Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia Hoax Author Confesses
cmholm writes "As reported in The Seattle Times, Nashville resident Brian Chase has publically admitted that he edited a Wikipedia entry for John Seigenthaler, making appear that Mr. Seigenthaler was involved in the assassination of JFK. Mr. Chase fessed up after a cyber-sleuth tracked down the business from which he had posted to Wikipedia."
About a year ago, I posted a discussion to some part of Wikipedia advocating digitally signing articles with GPG keys.
The plan was that each author, editor, and reader signs off for or against part or the whole of an article. The fallout should be that some articles get nearly universal positive sign offs, some get nearly universal against votes, and some are recorded as controversial. With GPG keys, we can also start ranking authors and editors -- are they generally agreed with, are they controversial, are they trolls. This is a codification of the skepticism that proponents of Wikipedia claim that any internet user should employ.
Something else I thought would be good would be to have branching articles. For instance, the entry for Hitler would have the main entry, which is the most agreed upon, a white-supremacist/neo-nazi version which stirs a lot of controversy, and maybe a David Icke version, which, while against Hitler, involves space reptiles and is therefore also controversial. Using the ranking and reputation system, a casual user can see how agreeable or controversial an article is.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
try http://65.81.97.208/
rewriting history since 2109
The September that never ended has finally created a Silly Season that never ends either.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Wow. So you're Danial Brandt? Mr Google-watch? I've always found you to be a rather facinating character.
Honestly - if you didn't have an axe to grind with Google, and then Wikipedia... would you have even bothered to do this?
You know something, Daniel, I thought somewhat higher of you. I didn't know that you were such a publicity hunter.
s /Daniel_Brandt) shows that you were not only disruptive, but a full-blown troll! No WONDER why they banned you!
I'm not saying that what Mr. Chase did is defendable. It's not. However, all things considered, it wasn't that big of a deal; you found Mr. Chase out, caused him to have enough inner conflict to apologize to Mr. Seigenthaler in person (not to mention resign from his job), and scored a point for your anti-defamation campaign. So far, so good.
But wait! I thought you were a champion of privacy!
I'm noticing a rather disturbing trend here. On your wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html page, you list several people (myself included; I'm sure you'll add another juicy tidbit to my section) which you want to get personal information (such as home addresses, age, schools, information about offspring, etc.) about. You also list several quotes which, if taken out of context, seem to be rather hostile towards you. However, those comments are in fact blatantly out of context. Additionally, when you yourself were an editor on Wikipedia, your contribution page (at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contribution
I think you're the most dedicated hypocritical crackpot that the Internet has ever seen. I don't see your above post as "modest"; in fact, I find it quite disgusting. It's just *dripping* with brownnose comments ("It was a pleasure to work with Mr. Seigenthaler on this trace. He is an amazing, accomplished person, and I have a huge amount of respect for him." "He's the genius." "...all the clever Slashdotters...").
Guess what, Daniel! The world doesn't revolve around you, and your self-righteous crusade against Wikipedia is misguided at best.