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The Battle Over Candidates' Wikipedia Entries
MrByte420 writes "The New York Times today has a story (stupid reg required) about the particpants of Wikipedia editing Bush and Kerry's entries in the days leading up to the U.S. Elections. With admins locked in philosophical debate over whether to lock the page down, others asked, "Could someone get rid of the middle-finger screen cap that's replaced the image above 'The Bush family watches tee-ball on the White House lawn'?""
This shouldn't be in the politics section; it should be in the "Laugh. It's Ironic" section.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Without Wiki, most people would never know that President Bush's grandfather was the chairman of the United Negro College Fund.
Without wiki, no one would know that John Kerry's grandfather made a fortune in the opium trade.
"John Kerry's maternal grandfather, James Grant Forbes, was born in Shanghai, China, where the Forbes family of China and Boston accumulated a fortune in the opium and China trade. "
Tell it to the Carthaginians. The Romans wrote their history.
Troll or not, the parent raises a good point. Anyone can, and is encouraged to, write articles for Wikipedia. They are able to filter out obvious fake information (perhaps someone writing an article about cheese under the title 'Modern Transportation) through peer editing rather well, but subtle biases are easily ignored or even accepted. Fortunately for them, the competition is no better. Intentional or not, even the best commercial encyclopedias let some false information slip through. It's an unfortunate consequence of the media.
...
Or, at least that's my reasoning for keeping off that Brittanica set
Now that's what I call enlightened.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
The article mentions a comment someone made, saying,
"I envisage no obstacle to a constitutional amendment removing presidential term limits and President George W. Bush being re-elected again. And again and again. Then another amendment allowing foreigners to take the top job. And we'll be ready for Arnie."
Well, I must say... if this amendment does take form, that Clinton will be ready to run the President into the ground.
I know it seems hard to keep biases, especially subtle ones, out of the wikipedia entries, but it can and does get done -- I once wrote a section on dog adoptions that had an admittedly biased section on puppy mills, and within a day someone had rewritten it to present more than one side of the story. They did a terrific job with it, too.
The problem here is that wikipedia, and wikis in general, assume that the users all want the information to be as accurate as possible, and that any biases expressed or implied are unintentional, and therefore will be corrected over time.
Trouble is, with some topics, that's just not a correct assumption. Perhaps what is needed is the ability for any user to flag a given entry as "needing temporary editorial control", which automatically locks it to changes for 24 hours and summons a moderator who can either release the lock immediately, leave it be to expire naturally, or extend the lock for a fixed period of time.
Presumably there might be edits to make while the lock is in place, to restore or correct edited content, but only the moderator could make the fix.
Perhaps this might provide the balance necessary to maintain the basic premise of the wikipedia, without it collapsing under the weight of unusually strong biases. Or perhaps not. Hard to say until it's tried.
How does that matter in any way, shape or form? I suppose since Bush Jr. will not deny that he used cocaine, Kerry's grandfather is to blame. Sheesh.
The so called "edit wars" which include both the "revert wars" and less common "deletion wars" are unfortunately quite common on Wikipædia. Please see the lamest edit wars ever:
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I didn't take the effort (even through bugmenot.com) to read the article, but were only Bush supporters really editing everything? There was something about a middle finger graphic in that story...
This thread reminded me of this
stuff
The CIA World Factbook is a work of the U.S. government and therefore in the public domain. So there's most likely no false information in inserted for that reason.
After all they and their leaders, though acts of war, mass-murder and colonialism have managed to kill millions of people of the last 100 years.
Sounds amazingly like our own country! Millions dead in Korea, millions dead in Vietnam, crushed democracies, puppet governments, and support of ruthless killers such as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein!
PS, You forgot Spain and Japan.
Although, I don't think the Germans have killed many people since Hitler was removed.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
this is definitive proof of why wikis are crap. people disagree - sometimes they REALLY disagree. wikis are therefore crap.
I disagree-- oh, wait a minute...
Don't forget... (wait for it)... HE FORGOT POLAND!
I spent a couple hours over a couple of days monitoring and fixing the Kerry entry. I got tired of the vandalism and let someone else take over, but it could have been a part-time job. That was in May 2004, so i can imagine the vandalism happening later was much more fast and furious.
I called the Chicago Kerry campaign HQ to alert them of the need for someone to do this, but the luddite answering the phone was unimpressed with the need to do this work. Alas.
--Kevin
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
1.) Trade with Nazis (during WW2)
2.) Launder money through charity (UNCF in this case)
3.) Earn public goodwill and charitable tax deductions.
4.) Profit!!! (off the misery of millions)
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Where's the part where Bush did business with the Nazis? or Prescott helped Hitler rise to power?
http://www.adl.org/Internet_Rumors/prescott.htm
The Anti-Defamation League in the US is supportive of Prescott Bush and the Bush family. In a statement last year they said that "rumours about the alleged Nazi 'ties' of the late Prescott Bush ... have circulated widely through the internet in recent years. These charges are untenable and politically motivated ... Prescott Bush was neither a Nazi nor a Nazi sympathiser."
So that one paragraph about how Dick Cheney turns into the Hulk when he gets angry was just childish vandalism?! Hmph!
Yes, it's a very nice porn site.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
What about the great injustice over the Wikipedia "Weird Al" Yankovic entry?
If you want a preview, ask the citizens who have been our allies for decades what they think of our President.
We'll that depends. I respect the opinions of your average Canadian or Australian. But I hold the opinions of Germans, Frenchmen and Russians generally in low regard. They're not exactly good judges of leaders. After all they and their leaders, though acts of war, mass-murder and colonialism have managed to kill millions of people of the last 100 years.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
>Prescott Bush was neither a Nazi nor a Nazi sympathiser. Which is very different to someone who did business with them. I mean a lot of what we know now no one had a clue at that time what was going on. Even germans were somewhat out of the loop to exactly what was going on.
Wikipedia has a problem with the truth in hotly debated issues; the article's opinion mostly has to do with the endurance of one side being more than the other.
The global warming article is one example; while it's a very slow "edit war", you can't put the truth in the article and expect it to stay. Wikipedia is based on consensus, not truth.
When a complicated scientific issue is raised, like fluoridation, the US's "scientific view" is mistaken for the scientific view of the world; wikipedia is american-like that way.
I have yet to see an article linking tabbaco to cancer on wikipedia, or anything substantial about propaganda.
Microsoft is pure dog-ma. FreeBSD is pure cat-ma.
History books would do well to mention Stalin's approx 60 million deaths instead of Hitler's smaller 6 millions as the ultimate atrocity. Or something more than Stalin, if some historian can show us... it's amazing how ignorant of history we are...
And why not mention Bush's invasion of Irak civilian bodycount?? Oh yeah. Edit wars. Bush's censoring of school textbooks and deciding which encyclopedias are OK for school. Bummer!
I'm not buying an encyclopedia until they mention how many civilians Bush killed and all those unpopular facts - as soon as the fact are proven beyond all doubts.
Microsoft is pure dog-ma. FreeBSD is pure cat-ma.
from here
Let the two men America really wants to see run for president, run for president. Now, last week, our old buddy, Dana Rohrabacher, introduced a Constitutional amendment suggesting immigrants like, oh, I don't know, Arnold Schwarzenegger be allowed to run for president. And I say, "Fine. But then we get Clinton !" Each tribe gets its greatest warrior.
Why aren't we doing that anyway? Where is the twisted logic to the 22 nd Amendment which says you can't be president if you've done it twice? Reese Witherspoon has done two "Legally Blonde" movies. Next time, does it have to be Li'l Kim?
And in a nation of immigrants, we tell immigrants they can't run? Sorry, Arnie, you can take that, "What a country! Immigrants' dream, anything's possible" crap and put it where it belongs: in a speech nominating a former town drunk from Texas.
I mean, not to be cruel to the candidates we have, but why are we preventing ourselves from selecting from the top of our political gene pool? Even under general anesthesia, Clinton was more exciting than Kerry. This guy couldn't light a crowd on fire with napalm. But a debate between Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger? You could put that on pay-per-view! Why, you could put that on the Spice Channel!
And that's the beauty of this match-up. They would have to stick to the issues, because the personal stuff would just be too devastating. The mudslinging would have to get way too nuanced. "I never lied under oath about the asses I grabbed!" We're talking about two dudes who've smoked pot and love cigars and hummers. It would be the "you don't want to go there" election.
So that's my proposal. The 22 nd Amendment for the Article Two. And then we can bring it on. The Terminator versus the "Sperminator." "Conan versus Onan." "Alien versus Predator."
God damn, you're an idiot.
This guy thinks I'm Stile!
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I think the 60 million number os a little more contraversial-- not all of it can be assigned just to Stalin, since many of the dead were people who lived right in the middle of the warzone on the contested grounds between Moscow and occupied Europe.
Historians never really talk about the area, as if it was a vast empty are without any people.
For the record, I'm half Slav and half Estonian. My Grandmother was 9 months pregnant with my mother in Tallinn when the Soviets arrived and she was forced to flee. Many of her relatives were among those 60 million, including my Grandfather.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Oh you are really funny, my poor misguided boy. Now come here and put your head in my lap.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
You're going to get a spanking, you naughty boy.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Oh fuck, don't do that. I was just about to ejaculate up your nostrils. That's what I do to all fascists.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
My cock is bouncing on your forehead, as you make little squeaking noises.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Well, um, maybe if that was like a college thesis or something you could make that example, but the fact that young Johnny's essay contains a piece of information (false or not) from a book doesn't mean that he plagiarised it. :/
I guess you could make a better example if you said that like World Book ripped off Britannica's article on Angorra, but even then it's doubtful. Even without that 'planted' information you would be able to tell they ripped it off.
Well, it was about 6 millions Jews... just under a million Gypsies, a few hundred thousand gays, a few million Christians who tried to help hide Jews... oh, yeah, and then there were all of the people who didn't die in concentration camps...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
The shit is extruding from my ass into your waiting mouth. Needless to say, I won't kiss you afterwards.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
New entry in my journal, check it out.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!