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Who Edited My Cheese?
Five subjects that get Wiki-maniacs fighting mad
GQ, USA
July 31, 2006
July 31, 2006-In the contentious alternate universe of Wikipedia,
the back-and-forth over even the most obscure of topics can get pretty
vitriolic. As the online encyclopedia's most avid contributors prepare
to descend upon Boston for the second annual "Wikimania" get-together
later this week, we asked the company's spokesperson Wayne Saewyc to
name a few topics likely to start a Wiki-brawl.
MySpace: "People are advertising their MySpace accounts in the MySpace
article. It gets removed but it happens a lot. The most common form of
vandalism is to say, 'So-and-so is gay.' People go through and put in
'gay' after any construction that includes 'MySpace is.' "
2006 World Cup: "Zidane's head butt caused a big flurry of activity.
The French supporters were very disappointed and upset but they
supported their man, and the opposite is true as well. People were
watching the match and live editing on Wikipedia at the same time."
Scientology: "This has been a hot war in the past. There are arguments
over word choices, like quiet birth versus silent birth. Right now
it's fairly neutral, so Wikipedia is winning. We want things to
be neutral!"
Cheese: "This one gets vandalized regularly. One anonymous IP said
that cheese was made out of the 'pubic hair of migratory elephants.' "
Nagorno-Karabakh: "It's a portion of the South Caucasus which
should be part of Azerbaijan but is effectively unruled or de facto
independent. The arguments are about stuff like whether the Azerbaijani
coat of arms should be included on the page or not. They're trying
to work towards a compromise."
- Staff http://men.style.com/news/the_list/073106
Five subjects that get Wiki-maniacs fighting mad
GQ, USA
July 31, 2006
July 31, 2006-In the contentious alternate universe of Wikipedia,
the back-and-forth over even the most obscure of topics can get pretty
vitriolic. As the online encyclopedia's most avid contributors prepare
to descend upon Boston for the second annual "Wikimania" get-together
later this week, we asked the company's spokesperson Wayne Saewyc to
name a few topics likely to start a Wiki-brawl.
MySpace: "People are advertising their MySpace accounts in the MySpace
article. It gets removed but it happens a lot. The most common form of
vandalism is to say, 'So-and-so is gay.' People go through and put in
'gay' after any construction that includes 'MySpace is.' "
2006 World Cup: "Zidane's head butt caused a big flurry of activity.
The French supporters were very disappointed and upset but they
supported their man, and the opposite is true as well. People were
watching the match and live editing on Wikipedia at the same time."
Scientology: "This has been a hot war in the past. There are arguments
over word choices, like quiet birth versus silent birth. Right now
it's fairly neutral, so Wikipedia is winning. We want things to
be neutral!"
Cheese: "This one gets vandalized regularly. One anonymous IP said
that cheese was made out of the 'pubic hair of migratory elephants.' "
Nagorno-Karabakh: "It's a portion of the South Caucasus which
should be part of Azerbaijan but is effectively unruled or de facto
independent. The arguments are about stuff like whether the Azerbaijani
coat of arms should be included on the page or not. They're trying
to work towards a compromise."
- Staff http://men.style.com/news/the_list/073106