Greece debt crisis: Alexis Tsipras is an author of Greek tragedy, says Wikipedia

The usually sedate 'Greek tragedy' page has seen renewed activity over the last week

Andrew Griffin
Tuesday 07 July 2015 14:49 BST
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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras addresses a crowd of 25,000 'No' supporters in Athens' Syntagma Square (Reuters)
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras addresses a crowd of 25,000 'No' supporters in Athens' Syntagma Square (Reuters)

The Greek debt crisis has often been called a tragedy. But for a couple of hours on one afternoon, it was sort of official.

Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister and leader of Syriza briefly had his name added to the usually sedate Wikipedia page for Greek tragedy yesterday, before watchful editors swooped in and fixed it again.

“The most important authors of Greek tragedies are Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Tsipras,” the message read, after the last name was added at 2.30pm on July 6. It went away an hour later.

It isn’t the first debt crisis-themed edit that has been applied to the Greek tragedy page — Wikipedia users are apparently as keen on comparing the tragic situation of Greece with its classical precedent as journalists are.

Last week, the page for “Greek government-debt crisis” was added to the “See Also” section on the page. That too was deleted within just over an hour, with the editor pointing out that “Adding links of current greek debt crisis doesn't relate to antiquity greek concept of Tragedy”.

Ordinarily, the Greek tragedy page concentrates on classical theatre, which the page points out "reached its most significant form in Athens in the 5th century BC".

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