Slashdot Mirror
See Who Is Whitewashing Wikipedia
Decius6i5 writes "Caltech grad student Virgil Griffith has launched a search tool that uncovers whitewashing and other self-interested editing of Wikipedia. Users can generate lists of every edit to Wikipedia which has been made from a particular IP address range. The tool has already uncovered a number of interesting edits, such as one from the corporate offices of Diebold which removed large sections of content critical of their electronic voting machines. A Wired story provides more detail and Threat Level is running a contest to see who can come up with the most interesting Wikipedia spin job."
I was fascinated by the CIA's edits... mostly adding details... and this:
"One CIA entry deals with the details of lyrics sung in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode."
Nerds.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Mediawiki has already added the capability to look at the Special:Contributions for an IP range. I'm not sure if it's been enabled yet on EN.
What did you expect? Everyone has different truths.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
How long before the savy ones start hiding? On another note I could also see this as a tool companies use to find wiki whistleblowers.
An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
Yet another case of anti-Wikipedia prejudice. Diebold has been editing the content of Encyclopedia Britannica since at least the 7th edition, but the mainstream press never even bothers to report on *that* kind of thing!
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
One of the pages on my watchlist is Adrian Smith (R - Nebraska, third district). About once a month, an anon IP or recently-created user account tries to whitewash his WP article by removing unflattering sourced details about his campaign contributors.
If you want to follow along in the fun, view the article history.
It's a bit of a pity that the more successful a source of information like Wikipedia becomes, the more likely it is that some twat is going to try and adopt it for their own ends.
Peter
in many ways the wikipedia vs britannica debate is a lot like open vs closed source. One you know what changes are being made and can decipher intent, the other is anyone's guess. Wikipedia may have its shortcomings-- but at least we can see them.
How about instead of going after corporate IP addresses, a study of the corrupted power structure, administrator abuses, and Linda Mack/Jayjg? The problems are not from IP address on the outside. The problem is that there are not and have never been any objective criteria for delegating power to accounts, and while I don't know if it's a majority or not, a very good plurality of administrators believe their purpose is to use their power to ensure articles reflect only their point of view, and anyone that tries to change that, even with multiple citations and sources, find themselves personally attacked wikilawyered, and often blocked. There is no system separate from the administrators to handle this kind of abuse, so it almost never is addressed. Sure, edits from organizational IP addresses can be annoying, but they wield no power in the system, and cannot hurt anyone. Administrators and bureaucrats, they have a bad habit of supporting vandals and trolls that are later banned by Wikipedia, and harassing users that have not been able to protect themselves by becoming administrators, as being elevated to administrator largely depends on the desires of the current administrators, who are very adept at gaming the system. It is almost impossible to become an administrator unless you have the same character flaws as those in power. It's the iron law of bureaucracy; those that seek power and only power, to the detriment of the organization, seize and hold power. Wikipedia is a failed experiment, it failed a long time ago due to structural deficiencies, and the attention it continues to receive is like a bad addiction on the part of internet users.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Oh wait, I'm not important enough to have anything to whitewash.
Yeah, only the really important people are allowed to have picket fences...
This guy's the limit!
. . . their own truthiness?
Or, more politely, I think you're mistaken.
There's no magical incantation that makes an "open, transparent" information editing environment inheirently better. You just get a different bias, and it's more difficult to figure out where that bias is coming into play.
With Brittanica, you have a (known) establishment bias. With a Boeing sales brochure, you have a (known) "areospace is the ultimate industry" bias. What you generally see on Wikipedia are astounding examples of groupthink. Wikipedia's NPOV is a bias, make no mistake. And just because you can "see" the bias of article editors, that doesn't mean that the bias of the "Wikipedians" is easier to find, define, or overcome. All this does is make one type of bias more obvious. That doesn't solve the problem.
All content contains a bias. Knowing that is a good starting point for interpreting the content. This project is fine, as far as it goes. But implying (as you seem to) that somehow Wikipedia wonks are more trustworthy and less biased than other editors is, well, silly.
There's no "bonus" here
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
or the political bias at times that persists in Wikipedia?
Their top level admins are no where near as impartial as they claim to be. Obvious subjects to avoid on Wikipedia are those which are based on religious, political, or environmental, concerns. People have taken "maintaining" those types of entries to ridiculous levels that whole pages of discussion exist behind the page where the various factions bitch at each other. The best way to see the bias is to watch what they require to have accredited links and what they do not, let alone what sites they consider credible sources for disputed information.
While it has much useful information there are just certain subjects to avoid
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Too many connections in /jizz4/web/wikipedia/docs/name2ip.php on line 154
?!?!?!
Sony ha
When I was in college, I took a history course in which we read three different books on slavery in the United States — one from the 1860s, one from the 1950s, and another from the 1990s. Obviously, they all had completely different spins on the reality of slavery. The goal of the assignment wasn't so much to learn about slavery as it was to learn about the three different time periods perception of slavery.
I think that these "edits" can provide us an interesting insight into the real issues, and how the public perceives them, and how various invested parties would like the public to perceive them. As long as there is transparency to the edits (and clearly, there is), I think a lot can be learned from the edits themselves.
—brian
about dropping down to the local cafe and doing it on their wireless?
I'm glad someone added the slashdotliberalwhining tag.
I can't tell you how much it bothers me when some whiny liberal drags out another tinfoil-hat theory about how "Big Business" is trying to manipulate public opinion by obfuscating facts, or how some (ooh!) big, scary police state is abusing its powers.
We're an established first-world country with a tradition of freedom, and it's not as if we're ever going to slip into fascism like the Germany or Italy of last century, or into a police state like modern China or Russia, or into a gilded age aristocracy like every country in the Americas except the United States and Canada.
So relax, whiny liberals. Such dangers are unheard of. If we seem to be slipping in any of those directions, just shut up and take it like a conservative - silently and complacently, without a doubt in your mind that no matter how badly things seem to be going, our superiors have things well in hand. Only losers whine about truth and decency. If you're a winner, you'll cheer for the winning side, no matter how repugnant its aims.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
I submitted it to the Wired blog, but it's worth sharing here: in March, I caught two SCO editors whitewashing Wikipedia. One did a massive chop-and-run on the SCO article. The other was complaining about the article on SCO's CEO, Darl McBride. I have checkuser - the ability to find the IP addressed used by logged in users. I found out that both of those users originated from SCO corporate IP addresses.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
...and for the record, everyone in Germany from 1939-1945 was out on holiday.
Now this was just silly . . .
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Let's look at a few facts about Wikipedia: 1. Virtually anybody can edit most articles in their encyclopedia. 2. Wikipedia is widely known, popular, and many Internet users regularly visit the website for information. Rather than a conspiracy to manipulate information, likely many of these edits were done by employees without official authorization. It is likely that somebody connected to a company, organization, or political compaign casually ran into the Wikipedia entries and decide to make "corrections" based upon their own point-of-view. Even the Slashdot article in Wikipedia has had quite a bit of so-called whitewashing to remove criticism, which I presume to be by slashdotters. Personallly, edits become of concern when they are attempts to manipulate, mislead, or contain false information. Or, if the edits were done to harm or deface a rival Wikipedia entry (i.e. a Repubilican candidate editing a Democratic candidate's entry).
By what standard?
It has, in fact, become a generally useful source of information. It's useful as a starting point for real research. It is, in short, not at all a bad encyclopedia.
It's influenced by its own organizational culture and editorial bias. Welcome to the story of every publication on the planet.
Tweet, tweet.
Does anyone happen to know the IP address range used by the Discovery Institute? They're constantly complaining about Wikipedia's Intelligent Design article, and related articles. I'd love to find out if they've been editing.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
The RfAs are not a good procedure for elevating anyone to administrator, as the most actively involved are administrators, I'm not entirely certain it's a straight majority vote (all votes may not be equal, if administrators are given more weight, the power of the oligarchy increases), and an infinitely small percentage of users vote on RfAs. It is extremely uncommon for an abusive administrator to be stripped of powers. The system is not designed to remove abusive administrators via any established procedure or independent third-party mechanism. I can count the incidents where abusive administrators have been punished on one hand, two at most.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Just about every Wikipedia article has a spin to it. People feel that it is unbiased only when it shares their bias. Even if it is 100% factual odds are that the author will present those facts the way that he or she sees them.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
It's possible that many of the edits are NOT deliberate corporate acts. Rather, I would imagine a prideful employee may see some controversial items in the article and would rather see them removed. I can see a situation where I uncover a defamatory comment about my company in wikipedia. I would likely interpret it as sensationalism or determine it to be minor compared to the accomplishments of my company. After all, why focus on a few minor negatives when the positives should shine through? Some may call it spin, but I could argue the "controversy" sections fit into the same category. So how does this relate to the article? Even dedicated employees need 15 min. break to browse wikipedia once in a while. So a random employee edits at work without any real company input and voila, slashdot labels the company as corrupt for having whitewashed the article.
Whose "objective, external reality" are you referring to? Our wonderfully objective media? All of the oh-so objective Slashdotters?
There is no such thing as an "objective, external reality". All things viewed and/or reported by a human being are subjective.
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
The RfA process is not just a vote, but a discussion of possible issues that might disqualify a candidate. Nonetheless, very few candidates with less than 75%-80% approval are ever appointed.
You are also misinformed about the removal of admin privileges: In the English Wikipedia alone, there have been 37 cases of it, and the Arbitration process is designed to deal with such abuses and has the authority to penalize them.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Wow. You make that sound almost as bad as the Anonymous Coward's on slashdot...
Sure, but so are scandal sheets. You don't rely on them for accuracy or reliable information.
Not a brilliant comparison, since Wikipedia, by and large, is in fact useful for a large number of knowledge domains.
What if this example, Wikipedia, has a particularly deleterious organizational culture, and an extremely rampant and calcified editorial bias? The problem is not the existence of an organizational culture or editorial bias, but to the degree that it is existent.
I'm skeptical because the results I see don't suggest this is a crippling problem. I'm familiar with some of the problematic stories about the organization, but the bottom line is that nearly everything I've been in a position to verify has turned out to be defensbile at worst, and usually factual or accurate.
Tweet, tweet.
Or contemplate "This statement is false" as a mind bender.
Cheers.
G
"Plurality should not be posited without necessity." - William of OccamDiploma mills are frauds who give out realist looking university diplomas, complete with grade and course itemization, to anyone who will pay for them. No need to have any real knowledge or take any real courses, just as long as you can pay.
Many of them try to justify it by saying that they evaluate the persons "life experience" to judge whether the person is worthy of the diploma, but in reality most of them just give the diplomas to anyone who pays the fees.
It is pretty obvious that the diplomas are used by their buyers to get jobs for lying about their abilities, i.e. pretty much plain fraud.
I noticed that the articles of diploma mills are frequent targets of whitewash (see fx this). I don't know for certain who the whitewashers are, but I assume it is either the diploma mills themselves (most like), or people holding the diplomas and afraid to be exposed. Many of Wikipedia's articles rank highly in Google, so they are an important target.
I have a number of diploma mills in my watchlist, and sometimes I have to revert whitewashing every day...
edit 1
edit 2
The IP addresses can be confirmed to be from BBH with whois: -molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Not really. Anarchism wouldn't have a near all powerful elite sitting on top of a very large mass of editors. I don't think anarchism would work either, but I wouldn't call Wikipedia anarchist in style. I think it's a failed largely unstructured bureaucracy.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
I'm not surprised that the character traits of people who would make good CIA employees would also be attracted to Wikipedia.
Ok let's think about this for a minute. I edit Wikipedia. I'm editing an article on ... which is a likely title
A. Legend of Zelda
B. The mating habits of beetles.
C. The list of solar systems that begin with B discovered in 1945.
Well A. is the most likely, and that's my point. The people editing these articles HAVE interest in them. So Diebold got caught? No let's look at the edit and decide if it was acceptable (and likely it wasn't) but just because someone removes something that is related to them doesn't mean it's not a correct edit.
It's not ok for Diebold to remove the offensive article's text, but if an employee of Diebold who got fired "unfairly" put it there that's ok? Are we now going to decide that a person having an interest in a topic is wrong. If all I edit is information about lockpicking does that mean I work at a lock manufacturer and thus can't be trusted?
The whole point I'm trying to make is we need to look at the EDIT not the editor to decide if changes are fair. Wikipedia is community edited and some people are trying to say that if you're involved with the article's target you're not able to edit. So really should wikipedia be "community edited except for people who work with the article" or should we reevaluate the standards by which we point out "partisanship".
Btw if you choose the second choice above that means we can't have any experienced people talk about the article which is the problem. If I own an iPhone I can't write about in wikipedia so all we then have is second hand experience with products and PR postings. Like I said the solution is to stop worrying about WHO edits wikipedia and instead focus on edits being done to wikipedia.
If I want to look at say the last 100 edits of a page, doing so manually clicking in the history page would be way too much work and too cumbersome to the point that I would never do that. If on the other hand it was possible to download the history and use a local version control tool to get a list of the last 100 edits shown as a continuous list of patches it would be easy to look through all changes and I would do so often I guess.
More transparency of editing history can only be good, and I think such a tool is much needed.
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
"Really, conspiracy theorists are just histrionic megalomaniacs. Rather myopic ones at that."
The only myopic people are those who swallow the line of the mainstream media verbatim, even when it contradicts itself and easily verifiable facts. The belief that only your government and media is much like believing that only your God is real and all the rest are fairy stories.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
For those who are interested, the author of the above comment (MSTCrow5429) has been blocked several times on Wikipedia for making personal attacks on other editors.
His current project appears to be shilling for Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma)'s position denying anthropogenic climate change by citing out-of-date and rejected journal articles. By so doing, he appears to be neglecting important Wikipedia policies demanding reliable sources and requiring material be presented from a neutral point of view.
Sour grapes much? While I certainly agree that there are aspects of Wikipedia that deserve both criticism and scrutiny, I am somewhat disinclined to trust the judgement of MSTCrow on this.
~Idarubicin
Not for his partisan political opinions, but for his explanation of "evil". He's perfectly correct. Evil is basically a religious construct, and deserves just as much of a place in our understanding of our world as other religious concepts, like creationism, and the will of God, etc, etc.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.