count the amount of total edits that were made in the time frame that was under examination. In addition to these, the researchers applied Wikipedias tool server and more precisely,

the SUL account status, to count the number of total edits per user. The general statistics page was also used to review the entry as a whole and to get a list of the top 50 editors. Finally, the What is your IP address website was used to get the location and Post code of every IP address.

Results and Discussion Points: Before moving on to the results, it must be noted that the present report constitutes an exploratory study of BPs Wikipedia history page focused on a very specific incident and reviewed edits that were made only in the context of this incident within a very limited time frame. Thus, one should not generalize from this effort to the larger body of BPs Wikipedia entry. It should also be mentioned that this examination was conducted almost without the assistance of any digital tool. Most of the research was conducted manually on the basis of the results retrieved by the history page of Wikipedia. A more extensive and in depth analysis of the results would require a sample taken for a longer period of time (i.e. from 21st of April to September 17th when the well was publicly disclosed as effectively dead) and a more systematic cross-analysis of those results. Moreover, the use of digital tools and statistics software (i.e. SPSS) is required in order for the researchers to scan the review history in a more consistent and automated way that could lead to a further investigation of the interrelations within revisions on the one hand and within BPs entry and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill entry on the other. This research would be therefore automated in many ways and would enable a broader examination and categorization of the results. Nevertheless, researchers believe that through this particular report, a set of issues is identified, providing the basis for future research and analysis that would be supported by digital tools.

The results generated from the previous study ran by the researchers on the history of BPs Wikipedia entry, constituted the starting point for the present report and intrigued the researchers to expand the time frame of the investigation. Thus, they had the opportunity to study more thoroughly the editing behavior of Wikipedians in the specific entry and to proceed further in the examination of issues of authorship, content addition, preservation of quality, maintenance of neutrality and vigilance in cases of vandalism and inconsistency. Summarizing the results of the previous research (examining the period from 21st of April 21st to 20th of May), it was found that after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, BPs Wikipedia entry was subjected several times to vandal attacks (38 attempts of vandalism out of 88 edits examined). However, the neutrality of the content was successfully maintained thanks to the high level of vigilance, which could be described as human driven, since the presence of bots was small (4 bots appeared throughout the examined edits). Users on the other side were on alert, clearing up vandalisms and inconsistencies almost instantaneously (the maximum time that a vandalism attempt survived was 22 minutes, while most of them were erased within the next few minutes). In addition to these, researchers observed that most of the vandalisms were aiming in exposing disapproval to the activities of the corporation and environmental concerns. Thus, the vast majority of the attacks appeared in prominent places, such as the introduction of the entry, the image of BPs logo or the title of the section related to the oil spill incident. Through these findings, researchers concluded that the specific Wikipedia entry mirrored the societal controversy concerning the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill incident. Finally, comparing the current versions of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill entry and

the BP entry, researchers found that only the latter was marked as semi-protected. This finding surprised the researchers, since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill entry is listed among the most vandalized pages of Wikipedia. Coming to the results of the present report, in total 540 contributions were reviewed (selected with the aforementioned criteria), edited by 150 different registered and anonymous users. Out of the 150 editors, 80 were registered and 70 were listed with their IP addresses (See Appendix Table 4: Type of entries in relation to type of users). Out of the 80 registered users, 12 were found to be administrators of Wikipedia (See Appendix Table 5: Adinistrators). A high percentage of registered users (20) appeared to have excelled in Wikipedia editing, counting numerous edits and awards. Thus, they were considered as experts by the researchers (See Appendix Table 6: Users with expertise). In addition to these, it must be noted than only two anonymous users were listed among the top editors during the examined period. The rest were registered users, many of whom appeared also in the list of the Top 50 editors in the BP entry throughout the whole history of the article (as provided by the toolserver See Apendix: Table 7 &Table 8). The editors of BPs Wikipedia entry: Having completed the examination of the selected edits, the researchers were surprised to see that, despite the significant number of contributions, the growth of the article in terms of content was limited. In total, only 31 out of the 150 users made substantial changes in content (e.g. addition of words, citing references and links, change of headings etc) while most of them (54) contributed by reverting edits to the previous version, specifically in cases of vandalism, NPOV violation, non consistency of content with encyclopedic standards, unreliable sourcing etc. Moreover, a significant number of editors (42)

attempted to vandalize the page of BP, while the rest (23) dealt with minor changes, such as formatting, spelling, correction of references etc.(see Appendix: User details table (1) & Type of entries in relation to type of users (4)) The researchers speculate that the cause for the slow pace of development of the article is the following: A separate entry, dedicated exclusively to the incident, was created on the very same day that user Tuscumbia associated BPs Wikipedia entry to the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill (21st of April, 2010). For this reason, the Oil Spill section never constituted a prominent part of the corporations entry and many editors preferred to restrict the length of the section by redirecting information regarding the event and its consequences on the environment to the Deepwater horizon oil spill entry. Thus, the latter in its current version consists of 16.259 words. On the contrary, the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill section in the context of the corporate Wikipedia entry, (currently placed under the Environmental record section) accounts for 907 words and is comprised of two paragraphs, one related to the actual oil spill and the other referring to the financial damage inflicted on the company. Regarding the examined time period, the section was half the size of the one that appears in the current version. What astonished the researchers was the fact that an amount of 540 edits, made from 150 different users, resulted finally to a paragraph of 450 words. By further studying the edits that contributed in terms of content, the researchers came up with an interesting finding. Out of the 31 users that added content during the examined period, 20 belonged to the low participation categories (0-5 edits and 5 50 edits), where the presence of anonymous users prevails. Only one administrator appeared to have made content contribution, while heavy editors, in their vast majority registered users, mostly rephrased or deleted rather

than added content (See Appendix Table 3, users that added content & table 2, user categories per edit). Given these results, Swartzs claim that actual content is created mostly by the anonymous users was confirmed in the present report. However, this issue needs further research, on a larger scale of data and an extended time-frame. Vigilance: Wikipedia seen as a sociotechnical system through BPs entry: BPs Wikipedia entry was marked twice as semi-protected (on 4th and 27th of May, 2010- the protection template was removed both times) and flagged twice as NPOV (on 14th and 17th of May, 2010) throughout the researched period. The researchers previous finding that vigilance in the specific entry was human driven, was once more confirmed in this present report. The presence of bots remained small (9 bots appeared throughout the examined edits), while their contribution tailored mainly around minor changes or maintenance issues. Only one bot was found to have reverted a very obvious type of vandalism attack. On the other hand, users, both registered and anonymous appeared highly vigilant, reverting vandalisms, preserving the neutrality of the content, cross-checking sources and correcting inconsistencies. Thanks to their active participation, vandalisms were cleared up in a relatively short period of time: only one vandalism attempt managed to survive for 50 minutes. With most of the vandalisms being reverted within minutes, it should be speculated that editors were supported by automated monitoring tools, confirming the claims of Niederer and van Dijck for the development of a sociotechnical system within Wikipedia, based on the tight collaboration of humans and automated agents. Indeed, by examining the user pages of the registered contributors, researchers found that 11 editors were making use of automated and alert software and were members of relevant counter vandalism groups (such as Fire Team Alpha,

Recent Changes Patrollers etc). It must be noted however, that in several cases, anonymous users were the ones to first identify malicious content. Edit wars: Vandals Vs Wikipedians - The role of experienced editors. Throughout the examined period, several cases of edit wars were observed. By documenting hereby two early attempts to repeatedly vandalize the BP Wikipedia entry, the researchers would like to witness the way in which the neutrality of the article was actually maintained. In the cited cases, both registered and anonymous users fought back the vandalizing attempts. However, for a more drastic settlement against these consecutive vandalisms, an administrator finally interfered and flagged the page as semi-protected (that was the first semi-protection template applied to the page). Excerpts and information retrieved from the history revision, are documented below. User 68.147.229.227 was one of the first persistent violators in the BP entry. On the second day of the oil spill incident, the user vandalized the page five times in a row and continued doing so for another five times in the days that followed. In his attempt to vandalize, the user added the following text: The recent oil spill in the gulf has highlighted in the minds of many their utter incompetence and disregard for standard safety regulations, and many believe should dis-allow them from operating in American waters or onland for 20 years, and that they should be shut down in that regard. BP stand for Burning Planet. BP is currently burning a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They burnt down the rig the rented from Transocean. the well is spilling 5 million liters of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day. BP totally sucks. A bunch of pretentious British morons. They also killed a bunch of people when the oil rig

exploded. Also they killed a bunch of people when the BP Texas City oil refinery blew up. Basically BP sucks. Despite the editors attempts to distort the article, the neutrality of content was well preserved due to instant reverts, made by other users. Within minutes, five different users (206.248.186.9, Seaphoto, Stovl, JForget, Tommy2010) responded and cleared up the vandalisms. What is worth mentioning is that the anonymous user, that was the first to identify and revert these malicious edits, had never edited a Wikipedia article before and this edit was his only contribution, at least with this specific IP address. On the other hand, users such as Seaphoto, JForget and Tommy2010 are more experienced Wikipedians. It should be noted that the user JForget is an administrator, while both Seaphoto and Tommy2010 are members of the Fire Team Alpha, an ongoing project intended to acknowledge the achievements of users who have dedicated time and effort into fixing unconstructive edits (non-fully established part of Wikipedia yet). On May 4th another edit war took place, initiated by user 76.108.231.109, who attempted for nine times in a row to vandalize the BP Wikipedia page. The same user had also vandalized three times the page of Tony Hayward, former CEO of the company. Six users were involved in this war, which ended up lasting for at least half an hour and they managed to revert the malicious edits instantly. When these violations were over, user Cirt, as an administrator, requested for page protection and the BP entry was flagged as semi-protected. Debates among Wikipedians - Hierarchy and prevailing opinions: Apart from vandalisms, disputes among contributors were also observed, mainly concerning the structure and content of

the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill entry in BPs article. Through a brief documentation of such controversies, the researchers aim to demonstrate that different points of view may often be taken under consideration in the Wikipedia entries, but in most cases the point of view of the most experienced editors is the one that prevails. On May 14th, the user 69.171.160.118 accused previous editors that by placing the Oil Spill incident in the end of the Controversy section and by preserving the heading Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion, they intended to hide the incident. He based his accusation on the fact that Everyone knows this (the Oil Spill incident) as the "Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster", the "Horizons Deepwater" name is obviously an attempt to bury the article. Moreover, he made a call for administrators and journalists to investigate this page. The user also attempted to move the text referring to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill to the top of the Accidents section and change the heading into BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Rig Disaster (Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion). Two editors, CurtisSwain and Hereforhomework2, restored the section Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion and moved it back at the end of the Accidents section. In the talk pages, user CurtisSwain claimed that the aforementioned accusations were not an issue and that there should not be any doubt concerning the neutral point of view of the article. Since no one continued the controversy or disputed the latter user, the disagreement was considered resolved. On May 17th another user, with the IP address 75.166.179.110, disputed again the neutrality of the article, basing on the name of the heading and decided to flag the page as NPOV. To support his action, he stated that this is supposed to be an independent Wikipedia

article, not a BP PR Rag. Users Happysailor and Goethean, both more experienced in Wikipedia articles editing, disagreed with these changes and reverted them instantly. Questioning validity of cited sources and references. The dominance of experienced contributors becomes evident also in cases of controversies regarding external linking and reference citation. When such disputes were raised, an experienced user usually interfered to resolve them. Citing the following cases, the researchers demonstrate that experienced editors opposed to external linking to social media sources and material, characterizing such edits as weakly sourced and unfounded. On 16th of May, user Ubarro, attempted to remove from the Advertisement section information that was retrieved through Greenpeaces website, assessing that it was not a reliable source. His edit was soon reverted by the user Prolog. On May 25th, user Newuser54 erased once more content from the Advertisement section. To support his action, he claimed: This statement was not from an independent source. It was taken from a lobby group website. User DD2K reverted the deletion, commenting that the section was cited and sourced, stating exactly where it came from and that this source never claimed to be "independent. However, user Newuser54 attempted again to delete the content, stressing out the fact that encyclopedic content must be reliable and verifiable. User Prolog was the one that interfered again to resolve the dispute. He reverted edits by Newuser54 to the last version by DD2K and the case was considered closed. What is worth mentioning with regard to the above dispute, is that both users, Ubarro and Newuser54 are identified as sock puppet accounts of user Scibaby and have both been blocked indefinitely. Sock puppetry, defined as the use of multiple accounts to deceive other editors,

disrupt discussions, distort consensus, avoid sanctions, or otherwise violate community standards29, is considered as one of the most serious violations of policy within the Wikipedian community and thus is strictly forbidden. In the aforementioned case, user Prolog as an experienced editor and administrator of Wikipedia, identified the misuse of these sock puppet accounts and settled the dispute. The third case concerns the addition of a number of external links that also did not last for long. On May 19th, user 24.166.14.117 added a link that directed readers to the webpage dedicated to the boycott of the corporation (http://www.boycottbp.com/ BOYCOTT BP). Moreover, user 69.14.181.29 added external links to the BP Oil Leak News Site [http://www.bpoilleak.org/]. Both links were removed by user Gump Stump who characterized them as blog links that were not in accordance to the standards of an encyclopedia. This user has made the most edits in the BP entry for the specific time period that we have examined in the Wikipedia revision history and is also listed among the top fifty editors of the BP Wikipedia article, ranking second with a total number of 49 edits. In addition, on 24th of May, user Bayoulee12, added the link of a Facebook group that was founded in order to promote the boycott of the company. More specifically he added the following text to the BP entry: In Late April of 2010 as a result of the Bp Gusher in the Gulf Deep water horizon explosion a boycott group was founded on facebook. This Group Called Boycott Bp here is the link. User 75.74.126.11, moved this text form the section

controversies to recent years and edited it a bit further, altering the wording as such: After
29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry

the slow response to the BP Gulf Oil Spill an online movement began on Facebook. [http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-BP/119101198107726 Boycott BP]. One hour and a half later, the user Bidgee removed this Facebook group link identifying it as an advertisement. This deletion made by a user with a total number of 63.674 edits in Wikipedia articles was not further disputed. Wikipedia viewed as a socialized online community Studying the Wikipedians. For the purposes of the present report, the researchers examined the user pages of all the editors who contributed in the BP entry. Hereby, researchers would like to document some cases in which users deployed their pages as a means to communicate personal opinions and information to the visitors of their page. As a general comment, it was observed that all registered users included proudly in their pages the discriminations that were awarded to them, as recognition of their skills, experience, expertise or hard work within the Wikipedian community. Moreover, comments published in user pages show the devotion of registered users to Wikipedia (e.g. I like to think I promote courtesy in the talk pages. It's one of the many things I love about Wikipedia. Not just the civil discourse, but is there any encyclopedia in the world that has its contents so thoroughly and meticulously debated? No way. This thing is an awesome fount of human knowledge. Still needs work, though. So, let's get cracking - User CurtisSwain) but also reveal personal attitudes on editing policies issues of Wikipedia (I see you've hung around after that issue of interest has resolved itself. Wikipedia always needs more editors, especially those that can keep cool, follow process, and edit it good faith when the conflict gets heated User Wikipelli citing a comment made by user Studerby) or on the collaboration of experienced and non-experienced users (If Wikipedia really is the encyclopedia that anyone can

edit, then we must accept that articles will often get created that do not meet guidelines []This is starting to cause a significant clash between "deletionists" (who slavishly nominate articles for deletion rather than making positive contributions - i.e. adding content and improving articles) and "everyone else", whether prolific, casual or single-article editors who obviously felt that a particular article ought to be present). Finally, the commitment of Wikipedians becomes also evident by their volunteer participation in patrolling teams of Wikipedia and by their effectiveness in clearing up vandalisms or resolving edit wars. Some of the more experienced contributors appeared even more active and requested the blocking of other users accounts, when repetitive attempts of vandalism were identified. Conclusions: This report aimed in examining the notions of authorship, content quality and hierarchy, as those have been defined by previous researchers for assessing Wikipedias value as a source and as a collaborative platform. Our research took under consideration claims that have been made by both supporters and detractors to Wikipedia initiative and our research challenge embarked on identifying how these claims were reflected in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill section in the BP entry. As it has been demonstrated previously in the results, the notions of authorship, content and hierarchy in the context of Wikipedia are more intertwined and complex than someone would believe at first sight. Thus, a deeper understanding into the way one entry is evolving through time is required in order for alliances, controversies and wars to be exposed. As it has already been mentioned, the section dedicated in the Oil Spill, despite having

attracted numerous editors and having been consistently edited, it finally consisted only of 450 words. This fact reinforces the aforementioned claim which is in alignment to Swartzs finding that Wikipedia is a dynamic social system in which hierarchies and prominence of registered or anonymous users are under ongoing negotiation and dialogue. According to our findings, the amount of registered and anonymous users appeared to be almost equal. The greater part of edits or reverts made by users were evoked by vandalism attempts while, only a small percentage of users contributed content. Out of this percentage, the majority was anonymous users with little or none previous experience in editing or adding content in the encyclopedia. On the contrary, heavy users and elite users mostly dealt with neutrality, consistency and conformity to Wikipedia guidelines. As we have described, Swartz has claimed that even if all the formatters quit the project tomorrow, Wikipedia would still be immensely valuable. The researchers though believe that in such a controversial issue, as the Oil Spill incident, these insiders were the ones to balance individual contributions and preserve chronological and notional coherence to the content additions. In such an ambiguous case, anonymous or inexperienced contributors were often willing to meaningfully participate, but their input would result to a chaotic, disordered and incomprehensive text if it werent for the experienced users to place it correctly within the context of the entry and to adjust this content to the Wikipedia standards. Since Wikipedia has not yet made substantial refinements to the user interface, the editing process has not been made any easier for a significant rising number of new users to comprehend the way they should contribute and the quality standards that they should comply to. We are therefore witnessing an ongoing effort from the experienced users to guide and help

them. In the sample we examined we have encountered several cases in which users with expertise gave advice in the talk pages of new users or justified in detail their editing and reverting behavior in order for the new users to gain awareness in what they had done wrong and how they could avoid making the same mistake in the future. The questions of Who writes Wikipedia and what motivates each users edits cannot be measured only quantitatively as per number of words or number of edits nor they can be answered directly. As this research has demonstrated someone has to delve into the complex relationships and different forces that shape and give content to Wikipedia. This research has successfully identified these interrelations for a short period of time and in the framework of a small section of a Wikipedia entry. The researchers assessment is that a systematized review in a broader time period and framework would provide valuable results and understanding of editing patterns, one that could be applied largely to Wikipedia.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Books and Journals: Anthony D.; Smith S.; & Williamson T. (2007). The Quality of Open Source Production: Zealots and Good Samaritans in the Case of Wikipedia, Department of Computer ScienceDartmouth College. Also available at: http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/reports/TR2007606.pdf Chesney T. (2006). An empirical examination of Wikipedias credibility," First Monday, 11(11), November. Goodwin J. (2009). The Authority of Wikipedia, Department of English Iowa State University Ames. Lanier J. (2010). You are not a Gadget: A Manifesto, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Kittur, A.; Chi, E. H.; Pendleton, B. A.; Suh, B. & Mytkowicz, T. (2007). Power of the few vs. wisdom of the crowd: Wikipedia and the rise of the bourgeoisie.Alt.CHI at CHI 2007; San Jose, CA. Niederer S. & van Dijck J. (2009). "The case of Wikipedia: Wisdom of the crowd or technicity of content?" unpublished ms. Paraskevopoulou O. & Pavlaki I. (2010). Exploring the History of a Wikipedia Article: the case of bp entry, Research Report, Digital Methods for Internet Research, Universiteit van Amsterdam. Shirky C. (2008). Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. New York: Penguin. Websites: Acmuller.net (2010), A. Charles Muller, Wikipedia and the Matter of Accountability. Available at: http://www.acmuller.net/wikipedia.html Alexa, The Web Information Company (2010), Site Info: Wikipedia.org. Available at: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org#

Ars Technica (2007), John Timmer, Anonymous "good samaritans" produce Wikipedia's best content, says study. Available at: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/10/anonymous-goodsamaritans-may-produce-wikipedias-best-content.ars Camera (2008), Gilead Ini, How and Why to Edit Wikipedia. http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=72&x_article=1485 Chicagoist (2007), Kevin Robinson, http://chicagoist.com/2007/08/28/bps_wikiality.php BPs Wikiality. Available Available at: at:

New York Times (2006), Katie Hafner, Growing Wikipedia Refines Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html Raw Thought (2006), Aaron Swartz, Who http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia Writes Wikipedia? Available at:

ReadWriteWeb (2010), Mike Melanson, Wikipedia Introduces Article Feedback Tool. Available at: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikipedia_introduces_article_feedback_tool.php Technology Review (2001), Judy Heim, http://www.techreview.com/web/12586/?a=f Free the Encyclopedias. Available at:

TIME (2009), Farhad Manjoo, Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? Available at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1924492,00.html Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia (2010), Article: Wikipedia. Available at:

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (2010), Wikipedia: Main Pages. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Pages Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (2010), Wikipedia: SignPost, Experiments with Article Assessment. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-0913/Public_Policy_Initiative Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (2010), Wikipedia: Protection Policy. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protection_policy#semi

Appendix Table 1. Users Details This table consists of a list of all users that contributed to the BP entry in the examined time period Table 2. User categories per edits The researchers divided users into four categories according to the number of edits that they contributed to the entry. The scope of this division is to demonstrate whether the majority of the users that edited the entry were consistent and experienced editors or occasional users with less than 5 edits. Table 3. Users that made content addition In this table, all editors that contributed content to the entry are listed. These users were combined with the categories per edits (Table 2) under which they were divided, in order to examine which category contributed the most to content addition (instead of reverts and minor changes). Users that appear to be no longer active are highlighted with red color. Table 4. Type of entries in relation to type of users This table divides the types of edits into four categories (content, reverts, vandalisms & minor changes). It demonstrates how many users out of the total 150 are listed under each category according to their user type (registered or anonymous). Table 5. Administrators This table provides a list of the Wikipedia administrators that contributed in the BP entry during the examined period. Table 6. Users with expertise

This table lists registered users that are perceived to have a higher expertise than other registered users. Table 7. Top 17 editors in the BP entry during the examined period Table 8. Top 50 editors in the BP entry throughout the whole history of the article (as provided by the toolserver). Users highlighted with blue color are the ones that also contributed during the examined period. Revision history results

Table 1.
User Name 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Tuscumbia 98.178.184.162 71.233.248.178 68.185.170.225 67.160.221.158 68.147.229.227 206.248.186.9 No. of total edits 3.269 1 23 4 5 23 1 No. of BP edits 1 1 (added content) 1 vandalism 1 revert 4 (added content) 10 vandalisms 1 revert Veteran Editor III / SilverEditor Star / Awesome Wikipedian / awarded their own day / Wikipedia's Fire Team Alpha /This user uses Huggle to combat vandalism sock puppet of Scibaby MASSACHUSETTS US, 01028
CALIFORNIA US, 92831

Attributions 2 barnstars / Member of the WikiProject Energy

IP location Oklahoma US, 74101 New Jersey US, 08054 Wiskonsin US, 53562 California Us, 95101 Canada, T2P 4L4 Canada, J8L 0A2

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Seaphoto Stovl 205.246.0.2

98.151.32.118 173.183.8.207 24.6.26.177 Parker1297 168.7.248.113 208.127.13.30 24.126.20.135 JForget Tommy2010 69.171.160.1

17034 143 11 22 3 1 500 2 1 1 108666

68040

7 reverts 3 (reverts & (m)) 1 (m) 4 (added content) 1 (added content) 1 vandalism 1 revert 2 revert 1 vandalism 1 revert 2 reverts 4 reverts 1 vandalism 2 vandalisms / 3 calls for investigation

Canada, V5K 0A1 California US, 94536 Rollback rights Texas US, 77005 California US, 91601
WEST VIRGINIA US, 25401

Administrator / semi-retired Administrator / retired Arizona US, 85648 Colorado US, 80001
Counter-Vandalism Unit / New Page Patrol / Roll back rights / Reviewers rights/ Awesome Wikipedian / His own day
Sock puppet of Scibaby

15 12

75.71.192.54

22 23 24

N419BH Stympkin

6711 16 over 100

71.229.69.68

1 revert 4 (corrections) 1 (suggestions for improvements)

MICHIGAN US, 49106

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

212.116.68.142 71.202.91.6 Rettens2 173.160.174.183 88.73.84.9 198.40.29.65 Uncle Dick 76.108.231.109 209.171.37.99 Ndchriste Marathonmilk Tide rolls Gnangarra Cirt Hestall 75.146.115.9 67.193.155.116 Gump Stump Wolf Cub 30 Gogo Dodo 66.159.153.38

16 1 166 30 3 9 38407 15 over 50 283 9

154344 26545 169207

5 (changes for neutrality) 1 vandalism 5 (1 revert) 1 vandalism 1 (added content) 2 vandalisms 1 revert 12 vandalisms 1 revert 6 reverts 1 revert 3 reverts 14 (m) 2 (semiprotection) 1 3 vandalisms 3 reverts 25 (m) 1 vandalism 1 revert 1 vandalism
administrator / Veteran Editor III / Silver Editor Star / Awesome Wikipedian and was awarded their own day / rollback rights

SWEDEN

California US, 94901

WASHINGTON US, 98401 GERMANY ILLINOIS US, 60603

page not found

FLORIDA US, 33040

CANADA, L4T 0A1

Administrator Administrator Administrator / awarded 63 barnstars

sock puppet of Scibaby

21 over 100 13
3787

blocked

ILLINOIS US, 60290

CANADA, K7K 0A1 page not found

Administrator / barnstars CONNECTICUT US, 06701

2
103551

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

Boing! said Zebedee 82.2.177.116 DumbBOT 141.123.223.100 71.198.201.100 66.214.89.227 Goethean 96.247.72.117 Karenjc 74.58.127.42 LizardJr8

27307

1
79117

over 100 4 12
31662

1 revert 1 vandalism 2 1 vandalism revert 5 (4 vandalisms) 17 (reverts) 1 revert 1 revert 1 vandalism 2 (revert)

UK NY US
CALIFORNIA US, 94085 CALIFORNIA US, 91301

1
10349

CALIFORNIA US, 91722

Welcoming Committee / recent changes patroller QUEBEC CA, G1A 0A2 WikiProject Engineering

4
4103

57

Sean7phil

1661

58 59

CurtisSwain

1857

69.171.160.118

less than 50

3 (changes in titles / headings) 13 (reverse edits, deletes redundant material, maintenance) 4 (called for attention in talk pages)

zero tolerance policy on vandalism / This user reports vandals to administrators so they can be blocked / Apprentice Editor
ARIZONA US, 85648

60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

Immunize 173.55.197.25 174.131.59.33 Ubarro Txred99 Blue2fire Vanguard 413 65.4.227.68 Prolog Hereforhomework2 75.166.179.110 70.232.52.167 Happysailor 129.105.4.132 Myk60640 Bidgee

18854

1 revert 11 vandalisms 1 (added content) 3 (removed content) 2 (added content) 1 (removed content) 1 vandalism 1 vandalism 12 reverts 2 revert 6 reverts 1 vandalism
3 edits in BP (2 reverts 1 content)

Newpage patroller / Wikipedia's Fire Team Alpha / Huggle and Twinkle / reports vandals to administrators / This user supports a strict zero tolerance policy on vandalism / This user supports giving non-admin Rollback abilities to trusted users / This user is a member of the / CounterVandalism Unit / This user is a recent changes patroller / rollback rights / Has barnstars
CALIFORNIA US, 90001 FLORIDA US, 32694 sock puppet of Scibaby

23 5 10 2 20 4 1
32091

page not found

blocked
TENNESSEE US, 37501 editor and administrator rollback rights COLORADO US, 80120 ARKANSAS US, 72113 rollback rights / Veteran Editor ILLINOIS US, 60208 page not found

946 over 500 1

9959

2
1945

63674

1 (m) 11 (m / add content) 3 reverts

76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99

Aalox 76.92.237.158 Can You Prove That You're Human Ivmarton

1130

4 (1 revert & small corrections) 2 (added content) 1 revert 4 (add content) 1 (links) 2 1 vandalism 1 vandalism 1 revert 1 vandalism 1 revert 1 (added content) 1 vandalism vandalisms 1 revert 1 add links 4 vandalisms 4 reverts 1 vandalism 1 revert 4 vandalisms 11 (reverts / (m)) 1 vandalism 1 vandalism

Barnstars and awards KANSAS US, 66062 sock puppet of Go leafs go 3000

683 4 24.166.14.117 2 SmackBot 3642831 3 Childrenofinventions 2 Random 444

71.104.247.185 Matthol573 76.248.212.106 128.151.80.181 108.14.100.49 Aluminum9 76.185.75.4 Ryancormack 76.243.103.125 Stephenb 71.245.209.10

page not found

INDIANA US, 46201

3 1 5 over 50 1 14 5 80 4
38524

CALIFORNIA US, 91748

page not found

TEXAS US, 78401 NEW YORK US, 14620 NEW YORK US, 10001

page not found

TEXAS US, 75034

page not found

MICHIGAN US, 48201

recent changes patroller with Twinkle / anti vandalism barnstar

NEW JERSEY US, 08536

1
15008

PL290 65.185.98.117 Ericoides 71.245.248.218 75.80.25.191

6 barnstars (Flaming Joel-wiki, teamwork, audio, music, content creativity, template)

OHIO US, 45390

12
10671

4 1

blocked Journeyman Editor and is entitled to display this Service Badge / Journeyman Editor and is entitled to display this Service Badge / a recent changes and new page patroller / fights vandalism with Twinkle and Huggle

NEW YORK US, 10001 CALIFORNIA US, 93550

100 Dac04 101 99.255.198.167

2752 1

1 revert 1 revert

ONTARIO US, M4Y 2Y5

102 62.178.5.220 103 69.232.239.222 104 Fight4truth 105 68.104.130.188 106 Vsmith 107 69.11.149.96 108 174.70.100.33 109 Allmightyduck 110 111 112 113
Bayoulee12 75.74.126.11 77.119.120.25 Pwendel66

11 2 32 2
92467

1 vandalism 1 vandalism 1 2 vandalisms revert 1 vandalism 4 vandalisms revert 1 (added content) 2 (move text) 1 vandalism 7 (m) 1 (removed content) 1 (added content) 2 (revert & (m)) 1 vandalism 1 revert 1 vandalism 1 revert 1 revert 2 reverts 2 reverts rollback rights on the English Wikipedia / This user is a recent changes patroller with Twinkle! Administrator Journeyman Editor and is entitled to display this Service Badge / This user uses Huggle to combat vandalism / This user is a recent changes patroller with Twinkle / rollback rights This user is a recent changes patroller / This user no longer uses Twinkle and is a Huggler instead. page not found Administrator / Master Editor and is entitled to display this Platinum Editor Star.

AUSTRIA CALIFORNIA US, 94801 TEXAS US, 77002

1 5
6306

INDIANA US, 46201 LOUISIANA US, 70112

7 4 2 173

FLORIDA US, 33010 AUSTRIA

114 Philipwhiuk 115 76.25.52.157 116 LizardJr8 117 216.162.26.193 118 ClueBot 119 71.61.176.250 120 201.158.247.56 121 24.241.35.225 122 Tubby23 123 Acroterion

242 1 4108 over 100 1623448 21 1 1 1484

80489

lawyer This user is a recent changes patroller / This user uses Wikipedia as a primary point of reference.
COLORADO US, 80010 WikiProject Engineering participants NEW YORK US, 13820 PENNSYLVANIA US, 15122 MEXICO NORTH CAROLINA US, 28401

124 Wikipelli 125 208.120.234.65 126 Newuser54

15627

1 revert 2 (m) 3 (m)

6 8

NEW YORK US, 11201 This account is a sock puppet of Scibaby

127 DD2K 128 Markmark12 129 132.50.10.35 130 Beagel 131 12.39.112.161 132 75.65.51.93 133 Stephenb 134 194.204.66.37 135 109.129.58.126 136 69.14.181.29 137 74.213.103.239 138 Explicit 139 Oaaoaao 140 Kevleyski 141 DrHok 142 John Vandenberg 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150
Jhubsch Legobot II AnomieBOT Thijs!bot TXiKiBoT SieBot TobeBot RjwilmsiBot

2978

126 12
46015

2 reverts 2 (removed content) 1 revert 3 (revert & clean-up) 1 vandalism 1 vandalism 4 reverts 2 (added content) 1 revert 1 (links) 3 (m)

Page not found

ALABAMA US, 36114

50 1
38524

blocked

OKLAHOMA US, 74601 TENNESSEE US, 37501

This user is a recent changes patroller with Twinkle

SWITZERLAND BELGIUM MICHIGAN US, 48069 PUERTO RICO

7 1 1 3

Administrator / a Veteran Editor III and is entitled to display this semi-protection Silver Editor Star 62094 19 1 vandalism 27 1 revert 1 (removed 632 content) 1 (links) 84075 Administrator 1 (removed 65 content) page not found 1 (m) 18289 1 (m) 352578 1 (m) 5589722 1 (m) 2394745 10614959 1 (m) 1 (m) 972422 1 (m) 935276

Table 2.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Edits 0-5 98.178.184.162 68.185.170.225 206.248.186.9 173.183.8.207 24.6.26.177 168.7.248.113 208.127.13.30 24.126.20.135 71.202.91.6 88.73.84.9 Wolf Cub 30 66.159.153.38 82.2.177.116 71.198.201.100 96.247.72.117 74.58.127.42 Txred99 Vanguard 413 65.4.227.68 70.232.52.167 129.105.4.132 76.92.237.158 Ivmarton 24.166.14.117 Childrenofinventions Random 444 71.104.247.185 Matthol573 108.14.100.49 76.243.103.125 71.245.209.10 71.245.248.218 75.80.25.191 99.255.198.167 69.232.239.222 68.104.130.188 69.11.149.96 75.74.126.11 77.119.120.25 76.25.52.157 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Edits 5-50 71.233.248.178 67.160.221.158 68.147.229.227 205.246.0.2 98.151.32.118 69.171.160.1 75.71.192.54 Stympkin 212.116.68.142 173.160.174.183 198.40.29.65 76.108.231.109 Marathonmilk Hestall 67.193.155.116 69.171.160.118 173.55.197.25 174.131.59.33 Ubarro Blue2fire 76.248.212.106 Aluminum9 76.185.75.4 65.185.98.117 62.178.5.220 Fight4truth 174.70.100.33 Bayoulee12 71.61.176.250 208.120.234.65 Newuser54 132.50.10.35 194.204.66.37 Oaaoaao Kevleyski 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Edits 50-500 Stovl Parker1297 71.229.69.68 Rettens2 209.171.37.99 Ndchriste 75.146.115.9 141.123.223.100 128.151.80.181 Ryancormack Pwendel66 Philipwhiuk 216.162.26.193 Markmark12 12.39.112.161 Jhubsch 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Edits 500+ Tuscumbia Seaphoto Jforget (admin) Tommy2010 (admin) N419BH Uncle Dick Tide rolls (admin) Gnangarra (admin) Cirt (admin) Gump Stump Gogo Dodo (admin) Boing! said Zebedee (admin) Goethean Karenjc LizardJr8 Sean7phil CurtisSwain Immunize Prolog (admin) Hereforhomework2 75.166.179.110 Happysailor 129.105.4.132 Myk60640 Bidgee Aalox 76.92.237.158 Can You Prove That You're Human Stephenb PL290 Ericoides Dac04 Vsmith (admin) Allmightyduck LizardJr8 ClueBot Tubby23 Acroterion (admin) Wikipelli Beagel

41 42 43 44 45 46

201.158.247.56 24.241.35.225 75.65.51.93 109.129.58.126 69.14.181.29 74.213.103.239

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

Stephenb Explicit (admin) DrHok SmackBot John Vandenberg (admin) DD2K Legobot II AnomieBOT Thijs!bot TXiKiBoT SieBot TobeBot RjwilmsiBot

Table 3.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 User Tuscumbia 98.178.184.162 67.160.221.158 98.151.32.118 173.183.8.207 Stympkin 71.229.69.68 212.116.68.142 88.73.84.9 Sean7phil 174.131.59.33 Ubarro Txred99 Blue2fire Happysailor Myk60640 76.92.237.158 Ivmarton 24.166.14.117 128.151.80.181 Ryancormack Bayoulee12 75.74.126.11 Philipwhiuk 76.25.52.157 Markmark12 194.204.66.37 69.14.181.29 DrHok John Vandenberg Jhubsch USERS THAT ADDED CONTENT Category Life-span / expertise D 2 barnstars / Member of the WikiProject Energy A B B A B Sock puppet of Scibaby C B A D B B sock puppet of Scibaby A page not found B D rollback rights / Veteran Editor D page not found A A page not found A B C page not found B page not found A This user is a recent changes patroller / This user C uses Wikipedia as a primary point of reference. A C Page not found B A D D Administrator C page not found

Category A (0-5edits): 10 users Category B (5-50edits): 10 users Category C (50-500edits): 5 users Category D (over 500edits): 6 users

Table 4.

BP ENTRY TYPE OF EDITS Registered

User type Anonymous Users per edits

Content Reverts Vandalisms Minor

16 38 7 19

15 16 35 4

31 54 42 23

Total users:

80

70

Table 5.
ADMINISTRATORS T. Edits Edits in BP Attributions 108666 2 reverts Administrator / semi-retired 68040 4 reverts 154344 3 reverts 26545 14 (m) 2 (semi169207 protection) 103551 1 revert Administrator / retired Administrator Administrator Administrator / awarded 63 barnstars Administrator / barnstars Administrator / Veteran Editor III / Silver Editor Star / Awesome Wikipedian and was awarded their own day / rollback rights Editor and administrator Administrator / Master Editor and is entitled to display this Platinum Editor Star. Administrator Administrator / a Veteran Editor III and is entitled to display this Silver Editor Star Administrator

User 1 JForget 2 Tommy2010 3 Tide rolls 4 Gnangarra 5 Cirt 6 Gogo Dodo Boing! said 7 Zebedee 8 Prolog 9 Vsmith 10 Acroterion 11 Explicit John 12 Vandenberg

27307 32091 92467 80489 62094 84075

1 revert 12 reverts 1 revert 2 reverts 1 (semiprotection) 1 (links)

Table 6.
USERS WITH EXPERTISE User 1 Tuscumbia T. Edits 3.269 Edits in BP 1 Expertise 2 barnstars / Member of the WikiProject Energy Veteran Editor III / SilverEditor Star / Awesome Wikipedian / awarded their own day / Wikipedia's Fire Team Alpha /This user uses Huggle to combat vandalism Rollback rights Counter-Vandalism Unit / New Page Patrol / Roll back rights / Reviewers rights/ Awesome Wikipedian / His own day Welcoming Committee / recent changes patroller WikiProject Engineering

2 Seaphoto 3 Parker1297

17034 500

7 reverts 1 revert

4 N419BH 5 Karenjc 6 LizardJr8

6711 10349 4103

1 revert 1 revert 2 (revert) 13 (reverse edits, deletes redundant material, maintenance)

7 CurtisSwain

1857

zero tolerance policy on vandalism / This user reports vandals to administrators so they can be blocked / Apprentice Editor Newpage patroller / Wikipedia's Fire Team Alpha / Huggle and Twinkle / reports vandals to administrators / This user supports a strict zero tolerance policy on vandalism / This user supports giving non-admin Rollback abilities to trusted users / This user is a member of the / Counter-Vandalism Unit / This user is a recent changes patroller / rollback rights / Has barnstars rollback rights

Immunize

18854

1 revert 2 revert 3 edits in BP (2 reverts 1 content) 4 (1 revert & small corrections) 4 reverts 1 revert

9 Hereforhomework2 946

10 Happysailor

9959

rollback rights / Veteran Editor

11 Aalox 12 Stephenb 13 PL290

1130 38524 15008

Barnstars and awards recent changes patroller with Twinkle / anti vandalism barnstar 6 barnstars (Flaming Joel-wiki, teamwork, audio, music, content creativity, template)

14 Dac04 15 Allmightyduck 16 Philipwhiuk 17 LizardJr8 18 Tubby23

2752 6306 242 4108 1484

1 revert revert 1 (removed content) 2 (revert & (m)) 2 reverts

Journeyman Editor and is entitled to display this Service Badge / Journeyman Editor and is entitled to display this Service Badge / a recent changes and new page patroller / fights vandalism with Twinkle and Huggle This user is a recent changes patroller / This user no longer uses Twinkle and is a Huggler instead. This user is a recent changes patroller / This user uses Wikipedia as a primary point of reference. WikiProject Engineering participants rollback rights on the English Wikipedia / This user is a recent changes patroller with Twinkle! Journeyman Editor and is entitled to display this Service Badge / This user uses Huggle to combat vandalism / This user is a recent changes patroller with Twinkle / rollback rights This user is a recent changes patroller with Twinkle

19 Wikipelli 20 Stephenb

15627 38524

1 revert 4 reverts

Table 7.
TOP EDITORS 1 Gump Stump 2 Goethean 3 Gnangarra 3787 31662 26545 25 (m) 17 (reverts) 14 (m) 13 (reverse edits, deletes redundant material, maintenance) 12 reverts

Administrator zero tolerance policy on vandalism / This user reports vandals to administrators so they can be blocked / Apprentice Editor editor and administrator FLORIDA US, 33040

4 CurtisSwain 5 Prolog

1857 32091

6 76.108.231.109 7 Myk60640 8 173.55.197.25 9 Ericoides 10 68.147.229.227

15 1945 23 10671 23

12 vandalisms 11 (m / add content) page not found 11 vandalisms 11 (reverts / (m)) 10 vandalisms Veteran Editor III / SilverEditor Star / Awesome Wikipedian / awarded their own day / Wikipedia's Fire Team Alpha /This user uses Huggle to combat vandalism lawyer

Canada, T2P 4L4

11 Seaphoto 12 Pwendel66

17034 173 over 500 283 16 166 12

7 reverts 7 (m)

13 75.166.179.110 14 Ndchriste 15 212.116.68.142 16 Rettens2 17 66.214.89.227

6 reverts 6 reverts 5 (changes for neutrality) 5 (1 revert) 5 (4 vandalisms)

COLORADO US, 80120

SWEDEN

Table 8.
Username Dormskirk (c) Gump Stump (c) Rangoon11 (c) Peterlewis (c) 86.85.44.73 (c) Beagel (c) 64.119.87.132 (c) Ocaasi (c) Myk60640 (c) Gnangarra (c) Goethean (c) Quebec99 (c) WhisperToMe (c) Bidgee (c) 69.142.154.10 (c) S51438 (c) Dirtyharry667 (c) SmackBot (c) Benzocane (c) CurtisSwain (c) Sparrowman980 (c) # of edits Minor 69 2 (2.90%) 40 49 (81.63%) 16 42 (38.10%) 37 2 (5.41%) 29 0 (0.00%) 10 26 (38.46%) 26 0 (0.00%) 25 9 (36.00%) 15 24 (62.50%) 20 5 (25.00%) 20 0 (0.00%) 19 19 (100.00%) 18 5 (27.78%) 16 9 (56.25%) 15 0 (0.00%) 15 0 (0.00%) 15 0 (0.00%) 13 14 (92.86%) 14 0 (0.00%) 13 9 (69.23%) 12 7 (58.33%) First edit 11 March 2007, 19:40:45 15 April 2009, 21:17:41 27 August 2010, 14:03:33 08 April 2007, 10:23:44 18 May 2007, 08:50:07 25 May 2010, 18:17:08 01 May 2009, 02:27:46 03 July 2010, 01:18:41 18 May 2010, 13:16:26 13 August 2006, 03:14:28 01 August 2007, 18:19:25 17 May 2010, 21:55:34 22 January 2006, 21:56:04 28 May 2009, 07:01:09 21 June 2010, 09:58:16 10 June 2010, 02:32:54 08 May 2007, 03:41:51 08 February 2007, 01:42:38 04 June 2007, 15:53:30 12 May 2010, 05:22:39 21 September 2007, 04:06:11 Most recent edit 12 March 2010, 23:18:36 03 August 2010, 17:04:06 14 December 2010, 23:21:14 23 June 2009, 20:01:17 18 May 2007, 18:49:57 28 July 2010, 04:39:22 01 May 2009, 04:08:16 21 September 2010, 11:08:35 08 June 2010, 19:13:52 30 June 2010, 04:05:41 03 June 2010, 21:58:56 25 June 2010, 18:39:36 25 July 2010, 19:43:21 09 September 2010, 12:53:01 21 September 2010, 06:35:58 28 July 2010, 06:05:11 08 May 2007, 04:13:45 22 August 2010, 14:02:34 04 August 2007, 02:15:46 23 May 2010, 17:52:03 26 February 2008, 05:21:37 Average time between edits 2 weeks, 1 days, 21 hours, 37 minutes, 4 seconds 1 weeks, 2 days, 16 hours, 34 minutes 2 days, 14 hours, 30 minutes, 25 seconds 3 weeks, 19 hours, 43 minutes, 10 seconds 20 minutes, 41 seconds 2 days, 10 hours, 33 minutes, 9 seconds 3 minutes, 51 seconds 3 days, 5 hours, 11 minutes, 35 seconds 21 hours, 14 minutes, 53 seconds 2 months, 1 weeks, 3 days, 26 minutes, 33 seconds 1 months, 3 weeks, 10 hours, 34 minutes, 58 seconds 2 days, 1 hours, 5 minutes, 28 seconds 3 months, 3 hours, 12 minutes, 37 seconds 4 weeks, 1 days, 7 hours, 51 minutes, 59 seconds 6 days, 2 hours, 58 minutes, 30 seconds 3 days, 5 hours, 2 minutes, 9 seconds 2 minutes, 7 seconds 3 months, 1 days, 1 minutes, 25 seconds 4 days, 7 hours, 35 minutes, 52 seconds 21 hours, 16 minutes, 6 seconds 1 weeks, 6 days, 4 hours, 6 minutes, 17 seconds

76.108.231.109 (c) Prolog (c) Ufwuct (c) Ericoides (c) 173.55.197.25 (c) TEG24601 (c) Thincat (c) 68.147.229.227 (c) John (c) LarkinToad2010 (c) 71.195.142.218 (c) Seaphoto (c) PaddyBriggs (c) ClueBot (c) Punctilius (c) 24.148.35.253 (c) 85.218.34.31 (c) Raul654 (c) Pwendel66 (c) ErrantX (c) TastyCakes (c)

12 0 (0.00%) 11 6 (54.55%) 11 4 (36.36%) 11 2 (18.18%) 11 0 (0.00%) 11 0 (0.00%) 10 1 (10.00%) 10 0 (0.00%) 9 2 (22.22%) 9 1 (11.11%) 9 0 (0.00%) 8 8 (100.00%) 8 6 (75.00%) 8 6 (75.00%) 8 2 (25.00%) 8 0 (0.00%) 8 0 (0.00%) 7 4 (57.14%) 7 3 (42.86%) 7 2 (28.57%) 7 1 (14.29%)

04 May 2010, 00:21:42 30 April 2010, 16:34:25 30 July 2006, 18:35:32 02 May 2010, 09:25:37 16 May 2010, 03:20:14 11 December 2003, 21:05:23 24 March 2005, 10:00:52 30 April 2010, 04:59:28 21 April 2006, 20:27:23 26 June 2010, 11:52:23 08 July 2010, 14:11:29 30 April 2010, 05:21:22 27 August 2005, 09:24:48 14 October 2007, 19:39:23 15 August 2008, 06:51:33 17 July 2007, 00:46:37 15 February 2007, 10:39:23 04 October 2008, 22:01:53 24 May 2010, 11:19:39 15 July 2010, 18:36:57 10 June 2010, 14:30:56

04 May 2010, 00:50:54 16 August 2010, 16:37:52 05 November 2010, 18:07:09 23 May 2010, 07:56:36 22 May 2010, 03:12:33 04 December 2004, 10:05:17 02 July 2010, 12:03:04 01 May 2010, 23:33:03 23 August 2010, 14:11:05 06 July 2010, 07:07:08 09 August 2010, 13:31:31 01 August 2010, 04:29:50 21 December 2005, 18:59:16 13 July 2010, 21:49:35 23 August 2008, 06:12:33 17 July 2007, 01:29:22 15 February 2007, 10:55:26 21 January 2009, 05:57:37 25 May 2010, 12:01:07 21 September 2010, 21:06:25 24 June 2010, 19:49:48

2 minutes, 26 seconds 1 weeks, 2 days, 19 hours, 38 minutes, 29 seconds 4 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 1 hours, 24 minutes, 41 seconds 1 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes, 59 seconds 13 hours, 4 minutes, 45 seconds 1 months, 2 days, 4 hours, 16 minutes, 21 seconds 6 months, 1 weeks, 3 days, 2 hours, 36 minutes, 13 seconds 4 hours, 15 minutes, 21 seconds 5 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 23 hours, 58 minutes, 11 seconds 1 days, 2 hours, 8 minutes, 18 seconds 3 days, 13 hours, 15 minutes, 33 seconds 1 weeks, 4 days, 14 hours, 53 minutes, 33 seconds 2 weeks, 13 hours, 11 minutes, 48 seconds 4 months, 3 days, 17 hours, 16 minutes, 16 seconds 23 hours, 55 minutes, 7 seconds 5 minutes, 20 seconds 2 minutes 2 weeks, 1 days, 11 hours, 25 minutes, 6 seconds 3 hours, 31 minutes, 38 seconds 1 weeks, 2 days, 17 hours, 29 minutes, 55 seconds 2 days, 45 minutes, 33 seconds

Gr1st (c) 209.152.60.173 (c) 4.242.192.144 (c) Skywriter (c) 80.169.189.68 (c) RussBot (c) Tide rolls (c)

7 1 (14.29%) 7 0 (0.00%) 7 0 (0.00%) 7 0 (0.00%) 7 0 (0.00%) 6 6 (100.00%) 6 6 (100.00%)

02 January 2010, 12:27:29 29 July 2009, 01:31:23 24 September 2005, 06:57:46 09 May 2010, 18:55:02 06 July 2010, 19:23:15 22 June 2005, 16:43:51 04 May 2010, 00:48:07

13 March 2010, 19:05:09 29 July 2009, 01:45:26 24 September 2005, 07:17:51 11 May 2010, 20:43:32 22 July 2010, 20:40:22 27 November 2010, 07:31:52 21 October 2010, 00:19:48

1 weeks, 3 days, 56 minutes, 48 seconds 2 minutes 2 minutes, 52 seconds 7 hours, 6 minutes, 55 seconds 2 days, 7 hours, 2 minutes, 26 seconds 10 months, 3 weeks, 5 days, 10 hours, 28 minutes 4 weeks, 7 hours, 55 minutes, 16 seconds

Out of the 50 top editors in BPs entry, 15 are appearing in the period that we conducted the research. One is an anonymous user.

REVISION HISTORY: RESULTS

April 21st, 2010 User Tuscumbia: First association of BPs entry to the oil spill -> Addition of the link 2010 Explosion on Deepwater Horizon drilling rig under the See also section.

April 29th, 2010 User 98.178.184.162: Official introduction of the oil spill Gulf incident to the page Brief documentation under the section Recent years.

April 30th, 2010 User 71.233.248.178: First vandalism attack. User 68.185.170.225: Deletion of the previous edit, one minute later User 67.160.221.158: Addition of an inlink to Deepwater Horizon User 68.147.229.227: Second attempt for vandalism. 23 total edits 10 edits in BP: vandalisms (30/4 1/5) / 2 vandalisms BP Canada/ 8 vandalisms in Greenpeace / 2 discussion pages Canada User 206.248.186.9: Deletion of the previous edit, six minutes later User 68.147.229.227: Four vandalism attacks in a row. Users Seaphoto and Stovl: Cleaning up the attacks Seaphoto Veteran Editor III / SilverEditor Star. This user has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian and was awarded their own day. Stovl: suspected sockpuppet of Scibaby and has been blocked indefinitely. 3 edits in BP / 2 revert / 1 revert Greenpeace / Scibaby is one of Wikipedia's largest serial sockpuppeters

User 205.246.0.2: Change of link from Deepwater Horizon Explosion to existing page Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion. User 98.151.32.118: Addition of the oil spill incident also under the section Controversy with the title Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion. User 173.183.8.207: Extension of the previous entry

 May 1st, 2010 User 24.6.26.177: Attempt for vandalism User Parker1297: Reversion of vandalism. User 168.7.248.113: Removal of the comments made by user 173.183.8.207 as they reflected more a biased perspective of the incident and they did not include any citations or references. User 208.127.13.30: Attempt for vandalism User 24.126.20.135: Removal of the previous edit, 2 minutes later, explaining that opinions and unfounded comment should be erased. User 68.147.229.227: Attempt for vandalism User JForget: Clearing- up vandalism Administrator / 1 revert / SEMI RETIRED User 68.147.229.227: Second attempt for vandalism, four minutes later after the first one. User Tommy2010: Clearing- up vandalism in the same minute. 68040 total edits / retired

May 2nd, 2010 User 69.171.160.1: Attempt for vandalism. User 69.171.160.1: Removal of his own edit. User 75.71.192.54: Attempt for vandalism/ Addition of the same edit as user 69.171.160.1 Please Investigate Problems on BP (British Petroleum) Wikipedia Page: Intentionally Burying Section on Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster, Changing Name of Oil Disaster to Hide it 12 edits / 2 vandalism to BP / 3 calls for Investigation in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Environment/Environmental Record task force COLORADO User N419BH: Revert of edit to the last proper edition, almost instantly. Active member of the Counter-Vandalism Unit and New Page Patrol (voluntary) / Roll back rights / Reviewers rights/ Awesome Wikipedian / His own day

User 75.71.192.54: Revision of the title of the oil spill in the Controversy section into April 2010 U.S. Gulf Coast Disaster: Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion. User Stympkin: Removal of content from the Advertisement section claiming that This section was mix of unsourced statements, blogs and items not related to advertisements. Sock puppet of Scibaby and has been blocked indefinitely. User 71.229.69.68: Suggestions for improvements in the articles section Environmental record:Please reinsert that when you've found the correct section, and made it sound less like a Newspaper clipping and more like an encyclopedic entry. User 212.116.68.142: Adding some neutrality to all this BP praise in section Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion

May 3rd, 2010 User 71.202.91.6: Vandalism attempt adder under the section Recent years. User Rettens2: Removal of the edit twenty-two minutes later User 173.160.174.183: Vandalism attempt The current situation in the gulf of Mexico is the fault of the mexicans, blacks, jews, homosexuals, orientals, and raging feminists. I suggest we declare war on mexico and push them down into central america and then drop all the minorities there with the mexicans. Then we would have an ayrian utopian society. User Seaphoto: Removal of the edit three minutes later. User 88.73.84.9 added content under the environmental record section 3 edits / 1 edit in BP User 212.116.68.142 deleted it Sorry pal we don't need a duplicate of this info which is already under the topic Accidents User 198.40.29.65: Vandalism, changing the name of bp to Beyond Pollution 9 edits / 2 vandalisms in BP User Uncle Dick: Removal of the previous edit 15 minutes later. Page cannot be found

 May 4th, 2010 User 76.108.231.109: Vandalism attempt nine times in a row. Start of an edit war that lasted for 30 minutes. 15 edits / 12 in BP / 3 in Tony Hayward page / FLORIDA, US Users 209.171.37.99 (up to 100 edits), Ndchriste (up to 500 edits / 6 edits in BP), Marathonmilk (9 edits / 1 revert in BP), Tide rolls (edits 154344, This user is an administrator on the English Wikipedia) and Tommy2010: Removal of previous edits. User Marathonmilk characterized attempts as Vandalism. User Gnangarra; Change of the title to Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion in order to reflect daughter articles. Administrator (Australia) / total edits 26545 User Cirt: Request for page protection (WP:RFPP). The page was flagged as semi-protected. Administrator / Has been awarded 63 barnstars on Wikipedia / total edits 169207 After the semi-protection users are enhancing the article by contributing minor changes to meet up the standards of an encyclopedian article (clean-ups, edits, contributions, clarifications, citations)

May 7th, 2010 User Hestall Proper wording/with neutral language Total edits 21 / This account is a sock puppet of Scibaby and has been blocked indefinitely User 75.146.115.9: Two attempts of malicious additions to the article without scoping to any specific defamation of the company. This account or IP address is currently blocked / 3 vandalisms User 67.193.155.116 User Gump Stump: Removal of previous edits. 3787 total edits / 25 edits in BP / has also edited deepwater horizon article He comments in his page The user that welcomed me to Wikipedia was eventually banned; what does that say, I wonder...

 May 8th, 2010 User Wolf Cub 30 vandalism 2 edits / user page not found User Gogo Dodo Administrator / barnstars / total edits 103551 / 1 edit in BP

May 9th, 2010 User 66.159.153.38: Vandalism attempt User Boing! said Zebedee: Revert of the edit (1 min. later) and identification as vandalism. administrator / Veteran Editor III / Silver Editor Star / Awesome Wikipedian and was awarded their own day / rollback rights / total edits 27307 He comments on his user page: I'm very busy in real life at the moment, possibly until the end of the year, and I don't have much time for Wikipedia. I'll check for messages and check my Watchlist when I can, but please don't expect speedy responses. User 82.2.177.116: Vandalism attempt 1 vandalism User Gump Stump: Removal of previous edit

May 10th, 2010 DumbBOT: Automatic removal of the protection template. User 141.123.223.100: Vandalism attempt by requesting a boycott to the company and its products: Over 500 edits / 1 vandalism in BP / NY, US User 71.198.201.100: Cleaning up vandalism within 2 minutes Total 4 edits User 66.214.89.227: vandalism attempts under the section Environmental record and Recent years. The user re-entered the request to boycott bp. 12 edits / 5 edits in BP / 4 vandalisms

User Goethean restored vandalisms by 141.123.223.100 (rm vandalism. if you want to boycott BP, stop using oil.) Total edits 31662 / 17 edits in BP User 96.247.72.117 reverted vandalisms made by 66.214.89.227 1 total edit / CALIFORNIA, US - 91722 Users Karenjc :Cleaning up vandalism Total edits 10349 / 1 edit in BP member of the Welcoming Committee / recent changes patroller.

May 11th, 2010 User 74.58.127.42: Vandalism attempt 4 edits / 1 vandalism in BP / QUEBEC CA, G1A 0A2 User LizardJr8: Revert of the vandalism Total edits 4103 / 2 edits in BP / This user is a member of WikiProject Engineering Bot: Fixing reference errors User Sean7phil: Change of the title Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion to Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion, also called the "BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster. Total edits 1661 / 3 edits in BP User CurtisSwain: Correction of the title 10 minutes later. The user claimed that it was a rather lengthy for a section heading, alternate names can be found in main article.

May 14th, 2010 User 69.171.160.118: While the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion documentation was moved from the Controversy section to the Accidents section, the user erased this documentation. 4 edits in BP / ARIZONA US, 85648 User Immunize: Restoration of the section

newpage patroller / Wikipedia's Fire Team Alpha) / This user fights vandalism with Huggle and Twinkle / This user reports vandals to administrators so they can be blocked / This user supports a strict zero tolerance policy on vandalism / This user supports giving non-admin Rollback abilities to trusted users / CounterVandalism Unit / This user is a recent changes patroller / This user has rollback rights on the English Wikipedia Has barnstars / total edits 18854 / 1 edit in BP User 69.171.160.118: Claim of the user that there was an attempt to bury the article that was referring to the oil spill incident basing his accusation on the fact that Everyone knows this as the "Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster", the "Horizons Deepwater" name is obviously an attempt to bury the article. ADMINS AND JOURNALISTS PLEASE INVESTIGATE. Change of the title of the section to BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Rig Disaster (Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion) and placement on top of all the other accidents. Users CurtisSwain, Hereforhomework2: Restoration of the section Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion at the end of Accidents section. User CurtisSwain Total edits 1857 / 13 edits in BP (reverse edits, deletes redundant material, maintenance) This user supports a strict zero tolerance policy on vandalism / This user reports vandals to administrators so they can be blocked / Apprentice Editor He comments on his user page: I like to think I promote courtesy in the talk pages. It's one of the many things I love about Wikipedia. Not just the civil discourse, but...is there any encyclopedia in the world that has its contents so thoroughly and meticulously debated? No way. This thing is an awesome fount of human knowledge. Still needs work, though. So, let's get cracking. reported: please block 173.55.197.25 User 173.55.197.25 11 vandalisms in BP and 10 in Tony Hayward / CALIFORNIA US, 90001 User Hereforhomework2 Total edits 946 / 2 reverts in BP / rollback rights User Goethean: Marking of the section Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion as in need to identify reliable sources (WP:RS) User 174.131.59.33 added content 5 edits / 1 edit in BP

 May 15th, 2010 User Ubarro erased content This account is a sock puppet of Scibaby and has been blocked indefinitely. User Txred99 added content Total 2 edits / his user page do not exist User Blue2fire: Removal of part of the text from the top of article. The user commented that it is Ridiculous to add such material in the introduction without proper explanation and context. Suggest making the controversy section more comprehensive if public interest demands it. Total 20 edit / 1 edit in BP

May 16th, 2010 User Vanguard 413: BPs logo vandalism attempt. The user replaced BPs logo with Wikipedias logo. 4 edits / user was blocked 10 minutes after his registration by Materialscientist; Reason: [[WP:Vandalism-only account|Vandalism-only account]]) User Tommy2010: Restoration of logo User 65.4.227.68: Vandalism attempt 1 total vandalism / TENNESSEE US, 37501 User Gnangarra: Clearing up vandalism, ten minutes later. The user also changed the title of the section from Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion to Deepwater Horizon oil spill to correspond to the articles name. User Ubarro: Removal from the Advertisement section information that was retrieved for the Greenpeace website assessing that it is not a reliable source. User Prolog: Revert of edits Total edits 32091 / 12 edits in BP / is an editor and administrator

May 17th, 2010

User 75.166.179.110: The user disputed the neutrality of the article and the page was flagged as {{NPOV}}. The user felt that the article was biased because of the title under which the oil spill incident was documented. Over 500 edits / 6 edits in BP (reverts) User 70.232.52.167: Vandalism attempt under the Recent years section User Happysailor: Revert of the edit. The user identified it as vandalism. total edits 9959 / 3 edits in BP (2 reverts 1 about the gallons) / rollback rights / Veteran Editor There has also been a dispute of how to identify the amount of oil spilled in gallons or barrels User 129.105.4.132 User 75.166.179.110: (that has flagged the page as disputed for neutrality) interfered claiming that Yes Needed, This is Supposed to Be an Independent Wikipedia Article, not a BP PR Rag. Over 500 total edits / 6 edits in BP User Goethean reverse edit (wikipedia does not use links in section headers. see WP:HEAD)

May 18th, 2010 User Myk60640: Addition of an internal link for bp. The user commented that it was oddly missing thanks to BP PR department. Total edits 1945 / 11 edits in BP / page not found User Bidgee: Undo of the link citing Total edits 63674 / 3 reverts in BP page User Aalox: Removal of the link, mentioning that Link does nothing but link to this article. Redundant. Total edits 1130 / 4 edits in BP (1 revert & small corrections) / Barnstars and awards

May 19th, 2010 User 76.92.237.158: content removal

2 total edits / 2 in BP User Can You Prove That You're Human: Restoration of edit, marking the previous as vandalism total edits 683 / sock puppet of Go leafs go 3000 User Ivmarton: Addition under the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of the following section: This refusal to release information could be seen as an all too clear sign that the blame for this incident lies with British Petroleum. Time will only tell the full extent of the damage incurred by the spill on the environment and the gulf economy. Total edits 4 / page not found User CurtisSwain: Revision of the page, explaining that the previous addition was based on personal opinion, no ref. User 24.166.14.117: Webpage http://www.boycottbp.com/ BOYCOTT BP is added to the external links Total edits 2 / 1 in BP (links) SmackBot: Date maintenance tags and general fixes User Childrenofinventions: Vandalism attempt Total edits 1 User 71.104.247.185: Cleaning up vandalism Total edits 3 / 1 in BP

May 20th, 2010 User Random 444: Vandalism attempt Total edits 2 / 1 in BP User 71.104.247.185: Cleaning up vandalism Total edits 3 / 1 revert in BP May 21st , 2010 User Matthol573: vandalism attempt User 76.248.212.106: reverted vandalism

5 total edits / 1 revert in BP User 128.151.80.181: content addition Over 50 edits / 1 edit in BP

May 22nd , 2010 User 108.14.100.49: added and could possibly be one of the worst natural disasters recorded. User Aluminum9: vandalism attempt 14 total edits / vandalisms in BP / page not found User 76.185.75.4: (got rid of some vandalism ~~~~ someone, lock this page down.) 5 total edits / 1 revert in BP User 173.55.197.25: All of the time and money that has gone into BP's PR and identity graphic communication: Thousands of hours of sweat and hundreds of talented consultants who studied at the best design schools holding up mood boards, selecting typefaces for "Beyond Petroleum"; the Design Awards;and now the average person thinks "Toxic Seas" when they see the BP graphic florette or hear of BP. A CEO who wanted BP to become the most profitable oil company at any cost. Beyond the dollars and the BP BS They need redemption. They need to stop and to purchase back something previously sold. R.O.I. Redemption. Design fiction. 23 total edits / 11 edits in BP / 11 edits in Tony Hayward User CurtisSwain: undid revision (20min) (VPO) User Ryancormack: added wikipedia links and changed natural disaster to manmade disaster 80 total edits / page not found User 76.243.103.125: vandalism attempt 4 total edits / 4 vandalisms in BP User Stephenb: revert (TW) 38524 total edits / This user is a recent changes patroller with Twinkle / anti vandalism barnstar User 76.243.103.125: vandalism attempt User Stephenb: revert

User 71.245.209.10: vandalism attempt 1 total edits / 1 vandalism in BP User PL290: revert 15008 total edits / 6 barnstars (Flaming Joel-wiki, teamwork, audio, music, content creativity, template) User Gump Stump: m (the company has had several names; already covered in infobox and history section)

May 23rd , 2010 User 65.185.98.117: vandalism attempt 12 total edits / 4 vandalism is BP User Seaphoto: reverted User 65.185.98.117: vandalism attempt User Seaphoto: reverted User Ericoides: m edits (3) 10671 total edits / User 71.245.248.218: vandalism attempt 4 total edits / 1 vandalism in BP blocked for a period of 31 hours from editing for persistent vandalism. 23 May 2010 User Prolog: revert User 75.80.25.191: vandalism attempt 1 total edits / 1 vandalism in BP User Dac04: revert 2752 total edits Journeyman Editor and is entitled to display this Service Badge / a recent changes and new page patroller / fights vandalism with Twinkle and Huggle User Aluminum9: vandalism attempt

User 99.255.198.167: revert (20 min later) 1 total edits / 1 revert in BP User 62.178.5.220: vandalism attempt in companys slogan 11 total edits / 1 vandalism in BP User CurtisSwain: revert (50 min later!!) User 69.232.239.222: vandalism 2 total edits / 1 vandalism in BP User Tommy2010: revert

May 24th , 2010 User Fight4truth: edit content 32 total edits / 1 edit in BP User 68.104.130.188: vandalism attempt 2 total edits / 2 vandalisms in BP User Vsmith: revert 92467 total edits / Administrator / Master Editor and is entitled to display this Platinum Editor Star. User 69.11.149.96: added content with unfounded info 1 total edits / 1 vandalism User Vsmith: revert User 174.70.100.33: vandalism-critique 5 total edits / 4 vandalisms in BP User Allmightyduck: revert 6306 total edits (this is the day that he registered) / This user is a recent changes patroller / This user no longer uses Twinkle and is a Huggler instead. User Bayoulee12: In Late April of 2010 as a result of the Bp Gusher in the Gulf Deep water horizon explosion a boycott group was founded on facebook. This Group Called Boycott Bp here is the link

Total edits 7 / page not found User 75.74.126.11: From controversies moved the text to recent years 4 total edits / 2 in BP After the slow response to the BP Gulf Oil Spill an online movement began on Facebook ( [http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-BP/119101198107726 Boycott BP] ). User Bidgee: History: remove Facebook group advert per WP:ADVERT and WP:ELNO) 1,5 hour later User 77.119.120.25: vandalism attempt 2 total edits / 1 vandalism in BP / 1 in Tony Hayward User Seaphoto: revert User Pwendel66: In the section Deepwater Horizon oil spill: addition of two paragraphs on litigation surrounding the spill, focusing on the work of the Gulf Oil Disaster Recovery Group User Philipwhiuk: In Canadian oil sands section: - Removal of unsourced and nonrelevant material per WP:NOT) made by Pwendel66 242 total edits / 1 edit in BP / This user is a recent changes patroller / This user uses Wikipedia as a primary point of reference. User 76.25.52.157: changed wording killing of 11 people 1 total change / 1 in BP User LizardJr8: edited the critique 4108 total edis / WikiProject Engineering participants User 216.162.26.193: vandalism eat superballs!!! in a massive text (easily identified) Over 100 total edits / 1 vandalism in BP User ClueBot: revert User 71.61.176.250: vandalism attempt 21 total edits / 1 vandalism in BP User 201.158.247.56: revert Corrected tagline from incorrectly stating "British Pollution" to "Beyond Petroleum

I total edit / 1 revert in BP

May 25th , 2010 User 174.70.100.33: vandalism attempt on Companys info User 24.241.35.225: revert 1 total edits / 1 in BP User 174.70.100.33: vandalism attempt User Tubby23: Reverted 1 edit by 174.70.100.33 identified as vandalism to last revision by 24.241.35.225. 1484 total edits / This user has rollback rights on the English Wikipedia / This user is a recent changes patroller with Twinkle User 174.70.100.33: more severe vandalism User Acroterion: m Reverted edits by 174.70.100.33 Total edits 80489 / Administrator User Aluminum9: vandalism User Wikipelli: revert Total edits 15627 / Journeyman Editor and is entitled to display this Service Badge / This user uses Huggle to combat vandalism / This user is a recent changes patroller with Twinkle / rollback rights I see you've hung around after that issue of interest has resolved itself. Wikipedia always needs more editors, especially those that can keep cool, follow process, and edit it good faith when the conflict gets heated. Studerby (talk) 19:27, 23 March 2010 (UTC) (not an award, really, but it meant a lot to me as a beginner) Wikipelli Talk User 208.120.234.65: mentioning the responsibility in introduction page regarding the oil spill 6 total edits / 2 edits in BP User Gump Stump: reverted good faith addition by 208.120.234.65

User Newuser54: erased content in Advertisement section: This statement was not from an independent source. It was taken from a lobby group website by which he meant Green peace 8 total edits / This account is a sock puppet of Scibaby User DD2K: revert of the deletion The section was cited and sourced, stating exactly where it came from --did not claim "independent DD2K is currently, or is about to be, on vacation in real life from 4 December 2010 until 13 December 2010 and may not be able to respond immediately to queries. He may pop in now and then from an available online source. User Newuser54: second attempt of deletion of content Under these circumstances, it is not reliable and verifiable (Encyclopedic content must be verifiable) User Prolog: m (Reverted edits by Newuser54 (talk) to last version by DD2K) RESOLVED User Markmark12: deletes content related to political campaign and donations of BP to parties User Pwendel66: minor changes Total edits 173 / reg. 12 April / Stuart H. Smith (born September 15, 1960) is a practicing plaintiff attorney and founding partner of the New Orleans-based environmental and toxic-tort law firm SmithStag, LLC. Smith, a "radiation attorney," has practiced law for nearly 25 years and is recognized internationally as a crusader against major oil companies and other polluters for damages associated with radioactive oilfield waste. He is currently representing commercial fishermen, whose livelihoods have been devastated by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Smith is lead counsel in the case of GEORGE BARISICH, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, and UNITED COMMERCIAL FISHERMANS ASSOCIATION, INC., individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Versus BP, P.L.C. User Prolog: (Undid revision 364091158 by Markmark12 (talk) - unexplained blanking) User Aluminum9: vandalism attempt User 132.50.10.35: revert User Beagel: In Deepwater Horizon oil spill section: cleanup this belongs to the oil spill article, not here. And this not a place to promote involved lawyer User 12.39.112.161: vandalism attempt

Over 50 edits / 1 vandalism in BP / blocked User Beagel: revert User 75.65.51.93: vandalism attempt they ruined our future kids so ya happy noww? User Stephenb: (Reverted 1 edit by 75.65.51.93; No, but this doesn't make it better, does it?. (TW)) Total edits 38524 / This user is a recent changes patroller with Twinkle I believe the majority of effort in Wikipedia should be to continue to add to the sum total of knowledge by adding and improving articles, and those that only look for reasons to delete (articles that are not nonsense or vandalism), but do not meet guidelines that (in effect) alienate both existing and potential editors, should be ashamed, as their actions destroy faith in the Wikipedia project. It's all too easy to delete articles, less easy to accept that readers may find the content therein useful and therefore may contribute to the encyclopaedia by improving them. If Wikipedia really is the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit, then we must accept that articles will often get created that do not meet guidelines for notability, fiction or whatever. This being the case, it becomes obvious that there are a significant number of editors who believe that such articles should be present, regardless of whether they have read those guidelines. In this case, the guidelines end up being a tool used by another set of editors who simply want to protect and ensconce those guidelines and delete articles that do not (in their view) meet them, rather than discuss their relative merits and/or allow exceptions. This is starting to cause a significant clash between "deletionists" (who slavishly nominate articles for deletion rather than making positive contributions - i.e. adding content and improving articles) and "everyone else", whether prolific, casual or single-article editors who obviously felt that a particular article ought to be present. May 26th , 2010 User 194.204.66.37: criticism on recent years (2) 7 total edits / 2 in BP User 109.129.58.126: revert 1 total edit / 1 revert in BP User 69.14.181.29: External links [http://www.bpoilleak.org/ BP Oil Leak News Site] User Gump Stump: removal of spam link, two blog links [http://www.advfn.com/p.php?pid=qkquote&btn=&epic=bp.&symbol= BP Share Price]

[http://www.boycottbp.com/ Boycott BP] [http://www.bpoilleak.org/ BP Oil Leak News Site] User 74.213.103.239: Content addition: On May 26, 2010 at 2:00 p.m Eastern Time Operation "Top Kill" started in effort to stop the spill + ref 3 total edits / 3 in bP User Gump Stump: revert three edits by 74.213.103.239 to last version by Gump Stump)

May 27th , 2010 User Explicit: Protected BP: Excessive vandalism (expires 05:05, 10 June 2010 (UTC). The page is Semi-protected Total 62094 edits / Administrator / a Veteran Editor III and is entitled to display this Silver Editor Star /

The following edits are clean ups, request citations, consolidations and clarifications

May 29th , 2010 User Oaaoaao: vandalism attempt on the companys logo Total edits 19 / 1 in BP User Kevleyski: revision of valdalism (20 min later) 27 total edits / 1 in BP

May 30th , 2010 User DrHok: deleted content User SmackBot Date maintenance tags and general fixes: build 417:)

May 31th , 2010 User John Vandenberg: External links: wikinews|New BP oil spill plan

84075 total edits / Administrator User Jhubsch: in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill section: - removed First Quarter 2010 daily profits, as it is irrelevant to the synopsis of the events of the Oil Spill Total edits 65 / page not found