Wikipedia:Press coverage 2007 (June-December)

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Contents

[edit] July 2007

  • Includes interviews with several Wikipedia contributors, with a focus on Wikipedia's coverage of breaking news.

    "Wikipedia may not exactly be a font of truth, but it does go against the current of what has happened to the notion of truth. The easy global dissemination of, well, everything has generated a D.I.Y. culture of proud subjectivity, a culture that has spread even to relatively traditional forms like television — as in the ascent of advocates like Lou Dobbs or Bill O’Reilly, whose appeal lies precisely in their subjectivity even as they name-check 'neutrality' to cover all sorts of journalistic sins. But the Wikipedians, most of them born in the information age, have tasked themselves with weeding that subjectivity not just out of one another’s discourse but also out of their own. They may not be able to do any actual reporting from their bedrooms or dorm rooms or hotel rooms, but they can police bias, and they do it with a passion that’s no less impressive for its occasional excess of piety. Who taught them this? It’s a mystery; but they are teaching it to one another."

  • An interview with Jimmy Wales and the author's experiences as a new editor, or 'wikivirgin', as he calls himself.
  • "For all the futuristic paranoia about hive minds, I have been struck by a kind of village fete atmosphere within the Wikicommunity; you are forever being prompted about pages to clean up, articles to 'Wikify', tasks to be done."
  • The Shizuoka Shimbun newspaper apologized to its readers Thursday, after a reporter had copied information from a Wikipedia article and used it in his page 1 column.
  • Article criticising Wikipedia:OTRS actions and accountability particularly in relation to the protection of Lava lamp.
  • Reports Nielsen NetRating's findings that Wikipedia is now the top news site on the web.
  • "Wikipedia also has finished on top of the news and information category every month this year -- ranking ahead of Landmark Communications' Weather Channel site by an increasing margin...."
“ A non-edited excerpt from the ‘Dalian’ entry from www.wikipedia.org

Clubs and social life: Dalian is no doubt a good city. It feels like you are in western europe. Dalian people standard of living is more than many chinese cities. It is really clean compared to rest of china. There is software hub going on which exclusively caters japanese business. Well for foreigners there is a foreign community and parties almost every day just join in a website www.dalianxpat.com it is a community website which can give you information of all the parties everyday. Lot of japanese young people here so good to rock around. These days dalian see a increasing number of foreign community and one who comes here usually stay for years. But i want to say frankly life here involves dangers like in clubs they smash bottles on heads. In massage parlours just they beat you and take all the money you hold so quite dangerous night life in small city. Well police never help when you get some problem in either clubs or discos or massage parlours. So be careful with chinese guys around most of them are good but some are so bad even can risk your life.

TCP Says: There are few moments when we’re left speechless but this incredible entry provided one of them. Remember, folks, Wikipedia’s tag is “The encyclopedia anyone can edit,” so don’t cite this source in your term paper.

 ”
  • PC Pro magazine asked 3 academics to compare articles on subjects in which they are expert from Wikipedia , Britannica and Encarta.
  • Wikipedia had the best all round result with the exceptional highs and lows in its encyclopedic rivals.
  • Mention of the complaints on the talk pages of the articles on Sarah Teather and Dawn Butler about "supporters of each have been maliciously editing each MP’s entry on Wikipedia". The two will be contesting the same, new Parliamentary seat at the next election.
  • Claire Beale reports how Ford Motor's latest commercial soap "Where are the Joneses" allows viewers come up with some new storylines by using an Wiki interface similar to that of Wikipedia. In doing so she assumes that her readers will be familiar with Wikipeida.

  • "Ars Nova will present The Wikipedia Plays, a mini-marathon of short plays that surf the Wikipedia wave through seventeen related entries ... 'What is The Defenestration of Prague? And how is it seventeen steps removed from Castration Anxiety? Wikipedia knows. In this brave new world of instant gratification where the internet can live in your pocket, one group of writers has created a mini-marathon of short plays that surf the wikipedia wave through seventeen related entries,' as described in press materials."

  • Incorrectly refers to armeniapedia as "a Wikipedia website". The communications committee has been notified.
“ At the next general election, Lib Dem frontbencher Sarah Teather will joust for the redrawn seat of Brent Central with Labour MP Dawn Butler. Already, the contest is starting to get catty. Butler has accused her opponent of launching a dirty tricks campaign by making several erroneous changes to her entry in the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia.

"It needs to stop, it's absolutely pathetic," she says. "My page was changed to say that I voted for the renewal of Trident, which is crazy - I voted against it. There were other things, like saying I'm against extra funding for more police officers. It's just rubbish and clearly came from Sarah Teather's office."

Teather's office insists it's nought to do with them. They can't both be telling the truth.		 ”
  • Shreeve uses Wikipedia as model to explain how the commercial product Socialtext is used within companies. In doing so he is assuming that his readers will be familiar with how Wikipeida works.
Discussion under way at Talk:Jimmy Wales. Jason McHuff 09:34, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

"Version 0.5 is the first offline release from the English-language Wikipedia, though founder Jimmy Wales suggested the idea in 2003. It resulted from a yearlong collaboration between the St. Petersburg, Florida-based Wikimedia Foundation and Linterweb, a French technology company handling production."


  • Praise for WP stance on free access without censorship for China.

    "it's terrific to see such a prominent player in the American technology industry that hasn't gotten so transfixed by the promise of 1.2 billion consumers that it has forgotten its morals. As China has morphed into a powerhouse on the world stage, it has made many American workers and consumers feel as if they're victims. But even with all of its flaws and failures, America is still a democracy, and Americans still enjoy certain basic freedoms that are unknown to the average Chinese. In our panic over economic questions, we've forgotten that many, if not most, Chinese citizens are still living in desperate conditions under a repressive government. Jimmy Wales hasn't forgotten that. May the founders and executives at Google, Yahoo and others learn from his example."

  • Andrew Keen who jokingly describes himself as a "failed dotcom entrepreneur", is severely critical of Wikipedia. "He cites a case where a scientist was critical of numerous postings made by another 'citizen editor' in his specialist field. Wikipedia apparently judged that the expert's opinion was no more valid than anybody else's, and duly restricted him to one entry a day." But his major concern is that Web 2 of which Wikipedia is an example is damaging economic interests and goes on to argue that although 50% of the staff at Encyclopaedia Brittanica were laid off a number of years ago, that thanks to Wikipeidia more will follow.

" Wikipedia may be the best thing that has happened in the encyclopedia business since Denis Diderot published the first Encyclopédie in the eighteenth century. ... They get something wrong, too, every now and then, but they are pretty good about corrections..."

  • "How you know that 'colorado' means 'discoloured' in Spanish?" said Susan. "Why do you sound so sure of everything?"
  • "Omniscience is always a good fall-back position," said Robert. "It hasn't done Wikipedia much harm, has it?"

[edit] August 2007

  • Praise for Wikipedia from the Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom.
"Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is the most impressive collective intellectual project ever attempted - and perhaps achieved. It demands both the attention and the contribution of anyone concerned with the future of knowledge."
"Wikipedia embodies a democratic medievalism that does not respect claims to personal expertise in the absence of verifiable sources. To fully realize this ideal, participation in Wikipedia might be made compulsory for advanced undergraduates and Master's degree candidates worldwide. The expected norms of conduct of these students correspond exactly to Wikipedia's content policy: one is not expected to do original research, but to know where the research material is and how to argue about it."
"The Interstate 35W bridge collapsed Wednesday at about 6:05 p.m. Within 22 minutes, the Star Tribune updated its website with the news. Within 24 minutes, the Internet's go-to reference site, Wikipedia, added the information to its entry for the bridge."
"The difference: The Star Tribune's news site is run by a staff of professional journalists, while Wikipedia is a publicly maintained site to which anyone can contribute and no one is really in charge."
"Before the collapse, Wikipedia's short entry for the I-35W bridge was classified as a "stub," rudimentary information about a minor subject -- basically, a side note to bigger articles on the site. The stub was created in May 2006 and edited only five times before Wednesday."
"During the night, the entry became a full-blown page (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_Bridge), with Wikipedia users adding information about the bridge's construction and history, as well as photos and updates about the collapse."
  • Reports on WikiMania 2007 in Taipei.
"The conference has attracted about 440 attendees, a little more than half from Taiwan, who want to immerse themselves for three days in the ideas and issues that come up making an entirely volunteer written encyclopedia. The workshops cover practical topics like how to collaborate peacefully; what importance to give “expertise” in a project that is celebrated for allowing anyone to contribute, including anonymous editors; and helpful hints on how to combat “wiki fatigue,” the inevitable boredom that can lead to “wikiwars,” such as endless arguments about the year Alexander Hamilton was born."
  • Hoffman reports that the Wikipedia article on Antonio da Ponte, calls him "a Venetian-born 'Swiss architect&engineer ... whose earlier works are entirely unknown" which he compares with Du Ponte's description in "the authoritative Giulio Lorenzetti in his Venice and its Lagoon" that does not mention Switzerland, and finishes the piece with "Can we be dealing here with one of those Wikipedia mistakes that become common currency through the omnipresence of the worldwide web?"
  • Florence Nibart-Devouard suggests that Baidu Baike is the biggest copyright violation of WikiMedia content.
  • Tests on color coding edits to red flag potentially dubious content will be used on some smaller sites in the Wikia community, according to the site's co-founder.
  • The article claims that "The survey also found that, in spite of recent phone-in/Queen-tiff scandals, the BBC is still the UK's most reliable source of information, whereas the web encyclopedia Wikipedia is only trusted by 2 per cent of us." In fact, the data in the article only indicate that the BBC is perceived to be the UK's most reliable source of information.
  • In essence, the author checked 10 pages and found errors in all. He does not want to fix them all, because he is not sure if they really are errors and doesn't want to do the research. Wikipedia is now a powerful source, so Something Must Be Done to make it better. Interestingly enough, in the same issue on pages A14-A15 Wikipedia is quoted as the source for information about opium." 
  • Walker, Morley. "Wikipedia's fanatical transparency", Editorial, 2007-08-09. Retrieved on 2007-08-11. "While outright factual errors and ease of vandalism are the main raps against Wikipedia, dumb errors of emphasis are incredibly common. Major historical figures get a paragraph or two, while ephemeral TV shows and video games are subject to lengthy treatises. (This is why Wikipedia has 1.9 million articles and the Encyclopedia Brittanica has but 120,000.)
  • Wales claims that Wikipedia is internally more organized that the WikiMedia Foundation has been. Compares licensing, talks about Wikipedia on mobile phones.
  • In the context of the new WikiScanner tool, Kamm attacks claims that Wikipedias disseminates knowledge. He sees the WikiScanner as a means of testing users credibility after the Essjay controversy.
  • Editorial. "Now you read it …", The Globe and Mail, 2007-08-19. Retrieved on 2007-08-20. "while a hoax such as Mr. Porpora's once took years to pull off, a contributor to Wikipedia can now manufacture a hagiography or a calumny with a few quick taps on the keyboard, at least until some other contributor restores the old material or imposes a different tone entirely." 
    • Slightly more to the point: Canadian scorn spreads south Laura Vozzella, August 29, 2007, Baltimore Sun writes:"The editorial compared Porpora to some Canadian political dirty tricksters who have been tinkering with Wikipedia entries for members of Parliament."
"It should be noted, however, that pilots are divided to this day as to whether the responsibility for the accident should rest with the pilot or with the flight planning department."
The edit can be seen here. The print edition of the article also lists three cases where computers used by New Zealand organisations have altered entries on Wikipedia that relate to those organisations. The article used information gained by Virgil Griffith's Wikiscanner.
  • This editorial discusses the dynamics of vandalism and COI edits on Wikipedia, but concludes that "[n]onetheless, the theory behind Wikipedia still holds: together, humans are smarter and stronger than they are alone."
  • The Sydney Morning Herald uses the Wikiscanner to find edits from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to pages including John Howard and Peter Costello. Also finds a large number of edits form the department of defence to a variety of topics.
  • The Department denies that they were directed to make changes. The ABC also reports that the Department of Defence have blocked their staff from editing Wikipedia.
  • The Sydney Morning Herald also reveals changes made by the NSW Premier's department to the page of Morris Iemma.
  • Australian Foreign minister Alexander Downer claims that the Wikipedia "editorial board" has an anti-government bias.
  • Wikipedian Simon Pulsifer points out that while Wikipedia's open editing concept allows for biased and other abusive edits, that same concept also allows such problems to be corrected in short order. The article also mentions the advent of WikiScanner and how it can help counter COI and other organisationally-based problem edits.
  • "A photo of Helen Clark on the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia has been "protected" to prevent people editing her listing, and Ministry of Justice staff have been detected using Government computers to alter other entries."
  • The article goes on to talk about Wikiscanner, vandalism to the Helen Clark article, and unrelated vandalism from Justice Ministry computers.
  • Wikipedia entries on Odex, for instance, have been turned into attacks on the firm, which has taken flak from the online world after news spread that it was going after people who downloaded anime illegally."
  • But the smear campaign has gone on unabated and things have become so bad that one of Wikipedia's editors was compelled, in an Aug 14 entry, to tick off these 'contributors' and remind them to 'stick to facts and try to balance them'. Some of the more offensive posts have been taken down."
  • Reports the suspension from work of an official from Statistics SA, who will face a disciplinary hearing for removing content from HIV/AIDS in South Africa which was critical of the South African government's policy towards HIV/AIDS.
Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan's staff have confirmed they deleted several unflattering, but true, items from the mayor's Wikipedia page -- including the fact the mayor was investigated by the police for giving money to addicts to purchase drugs.
  • Reports on a program developed at the University of California, Santa Cruz which can assess the reliablity of Wikipedia editors by measuring the durability of their edits over time. It can also color code the text in an article to show how reliable it is likely to be.
  • Note: There are follow-up articles about this story throughout September 2007.

[edit] September 2007

  • "Did you mean: GPhone?", Vancouver Sun, 2007-09-05. (English) 
    "Business Brief -- So is Google making a phone or what? The blogosphere is buzzing with rumours that the search giant might announce Linux-based mobile software as early as this week and a Google phone, which observers have dubbed the GPhone by early 2008...We'll believe it when we see it in Wikipedia."
  • The author is the professor of Japanese history from Middlebury College from whom this college's policy of banning citations of Wikipedia in term papers originates.
  • The column sets straight some misunderstandings propagated by the media: Middlebury College's faculty is not at war with Wikipedia, and Waters' position is that no tertiary source, including Encyclopaedia Britannica, is suitable for citation anyway.
  • Waters suspects that the accuracy of articles varies in proportion to the interest that they generate, and thus the accuracy of history articles decreases as one strays away from the hot topics of American history. He spotted inaccuracies in the history of early Tokugawa Japan, not a mainstream topic in English-speaking countries.
  • Waters' expresses fears that history according to Wikipedia is determined by a preponderance of opinions, and thus favors opinions that are widely considered true at the expense of real scholarship.
  • Giles, Jim. "Wikipedia 2.0 - now with added trust", New Scientist, 20 September 2007. issue 2622 of New Scientist magazine. Retrieved on 2007-09-20. (English) 
    Looks at proposals to give Wikipedia users an indication of how trustworthy an article is by rating each contributor's trustworthyness based on their past contributions.
  • Henderson, Mark. "Wikipedia faces the facts over inaccuracy", TimesOnline, 2007-09-20. 
    Instead, instant editing will be restricted to a group of “trusted editors”, who must first earn their status by proving their commitment to the Wikipedia concept.
  • Jason Mick. "New Zealand to Pioneer Wiki-based Laws", Dailytech.com, September 28, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-09-28. 
    New Zealand will allow citizens to access a Wiki to help draft a new set of laws in New Zealand's Policing Act. Wikipedia is cited by New Zealand Police Superintendent Hamish McCardle as an example of successful collaboration through a wiki. "McCardle specifically notes the success of Wikipedia as proof wiki-based contributions can lead to something constructive."

[edit] October 2007

  • Sullivan, Danny. "SMX Social Media Conference Preview: Wikipedia Clinic", SearchEngineLand.com, 2007-10-02. 
    Describes novel session planned for this year's SearchMarketingExpo.com expo that will attempt to guide individuals and corporations concerned about the portrayal of their company or service in Wikipedia, so as to avoid typical problems that arise when interacting with the Wikipedia community. User:Durova is one of five speakers planned for the session.
  • "A number of readers have written to ask where that most essential of American institutions -- the cocktail party -- got its start. In particular, I've been asked whether I can verify the Wikipedia claim that Alec Waugh -- once a popular British novelist and essayist on the good life, but now best remembered as Evelyn's older brother -- "invented" the cocktail party sometime around 1925 in London. Alas, for all the things Wikipedia manages to get right, this is not one of them."
"Submission of new articles is slowing to a trickle where in previous years it was flood, and the discussion pages are increasingly filled with arguments and cryptic references to policy documents. The rise of the deletionists is threatening the hitherto peaceful growth of the world's most popular information source."
In the Holiday 2007 issue, Cheryl Krementz surveys the representation of knitting at popular general-content websites, including Wikipedia, MySpace, Facebook, Vox, Café Mom, Associated Content, and del.icio.us. She notes that Wikipedia has 125 articles about knitting, including "a decent overview of knitting history". The article also mentions WP's articles on entrelac and Meg Swansen. Two pictures from Wikipedia were used to illustrate the article, namely, Image:Knitting.jpg and Image:Pink knitting in front of pink sweatshirt.JPG, apparently (and unfortunately) without attribution or repetition of their GFDL license.
Basing on an example from the editing of "Wal-Mart", the article carries out an insightful discussion of the NPOV issues and the importance of the contextual frame in which "neutral" facts are presented in judging the neutrality.
"...[B]oth sentences pass the undisputed fact test. But they also violate the logic of Wikipedia's rule: undisputed facts equal neutrality which leads to truth."
The author recounts how his own opinion of Wikipedia has changed from enthusiastic support to opposition, due to disillusionment with the way it is operating. The fact that an image he uploaded was deleted due to copyright license issues seems to figure heavily in this change of opinion.
"The site was founded with five pillars of behavior, including 'be open, be welcoming and be civil.' The site now is none of these things and should be left to the trolls, in my opinion."
  • Moses, Asher. "Wikipedia project is a class act", The Sydney Morning Herald, Fairfax, October 31, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-10-31. 
    Recounts how University of New South Wales Associate Professor Andrew Collins is using Wikipedia as a teaching exercise in his advanced immunology class. Copies of articles are taken, improved by students then reposted back to Wikipedia. 2500 edits were made to around 150 Wikipedia articles by the students.
  • "Call For Halt To Wikipedia Webcomic Deletions", Slashdot, SourceForge, Inc.. Retrieved on 2007-10-31. 
    Howard Tayler, the webcomic artist of Schlock Mercenary fame, is calling on people not to donate money during the latest Wikimedia Foundation fund-raiser. This is to protest the 'notability purges' taking place throughout Wikipedia.

[edit] November 2007

  • Associated Press in Amsterdam. "Ministry bans Wikipedia editing", The Guardian, 2007-11-19. Retrieved on 2007-11-19. 
    Report that Dutch Justice Ministry has banned staff from editing wikipedia after IP addresses showed staff had edited over 800 articles.
  • Lewine, Edward. "The Encyclopedist’s Lair", New York Times Magazine, 2007-11-18. Retrieved on 2007-11-23. 
    Jimmy Wales interviewed by Lewine — Greatest misconception about Wikipedia: We aren’t democratic. Our readers edit the entries, but we’re actually quite snobby. The core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable, and thinks some people are idiots and shouldn’t be writing.
  • Olanoff, Lynn. "School officials unite in banning Wikipedia", Seattle Times, Express-Times (Easton, Pa), 2007-11-21. Retrieved on 2007-11-24. 
    Middle school librarian puts up "Just Say 'No' to Wikipedia" signs around her library. Wikipedia is blocked on all computers in the Warren Hills Regional School District.

[edit] December 2007

  • Metz, Cade. "Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia" (HTML), The Register, 2007-12-04, pp. 2. Retrieved on 2007-12-03. (en) "On the surface, all is well in Wikiland... But underneath, there's trouble brewing." 
    Discusses the recent controversy surrounding Durova and the "cyberstalking" mailing list, and the crisis in confidence among Wikipedians in its wake.
  • Finkelstein, Seth. "Inside, Wikipedia is more like a sweatshop than Santa's workshop" (HTML), The Guardian, 2007-12-06, pp. 1. Retrieved on 2007-12-05. (en) "Wikipedia is frequently touted as a marvel of collaboration, a model of peer production. But it may be more instructive as a laboratory of pathologies of social interaction. While perhaps - like sausages- it's better not to see the product being made, any familiarity with how Wikipedia operates should give rise to enormous scepticism about its alleged example of harmonious collective action." 
    Discusses current conflicts within Wikipedia and criticizes model on which site is based.
  • Richards, Jonathan. "German Wikipedia accused of promoting Nazism", The Times, 2007-12-07. Retrieved on 2007-12-08. 
    Discusses the withdrawal of claims by Katrina Schubert, deputy leader of the Left Party, that the Wikipedia promoted the use of banned Nazi symbols. Subtitled A left-wing German MP who wanted police to charge Wikipedia for allowing Nazism to be promoted has withdrawn her claims in contrast to the headline
  • Antezana, Fabiola. "Did Iceland Teen Call Secret White House Phone?", abcnews.go.com, 2007-12-8. Retrieved on 2007-12-11. "Icelandic Boy, 16, 'Wanted to ... Have a Chat, Invite Him to Iceland and See What He'd Say'" 
    An Icelandic teenager uses Wikipedia as backgound information on Icelandic president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson to impersonate him in a telephone call to the the US White House. Vífill Atlason claims he was passed on to several people, each of them quizzing him on President Grímsson's date of birth, where he grew up, who his parents were and the date he entered office. "It was like passing through checkpoints," he said. "But I had Wikipedia and a few other sites open, so it was not so difficult really.
  • Meek, James Gordon. "U.S. military command hacks Wikipedia", nydailynews.com, 2007-12-13. Retrieved on 2007-12-13. ""...By tracing unique identifying numbers found on Wikipedia computer logs, the sleuths found they were registered to Gitmo and the U.S. Southern Command. Military officials did not respond to requests for comment."" 
    "Volunteers working for the online encyclopedia traced digital fingerprints found on Wikipedia.org to Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, the U.S. military command running the Camp Delta terrorist prison in Cuba.
    The volunteer team discovered that people using military computers registered to the Gitmo task force edited the ailing Cuban president's biography on Wikipedia to say, 'Fidel Castro is an admitted transexual(sic).'
    Anyone can edit Wikipedia entries, but the site expects facts to be linked to credible sources, such as documents or news reports."
    See http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks_busts_Gitmo_propaganda_team/
  • Metz, Cade. "Wikipedia COO was convicted felon" (HTML), The Register, 2007-12-13, pp. 2. Retrieved on 2007-12-15. "For more than six months, beginning in January of this year, Wikipedia's million-dollar check book was balanced by a convicted felon." 
    Makes revelations about former Wikimedia employee Carolyn Doran's history.
  • Pyrah, Joe. "Wikipedia bans Lehi neighborhood" (HTML), Daily Herald (Utah), Daily Herald and Lee Enterprises, 2007-12-15, pp. 1. Retrieved on 2007-12-15. (en-US) "So exactly what kind of artifice did Traverse Mountain engage in to get on Wikipedia's naughty list?" 
    Discusses an entire neighborhood in Utah being banned from editing Wikipedia as part of the attempt to enforce the ban on Judd Bagley.
  • Greenberg, Andy. "What Do You Know?: Google's Know-It-All Project", forbes.com/technology, 2007-12-14. Retrieved on 2007-12-16. "Google wants in on the Wikipedia game." 
    On Friday, the search engine announced the creation of "Knol," a project that allows users to create their own Wikipedia-like pages on specific subjects. The big difference: users put their names--and Google's advertisements--on their knol pages and split the revenue with the search company. The project , which is described as "experimental" by Google...could be seen as good news for wiki-heads hoping to make money from the same specialized knowledge they give to Wikipedia for free...Wikipedia pages, by comparison, receive more traffic from Google than any Web site other than Myspace or Google's own Google Images, according to Hitwise, a Web analysis group. And that traffic is growing. Last February, Hitwise found that Google traffic to Wikipedia had increased 166% from a year earlier. From an advertising vantage point, Wikipedia has been a black hole; it does not carry any advertising...
    This story is being reported everywhere!
  • Metz, Cade. "Truth, anonymity and the Wikipedia Way", theregister.co.uk, 2007-12-18. Retrieved on 2007-12-19. 
    "Why it's broke and how it can be fixed...In Wikiland, you aren't allowed to edit articles where you have a conflict of interest. If you do so, you could be grounded. But the inhabitants of Wikiland also have the right to anonymity. This means that no one may ever know if you have a conflict of interest"
  • Bergstein, Brian. "Felon Became COO of Wikipedia Foundation", Associated Press, 2007-12-21. Retrieved on 2007-12-23. 
    "The foundation that runs — and accepts donations for — the online encyclopedia Wikipedia neglected to do a basic background check before hiring a chief operating officer who had been convicted of theft, drunken driving and fleeing a car accident."
  • Tibbetts, Janice. "Wikipedia wars: Who decides what to include?" (HTML), Victoria Times Colonist, via CanWest News Service, 2007-12-26, pp. 1. Retrieved on 2007-12-26. (en) "A dispute over whether volunteer administrators have become too deletion-obsessed has produced two clashing factions within the ranks of "Wikipedians," sparking enthusiastic and sometimes ugly sparring on blogs and discussion groups." 
    Describes inclusionist vs. deletionist battles.