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For this episode of Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction? we sat down with Ronnie James Dios widow, Wendy Dio, so she could prove and disprove whats written about her late husband on Wikipedia.

It would have been one of our great joys to do this segment with Ronnie, but since Wendy Dio knows the legendary singer better than anyone, theres nobody on earth who can better expound on Ronnies life. Wendy immediately impressed us with her knowledge of Ronnies early life. She knew all about Ronnie learning to play trumpet at age five, adding that Dios father made him practice two hours a day to master the instrument.

The tale of how Ronald James Padavona got his stage name is widely varied, from potentially being inspired by mobster Johnny Dio or Ronnies grandmother suggesting the name because he had a gift from God in his voice. Wendy sets the record straight once and for all in this clip.

Wendy also revealed she has an interesting story about Johnny Dio in an autobiography Ronnie was writing before he died. Ronnie got up to hisRainbow years with his story and although it was too difficult for many years, Wendy is ready to pick up where Ronnie left off, aiming to finish the metal icons official memoir.

Get ready for Wendy Dio to set the record straight about Ronnie James Dio in the latest edition of Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction? in the video above.

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See Where Ronnie James Dio Ranks Among Our Top 66 Hard Rock + Metal Frontmen of All Time

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Ronnie James Dio (by Wendy Dio) 'Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?' - Loudwire

Ad will collapse in seconds CLOSE January 31, 2017 01/31/2017 10:39 a.m. By Madison Malone Kircher

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On Tuesday night, thenacting attorney general Sally Yates was fired after ordering Justice Department lawyers to not comply with Trumps recent immigration ban on people from seven, primarily Muslim, nations. In her place, President Trump appointed Dana Boente, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Boente will serve as acting AG until Jeff Sessions is (theoretically) confirmed by the Senate. But while the Trump administration was busy shuffling things around at the Department of Justice, and media organizations were hustling to send out push notification after push notification, a few unknown people on the internet were dealing with the news in their own way: editing Yatess and Boentes Wikipedia pages.

While Yatess page was edited to label her a god damned American hero, Boentes edits werent quite so laudatory. Instead, Boentes anonymous editor described him as the newest sock puppet for the Trump administration. (Worth noting: Wikipedia entries are often the first piece of information that Google pulls up about a person. If you Googled Boentes name for a brief period of time last night, youd have seen the sock puppet sentence beside the new acting AGs birthday and headshot.)

Boente and Yates arent the only two who have seen Wikipedia tweaks in light of the inauguration. Earlier this month, somebody changed White House press secretary Sean Spicers Wikipedia photo to a shot of notoriously mendacious Iraqi spokesman Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, better known online as Baghdad Bob.

And in a creative play on a joke that just wont die, another person changed the Wikipedia entry for invertebrates to include a photo of Paul Ryan. Because he doesnt have a spine. [Pause here for eye-rolling and groaning.]

The concept of Wikipedia-edit-as-gag isnt a new one just ask any nerdy teen who had access to a computer in 2007 and some time to kill but it can also be a decent way to gauge public tenor and concern. When Hillary Clintons campaign team teased the announcement of Tim Kaine as her running mate, Wikipedia edits on his page increased significantly, while edits on other potential candidates dropped off. And unlike the announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCains VP in 2008, when Palins page saw a rise in edits from the same users who were also simultaneously editing McCains (possibly linking them to the campaign), the edits to Kaines page seemed to come from Wikipedia users genuinely interested in keeping Wikipedia up to date with the current political news. And for those users right now, that news includes Sally Yates as hero, Dana Boente as sock puppet, and Paul Ryan as, well, a jellyfish.

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Original post:
Wikipedia Edits Are the Only Joy in These Fraught Political Times - New York Magazine

As soon as they learned the name of Donald Trumps pick for the Supreme Court, many Americans went to Wikipedia to read about Neil Gorsuch, his past experience, and his positions. Wikipedia, the internets encyclopedia, is accessible for anyone to edit at any time.

RELATED: Meet the Wikipedia editor whos spent the last seven years of his life correcting one common grammar mistake

That ended predictably.

Just as traffic spiked, someone went into Gorsuchs page to edit it. They named him Neil Taze the Gays Gorsuch. (Gorsuch has never, as far as we can tell, advocated for anyones electrocution, nor conversion therapy; LGBT rights group Human Rights Campaign makes no mention of it in their statement opposing him.)

The phantom editor also rewrote his bio to call him a homophobe and noted that his confirmation was set to fail according to both republicans and democrats. he is not going to get confirmed since he was nominated by trump [sic].

As of press time, Wikipedia had revised the page to its original version.

Read more:
People headed to Neil Gorsuch's Wikipedia page tonight got a real shock - Rare.us

In a context where "fake news" is catching the attention of everyone from U.S. President Trump to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the pursuit of truth, and who defines it, seems to matter more than ever.

One frontline in the battle over facts is playing out in the public arena of Wikipedia, where history is catalogued in real-time and where each of us have the opportunity to act as historians, contributing to editorial decisions.

But what happens when government officials take to the web to edit this public resource? And what are the implications of allowing elected officials and bureaucrats to shape the narrative -- often without the knowledge of the public?

Although university professors may disagree, Wikipedia is viewed by many as a legitimate source of information -- with more than 5.3 million articles, it adds 800 new articles every day. Wikipedia operates on the basis that anyone can edit its pages -- even unregistered users -- and edits happen on a mass scale. At a rate of over 10 edits per second, the mind starts to boggle in coming to terms with what it means for the public as we try to keep truth on the table.

(Photo: JCAMILOBERNAL/Getty)

Wikipedia's model is a positive example of the power of crowdsourcing -- a place where, with proper sourcing, anyone can provide additional clarity or add new information to articles. It's what gives this medium a real advantage over legacy encyclopedias -- Wikipedia can be edited and updated on the fly, and changes with the changing world around us.

Of course, this can be alarming when it comes to individuals or groups editing pages in which they have a personal, professional, or political interest -- including members of government departments as a part of re-information campaigns.

It's enough of a concern that efforts to catalogue and publicize potentially-controversial edits have spontaneously arisen. The best examples are Twitter bots that create a public inventory of anonymous edits from known government IP addresses -- since 2014 bots for the Government of Canada, UK Parliament, and U.S. Congress have appeared.

Examples range from the perplexing -- recently, an anonymous edit was made by a Canadian Department of National Defence IP address on the article listing Pepsi variations -- to the concerning. One such example was highlighted by The Tyee journalist Jeremy Nuttall, showing that someone at a government IP address had anonymously edited a page about the political magazine Blacklock's Reporter, which currently has an ongoing legal dispute with the Canadian Department of Finance.

Not only has the Internet community noticed, but Wikipedia itself has taken action to combat problematic editing -- in one case briefly restricting U.S. Congress IP addresses from making edits, but also through implementing clear policies around "conflict of interest editing", and regularly banning accounts that violate the rules.

When so many people view Wikipedia as a public record, the threat is obvious, especially when it comes to governments looking to "correct" that public record. And although we may have Twitter bots to shine a light on edits that happen from known government addresses, there is nothing to stop those same staffers from going home to their computers and typing up a storm.

So how do we ensure that our digital book of knowledge maintains its standards for accuracy and neutrality? Like the evolving conversation on fake news, the answer isn't simple, and involves a lot of individual vigilance to keep us honest.

(Photo: Gary Cameron/Reuters)

Wikipedia is already home to thousands of admins and hundreds of thousands of active users. Admins and editors are not paid -- a policy that is intended to keep money from changing hands in exchange for favourable or biased articles. This team catches the majority of obviously problematic edits and there are tools for individuals to flag bias or content that is improperly sourced. In this way, part of the solution comes down to trust and community.

But because we know that this process can be abused, it's critical that there is enforceable internal policy restricting staffers, bureaucrats, and government officials from making edits to Wikipedia pages in which they have a clear conflict of interest.

This move would be to the benefit of both the public and the government, as the mere appearance of impropriety can undermine trust in our democratic institutions. This way, official communication on issues of public interest happen out in the open, where debate and discussion are welcome, and individuals can be assured the conversation isn't being steered by an invisible hand.

The final piece of the puzzle is good, old-fashioned sunlight. Initiatives like Twitter bots and investigative journalism fill the gap where good faith fails -- opening the door for citizens to be critical about actions taken by their governments.

Also on HuffPost:

Original post:
Keeping Truth Alive In A World Of Anonymous Wikipedia Edits - Huffington Post Canada

The Danish version of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia celebrated its first 15 years of existence today. Since launching on 1 February 2002, the site has generated close to a quarter of a million articles.

The Danish version adds about 1,000 articles every month and now has over 222,000 in total although its a far shout from the English-language version, which consists of around 5.3 million pages.

Nevertheless, the Danish volunteers remain hard at work.

Monthly themesAt the moment we tend to have monthly themes. In January, it was articles about New York, and in February, it will be the Danish Golden Age, Villy Fink Isaksen, one of the Danish Wikipedia volunteers, told Version2.

With a focus we try to fill out the red links. It doesnt always work, but for New York, for instance, weve got about 20 new articles.

Part of the Danish content stems from translated articles from abroad so users dont need to rely on English-language versions.

Wikipedia is written and edited by volunteers, but part of the Danish content comes from Danish encyclopedias.

Regarding Danish culture heritage, we are the primary source other language editions can translate, said Isaksen.

That way, we can spread the knowledge of Danish artists or poets, for example. Much of it Ive copied from Salomonsens Encyclopedia or the first three editions of Dansk Biografisk Encyclopedia. Its an old language and not everything is that great, so it needs to be cleaned up. Im not a linguist nerd, but then others can help.

The work Isaksen and the other volunteers are involved with includes not only writing, but language editing, source insertions, information updates, editing the layout of articles and adding photos to Wikipedias image bank.

In principle, Wikipedia welcomes anyone who wants to spend time contributing, but the technical platform does require certain IT competences. Wikipedia-volunteers accordingly hold regular so-called Wikilabs to get newcomers started.

Its nice to have it shown to you by someone who is familiar with the system, said Isaksen.

More here:
Danish version of Wikipedia turns 15 - The Copenhagen Post - Danish news in english