[WikiEN-l] Is Wikipedia the first draft of history - New York Times take on Joe Wilson article

[Keith Old]

Folks,
The New York Times reports:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/the-wikipedia-battle-over-joe-wilsons-obama-heckling/


If journalism is the first draft of history, what is a Wikipedia entry when
it is updated within minutes of an event to reflect changes in a person’s
biography?

This is the very live issue that cropped up in a heated argument on the
discussion page<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Joe_Wilson_%28U.S._politician%29>
that
accompanies Wikipedia’s entry on Representative Joe
Wilson<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Wilson_%28U.S._politician%29>
Wednesday
night, just 30 minutes after the Republican from South Carolina interrupted
President Barack Obama’s
speech<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/us/politics/11Wilson.html> by
shouting “You lie!” As my colleague Carl Hulse reported in a blog
post<http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/live-blogging-the-presidents-speech/#t21h32m>
published
about 10 minutes after the fight got going on Wikipedia, Mr. Wilson’s
outburst came in response to the president’s statement that his proposed
changes to health insurance laws would not give coverage to illegal
immigrants.

Since Mr. Wilson’s shout was made during a live television broadcast —
nowarchived
on YouTube by The Associated
Press<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aE_nEoE5kE> —
in front of all of his colleagues, the fact that it happened is not in
dispute. After Wikipedia’s editors initially removed the first reference to
the event<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Joe_Wilson_%28U.S._politician%29&oldid=312892939>
from
the entry on Mr. Wilson, citing concerns about sourcing and potential
“vandalism,” the page was locked to prevent new or unregistered users from
editing it.

That is when the argument among Wikipedians — which can be read in full on
the discussion page starting
here<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Joe_Wilson_%28U.S._politician%29#Yelling_.22You_Lie.22_at_President_Obama.27s_health_care_speech>
—
really took off.


(More in article)


The Joe Wilson article is here:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Wilson_(U.S._politician)


Regards



*Keith Old*