Wikipedia: The Four Winds of Gossip?

John Seigenthaler, a retired journalist, founder of The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center (creators of Newseum), and Robert Kennedy's administrative assistant in the early 1960s, writes a compelling commentary in Wednesday's U.S.A. Today about the amazing rapidity in which one's reputation can be tarnished or libeled via Wikipedia and similar Internet sources. He sums-up his own battle to erase defamatory information posted about himself on several popular Internet sites (including Wikipedia), by writing:

"When I was a child, my mother lectured me on the evils of "gossip." She held a feather pillow and said, 'If I tear this open, the feathers will fly to the four winds, and I could never get them back in the pillow. That's how it is when you spread mean things about people.' For me, that pillow is a metaphor for Wikipedia."

I encourage you to read the article: "A false Wikipedia 'biography'"

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm