Wikipedia removes posting 22/02/2007 By Rachel Fletcher

An addition on the on-line encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, which listed "the bones of Palestinian children" as among the five grains defined as chametz - unleavened bread for Passover - has been removed and dismissed as "internet stupidity" by the website.

David Gerard, UK spokesman for the user-edited encyclopaedia, removed the content - posted by user "BaronVonGotha" on February 15 - as soon as the JC alerted him to it later that day.

He told the JC: "This sort of rubbish happens and the best thing to do is to take it out as if it never happened. I’m treating this as rubbish vandalism. It is internet stupidity.

"People do it just to get a reaction, and you shouldn’t give it to them."

Londoner Denise Latner, who discovered the addition, said she was "very glad" that Wikipedia had removed it.

She told the JC: "My son is teaching English in Russia and he asked me for help in explaining chametz to his students.

"I typed it into a search engine and found the Wikipedia entry. I had to re-read it three or four times. It was very, very offensive."

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Here are the diffs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=106330779

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=108220068

If he thinks that "the best thing to do is to take it out as if it never happened", why didn't he oversight it?

Because then the vandals wouldn't have their preferred version to revert back to...?

Certainly a mean-spirited, nasty piece of vandalism. But the editor in question got ... a 24-hour block! So many have been indef-banned for so much less. The only conclusion that one can reach is that race-baiting (or whatever you call it when it's anti-Semitism) is worth 24 hours, but calling an admin a crook gets life.