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Wikipedia Under Fire
The Register (UK) has run an article today titled, "There's no Wikipedia entry for 'moral responsibility.' In it the author decides to lam bast Wikipedia's publisher, Jimmy Wales, claiming his online reference tool is no more than, "Jimbo's Big Bag O'Trivia."
Let me just state: I believe Wikipedia is an excellent reference tool. Actually I'll go a little further than that... Wikipedia is the best subscription free reference tool on the internet.
Normally I wouldn't go out of my way to make such a bold statement, but I believe there is a sense of urgency in saying this. Wikipedia's credibility is being put on the alter unjustly so. The irony is that Wikipedia have been the first ones to point out they can't be classified as credible:
"... all information read here is without any implied warranty of fitness for any
purpose or use whatsoever."
"... PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ANY INFORMATION YOU MAY FIND IN WIKIPEDIA MAY BE INACCURATE, MISLEADING, DANGEROUS, MISSPELLED OR ILLEGAL." - link This is pretty cut and dry. So, with that in mind, let us take a look at the controversy. It all started with a Wikipedia user making this entry about a John Seigenthaler:
"John Seigenthaler Sr. was the assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in
the early 1960's. For a brief time, he was thought to have been directly
involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby.
Nothing was ever proven." As John Seigenthaler Sr. points out, this is completely false. Now here's where it gets tricky, he basically goes on to say that it's more than false, it's lible. In the publishing world, lible is something you never want to get accused of. It's basically a fancy word for slander and it's not uncommon for nasty legal battles to ensue.
The trouble with John Sr's case is that it would be very difficult to pin a lible suit against Wikipedia. Note the all-CAP disclaimer above. So John Sr. goes on to declare outright war on the anonymous author who posted the bit. He contacted Wikipedia's publishers to try to get the personal information of the author, but no dice, they don't log that kind of users information. He obtained the IP from the posts information but couldn't get any ISP to provide any further details as to who that address points too. He could if he had a subpoena... but no one broke the law.
At that point, you'd figure the story is over. An old man got slandered, he vented in a nationally syndicated column by USA Today, much fanfare in the media ensued, the Wikipedia owners enacted stricter publishing guidelines (thanks for caving in btw...), and the story was over... At least it should have been.
Sitting all day at the top of the Google News Technology section has been that blaring headline, "There's no Wikipedia entry for moral responsibility." Here's what happened:
Brian Chase, a 38 year old employee of Rush Delivery in Seigenthaler's home town
of Nashville, Tennessee, admitted to making the edit and has apologized to
Seigenthaler. - link This seems innocent enough, but this man lost his job because of this. Even Seigenthaler has said that this has gone too far. It is important to note that Seigenthaler's op-ed published the IP address that the original article was posted from. This was later used to track down the anonymous author to his place of work. The owner of the company was contacted and Mr. Chase was fired. So Seigenthaler's hands aren't free from blood in this whole ordeal.
All this drama and Andrew Orlowski still isn't satisfied. I guess he just couldn't resist kicking his opponent while it's down, the faceless, nameless, incredible Wikipedia.
::Update:: Nature compares Wikipedia content with Britannica
::Update:: Slashdot is on the story
12.12.2005
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