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| Man Apologizes After Fake Wikipedia Post 56 minutes ago NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A man who posted false information on an online encyclopedia linking a prominent journalist to the Kennedy assassinations says he was playing a trick on a co-worker. Brian Chase, 38, ended up resigning from his job and apologizing to John Seigenthaler Sr., the former publisher of the Tennessean newspaper and founding editorial director of USA Today. "I knew from the news that Mr. Seigenthaler was looking for who did it, and I did it, so I needed to let him know in particular that it wasn't anyone out to get him, that it was done as a joke that went horribly, horribly wrong," Chase was quoted as saying in Sunday editions of The Tennessean. Chase said he didn't know the free Internet encyclopedia called Wikipedia was used as a serious reference tool. The biography he posted, which has since been replaced, falsely stated that Seigenthaler was linked to the Kennedy assassinations and had lived in the Soviet Union from 1971 to 1984. The entry motivated Seigenthaler to write an op-ed piece for USA Today blasting Wikipedia's credibility. He described himself as a close friend of Robert Kennedy and said he had worked with President Kennedy. He said "the most painful thing was to have them suggest that I was suspected of their assassination." Seigenthaler said he doesn't plan to pursue legal action against Chase. He also said he doesn't support more regulations of the Internet, but he said that he fears "Wikipedia is inviting it by its allowing irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about anybody." Chase said he created the fake online biography in May as a gag to shock a co-worker who was familiar with the Seigenthaler family. He resigned as an operations manager at a Nashville delivery company as a result of the debacle. |
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| Microsoft offers cash for Wikipedia edit Posted 1/24/2007 8:06 AM ET Microsoft landed in the Wikipedia doghouse Tuesday after it offered to pay a blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site. While Wikipedia is known as the encyclopedia that anyone can tweak, founder Jimmy Wales and his cadre of volunteer editors, writers and moderators have blocked public-relations firms, campaign workers and anyone else perceived as having a conflict of interest from posting fluff or slanting entries. So paying for Wikipedia copy is considered a definite no-no. "We were very disappointed to hear that Microsoft was taking that approach," Wales said. Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer and offered to pay him for the time it would take to correct what the company was sure were inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles on an open-source document standard and a rival format put forward by Microsoft. Spokeswoman Catherine Brooker said she believed the articles were heavily written by people at IBM, which is a big supporter of the open-source standard. IBM did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Brooker said Microsoft had gotten nowhere in trying to flag the purported mistakes to Wikipedia's volunteer editors, so it sought an independent expert who could determine whether changes were necessary and enter them on Wikipedia. Brooker said Microsoft believed that having an independent source would be key in getting the changes to stick — that is, to not have them just overruled by other Wikipedia writers. Brooker said Microsoft and the writer, Rick Jelliffe, had not determined a price and no money had changed hands — but they had agreed that the company would not be allowed to review his writing before submission. Brooker said Microsoft had never previously hired someone to influence a Wikipedia article. Jelliffe, who is chief technical officer of a computing company based in Australia, did not return an e-mail seeking comment. In a blog posting Monday, he described himself as a technical standards aficionado and not a Microsoft partisan. He said he was surprised to be approached by Microsoft but figured he'd accept the offer to review the Wikipedia articles because he considered it important to make sure technical standards processes were accurately described. Wales said the proper course would have been for Microsoft to write or commission a "white paper" on the subject with its interpretation of the facts, post it to an outside website and then link to it in the Wikipedia articles' discussion forums. "It seems like a much better, transparent, straightforward way," Wales said. Linkage |