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dirtn.app

Corrections

Found a wrong answer? First, the good news: it's very fixable, and you can probably fix it faster than we can.

Why dirtn.app shows the wrong thing sometimes

dirtn.app doesn't store or edit its own facts about anyone. Every result comes straight from Wikidata (and, for context and summaries, Wikipedia), which are open, collaboratively-edited projects maintained by volunteers worldwide. If Wikidata's record for someone is outdated, wrong, or ambiguous, dirtn.app will faithfully reflect that same mistake — because we're just asking Wikidata the question and showing you the answer.

That means the most direct, permanent fix isn't a message to us — it's a correction at the source. Anyone can do this, it's free, and it usually takes less than five minutes.

How to fix it yourself on Wikidata

  1. Go to Wikidata at https://www.wikidata.org and search for the person's name in the top search bar. Click through to their item page (the URL will look like wikidata.org/wiki/Q12345).
  2. Create a free account (or log in) by clicking "Log in" in the top-right corner. You can edit Wikidata without an account, but logged-in edits are taken more seriously and are easier to track if a reviewer has questions.
  3. On the person's item page, find the statements section and look for the property "date of death" (P570). If it's missing and the person has died, click the pencil/edit icon to add it. If it's present but wrong, click the pencil icon next to the existing value to correct it.
  4. Add a reference. This is the part people skip and shouldn't. Click "add reference" under the statement and link a reliable source — a news article, an official statement, an obituary, or another verifiable page. Unsourced edits are more likely to get reverted by other volunteers, and sourced ones stick.
  5. Save. Your edit is live on Wikidata immediately. A correction to someone's date of death shows up on dirtn.app as soon as you reload their page, because the alive-or-dead verdict is re-checked against Wikidata in your browser on every visit. Other details — the photo, the description, the list pages someone appears on — come from a periodic snapshot and take longer to catch up.
  6. If the death is well-documented on Wikipedia but missing from Wikidata, you can also edit the Wikipedia article directly at https://www.wikipedia.org (click "Edit" on the relevant section) — many Wikidata contributors sync from Wikipedia, though editing Wikidata directly is the faster path for our purposes.

Helpful references if this is your first time editing Wikidata:

You're not "hacking" anything by doing this — this is exactly what Wikidata is designed for, and the volunteer community actively wants accurate, well-sourced corrections.

If it's an urgent case

Some errors can't wait for the usual edit-and-propagate cycle — most obviously, a living person shown as deceased. If that's what you're dealing with:

  1. Please still make the correction on Wikidata if you're able to (see above) — it's the permanent fix.
  2. Email us directly at donnywest@gmail.com with "URGENT CORRECTION" in the subject line. Include the person's name, a link to their Wikidata item if you have it, and, ideally, a source confirming they're alive (their own public statement, a recent verified appearance, a news article, etc.).
  3. We'll review as fast as we can and apply a manual override on dirtn.app while the upstream record catches up, so the site stops showing the wrong answer immediately rather than waiting on cache refreshes.

If you're not sure how to edit Wikidata yourself

That's fine — just email donnywest@gmail.com with the person's name and what you believe the correct information is, along with a source if you have one. We can't guarantee we'll personally make the Wikidata edit for you (we're not always faster than you would be), but we will look into it and can apply a temporary override for anything urgent.

What we can't fix

We can't adjudicate disputed or unconfirmed reports of someone's status, and we won't display a death based on rumor, a single unverified social post, or speculation — even if it's trending. If Wikidata hasn't got a sourced record yet, neither will we.