Wackipedia

It seems that Wikipedia has been taking some harsh criticism in the last little while with respect to its accuracy and its editing policies. This bad press has been going on for some time now but lately (ie: today), I've come across a butt load of references (ie: three) to how easy it is for anyone to pass anything they want as fact. The recent criticism seems to have started with this Op-Ed piece by John Seigenthaler that appeared in USA Today where he's says that the entry for his name in Wikipedia mentions that he may have, you know, offed both John and Bobby Kennedy. And apparently he wasn't happy about that. Stephen Colbert also got in on the action in a recent episode of The Colbert Report where he discussed what he calls Wikiality: "the representation of truth on Wikipedia that is determined by consensus rather than fact." Colbert urged viewers to edit the Wikipedia entry on elephants to say that their population had tripled in the last six months - which of course a whole bunch of people did thus causing the article to be locked "because of recent vandalism or other disruption."


And lastly, the people over at Penny Arcade threw in their two cents with this comic. By the power of Greyskull! (click picture for biggerness)

Colbert info via GeekLikeMe and thanks to Adam (via Sasha) for the Penny Arcade comic.