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The full episode, in writing.
In February 2002, the Spanish Wikipedia community split to create Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español. This was led by Edgar Enyedy at the University of Seville, after rumors circulated that Wikipedia’s founders, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, planned to allow advertising on the site. Most Spanish contributors joined the new project, creating over 10,000 articles within a year, and leaving the Spanish Wikipedia largely dormant until mid-2003. The advertising issue remained contentious. In a 2011 interview with Wired, Wales denied supporting ads, but Sanger called this a "self-serving lie," highlighting ongoing disputes among Wikipedia’s founders.
In October 2002, Derek Ramsey used a bot, Rambot, to generate 33,832 stub articles on American counties, towns, and cities in a single week, increasing Wikipedia’s article count by 40%. This move, described by Andrew Lih as "the most controversial in Wikipedia history," used data from the U.S. Census of 2000, and sparked debate over quality versus quantity.
May 2005 saw the start of one of Wikipedia’s most publicized hoaxes, when an anonymous user created a false biography of American journalist John Seigenthaler. The article wrongly implicated Seigenthaler in the Kennedy assassinations and claimed he had spent years in the Soviet Union. The hoax remained online for months, and prompted Seigenthaler to call the incident "Internet character assassination." The perpetrator was eventually outed by Daniel Brandt and The New York Times, and Seigenthaler’s response in USA Today increased scrutiny of Wikipedia’s reliability.
In March 2007, the Essjay controversy erupted after The New Yorker revealed that a prominent Wikipedia editor and administrator known as "Essjay," who claimed to be a tenured professor with a Ph.D., was actually a 24-year-old without advanced degrees. Essjay, whose real name is Ryan Jordan, held several trusted roles within Wikipedia, including administrator, arbitrator, and checkuser. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger accused Jimmy Wales of ignoring the ethical implications. Eventually, Jordan resigned his positions on Wikipedia and at the company Wikia.
The 2012 Gibraltar controversy involved Roger Bamkin, a Wikimedia UK board member, who provided paid consultancy services to the government of Gibraltar. This raised concerns about conflicts of interest and Wikipedia’s vulnerability to manipulation by insiders.
In 2013, it was revealed that the firm Wiki-PR had edited Wikipedia articles for paying clients using a network of at least 45 sockpuppet accounts, some of which were Wikipedia administrators. Sockpuppeting—using multiple accounts to deceive or manipulate content—allowed Wiki-PR to evade scrutiny and promote favorable articles for its clients.
The 2015 Orangemoody investigation exposed a group of fraudsters who blackmailed businesses and minor celebrities over their Wikipedia pages. They threatened to delete or vandalize articles unless paid, operating through hundreds of sockpuppet accounts to evade detection.
In December 2007, the Wikimedia Foundation hired Carolyn Doran as chief operating officer, despite her having criminal records in three states for theft, DUI, and fleeing a crash. She left after another DUI arrest, and it emerged she had once shot her boyfriend in the chest. The incident highlighted weaknesses in the Foundation’s hiring processes.
In June 2009, Canadian physician James Heilman uploaded all ten Rorschach inkblot images to Wikipedia, stating that their copyright had expired. Psychologists objected, arguing that patients’ prior exposure could undermine the test’s validity. Two psychologists filed a complaint against Heilman with Saskatchewan’s medical licensing board, marking one of the rare cases where Wikipedia editing led to a professional ethics investigation.