I’d noticed one or two of these “Did you know…” entries on the Wikipedia site, but I didn’t realize just how much of a fixation the online encyclopedia has for “The Rock”:
Last October Wikipedia‘s supreme leader Jimmy Wales called for a “strong moratorium” on the online project’s strange obsession with promoting Gibraltar — even suggesting a five-year ban on Gibraltar-loving Did You Know… posts on Wikipedia‘s front page.
“I think it is clear that there should be a strong moratorium on any Gibraltar-related DYKs on the front page of Wikipedia. I would recommend a total ban on them for five years, but that might be too extreme. I support that we get wider community attention on the issue,” he wrote in October last year.
The moratorium was opposed by Wiki editors but they did agree on certain guidelines. Every Gibraltar DYK has to be reviewed by two reviewers to check for conflict-of-interest issues or promotionalism, and no more than one Gibraltarpedia hook is allowed in one a day. Also, Bamkin (user name Victuallers) is not allowed to create or nominate Gibraltar-related articles to DYK.
Jimmy Wales speaks, and Wikipedia leaps into action. In December, they restricted themselves to a mere nine Gibraltar DYK entries. January saw 12 Gibraltarpedia links. As of today, there have been six Gibraltar-related posts in February.
