The irony of Wikipedia
Wikipedia’s strength has always been its downfall. The fact that anyone and everyone can post on there is the reason it has information about anything and everything.
Of course, this also leads to incorrect information. The irony surrounding Wikipedia is that even though everyone knows that it’s entirely possible for information on Wikipedia to be completely made up, people still generally accept everything on Wikipedia as the truth.
Wikipedia to screen edits about living people
The founders of Wikipedia have decided it would be wise to check on edits made to entries about living people. There have been multiple instances in which someone was reported dead on Wikipedia even though that person was very much alive.
“We are no longer at the point that it is acceptable to throw things at the wall and see what sticks,” Michael Snow, a lawyer in Seattle who is the chairman of the Wikimedia board, told the Times. “There was a time probably when the community was more forgiving of things that were inaccurate or fudged in some fashion — whether simply misunderstood or an author had some ax to grind. There is less tolerance for that sort of problem now,” reports Epicenter.
Widespread Wiki
Wikipedia quickly and completely became an Internet phenomenon and household name. It’s also commonly used as a verb, much like Google. If someone says “I need to Wikipedia that,” we all know exactly what that means. Epicenter says:
“Wikipedia is one of the top 10 sites with 60 million visitors a month. It’s also increasingly a go-to resource for breaking news: in the first 24 hours after Michael Jackson’s death, his entry was viewed six million times.”
This story about Wikipedia’s editors deciding to apply a heavier hand isn’t the first time that Wikipedia has been at the center of a major news story. Fox News actually reported on President Obama’s Wikipedia entry, pointing out what it says was “whitewash” and omissions.
No help for the dead
So now the Wikipedia team will double-check edits to living people’s entries before they get posted. Of course, this means they won’t be as cautious about edits to dead people’s entries. Unfortuntely, that means they’re not checking on the entries of people who are no longer around to defend themselves.
Of course, they’re not around to cry foul or to sue, either, so the Wikipedia people are probably just looking at this from the point of view that they can’t check every edit, so they’re just singling out the ones that could potentially be legal threats. I wonder if the whole Rosemary Port suing Google situation has made Wikipedia skittish.
Fair warning
Wikipedia has banned people and entities from its site before, including the Church of Scientology, for deceptive editing practices. So anyone who is caught repeatedly putting false information on the site can get locked out.
I don’t think much will change on Wikipedia — most of the time already mistakes are quickly caught and corrected. It’s nice to know, though, that if there is ever a Wikipedia page about me (there’s not one — I checked) people will be looking out for it.
Discussion of Wikipedia Free-for-All Gets Reined in a Bit