Stefan Mileschin

While most of the world's press said that the weird weather in the US was probably caused by climate change, the world's online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, didn't mention that suggestion.

According to Pop Sci, that is because the brains behind the Wikipedia page, Ken Mampel, an unemployed, 56-year-old Floridian, is a climate change denier who used the page to push his own agenda.

Mampel created a winner on the page. His Wackypedia article was the single most-viewed document about Hurricane Sandy. Mampel established himself as by far the most active contributor to the page, with more than twice the number of edits than his nearest contributor.

But Mampel made sure that the Hurricane Sandy article, for four days after the hurricane made landfall in New Jersey, had no mention of "global warming" or "climate change".

Indeed, it was not until 1 November that a new section appeared at the bottom of the page titled "Connection to global warming".

It was deleted by Mampel, who insisted that it be sent to the global warming page.

Mampel has continued to fight to keep any discussion on global warming on the grounds that this was a cause. He has made it clear that he does not believe in climate change and has had to bend a lot of the reports so that climate change is not mentioned.

For example, he mentioned that New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg had endorsed Obama for president based on his handling of the hurricane. He failed to mention that Bloomberg had specifically mentioned climate change in his endorsement speech.

There are shedloads of examples of science focused comments about Sandy being linked to climate change but Mampel wouldn't add that to the Wikipedia entry.

If someone pointed to a reference, he took it out because in his religion, it is not proven.

The hijacking of Wikipedia by those with political views or wishing to push an agenda has always been the site's Achilles' heel. In this case it is just one editor, with oddball ideas, trying to keep information that does not fit into a fantasy away from the great unwashed.

http://news.techeye.net/internet/cli...d-on-wikipedia