The Wikipedia entry for Sarah Palin was overhauled substantially for the better in the 24 hours before the surprise announcement of her selection as Republican vice-presidential nominee.

A mystery Wikipedia user — under the name Young Trigg — put in about 30 edits to the biographical article on the website.

The additions included the fact that the 44-year-old Alaskan Governor “earned the nickname ‘Sarah Barracuda’ because of her intense play” for her high school basketball team and that she and her father “would sometimes wake at 3am to hunt moose before school”.

It is possible to track the changes made by Young Trigg because Wikipedia keeps an open log of all edits to its articles.

Many details were culled from, and footnoted to, the book Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment on its Ear, by Kaylene Johnson, The New York Times reported.

Young Trigg also notes how the Governor had high approval ratings and kept her campaign pledges. A profile in the conservative Weekly Standard magazine was used as a source of details about how Mrs Palin was willing to “take on oil companies” and that she had “eye-popping integrity”.

All this took place before the Republican candidate John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate in the presidential elections.

The blogosphere has been full of speculation about who Young Trigg might be — some guessing that he or she was a member of the Palin family (Mrs Palin’s baby son is called Trig) or a McCain campaign staffer.

Wikipedia has become another important internet tool in presenting politicians to voters. Few would be surprised if a campaign worker had been given the task of putting positive spin on Mrs Palin’s entry in preparation for last week's announcement. A tracking site estimated that the page was viewed more than 2 million times on Friday.

Since the announcement the Sarah Palin page has been edited many hundreds of times more and Wikipedia has now put in place a partial block so that only established editors can change the entry. Some of Young Trigg’s entries have been amended or toned down.

Young Trigg made his or her last edits hours before the announcement and the unusual activity was noted first by National Public Radio. Arguments raged among Wikipedia editors about the alleged bias of Young Trigg’s entries and whether he or she was a “sock puppet”, an alternative anonymous account name taken on by the user to deceive.

Over the weekend YoungTrigg responded to the controversy on his or her Wikipedia user page: “I edited for a couple of hours over a five-hour span while I was reading the internet. I finished reading the Palin biography that day, went to her page, and saw a lot of "cite needed" places and thought I should improve the article and created an account to do so.

“I am not Sarah Palin. I am not a member of Sarah Palin’s family, or even Michael Palin’s family," he or she wrote.

“I will acknowledge that I volunteer for the McCain campaign, one of thousands of people nationwide who are working to elect the best candidate for the job. Palin was not the nominee when I made my edits, though I am certainly excited about the selection. I don’t believe I have a conflict of interest problem.”

Young Trigg then retired from being an active user.

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