The problem with Wikipedia

People using computers at Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil and other big companies are tinkering with the Wikipedia entries about the firms in question.

Example:

A computer registered to the Dow Chemical Company is recorded as deleting a passage on the Bhopal chemical disaster of 1984, which occurred at a plant operated by Union Carbide, now a wholly owned Dow subsidiary. The incident cost up to 20,000 lives.

A machine that belongs to Exxon-Mobil, the oil giant, is shown making sweeping changes to an entry on the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. An allegation that the company “has not yet paid the $5 billion in spill damages it owes to the 32,000 Alaskan fishermen” was replaced with references to the funds the company has paid out.[link]

A couple months ago I did a Google search of a guy I had once worked with. A Wiki entry on him appeared high in the search, so I clicked on it and discovered he was among a long list of Mexican bullfighters, along with a mutual friend of ours with whom we once worked.

It made me laugh.

So, all you kids out there using Wikipedia for your term papers, try harder.