OLYMPIC CURLING CHAMPION Matt Hamilton has one of the greatest mustaches in sports history. It's a fact. At least, it's a fact according to Wikipedia, which at one time or another has also claimed the Wisconsin native was a long-lost relative of Nintendo's Super Mario Bros., a true American hero, a cougar hunter, a viper, and for a short time, well, married to his sister. (He was most definitely not. Although the mustache and the hero thing check out.) Every four years right around the time of the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics, Hamilton and his curling compatriots get to experience one of the stranger sides of sports stardom when, for a fortnight, they become targets in the fascinating, frequently insipid -- and occasionally clever -- secret world of Wikipedia sports vandalism.
For curlers that can mean anything from having the proper definition of their sport temporarily replaced at the online, community-generated encyclopedia with "for old people who can hardly move" -- or worse. Sometimes it means entire Wikipedia articles filled with just the phrase "curling is not a sport. curling is not a sport. curling is not a sport."
In Hamilton's case, his personal favorite was the claim that he was "very involved with his charity to cure irritable bowel syndrome because he suffers from it himself." Although, the mustache claim is a close second. "Robin Yount? I mean, I'm not even the most famous Wisconsinite with an awesome mustache but I love that I'm even in the conversation, so those Wikipedia edits are cool with me," says Hamilton during a training break in Los Angeles just days before flying to Beijing. "Most people know it's all peer edited so anyone can go in there and tinker with it. It's the Internet, it's gonna do what it does and say what it says, so the only way to beat the system is to ignore it."
That has become increasingly difficult, however, with the growing onslaught of Wikipedia sports vandalism. Outside of an Olympic year, Wikivandals now hit after nearly every major or dramatic sporting event. The usually good-natured electronic vandalism often comes in the form of someone like Steph Curry being inserted as the "owner" on the Los Angeles Lakers Wikipedia page; the Edmonton Oilers getting added to the list of "worst" oil spill disasters in history; seven-time Olympic champion swimmer Katie Ledecky being reclassified as a "humanoid evolution spawned in the bowels of Poseidon"; or, more recently, 49ers kicker Robbie Gould becoming the new "mayor" of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Perhaps not quite ready to speak on the stunning loss at Lambeau, or those cheeky, tech-savvy 49ers fans, the Green Bay mayor, his honor Eric Genrich, a former IT librarian, did not respond to several requests for comment about the electronic coup staged by 49ers fans. In his defense, the recent online support from San Francisco fans is quite a contrast to just under three years ago when Wikipedia was forced to lock 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo's page after fickle fans from the other bay repeatedly changed his middle name to "Crappolo" and his position to "professional garbage can."
Very few users ever saw those actual Crappolo edits, though. Wiki software bots, armed with a massive database of vandalism terms and patterns, are constantly combing through the site's 6.4 million English language articles and often within seconds reverting any anomalies, like, in 2015 when New England Patriot Matthew Slater was listed as "killed by Bill Belichick" after he deferred the overtime coin toss. What the bots don't catch becomes the responsibility of Wikipedia's community of 43 million contributors, of which, about 100,000 are considered "active" editors: unpaid volunteers like Earl Washburn, a 35-year-old Ottawa native and polling analyst who, in his spare time, edits nearly all of Wikipedia's 5,000 articles on curling. What the average sports fan usually sees, then, is not the actual goof edit itself but a screen shot of the giggle-inducing, click-bait-style graffiti that was then shared across the social media landscape
In recent years the practice has grown to become an almost accepted, customary way for clever fans to electronically enhance and amplify the vibes from every epic collapse or monumental win. In a 2014 World Cup loss to Belgium, U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard was absolutely out of his mind, making a record 16 saves and almost single-handedly carrying the Americans beyond the Round of 16. It was a watershed moment for both U.S. men's soccer and Wikisports vandalism.
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