University president's bio smeared on Wikipedia site

[Thomas Veil]

Cincinnati - Somebody with a grudge against University of Cincinnati President Nancy Zimpher performed a little black magic on the Internet.

The educator's biography on Wikipedia was altered to say she was a prostitute who practices witchcraft. By midday Friday, the spell was broken. The offending spiel scrubbed.

Zimpher was no longer described as flying around on a broomstick. And a saucy photograph showing a leggy strumpet attired with big hair and garter belts had disappeared.

But a few hours later, more bogus information appeared, saying, "She is currently interviewing for the President job at Northwestern Univ., because she is disliked in Cincinnati."

Northwestern quickly denied it was looking to replace longtime President Henry Bienen. The line about Zimpher and Northwestern vanished quickly.

U.C.'s public affairs office got calls about the Northwestern report, which it called untrue. But the rumor had spread to some Cincinnati radio talk shows by yesterday afternoon.

Zimpher is the latest high-profile casualty of deviltry on Wikipedia, an Internet reference source that isn't edited for accuracy like traditional encyclopedias....

Retired newspaper editor John Seigenthaler learned last November that for 132 days his Wikipedia bio stated he was a suspect in the assassinations of President John Kennedy and Sen. Robert Kennedy during the 1960s.

Seigenthaler, a close aide to Robert Kennedy when he was U.S. attorney general, described the hacker as "sick and malicious" and pointed out how Wikipedia could become a tool for evil purposes.

In February, the Washington Post reported that congressional staffers altered Wikipedia bios of their Capitol Hill bosses, eliminating embarrassing information.

An entry about Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn was changed to say he had once been voted the nation's "most annoying senator," a statement that wasn't true.

Zimpher, the latest victim, could not be reached Friday.

A respected educator with roots in Gallipolis, Zimpher was chancellor at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before returning to Ohio in 2003.

She has battled over UC's powerful men's basketball program, which the Wikipedia entry noted she was determined to destroy. Last August she forced out coach Bob Huggins, a popular campus figure who made the Bearcats a national power.

The false entry was cleaned up at 11:26 a.m., about five minutes after The Plain Dealer e-mailed Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, asking about it. Wales did not respond....

Nice, huh?

I guess you can see where the motivation to smear Zimpher probably came from, but it takes a really small, petty ***hole to carry out something like this.

Link

 

[Lord Blackadder]

I guess you can see where the motivation to smear Zimpher probably came from, but it takes a really small, petty ***hole to carry out something like this.

Welcome to WWW. People show less restraint when they aren't accountable. Despite this massive flaw, I still like Wikipedia and use it all the time. Just don't take it as gospel without confirming the facts from other sources.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Wiki can nice for general info, but it shouldn't be considered a reliable source w/o confirmation, IMO, especially when you start getting into more in depth research.


Lethal

 

[Apple Hobo]

Seigenthaler, a close aide to Robert Kennedy when he was U.S. attorney general, described the hacker as "sick and malicious" and pointed out how Wikipedia could become a tool for evil purposes.

Editing Wiki articles makes one a l33t hax0r?

 

[JeffTL]

Wiki can nice for general info, but it shouldn't be considered a reliable source w/o confirmation, IMO, especially when you start getting into more in depth research.


Lethal

For serious research, it must be noted that the same goes for any general encyclopedia, such as World Book or Britannica. Specialized literature is greatly preferable.

 

[Eric5h5]

For serious research, it must be noted that the same goes for any general encyclopedia, such as World Book or Britannica. Specialized literature is greatly preferable.

At least with printed, non-editable material, you can be sure that some random whacko hasn't come along and changed it just to be annoying. As far as I can tell, Wikipedia is 100% useless for that reason.

--Eric

 

[Koodauw]

Better go confiscate Bob Huggins' computer. For the record though, it wouldnt surprise me if she really was a witch.

 

[cycocelica]

Editing Wiki articles makes one a l33t hax0r?

I wondered the same thing when I read that line.

 

[SC68Cal]

I don't think much has changed really. Before, people would make websites devoted to smearing people. It hasn't changed that much. Shame that Wikipedia is just a convenient forum in which this stuff can happen.

Basically, what needs to be done is instead of stopping Wikipedia, more people need to get involved so that more people are moderating the entries so that stuff like this gets picked up quicker.

The one thing I wonder though is how obscure was this article, I know in the case of the one guy whose entry was changed to make him out to be the Kennedy asassin, his article was not linked to any other articles at all, meaning it was obscure and less likely to be seen/edited.