Microsoft angers Wikipedians

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT) has angered the Wikipedians by offering to pay someone to correct what it says was wrong information on the site.

The company took this route - which the Wikipedia says is very, very wrong - because it says that it wasn't able to get the wrong information corrected by Wikipedia volunteers. To add insult to injury to the world's largest software company, the offending information was about open source software.

Setting aside whether Microsoft's complaint was legitimate or not, I find Wikipedia's response really odd. The Associated Press quotes founder Jimmy Wales as saying that "the proper course" for Microsoft would have been to commission a white paper, post it on an outside Web site and link it to a Wikipedia discussion forum.

"It seems like a much better, transparent, straightforward way," he told the AP.

Really? It seems like this would just cause more arguments from people wondering why Microsoft is trying to influence the Wikiepedia. Moreoever, why should someone have to go through all of that trouble to correct information that's wrong. It seems unfair.

Remember what happened to John Siegenthaler? Someone added to his Wikpedia biography that the one-time assistant attorney general was implicated in the assassinations of both John and Robert Kennedy. That bogus information was removed but it underscores the notion about not believing everything you read.

In other Microsoft news, the company signed basketball star LeBron James to promote Windows Vista.