Mudslinging and Wikipedia
Despite a misleading detail* in the second paragraph, the New York Times’ Sarah Boxer gives an amusing look at all of the vandalism changes that happened to the Wikipedia entries on John Kerry and US President George W. Bush shortly before and after the US presidential election. It provides a look at why having pages everyone can edit can be dangerous as it shows how Wikipedia administrators work to try to maintain accuracy and neutrality in their encyclopedia.
The page for President Bush has a note at the top warning readers that its neutrality is disputed with a link to the talk page for more information. Talk pages are where people discuss changes made to articles, especially those of a controversial or disputed nature. The talk page for President Bush has information about some of the recent vandalism and many suggested edits, like adding details about voter turnout.
*While the English language section of Wikipedia might only have 400,000 articles, the number of articles in all of the languages is more than 1 million.
