About six months ago, I noticed that I had an entry in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. I was flattered. It was short, and named both my father and one of my sons, confirming my belief that I am a transitional piece of genetic material, linking two very talented generations.

Article: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/searc...ehind_wikipedia

Well, that's one way, I guess...

What if you don't have a friend with a magic phone number, though? I guess you're completely screwed.

This is what's wrong with journalism today. He should have escalated his request through Wikipedia's own recommended channels - email, then fax, then letter, then Brad's talk page, then letter to Jimbo, then a letter to Kira Wales, then an email to Florence, then a certified letter to the Foundation, then a registered letter with return receipt. He might have ended up with a useful column about Wikipedia's unresponsiveness and how there ought to be a law preventing it from doing biographies of living people. As it is, he ended up with a useless column that wastes paper and ink.

I wouldn't want Lawrence Lessig to help me even if I had his magic number. He'd just use the occasion as an example to show that the open-source hivemind really works.

That's a bit harsh. He's given a good example of how you can get nonsense in your Wikibio and you can't get it corrected unless you have influence.