One of the great things about Wikipedia is that anybody can edit articles.

One of the bad things about Wikipedia is that anybody can edit articles.

Controversial subjects tend to attract malicious edits, such as the sort of thing we’ve seen with Climate on Wikipedia, resulting in edit wars and suspensions of people like William M. Connolley.

Unlike the hard-bound reference Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia is often representative of the “fact of the moment” edited by a single person.

At left is a screen cap of the Romney edit, a high profile example of a malicious edit. You’d think they’d have had the good sense to lock the page to prevent such random edits, but no.

Here’s the edit trail from Wikipedia’s history page, click to enlarge:

While only up for 26 minutes, it underscores just how vunerable Wikipedia’s pages are to the opinions and actions of an anonymous single person, especially when controversial subjects are involved.

h/t to Garret Bastardi

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