Several publications highlighted how a briefly visible vandalism edit to Open AI CEO Sam Altman's Wikipedia article led Google Search to show that he was dead.^[1] The edit falsely claimed that Altman had been assassinated, with the edit reverted 42 minutes later. Google's search overview picked up on this addition and "informed" users that he died on August 12. Shortly after the error was initially reverted, several temporary accounts briefly readded it before being reverted, and the page has now been temporarily semi protected. The Signpost thanks everyone who works hard to fight vandalism on Wikipedia. Maybe next week these publications will take the opportunity to write about all the correct information on Wikipedia. Let this also serve as a reminder of all the people who rely on our efforts for their information beyond just our direct readers. – M, C

On August 16, 2026, Fortune magazine published an interview with Jimmy Wales. It began with asking how Wikipedia supports itself without ads. (Meanwhile, editors are discussing removing the donation banners from Wikipedia until the issues with meta:Wiki Workers United are resolved.) Jimbo also highlighted that regular donors are subsidizing the AI companies which use Wikipedia for their training data and discussed known issues with AI in editing. There was also a dose of book promotion. – C

• Is Grokipedia a museum or an encyclopedia?: A report says that requests to update Grokipedia have been left unanswered for months and the Wikipedia-wannabe's contents have been static since April. Also in Lawfare (the original), Gizmodo, and Boing Boing
• Fit for print, but not a musical: Joining critiques of a sci-fi film, a biopic, quasi-fictional biographies of historical figures, documentaries and another biopic, and corporate mass firings covered previously by The Signpost, we now have a musical headlined by Alexandra Burke that is too much like a Wikipedia article (The Telegraph).
• Disunion: On the heels of earlier media coverage (see last issue's "In the media"), the International Business Times reported on August 3 that the "Wikimedia Foundation Declines Voluntary Union Recognition as Labor Dispute Grows".
• That's a very weird recipe: "Toast, boners, and margarine haters all come together on Wikipedia" (The A.V. Club's "Wiki Wormhole", a feature for Wiki rabbit-holics)
• Hats off to you, nerds and pedants: In a review that many Broadway artists would be just fine with, Broadway Baby finds the "nerds and pedants" here, as documented by Depths of Wikipedia, "completely hilarious" and "life-affirming – a celebration of the weird and wonderful nature of the world we live in".
• Porn actors get the shaft on Ruwiki: Analysis of deletions, Moscow office hours kept by editors, and other tidbits concerning the Ruwiki state-controlled Wikipedia fork, in a study published by Centre for Economic Policy Research, "The anatomy of censorship and propaganda: What Russia's Wikipedia clone reveals about authoritarian information control".