Wikipedia controversy

I am a great fan of Wikipedia, though I have myself never contributed to it. So, it is with much dismay that I read about the latest controversy raging over the past 2 months. 

Also, here is the New Yorker article that started it all, along with the editor's note appended this February. Also, read this Guardian article by Seth Finkelstein, a strong critic of Wiki, saying that it "fundamentally runs by an extremely deceptive sort of social promise" by selling contributors "on the dream, the illusion, that it'll give them the prestige of an academic ("writing an encyclopedia")."

While that may be extreme criticism by a vociferous critic, various criticism of Wikipedia has indeed been growing along with its rising popularity over the past couple years, as indicated by this entry at the wiki itself. However, some changes to the way Wikipedia screens its contributors notwithstanding, this one promises to do to Wiki's reputation what the whole Dan Rather episode did to CBS's repuation and what the Jayson Blair affair did to the NYT.