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Whitehall civil servant keeping Wikipedia up to date on Scottish football stars

Whitehall civil servant keeping Wikipedia up to date on Scottish football stars

When Kevin Moon steps onto the pitch at Stark’s Park or Andy Jackson at Glebe Park, you might think it would be fans of Raith Rovers and Brechin taking note.

Also interested might be a St Johnstone supporter nostalgic for the days when the pair started out in professional football at McDiarmid Park.

You probably wouldn’t expect the duo to be under the close scrutiny of an official of the UK Government.

That’s exactly what a study of changes being made on Wikipedia has uncovered, however.

It found that entries for Courier Country football stars and others across Scotland were being updated by an anonymous civil servant at Whitehall.

The person has taken the time to update Moon’s league appearances for Raith, track Jackson’s successes in Angus and follow the goal-scoring prowess of veteran Forfar striker Chris Templeman.

The Wikipedia edits made by civil servants are monitored closely through a so-called “bot”, which enables chiefs to scrutinise and track those that originate from IP addresses assigned to the Houses of Parliament.

Other such bots have since been set up by media organisations, including Channel 4, which apparently sought to monitor such activity.

Now, the New Statesman magazine said @WhitehallEdits had discovered an employee or employees with “an obsessive interest in Scottish football”.

Changes were made largely on a Monday morning to keep the statistics associated with lower league sides as up-to-date as possible.

On one day in November last year, some 40 edits were made in little over an hour by the Whitehall civil servant.

That enabled the world to view the latest statistical evidence of Brechin City midfielder Bobby Barr’s weekend exertions, alongside that of a variety of other Courier Country stars.

The edits themselves appear to be straightforward and accurate, largely confined to goals and appearances.

Scottish football buffs no doubt benefit greatly from the employee’s efforts, though the magazine questioned whether it was the best use of their time.