Wikipedia on The Colbert Report

There have been several references made to the free online encyclopedia on The Colbert Report, an American satirical series presented by Stephen Colbert. is often satirized on The Colbert Report for its openness, problems with vandalism, and the lack of verification within some articles.

On The Colbert Report, Colbert's character (a right-wing political pundit called "Stephen Colbert") claims that is his favorite website, because he claims it brings democracy to information. Colbert highlighted his view on "The Wørd", where he invented the word "Wikiality", meaning "Truth by consensus, rather than fact." Colbert claimed that if enough people edit a entry, then anything that is on it becomes a fact. In order to prove his point, he encouraged his viewers to edit the article on "Elephants" so it claimed that the population of elephants had tripled in the past six months. As a result, several articles related to elephants and The Colbert Report were edited and vandalised.

Colbert has since made further references to , mainly commenting on its use by corporations. The terms "Wikiality" and Colbert's more famous term "Truthiness" were named the top television buzzwords by the Global Language Monitor in 2006. It was the first time that two words from the same television programme made it on the list in the same year.

Early references
was first referenced on The Colbert Report during an interview with Arianna Huffington on the use of the word "Truthiness" who claimed that according to , Colbert did not invent the term, but popularized it, to which Colbert responded "Fuck them". He later talked about in "The Wørd" segment, where the wørd was "Superegomaniac", where he claimed he had used the entry on "Sigmund Freud" to find his information, and mocked the sometimes questionable information on .

The Wørd
is most commonly referred to in "The Wørd" section of The Colbert Report, although it is also referred to in other sections.

Wikiality
On July 31 2006, Colbert created the term "Wikiality", meaning "Truth by consensus, rather than fact." If I want to say he didn't, that's my right. And now, thanks to , (edits entry) it's also a fact. We should apply these principles to all information. All we need to do is convince a majority of people that some factoid is true. For instance, the fact that Africa has more elephants today than it had ten years ago. However, the user was not blocked for vandalism, but for breaking 's username policies, which states that you cannot use the names of celebrities. has stated that the account will be opened again if Comedy Central or Colbert claim the account is theirs.

The impact of the incident eventually lead to "Wikiality" being named one of the top television buzzwords by the Global Language Monitor in 2006.

Colbert therefore made his "Wørd" "Wikilobbying", defined as being "When money determines entries". He said that "Open source software is like free trade and the invisible hand of the market has the mouse now." Colbert later argued that, "Reality has become a commodity". He then offered $5 to the first person to edit the entry on "Reality" so it would read, "Reality Has Become A Commodity." As a result of this, the entry was changed, and had to be protected.

Self-determination and WikiScanner
On August 21 2007, Colbert talked about WikiScanner, a tool which tracks down who has edited entries using IP addresses. Thus it was able to detect where certain corporations had edited their own entries. Examples Colbert gave included Pepsi and Exxon Mobil. Colbert argued that WikiScanner violated the "rights" of corporations to edit their own entries. He described as being "Second Life for corporations," and that they should be allowed to edit their own entries if they want to.

Wales interview
On May 24 2007, Colbert interviewed 's founder, Jimmy Wales. During the interview, Colbert praised and attacked traditional encyclopedias as being elitist. Colbert also asked if it would be a good idea to change all the versions of in foreign languages to read, "Learn English", in particular the Spanish , to which Wales responded by claiming he might have to lock the entire Spanish to protect it from vandalism.

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