Stephen Colbert once said of Wikipedia, “any site that’s got a longer entry on ‘truthiness’ than on Lutherans has its priorities straight.” I remember checking on this at the time, and he was correct about the length of the respective articles. And I tend to share his actual point, that people are too interested in entertainment — such as Colbert himself. But that isn’t the end of the story: the spotlight Colbert shone on Wikipedia surely led to the current status quo: the articles for Truthiness and Lutheranism are currently about the same length.
Which is a good jumping off point for the second installment of our look at the top-edited articles on Wikipedia.
- Article: Major Boobage
Why: It’s third episode of South Park’s twelfth season.
Detail: Last week, the entry for the previous episode was number four on this list. Because a new article will be created for each new episode over the next few weeks, expect weird titles like the above to wind up somewhere on this list each week. And how many edits, total? 433 by noon Sunday EDT. - Article: Fitna (film)
Why: A 15-minute documentary film criticizing Islam and the Koran, written, directed and produced by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, released on the Internet this week.
Detail: The movie credits actually lists the official website as being at wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitna on both the Dutch (.nl) and English (.en) editions. Problem is, in each case this is a disambiguation page, because it’s an Arabic word with a few related entries already. Was this a simple mistake, or an attempt to supersede the other Wikipedia articles? Either way, whether to move the article for the movie into the space occupied by the disambiguation page has been the most controversial issue surrounding this article, and remains unresolved. - Article: Deaths in 2008
Why: Passing on this week: actor Richard Widmark, Beatles music executive Neil Aspinall, pioneering radio talker Wally Phillips, NFL draft prospect Heath Benedict, Cambodian photojournalist Dith Pran and my favorite: Herb Peterson, inventor of the Egg McMuffin.
Detail: This was number three last week as well, although last week’s deaths were more publicized. Also resolved since last week: Abigail Taylor, the Minnesota girl who died following injuries sustained from a public swimming pool, passed muster for notability and has an article again. - Article: 2008 Tibetan unrest
Why: Violence has subsided but not ended entirely, and governments around the world are weighing whether to boycott the Olympic Games.
Detail: Last week, this article was on the list as 2008 unrest in Tibet (see below). The article was suggested to be renamed when it became apparent the protests were no longer confined to Tibet. However, the move didn’t actually occur until more than a week later. 
Article: American Idol (season 7)
Why: It’s the current season, and contestants are being eliminated every week.
Detail: A high number of edits from IP addresses suggest that people unlikely to edit Wikipedia articles otherwise are contributing heavily to this one. My favorite edit summary: “Chikezie’s name has been revealed and known throughout the season, you incompetent twatwaffle. He goes solely by his first name on the show.”- Article: Sea otter
Why: It was on the Wikipedia Main Page as a Featured Article on Monday, bringing renewed attention to this otherwise uncontroversial subject.
Detail: Well, not entirely uncontroversial. It was also the target of vandalism in November 6 because of… South Park. Comedy Central is so far out ahead of Wikipedia it’s not even worth keeping count. - Article: ICarly
Why: The Nickelodeon show just finished its first season, is being released on the Internet and seems to be getting plenty of coverage lately. Aside from that, I’m stumped.
Detail: That’s really iCarly, but for some reason, the software powering Wikipedia changes lowercase first letters to uppercase. See also: IPod and IPhone. - Article: 2008 unrest in Tibet
Why: See number four.
Detail: Had the name not changed mid-week, it would have been the top-edited article of the week. 
Article: Stephen Curry (basketball)
Why: The son of former Charlotte Hornets star player and current Charlotte Bobcats assistant Del Curry, the younger Curry leads this year’s NCAA playoffs Cinderella team, the Charlotte-area Davidson Wildcats. Later today he’ll lead the Wildcats against Kansas as both vie to crack the Final Four.
Detail: Curry’s rivals must be turning out, because a high percentage of these edits are vandalism and then the reversion of said vandalism. And I’ll admit, some of it is funny.- Article: American Idol
Why: See number five.
Detail: I’m really not the best person to be writing this. After all, I get most of my American Idol news from Tony Kornheiser.
Holdovers this week: 2008 unrest in Tibet, Deaths in 2008.
Falling off the list: Arthur C. Clarke, Britney’s New Look, Bear Sterns, David Paterson, 2008 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament, Horton Hears a Who! (film), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Brian Posehn
Images courtesy iiraa, Taekwonweirdo and Sail Whitestone.
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