Michael Roth: A Wikipedia Deep Dive

He looks so happy here! Like he’s a boy at his seventh birthday party and his parents have just gifted him $700 worth of Fortnite V-Bucks.

It recently came to my attention that we, as Wesleyan students, have been criminally underselling Michael Roth’s Wikipedia page. Created in 2007, this treasure trove of Michael Roth knowledge is practically begging to be explored. Let’s dive in!

Almost immediately upon navigating to the page, several fascinating tidbits emerge. Aside from his infamous book Safe Enough Spaces, Michael has edited several volumes on Freudian philosophy. (This will be important later!) The article also mentions that Michael makes $1.3 million a year. 1.3 MILLION DOLLARS! Just think of all the students you could send to Wesleyan with that money! It’s got to be at least thirty, right? No… twenty? Fifteen?

:(

Well. Anyway.

Most notably, the article’s table of contents reveals a startling discrepancy:

Waiter! More controversies, please!

Michael is not without his fair share of “controversies.” In a break with typical Wikipedia etiquette, these various controversies are listed out of order. A Wesleyan student viewing this list will also notice that it has not been updated in quite some time. However, it does give us quite a bit to work with. Unwillingness to divert more funds to underrepresented academic departments, poor handling of cases related to sexual assault, tensions surrounding workers’ unions… clearly, Michael was born to be a college president! 

In 2008, Michael found himself in a hotbed of controversy following his campaign against Zonker Harris Day. During this Wesleyan holiday, named after a marijuana-loving character from Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury comics, students would attend a festival featuring art and musical performances. They would also smoke weed on Foss Hill. Michael did NOT like this. He demanded that the name of the festival be changed, stating, “The institution should make it clear that it’s not supporting things that are stupid.” In response, students fought to continue the tradition, renaming it “Ze Who Must Not Be Named Day.” Thanks to their brave efforts, the festival was reinstated in 2011.

Garry Trudeau’s response to Michael’s actions.

The article also mentions Michael’s use of physical force against others in the fall of 2012, when students were protesting the end of need-blind admission. At one point, when confronted by a reporter, Michael grabbed their microphone and pushed his forehead into their camera lens. In another instance, he saw students chalking the sidewalks of Wyllys Ave: a perfectly legal form of protest, since Wyllys is a public street. Michael did NOT like this. He grabbed a student by the arm and towed them onto campus property to be questioned by a PSafe officer. The article states, “Many found this to be an unnecessary and controversial action by Roth.”

“You got games on your phone?”

In 2020, Michael faced pushback following the school’s implementation of Workforce Time, a system for tracking employee hours. Uncomfortable with the fact that Workforce tracks employees’ locations as they work, students and staff circulated a petition calling for the use of a different system. Michael did NOT like this. He stated, “I’ve seen the petition, but it says things like ‘Roth wants to know where custodians piss and shit.’ Although that’s an interesting idea, as a Freudian, it’s just misinformation.” We did NOT need to know that you think piss and shit are “interesting,” Michael! Keep that to yourself next time.

The controversies surrounding Michael Roth’s Wikipedia page are not limited to the article itself: the article’s Talk page, while now peaceful, was once a battleground for forces of good and evil. As they worked tirelessly to update Michael’s page, the heroic user Nomoskedasticity was thwarted by the villainous user 74.88.196.81. Their exchange offers an illuminating look into the inner workings of Wikipedian bureaucracy.

74.88.196.81 took issue with Nomoskedasticity’s citation of the Wesleyan Argus when discussing Zonker Harris Day. “The biased referenced matter… asserts without any proof that the day in question is ‘inspiring University participants to emulate Zonker Harris's drug habits,’” they contended. “What habits are those and if this conduct can be defined, which (and how many) students are being inspired by Zonker or are engaging in what he engages in?” 

A (very) brief sample of the heated exchange between Nomoskedasticity and 74.88.196.81.

Nomoskedasticity responded by politely reminding 74.88.196.81 of Wikipedia’s policies regarding verifiability, under which the Argus would be considered a reliable source. 74.88.196.81 was furious. “This is absurd,” they sputtered, before churning out a 500-word essay that bashed Nomoskedasticity’s editing skills. Nomoskedasticity once again responded calmly, which further enraged their dastardly foe: another vitriolic essay was produced, this time 10 paragraphs long and with cited sources. Eventually, 74.88.196.81 was IP banned for “disruptive editing.” It seems that Wikipedia wasn’t a safe enough space for them.

Thus concludes our deep dive into Michael “M-Dawg” Roth’s Wikipedia page. But don’t despair: this is, after all, only the tip of Wesleyan’s digital iceberg. Stay tuned for further internet exploration.