Using Wikipedia to gatecrash

[Poetlister]

Fan of The Sherlocks edits band's Wiki to get backstage

When Adam Boyd turned up late to see The Sherlocks and couldn't get a good view he edited the band's Wikipedia page to claim he was a family member.

It was all part of a spur of the moment plan to get access to the backstage area.

See, Wikipedia has its uses! Apparently, the BBC approached WMUK to ask if it's really so easy to make such edits without having them checked. I don't know what the reply was, if any.

[Rogol Domedonfors]

I seem to recall having heard similar stories before – I wonder whether it's an urban myth? Even so, it should be promulgated as widely as possible ...

[lonza leggiera]

I seem to recall having heard similar stories before – I wonder whether it's an urban myth? Even so, it should be promulgated as widely as possible ...

The BBC article does mention one similar incident which happened a little more than a year earlier. That this incident really did occur seems reasonably well attested. An appropriate Wikipedia edit to the article of the band concerned (Peking Duk) was made on the designated date, and, according to the BBC article cited, the band members tweeted that they did in fact have a beer with the perpetrator.

The Wikipedia edit supposedly responsible for Adam Boyd's getting more recent unauthorised backstage access at a concert by The Sherlocks was certainly made on the reported date, but, on my reading of the BBC article, the only attestation that Boyd did actually get unauthorised access has come from Boyd himself, and doesn't seem to have been confirmed by anyone else. That said, I can't see any reasonable grounds for dismissing Boyd's account as a fabrication.

[Poetlister]

There were, after that edit to Peking Duk, several bits of vandalism. One was to alter the first edit "Family David Spargo" to "Family David Spargo (legend)". Materialscientist (T-C-L) fixed that bit of vandalism but not the other bits, not even the addition of the spurious relative. So much for keen vandalism patrollers.

[Bezdomni]

Apparently Wikipedia can also be a get-into-jail-free card: Taner Akçam had to put up with four hours of questioning because of a hoax planted into his page.