Tech Shout!

Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia had been alleged for creating a lot of confusion by posting repeated misinterpretations about the news of Enron’s former CEO Kenneth Lay.

Minutes after news organizations began reporting Lay’s death by a heart attack in Aspen, Colo., on last Wednesday; Wikipedia prematurely listed the cause as “an apparent suicide” at 10:06 a.m. The entry was updated two minutes later at 10:08 a.m., to report Lay had died of “of an apparent heart attack or suicide,” and less than a minute afterward the entry said the cause of death was “yet to be determined.” At 10:09 a.m. it said “no further details have been officially released” about the death.

Further updates within the hour (precisely at 10:11 a.m.) reported that “The guilt of ruining so many lives … led him to his suicide,” and at 10:39 it said, “Speculation as to the cause of the heart attack lead many people to believe it was due to the amount of stress put on him by the Enron trial.”

It was not until mid-afternoon last Wednesday that Wikipedia reported Lay’s heart attack with citations from news sources.

Probably Wikipedia’s biggest strength is becoming its biggest weakness. The site is extremely user-based and allows anyone with an Internet connection to edit its articles. Currently the site boasts of having around 13,000 active writers and editors.