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Congress Made Wikipedia Changes

Posted by samzenpus on from the revisionist-history dept.

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."

2 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Additional resource by dlc3007 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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

  2. Read WikiNews for the rest of the story by TimTheFoolMan · · Score: 3, Informative
    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