After he discovered a false biography on Wikipedia that claims he was responsible for the death of JFK and his brother Bobby, John Seigenthaler wrote an op-ed piece in USA Today refuting those claims and rebuking Wiki admins and the ISPs that host them. Now, in light of Seigenthaler's outrage, the once open access Wikipedia now requires registration to submit new articles to the English language version of the site.

Seigenthaler spent a tonne of time and resources to track down the writer of the wikipedia article. He also considered filing a John Doe suit and kicked up a gigantic shitstorm with his Op-Ed.

Wikipedia is far from perfect, but instead of wasting what I assume to be days and weeks of his time, why didn't he just correct the entry?

Agreed, to a point. To some extent, damage had already been done, perhaps, and so he felt the need to correct the damage done retroactively. That's understandable.

In the meantime, he could've made an edit saying "I'm this guy, and that's not true... here's why : " Perhaps he was advised not to by his lawyer. I don't know. Anyway, the handling of libelous or outright false content is something wikipedia certainly has to deal with somehow. I think registration is an ok minimal requirement, honestly.

Wikipedia: The Rules Have Changed | MetaFilter