There's a controversy at Wikipedia, an online collaboratively built and managed encyclopedia, over potentially libelous statements about John Seigenthaler Sr., a former administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy. The statement suggested that Mr. Seigenthaler had been suspected of involvement in Kennedy's assasination and had subsequently moved to the Soviet Union for ten years. None of this is true.
What I find more interesting is that this incident has sparked a debate on the article's discussion page on whether anonymous editing should be disallowed in favour of editing by members with verified email addresses. Probably not a bad idea and a necessary one as Wikipedia becomes more of an authority and comes under pressure to enact policies and procedures to increase accountabililty.
I love Wikipedia. Where else can one read carefully constructed articles on such diverse topics as Namibia, Spider Man, the Greek civil war, and Babylon 5? It's great not having someone else decide what's valuable information and what's not.
