ajg: It’s the Wikipedia equivalent of painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa.
Political operatives, Republicans and Democrats alike, get their jollies defacing the Wikipedia biographies of politicians, making them look better or worse, take your pick.
Recently, Senator Robert Byrd was surprised to read that, although currently 88-years-of-age, he is, according to his Wiki-bio, 180-years-old.
Other politicos have been given vulgar nicknames, or have had embarrassments added to their bios, like a son’s drunk-driving arrest. That last culprit was canned over the incident.
Sometimes, unwanted connections are removed, like newly-uncomfortable ties to Tom DeLay.
The dirty-tricksters caused so much trouble early in the year that Wikipedia blocked access to Capitol Hill staffers for a time.
Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, says “The beauty of a forum like this is free speech.”
But they find it necessary to police the site with 1,000 editors who try, against all odds, to keep entries accurate and free of partisan vandalism.
Still, it’s painfully obvious that, when it counts, Wikipedia should never be your sole source of information and, at all times, should be read with a healty degree of maybe-maybenot.
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