Michael Jackson's Death on Wikipedia

People's views differ on Wikipedia.

Following the events yesterday involving Michael Jackson's death I was extremely impressed with the diligence that goes into a Wikipedia update.

First the Michael Jackson page was locked during the period where the results of his death were unconfirmed.

Then all updates must be proposed on a "discussion" page where the Wikipedia community debates the authenticity of the claims and decides when to update the main page with the breaking news.

I looked through the records and at times it blew me away how passionate these people are. These are actual comments from Wikipedia users Thursday afternoon as the news was beginning to break...

"BBC News, Reuters and AP are NOT (at present) reporting the death of Michael Jackson at present, they are simply stating that TMZ is reporting his death. Please can we calm down, Wikipedia is an important website and we really don't need to precipitate further confusion with premature reports here."

"Things are still unclear.. CNN is reporting that his is still alive. We should wait for an official statement from the Jackson Family."

"Several reports on Google News, all based on the TMZ story. It can wait until a more reliable source reports it."

"Honestly, I would wait till a press release comes out. What's the LA Times and AP's source, I wonder. We should hold out until we have a confirmed reputable source, and a press release would probably be best."

"Cool down people, Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia, not a real-time portrait of the world. Let the facts be discernible, and then people will edit the article accordingly"

"I'd prefer truth over speed to be honest"

-"This page needs to be unlocked to the extent that you will allow his death to be noted."
-"Hell No"

"Just wanted to throw a word of support to the admins: this page would become the messiest battleground of the decade if it weren't protected."

"It's official: CNN:http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/25/michael.jackson/index.html"

I really am not exaggerating when I saw that this back and forth dialogue between literally hundreds of Wikipedia users went on for more than 2 hour before the site administrators felt comfortable enough to post some of the information.

I found out later that certain Michael Jackson pages were locked for more than 5 hours to prevent edits from the thousands of users that swarmed the site.

Some amazing stuff and I must say I am more impressed with Wikipedia then I ever was before. There will always be issues with this style of reporting and documenting but the users take real pride in the site's accuracy and make ever effort to live up to that standard.