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Note: this article was moved to its current location as a result of this AfD discussion. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 18:28, November 28, 2005 (UTC)
For the historic, and unedited article that was moved here in 2005, see this revision. Hecseur (talk) 14:29, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's article on George W. Bush is the third most edited article on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.[1] As of September 2023 it had been edited more than 48,000 times,[2] around 9,200 edits behind the first place article, List of WWE personnel, which has been edited more than 57,200 times.[3] There are, however, many internal project pages, user pages, and talk pages of the aforementioned page types, which have received more edits, such as Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, currently the most edited page at over 1.9 million edits.[1] The article's talk page has also been widely edited. As of September 2023 it has been edited around 23,250 times,[4] making it the 19th most edited mainspace talk page.[1] As of September 2023 the article contains 14,188 words.[2]

George W. Bush had been the incumbent American president for most of Wikipedia's early existence, having been inaugurated five days after its founding date, and remaining in office for the next 8 years. The article was created very soon after Wikipedia started in January 2001, but the original version has been lost. The earliest saved version comes from January 29, 2001, when the article was at GeorgeWBush (see Wikipedia:CamelCase and Wikipedia). It was a rather brief "stub" article, edited from the one on whitehouse.gov.

The biggest cause to the massive amount of edits on George W. Bush is likely as a result of the controversy that stand behind his figure, as is reported in media sources such as The Daily Telegraph[5] and The Independent,[6] who wrote news articles on the article's large number of edits. This controversy has caused many large disputes on the article's talk page, which caused excerpts from the page to be mentioned in the book Wikipedia – A New Community of Practice? as an example of talk page discussion.[7] According to the book, by 2009 the talk page for the article, including all of its archives, had half a million words written in it.[7]

Media coverage

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The article has received media coverage from multiple notable sources. It was first reported about on 2004 by The New York Times, reporting on the enormous amounts of controversiality of, and vandalism on the article since the moment it was created.[8] In 2007 the article was noted in another report of The New York Times, where it was accused that the article, among others, was written by persons and parties with a conflict of interest, which have edited the article in a way that would reflect their own agenda.[9]

The article was widely covered on Wikipedia's 15th anniversary in 2016, when the Wikimedia Foundation released data of the most edited articles on their encyclopedia. The fact that the article on George W. Bush was the most edited article at the time was reported on the days following the anniversary by many news sources, including ABC News,[10] Global News,[11] BBC News,[12] and others.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Wikipedia:Database reports/Pages with the most revisions". Wikipedia. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  2. ^ a b "George W. Bush - Page History". XTools. Retrieved October 1, 2023.
  3. ^ "List of WWE personnel - Page History". XTools. Retrieved October 1, 2023.
  4. ^ "Talk:George W. Bush - Page History". XTools. Retrieved October 1, 2023.
  5. ^ WIlliams, Rhiannon (July 19, 2013). "George W Bush is Wikipedia's most-edited entry". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
  6. ^ Griffin, Andrew (June 25, 2015). "Wikipedia's most edited articles: WWE and George W Bush take spot as encyclopedia's most controversial topics". The Independent. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
  7. ^ a b O'Sullivan, Dan (2009). "Chapter 10 Wikipedia: Structure". Wikipedia: A New Community of Practice?. Routledge. pp. 94–96. ISBN 978-0754674337.
  8. ^ Boxer, Sarah (November 10, 2004). "Mudslinging Weasels Into Online History". The New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
  9. ^ Hafner, Katie (August 19, 2007). "Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits". The New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
  10. ^ "George W Bush page most edited on Wikipedia". ABC News. January 15, 2016. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
  11. ^ Bogart, Nicole (January 15, 2016). "George W. Bush has the most edited Wikipedia page of all time". Global News. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
  12. ^ Kleinman, Zoe (January 15, 2016). "George W Bush tops Wikipedia list". BBC News. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
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