The swirl of hot water and controversy that Wikipedia has found themselves in recently has found somewhat of a starting point. The fake entry that implicated a particular journalist to an assassination of a U.S. President turned out to be created by Brian Chase, a 38 year old co worker of the person, attempting to play a joke.

"I knew from the news that Mr. Seigenthaler was looking for who did it, and I did it, so I needed to let him know in particular that it wasn't anyone out to get him, that it was done as a joke that went horribly, horribly wrong,"
Chase claimed he didn't know Wikipedia was used as a serious reference, and it is sad that free online tools are abused in such a manner that cause others to lose faith in the connected community. The false article created ended up getting Wikipedia discredited in USA Today, much to the chagrin of Wikipedia. Recently, they stopped allowing anonymous users to edit articles, hoping to put a curb on situations like this.