Wikipedia for spin doctoring?

-- (Credit: SHYAMAL)Ten of thousands of contributors work to ensure that online encyclopedia Wikipedia is in a constant state of update. But now an innovation on the site has confirmed a long-held suspicion: Wikipedia is a prime target for spin-doctoring. A new identification programme on the site reveals that some of the most prolific contributors to Wikipedia are the cia, the British Labour Party and the Vatican--and they are not just updating their own entries. The Wikiscanner site shows the cia has edited entries on many issues relating to the us government, including presidential biographies and descriptions of military operations. The scanner rummages through entries and edits Wikipedia posts to find their origin.

Gerard Goggin, an expert on the use of the Internet in politics at Sydney University, says "This underscores that we need to be careful with all the sources we quote," he said. Goggin remains a fan of Wikipedia, nevertheless. "What is really crucial here is that people are aware of how entries in Wikipedia are created and what the limitations of this online encyclopedia are," he said.