It Looks Like the Highland Park Shooter Tried Repeatedly to Create His Own Wikipedia Page

Welcome to Source Notes, a Future Tense column about the internet’s information ecosystem. The following year, a Wikipedia user with the registered username 2dgirl submitted an article for “Bobby Crimo.” A Wikipedia reviewer declined this article on May 3, 2018, on the basis that the references in the article did not adequately show the subject’s notability. The draft article, which Slate obtained from a Wikipedia admin with special access to deleted content, begins “Bobby Crimo, professionally known as ‘Awake the Rapper’ is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter.” Besides the draft article for creation, 2dgirl kept text in their sandbox area, an environment that Wikipedians tend to use as a drafting space. Besides the rejected articles about Crimo himself, 2dgirl’s only remaining contribution is a change to the Wikipedia article for “Ancient Egyptian deities in popular culture.” On that page, the user added this line: “Lo-fi music artist ‘Awake the Rapper’ has a tattoo of the left eye of horus on his left forearm.” The reference is to Horus, the Egyptian god of kingship and the sky. Searching his name on the site instead redirects the user to the “Highland Park parade shooting.” Consciously or not, Wikipedia’s volunteer editors seem to have adopted a policy akin to some news publications that encourage focusing on the victims of mass shootings rather than “rewarding” the shooter with direct publicity.