Changes were made to Zoeller's biography on
the site which said that he was addicted to alcohol and pain
killers. They said that while under the influence of these he beat
his wife and his four children. The offending words have since been
removed.
Zoeller has filed a lawsuit alleging that the
posts were defamatory. The IP address of the poster has been
traced to Josef Silny & Associates, a Miami educational
consultancy whose owner, Josef Silny, says he knows nothing about
the postings.
Silny told reporters in the US that he was
working with his IT department to attempt to identify who in his
office, if anyone, had written the posts.
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia which anyone is
permitted to edit, in contrast to traditional encyclopaedias which
are researched, written and independently checked by experts in
each particular field.
Though Wikipedia is one of the biggest
successes of the trend towards user-generated content, it has often
been caught up in legal controversy because of the unfiltered
nature of the material posted there.
Wikipedia's advocates say that it is to an
extent self-policing because so many people use and edit it that
obvious or malicious errors are corrected quickly. Critics say that
it is a useful tool for partisan political activists or those
wishing to spread misinformation to distort what is read as the
truth.
The once-completely open site has introduced
security measures. Some pages dealing with sensitive issues are
locked completely, while others can only be accessed by people who
have completed a probationary period of postings. The IP address of
a non-registered user who makes changes to a page is displayed in
that page's edit history.
Wikipedia is not liable for the remarks, Scott
Sheftall, Zoeller's lawyer, told the Associated Press news agency.
"Courts have clearly said that you have to go after the source of
the information," he said. "The Zoeller family wants to take a
stand to put a stop to this. Otherwise, we're all just victims to
the internet vandals out there. They ought not to be able to act
with impunity."
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