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"DonorGate" Is Latest Scandal To Hit Wikipedia
MSTCrow5429 writes "In the latest of a long train of scandals to hit Wikipedia, the Sydney Morning Herald reports on an accusation that founder and Wikia President Jimmy Wales traded a multi-thousand dollar donation for an article re-write. Jeff Merkey, formerly of Novell, claims that Wales approached him in 2006 and said that for a fee, Wales would personally see to it that the article on Merkey, which had cast him in a negative light, would be re-written in Merkey's favor. Merkey claims that after he donated $5,000, Wales followed through on this quid pro quo. The Wikipedia edit history does indicate that Wales wiped out the article on Merkey, and then personally re-wrote it. The SMH reports that Wales has called the allegation 'nonsense.'" Merkey filed a harassment lawsuit in 2005 against a number of people and organizations, including Slashdot. Slashdot was removed from the suit on 2005-07-20.
Update: 03/12 00:39 GMT by KD : Wikimedia Foundation spokesman Jay Walsh provided this official statement: "Current allegations relating to Jimmy Wales soliciting donations for the Wikimedia Foundation in order to protect or edit Wikipedia articles are completely false. The Wikimedia Foundation has never accepted nor solicited donations in order to protect or make edits to a Wikipedia article — nor has Jimmy Wales. This is a practice the Wikimedia Foundation would never condone."
Update: 03/12 00:39 GMT by KD : Wikimedia Foundation spokesman Jay Walsh provided this official statement: "Current allegations relating to Jimmy Wales soliciting donations for the Wikimedia Foundation in order to protect or edit Wikipedia articles are completely false. The Wikimedia Foundation has never accepted nor solicited donations in order to protect or make edits to a Wikipedia article — nor has Jimmy Wales. This is a practice the Wikimedia Foundation would never condone."
It could very well be that Jimmy Wales is being swiftboated.
Likewise, the governor of New York is being called to resign because he allegedly saw a hooker. This has nothing whatsoever to do with his ability to govern the state, but sharp political rhetoric is being flung about nevertheless. The Bill Clinton affair also springs to mind.
All this means is that Jimmy Wales has some political opponents who are willing to fight dirty. He might be no saint, but Wikipedia seems to be doing pretty darn well for the most part.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
This was and is the fundamental flaw with wikipedia. Whether you believe that a collaborative encyclopaedia can really work or not, Wikipedia is set up in such a way that the integrity, reliability, and accuracy of any controversial data on the site can come down the the integrity, reliability, and honesty of one man.
Whether Jimmy Wales did or didn't take money, sex, or anything else in exchange for modifying wikipedia articles doesn't realy matter. The problem is that there's nothing in place to prevent him from doing so or even to show that he did it.
Wikipedia has no oversight policy(there doesn't even seem to be a requirement for the involvement of more than one administrator in controversial decisions), and includes the ability to permanently delete content so that not only has the article been changed or removed, but there is no way of knowing that it was ever there.
Any encyclopaedia is a bad reference source, simply because it's an encyclopaedia. But an encyclopaedia that can be rewritten at will by a single person with no oversight is a largely worthless encylopaedia.
Personally I use wikipedia quite often, but I don't bother with it for anything controversial.