The 25-year old hacker who created the Wikiscanner, a program that lets you see which companies are changing Wikipedia entries by cross-checking IP addresses, is certainly one suave motherfucker. He's managed to charm his way into Virginia Heffernan's column (which, to be fair, isn't that hard to accomplish) and has girls "hanging off of him" while he drinks White Russians at parties and discusses the Singularity.

Which just begs the questions: when did nerds become the new jocks?

CONTINUED »

She's no Octogenarian — New York Post's Cindy Adam's little flair-up at Jimmy Wales over her Wikipedia page has finally been figured out! It's because the entry on her page listed her as 83, when in fact she's only 76.

"John Edwards, a former United States Senator from North Carolina and Democratic Party presidential candidate, admitted to an extramarital affair, which was initially alleged and published by The National Enquirer, an American supermarket tabloid newspaper. The story had been neglected by some members of the American mainstream media. The Enquirer cited claims by an anonymous source that Edwards had engaged in the affair with Rielle Hunter, a filmmaker hired to work for his presidential campaign, and that the relationship had produced a child." [Wikipedia]

And speaking of McInerey: Another 2,500 copies of his book Story of My Life, whose party girl character is based on Edwards' future mistress Rielle Hunter, are being printed to meet demand. It went out of stock on Amazon.

NBC News has tracked down whoever updated Tim Russert's Wikipedia entry with news of his death, before any major outlet, including NBC, had reported it — and fired the culprit. That's because 30 Rock wanted to privately notify Russert's family of his death, at their D.C. newsroom, and not have them learn about it on a television broadcast. Or Wikipedia. "We were not prepared to say anything until all the family had heard,” says NBC News spokeswoman Allison Gollust, who says the network asked other networks to hold the news. It was a "junior level" staffer at Internet Broadcasting Services, which operates NBC's local news websites, who made the changes. Naturally, this brings the Times to conclude that while Matt Drudge has his own breaking news platform, Wikipedia is the only Internet soapbox for the little people.

When Tim Russert died on Friday, the first television media outlet to report the news was NBC, with Tom Brokaw interrupting the broadcast with a "Special Report." Except he didn't break the news. Many credit the New York Post with the story, which got picked up by the Drudge Report at approximately 3:33pm EST; six minutes later, at 3:39pm, Brokaw was on the air. (Rumor has it, sources at Fox News and CNN also had the story, but they held it so NBC could break the news.)

Except none of those guys actually broke the news. In all likelihood, as Jon Fine notes, Wikipedia did. At 3:01pm, Russert's Wikipedia entry was updated … with a date of death: "Timothy John Russert, Jr. (born May 7, 1950 died June 13, 2008) is an American journalist who has hosted NBC's Meet the Press since 1991." A little snooping revealed that whoever updated the entry logged on from a computer at Internet Broadcasting Systems, which runs the websites for NBC's owned-and-operated local stations.

And while the old guard might be surprised that anything less than an authority like Brokaw could be the one to break the news, those living in the now know this is a foolish notion. In its short lifetime, Wikipedia has a history of breaking death news.

CONTINUED »

Philip Greenspun, who according to Wikipedia is “a semi-retired American computer scientist, educator, and early Internet entrepreneur who was a pioneer in developing online communities” has given $20,000 to Wikimedia to sponsor original illustrations on the site.

His reasoning: "It occurred to me that when the dust settled on the Wikipedia versus Britannica question, the likely conclusion would be 'Wikipedia is more up to date; Britannica has better illustrations.' "

Well take that Britannica, because now Wikipedia will have the best illustrations $40 pending editorial approval can buy.

Some predictions: six months from now, the New York Times will profile one of Wikipedia's more prolific illustrators. A year from then, the New Yorker will run a think piece about recreational Wikipedia illustrators. Can't wait.

Just when you thought stealing from young adult chick lit was as low as it gets, a writer was caught lifting passages from Wikipedia. George Orwel, author of Black Gold: The New Frontier in Oil for Investors, admitted that he had taken five paragraphs from a Wikipedia entry on the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia.

It’s tough to tell what’s more distributing about this revelation: Orwel stealing from an encyclopedia or using a source in a scholarly book that is known for its inaccuracies. Either way, the George Orwell with two Ls in his name would not approve.

Bushwick may not get a lot of foot traffic, it certainly has a lot of Web traffic. 255 McKibbon Street, home to loft parties and articles about loft parties, has its own Wikipedia page, complete with 12 references.

Why? For the same reason they have loft parties: Because they can.

[Curbed]

From NYT: "Embattled Attorney General Resigns Gonzales Made Call to President Bush on Friday."

If true (and its already on Wikipedia so it just might be!) this means Gonzales will be joining the ranks of departing White House Press Secretary Tony Snow and the recently retired election winner/regime ruiner Karl Rove, a.k.a. co-founders of the "Let's get the hell out of here" club.

And while the official reason for Gonzalez's resignation is still unclear (unfortunately for Gonzales, Rove already invoked the "I'm leaving to spend more time with my son, and thereby ruin his freshman year of college" excuse) we're almost certain this has little or nothing at all to do with that whole "dismissal of U.S. attorneys" controversy Gonzales reportedly knows remembers nothing about.

One thing we do know? CNN is only just now picking up the story. Presumably from Wikipedia, who's had it up since approximately 8am.

• The lead singer of Maroon Five denies ever saying that tennis hottie Maria Sharapova was a "double-fault" in bed.

• As usual, the Times is quick to weigh in with an already-reported scoop on Wikipedia.

• Keira Knightley's anorexic yearnings revealed!

• Dog-killer Michael Vick accepts a plea bargain. Ironically, the deal calls for two years of being some inmate's bitch.

• Naomi Campbell is convinced British Vogue doesn't like black people. But we're pretty sure they're just prejudiced against phone-throwing amazonian shitshows.

• First Leona Helmsley couldn't escape taxes, and now she can't avoid death. The hotel queen is dead at 87.

Remember yesterday when we told you about Fox Newsers getting a little carried away with their Wikipedia "edits?" Well, today comes news of a few more online media hijinks.

Our personal favorite? The Wikipedia entry in which BBC labels George W. Bush a "wanker."

Oh, you wily Brits. Show a little respect, yeah? That's "President Wanker" to you.

[TVNewser]

You can't necessarily blame Rupert Murdoch or Arthur Sulzberger for the edits going on at Wikipedia. But you can probably blame some of Fox News' producers and the New York Times' reporters for the anonymous changes made to various entries, since the IP addresses have been tracked back to the news orgs. There are mods made to Wiki entries for Keith Olbermann, Brit Hume, Shepard Smith, CNN, and Greta Van Susteran. And this one, for Bill O'Reilly, which went from:

O’Reilly’s show, ”[[The O’Reilly Factor]]”, airs on the Fox News Channel at the same time as Olbermann’s show on MSNBC, garnering ratings six times higher than Olbermann’s.

to this:

O’Reilly’s show, ”[[The O’Reilly Factor]]”, airs on the Fox News Channel at the same time as Olbermann’s show on MSNBC, garnering ratings ten times higher than Olbermann’s.

The Times, meanwhile, is only guilty of adding the word "jerk" 12 times to George W. Bush's listing.

• The Los Angeles Times: It's what happens when people stop being polite. And start getting 'real.'

• CBS News' online coverage of the Couric/Edwards interview already has 49 pages of comments. And counting…[via TVNewser]

• Tribune seems to favor Zell offer. Just as we reported. Then forgot about. And are now reporting again.

• MySpace "star" Tila Tequila attributes her success to "any pimply dork with a computer." Pimply dork responds by saying, "OMG, she said my name!"

• Time, Newsweek agree that Americans are "already over" Afghanistan.

CONTINUED »

From Wikipedia's entry on "LoHo":

LoHo (an acronym for "Lower Houston Street") is one proposed name of a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan[1][2]. It encompasses a section of the Lower East Side south of Houston Street, from Chrystie Street on the at the western point, to the FDR Drive at the Eastern point stretching to the East River line at South Street.

From Wikipedia's list of "Articles for deletion":

Delete WP:N/WP:NEO - Deals with a proposed name for a neighborhood that has not become widely used except as novelty or in reference to its namesake realty firm. None of the sources given has verified that LoHo is anything more than a marketing effort by a realty firm or that the name has taken hold as the name of a neighborhood.

From Real Estate Marketer's Guide to Manhattan: "Make shit up. The clientèle willing to pay $1.8 million for a studio that faces a brick wall eat this up."

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has had it up to here – and, if you can't see us gesturing, we're pointing at Dakota Fanning's chin – with the free-for-all taking place at the Web's everyman encyclopedia. Too much unobjective content. Too little oversight. Not enough money being made. (Well, we invented that one, but it could very well be true.) So what's a Net genius who broke off from the widely-accepted Web reference standard to do? Stir up some competition, baby. Cue Citizendium.

The latest venture from Larry Sanger, who helped create Wikipedia in 2001, is intended to bring more order to this creative chaos by drawing on traditional measures of authority. Though still open to submissions from anyone, the power to authorise articles will be given to editors who can prove their expertise, as well as a group of volunteer “constables”, charged with keeping the peace between warring interests.

Or, you know, Wikipedia with the "moderated" box checked.

Wikipedia founder plans rival [Richard Waters, Financial Times]

Oh the followers of Stephen Colbert. The strange cooped up kids who find him so anti-establishment that he's their modern-day Haight Ashbury via Comedy Central. They love him. Colbert's fans — his truly hardcore fans — will rally behind their leader, and agree to participate in such contraversial activities as making up stuff on Wikipedia.

On The Colbert Report on Monday, the show's host did a segment on "wikiality" — the reality of user-generated online information site Wikipedia. Colbert logs on to the site during his show, states his declaration that he doesn't believe George Washington had slaves, and creates a new Wikipedia entry for it. (This should all be an example of why communism won't actually work. There's always a prankster fucking with the system.)

If I want to say he didn't that's my right, and now, thanks to Wikipedia *taps keyboard* it's also a fact.

Here's the fun part - Colbert actually did this. The Wikipedia articles on his show and George Washington were both edited by the user Stephencolbert to reflect the changes he declared on air as he tapped at his computer around 23:35 UTC - which is 6:35pm on the East Coast, during the taping of his show, hours before it aired.

Well, one things leads to another, Colbert tells his viewers to "find the Wikipedia entry on elephants and create an entry that stated their population had tripled in the last six months" and next thing you know, 20 articles on elephants were fucked with. And Stephen Colbert gets blocked from Wikipedia.

Which means we're likely to have skewed definition of "truthiness" now.

Stephen Colbert Causes Chaos on Wikipedia, Gets Blocked from Site [Newsvine via Fishbowl NY]

• If Sara James' list of media holiday parties at WWD wasn't enough for you, the Observer surely rounds out the list. Well, ours isn't included, though it might help if we were celebrating with more than our reflection and a bottle of Ketel One. [NYO]

• Now that Wikipedia has been outed as entirely inaccurate on occasion, NYT staffers are now prohibited from using it to fact check. Judith Miller, however, is still an A-OK source. [Romenesko]

• Katie Couric's interview with TV Guide might as well have been an open letter to Les Moonves. [TVNewser]

• Turns out G+J didn't accurately represent the circulations of the three family titles it unloaded on Meredith Corp. [AdAge]

• The NYT claims to have "not lost one ad" to the WSJ's Weekend Journal. Uh huh. [AdAge]

• With Oddjack folding, Gawker kingpin Nick Denton needs to keep his blog roster figures up. So welcome The Consumerist, a goth approach to spending. [The Consumerist]

• Radar staffers will no longer have to go to work wearing Kevlar: Neighbor The Source is being evicted from West 23rd Street. [NYP]

• Lots of reporters, killed at once. [LAT]

Okay, we're going to throw up. Sure, there is plenty of media criticism by media folks, but what do you call media on media on media, tied together with one big indestructible meta bungee cord?

Disgusting, that's what you call it. Which is why we've got the trash basket right next to our desk in case we boot while reading about Esquire's A.J. Jacobs using Wikipedia to write about Wikipedia — the same way we let our interns write about interning, but then refuse to publish it.

Jacobs decided to craft an article about Wikipedia, complete with a series of intentional mistakes and typos, and post it on the site. The hope was that the community itself would be able to fix the errors and create a clean version that would be ready for publication in Esquire's December issue. The original version was preserved for posterity.

"The idea I had–which Jimmy (Wales, Wikipedia's founder) loved–is that I'd write a rough draft of the article and then Jimmy would put it on a site for the Wikipedia community to rewrite and edit," Jacobs wrote on the page introducing the experiment. Esquire "would print the 'before' and 'after' versions of the articles. So here's your chance to make this article a real one. All improvements welcome."

And while Jacobs will try to spin his idea as "clever," us cynics are going with the "dumped the work on the unpaid Wikipedia slaves."