Wikipedia in the press
Shortcut

January[edit]

"Disagreeable and closed to new ideas - that's the picture that emerges of contributors to community-curated encyclopaedia Wikipedia from a survey of their psychological attributes." CyberPsychology & Behavior (DOI: 10.1089/cpb.2007.0225)
Reports on the effect of Jimmy Wales personal appeal on the number of donations.
"As if suffering a seizure during President Obama's post-inaugural luncheon wasn't bad enough, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) endured an additional ordeal Tuesday, as did his friend, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) -- death by Wikipedia."'

February[edit]

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2009, British prime minister Gordon Brown, quoting the artist Titian, referred to him as "the great painter who reached the age of 90". At Prime Minister's Question Time on 11 February 2009 opposition leader David Cameron cited as an example of Brown's alleged lack of skill with facts "You told us the other day you were like Titian aged 90. The fact is Titian died at 86." and shortly afterwards (at 1234 GMT) the Wikipedia entry for the artist was changed to match the age given by Mr Cameron at an IP address registered at the Conservative Party's HQ in London. Press comment such as on the BBC Daily Politics pointed out that there was little certainty on Titian's age at death and a Conservative spokesman apologised with "This was an over-eager member of staff putting right an incorrect entry on Wikipedia."
Blog entry about how this vandalism to Barack Obama was reverted after two minutes, but remained Google's snippit entry for several hours. Says this bolsters the case for flagged revisions.

March[edit]

BBC journalist analyses effects of vandalism on Wikipedia articles about UK politicians.


April[edit]

May[edit]

June[edit]

July[edit]

Related discussion: "Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad". Slashdot. 20 July 2009. Retrieved 2009-07-20.
  • An article which looks at the reliabilty of health advice on the web concludes that Wikipedia has high factual accuracy but a narrow range of topics covered and was able to answer only 40 per cent of the drug related questions asked of it

August[edit]

A study by the Palo Alto Research Center (Parc) in California, showing how wikipedia's environment has become more and more hostile towards new users, and how a clan of established users is discouraging new people from contributing.
This error-strewn piece celebrates English Wikipedia's addition of its 3 millionth article, Beate Eriksen. Wikipedia, we are told, was "formally launched on January 15 in 2001 by Ward Cunningham and Richard Stallman" (someone should tell Jimbo and Larry). Suggests misleadingly that Wikipedia has only recently overtaken the Yongle Encyclopedia in size. Nitpickers will notice that the article talks about 271 "other languages"; according to the list of Wikipedias there are 271 Wikipedias in total.
Reports the launch of an iPhone App for Wikipedia by The Wikimedia Foundation. "The Wikimedia Foundation acknowledged that while its official software lacked some features compared to existing applications, it was focusing on "speed and simplicity" with the first version of its software."
Other reports on upcoming addition of Wikipedia:Flagged revisions for biographical articles.

September[edit]

"Take Wikipedia, for example. The whole premise of Jimmy Wales’ enterprise has been to sweep away the traditional intermediary of editors and publishers, thus replacing traditional expertise and authority with Wikipedia’s radically open and collaborative principles. But... now it seems as if the reformists have won and the wiki-revolution is being routinised. Beginning this autumn, Wikipedia will be radically less open."
"Why is Wikipedia such a men's club?...of [Wikipedia editors] women constituted a paltry 13%... about seven men for every woman"
"Mr. Wilson’s outburst came in response to the president’s statement that his proposed changes to health insurance laws would not give coverage to illegal immigrants. ..That is when the argument among Wikipedians — which can be read in full on the discussion page starting here — really took off.

October[edit]

"As part of the ongoing push to make the site more "encyclopedic", there is a system in place that allows volunteers to flag up dubious articles for deletion. These pages remain live for days while Wikipedia administrators - and the original authors - debate whether the entries should be allowed, improved or removed. Below we present 20 of the more bizarre and surprising articles flagged for deletion over the past few weeks, with extracts from the pages and some of reasons offered by moderators for why they should be erased."
History Today is, it likes to boast, 'the world's premier, and probably oldest, history magazine', carrying 'essays on all periods, regions and themes of history, many of them by the world's leading scholars.' Having contributed to the magazine since the early 1990s, historian Dr A. D. Harvey was slightly surprised to find some suggested additions to an article on Austrian dictator Engelbert Dollfuss for the magazine's July issue this year, when the page proofs were sent for his approval by editor Paul Lay. He was even more surprised when he did some digging, and discovered that three passages inserted into the text had been lifted word-for-word from the Wikipedia entry on Dollfuss. 'The piece inserted into your piece from Wikipedia, and subsequently removed at your request, was intended to add background information. There is no disagreement over the factual accuracy of the information,' sniffed History Today's publisher Andy Patterson when Dr Harvey contacted him to complain.
A computer in the House of Commons was used in June 2009 to remove politically embarrassing information about Michał Kamiński three days after he became leader of the Tories in the European Parliament.
"Go to Wikipedia to read his bio and, as often as not, someone will have tampered with the page. The section on Offit’s education was once altered to say that he’d studied on a pig farm in Toad Suck, Arkansas. (He’s a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Maryland School of Medicine)."
Article in Time magazine about BLP problems in which the Foundation supposedly indicated that: Under the new policy, anonymous Web editors would still be allowed to freely change biographical Wikipedia entries — but their changes would be made visible to readers only after an experienced Wikipedia volunteer had approved them. However, in the article Jimbo refutes that understanding: There's only one problem with the new policy: "It's just completely wrong," says Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder. Wikipedia's ruling body of volunteers never decided to impose restrictions on all articles about living people. Instead, the site will adopt "flagged protection" — the new method for requiring editorial approval before changes to Wikipedia go up — for a small number of articles, most likely on a case-by-case basis.

November[edit]

December[edit]

  • Reports the case of a woman who believes a blackmailer editted a Wikipedia article on her as part of a threat of blackmail.
Categories