Wikipedia defaced by insult against librarians

Anonymous Patron writes “The entire text of the Wikipedia entry on “Librarians” was replaced by a cheap insult aimed at librarians. The defacement took place on Jan. 18th and lasted for more than two hours. To see the sad details, go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librarians, click on the “History” tab, and view edits for Jan. 18th. The vandal was already known to Wikipedia for graffiti and irrelevancies. Wikipedia has a lengthy “Vandalism” section (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vandalism) , but clearly needs improved levels of control, if this information resource is to fulfill its potential.”

January 20, 2006 by Blake Uncategorized 7

Anonymous Patron says:

January 20, 2006 at 10:32 pm

wait a minute
Doesn’t creating greater controls defeat the point of the technology? Greater controls=less editorial freedom. Vandalism is the unfortunate side effect. The benefits lost from taking the very heart of the resource would be far greater that the benefits gained by less vandalism.

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deborah says:

January 20, 2006 at 11:47 pm

needs greater librarian input
Exactly. Wikipedia doesn’t need greater control, it needs greater librarian input. You who are reading this article: do you contribute to wikipedia? If not, why not? Anything you’re a specialist on: are the wikipedia pages for that section good enough?

— Deborah-jl on wikipedia

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Martin says:

January 21, 2006 at 12:30 am

Wikipedia vandalism — how common?
Another incidence of vandalism, this one a bit more subtle, happened on 14 September 2005. It apparently was removed about 24 hours later. Scroll down the “History” tab to see it.

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AlexV says:

January 21, 2006 at 1:53 am

Re:wait a minute
I agree. Vandalism is never completely avoidable with Wikis. The fact that the article was fixed so quickly is proof of the strength of the Wikipedia editorial system.

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leeb says:

January 21, 2006 at 6:42 am

Greater library input, heaven forbid
Wikipedia is great because it doesn’t have any library input. Can you imagine how long things would take? Long live Wikipedia! And libraries can stay out of Wikipedia!

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Anonymous Patron says:

January 22, 2006 at 4:53 am

Re:wait a minute
In general, users expect information resources to be accurate and reliable. But Wikipedia can easily be vandalised, while modifications can be made for a variety of reasons, many of which may have nothing to do with the public interest. If improved controls or monitoring are not acceptable, maybe additional layering (so that only those accepted within an inner circle can make more than minor changes)? Or additional sandboxing / waiting, so that only those who have demonstrated seriousness over a period of time can make major alterations? I do not recall significant cases of vandalism or misinformation on LISNews.com, which seems able to function well in an almost real-time news environment, with reasonable levels of control / monitoring / layering. LISNews also permits anybody to leave anonymous comments.

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sarahmae says:

January 25, 2006 at 11:55 am

Re:Wikipedia vandalism — how common?
That was a strange one. There was also another one in the history that said he/she was testing wikipedia’s fixing abilities.

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