Wikipedia

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia established by Jimbo Wales (with substantial help in the beginning from Larry Sanger) on January 15, 2001. It currently has over 6 million articles, written in 250 languages, including over 1,600,000 articles in the English version. Conservapedia uses the wiki program made popular by Wikipedia. Content on Wikipedia is free-content under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), and anyone can add to or edit the content on Wikipedia.

Multilingual Wikipedia home page

Initially, Wikipedia was hosted on servers operated by Bomis Incorporated, a search portal funded by Jimbo Wales. Then in 2003, Jimbo Wales created the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation with himself as board president, to oversee the day-to-day operation of Wikipedia.

Sinbad Hoax

On March 16, wikipedia entry on the 50-year old entertainer Sinbad, born David Adkins, states: "He succumbed to a fatal heart attack on the morning of March, 14, 2007." This hoax was widely reported in the media.

Rutgers-Ivy League Hoax

A Wikipedia entry falsely stated that Rutgers was once invited to join the Ivy League. Although that false statement was eventually removed from Wikipedia, it was not removed before the Daily News relied on it in this story:

You don't have to define your college with your football team, but Rutgers long ago decided to give it a try. Back in 1954, when it was considered a 'public Ivy,' Rutgers might have joined the fledgling Ivy League and altered its destiny. But the school declined the offer - arguably the dumbest mistake in its history. Ever since then, Rutgers has scrambled to prove itself worthy of playing football with the big boys."

Barbara Bauer Vs. Wikimedia Foundation

Wikimedia Foundation is one of 17 defendants in a lawsuit suit filed in New Jersey, by Barbara Bauer and her literary agency. Her Wikipedia article was deleted on March 25, 2007 by Wikipedia administrator Doc Glasgow as a "bloody disgrace".

Jimmy Wales' Denial that Larry Sanger was a Co-Founder

The Associated Press and others credit Larry Sanger as the co-founder of Wikipedia. But the Associate Press quotes Jimmy Wales as denying it:

"When you write this up please do not uncritically repeat Sanger's absurd claim to be the co-founder of Wikipedia."

"I know of no one who was there at the company at the beginning who would think it anything other than laughable," he added.

"I am not bent out of shape about it," he wrote. "The facts are on my side, which is why I bother so little about it."

According to the Associated Press, Jimmy Wales "has repeatedly tried to address this - even going so far as editing his own Wikipedia biography to tone down credit for Sanger. Such autobiographical contributions are frowned upon in Wikipedia's community, and Wales apologized after his changes were noticed and publicized by blogger Rogers Cadenhead in 2005."

GFDL License Issue

Wikipedia's practice of complete deletion of articles without reference to the original article, the author(s)/publisher(s) of the article, and the history and title(s) of the article, including modification history, description and appropriate dates, is a direct violation of at least GFDL version 1.2. Not only that, but the GFDL License states that if the article/document contains Copyright notices, that said notices must be preserved at all times. If those notices are removed, then they are in violation of Copyright Law, as well as the terms of the GFDL license. Furthermore, the question of them removing anything outright at all comes into quite a grey area. If one reads the GFDL License literally, then it implies that once the article document is posted, it is in distribution, and technical measures are not allowed to be taken to prevent the use of the document in question, and that no other conditions whatsoever can be added by you to those of the GFDL license.

External Links

• Wikipedia
• Wikitruth
• Citizendium(Beta)
• Wikipedia Watch
• Wikipedia Review