Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-05-18/In the news

Arbitrator blogs about Wikipedia
User:Newyorkbrad, an arbitrator, published a series of posts as a guest blogger at The Volokh Conspiracy this week. The Volokh Conspiracy is a prominent law blog that focuses on American politics and legal issues.

Newyorkbrad shares his personal views of Wikipedia and its flaws and virtues, and has posts on privacy, biographies of living people, and on "who runs the place". A parallel discussion about Newyorkbrad's posts is going on at Wikipedia Review.

On French Wikipedia, government ministries try to spin articles
Digital Journal (a citizen journalism website) reports that "French Government Ministries tamper with Wikipedia entries". Edits traced to the Interior and Culture Ministries attempted "to present the government’s position in a more favourable manner" for a controversial proposed law that would crack down on copyright violations in cases of illegal downloading.

According to the article, "French Authorities intervene relatively often on Wikipedia in order to delete what they see as being negative content or to insert its own version of issues".

Briefly

 * The Industry Standard reviews Google's Knol, a project initially viewed as competitor to Wikipedia, and concludes that "Knol's expert-based formula fails to unseat Wikipedia juggernaut".
 * Humor website Cracked.com has a list of "5 Terrifying Bastardizations of the Wikipedia Model".