Professional golfer Fuzzy Zoeller is going to court to discover the identity of a person who added unsubstantiated information regarding substance abuse and family problems to his biography on Wikipedia...

Zoeller's attorney, Scott D. Sheftall, said he filed the lawsuit against a Miami firm last week because the law won't allow him to sue St. Petersburg-based Wikipedia. The suit alleges someone used a computer at Josef Silny & Associates, a Miami education consulting firm, to add the information to Zoeller's Wikipedia profile.

"Courts have clearly said you have to go after the source of the information," Sheftall said. "The Zoeller family wants to take a stand to put a stop to this. Otherwise, we're all just victims of the Internet vandals out there. They ought not to be able to act with impunity."

The Smoking Gun obtained a copy of Zoeller's complaint and posted it online. The site provides a summary of the alleged defamatory content...

Zoeller (who is identified as "John Doe") notes that his Wikipedia page was altered to include his alleged admission to "polishing off a fifth of Jack (Daniels) after popping a handful of Vicodin pills." The page went on to claim that Zoeller had also acknowledged "the violent nature of his disease" and how he had beaten his wife and four children "while under the influence of alcohol and drugs."

This follows the 2005 controversy surrounding inaccurate content in the Wikipedia biography of writer John Siegenthaler, Sr. Following the addition of text stating his suspected involvement in the John and Robert Kennedy assassinations, Siegenthaler publicly criticized Wikipedia and its content policies. He also criticized Congress for passing the Communications Decency Act which prevented any legal action against the website. Siegenthaler did not, however, take legal action of any kind, and when the identity of the anonymous poster was discovered, he spoke with him on the phone and accepted his apology.

[AP] Golf Champion Zoeller Sues to Identify Author of Wikipedia Post