Earlier this week Stephen Colbert took on Wikipedia, the user-edited online encyclopedia, during The Word segment of his show, The Colbert Report. On the show Colbert explained how it is easy to change reality into Wikiality using Wikipedia. He also urged listeners to make changes to Wikipedia's elephant entries to indicate that elephant populations had tripled. You can watch the video here and read an article about Colbert's Wikiality here on MTV.
"I'm no fan of reality, and I'm no fan of encyclopedias," Colbert opined. "I've said it before: Who is [Encyclopaedia] Britannica to tell me George Washington had slaves? If I want to say George Washington didn't have slaves, that's my right. And now, thanks to Wikipedia, it's also a fact."
While he was speaking, Colbert was also typing away on a laptop computer, apparently editing the Wikipedia entry on George Washington to read, "In conclusion, George Washington did not own slaves."
He also apparently edited the Wiki entry on his own program, replacing a lengthy section on his reference to Oregon as both "the Canada of California" and "Washington's Mexico" with "Oregon is Idaho's Portugal" — an example, he said, of Wikiality.
"[On Wikipedia], any user can change any entry," he said. "Now 'Oregon is Idaho's Portugal' is the opinion I have always held. You can look it up."
You can see a couple of the changes Colbert made here and here. BlogPulse says Wikipedia was slammed with traffic from people following Colbert's advice to edit Wikipedia's elephant entries. In the end, Wikipedia locked the elephant entries and Stephen Colbert was banned from Wikipedia. Tawkerblog took credit for blocking Stephen Colbert from Wikipedia (via Smart Mobs). Chris Pirillo calls what Colbert did on his show "social hacking."
The buzz in the blogosphere over Colbert's wikiality episode was big but it was not nearly as popular as his speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner earlier this year. Our past coverage of Colbert can be found here.
Earlier this week Stephen Colbert took on 
