Blog P.I.

Stephen Colbert has long had it in for my home state of Oregon, alternately tagging it “California’s Canada” and “Washington’s Mexico.” We Oregonians are used to being ignored by most states and certainly the East Coast, except when we decriminalize marijuana, legalize assisted suicide, our senators grope their female colleagues, or our figure skaters take out a contract on their competition. So Colbert’s mock disdain is more than welcome.

Last night he took another whack at the Beaver State in the context of lampooning Wikipedia’s open-editing policy and bias toward triviality — “Any website that has a longer entry on ‘truthiness’ than on Lutherans has its priorities straight.” — and purported to change the entry related to his Oregon fixation, live on the air: “Now, Oregon is Idaho’s Portugal is the opinion I’ve always held. You can look it up.”

But did he really change it? That’s what the Wikipedians have been talking about since 11:41 p.m. EDT last night.

In fact, somebody with the username Stephencolbert did in fact make that very edit (as well as another one mentioned in the segment) about four hours before it aired on the East coast. Of course, the allegedly careless Wikipedia administrators are taking no chances; if you click over to “Stephencolbert”’s User Talk page, you’ll see this:

At Wikipedia, we appreciate your interest in the project, but your username matches a well known public personality and has been blocked. To protect against impersonation, please provide confirmation of your identity to regain access to this account. User:Tawker has sent an emailed request and left a voicemail with the Colbert staff requesting confirmation, let him know and this account can be re-opened.

For what it’s worth, I’m a fan of Wikipedia, and the complaints Colbert jestingly cites are fairly well-addressed in the current issue of The New Yorker. Though the site is imperfect, it’s highly perfectible. And Britannica will never collect its own List of neologisms on The Simpsons, which I require.

P.S. For more high quality Wikipedia humor, don’t miss last week’s edition of The Onion.