By Hemia U. Chenia (and the Wikipediocracy Blog Staff)

Christian Rosa (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; image uploaded by User:Panghea)

In 2016 a Wikipedia entry for contemporary artist Christian Rosa was created by a new user called Panghea. It was quickly nominated for deletion, but the discussion resulted in “no consensus,” so the article remained. Panghea sporadically updated Rosa’s page over the next few years, making no edits to any other article, and Rosa’s art was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Panghea, who claimed it was their “own work.”Born in Brazil in 1982, Rosa’s fame reached its zenith in 2014 when one of his paintings sold at Christie’s in New York for $209,000. His star soon dimmed, however, and a similar artwork made only $30,000 a year later.In January 2021, Artnet News claimed Rosa stole a partially completed painting from fellow artist Raymond Pettibon. Rosa allegedly forged the unfinished part and consigned it to the secondary art market as the owner. A subsequent Artnet exposé suggested that Rosa had stolen and forged multiple paintings from Pettibon’s workshop.An unregistered user added these allegations to Rosa’s Wikipedia article, cited to Artnet. Less than two hours later though, Panghea swooped in and removed them entirely, leaving a misleading comment of “minor edit.”The allegations eventually found their way back into Rosa’s article several months later, courtesy of occasional editor Forsooth1234. Panghea again removed all mention of the scandal, with another misleading edit summary: “Minor edit + incl. sculptures.” The claims were then added back in again by an anonymous IP editor and Forsooth1234, but were repeatedly removed by Panghea, who claimed the additions were “libelous.” That started an edit war that resulted in the article being temporarily

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