Police-rating site revived after shutdown

A Web site that allowed the public to rate law enforcement officers was temporarily shut down, after Web hosting service GoDaddy pulled the plug in response to outrage from cops.

The site, Ratemycop.com, was shut down, with visitors redirected to a GoDaddy site saying: “Oops.”

Organizers of the site managed to find an alternate host by the end of the week. As of Friday the site was up and running.

Ratemycop founder Gino Sesto says he got no advance notice from GoDaddy that it would shut down the service. After calling GoDaddy, the company told him that he’d been shut down for “suspicious activity.”

The site went live in February, adding names and in some cases badge numbers of more than 140,000 cops in as many as 500 police departments. It allows users to post remarks about police they’ve interacted with and rate them. The site garnered media interest this week as cops around the country complained that they’d be put at risk if their names were on the Internet.

Wikipedia founder accused of editing for donations

A former chief scientist at one of the world’s biggest technology companies said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales traded site edits for donations.

Jeff Merkey, a former computer scientist at Novell, claims Wales told him in 2006 that for a substantial donation from Merkey, he would edit his Wikipedia entry — which contained details of lawsuits involving Merkey, including one brought by Novell alleging misappropriation of trade secrets — to make it more favorable.

Merkey said he donated $5,000 in 2006 and the edit history for his Wikipedia entry showed that, about the same time, Wales changed the entry after wiping it out and ordering editors to start over.

Merkey’s claim was published on a Wikipedia mailing list. On the same mailing list, Wales called the allegation “nonsense.”

Wales said he would “never offer, nor accept any offer, whereby a donation would buy someone special editorial treatment in the encyclopedia.”