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He was drunk only once?
- This is his edit on the wiki page of Missouri from the day of this tweet: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Missouri&oldid=693016799
- He replaced an svg with png, so he didn't even know how to properly fake a map
- His username was Robwhisman, he had only one edit on wikipedia, when he replaced the map. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Robwhisman
- I suspect he was not found via this tweet, but his account was a fresh registration with only a single edit, most suspicious. Amateur vandal. Professionals lurk with small changes for years, than slowly ramp up to bigger levels, like the teenager who faked an entire language on wikipedia for years, and noone noticed his edits are just gibberish: https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/26/scots_wikipedia_fake/ He was caught after 10000 articles, not after a single edit.
I've spent some time editing Wikipedia, and one of the funny things is that vandals who want attention for their pranks often don't get it. Experienced editors just shut their nonsense down quietly and without a fuss. If a mistake appears to have happened through stupidity rather than malice, no one gets banned. Just a boring warning template.
Sounds like this guy didn't get the attention he wanted on the wiki platform.
That being said...
I absolutely remember the thing about the Scots editor! I heard that he was trying in good faith, quite young, a bit weird, American, and equipped with a Scots-English dictionary. He just didn't comprehend that grammar is different in other languages and that Groundskeeper Willie was nae actually speekin Scots.
I ended up feeling pretty bad for the kid, but it shows how an enthusiastic person can do an impressive amount of damage. Before the news came out, I would have pointed to the scots wiki as evidence that the language wasn't really much more than a strong regional dialect. Similar to how a really thick Boston, Philly, or eastern Kentucky accent can sound to someone from a more midwestern US location.
There have been occasional interactions with real Scottish folk taking exception to pages, and the administrator has responded in a dead-pan fashion.
This is just…. Trolling taken to an artful level. Truly beautiful.
Holy shit, that is the funniest thing I’ve heard all year.