Dickipedia

The first time I learned that Wikipedia is unreliable was when the Michael Richards story broke. You remember it: Richards, who played Kramer on Seinfeld, tried to do some stand-up comedy and eventually broke down into an angry rant laced with profanity and, most shockingly, racial slurs. Somebody recorded the tirade on a camera phone, and the rest is celebrity-meltdown history.

Of course, it was all terrific fodder for ET. In our very first story about it, we ran to the internet for any and all information we could find. Soon, we discovered one particularly amazing nugget: Michael Richards' next role was to be the voice of a "white-supremacist pitbull in an animated Disney film." (I'll never forget those words.) This seemed too good to be true, which, of course, it was.

But until we figured that out, we went into a tizzy. The research department started digging for any solid confirmation. Calls were made and e-mails were sent to all of our contacts at Disney. A flashy on-screen graphic was created specifically to relay this vital detail. The "news" almost made air when, finally, someone from Disney told us it was a load of crap.

But research didn't stop digging. And they concluded that this entire rumor, which by then had been published in countless blogs and online reports, began life as a notation on Wikipedia.

Anyway, yesterday I was reminded of this story when I used Wikipedia and came across a rather startling piece of trivia. Here it is, quoted in its entirety. See if you can spot the error:

The Lakota (IPA: [laˈkˣota]) (also Teton, Tetonwan) are a penisNative American tribe.

You'll be happy to know that I corrected the entry. 'Cause I'm a hero like that.