On the 18 June 2010, Bill Thompson was the subject of a Wikipedia hoax where an anonymous contributor changed parts of his article on Wikipedia to indicate that he was dead, the edit was then erroneously added to with a good faith edit by an established editor. Thompson, after being informed on Twitter by Charles Arthur,
The Guardian's Technology Editor of the change, then covered the incident on BBC News Online. He remarked,
- "I want to reassure you that I'm no less healthy than I was last Friday, still cycling at speed round the streets of Cambridge and looking forward to many more years of technology punditry, future dreaming and good coffee.".
And although commenting that the IP address of the "anonymous" edit seemed to be also from somewhere in Cambridge and that
- "I've decided I don't really want to know who did this or why and can't see that anything good would come of being aware that someone I know thought it was a good idea to do something that had the potential to cause many people I love and care for pain and distress. "
His final thoughts on the issue were summarised as
- "The great benefits that come from that freedom are so important that we have to allow that sometimes people will do wrong, foolish or hurtful things. I'd much rather have a Wikipedia that tells people I'm dead when I'm not than no Wikipedia at all."