Wikipedia stops users editing Michael Jackson page

Wikipedia has stopped web users from adding information on Michal Jackson's page on the online encyclopedia after an editing war began, it has been revealed.

As soon as new of the star's death broke last week, web users began editing the singer's Wikipedia page to include the date and time of death. Some even changed the copy on the page to the past tense.

However, these changes irritated other users who re-editied the page and deleted references to his death, saying it was unconfirmed.

The constant editing temporarily crashed the Wikipedia and many users were presented with a message that read "Sorry, this site is experienceing technical difficulties. Cannot contact the database server. Unknown error".

As a result Wikipedia locked the King of Pop's page preventing any web user from editing it. His page still remains partially locked for editing so that anonymous users, and those who do not have a confirmed account, can't edit the page.

Wikipedia has also posted a warning to web users reading the page. It reads: "This article is about a person who has recently died. Some information, such as that pertaining to the circumstances of the person's death and surrounding events, may change rapidly as more facts become known".

Jackson's death also caused havoc for Google last week. So many web users used the search engine to confirm that early reports of Jackson's death were true that Google's News servers interpreted searches for 'Michael Jackson' as an automated attack for about 30 minutes.

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See also: Sophos warns of Michael Jackson spam emails