How One Wikipedia Editor Unraveled the ‘Single Largest Self-Promotion Operation’ in the Site’s History

“Is it super important and it is the first that I hear about him?” One asked. “Is it a supervisory polyglot that wants everyone to know about their favorite writer / composer? Does anyone use AI to artificially increase performance measures by this type?”

The investigation

A Wikipedia publisher who goes through “GRNCHST” recently decided to discover it, deeply plunging into articles on WOODARD and in all the modifications that have placed his name in other articles. The results of this long and tedious survey were written in the August 9 edition of The Signpost, an online newspaper managed by volunteers on Wikipedia.

GRNCH’s conclusion was direct: “I discovered what I think could have been the biggest self-promotion operation in the history of Wikipedia, covering more than a decade and covering up to 200 accounts and even more indirect IP addresses.”

A network of accounts having an unusual interest in Woodard has been identified and its activities in the last decade have been mapped. From 2015, these accounts inserted the name of Woodard “in no less than 93 articles (including” pliers “,” Brown Pelican “and” Bundesautobahn “), often referring to the sources self-published by Woodard himself”. And it was just in the English version of Wikipedia.

From 2017 to 2019, the accounts “created articles on David Woodard in at least 92 different languages, creating a new article every six days on average … They started with European Latin script languages, but quickly extended to other families and scripts from all corners of the globe, writing articles in articles built; (easily 90% or more).” Nahuatl, the extremists and the Kirundi.

Grnrchst concluded that “this quantity of translations in many different languages would imply that this person is one of the most advanced polyglots in human history, that is more likely.”

After a reduction in activity, things increased again in 2021, while IP addresses around the world began to create Woodard references and articles. For example, “the addresses of Canada, Germany, Indonesia, the United Kingdom and other places have added anecdotes on Woodard to the 15 Wikipedia articles on the Calea ternifolia. “”

Then things became “more sophisticated”. From December 2021 to June 2025, 183 articles were created on Woodard, each in another Wikipedia language and each by a single account. These accounts followed a behavior model: they were “created, often with a fairly generic name, and made a user page with a single image. They then made dozens of minor modifications to unrelated articles, before creating an article on David Woodard, then making a dozen minor modifications more before disappearing from the platform.”

Grnrchst believes that all the activity was supposed to “create as many articles on Woodard as possible, and to spread photos and information on Woodard to as many articles as possible, while hiding this activity as much as possible … I came to believe that David Woodard himself, or someone close to him, had exploited this network of accounts and IP addresses for self-promotion purposes.”

After the GRNCHST report, World Wikipedia Commissioners deleted 235 articles on WIODARD from Wikipedia instances with few users or administrators. The larger wikipedias were free to make their own community decisions, and they deleted 80 other articles and prohibit many accounts.

“A complete decade of self-promotion dedicated by an individual network was only canceled in a few weeks by our community,” noted Grnrchst.

In the end, there are only 20 articles on Woodard, like this one in English, which does not mention controversy.

We could not get in touch with Woodard, whose personal website is protected by password and available only “by invitation”.

Could everything be a kind of “artistic project”, the real gain being an exhibition and a writing? Maybe. But whatever the reason for the effort of a decade to stimulate Woodard on Wikipedia, the incident reminds us of how some people are ready to devote to open or publication projects for their own ends.

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.