Editors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia tend to update Wikipedia articles with information about deaths quickly after people die.[3][4] Web developer and Wikipedia editor Hay Kranen coined the term "deaditor" to refer to these editors.[5] Articles about people often have large spikes in views just after they die. For example, the article about designer Kate Spade averaged 2,117 views in 48-hour periods before her death. In the 48 hours after her death, it got 3,417,416, an increase of 161,427%.[6][7]
Media have remarked on the site's quick updates after the deaths of people such as Michael Jackson,[8] Elizabeth II,[5][9][10] and Henry Kissinger.[11][12]
In January 2009, in response to false death reports on the English Wikipedia articles about Robert Byrd and Edward Kennedy, the site's co-founder Jimmy Wales proposed that pages be moderated using Flagged Revisions, a form of protection under which certain revisions of a protected page must be accepted by an experienced editor before becoming visible to readers.[13] The feature, known as "pending changes" on English Wikipedia, was first implemented in 2010, though by 2021 it was not widely used on biographies of living people and was unmaintained.[14][15]
When a subject of a biography dies of a disease, its progress may also be described.[16][17]
References
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