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Re: Israel and Syria are TALKING

Posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sat May 24 13:23:28 2008, in response to Re: Israel and Syria are TALKING, posted by Easy on Sat May 24 13:04:45 2008.

"And I think that ordinary people are far more moderate and far more ordinary than the unfortunately polarised views of extremes you see coming out," the founder of the popular user-generated encyclopedia said.

According to Citizendium, a competing online encyclopedia created by the Wikipedia co-founder, Larry Sanger, who was unhappy with the direction that project was heading, Wikipedia is "part anarchy, part mob rule. The people with the most influence in the community are the ones who have the most time on their hands - not necessarily the most knowledgeable - and who manipulate Wikipedia's eminently gameable system."

Robert McHenry, a former editor-in-chief of Encyclopedia Britannica, described Wikipedia as more of a "game" than an encyclopedia, and the source of "some very, very bad stuff."

We agree. Wikipedia's leadership will have to figure out how the experiment can be fixed. Until then, the only hope for improvement is to have more fair-minded people find the time to edit Wikipedia for accuracy and objectivity.

The New York ex-girlfriend of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales says that after insisting their relationship be secret he dumped her on the Web site.

Rachel Marsden, a right-wing pundit who recently moved from Canada, decided to go public herself by selling some of her ex-beau's personal items on eBay, the New York Post reported.

"Hi, my name is Rachel, and my (now ex-) boyfriend, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, just broke up with me via an announcement on Wikipedia," Marsden wrote on eBay.

"It was such a classy move that I was inspired to do something equally classy myself, so I'm selling a couple of items of clothing he left behind, here in my NYC apartment, on eBay."

The on-line battle began Saturday. Wales, apparently stung by suggestions that he had edited the Wikipedia entry on Marsden, posted a personal statement: "I am no longer involved with Rachel Marsden."

Marsden told the Post that Wales was "paranoid" about their relationship and had threatened that she could be jailed or deported if she let anyone know personal details.