Wikipedia got a painful dose of "wikiality" this week as the online encyclopedia's greatest strength became its worst nightmare. Wikipedia editors, meet Stephen Colbert, whose satirical crusade against "truthiness" arrived with the mocking tone of Monty Python's coconut hoof beats.
The Colbert Report, analyzing Wikipedia's information democratization, incited an editing bonanza.
"Definitions will greet us as liberators" became the guiding assumption.
Of course, he was kidding when he told his viewers to edit the Wikipedia entry on elephants to say that the elephant population had tripled over the last six months. He was kidding, right?
error message shortly appeared telling visitors the Wikimedia Foundation servers were experiencing "technical difficulties."
Wikipedia came back online a short time later with 20 elephant-related entries banned Colbert himself from using Wikipedia. Tawker says the database overload was unrelated to Colbert's orchestrated pummeling of the site, and invites Colbert to invite him on his show to talk about it - airfare courtesy of Comedy Central.
John Q holes would respond quickly by making these edits. But the Wikipedia custodians responded quickly as well."
Burn, Colbert! What do you have to say for yourself? You may have pulled a Wiki fast one, but there's nothing that can beat a Wiki-quickie - except for maybe the school field hockey team.
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