Friday, June 29, 2007

Benoit Wikipedia Was Updated


Wired.com reports on the Wikipedia entry of Chris Benoit being updated and Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer weighs in with the explanation:

The following is from Wired magazine's online blog:

According to FoxNews, someone updated Chris Benoit's Wikipedia page, with an entry on his wife's death. Problem is, it was posted 13 hours before the police found the three bodies in Atlanta.
An anonymous user operating a computer traced to Stamford, Conn. — home to World Wrestling Entertainment — posted an entry to pro wrestler Chris Benoit's biography on Wikipedia.org announcing the death of his wife Nancy at least 13 hours before police in suburban Atlanta said they found her body along with her husband's and that of their 7-year-old son, FOXNews.com has learned.

Employees at Wikipedia.org said the posting went live on their site on Monday at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Police, however, said they found the bodies Monday at 2:30 p.m. EDT.

To make the whole situation even stranger, the entry was taken off an hour after it was posted requiring that the user site news sources. An hour later the entry was edited again, this time through an Australian wireless provider, "which according to several pro wrestling websites is attributed to the passing of Benoit's wife, Nancy." Again the entry was removed asking for a valid news source. This all happened hours before police even got to the house.

According to Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer:

"In a really bizarre story regarding the story going around everywhere about Wikipedia at 4:01 a.m. on Monday posting that Nancy Benoit had passed away, long before authorities knew, and it was removed 20 minutes later due to a lack of confirmation, my belief is that it was nobody who knew anything. The edit came from Connecticut, but not from WWE headquarters. My feeling is that this is just a bizarre coincidence. The WWE later found that on its chat line at 8:41 p.m., during the PPV, after Benoit missed the show, someone on a WWE chat said that he missed the show due to his wife dying. Later, when the person was asked where he heard the story, he said, "Meltzer reported it." An hour later after the Wikipedia entry was taken down, someone from Australia edited it and again put that Nancy Benoit had passed away, attributing it to "several pro wrestling web sites." I didn't know of this until today when questioned by WWE who asked if Benoit had called me, which he hadn't, nor did I report it or know anything until Monday afternoon, after the WWE wrestlers were told. It appears it was a hoax started by someone and given credibility by usage of my name, no more than the daily fake stories people make up on MMA and pro wrestling chat boards, the appear to have led to the Wikipedia edit, this become a big story, and it may be nothing more to the story other than an eerie irony."

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