Friday, June 26, 2009

Everybody's an Editor

Link to June 25 cnet news post, "Michael Jackson's death roils Wikipedia".

Excerpt: As news organizations reported Michael Jackson's hospitalization on Thursday afternoon, Wikipedia editors were wrestling with the problem of whether to allow an unverified report of the singer's death to appear on the online encyclopedia.

The entertainment site TMZ.com reported at 2:20 p.m. PDT that: "We're told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back."

Some Wikipedians repeatedly deleted references to Jackson's alleged demise, saying in separate comments that "This is not yet verified," "He's not dead," "Premature edits," and "ONCE AGAIN, HE IS NOT DEAD, JUST STOP."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Let me get this straight. Some users edit Wikiepedia to add accurate but unverified information. Because it's unverified, the Wikipedia community decides to wait until a source more reliable than a TMZ informer confirms it. And when it was confirmed, wikipedia changed the article to reflect that fact.

Unless one thinks TMZ constitutes a reliable source, it seems like Wikipedia handled the event far more responsibly than the media.

I can also add that the Wikipedia page for Jeff Goldbum was locked down yesterday after (false) rumors of his death appeared on the internet.