Case file
S. An-sky
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “scholar who documented jewish folklore and mystical beliefs”. Today it says “jewish author”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “Belarusian Jewish author, playwright, scholar, and activist Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport (1863 – November 8, 1920), known by his pseudonym”. It now reads “Belarusian Jewish author, playwright, scholar, and activist Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport ( ; October 27, 1863 – November 8, 1920), also known by his pen name”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2005 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.
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The opening as it read in 2005
Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport ( 1863 – 1920 ), better known by the pseudonym S. Ansky , was a scholar who documented Jewish folklore and mystical beliefs. He is best known for authoring the Yiddish language play The Dybbuk . He was born in Vitebsk , Russia.1
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 16527794.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “scholar who documented jewish folklore and mystical beliefs”. Today it says “jewish author”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “Belarusian Jewish author, playwright, scholar, and activist Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport (1863 – November 8, 1920), known by his pseudonym”. It now reads “Belarusian Jewish author, playwright, scholar, and activist Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport ( ; October 27, 1863 – November 8, 1920), also known by his pen name”. Read the current article and compare.
| 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | Oct '23 | 2025 |
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What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
scholar who documented jewish folklore and mystical beliefs
Now
jewish author
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.