Wikipedia kills Sarah Palin

Did you hear that Sarah Palin died in her home earlier today? Supposedly,

Sarah Palin died in the early mourning [sic] of February 17, 2010, estimated 4:37 AM due to an increased blood pressure in the brain while she slept. Stress brought on by the criticism she has received since running for presidency is believed to have caused this. Sarah Palin's children and husband were asleep at the time leaving them unable to rush Sarah to the hospital. Paramedics arrived on scene not until two hours later, when Sarah Palin's husband woke up, and tried to revive her but by that time she was dead.

No, you haven't heard that? That's because you get your news from a reputable source, like CNN.com, or even Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update. Not from Wikipedia. At 01:00 Greenwich time (already February 18 over there), HeliAce added that paragraph quoted above to the Wikipedia entry on Sarah Palin. It wasn't until 01:36 that it was reverted.

Now, half hour and change is not bad compared to how long it took for the slander against John Seigenthaler to be removed from Wikipedia. But when you take into account that Sarah Palin is these days far better known than John Seigenthaler, a half hour to revert false information about her on Wikipedia is way too long. Supposedly the article is on the watchlists of almost seven hundred Wikipedia users.