[Air-l] Wikipedia and defamation: Man Apologizes After Fake Wikipedia Post

[Joseph Reagle]

On Monday 12 December 2005 13:07, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051212/ap_on_hi_te/wikipedia_fake_bio
> "He [Seigenthaler] also said he doesn't support more regulations of the
> Internet, but he said that he fears "Wikipedia is inviting it by its
> allowing irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about anybody."
> 
> *sigh*  Facts about our policies on vandalism are not hard to come by.
> A statement like Seigenthaler's, a statement that is egregiously false,
> would not last long at all at Wikipedia.

Not trolling, just want to be clear: doesn't the  WP architecture and 
policies allow "irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about 
anybody."? It's not condoned, counter to the norms, is eventually corrected 
-- sometimes immediately. I'm not getting the distinction you are drawing.