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Thursday, August 3, 2006

WikiRoast

Source: The Onion

You know Wikipedia, the reader-edited encyclopedia that's had its share of heat about accuracy, has made it into the cultural lexicon when it's the butt of jokes. We've already covered how Stephen Colbert's vision for a new "Wikiality," where the masses create the facts they want to believe in, crashed the site and caused Wikipedia to lock down 20 elephant related Wikipedia pages. Well, last week The Onion led with this headline: Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence: Founding Fathers, Patriots, Mr. T. Honored.

The article "quotes Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales: "According to our database, that's 212 years older than the Eiffel Tower, 347 years older than the earliest-known woolly-mammoth fossil, and a full 493 years older than the microwave oven."

Note: The last time I put The Onion in Business Filter, I got an irate letter from a reader who felt The Onion didn't belong in a distinguished paper/site like the Boston Globe/Boston.com. But let me also direct your attention to the current #1 most-emailed story on Boston.com:

Dog destroys Elvis' teddy bear at museum

Hey at least the stuff in The Onion (mostly) isn't true. It's human nature. People just love weird news.

UPDATE 3:07pm EST: I've had an interesting reader response. The conclusion seems to be that because I've written about people making fun of Wikipedia, I'm anti-Wikipedia. For the record, I have great respect for Wikipedia and have pointed to how it has been thought to be just as accurate as Encyclopedia Brittanica (which, by the way, Brittanica refutes) and said that I feel it has made good compromises as it's developed.

And I still find Wikiality and The Onion thing funny.