Someone with access to a computer in the U.S. Congress has a habit of trolling Wikipedia users. Last week, a Wikipedia administrator banned [1] a congressional IP address for 10 days because of “disruptive” edits to several articles, including one about “moon landing conspiracies [2].” With the legislature's hands tied, Wikipedia users didn't expect any more congressional shenanigans until at least August 2. The moratorium on anonymous congressional Wikipedia edits, however, only applied to English-language posts.
Yesterday morning, July 31, the Twitter bot @Congressedits, which automatically logs Wikipedia activity by IP addresses in the U.S. legislature, reported [3] a revision to a Russian-language article about the Russian national anthem. Someone using a congressional IP address replaced [4] the musical notation of the real anthem with the lyrics and arrangement of a popular Ukrainian chant mocking Vladimir Putin (see below).
The title of this little ditty is “Putin khuilo! [6]” which means roughly, “Putin is a dickwad!” The anti-Putin song has grown in popularity since Russia’s intervention in eastern Ukraine, becoming international news in mid-June, when Ukraine’s then-acting Foreign Minister, Andrii Deshchytsia, repeated the lyric in an attempt to pacify a crowd of protesters in Kyiv. Afterwards, Russian officials refused to deal with the Ukrainian diplomat, and Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev even suggested that Deshchytsia might be mentally unstable [7]. Five days after the “Putin khuilo” incident, Deshchytsia was replaced.
Though it caused a stir, thanks to @Congressedits, the American government’s “Putin khuilo” zinger never actually graced the published pages of Wikipedia, as it failed to win approval from Russian moderators. (A public record [4] of the attempted change still exists in the post’s edit history, however.) In fact, Russian moderators [8] both rejected the congressional IP address’ suggested revision and banned [9] the IP address for 1 day from making further anonymous edits on Russian-language articles. This means congressional staffers (or whoever it is in the U.S. legislature with such eagerness for Wikipedia pranks) should regain anonymous editing rights on both English-language and Russian-language articles on the same day, August 2.
In other words, August 1, 2014, marks a special occasion: the world's English speakers and Russian speakers are free from the U.S. Congress’ Wikipedia trolling for a day. But the anonymous congressional edits will return in roughly 24 hours. Enthusiasts of moon exploration and musical arrangement, brace yourselves.