The White Dragon Flag on Wikipedia

My last two posts have been about the history of the white dragon flag, which was designed by neo-Nazis who have tried to pass it off as a pre-Norman symbol. When researching the history of the flag, one resource I came across is the Wikipedia entry for "white dragon". This is a shoddily-written and referenced piece of work, even by Wikipedia standards. Who wrote it, I wondered?

So, I checked the article's history.

The original version of the article was written by an editor named Domrivers. This editor spent most of the article talking about the medieval legend of the red and white dragons fighting, before making the following (entirely accurate) comment about the symbol's more recent adoption by nationalists:

There is no archaeological evidence that the early Anglo-Saxons used a white dragon to represent themselves, however, some modern English nationalist groups still promote its use in place of the St George's cross to emphasise their claim of ancestry from the Germanic Anglo-Saxons, in contradistinction to the "Celtic" Britons.

After a few minor edits by other contributors, the fist significant addition to Domrivers' article came from someone called Mafiga. Mafiga would appear to be a nationalist: s/he deleted Domrivers' correct statement about the lack of archaeological evidence connecting the white dragon symbol to the Anglo-Saxons, and added this claim:

The White dragon is said to have been carried at the Battle of Stamford Bridge and the Battle of Hastings. One the Bayeux Tapestry this is shown in the form of two images of a dragon.

Of course, as I pointed out in my earlier post, the only unambiguously white dragon on the Bayeux Tapestry is being carried by a Norman, not a Saxon. Mafiga's version of the article also notes a few post-Norman instances of the white dragon symbol being used in England.

A later editor pointed out the article's lack of sources. Absurdly, Mafiga responded by posting a black-and-white reproduction of part of the Bayeux Tapestry, with the caption "The dragon can be seen next to the name Harold". But in the original tapestry, the dragon next to the name Harold is clearly red, not white.

After this, a string of editors made minor edits, or added irrelevant information that was later reverted - the examples here, here and here being particularly amusing:

In the anime series High School DxD the rival of main character Issei Hyodo is the white dragon emperor Albion, Vali Lucifer. Their rivalry is based of the battle between the red dragon of the welsh and the white dragon of the english.

Reshiram is a legendary Fire/Dragon type Pokemon that resembles a white wyvern.

The white dragon is also used as a sex term. When a male ejaculates in a women's mouth then proceeds to tickle her. Therefore forcing the man juice out her nose making it look like a white dragon.

But beyond this, the article has had no significant additions. This means that the page, in its current form, is largely the work of Mafiga.

In short, the Wikipedia article on the white dragon (itself a suspect topic in terms of notability) has been hijacked to promote a nationalist agenda.