Wikipedia Bans Edits to ‘Recession’ Page

Wikipedia has disallowed edits to its "Recession" page.

The site made the move as users kept changing the definition of the word, a debate the Biden administration sparked as the country braced for the U.S. economy to shrink for the second straight quarter, which the GDP report on Thursday confirmed.

Over the past seven days, unregistered users altered the page a total of 41 times. Here's a look at some of the edits:

Among the busy users is an account called "Soibangla." Records show that the account repeatedly deleted additions by other authors who quoted the textbook definition of a "recession" as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.

Soibangla prefers we call the state of the economy a "transition," probably. It must be a pleasant person in real life.

A Wikipedia administrator says the edits were an act of "vandalism," the Daily Wire reports. The site plans to reopen the page for public edits in mid-August, so long as people straighten up.

That includes you, Soibangla.

Wikipedia sets various pages as open to the public, in which anyone can make an edit. But other pages -- say, "white supremacy" -- are set to where only company admins can apply edits.

It's unclear how important a person or word must be to receive the private tag. After all, Wikipedia bans outside users from editing Joy Reid's page -- and she's not important at all.

The site explains that "while most articles can be edited by anyone, extended confirmed protection is sometimes necessary to prevent disruptive editing on controversial pages."

I guess the word "recession" is just too "controversial."

Wikipedia settled on "a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity."