There's always yesterday
Posted: Thursday, November 30, 2006 6:56 PM by Will Femia
From: A helpful reader
Subject: Clicked - EMERGENCY!!!
OMG, Will!!! "Speaking of cheating, the cheat code wiki allows gamers to share tricks for cheating at video games." They had a total meltdown and the site is now filled with ultra sicko freaky porn - argh! I'm sure glad that I didn't give the link to my 11 year old!!! Definitely NSFW (or for non-mind-twisted-freaks either). Sheesh - please, someone, give me a brain scrubby!!!!
Will replies: By the time I checked the page in question it was already restored to decency. But it's a good lesson in what I add "NOTE"s to. A wiki is a site that anyone can post anything to. Their success is based on everyone pitching in and contributing what they know. The bad part is that anyone can also post junk too. Vandals can post porn or slurs, activists can post propaganda, idiots (and well meaning people who are wrong) can post falsehoods, etc.
The good news is that one of the features of a wiki is that it records its history as its updated. This means you're also able to restore it to any point in its history. Usually we see a locking feature enabled by administrators after a page is restored to keep vandals at bay until their attention turns elsewhere though that doesn't appear to be the case presently.
So one lesson is that if you see a seriously messed up wiki you can probably come back later and it'll be fixed (assuming you aren't able to fix it yourself). The lesson I'm taking is to make sure that when I link to a wiki I point out that the content of a wiki can change to anything at the drop of a hat. As soon as I post this I'll add that note to my earlier entry.
