Wednesday, 21 October 2026 Updated 23 min ago
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‘A difficult line’: meet the editors tackling Wikipedia’s arms trade pages

Volunteers and new recruits come together for ‘wikithon’ to put more detail about industry into public domain “Anyone can edit Wikipedia,” the adage goes.

Image accompanying the story: ‘A difficult line’: meet the editors tackling Wikipedia’s arms trade pages
Image: Photograph: Lily Renshaw/The Guardian · via The Guardian

The Guardian reports: Volunteers and new recruits come together for ‘wikithon’ to put more detail about industry into public domain “Anyone can edit Wikipedia,” the adage goes.

But, it turns out, a relatively small number actually do. What is worthy of a digital page in the world’s largest and most-read encyclopedia is decided by roughly 270,000 active volunteers, enthusiasts who populate the online resource with information on anything from 19th-century medicine to TikTok trends.

This technology story centres on the United Kingdom. Names and organisations mentioned in the coverage include Wikipedia, TikTok and Wikipedian.

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Key details

Location
United Kingdom · Europe
Reported by
The Guardian
First reported
Key names
Wikipedia, TikTok, Wikipedian
Section
Technology

Sources

This is an independent summary. Read the full, original reporting from the publisher:

Read the full story at The Guardian

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