List of Wikipedia controversies
Since the launch of Wikipedia in January 2001, several controversies have occurred. Wikipedia's open nature, in which anyone can edit most articles, has led to various concerns, such as the quality of writing, the amount of vandalism, and the accuracy of information on the project. The media have covered several controversial events and scandals related to Wikipedia and its funding organization, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). Common subjects of coverage include articles containing false information, public figures and corporations editing articles for which they have a serious , paid Wikipedia editing and hostile interactions between Wikipedia editors  and public figures. The Seigenthaler biography incident led to media criticism of the reliability of Wikipedia. This incident began in May 2005 with the anonymous posting of a hoax Wikipedia article with false, negative allegations about John Seigenthaler, a well-known American journalist. In March 2007, Wikipedia was again the subject of media attention with the Essjay controversy, which involved a prominent English Wikipedia editor and administrator who claimed he was a "tenured professor of religion at a private university" with a "Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law" when in fact he was a 24-year-old  who held no advanced degrees. The 2012 scandals involving paid consultancy for the government of Gibraltar by Roger Bamkin, a Wikimedia UK board member, and potential conflicts of interest have highlighted Wikipedia's vulnerabilities. The presence of inaccurate and false information, as well as the perceived hostile editing climate, have been linked to a decline in editor participation. Another controversy arose in 2013 after an investigation by Wikipedians found that the Wiki-PR company had edited Wikipedia for paying clients, using "an army" of sockpuppet accounts that purportedly included 45 Wikipedia editors and administrators. In 2015, the Orangemoody investigation showed  that businesses and minor celebrities had been blackmailed over their Wikipedia articles by a coordinated group of fraudsters, again using hundreds of sockpuppets. Controversies within and concerning Wikipedia and the WMF have been the subject of several scholarly papers. This list is a collection of the more notable instances. Overview. The nature of Wikipedia controversies has been analyzed by many scholars. For example, sociologist Howard Rheingold says that "Wikipedia controversies have revealed the evolution of social mechanisms in the Wikipedia community"; a study of the politicization of socio-technical spaces remarked that Wikipedia "controversies... become fully-fledged when they are  advertised outside the page being debated"; and even one college discusses Wikipedia as a curricular tool, in that "recent controversies involving Wikipedia <nowiki>[are used]</nowiki> as a basis for discussion of ethics and bias." Editing restrictions. Despite being promoted as an encyclopedia "anyone can edit", the ability to edit controversial pages is sometimes restricted due to "edit wars" or vandalism. To address criticism about restricting access while still minimizing malicious editing of those pages, Wikipedia has also trialed measures such as "pending changes" that would open contentious articles up for more people to edit, then subject their contributions to  approval from more established members of the site.