I knew this would happen. I didn’t want it to happen. But Wikipedia is buckling under pressure due to scandals in their articles. Apparently someone had written an article suggesting that one of Robert Kennedy’s aids was involved in the assassination. The article was written by an anonymous user.

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, claims that this was an abberation in the system–a single needle in a haystack. He goes on to say that since the particular article wasn’t linked heavily to other articles, it was missed. They are now barring anonymous users to submit new articles.

Ouch. I think this may spell the beginning of great critisicm for Wikipedia. The crack is showing–even though it does have great moderation, just a single controversial error like this can make Wikipedia lose credibility. I love the concept of Wikipedia, but they have to have a much more extensive way to verify articles rather than on a randomly checked basis.

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