Faith, Politics, and . . . Wikipedia

For me,
this is literally an article of faith. I believe in a God who is the Way, the

Life — and the Truth.

My older daughter is not engaged to William Beckett, the lanky, adorable
front man of the pop-punk band, The Academy Is. Nor is she recovering from a
brief involvement with Jabberjaw, the TV cartoon shark.

However, the above "facts" were briefly true this summer, when my
wicked daughter and her enthusiastic little sister-sidekick decided to waste a
few idle hours punking the readers of Wikipedia, the user-written and -edited
on-line encyclopedia. In their first attempt, they appended the little-known
fact that President Jimmy Carter was a founding member of *NSYNC.

That shenanigan quickly drew the wrath of a Canadian bureaucrat. He
thundered — via e-mail of course — that their childishness violated the social
compact underlying Wikipedia's democratic philosophy of collaborative content.
The girls quickly learned their lesson: On Wikipedia, your jokes last longer if
you monkey around with more obscure entries.

Wikipedia's vulnerability to silliness got national attention last month,
when Stephen Colbert coined the word "Wikiality," the notion that any
random falsehood can become reality if you can merely persuade enough people to
believe it. As proof, Colbert invited his eager viewers to triple the world's
population of African elephants, on the grounds that their extinction would be
a real bummer. The result was a massive grassroots campaign of Wikipedia
vandalism — or reality improvement, depending on your point of view.

My daughters can't understand why I get so upset when Wikipedia entries
morph without warning from fact to libel to entertainment and back. But for me,
this is literally an article of faith. I believe in a God who is the Way, the
Life — and the Truth. Deliberately misleading others — even in fun — smacks of
heresy.

That's why I was so offended when Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn., got caught
engaging in Wikiality a few weeks ago, after a reference to his self-imposed
12-year term limit — announced 11 years ago — suddenly vanished from his
Wikipedia bio. (Gutknecht is far from alone; so many staffers (on both sides of
the aisle) were massaging their bosses' entries that Wikipedia's editors
briefly banned all entry edits from Congressional IP addresses.)

As a citizen, I'm sorry (if not surprised) that politicians are so willing
to play fast and loose with reality. But on a more human level, I'm saddened
that my daughters share their leaders' willingness to tamper with people's
faith, whether for political gain or personal amusement.

A few weeks ago, my older daughter (a film student) was briefly abashed when
she checked her IMDB profile and found her Wikipedia engagement to William
Beckett was prompting comments. Some of Beckett's adoring fans were crushed to
hear that he was getting married, and wanted to know what his lucky girlfriend
looks like. "They're both only 21," one commenter sighed.
"Although if it's true love, good luck to them…" Unmoved by such
sentiments, my younger daughter gleefully logged on, informing the world that
Beckett's mystery bride was a) known for biting her siblings and b) gay. One of
those statements is absolutely true. And one, my merry pranksters may learn one
day, is an early-stage example of the power (and peril) of Wikiality.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Is there?