Defending Wikipedia from shysters

[cheeni]

It appears there is a class-action lawsuit being filed against Wikipedia by a bunch of scammers. The law suit looks to ride on the coat tails of the recent Seigenthaler episode, which sort of ended in an anti-climax with the anonymous John Doe offendor, either owning up or being traced, depending on who you ask.

I profit from the Wikipedia's existence. More often than not, it proves reliable. In fact, I can't really say I have ever been misled by the Wikipedia, whenever I've seen a factual error it has been fairly easy to spot the NPOV angle.

What is with the mollycoddling of the masses? Wearing my tin-foil hat, it seems easy to get carried away about the real reason behind all of this. From some of the facts, it does appear to be a case of the wolf taking cover behind the sheep. Wikipedia is a powerful and influential source of news that cannot be censored - not a happy thought for the powerful, who merely view Wikipedia as a disruptive tool that challenges their status quo.

The Internet was a celebration of freedom, a tribute to the geek. This appears to be lesser and lesser the case. Bah!