Congress Made Wikipedia Changes

Dr Occult writes "BBC news is reporting misuse of Wikipedia by politicians for 'polishing' their images. The article on President Bush has been altered so many times - not just from within Congress - that Wikipedia's volunteer monitors have had to block further 'editing'." From the article: "Wikipedia says the controversy raises questions about whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it. It said the Congressional computer network has been blocked from editing for brief periods on a number of occasions in the last six months due to the inappropriate contributions."

Comments

I had first post, but it was edited!

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn politicians! I blame society!

Re:I had first post, but it was edited!

[qw(name)]

Offtopic? That's retarded.

Re:I had first post, but it was edited!

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt, they were trying to remove the references to Prescott Bush and his occult dealings with S&B. Nazis don't like it when their true nature is revealed.

The Venn Diagram of Statements

[eldavojohn]

Imagine a Venn Diagram with two overlapping circles. One circle is truth, the other is opinion and fiction. Now, any statement made by an individual fits in one of these two circles but is it in the overlapping area?

Wikipedia needs to decide whether it should accept those which fall in the middle overlapping area or reject them outright. It seems that for some issues Wikipedia allows the overlapping area (like String Theory) to remain as long as there is a footnote or notation that this is opinion, theoretical or possibly untrue. So perhaps they should make it clear that if a piece of information lies in the overlap, you need to state so or it will be deleted.

Many people put fogs over their past and history is hard to verify. For these people, their biographical entries in Wikipedia may need to be covered with disclaimers saying that very little is verifiable about their background because of the individual's actions and unclear testimonials from people surrounding them. It's a shame that the majority of these people are politicians ... but bad-mouthing politicians is all too easy so I'll leave that to someone else.

Since our political system is divided in a very childish way (two parties), I have always dreamed to see the day that the GPO releases two volumes one year after each president has left office. Each volume would be an account from either side of congress commenting on the actions of the president. The preface could be all public documents proving actions taken by the president while in his presidency. These two books could be made available very cheaply (as a type of public service) and the public could enjoy that for free ... say, why not do a webpage instead (even cheaper) and have Wikipedia send a liaison to Congress to record it?

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[Burz]

However, I'd say the proportion of truth represented by each cicle is often lopsided.

But you're right... having only two doesn't help us in the least.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[smittyoneeach]

Wikipedia needs to decide whether it should accept those which fall in the middle overlapping area or reject them outright.

What's the value in passing the judgement?
I, for one, am interested in seeing the edit history of a political leader's entry. If it looks like the entry has had more plastic surgery than Liz Taylor, then that, itself, is an interesting data point.
Serve it up, and let the audience judge.
What about some kind of moderation, and a means of voluntarily selecting 'trusted' sources of moderation to apply? I might like a William F. Buckley, Jr. take on things one day, or CmdrTaco's take the next.
Half the time, 'who' is saying things is as important as 'what' was said.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[jdludlow]

Since our political system is divided in a very childish way (two parties)

The two parties may act like children, but that's not the same thing as the system being childish. There are plenty of parliamentary systems you could live under if you like a government where every crackpot has a voice. Personally, I like how the major parties filter out the lunatics.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[Curunir_wolf]

Personally, I like how the major parties filter out the lunatics.

Unfortunately, it also filters out voices of reason when it disagrees with both parties. There are a LOT of issues that the 2 parties agree on 99% of the time that are nevertheless wrong-headed and disagree with the opinions of most of their constituents. It means these issues are simply never discussed.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[NixLuver]

"Personally, I like how the major parties filter out the lunatics."

That's part of the problem, no? One person's lunatic is another person's voice of reason.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[samotano]

Aren't {Truth} and {Opinio/Fiction} mutually exclusive?

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[da5id car1ad]

I like the idea of seeing the edits of each article. Maybe on each page, Wikipedia can put the number of edits that page has recieved, so we will know exactly how 'hotly contested' that page is. Just my 5 cents.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, it also filters out voices of reason when it disagrees with both parties. There are a LOT of issues that the 2 parties agree on 99% of the time that are nevertheless wrong-headed and disagree with the opinions of most of their constituents. It means these issues are simply never discussed.

There is no difference between the two major political parties. They're both as stupid, evil, and greedy as the Republican Party.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[tolkienfan]

That's a really good idea.

Entries could include an indication of the amount of "activity" that has occured, which will give the reader an instant idea if the text is controversial.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[Anonymous Coward]

Since our political system is divided in a very childish way (two parties)

It may seem childish, and I wouldn't hesitate to agree that it is certainly less than ideal. But it is also my understanding that it is practically inevitable in a winner-take-all, no-runoff system. In fact, I would argue that as long as we are stuck with such a system, it works better when only two candidates are running -- by which I mean that it allows people to vote according to their conscience without unduly jeopardizing their self-interest. The obvious downside is that their choices are more constrained from the very beginning.

Runoff voting is not perfect either (no voting system is), but it is an improvement.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[David Gerard]

We have a guideline on living people's articles. Basically, (1) every statement has to be utterly verifiable (2) every statement has to be relevant to why they have an article. This is followed very imperfectly, but when followed it saves greatly on crap.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously one of the biggest areas of agreement between the major parties covers filchery and theft by congressmen, including:

    Congressmen should get better benefits than all other federal employees
    Congressmen should keep getting paid even after they leave office
    Congressmen should get better healthcare than all other federal employees
    No political party except Republican or Democrat should be allowed (which means the
      old "winner-take-all" primary system must be maintained at all costs, to ensure no
      other party can get in)
    Congressmen should be considered above the law
    Congressmen should be allowed to steal from the House Bank (this one was unfortunately
      publicized several years back, which interfered with the stealing)
    Congressmen should be allowed to take bribes and pleasure cruises and free visits to casinos
    Congressmen should be allowed to filch rides for themselves and their families on federal
      transport at any time
    Congressmen should be allowed to use taxpayer dollars (appropriations) to pay back lobbyists
      for bribes received personally

The utterly dirty Texas contingent (Gingrich, DeLay, Army, Bush, etc) did not all invent this system.

They simply perfected the extortion of lobbyists to maximize bribery to themselves and their family members and their friends and their staffs. But, they thrived and rose to rule an in-place system of corruption.

If the system were not corrupt, such morally bankrupt swine would not have risen to rule it.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[MrNougat]

One circle is truth, the other is opinion and fiction.

It would seem that this Venn diagram should instead include one circle as truth, one circle as fiction - not intersecting. A third circle would be opinion, part of it overlapping truth and part overlapping fiction, with no part of the opinion "circle" not overlapping one or the other. I could also imagine that part of the opinion "circle" would overlap both truth and fiction simultaneously, while truth and fiction continue to not overlap at all. That might require some additional spatial dimension to draw, though.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[Anonymous Coward]

Negative:

Opinion: I like the shade of red found on Coke cans.
Fact: I like the shade of red found on Coke cans.
Corroborating fact: Coke cans are red.

or consider perspective,

Opinion: I like the shade of grey found on Coke cans.
Fallacy: I like the shade of grey found on Coke cans.
Additional Fact: I am color blind.
Invalidating Fact: Coke cans are red.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[mpe]

Many people put fogs over their past and history is hard to verify

Even non controversial history can be hard to verify. Let alone situations where deliberate mis-information is involved.

For these people, their biographical entries in Wikipedia may need to be covered with disclaimers saying that very little is verifiable about their background because of the individual's actions and unclear testimonials from people surrounding them.

Of course the infomation which may be most easily subject to independent verification may be exactly the same as that which they don't want too well known.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[mpe]

There are plenty of parliamentary systems you could live under if you like a government where every crackpot has a voice. Personally, I like how the major parties filter out the lunatics.

Problem is they may filter out a lot more than just the "lunatics" and just leave a bunch of "yes men".

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[zoomzit]

I think it is all a bit more complicated than this. Who defines what the "truth" circle is? I can give you two true statements about Bill Gates:

1.Bill Gates is the founder and leader of the world's largest software company. A company that has been found in both the US and abroad to use monopolistic practices to ensure market share and suppress competition.

2.Bill Gates is the founder and leader of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest non-profit organization in the world responsible for providing many medical services, including life saving vaccinations to impoverished nations in Africa and other parts of the world.

So which of these facts are you going to dwell on. Just for the fact that I listed Bill as the founder of Microsoft first, gives more focus to that fact. Or, if I spend 9/10s of the entry talking about his non-profit work, then I am obviously putting more weight to his charitable contributions.

So, then I should emphasize facts according to their importance. M$oft might be very important to slashdotters, but the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation might be more important to other parts of the world.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[deblau]

Define 'truth'. Seriously. Do you mean scientific truth, absolute (Platonic) truth, religious truth, political truth? Your plan has a serious epistemological ambiguity. Who decides what is or is not the truth? In other words, who draws the circles on your diagram? Apparently, Wikipedia answers that question with 'the editors', but people differ on the truth. NPV doesn't help -- reasonable people can reasonably disagree.

I suppose your disclaimer idea might work, but it would have to be on almost every article that isn't hard science or lists of things, and even then you have the Creationism / ID people editing articles. Not to bash them; on the contrary, their 'truth' is just as valid as anyone else's, provided it doesn't hurt anyone.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[Takeel]

Define 'truth'. Seriously. Do you mean scientific truth, absolute (Platonic) truth, religious truth, political truth?

What about good ol' fashioned truthiness?

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[Takeel]

Entries could include an indication of the amount of "activity" that has occured, which will give the reader an instant idea if the text is controversial.

Er, they do. Click "History".

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Don't crush his "alternative ways of knowing", man!

> Who decides what is or is not the truth?

Reality does, when you die because you stepped off the cliff you "knew" didn't exist. It's surprising how many philosophers refuse to put this to the test, hemming and hawwing about how it's not valid bladda bladda blada. Do it, and put your money where your mouth is.

Oops, I crushed "alternative ways of knowing", too. :gulp Sorry.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[Anonymous Coed]

I prefer to measure the truthosity of a statement with my handy truthometer.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[tolkienfan]

Well of course Slashdotters would know how to get to the history - duh!

Most visitors won't know how the hell a wiki works, and therefore a notification on the actual page would clue them in.

And even Slashdotters would have to drill down to know they should drill down because there has been a lot of activity. Catch 22.

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[noerobert]

Not all wiki use know to use recenct edits to monitor the progression compuer literacy and basic anlitve thinking is no endowed witht the same analitcal skill like us computer geeks peoples mind's work difrent and that what makes people with compter savvy so difrent from the rest of the world

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[Kgosi Makwati]

I can see that a lot is expexted fron the Wikipedia guys.
Perhaps it's time we start donating more (to match our expectations)!!

Re:The Venn Diagram of Statements

[Anonymous Coward]

If the system were not corrupt, such morally bankrupt swine would not have risen to rule it.

Really, show me a system that doesn't have the potential for corruption (and any one that does will, given the slightest opportunity, become corrupt by said morally bankrupt swine; any system that can't be will immediately be worked on to the point at which it can be corrupt by, yes, those same people)... Besides, the Founding Fathers knew that a system with no corruption is inherently flawed, and only one person, at most, was corrupt at no point from the day they were born until the day they died or will die. They had to take that chance, and they might have simply been hoping that everyone would remember what we fought for from 1775 to 1783.

Objective information?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any genuinely objective information ANYWHERE in the world?

Re:Objective information?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course.
Slashdot.

Re:Objective information?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any genuinely objective information ANYWHERE in the world?

mu

Re:Objective information?

[WindBourne]

Anything that can be measured is objective. Basically, good science is objective. Of course, even in science, lots can be manipulated.

Come to think of it, math is likewise objective. Everything else has to be subjective since it is almost works by man.

Re:Objective information?

[williamhb]

Is there any genuinely objective information ANYWHERE in the world?

There certainly is, it just doesn't make for an interesting read - eg, the telephone directory.

Re:Objective information?

[Bazzalisk]

"In mathematics only shall you find truth."

Re:Objective information?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is irrelevant. This article is not about changes made to articles out of opinion, but changes to articles made for political purposes. Facts deleted and lies added in order to change public opinion for political purposes. This has absolutley nothing to do with authors trying simply to give their opinion or who have a different side. These are campaigns of intentional disinformation.

Re:Objective information?

[argStyopa]

BINGO.

"Wikipedia says the controversy raises questions about whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it. "

My problem is with the term vested interest. The classification itself is pretty damn subjective.

How do you define the term? Are you ready to categorically conclude that someone editing a Congressman's bio page (for example) MUST be biased and incapable of objectivity if they work in a congressional office for one party or the other? Or (more shaky, in my opinion) are you simultaneously going to conclude that people WITHOUT formal affiliations are therefore entirely objective and editing altruistically? What if they actually donated $50 million to moveon.org or financed the publication of the Swift Boat book during the last campaign? Are they presumed to be objective? Or is objectivity defined in practical terms inveresely to how candid they are about their background?

Really, it becomes a "who watches the watchers" question, with infinite iterations.

Re:Objective information?

[hey!]

I think this question, while not precisely answerable, is worth a bit of thought.

The dictionary definition is somewhat less useful than what one might wish it to be. I believe what people are reaching for when they use "information" in this kind of context is this: that which makes us better informed. By informed I mean prepared to make decisions.

Armed with this, I'd say that "Is there any genuinely objective information?" is not the right question. The question should be, "Is there complete data needed to answer this particular question?" Leaving aside attempts to present data in a biased way, which is a form of hiding data, for practical purposes objective information is simply complete data. However in many complex questions, like "Should I vote for Marty Meehan?", it's not possible to have all the data. Perfect information is like absolute zero -- a benchmark you can approach asymptotically and for practical purposes reach, but never truly reach.

What tends to be most helpful is to have data which throws light on the question from different angles. For example, if you know that Alice is twenty years old, and Bob is fifty years old, you have sufficient data to know who will collect social security first. But you don't have sufficient to know who you'd rather have driving your children's bus; in absence of further data you might tend to choose Bob because older people are more responsible. However, if you found out that Bob was a drunk who never held a job for more than six months, and Alice was a Mormon teetotaller on the Olympic ski team, you might revise your decision.

Attempts to misinform people fall into two cateogries: asserting false data, and hiding true data. Everyone understands asserting false data is a lie. What is less well understood is that hiding relevant data is a lie, and hiding relevant metadata is a lie as well.

Understanding context is critical in being informed, and sophisticated liars manipulate your perception of context by hiding relevant facts, then they cover their tracks by hiding metadata. The reason that politicians mucking with Wikipedia is unethical is not that they are necessarily telling falsehoods; it's that they're sanitizing the data of anything which puts them in a bad light, and hiding the metadata that what you are looking at was prepared by the person being described.

I love the Wikipedia: it's far more useful than we have any right to expect. However, I've often felt what was missing is a kind of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval -- or rather, the ability for independent reviewers to create their own Seals of Approval. When you looked at an article, you'd see a list of review authorities who blessed this version, as well as a list of authorities that have blessed alternate versions. If this were available, there'd be no reason to stop the White House from editing the President Bush bio; however when looking at the edited version I could see that there alternative versions blessed by the League of Women Voters, the Democratic Party, and the Socialist Worker's Party. Or when looking at a different version, I could see the one blessed by the RNC.

This scheme would provide critical metadata when evaluating an article. Individual authorities could establish a brand based on the review process, whether it's a society of American Historical Seal of Approval on the Andrew Jackson article, or the Christian Coalition's Seal of Approval on an article about the Roman Catholic Church.

Re:Objective information?

[millennial]

5 entries found for vested interest.
(n)
      1. Law. A right or title, as to present or future possession of an estate, that can be conveyed to another.
      2. A fixed right granted to an employee under a pension plan.
      3. A special interest in protecting or promoting that which is to one's own personal advantage.
      4. vested interests: Those groups that seek to maintain or control an existing system or activity from which they derive private benefit.

Anyways, regardless of whether or not information is as objective as humanly possible, we all have our own biases and prejudices that we will unconsciously apply to the message, thus subverting its objectivity. The best we can hope for is to maintain the illusion of objectivity.

Re:Objective information?

[tdvaughan]

But anything that is measured is measured by a person. And the measurement is subjective. What if you and I both measure the length of a table? We might both do the same measurement, but what if I have a defect in my brain that makes 9s look like 5s? So while there might be objective facts, they all get filtered through our subjective brains.

Re:Objective information?

[mordejai]

"You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. [...] reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal."

1984

Re:Objective information?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any genuinely objective information ANYWHERE in the world?

Is there any genuinely black-and-white distinction ANYWHERE in the world? Or should we be concerned with degrees of objectivity?

For example, writings about string theory may be less than perfectly objective, but they are backed with arguments and/or evidence. If scientific writing aren't supported by arguments and/or evidence, then they're considered to be crap. By contrast, what are politicians' biographies backed with? "Facts" taken from online encyclopedias maybe?

Re:Objective information?

[PortHaven]

Actually, most mis-information I've seen has been the mis-presentation of true data.

Re:Objective information?

[hey!]

Actually, most mis-information I've seen has been the mis-presentation of true data.

Exactly my point. You can give some true data but hide other true data which changes its meaning. You can also hide data "in plain sight" by arranging it so it's hard to perceive (e.g. non-zero based bar graphs to show a "trend").

Re:Objective information?

[Anonymous Coward]

As humans we are biased because we can see what we can see, smell what we can smell, taste what we can taste, hear what we can hear, smell what we can smell, think what we can think and so on. No human statement is true for every possible reality.

Re:Objective information?

[zoomzit]

"Wikipedia says the controversy raises questions about whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it."

This is foolish. The people who have the best working knowledge of a situation are the ones with vested interest. Be it washington insiders or string theory theorists. They have vested interest because they are actively involved in the thing that they are writing about that is why they are writing about it in the first place.

It is much more preferable to have a entry that is the product of two experts with vested interest that are in opposition to each other, than to have someone who is not vested (and most likely not an expert) to try and craft some middle ground on their own.

As posted above, wikipedia should just provide a posting of the edits. Plus wikipedia should add a search function to view the most edited entries to get a sense of some of the largest controversies in our world.

Re:Objective information?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> What if you and I both measure the length of a table?
> We might both do the same measurement, but what if I
> have a defect in my brain that makes 9s look like 5s?
> So while there might be objective facts, they all get
> filtered through our subjective brains.

Here's a better experiment to test subjectivity. I've got a gun pointed at your brain. If you move your brain the exact measurement of the length of the table, the bullet will miss. If you move it any farther, you will impale yourself on an iron maiden. Any less and the bullet will hit (it's a really big bullet.)

Think you can figure out the objective truth? I knew you could!

Telling what is true and what's not

[jimsteri]

Using your common sence is a good bet, but because some information might sound real and be false. It is a good idea to check that information from secondary source too.

Re:Telling what is true and what's not

[Anonymous Coward]

Using the dictionary is another good bet!

Re:Telling what is true and what's not

[thesaintar]

Your common sense is best used well written

True

[Anonymous Coward]

I have myself made some small political motivated, but true and relevant, indications in the norwegian wikipedia.

all writing is...

[pvt_medic]

politically motivated. History is written by the victors. Wikipedia just gets the scrutinization because it is in the spot light.

Re:all writing is...

[goldspider]

But in this case, history is being written by both victors and vanquished. As it turns out, both sides are just as likely to portray each other in a negative, less than truthful light.

Re:all writing is...

[pvt_medic]

to a certain extent I agree... but I also think that there is currently no victors and that what we are seeing is an attempt to become such. Information equals power today and a battle is looming on who controls it.

Re:all writing is...

[hahiss]

So what's your political motivation for this post?

Re:all writing is...

[Anonymous Coward]

"History is written by the victors. Wikipedia just gets the scrutinization because it is in the spot light."

So is Wikipedia written by the losers?

Re:duh

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no objective information.

Any liberal arts major can tell you that.

And that's why they're not scientists.

Too bad...

[John Paul Jones]

...our elected leaders insist on behaving like 10-year-olds, and shame on those that let them.

Statistics

[wongn]

They really need to update their information and sources; I realise that they're probably looking at stock information or old press releases, but it doesn't take much to take:

Wikipedia was founded in 2001 and has since grown to more than 1.8 million articles in 200 languages. Some 800,000 entries are in English.

And instead have:

Wikipedia was founded in 2001 and has since grown to more than 3 million articles in 200 languages. Some 950,000 entries are in English.

It may be a small difference, but you'd expect the BBC to be able to get that right :s

Re:Statistics

[commodoresloat]

maybe they did get it right but then it got "edited."

Politicians

[antic]

Ahhh, politicians. Can't live with them, can't legally hack them apart with a cleaver and create interesting patterns with segments of their intestines...

Re:Politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you can.

Just not the politicians you are currently living under. Just recently, it would have been quite legal for an American to have blown Saddam Hussein, the President of Iraq, into lots of interesting shapes. In fact they did that to his sons.

And I'm sure that if you were Iranian, the Iranians would not prosecute you for blowing Bush up.

Re:Politicians

[mmichaels]

Everyone complains about how the internet should be a place of freedom with little or no regulation. Everyone wants government to stay out of it and let people be free to publish and write what they want. Unless, I guess, the free person happens to be a member of the government you might despise. From what I can tell, the govt officials made no attempt to hide or mask their point of origin. Wiki puts out information about people's bios, and invites any old regular Joe to make changes to it. But we are outraged when the person himself or people who actually know the person are the ones making the changes. Their format also leaves them open for posters with limited knowledge or malicious intent. So should we have congress pass a law regulating who can go to sites like this and make changes? Is that what we want? I just went to Wikipedia. I brought up Apollo 13. I could have added myself to the backup crew for the mission. We are so quick to condemn government as the source of all that is wrong with everything. Wiki has chosen a format that allows information to be read and updated by just about anyone who visits. Maybe THEY should be blamed for the way they gather and publish research?

Re:Politicians

[wolverinesm]

You can't?!?!? Jeezus...now you tell me

Re:Politicians

[Changa_MC]

The politicians did what wikipedia invites them to do: edit the entries. Wikipedia does what it does: remove obvious errors and block those who abuse the system. Nothing went wrong here.

The problem here with congress, not with wikipedia. Namely, politicians are lying weasels whose goal is to win at any cost. I don't like knowing that congress is filled with worthless scumbags who are only there to steal whatever they can and fling poop.

Re:Politicians

[lysse]

Oh, you can if you think it's worth a prison sentence. ;) (hmm, maybe that's why the US still has the death penalty?)

Re:Politicians

[jafac]

I like your version too, but the way I learned it was:

Politicians. Can't live with them. Can't grind them into sausage meat.

Re:Politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the US still has the death penalty because we're too damned stupid to get rid of it. The scary thing is that IN OUR OWN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, where it's listing unalienable rights, the first one it lists is life. That throws up a red flag for me right there. I think that too many people either don't know what the Declaration says and/or think it's outdated.

Block 'em all.

[Caspian]

"It said the Congressional computer network has been blocked from editing for brief periods on a number of occasions in the last six months due to the inappropriate contributions."

Why not block ALL of *.gov, permanently? Perhaps with exceptions for certain scientific sites (e.g. nasa.gov, any "national laboratories", etc.)

Re:Block 'em all.

[AndroidCat]

Perhaps with exceptions for certain scientific sites (e.g. nasa.gov, any "national laboratories", etc.)

Keep in mind that Wiki has a policy against original research that hasn't been published elsewhere. Which is not to say that they couldn't contribute, but just that it would have to be done carefully:

The role of expert editors

"No original research" does not mean that experts on a specific topic cannot contribute to Wikipedia. On the contrary, Wikipedia welcomes experts. We assume, however, that someone is an expert not only because of their personal and direct knowledge of a topic, but because of their knowledge of published sources on a topic. This policy prohibits expert editors from drawing on their personal and direct knowledge if such knowledge is unverifiable. If an expert editor has published the results of his or her research elsewhere, in a reputable publication, the editor can cite that source while writing in the third person and complying with our NPOV policy. They must cite publications, and may not use their unpublished knowledge as a source of information (which would be impossible to verify).

Otherwise, we hope expert editors will draw on their knowledge of other published sources to enrich our articles. However, such experts do not occupy a privileged position within Wikipedia.

Re:Block 'em all.

[BeardsmoreA]

Because in the real world they could just go home and do it from there, or use their smartphone to make the edits, or... etc. Slashdotters are always flaming government for trying to apply legal band aids to technical problems (e.g. your quaint yankee DMCA), but sometimes you have to accept that there aren't technical solutions to social problems.

I personally think Wikipedia does accept that, and that's why it (more or less, with obvious noisily reported exceptions) works. Most people, most of the time, act pretty sensibly, and now and then when someone doesn't, you just have to hope that the rest of the population can outweigh them.

Re:Block 'em all.

[westlake]

Why not block ALL of *.gov, permanently? Perhaps with exceptions for certain scientific sites (e.g. nasa.gov, any "national laboratories", etc.)

You strip the Wikipedia of authority excluding contributions from sources in the federal government. This is, after all, an arena in which decisions are made which affect the entire country.

Re:Block 'em all.

[David Gerard]

In fact, most of the Congress edits were good edits, and only a small proportion were spin-doctored, vandalism, pranks, etc — not really more than in the general pool of edits — and there's no reason to cut those off unless unavoidable. Most people really do edit Wikipedia in good faith, not bad.

Re:Block 'em all.

[slavemowgli]

Simple: because blocks are based on IP addresses, not domain names. You could just block all address ranges currently allocated to the US government (or any government), of course, but there's no guarantee those'll never change - quite the opposite. So it's definitely not as easy as blocking "*.gov" or so.

Re:Block 'em all.

[darkmeridian]

"It said the Congressional computer network has been blocked from editing for brief periods on a number of occasions in the last six months due to the inappropriate contributions."

Apparently, that's a big problem in Congress nowadays.

duck

implement a mod system

[brenddie]

Maybe some kind of /. mod system can be used to aprove edits.
The edit wont be added until some score is reached. If the edit is declined then you can extract keywords from that edit and use them to lower the score for future similar edits automaticly ala lame filter.

Re:implement a mod system

[millennial]

Score: -1, Congress

Re:implement a mod system

[Britz]

Bush was elected in a popular vote. Meanwhile many people more "informed" in politics would have voted for the alternative. Moderation only makes sense if it is done by the "right" people. But who are better "informed"? What is "right"? Is the majority always "right"? Or "left"?

I am from Germany. I don't want to compare Bush to Hitler. They are both completely different and have nothing in common. Except that they were both elected in a popular vote.

Re:implement a mod system

[frgough]

As a German, you should study your history better. Hitler SEIZED power in a coup. He and his party were a small minority in the German government.

A more accurate analogy would be if Hillary Clinton, the junior senator from New York, were to cite the terrorist attacks and the Republican's failure to deal with them as justification for her seizing the presidency, whereupon she would immediately send the army out that night to kill and imprison all her political opponents.

That is essentially what Hitler did.

Re:implement a mod system

[mdwh2]

If I disagree with an edit, I "mod it down" by reverting or improving the edit.

A system where edits are stored would add unnecessary complexity - it's hard to see how this would work if say a later edit got modded up quicker than an earlier edit, meaning that the versions were now in conflict.

It would be difficult to work on articles which aren't watched by as many users, as perfectly reasonable edits may take ages to get noticed and modded up.

Whilst a lot of time is wasted by reverting vandalism, I suspect at least as much time would now be wasted having to review and mod everyone else's edits.

And lastly, Slashdot shows that whilst modding may be a good way to get rid of trolling/etc without resorting to censorship or appointed moderators, it doesn't work for judging how good or accurate a post is.

Re:implement a mod system

[hackstraw]

Moderation works OK here, but I don't think it would work well for wikipedia.

I suggested here once before to make time the element of data integrity.

If a particular article is "hot", slow down the number of edits per day, week, month or whatever. Especially edits from the same person and/or IP address or subnet.

Slashdot has implemented things similar to this like taking 60 seconds between posts (Slow down cowboy!), and by punishing logged in users that have submitted posts anonymously. Its been a while since the latter has affected me, and I don't remember the details, but it sucked, and I wished that the slashcode was telling me what I was being punished for.

But its simple. If an article is modified X times in a certain period of time, then it is "hot". Just slow down the rate that people can make changes. The majority of the people out there are more OK than evil, so slowing down the evil people will allow more of the good guys to make the truth to be known.

Again, a good quote from a nice lunatic:

"There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion."

-- Jeffrey Goines, 12 Monkeys

Re:implement a mod system

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I think you're going to start a whole new category of joke about Americans. First they started saying that Americans were horrible about geography, but it looks like some Americans also get an F in history too.

Hitler didn't seize power in a coup. His government was elected and he was appointed Chancellor.

Re:implement a mod system

[Britz]

The whole story is a bit more complicated than that.

To defend my people: Yes there was never a "majority" for the Nazi party as in only 43.9% voted for the Nazi party in the last German elections before WWII. However, historians view that election already as rigged for a number of reasons. The last "free" election was in 1932. The Nazi party gained about a third of the popular vote. Because the other parties thought they could "contain" Hitler they formed a coalition with the Nazi party and Hitlor became Chancellor in a free and fair election.

He seized power later on.

Hitler was always quite a lunatic. It is horrifying to see a third of the popular vote went to that lunatic. That IMHO speaks volumes about how dumb people (in this case Germans) are.

Did that change?

Re:implement a mod system

[guitaristx]

I am from Germany. I don't want to compare Bush to Hitler. They are both completely different and have nothing in common. Except that they were both elected in a popular vote.

Godwin!

Thread closed; have a nice day.

Re:implement a mod system

[kbielefe]

Yes, and many people would have still voted for Bush had they been more informed.

The problem is that almost everyone knows how they feel about the issues, but only the most politically active know how the issues actually map to the candidates. Most people have a general idea of the difference between the political parties, but the difference between two candidates in one party is a mystery. That's the main motivation for the electoral college system, which turned out to not be very effective in protecting the politically ignorant from themselves.

It would be interesting to see a system of voting where people voted for their positions on a long list of issues, and rate how important those issues are to them, then representatives are selected by an algorithm based on how well they match the voters' preferences on the issues. The mapping should be based on documented action wherever possible.

For example, a senator's platform would be based on his votes on bills and a governor's would be based on executive actions, proposals, and vetoes. Some neutral system would obviously need to be worked out to determine the list of issues and how they map to the politician's records, as well as a way to determine a mapping for new politicians without a record.

Done correctly, that would solve the problem of getting representatives that actually represent your preferences, as well as insuring that incumbents actually govern the way they campaign, so they will be able to be re-elected. In addition, candidates would know exactly why or why not they were elected, and ad hominem attacks would become irrelevant.

Character and scandals could still be considered by listing them among the issues. For example, this year's election could have a statement like, "accepted funds from Jack Abramoff." If that issue scores high on enough voter's priorities, then it will make a difference in the outcome. If the candidate's views on abortion or social security are of higher priority, then that would be the determining factor.

Not just wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

The war in Iraq is about WMD.
The war in Iraq is a part of the global war against terror, it was never about WMD.
The war in Iraq is about liberating its people, it is about democracy and nothing to do with terrorism.

We salute revisionist government and it's retro-active position on history.

Re:Not just wikipedia

[meringuoid]

We salute revisionist government and it's retro-active position on history.

What is the past? It does not exist, in any physical sense. It is only what people remember, and what the records show. But memories are pliable, people are prone to forgetfulness and false recollection, and of course the records show what we want them to show.

Really, it's quite a simple system. You don't seem to understand. History is never rewritten, because once rewritten it always was that way - unless you believe, rather unscientifically, in a past world that somehow exists in 'reality', independent of the evidence in the present.

Perhaps you could use a little time in the Ministry of Love? They're very good at educating people to understand this kind of thing.

Re:Not just wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you could use a little time in the Ministry of Love? They're very good at educating people to understand this kind of thing.

Please allow me to recommend a book.

Re:Not just wikipedia

[AHumbleOpinion]

The war in Iraq is about WMD.
The war in Iraq is a part of the global war against terror, it was never about WMD.
The war in Iraq is about liberating its people, it is about democracy and nothing to do with terrorism.

Actually that's a good example of a shallow understanding of a historical event, a politically biased statement. In other words something that would be worthy of an edit on the Wiki, and invariably such edits would be labeled as politically biased by those of the opposite political bias who preferred the original politically biased text. In reality the War in Iraq was about all of the above and more. The "WMD" angle was merely what was used to sell the war to the UN. That was an intense high profile effort and it's natural for people to focus on this one motivation even when they have no political bias. However when honest unbiased historian sit down some day to write the history of war the motivations will be far more complex.

Re:Not just wikipedia

[Sigg3.net]

We salute revisionist government and it's retro-active position on history.

Uhmm.. have you ever read a history book?
History is written by 'the winning side'. Always.
That's what power's all about. It's not about changing the future, it's about the past. In governing people's thoughts, controlling the past is the key.

Re:Not just wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

In reality the War in Iraq was about all of the above and more.

All of the above, except for the WMD, you mean.

The "WMD" angle was merely what was used to sell the war to the UN.

That would possibly be a reasonable excuse if it hadn't also been false, and deliberately embellished. (I'm giving the administration the benefit of the doubt by not calling it a "lie," but there is absolutely no doubt that they at least knowingly overstated their case).

If someone sells me a 2 megapixel camera by claiming that it is capable of 6 megapixels, does the fact that the camera may have other virtues mean that I should STFU and get over it?

Re:Not just wikipedia

[AHumbleOpinion]

"The "WMD" angle was merely what was used to sell the war to the UN."

That would possibly be a reasonable excuse if it hadn't also been false, and deliberately embellished.

It was not known to be false until there were boots on the ground.

Re:Not just wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction, not boots, but rather inspectors.

However, whether wmds were found or not was irrlevant. The war was going to happen either way.

Re:Not just wikipedia

[AHumbleOpinion]

Correction, not boots, but rather inspectors.

Inspectors were few in number and monitored by the Iraqis, not allowed into certain locations, entry delayed to certain locations while equipment/documents were moved, ... No one was sure one way or the other until there was large scale unfettered access, and that was done by boots. Whether the war was right or wrong does not change the fact that the war did definitively answer the WMD question.

Re:Not just wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

They were monitored, but not restricted even going into the palaces and discovering vast quantities of marmalade. Nor did they delay the inspections (this time).

I agree that the war did decide the wmd question, but it wasn't needed to decide it. The more time went on, the more the question was being answered. As it was, it took only a week or two of the war for people to change their opinions. If it wasn't found right away, it likely was never going to be found. We had the time to wait both before and after the invasion.

Re:Not just wikipedia

[ClamIAm]

The "WMD" angle was merely what was used to sell the war to the UN.

So it is fair to say that this angle was used to sell the war. Therefore, it is correct to include it. Obviously, there are more issues to consider (defense contractors who finance politicians, etc), but even taking the doublespeak without much background lets you see the lies.

Re:Not just wikipedia

[legirons]

"The war in Iraq is about liberating its people, it is about democracy"

Which basically means giving it to the Sunni tribes, as they have 60% of population. No wonder they're all on TV enthusiastically voting, counting votes, and generally looking happy about the impending democracy...

Re:Not just wikipedia

[symbolic]

Of course...what they'll most likely find as the primary motivation:

dub-dub avenges dam-dam for da da

Re:Not just wikipedia

[argStyopa]

However when honest unbiased historian sit down some day to write the history of war the motivations will be far more complex.
I'd be interested to meet him or her.

Ever seen Triumph of the Will?

If you sit in on even some staggeringly obscure history lecture, it doesn't take a careful ear to hear the bias in EVERYTHING.

Landholding and tenancy rights in medieval England? The feminist professor's 3 hour lecture presents a convincing case that we're only hearing the patriarchal view written by the male-dominated monks/scribes of the time, and that most medieval landholders were actually bull-dyke lesbian feminists who assumed men's names to avoid punishment for their carnal preferences.
The fiscal conservative will say that tenancy rights were indicative of the burgeoning economic power of the middle class, and that the legalisms and paperwork reflected archiac notions of Divine Right and serfdom that were long since extinct in actuality.

In fact, sit for 30 minutes in any History Department lobby and LISTEN to the conversations going on, there's a rat's nest of conflicting interpretations of historical events throughout recorded history, each proponent advocating their particular interpretation and denigrating (sometimes viciously) the understanding of someone else.

No, as much as we'd like to pretend, the modern media is no better, and no worse than the media that went before it. And the hindsight of historians, despite the issues of the event having (probably) long since lost historical relevance, is no more objective than the yellow journalist of today.

Common Sense, please

[dlc3007]

1) always double-check everything. I know that this has been stated before in every discussion concerning Wikipedia, but it is worth repeating. 2) The formula for accuracy that has always existed for Wikipedia still applies. The more people looking at an entry, the better the chance for false statements to be identified as such and corrected. 3) Vandals will always exist -- whether they are 12 year-olds getting giggles or Congressional staffers applying spin. The difference is that they will get bored and leave while people who care about Wikipedia will stay. If anyone thinks that this is a Wikipedia issue, you should go back and read yesterday's story about censorship on NASA's website.

Re:Common Sense, please

[mwvdlee]

There is a constant factor in both these stories though.

Re:Common Sense, please

[kaleco]

The problem is that while most people double-check WP articles before using information for a certain purpose, the vast majority don't double check the info when just using it to casually check up on something. This can propagate misconceptions in some obscure areas.

WP is an overwhelmingly positive development on the internet, but it has many problems which must be addressed. Even though it seems to be getting an unfair amount of criticism at the moment, in the long term it will benefit from this scrutiny.

I know I've deviated fromt the point I was making as a reply to your post now, sorry! I just think it's worth pointing out that the sort of critical attention WP is getting from the academic world just now is priceless.

Re:Common Sense, please

[dlc3007]

I agree wholeheartedly. WP is one of the highlights of the internet at this point in time, imho. Like most aspects of the internet, it is also very young. The recent attention it has gotten will do two things: Increase its use and force it to mature -- both of which will be welcome developments.

Re:Common Sense, please

[mickwd]

"3) Vandals will always exist -- whether they are 12 year-olds getting giggles or Congressional staffers applying spin. The difference is that they will get bored and leave while people who care about Wikipedia will stay."

Unfortunately, I think the opposite is more likely to be true. "12 year-olds getting giggles" ? Yes, you may have a point. But I think the opposite is true when comparing people who "care about Wikipedia" putting more effort into correcting what may be relatively obscure political subjects / individuals with people who are paid money to spend their working time with the sole purpose of portraying the individuals concerned in as positive a light as possible.

Re:Common Sense, please

[David Gerard]

The reason Wikipedia is so popular (today: Alexa no. 17 website, 30k/million reach, i.e. 3% of ALL web page hits are wikipedia.org) is that its competition isn't the Encyclopaedia Britannica — it's other websites. Wikipedia will tend to (a) summarise those sites (b) act as a guide to them. If you're looking up something on the web, you can scour Google for something that isn't an ad-festooned shopping portal, or you can look on Wikipedia to see if there's an article yet.

Re:Common Sense, please

[Chineseyes]

Please explain how a congressional staffer whose employment and future success absolutely depends on a particular party staying in power will ever get bored and just leave??

Penny-Arcade

[Hieremias]

Interestingly, Penny-Arcade is now slashdotted. Just wait for the flood of posts linking to the cartoon they did on Wikipedia (Skeletor editing He-Man's article).

In Related News

[Artie_Effim]

The popular Internert site slashdot.org has entered a time slipstream which deters the site from posting news less than 7 days old. CmdrTaco is quoted as saying "haha, that is the best depection of the Prophet that I've ever seen. Let's hope it doesn't cause a row !"

Additional resource

[dlc3007]

The Washington Post also has an article on this

Some day, I'll remember to put the break tags in my first posting of the day. /yawn

Not just Congress

[cj7wilson]

Read on Wikipedia: CowboyNeal is the online nickname ("handle") on Slashdot and other websites of Slashdot editor Jon Pater. His handle was inspired by a Grateful Dead tribute to Neal Cassady in their song, That's It for The Other One, the lyrics of which run: Skippin' through the lily fields I came across an empty space, It trembled and exploded, left a bus stop in its place. The bus came by and I got on, that's when it all began, There was Cowboy Neal behind the wheel of a bus to never never land.

He is best known as the target of the usual comic option on Slashdot's poll.^H^H^H^H^H^H for his promise to serve only two terms as a Slashdot Editor ^H^H^H^H^H^H for his boyish good looks and many acts of selfless kindness to hungry children throughout the world.

Effective Blocks and Countermeasures

[db32]

Well we all know that congress critters only use the internet at the office right? I mean none of them use their inflated salaries to have internet access at home, or any number of wireless internet doodads. I think blocking government networks will be incredibly effective.

The only thing this will change is whether or not they can do it from work. Why not just slap big warnings on the wiki pages that seem to be having this problem? So everyone surfing to that page to get info about their favorite congress critter will have a bright red warning slapped on there showing them what has been going on.

You can't really fix the problem effectively, but you can sure make it known to everyone visiting that they are viewing a problem page.

Re:Effective Blocks and Countermeasures

[LordBodak]

Well, outside the discussion about whether or not they should be doing the edits, there is the fact that we are paying their salaries for them to go to Washington and do a job for us (which they rarely do anyhow), not to sit in their offices and edit Wikipedia articles.

Re:Effective Blocks and Countermeasures

[tinkerghost]

I know John Glenn used to have dialup in his DC residence ---- had to tech it a few times.
Nice guy who knows how to listen, respond, & is willing to follow directions when he doesn't know the solution.

Re:Effective Blocks and Countermeasures

[db32]

Well like any job, you are getting paid to do things to ensure you continue getting paid. A normal job involves doing the work assigned to you, so you continue to get paid. Politics, however, involves convincing everyone you should be allowed to stay where you are and continue to get paid. So the unfortunate reality of the way the system works is, we are sorta paying them to edit wikipedia articles. Anything a politician actually gets done is generally a side effect of trying to convince people to let him keep getting paid.

It's not misuse.

[dpbsmith]

It's par for the course in any controversial article. It's standard operating procedure. People on both sides try to apply "spin."

For any particular article, one hopes that there are a reasonable number of members of the Wikipedian community that have the article on their watchlist, and that genuinely agree with WIkipedia's policies on verifiability, source citation, and neutrality to keep things under control. One also hopes that the spinners have enough respect for Wikipedia's policy to understand that they need to cite sources instead of edit warring. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and for any controversial article there's a significantly nonzero probability that at the moment you look at it, it has something in it that was inserted by a "point-of-view pusher."

Actually, I've contacted public relations offices of corporations, etc. with questions for articles I'm working on. As a matter of courtesy I always give the URL of the article I'm working on, and I always mention that they can edit the article themselves. I've always been a little surprised that they haven't attempted to take advantage of that, whether fairly or unfairly.

I don't really know whether WIkipedia "works." I do know if it can't tolerate (and neutralize) a little "spin" by congressional staffers, it can't work at all.

As Wikipedia becomes more and more useful to the public, I do worry about what I see as a discrepancy between what Wikipedia is and what the public thinks it is.

Entry on Bush

[thej1nx]

The article on President Bush has been altered so many times - not just from within Congress - that Wikipedia's volunteer monitors have had to block further 'editing'.

But this is the guy who alters and retroactively 'edits' his statements and claims every other day(Osama was responsible for 911 => Saddam was responsible for 911 => Saddam has WMD => Ok, he didn't have WMD, but he was a dangerous guy => Ok Saddam is gone but oh, this country needs our presence )!!! *Ofcourse* his entry had to be altered all the time to take this into accomodation. :)

I think Wikipedia monitors should reconsider this one!

Else how will we keep track after another 10 years of, what US is doing trying to wipe out the Kangaroos and how exactly they were directly responsible for 911 ? :p

Re:Entry on Bush

[will_die]

In fact Bush never said anything about Sadam being connected to 9/11, and has many times said it was not the case.
What is really interesting is the various survys where they asked the US population about it, the majority of people who do believe this do not classify themselves as Republicans. Also the surveys number of people that believed this increase as 'fahrenheit 911' gained in popularity, and it was not into Feb/Mar of 2005 when it decreased back to previous numbers.

Re:Entry on Bush

[Headcase88]

Well, keep in mind that Wikipedia does keep the history of articles. You can even see the changes from one revision to the next and who (screenname or IP) made those changes. Sure, you can't always stop the trolls, but you can see what they're doing and revert their changes at least.

I would say a very critical need for Wikipedia is the need for all the important subjects to be "watched" (ie subscribed) by a few good NPOV Wikipedians.

Re:Entry on Bush

[edumacator]

Remember, most people don't use logic centers in the brain when making decisions about politics, but rather areas usually reserved for emotions. Trying to argue politics with facts is tragically ineffective. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11009379/

In my experience, only sustained and ongoing dialogue can get people to move back to a logical process to make decisions. Of course, our modern mass media/24 hour news cycle is not conducive to sustained dialogue.

Re:Entry on Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact Bush never said anything about Sadam being connected to 9/11, and has many times said it was not the case.

Good lord, what a load of crap. Bush had consistently mentioned Iraq and Al Qaeda many many times leading up the invasion of Iraq. Only when time and again it was shown that there was no link did he relent and change his tune. Read the newspapers, in particular Bush's speeches, if you want to "investigate". But to say he didn't connect 9/11 and Saddam is absolutely a lie.

Re:Entry on Bush

[PortHaven]

Yeah, well, the last guy was even more dodgy. Please define the meaning of the word "is"

Don't act suprised.

[Sj0]

Don't act suprised. This is the same government that thinks that Video News Releases and staged "town hall meetings" which are actually just long Republican infomercians are a part of a healthy democracy.

Frankly, the more the world watches, the more the US resembles some third world soviet banana republic.

Re:Don't act suprised.

[millennial]

Call him a troll if you want, but he's right. See here (never mind, article has apparently been removed. It was from September of last year.)

"Federal auditors said Friday that the Bush administration had violated the law by purchasing favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party."

Last year, a FAKE news report was broadcast that essentially praised Bush's Medicare drug benefit plan. It ended with the "reporter" saying "From Washington, this is Karen Ryan reporting."

Earlier this year a new FAKE report was broadcast, talking about the benefits of the No Child Left Behind plan.

How does it end? "From Washington, this is Karen Ryan reporting."

When the first video came out, The Daily Show had a segment about it in which they exposed the fact that there is no reporter named Karen Ryan working for any media outlet in either Washington, D.C. or the state of Washington. These reports were fabricated and funded by the U.S. government. The first was made by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the second by

more articles: #1, #2 (which identifies Karen Ryan as a government contractor who produces and narrates the videos), #3 (which has a picture and background on Karen Ryan)

There were also several "town hall meetings" where obvious plants in the audience asked Bush questions. Example: An episode of The Daily Show featured an excerpt from one such meeting. A child no older than eight asked Bush what policies he was putting in place to help fight the war on terror. Children that young do not ask those questions.

Block their IPs won't stop them.

[Burz]

It was the US Navy that came up with an anonymizing-proxy system so they (and presumably their best patrons) could frequent any website without detection.

(BTW that proxy system is now open-sourced as the 'tor' project.)

Re:Block their IPs won't stop them.

[David Gerard]

And TOR proxies are blocked at Wikipedia on sight. Because most of the edits from them are vandals and trolls.

Re:Block their IPs won't stop them.

[Burz]

No kidding. But it should be obvious that the government has its own onion proxy system.

Wikifidlers

[JamieKitson]

Do you think "fidler" is becoming the defacto term for describing people who edit wikis? And is this all the fault of the register?

Warning signs:

[jettoki]

How do you tell the propaganda from the objective information?

Simple! Just use this handy checklist!

1.) Adjectives such as 'moderate', 'vocal', and 'punctual' are generally safe and objective. Adjectives such as 'mind-blowing', 'god-like', or 'sexilicious' probably deserve further research.
2.) Allegations of embezzlement or abuse of public trust are typically more credible than allegations of bestiality or autoerotic asphyxiation.
3.) You may safely ignore photographs which seem to depict interaction between the politician in question and any the following historical personas: Jesus, Mohammed, Abraham Lincoln, Hitler, or Charles Manson.
4.) Treat any debate over penis size with a healthy amount of skepticism.

Re:Warning signs:

[dlc3007]

I think it is also safe to skip anything that has the same character repeated more than three times or suffers from caps-lock:

PLEEEEEEEEASE READ!!!! THIS IS REALLY REALLY REALLY COOOOOOOOL!!!!111!

How come no one has noticed...

[g051051]

That this is a dupe?

Re:How come no one has noticed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that comment was on politicians in general. This one allows another attack on President Bush.

Re:How come no one has noticed...

[meringuoid]

That this is a dupe?

Last time around, it was a bit of a geek niche thing. Now it's being reported on by the mainstream. Surely that's worthy of note?

Re:How come no one has noticed...

[lixee]

You must be new here!

Re:How come no one has noticed...

[g051051]

No, but it was weird that there were no other dupe notices.

Really. whats the big deal ???

[gorim]

I thought Wikipedia was designed to handle this sort of thing ?

Doesn't everyone who creates and edits articles have a vested interest ? Else why would they be spending time to do it ?

Lots of articles get "spinned" by non-politicians too, whether it is about politics or something else.

I wonder how many spins comes from .edu addresses ? Probably way more than from .gov addresses.

Re:Really. whats the big deal ???

[endrue]

I think "spun" is the word you are searching for...

Re:Really. whats the big deal ???

[apt142]

The difference between spinning a non-political article and a political one is very significant.

Our political process relies on the percieved integrity of the individual in whom we place our confidence. There is a lot more at stake than a bad review or a misinterpretation of facts as these people are involved in the process of making and passing laws in the US.

And as for the big deal, well wikipedia is designed to handle these cases where differences of opinion on the facts show up. But with a political issue its much more likely that the differences will be exaggerated and fought over much like any other political issue out there. Wikipedia will be caught in the middle. How they react to it and handle it will be of strong interest to anyone who places any faith in their site.

Re:Really. whats the big deal ???

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest problem Wikipedia has is topic bias. For some reason, it's database is full of every Trekkie / LoR / Anime fanboi dump that ever appeared on the Internet. When your encylopedia's entry for the Battle of Mordoor has more information than the entry for the Battle of the Bulge, it's time to start chopping topics.

The bottom line is that most congressmen are unimportant and don't deserve any sort of substantial entry in an encylopedia

Re:Really. whats the big deal ???

[Mr. Underbridge]

The biggest problem Wikipedia has is topic bias. For some reason, it's database is full of every Trekkie / LoR / Anime fanboi dump that ever appeared on the Internet. When your encylopedia's entry for the Battle of Mordoor has more information than the entry for the Battle of the Bulge, it's time to start chopping topics. Not that I don't agree with your concept in general, but your example seems to be incorrect.

Re:Really. whats the big deal ???

[mdwh2]

The biggest problem Wikipedia has is topic bias. For some reason, it's database is full of every Trekkie / LoR / Anime fanboi dump that ever appeared on the Internet. When your encylopedia's entry for the Battle of Mordoor has more information than the entry for the Battle of the Bulge, it's time to start chopping topics.

But an online encyclopedia doesn't have restrictions on size that a paper encyclopedia has. You're free to ignore articles that are irrelevant to you, so their existence isn't a problem.

Well damn

[post.scriptum]

I mean, that's the point of Wikipedia "anybody" can modify an article. But if people are too immature to modify something, I mean they're just taking everybody using Wikipedia as morons.

Bush article isn't completely blocked

[brian0918]

The Bush article isn't blocked from all editing, just that by anonymous and new users, due to the rampant anonymous vandalism and people with too much time on their hands who create dozens of accounts just to vandalize that article. For anonymous newbies, the Bush article is equivalent to Wikipedia's "Sandbox" for test editing.

Re:Bush article isn't completely blocked

[wongn]

Yes, I thought that the article took the Bush article's Protection out of context here. It was protected because it gets vandalised lots, not necessarily because of POV attacks by congressional staffers.

Re:duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Any liberal arts major can tell you that.

Yep...just ask them when they're handing you the fries...

Multiple versions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just keep multiple copies of the entries, allow users to rate them and comment on them, and let users get all the information rather whoevers last edit.

Re:Multiple versions?

[Smidge204]

That's what the "History" tab is for. No information is ever discarded (unless exlpicitly deleted by staff). You can even select any two versions and it will compare them side-by-side, highlighting what is different.

It's actually pretty interesting to see the kinds of changes some people make, and how small changes really effect the meaning of the article.
=Smidge=

Why on Earth would they want to change it?

[digitaldc]

It's not like the Politicians have anything to hide?

Opposing viewpoint

[tweek]

I know that Wikipedia tags contested entries and that anyone can track edits but maybe there needs to be an additional level or subentry for two view points.

Take G.W. for instance:

Main entry
Name
Title
Education
Previous Political positions

Now the above are things that are simply fact. For a detailed bio section, link to two sub entries that considered "opinionated".

I just don't understand why people find it SO fucking hard to state things with an unbiased view. I understand the little word play that people try and spin. I don't like this President but is it so hard to say:

"Signed ${BILL} into law on ${DATE}"

instead of

"Gave ${FOOBAR} by signing ${BILL}"
or
"Took away ${FOOBAR} by signing ${BILL}"

It's really not that hard.

Re:Opposing viewpoint

[Itanshi]

i like having a second section as it would spread the battle out a bit and make it easier to manage, but all opinion is bias. When the opinion is held by a fewer number of people the bias is stronger. Its hard because its terribly hard to please everyone especially with such 'vested interests'. Its also hard getting and dealing with the facts. the discussions help, but not everyone can be so mangageable as i have witnessed them to be there. so many variables and influences; we hope it fixes itself as anything more threatens how wikipedia functions as per its tradition.

Re:Opposing viewpoint

[kartaron]

What you are describing is thomas.loc.gov. This information is publically available. As soon as you start to summarize the bills you are subjecting your bias by describing your opinion of what the bill does. If the teachers union wants a 10% increase but you sign a law implementing only 3%, is that an increase or a cut? If a bill has a multi-million dollar bridge in Alaska added on, is it a "pork" bill or necessary infrastructure? If a bill is signed but unfunded should the politician get credit for passing the bill or criticism for their lack of effectiveness? If a senator is the sponsor for billions of dollars of new programs does he deserve respect as a social engineer or criticism for increasing the load on an already strained national deficit? All of these summaries remove the ability of the reader to make an informed decision. Full access every opinion (even those in the government) is the only way to maintain transparency.

Re:Opposing viewpoint

[jxyama]

I'm sorry, but if every politician's entry would be "factual" and simply lists "Signed X into law on X/XX" type of information then what's the point of an encyclopedia?

Such information is already publically available from a .gov site somewhere and Wikipedia will simply turn into a fact aggregator instead of an encyclopedia. I didn't go to a .gov list and instead, visited Wikipedia because I didn't want a list of facts - rather I wanted to know what was in that law, who was affected, etc. - a digest version of what happened so that in limited time, I can learn better about the context of the fact, not just the fact.

This discussion is happening because it's difficult to strike a balance between providing "neutral" and "biased" context.

Re:Opposing viewpoint

[tweek]

I'm not asking for the opinion to be stripped but possibly separated as a subsection. I've seen Wikipedia headers about content being in question or disputed. Facts are facts:

- A 3% increase from current levels is an increase you can call it cut if you wrap it in the qualifier that the original demand was 10%. But for raw numbers, the raise was 3% because it's 3% higher than what it was before.

- President Bush signed a bill that provided for a bridge in Alaska. That's straight fact (not really since I think the stupid pork bridge was cut out anyway) but you see my point.

As to specific bills, I don't even think the word "controversial" or "contested" should be in there. It already puts a subject in a negative light. I was just suggesting that the bills signed by Bush should be linked simply as a number and name to the LoC.

Maybe we need to really have "Fair Witnesses" who write wikipedia entries ;)

BTW, your examples are spot on for the kind of thing that I was talking about.

Re:Opposing viewpoint

[tweek]

"I'm sorry, but if every politician's entry would be "factual" and simply lists "Signed X into law on X/XX" type of information then what's the point of an encyclopedia?"

That's EXACTLY what an encyclopedia is...a fact book. At least in my opinion.

*YOU* as the informed citizen need to aggregate all the facts and determine yourself what was in the law and who was affected. That's your social responsibility. It honestly sounds like you need someone to provide "glamour" and "spice" for you. No offense.

I knew it!

[RedSteve]

I knew those Harlequin Novels were a political statement!

kangeroo conspiracy

[bxbaser]

Little known fact.
Kangeroo skin preparing in a bath of trioxygenated liquid polymer and preparing in a argon,nitrogen vacuum chamber will block 99.999 percent of mind reading,altering radio waves.
The goverment doesnt want you to know this information.

only the misinformed use aluminium foil hats.

Those with a vested interest

[QuietLagoon]

Wikipedia says the controversy raises questions about whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it.

Some WikiPedia proponents say that the strength of WikiPedia comes from those who are knowledgeable about a subject, editing and contributing to articles on that subject.

Where does "knowledgeable about" end, and "vested interest" begin?

Kangaroo danger

[Anonymous Coward]

Kangaroos are a threat.

An interesting experiement...

[ursabear]

I believe that the Wikipedia is many things (most of them wonderful) - but is not a tome of absolute fact.

Wikipedia is a fabulous experiment in humanity and social interaction. It is without a doubt one of the most interesting things I've come across since I began using the Internet. I like looking things up in Wikipedia for two distinct reasons: 1) There is a huge body of knowledge out there in the minds of the world; 2) I enjoy reading the history of the given bits of information I read. It is particularly telling when one reads topics that are controversial or contemporarily historic. Many people, many opinions, many slants/spins on what is real and what is not.

Throw into the mix a sprinkling of morons, vandals, gleeful miscreants, politicians, PR people, and the ignorant, and you get a fabulous view of the brilliantly bizarre view of the public itself.

Don't take Wikipedia (and its contents) as fact. Take it as a social experiment. The views on the Bush administration in the public forums is extremely similar to the view of the Bush administration in Wikipedia.

Re:An interesting experiement...

[David Gerard]

The George W. Bush article is probably a bad example. It's the most-edited article on Wikipedia by about 5:1 over the next-most-edited article. The current version is generally not awful, but not that great. It's an example of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

Fortunately, there's only about 200 articles (out of 900k+) that have more than 100 editors ever. Most articles are not in fact controversial.

No.

[millennial]

... The controversy raises questions about whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it.

Let me tell you: No, it is not. It is not ethical for people to censor and edit their lives. It is ethical for them to try to live a life that doesn't need censoring. It does nothing but further prove the serious ethical problems that permeate the Congress.

Those who make history should not be the ones who write it, or they'll put themselves in a favorable light.

Re:No.

[ndogg]

It is ethical for them to try to live a life that doesn't need censoring.
You must lead quite the boring life.

Re:No.

[millennial]

No, I try to lead an ethical life. There's a difference between censoring yourself to make yourself look good and censoring yourself to edit out things that aren't mentionable in pleasant company.

Re:No.

[hackstraw]

Those who make history should not be the ones who write it, or they'll put themselves in a favorable light.

A man wiser than you or me disagrees:

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it."

-- Winston Churchill

Re:No.

[mickwd]

"Let me tell you: No, it is not. It is not ethical for people to censor and edit their lives."

What if I was to describe you as some-one who eats babies ?

You, or someone who knows you (i.e. has a "vested interest"), would deserve the right to correct or at least address that statement.

Assuming, of course, that you don't actually eat babies...

Re:No.

[millennial]

That's not disagreeing at all, really. I said that people who make history shouldn't write it because they'd make themselves look good. He said that he intended to write history and thus make himself look good. He was just proving my point.

Re:No.

[millennial]

HOW DID YOU FIND OUT?

Re:No.

[mickwd]

I looked up your name on Wikipedia ;)

Re:No.

[slothman32]

But he wrote that.
Maybe it is false and he just edited it to make himself look good.
Wait that's not right, paradox!!

Struth .. the Kanagroos *are* bad

[OzPeter]

The evil Kanagroo consipracy has already been documented:

http://www.snopes.com/humor/nonsense/kangaroo.htm

What more can you say?

Wikipedia at SCALE 4x

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia will have a booth at SCALE 4x this weekend
http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/

In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Toreo asesino]

"All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography."

Sounds like a normal turn of events to me.

Everyone has vested interest.

[AllergicToMilk]

Given the nature of the subjects, it seems to me that everyone has a vested interest. Civil and Geopolitical politics is that way. Who, exactly, would you trust to write the wiki for G.W.? Given partisan politics, for every person you name, there is a bunch of people who distrusts that person. Now extend that question to any politician.

Wiki-Washing by the White House!

[Anonymous Coward]

It had to happen, sooner or later. But I'm real glad to see that somebody's watching for this, and that the folks at wiki take steps to block the activity. It's very sad that you can't have a communal resource that others don't mark up for their own self-indulgent purposes. I was going to compare it to gang taggers, but then realized that it might merely be another manifestation of the Tragedy of the Commons.

Freedom?

[jpsowin]

So you want everyday people to be able to freely edit it, but not politicians?

Read WikiNews for the rest of the story

[TimTheFoolMan]

It amazes me that the Islamic extremists aren't the only ones who don't bother to check the rest of the story before they start inflaming the masses. From WikiNews:

The investigation showed the vast majority of edits from Senate IPs were beneficial and helpful to Wikipedia. Examples include the creation of the articles on Click Back America, which organizes students to promote microfinance in the developing world, and Washington's Tomb, which was designed to hold the body of first U.S. President George Washington within the White House Capitol building; and significantly expanding the article on closed sessions of the United States Senate in November. Dozens of small corrections have been made to grammar, spelling, or small facts -- many of them related to the Senate.

Senators' staff members have sometimes had to fight to correct inaccuracies. An edit to Jay Rockefeller's article by his staff removed information which may have been biased or untrue. The staff member who edited said, "Apologies, I was new to using Wikipedia, and I didn't fully realize the workings of the website," after other users continuously reinserted the information. The staffer removed the suspect paragraphs 12 times until another Wikipedia user finally removed the information. Four days later, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales got involved.

In other words, the edits were SOMETIMES bad, but were generally helpful. The entire tone of this story suggests that they were all trying to line the pockets of their senators (no doubt a popular sentiment), but WikiNews itself suggests that this is true only in a small number of cases.

Tim

Re:Read WikiNews for the rest of the story

[TimTheFoolMan]

Here's the link to the story I quoted.

Tim

Re:Read WikiNews for the rest of the story

[Supercrunch]

You're right, the politicians ARE doing a good job editing Wikipedia. I mean, it says it right there in WikiNews, the news source that anyone can edit...hey wait a minute!

Re:Read WikiNews for the rest of the story

[TimTheFoolMan]

:-D

Fair enough, but the discussion tab has the details of the relevant research. In short, if you aren't quite sure of the sources quoted, you can go back and "look over the shoulder" of the writer. Also, in this case, the bulk of the articles was by "wikinewsies," and not just your average Joe (Biden, or otherwise).

Tim

Jimmy Wales

[Raven42rac]

Is it just me, or did the floodgates open when Jimmy Wales edited his own entry?

Wide open content can never work

[shatfield]

There is no way that "wide open" content will ever work... there are too many people out there with bad intentions. This is why you see so many sites with wikis closing them down these days - due to spam bots, due to malicious posters, etc.

The only thing that will ever work is to have an "owner" of a wiki who gives access on a trust basis. The owner will decide who s/he trusts, and to what level.

I'm afraid that this is the only system that will ever work for collaborative content.

OT: great change, and a suggestion or two.

[artifex2004]

This is the first time I noticed a "related stories" bar under the article.
Tell me that the editors now have a system whereby that comes pre-filled with some results from rudimentary searching on key words, and I'll be amazed. If not, this should be considered.

In fact, to expand upon the suggestion, while at the same time making it easier to implement: add a tag field to story submissions. It would be awesome to have a userbox on the side doing the equivalent of smart folders, even better if it fed a custom RSS feed.

Re:OT: great change, and a suggestion or two.

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is the first time I noticed a "related stories" bar under the article."

I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but the link only takes you to the most recent dupe.

if (horse == dead) beat(horse);

[splutty]

...

At a guess that's the 5th time this appears on /.

For Sale

[MobyDisk]

For Sale: One Wikipedia account with excellent karma. This account is useful for editing articles on politicians, controversial "scientific" theories, or adding goatse entries. As a bonus I will throw in an anonymizer account to hide your IP address as well.

$1000 OBO.

Re:For Sale

[ForestGrump]

I don't have 1000.
But would you be willing to trade for a use of my donkey for the rest of winter, and 300 pounds of my potato harvest?

Put the pitchforks down, fellas...

[BecomingLumberg]

Let us not get carried away here. As much as I become furious with politicians, most of them still have best intentions. Pat Robertson actually thinks that homosexuals will be the undoing of the country. The 700 Club is filmed less than an hour away from me. Trust me, he may be loony, but a phony he is not. That said, I don't think its right to simply crucify them for wanting to edit their own bios. I would certainly want a say in what is the new ultimate source of information (think, in the stone age, we used to use Google and read up to five articles to learn all we needed to know about a subject). That said, changes to factual integrity (voting records, historical records, etc.) would be a immoral act. But if he is going to edit his purported 'political views' - those are naturally a PR item anyway, and his camp is more entitled than any other to state what his views or platform really are.

Re:Put the pitchforks down, fellas...

[MooUK]

....except that the rules of wikipedia state that original research - that is, information directly from the source - is not permitted. Editing your own article with information that cannot be referenced is therefore forbidden.

Re:Put the pitchforks down, fellas...

[sunnyflorida]

Wikipedia is more like google than a library; a place to start vs. a place to end when looking for information. The big problem for google is you have to sometimes weed past pages and pages of adds to find info. (Say a hotel's website). I would say that Wikipedia is cross between Google without adversting (at least so far not blantant) and a blog. But much more like a blog. It is mostly opinion which is just fine as long as you know what it is your are getting.

But then what would the interns do

[Anonymous Coward]

now that the Congressional computer network has been blocked and no more wikipedia editing is allowed?

back to blowjobs, I guess.

Who will be writing then?

[Sigg3.net]

Wikipedia says the controversy raises questions about whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it

So, Einstein wouldn't be allowed to write about physics?
Or André Breton on Surrealism?
I don't get it.

Re:duh

[Anonymous Coward]

leave it to a liberal arts major to confuse information with observation

leave it to someone that is doing something that they themselves think is wrong to claim that there are no absolute truths

Editing

[AviLazar]

I do not mind if they edit obvious mistakes (i.e. Wiki says the person voted Yay on a topic when he actually voted Nay, or the persons college GPA is incorrect, etc.) Facts are fine, anything else should not be touched by people with vested interests - in this case the person the article is referring to, their employees, or family.

Mods will not prevent bias

[AHumbleOpinion]

A reader mod system will not prevent bias in the original article or its edits. Hasn't slashdot proven this already? You really need an expert peer review system to improve accuracy and that seems contrary to Wiki's role.

The post it

[flyinwhitey]

"But to say he didn't connect 9/11 and Saddam is absolutely a lie."

Then it shouldn't be too hard to find a quote to support that statement. Especially whe you consider that every public remark the President of the US makes will be archived somewhere.

So find it.

Re:The post it

[Anonymous Coward]

After Sept. 11, the administration insisted that a connection existed between Iraq and al-Qaida. President Bush, in an October 2002 speech in Cincinnati, said the United States had "learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and gas."

Archive
By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent
Published June 30, 2005

Sept. 11 was a terrible day and Saddam Hussein was a terrible ruler. Yet to link the two, as President Bush tried to do in his speech Tuesday, disregards compelling evidence to the contrary.

Even the 9/11 Commission, which conducted the most exhaustive study of the events that morning, could find "no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaida cooperated on attacks against the United States."

In rallying support for the Iraq war this week, Bush mentioned Sept. 11 five times. The emphasis on 9/11 was particularly striking compared to his March 17, 2003, address to the American people, three days before the Iraqi invasion.

The president never mentioned Sept. 11 then, instead saying a U.S. attack was justified because there was "no doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

These are within the first few hits on "bush 9/11 saddam link"

Re:The post it

[Anonymous Coward]

Try these then:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20 021002-2.html

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20 021007-8.html

Why don't you search in them for September 11 or Al Qaeda?

Re:The post it

[Anonymous Coward]

Leave it alone. Lyinwhitey is a troll and liar. Everwhere you look, you will find that the guy lies or twists the truth. He has posted before that Bush never said these things while others have posted that Bush did. So he knows the truth but continues to lie here. Basically, this guy is a FUD machine for the neocons (while he tries to maintain that he is a democrat).

Re:The post it

[will_die]

Doing a search reveals quotes such as "No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th," which predates thoses two speaches. Also that speach and that resolution do not say anything about Shadam helping with 9/11. It does mention that they were were present in Iraq.
If you want quotes linking Sadam and al-qaeda check the 9/11 commissions report.

What's this?

[meringuoid]

Funny? Some moderator thought I was joking?

It seems that we have here people employed by the Party to edit articles about their masters. They are actually throwing inconvenient facts down the memory hole. It's pure 1984.

And somebody thinks it's funny. Christ. Perhaps Ingsoc could add a fourth slogan...

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
WAR IS PEACE
TOTALITARIANISM IS FUNNY

SD Mod system

[Bizzeh]

i agree with an earlier post, wikipedia needs some kind of karma system like slashdot, any one with 0 or less karma, their edits are in a queue, 0 - 5, they get queue priority, 5+ auto accepted. something like that would keep a vast majority of the people who are only their to "purify" their own, or someone elses image away from the real fact, out.

Late breaking news!

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in! Politicians are lying garbage!

Wikipedia's failure of philosophy...

[PortHaven]

"Wikipedia says the controversy raises questions about whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it"

It needs to go both ways. Blocking the Presidential staff or Congress from editing the bios and removing inflammatory content is only fair if they also block members of political groups such as MoveOn.org or New Republicans. Of course, it's near impossible to do so. But if they're not careful they may open themselves up for a libel lawsuit.

Block for all time

[g0bshiTe]

How about blocking any government block out for all time, this would include local and state, why should our tax dollars pay for some interns to "polish" or smear another candidate via a wiki. If Congress is in session I think they need to be doing what they do, not altering wiki's in a pointless display of high school behaviour. These poeple are paid to represent us and to make serve as our voices, not to frivolously squander money and time, yeah like they would never do that anyway.

Imagine....

[t'mbert]

Imagine an article about your life appears on Wikipedia for millions to read, an article that will last forever and may very well shape opinions about you as a person. The author of this article in Wikipedia has never met you, and doesn't necessarily like you or what you've done with yourself. They author the article, you see errors or omissions, but aren't allowed to edit them. Worse, people who definitely don't like you try to chime in, those who definitely do like you fight back...but they're all wrong.

Okay, so that's extreme, and we're not politicians. I don't know if the articles in question were negative or misleading, but how can someone sitting at a terminal in Nashville TN, like myself, possibly know what XYZ politician is really like, what they've really done, who they really are? I don't know these people, and my only contact with them is through a decidedly limited and biased media, soundbytes and highly-edited speaches.

Of course the idea that politicians can edit their record is creepy and could lead to Orwelian misinformation, but put yourself in their shoes for a minute...it may not be all that difficult to understand.

Timbert

Re:Imagine....

[David Gerard]

Hence the Biographies of living persons guideline.

Re:Imagine....

[slothman32]

Except Congress et al should be up to a higher standard than non-reps.
It's alot easier to misuse power if you have it.
These just attempt to prevent that, or at least tell regular people what it is.

Re:Those with a vested interest

[michaelconnor]

Where does "knowledgeable about" end, and "vested interest" begin?

A vested interest usually indicates a financial or deeply personal interest. One can be knowledgeable about a subject, but indifferent to it, and vise-versa. The two terms are reasonably distinct.

That said, excluding Wikipedia contributors with vested interests would unfortunately exclude interested people who are also able to maintain a NPOV. Also, this would likely be a difficult solution to implement. How can Wikipedia discern those with vested interests from the masses?

Re:duh

[Anonymous Coward]

They're just the people who approve the budgets for the scientists.

Wikipedia Wayback machine?

[dindi]

It would be a nice feature, to be able to see all previous versions of a post/article (ala waybavk machine). Ohh well that would bloat the database to multiple of its size.

So not necessarily possible, but would be a cool feature anyway ...

Re:Wikipedia Wayback machine?

[Supercrunch]

Have you ever seen Wikipedia? It's called the "history" tab, and it's on every page.

Re:Wikipedia Wayback machine?

[FirienFirien]

Um? That's what the "history" tab is for at the top of a page. You can compare between any pair of versions too.

But yeah, it's a pretty cool feature :)

Re:Wikipedia Wayback machine?

[mdwh2]

It would be a nice feature, to be able to see all previous versions of a post/article (ala waybavk machine). Ohh well that would bloat the database to multiple of its size.

Wouldn't it just. It would indeed be most handy if one of the tabs along the top was "History", and clicking on that would give me a full history of the article. Perhaps they could even allow showing "diffs" between different versions; that would be even better...

Ho-hum

[GrayCalx]

Wow... I'm shocked, dumbfounded, or perhaps just sarcastic.

Someone changing Wiki entries for their own purposes? Who'd have thunk it?

Lets be honest. The republicans have done it, the democrats have done it. The lobbiests have done it. Cigarette companies have done it. And I'm sure slashdotters have added "M$" to a couple of pages.

Bush's article wasn't locked for that reason

[LearningHard]

As someone who was following the "action" so to speak on that article I can tell you that it wasn't locked because of gov't employees editing the data to make bush look good which is what the summary implies. The Bush43 article was locked because of all the loony lefties that kept vandalizing it and putting incredibly ridiculous statements in it.

sum of all human knowledge

[Randall311]

Human knowledge is biased by nature, so when you collect the sum of that knowledge, people that are experts in their fields will contribute what they know, and that information will be biased unless great care was excersized to keep it unbiased. Clearly, these politicians were out for their own benefit and purposfully sabatoged or polished articles for their own political gain. This kind of behavior shouldn't be tolerated, but if you think about it, it's kind of amusing since politicians are known as b.s. slingers in real life. So it makes sense that all of their contributions to the sum of human knowledge are 100% bullshit.

"Allowing" People to Edit?

[mdwh2]

"I presume that if they did not want people to edit, they wouldn't allow you to edit."

Perhaps someone should throw a brick through his window. I presume that if he didn't want people to do that, he wouldn't have allowed them to do it...

Welcome to slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
WAR IS PEACE
TOTALITARIANISM IS ++4 FUNNY
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

I thought that was the advantage of Wikipedia

[jaydee77ca]

"...raises questions about whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it."

Don't the Wikipedia people always say that the reason Wikipedia is so great is that if there's an error about you, or something you know about, you can change it yourself?

Big deal?

[Second_Infinity]

Anyone can log into Wikipedia and change anything. You cannot put restrictions on any specific group if it's supposed to be truly open. This is what wikipedia is designed for. By them locking an entry, they have defouled their mission statement.

grow up...

[Wolfger]

the Congressional computer network has been blocked from editing for brief periods on a number of occasions

Wikipedia is intended for mature internet users. Not politicians and lobbyists.

Need accountability? Remove anonimity!

[BAM0027]

Because Wiki is becoming more of an objective source of information, we need to hold those accountable who would distort or add subjectivity to it. That can't happen in an anonymous venue.

This is the great challenge for Wiki now, as I see it, how to meld the internet's spirit of anonymity with the _direct_ responsibility to others.

p.s. Once again, we see the corruption of politics...

Are you friggin' kidding me?

[DesireCampbell]

"History", as truth, cannot be changed. Just because you say it happened such-and-such a way, doesn't mean it actually happened like that.

This is not a debate about truth - there is only one truth. Any who disagree don't understand the concept.

Truth isn't a psychological state - it's a fact.

The world is round. For the last few billion years, it has been round. If I say "in 1872 between the months of June and October, the Earth ceased to be round and instead was rendered flat" doesn't make it history. Repeat: doesn't make it hisory.

Back to the Iraq Invasion example... Iraq was blamed for harbouring terrorists, producing WMDs, and having a threatening stance against the United States. This is not "opinion history" as you would like it, it is simple fact. If all the reports, memos, press conference tapings, and witnesses to them were taken out of existence - it would still be fact. The US Government now says those reasons were never the reasons given for invading Iraq, but, just because they say this doesn't make it true.

Remember kids, when someone says something, they might be lying. Check the facts, ask questions, make your own decision

Re:Are you friggin' kidding me?

[Cat_Byte]

It is interesting to find the sources of the quotes about WMDs though. The same exact people who are denying it and saying it was only Bush who said it filled the airwaves for a decade with these remarks. They took that part of Bush's speech out of context just like atheists take half a verse from the bible to twist it's meaning and say it doens't make sense. Look up the original speech by Bush. It most certainly mentions tyranny, oppression, murder, etc as reasons to take Hussein out of power. The left has a severe case of selective memory and I'm in awe of how many people have completely forgotten all of this stuff.

a few examples

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
-- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
--President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

Re:Are you friggin' kidding me?

[Sigg3.net]

I'm not sure you understand "your own" concepts:)

What was once a freedom fighter, is now a terrorist. All depending on whose side you're at (and it don't need be only two of em).

"Truth isn't a psychological state - it's a fact." That's a tautology and you know it. Do you think repeating it will make it true?

Re:Are you friggin' kidding me?

[DesireCampbell]

I'm not sure you understand your own concepts.

"Truth isn't a psychological state - it's a fact" isn't tautology, "A logical tautology is a statement that is true regardless of the truth values of its parts. For example, the statement "All crows are either black, or they are not black," is a tautology, because it is true no matter what color crows are." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology . I didn't say "Truth is either a psychological state or a fact" - that would have been tautology.

I hope repeating it will make it clearer to you.

And, in fact, a "terrorist" and a "freedom fighter" are different titles. The same person may be called each name by different people, but that doesn't make that person both (remember what I said about truth being a fact?)
A "freedom fighter" is a person who, obviously, "fights for freedom" for himself, as well as others, against a corrupt government. A "terrorist" is a person who uses violent, "terrorizing" tactics to further their own gains.

It is possible for a "freedom fighter" to be a "terrorist", or vice versa, but not necessary.
It's possible for a "freedom fighter" to fight for freedom without resorting to terrorism. And a "terrorist" may actually be fighting for the freedom of his people.

But none of that changes the fact that the truth is not decided by people. Saying one group of "freedom fighters" are "terrorists" doesn't change what has actually occurred in the past.

REPEAT: what you, or anyone else, may say regarding ANYTING that has previously occurred will NOT change what has actually occurred.

Re:Are you friggin' kidding me?

[Sigg3.net]

"Truth isn't a psychological state - it's a fact"
If Truth=fact, then what you said is 'a is not b, a is a' which is a tautology. What you're saying is that a cow is a cow. Which is trivial.
If you mean that Truth somehow implies fact(s) or the other way around, it's not a tautology, but an inaccurate statement iff 'is' is a statment of identity (a='a), which I believe is what you're saying.

As for what happened, what other things have we to hold to than other people's account?
I'm not a sceptic myself. But I acknowledge that human knowledge works like communication (in fact it is communication!), and communication resides on social structure(s) (as opposed to something 'objective'). Kripke's chain of communication should give you an idea of what I'm trying to say.

Oh, and I'm not flaming. I think this is interesting.

Your "what has actually occurred" seems so divine, yes?

Re:Are you friggin' kidding me?

[DesireCampbell]

The way you're explaining Tautology is misguided. Through your definition anything I say could be tautologist. I'm not saying "the truth is the truth" I'm saying "the truth (of history) is a factual description of events". I'm not saying "a cow is a cow" I'm saying "a cow is a mammal".

I agree that we have little to base our understanding of history on except other people's accounts - but that does not change "the truth".

Think of it like this: The speed of light doesn't change because you think it does. If we believed that light traveled at 12,000,000 metres a second, light wouldn't say "hey, if they say so..." and speed up. Just like "the truth", what we believe doesn't change the actual events of the past.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Your "what has actually occurred" seems so divine, yes?", could I get some clarification?

Re:Are you friggin' kidding me?

[Sigg3.net]

Certainly, and I'm glad you replied!

Your "what has actually occurred" seems so divine, yes?
Was my way of pointing out the place, it seems to me, you are granting objectivity in a "soft science".

I do not question light. That wouldn't make sense. But if you're talking about truth, you should acknowledge that light has velocity at such and such a rate because we've established (or founded, rather) a framework (see: physics) in which to put light in. The speed of light is not such a good example anyway, since we do not deal with it in our lives, except for our leisure reading of Einstein (and whatnot). If you consider quantum mechanics (or theory), Einstein admits the consequences of it renders a silly universe. I do not believe the universe is silly, and I don't think Einstein meant that either. But the consequences of our theories sometimes reveal our presuppositions (and straight out false judgments) about our environment and the universe we live in. It also reveal or prejudices about our own beliefs (both 1st and n'th order). (//End crackpot)

But light, as said, is a bad example. Light has nothing to do with history.
Darkness, however, is a more fitting description of our knowledge in such an area:)

"the truth (of history) is a factual description of events". I choose to interpret it along the lines of "Historical truth is a factual description of events that did occour".
It sounds reasonable.. and impossible..
'Today I'm not feeling as bad as I did yesterday, recovering from a flu, and I also got my paycheck today.' That's a factual description of an event (or state of affairs) that have occured today. Now. Please tell me that you know this is the truth, and how you know it.
Now, what other truth(s) do you propose? What's unchangeable about the truth as opposed? And what does it say?
All I want to know is _exactly where_ is the ontology of this truth of which you speak? Nobody visited the forest. Where is the truth about what happened in the forest? Where is its facticity?

Apropos
Through your definition anything I say could be tautologist. And through what you're saying it could not?

Re:Are you friggin' kidding me?

[DesireCampbell]

Today I'm not feeling as bad as I did yesterday, recovering from a flu, and I also got my paycheck today.' That's a factual description of an event (or state of affairs) that have occured today. Now. Please tell me that you know this is the truth, and how you know it.
Oh, there may be some confusion - I never meant to imply that there's any way of actually knowing the truth. The truth is an imperical fact (like the mass of this apple, here) and even though we may not know the truth (I'm guessing 100g), the truth still exists* (it probably weighs more, I'm just so super buff I don't notice it :P).

There are other "truths", the truth you know, the truth I know, the truth that might be, the truth that will be - but these are merely psycological ideas and not basic unchangable fact (like the apple). The "truth" I know might change tommorow, but the truth never deviates.


* Of course there's those pesky quantum phyiscs ideas about the apple not exiasting if I'm not aware of it... but I choose to ignore that (which means if those theories exist, they don't exist, 'cause I'm ignoring them) :P

Re:Are you friggin' kidding me?

[Sigg3.net]

I fail to see why the truth should not be a 'mere psychological idea'.
What are you talking about here? The mass of the apple in casu (say a real one, not a metaphysical idea!) is constant right now to what it is right now. These 'nows' are swift, however. Everything changes continuously. So, the only thing imperial about it is who decides what it (the truth) inhibits in his cause at a particular occasion for whatever reason(s) the speaker consciously or not has/ve. Drastically more so when our field of inquest is history. But that's hardly a 'property of truth'. It's all us.

An "ostensive analysis" of truth would not point at any object other than man him/herself.
This does not mean that I don't recognize the apple's existence per se, but that most of our truths about it are ours. Our descriptions use descriptors within our framework(s) to comprehend the world. If you call the world the truth, I wholeheartedly agree that there is one (and only one), but I fail to see what it has to do with history which is our little stories. (Constantly argued about, changed and rewritten :)

And I think you're right about our little confusion:)

Re:Are you friggin' kidding me?

[DesireCampbell]

I agree completely, the truth we know is shaped completely by how well we understand the world, what we want to know, and who we allow to dictate that history. My point was that there is a substantial difference between that "truth" and the truth. It's true that both are flowing, changing, fluctuating "truths" but one changes because we believe it to change, while the other changes when something actually changes.

Re:Are you friggin' kidding me?

[Sigg3.net]

And history (recent or old) depends on someone writing it down, communicating it, documenting it..
I don't think events that occured but no one knew anything about or never documented can be considered history. Although it is true that they happened. So by history is always recorded by winners I mean that it's always the winning, surviving, etc. part that jots it down and decides what the rest of us have to deal with. And people most often naively accepts this as 'truth'.

Take the example by Peter W. Zapffe of two men clutching to a stick of wood after a ship has gone down. The stick can't hold both of them floating, and switching will only exhaust them. Either they agree, or one hits the other and swim away with the stick or whatever else you can have happening in the middle of the ocean.
What will be the truth of that man when he returns as the single survivor? Will he tell how he bravely tried to help his friend? How the other got eaten by a shark? etc.. Whatever the man tells will be the truth for all other parties concerned regardless of what took place.
But that's the catch of communication, isn't it? Ultimately it's based on a single pillar, which is trust.

We're another fine example of people discovering common grounds through dialogue:)

Tragedy of the situation

[Sierpinski]

I have a t-shirt that reads 'Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.' I thought of that shirt while reading this article. When the whole user-controlled wikipedia thing first came out, I thought it was a fantastic idea. Then I hear stories about the whole politicians thing, and I remember the shirt again.

Unfortunately what will happen is that people will keep altering information (and probably not just political info) until the information that is available for any interesting topic will be worthless. Someone who has a bad experience with product X just might go to that site and change everything to tell about how much it sucks, or whatever.

I really like the idea of user-controlled information, especially when the 'users' are pretty much everyone. There are just too many stupid and/or immature people in this world to make it stick. IMO this is a sad day for the internet.

WTF?

[flyinwhitey]

You didn't post anything. You posted summaries of what other people heard someone say.

Don't try that silly shit, Bush's speeches are ALL archived. Post a QUOTE from the MAN HIMSELF.

And this

"had "learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and gas."

DOESN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH SADDAM HUSSEIN.

Stop trying so hard.

Ethical?

[robertjw]

From TFA: ...whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it.

Absolutely not. It would be much more ethical for someone with no interest at all to edit the entries.

Seriously, someone with a vested interest should know the more about any given subject than most. The unethical part would be anyone that knowingly adds lies to an entry.

Re:Those with a vested interest

[slavemowgli]

There's nothing wrong with having a vested interest in the subject of an article. There *is* something wrong with letting that interest influence you - you are expected to abide by the NPOV principle etc., but as long as you do that, things are fine. Granted, you might sometimes accidentally write things in a way that's not entirely NPOV (and I really do mean accidentally, not "accidentally"), but that's something that will just be corrected later on by someone else (or even by yourself, if you notice it).

The real problem is those with an agenda who knowingly and deliberately push that agenda.

History of edits

[cmdrbuzz]

You can already see any of the changes made to Wikipedia pages. Have a look at the history link and you can compare the differences between any of the revisions, not just the 2 next to each other.

Re:Those with a vested interest

[zx75]

Vested Interest:
#1 & #2 are irrelevant
#3 A special interest in protecting or promoting that which is to one's own personal advantage.
#4 vested interests Those groups that seek to maintain or control an existing system or activity from which they derive private benefit.

Knowledgable ends and vested interest begins when the person has something to gain, or something to lose by having a subject being portrayed in a specific way.

its a wikipedia not an encyclopedia

[fritos_hangover]

who cares? its like every single other article in there. people change the article, sometimes according to their own opinion, sometimes with a vested interest. how can they crack down on it all?

Re:Those with a vested interest

[asuffield]

Where does "knowledgeable about" end, and "vested interest" begin?

Somewhere near the foot of Capitol Hill, apparently.

What else is new?

[Syberghost]

It's not like they need help; I monitor half a dozen entries, and they get vandalized all day long.

Somebody went into Osama bin Laden earlier and added "mr starr killed jfk". Don't even get me started on how often "is a man" gets added in various places in Ann Coulter.

Not just congress

[geekee]

There are also corporations, political action committes, lobbyists, and random citizens all political agendas who are interested in distorting entires to meet their objectives.

That's just Wikipedia censorship

[aevans]

Why should Bush supporters be denied the ability to edit the topics they are most familiar with? Simple answer. The owners of wikipedia disagree with their opinion. Why should an expert on RNA synthesis be allowed to post his research? He is obviously too close to the subject matter, and only creationists should be allowed to comment on the subject. If you're going to have a wiki, a source of information that can be edited by all, and if you believe that doing so allows for better dissemination of information, then you have to stand by it. But, in cases where there are just hundreds of paid political staffers with nothing else to do than fight over politicians' articles and it's consuming an inordinate amount of bandwidth and server resources, then restricting editing is reasonable. So too is it reasonable to freeze articles to maintain stability. But then you are not maintaining an open wiki. Things like physical resource limitations and article stabilization are inherent problems that can be dealt with if they are treated as technical issues and not as political issues. But wikipedia sets it's own policy. Just be aware of it when you base your information on it.

Re:duh

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's why they're not scientists.

You're going to find that a lot of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.

Re:Those with a vested interest

[Kelson]

Where does "knowledgeable about" end, and "vested interest" begin?

At the point where you remove/downplay inconvenient truths and play up flattering opinions. And if you get as far as adding fiction, you're way past the line.

It's a conflict of interest issue. You can't be sure whether someone will set aside their interest to make a decision objectively, so you put policies in place to remove the temptation. You see it all the time in local governments where someone has to resign from a committee or abstain from a vote because they own property in an area that's under consideration for being re-zoned, or something similar.

The question is what Wikipedia should do about this. Is it better to remove the temptation, or is it better to keep an eye on the articles and use other pressures to limit/repair the damage?

Complex reasons such as.....OIL!

[Anonymous Coward]

However when honest unbiased historian sit down some day to write the history of war the motivations will be far more complex.

I'm not referring to your comments specifically, even though I'm quoting you :), but I find it hilarious when people say "the war in Iraq isn't about oil."

Because when someone says, "well, why not make a promise to forgo the oil and require that only Iraqi owned companies can extract and sell it?" the response is, "we can't forgo the oil, the reasons are too complex."

What's complex about it? Iraq can own the wells, the extraction and the sale and Exxon or CNOOC can buy it from them and refine it.

By forgoing the oil control, the U.S. would buy much needed credibility in the world. But, of course, the war was always about controlling the oil.

Re:Complex reasons such as.....OIL!

[AHumbleOpinion]

But, of course, the war was always about controlling the oil.

You could make the same statement about World War II in the Pacific. The US turned off Imperial Japan's oil, Imperial Japan pulled out a map to find the closest source, drew a line and noticed that it passed right between rather large US and British naval bases, and so decided to attack the US and the British. Of course saying that either war was all about oil is grossly simplistic and naive, but like WMD, oil is something simple to focus on. A convenient catchword, allows use of large fonts so that a bumber sticker can be read at a distance, ...

The first gulf war was more about oil than the second. An invasion of Saudi Arabia would have had a dramatic effect. The second gulf war was pretty much about removing Saadam, securing the oil was important with respect to reconstruction not with respect to invading in the first place. And that is why disrupting oil is so important to the insurgents. They do not fear US corporations getting their hands on it, hell they'd probably partner with them as they did in the past. They fear the Iraqi government getting their hands on it, using it for reconstruction, establing physical and economic security, ... The insurgents need the instability, they need the US footing the bill for reconstruction, so that they can return to power.

Re:Complex reasons such as.....OIL!

[Anonymous Coward]

The war had to be sold on oil and WMD. CNN thinks acts of war agains the US are a good thing.

Possibly offtopic: Dual party system

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

Since our political system is divided in a very childish way (two parties)

Actually, it's not so childish (and I've given this a lot of thought, as I am also a little dissatisfied with the two-party system).

Here's the gist: The reason why things boil down to two parties more often than not, is because almost all issues/platforms only have two positions to take, and the major two parties tend to take opposite sides of those issues, thereby "absorbing" everyone who is on that side of that issue. Naturally, since the very nature of the issues/controversies is that there is no consensus on what the "good" or "right" decision is, and because there is sometimes very little affinity between any given two issues, you have some odd juxtapositions such as Republicans being pro-life AND pro-death-penalty.

In voting for a candidate who then wins, what you're getting is a situation where the majority of people are satisfied with the positions in the majority party (in theory). Ironically, if a third party were to come in, they would actually do a DISservice not only to the party whose platforms they share positions on (as they dilute the vote of people who believe in that issue) but also to the majority of people!

Here's a simple example. Suppose 60% of the people thought it was time to pay attention to the environment (regardless of party affiliation). These people are divided up between 30% Democratic, 10% Republican, and in an amazing comeback by a charismatic (as-yet-unnamed) representative, 20% Green Party. Meanwhile, the 40% who care more about business than the environment are 35% Republican, 4% Democratic, and 1% Green Party.

So what happens in an election? We get
45% of the votes for Republicans
34% of the votes for Democrats
21% of the votes for Green Party

Meanwhile, assuming an election where there is no Green Party (where 18% go Democratic and 3% go Republican):
48% of the votes for Republicans
52% of the votes for Democrats

Voila, the Green Party has successfully sabotaged the voting interests for the majority of the people. Even though most people wanted something done about the environment, it's not going to get done, as the minority opinion actually won.

This happens whenever a 3rd party shares a disproportionate portion of their interest with one of the existing parties. And it's extremely hard to get away from.

Thus, I concluded that the two-party system, while imperfect, is the best one we have and tends to satisfy the majority of interests, most of the time.

Sorry about the offtopic. I just see your opinion a lot out there.

Re:Possibly offtopic: Dual party system

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Actually, it's the presidency that does it -- what would be multiple parties forming a coalition government in a parliamentary system must band together and form one party to win the presidency -- there is no such thing as a coalition presidency.

Hence all the factions you see banded together do band together, but not for the reasons you've mentioned.

Were the presidency to disappear, we'd see multiple parties form and coalition governments.

> Voila, the Green Party has successfully sabotaged the
> voting interests for the majority of the people.

Binky, the single-ear'd rabbit thingie in Matt "The Simpsons" Groening's "Life in Hell" comic strip said it much better: "Today at school we had elections for class president. We boys only nominated one boy, while the stupid girls all nominated their friends. We all voted for the one boy and won."

Re:Possibly offtopic: Dual party system

[Chuq]

Or, you could use a sensible system like Preferential voting.

There's also a Wikinews article

[cgreuter]

There's also a Wikinews article about it here. It looks like most of the content of the BBC news article comes from it. BoingBoing also talks about it, pointing out that they did (gasp) investigative reporting. That article is here.

Re:duh

[ClamIAm]

And that's why scientists aren't philosophers.

Re:duh

[gg3po]

There is no objective information.

Any liberal arts major can tell you that.

And that's why they're not scientists.

And this kids, is a perfect example of the danger of letting your inflated ego get in the way of science. Sorry. Donning the mantle of scientist does not magically eliminate your personal biases. The *scientific method* may be free of bias, but *you* are not. Nice try.

Pedos and mormons

[Andrew Tanenbaum]

If they block Bush staffers from making changes because they have vested interests, they better also block pedophiles from editing the wikipedia pedophilia article, and block mormons from editing (or reverting truthful edits) the mormonism pages.

Re:duh

[The One and Only]

There is no objective information.

Then what do you call that statement? Is the statement "there are no absolute truths" an absolute truth, too?

Any liberal arts major can tell you that.

Any philosophy major can tell you you're full of shit.

Odd requirement

[dbueno]

Wikipedia says the controversy raises questions about whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it.

So... who gets to edit Human? Should we have exclusively non-mathematicians editing the mathematics pages? Non-philosophers writing about philosophy? It seems the whole *point* of Wikipedia is to get experts to comment on their expertise, for the benefit of many. If experts don't have a vested interest in their own subject, I don't know what a vested interest is.

Pot, Kettle, Black

[njyoder]

Wikipedia says the controversy raises questions about whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it.

The irony of this statement! Just a while ago the Wikipedia community was defending Jimmy Wales as he made controversial and factually incorrect edits to his article. Talk about double standards.

How little we have evolved...

[macraig]

... ethically, that is. For all our alleged superiority over other primates, mammals, and vertebrates, our ethics are still scarcely better and our politics every bit as brutal as that of chimpanzees (yes, they indeed do have politics).

This struggle Wikipedia is facing, trying to prevent deliberate and malfeasant attempts to deceive and misinform, is perfectly demonstrative just how little progress our species has made to evolve beyond the anything-goes constraints of the limbic part of our brains.

Unfortunately, barring or restricting editing rights is not an ethical solution, either: how can anyone be certain that those in full control of Wikipedia won't also abuse the ability and use it to misinform when it suits an agenda?

Mark

Debatepoint

[hitchhacker]

I've created a website to attempt to filter information objectively.
It uses a combination of user supplied arguments and user moderation, where the moderation of the child arguments effect the moderation of the parent argument.

There should be a link to an example in my sig.

-metric

Wikipedia = BLOG

[sunnyflorida]

If it looks like a blog; walks like a blog; and quacks like a blog; it is a blog. When viewing Wikipedia, just like when reading the New York Times or Rueters, you have to say, "interesting, I wonder if it is true."

Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Just have wikipedia have 2 sections for each article. The first section is for all the facts, the second section is for everything else.

There's a difference...

[Anonymous Coward]

...between recognizing the fallibility of human perception and denying the very existence of objective reality. Sorry. Nice try.