Some choice fun-making at wikipedia’s expense:
Watch Stephen Colbert‘s recent The Word segment on “wikiality” … and then check out the Wikipedia entries on The Colbert Report and page on elephants (or the accompanying discussion). NOTE: If the YouTube link doesn’t fly, This may lead to a Windows-version offered by the show.
And then there is my old pal Todd Hanson’s The Onion, which recently announced that Wikipedia was celebrating 750 years of American independence. There are also a few older wiki references, such as “Congress Abandons WikiConstitution” and the American Voice question Is Wikipedia Unreliable?
Finally, a nicely-written article by Marshall Poe appeared in The Atlantic. Among other things, Poe describes his experience as the subject of potential deletion from Wikipedia.
4 replies on “Wacky Wiki News”
The history says that the Colbert Report wikipedia page was taken off of DefCon 2 and is back to being open again.
You know, I think it is pretty amazing that a popular cult show can generate so much interest in a page like Elephant … and then a cult phenomenon like Wikipedia can have the depth of community to keep the vandalism under control. Cool on both ends.
[…] For those of you who find yourselves asking, “What is a wiki, and why is it part of Third Party?” the debate above might be helpful. (Or for liks to lighter-side diversion, try this post from my blog.) […]
[…] While the battle joined in earnest last December with Nature magazine’s comparison of the content in both publications (see this Word doc for details), increased media attention has drawn fire on wikis from other corners. The L.A. Times Wikitorial fiasco … Defra’s government wiki problems … John Seigenthaler’s criticism of Wikipedia upon finding his bio linked him with the Kennedy assassinations … parodies by Stephen Colbert and the Onion. In the WSJ article, Wales even helps Hoiberg by pointing to criticism of Wikipedia found on its own site. EB also took a hit from onlookers when a 12-year-old boy found errors in the tomes. The Nature investigation has yielded a rebuttal by EB (PDF) and a response to that response by the magazine. This is an interesting backdrop, developed over the past year, to an email conversation between two voices that count most. […]