Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-01-27/In the media

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Re:The Corbin Bleu article's many translated versions. The leading editor of the English version (both in number of edits and the amount of content added) has been blocked for sockpuppeting, so the most obvious reason for all the translations is that paid editors were responsible. Many of the versions are just straight translations of most of the English version, many are just straight translations of the first line only. I'd guess many are just from Google Translate, without further translation. His popularity doesn't explain anything - if he had 10 times more pageviews in English, the article wouldn't even make the top 1000. His popularity with teenagers or Saudis doesn't explain anything - I don't think these folks are known for their ability or willingness to translate articles. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:27, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense. Wikipedia has always been a primary target of social media advertising due to Google SEO. I don't know of an easy mechanism to monitor cross-language puffery or how to tackle it given the inaccessibility of so many languages. -- GreenC 18:20, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]