Hmmm, maybe Wikipedia isn’t so reliable after all.

Wikipedia was yesterday described as being as reliable as the Encyclopaedia Britannica despite a sustained attack from vandals intent on further wrecking its reputation for accuracy.

This is despite a surge in the number of spoof articles and vandal attacks which have followed the furore over a biographical Wikipedia article linking John Seigenthaler, a respected retired journalist, with the assassinations of both John F and Robert Kennedy.

In one such fake article, it was suggested today that Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s creator, was shot dead at his home by Siegenthaler’s wife.

This is kind of a breakthrough. Wiwkipedia makes it possible for people with no programming skills to do hacking of a sort and to unleash viruses. (If we can count deliberately false information as memetic viruses of a sort.) Great.