The Vandals are coming!  And this time they're after your 
wallets.

It's a new form of insidious spam and like its inbred email 
cousin, it's staggeringly stupid.

People are vandalizing "Wikis" in an attempt to get free
advertising for their business.

First, what's a wiki?  

If you're not familiar with this little web phenomenon, you
should immediately dig in and learn.  "Wiki" (pronounced "wee
kee") is Hawaiian for "quick."  And quick it is.  The word is
used on the web for a page that *anyone* can edit.

When I first heard of this concept I immediately thought "there
is no way it will work - it will be utter chaos" but the
mass proliferation of wikis and their clear success have proven
me wrong.

The medium lends itself to some amazing ideas.  For example, the
"wikipedia" project is an online encyclopedia that anyone can 
edit.   It's surprisingly accurate and useful.

Alas, as with all great things on the Internet, there are forces
out there ready and willing to muck it up for everyone.

A "wiki vandal" is someone who goes to a wiki and posts 
erroneous information.  Sometimes this is for fun (like posting 
your boss's phone number and sexual habits under a wiki entry 
about "bondage" - hehe), sometimes it's for damage (like totally
erasing an entry just because you are bitter about life), and 
sometimes it's for advertising (like editing an entry with links 
to your bazillion dollar business "op*ortunity").

Luckily, there are people out there watching the wikis who will
change erroneous information quickly.  However, sometimes the
vandalism is hard to catch and it sticks.

Now, if the wiki vandals were smart, they'd create a relevant
encyclopedia entry about themselves and link to it from other
wiki entries.

Do it relevantly and intelligently enough and it may just stick
and bring you some appropriate attention.

But, of course, we're talking about spammers here, and there is
already an encyclopedia entry for "Down's Syndrome."