47,000 Wikipedia Edits Made By One Man

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This guy made 47,000 Wikipedia edits to fix one error...over and over and over.

Henderson has made more than 47,000 edits to Wikipedia correcting a single grammatical error, when writers use 'comprised of' instead of 'consists of'. That particular error irritates Henderson so much that he spends an hour a week fixing it on the online encyclopedia – and has done since 2007.
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hmm, sounds like the sucker way of doing it. I would have written a computer program to do that, slowly enough to emulate a group of people of course.
 
Oh, and if he was smart, he could make a nice script to do the searches and the edits for him.
 
That's dedication. I'm impressed.

Of course, regardless of whether he writes a script to correct these for him or not, there's no way to keep up with the flood of bad grammar.
 
NLW said:
That's dedication. I'm impressed.

Of course, regardless of whether he writes a script to correct these for him or not, there's no way to keep up with the flood of bad grammar.
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Sure there is. We just need to get every government to institute a Grammer Police (Grammer Nazi) squad, comprised of a bunch of these Grammer Nazis.

They would be financed by fines levied against the people using incorrect grammer.

The whole idea will eventually degrade into an underground society where people can go if they want to use incorrect grammer.

Regular raids will be conducted by the Grammer Nazi squads, which will make the backlash against correct grammer even greater.

Eventually one will rise up that will single handedly defeat the Grammer Nazi organization and things will go back to normal.
 
^^^ Sounds like a good time - start with the stick instead of the carrot. Where do I sign up? Grammar Police here I come! :D
 
Hmmm, maybe I'll change all those references of "loose" when they really meant "lose" and vice-versa.
 
cyclone3d said:
Sure there is. We just need to get every government to institute a Grammer Police (Grammer Nazi) squad, comprised of a bunch of these Grammer Nazis.

They would be financed by fines levied against the people using incorrect grammer.

The whole idea will eventually degrade into an underground society where people can go if they want to use incorrect grammer.

Regular raids will be conducted by the Grammer Nazi squads, which will make the backlash against correct grammer even greater.

Eventually one will rise up that will single handedly defeat the Grammer Nazi organization and things will go back to normal.
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the ultimate Irony, creating "Grammer" Police, to police people's "Grammar".
 
Eminence_Front said:
the ultimate Irony, creating "Grammer" Police, to police people's "Grammar".
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Don't worry. He's already been taken care of.

I also preëmptively removed the apostrophe key from his keyboard. We can't afford to take any more risks with that one.
 
NLW said:
That's dedication. I'm impressed.

Of course, regardless of whether he writes a script to correct these for him or not, there's no way to keep up with the flood of bad grammar.
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Set the script to run as a scheduled task and it will keep up just fine.
 
"creating a program that runs through Wikipedia pages searching for the offending phrase, bringing back a list of articles that needs his attention "

Looks like he already has something in place to make things easier. That is also a lot of wikipedia pages to read. Wonder how much information stayed with him?
 
NLW said:
That's dedication. I'm impressed.

Of course, regardless of whether he writes a script to correct these for him or not, there's no way to keep up with the flood of bad grammar.
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+1 give that man a cookie... a big one
 
cyclone3d said:
Oh, and if he was smart, he could make a nice script to do the searches and the edits for him.
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He was smart... He did have a script. He was even smarter to NOT rely on the final edit to the script and do a final visual verification AS the English language is the hardest language to fully learn with so many exception rules it ridiculous
 
Kinda a shame, all the energy going to protesting the evolution of language instead of something that actually benefits society.
 
Wierdo said:
Kinda a shame, all the energy going to protesting the evolution of language instead of something that actually benefits society.
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A bunch of people not bothering nor caring about what or how they write is evolution? I get language changes over time, but this is a simple matter of people not using a dictionary. Your typical person posting on a forum anymore couldn't pass 2nd grade with their knowledge of proper grammar. That doesn't make them right. It just means they don't know or care any better.

And really, what's with the moral judgement? Are you some kind of utilitarian or something? :D
 
NLW said:
A bunch of people not bothering nor caring about what or how they write is evolution? I get language changes over time, but this is a simple matter of people not using a dictionary. Your typical person posting on a forum anymore couldn't pass 2nd grade with their knowledge of proper grammar. That doesn't make them right. It just means they don't know or care any better.

And really, what's with the moral judgement? Are you some kind of utilitarian or something? :D
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Yes, language evolves constantly in such ways, if you compare today's english to that of Shakespere you wouldn't understand most of what's being said, but it's the same language, five centuries from now people may not understand our old writings.

It's not good or bad, just natural evolution, language changing with its users. If language is not evolving then it's because it's dead.

The guy's free to spend his free time in this fashion, but I don't see anything worthy of news coverage, except I guess for amusement purposes imho.
 
If you edit or screw up Wikipedia they will get the Ban hammer after you might involve legal action.
 
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