The entry onMarti Pellow, the lead singer for Scottish music groupWet Wet Wet, was briefly the subject of scrutiny after the entry waschanged to state that Pellow had died. It stayed in this state for about 4 1/2 hours before beingreverted. TheEvening Times quotedDavid Gerard, who apologized for the edits. Other Irish and Scottish news sources carriedthis article, but the press attention given to this incident was relatively minor.
An entry ofJohn F. Street, the mayor ofPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania made news this week, when thePhiladelphia Inquirernoted that the entry had beenvandalized to state that Street had performed asBozo the Clown. The vandalism was laterreverted, nearly 11 hours after it was first vandalized.
Another entry,Millom, wasnoted by theNorth-West Evening Mail; the entry had contained various sexual references. The paper noted that a local rugby team had been referred to as the "oldest existing homosexual rugby league team in the world", in addition to other minor inaccuracies, but omitted some of the morevile edits made by the same IP address. The article remained vandalized for over a week before it was reverted.
TheNashville Scene also took ahumorous look at avandalous edit made toBob Clement, a candidate for Nashville mayor, on 3 January (reverted a week later). The article has since been stubbed, as none of the claims made therein were sourced.
TheOttawa Citizenexamined Wikipedia editor and arbitratorSimon Pulsifer. The article went extensively into Pulsifer's personal life, making light of his status as "unemployed and living with his parents" (though the article later notes that he's accepted a full-time job and plans to move into an apartment later this month).
Wikipedia was referenced in the 18 January, 2007 episode of30 Rock, asitcom on American television channelNBC. In the episode entitled "The Head and the Hair", comedianTracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) realises he has one day left to write his autobiography. He enlistsJames "Toofer" Spurlock (Keith Powell) andFrank Rossitano (Judah Friedlander) to help him; Friedlander's character finds the article onTracy Jordan, while using the Internet on his laptop. The article says that he was discovered after doing stand-up comedy at the Apollo Theater in 1984, but Jordan has no memory of this.
This is the first sitcom known to have mentioned Wikipedia;Fox's dramaPrison Break showed the site in an October episode.
Also this week: —Nofollow —WikiWorld —News and notes —Press coverage—Features and admins—Arbitration
