December 12, 2005 5:31 PM PST
In the wake of the John Seigenthaler Wikipedia scandal, the question is: what is the price to pay for being a Wikipedia vandal?
Some might say that a good old-fashioned turn in court as a libel defendant might have been appropriate for Brian Chase. According to The New York Times , Chase admitted he is the perpetrator (registration required) of the false Wikipedia article that linked Seigenthaler to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.
But Chase, who confessed to Seigenthaler after discovering that the media and Wikipedia Watch founder Daniel Brandt were hot on his tail, doesn’t face a libel suit. That’s mostly because Seigenthaler, a distinguished journalist, said he has no plans to sue.
Instead, Chase apparently felt his involvement in a prank–which inadvertently became a fairly significant brouhaha on the Internet because it exposed some flaws in Wikipedia’s accountability–was destined to become a distraction at work. So, according to The Times, he quit his job.
Apparently, Seigenthaler didn’t want Chase to suffer that fate and tried to get his employer to take him back. No word yet on whether Chase is collecting unemployment or if he’s back on the payroll.
It concerned a certain advocate of the Quaker faith explaining that they DIDNT get their information (about some celibate religious faith) from wikipedia.
Incidently where is that certain person(question mark…the bloody question mark key doesnt work on this keyboard.).
I wondered what the heck you were talking about…
I don’t think that thread had that much to do w/ Wikipedia, actually…
Plus, that was, like a month ago, which is centuries in Internet time.
The article simplifies matters a little..he didn’t just quit his job because he didn’t want the “distraction”. It’s my understanding that he made his Wiki changes from work, and internet sleuths were tracking him down via his ip address (which led to his job) and were already calling his workplace trying to sniff him out.
It was discussions about it at work that caused him to realize real people were tracking him down, and caused him enough concern to come forward, apologize, and quit his job.
Do you think students and researchers should cite Wikipedia?
No, I don’t think people should cite it, and I don’t think people should cite Britannica, either – the error rate there isn’t very good. People shouldn’t be citing encyclopedias in the first place.
I’ve been vaguely aware of Wikipedia for some time, and wary of it without having sampled it.
I’ve hit it a few times lately following the pointer to the Séamus Ennis article. I found it better than I expected, subject to the usual health warnings, and even useful for my work.
I’ve also drawn it to the attention of my daughters as an alternative to their usual Dad Helpline which is not always available or infallible either.
In reading up a bit of the history, I came across Larry Sanger’s Parthian shot, which contains the following intriguing information
I can be reached at blarneypilgrim (a t) yahoo (d o t) com.
