The internet is buzzing about the Wikipedia goof in which an obituary was erroneously written for Sinbad’s death. Sinbad, of course, is the funny comedian who is probably laughing about this a lot more than the sheepish editors at Wikipedia. USA Today has the story as does AP News.

sinbad
Sinbad might be technically alive …
…but he is Dying on stage

The St. Petersburg-based company, which describes itself as “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit,” leaves it to a vast user community to catch factual errors and other problems. Apparently, someone edited it to say Sinbad died of a heart attack. By the time the error was caught, e-mail links of the erroneous page had been forwarded to hundreds of people.

The Wikipedia entry that contains the premature rumor of Sinbad’s death is in cache here.

Sinbad was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan to Rev. Dr. Donald and Louise Adkins. He died March 14,2007 of a massive heart attack. He attended college between 1974 and 1978 at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado, where he lettered two seasons for the basketball team.

Nice transition from the massive heart attack thing to the basketball team.

Naturally one must reflect upon the fact that Sinbad actually will die sooner or later. Dan Rather would consider the news “fake but accurate” and we have to agree. The death of Sinbad is inevitable, so why they would “correct” the entry is a mystery. And besides, we hear that Sinbad dies on stage during most of his performances.

Nevertheless, Wikipedia now contains this entry.

Erroneous death report

On 10 March 2007, Sinbad’s managers started receiving phone calls of condolence, after people began hearing unsubstantiated rumors of Sinbad’s death. Hundreds of people contacted his managers and production studio, including Lionel Ritchie.

This rumor spread to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on 15 March 2007, when his biography was edited to include the claim of his death. The incorrect information was soon removed, but a fan spreading the initial rumor included a link to the old (and incorrect) revision of the article.

Sinbad joked the situation off, commenting that, “I wish that people would’ve called me back like this when I was alive. I gotta die more often. I’m writing a movie about this now… Seriously, my death is gonna be my comeback.”

This is apparently the second time Sinbad was subject of a rumor.[10] He says such situations are harder on family and friends who are led to believe it as truth, rather than on him himself.[10] He believes such situations will become more commonplace with increased use of the Internet. Sinbad has been an Internet user since 1990; he was the moderator for an Apple Computer forum as of 1995.

Of the person who originated the rumor, Sinbad comments:
“ If somebody has nothing better to do today, then I’m happy that it gave you something to do. Because if that’s all you have to do in your life, you have a sad life. If the best you could do is create a page that said somebody is dead, then your life is already dead.

Wikipedia

See also Gone Hollywood

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[tags]sinbad, wikipedia, death, died, dead[/tags]