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Slashdot and the BBC are reporting something we blogged a week ago: Former Novell chief scientist Jeff Merkey claims Wikipedia big-dog Jimmy Wales approached him for a $5,000 donation to the cause in exchange for cleaning up Merkey's Wikipedia entry. UPI tidily summarizes: "Wales did erase a previous entry, replacing it with an entry with limited editing access." True, here's Jimmy's note about it. So why don't I trust Merkey? Because I've read his post-donation Wikipedia entry. Even after filtering the freetard hysteria from his open-source enemies, the guy's record says "crank" to me.