Comedian Sinbad Dead on Wikipedia - But Not Real Life
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James Joyner @ Gone Hollywood | Friday, March 16, 2007 |
Reports of Sinbad’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
Condolences flowed for U.S. comedian Sinbad after the online encyclopedia
Wikipedia announced his death on Thursday, but it turned out the grieving was premature and the comic was alive and well.The hoax entry said the 50-year-old entertainer, who appeared in several television series and starred in films including “Houseguest,” and “Jingle All the Way,” had died of a heart attack on the morning of March 14. The news was quickly picked up by an Internet user who forwarded the e-mail link and prompted widespread mourning.
But Wikipedia spokeswoman Sandra Ordonez said the Sinbad entry had been vandalized and although the error was quickly caught and changed, some Internet users had sent e-mails with a link to the old version. “This caused people to inadvertently change the entry throughout the day to the vandalized version,” said Ordonez. “We are currently looking into who made this edit, and have protected the page. We regret any confusion or distress this may have caused Sinbad and his fans everywhere.”
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
Although Sinbad, whose real name is David Adkins, could not be immediately reached for comment, his sister Donna Adkins said in an e-mail to Reuters: “For the record, Sinbad is healthy, well, alive & enjoying life!”
Good news, obviously, for Sinbad, his loved ones, and his fans. Another black mark on Wikipedia’s reputation, though.
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Comments are Closed
Man! That totally sucks for Sinbad. Guess that’s what a (basically) dead public career gets ya. I hope they at least got the spelling of his name and age right.