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The Man Who Guards Clinton's Wikipedia Entry

Posted by kdawson on from the lonely-vigil dept.

Timothy found a profile in The New Republic of Jonathan Schilling, a 53-year-old software developer from New Jersey who works to keep Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia entry clean and fair throughout the election season. "After he started editing her page in June 2005, Schilling became consumed with trying to capture her uncomfortable place in American culture, researching and writing a whole section on how she polarizes the public... [T]he attacks on Hillary's page mainly take the form of crude vandalism... It's different on Obama's page, where the fans — no surprise — are more enthusiastic, the haters are more intelligent, and the arguments reflect the fact that Obama himself is still a work under construction... The bitterness of the fights on Obama's page could be taken as a bad sign for the candidate. But it may actually be Hillary's page that contains the more troubling omens. Few, if any, Hillary defenders are standing watch besides Schilling. In recent days, the vaguely deserted air of a de-gentrifying neighborhood has settled over her page..."

9 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. Losing my faith in politics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Maybe I'm just getting older, but this election is really making me lose my faith in the political process. Elections seem to be nothing but bitter slander now. Sure, it's always been that way to some degree, but at least Bill Clinton's first run in the early 1990s, for all the debate and polemics involved, managed to be entertaining (remember Primary Colors ?). This whole process, on the other hand, is just sad.

    1. Re:Losing my faith in politics by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No, I think you're just getting older. Read about the U.S. presidential election in 1828 between John Q. Adams and Andrew Jackson. They really brought out the mudslinging: Jackson's marriage got attacked while Adams was accused releasing an American servant girl to the Czar of Russia to appease his sexual appetite.

      The thing is that bitter mudslinging is good for the process in some ways -- the First Amendment allows us to talk trash about the political candidates and some might be true, some not, but in the end, the real truth usually surfaces.

      --
      My blog
    2. Re:Losing my faith in politics by beakerMeep · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In some ways I chalk this up to the media. They have become increasingly good over the years at capitalizing on scandal and drama with reductionist articles like this one. Stereotyping the arguments and behaviors of each cap in order to enrage the other and you have yourself an anger inspiring sound bite a talking head can use to sell some commercials. I'll be willing to bet if you look at what candidates themselves are saying it isn't, to any drastic extent, more or less intelligent than 20 or 30 years ago. But if you look to open public internet forums for ideas on politics you may come across some people literally frothing at the mouth posting any sort of stab they can think of on both sides.

      So yeah considering Wikipedia as some kind of "omen" of general consensus among voters just makes me think of the jokes (from SNL i think?) around when WP was created like: "Wikipedia this July will celebrate America's 600th anniversary of independence thanks to General Hello Kitty's heroic strategies in the war with China."

      --
      meep
    3. Re:Losing my faith in politics by aproposofwhat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I miss the John McCain from 2000.

      As you say above, he's sold out to get the nomination.

      Now that he has the nomination, I'd expect him to return to his 2000 persona - by far the most sensible Republican that I can remember (though Bush Senior wasn't too bad - he just upset the pro-Israel lobby by threatening to cut subsidies if they didn't stop illegal settlements).

      All I can say from a British standpoint is that we certainly would prefer it if you didn't elect Hilary ;P

      --
      One swallow does not a fellatrix make
  2. It's just a property of wikipedia by rve · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's not just Hillary Clinton's page.
    Just for a laugh, check how often pages on completely neutral and uncontroversial subjects are vandalized.

    The Carrot (vegetable)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carrot&action=history

    Just in the past week:
    - Replacing the entire page with "carrots cause wicked diarrhea"
    - Replacing paragraph headers with "==Uses== (I LOVE NICK JONAS) .com! everything free!"

  3. Re:Original research? by grimJester · · Score: 4, Interesting

    True, the research may be searching for sources. It still looks like he has his own ideas he wants to get across. That might count as POV rather than original research, but is still not very objective. From tfa:

    "At the same time, he also believes Hillary the woman is widely misunderstood. "One of the things I've tried to get across in the article was how much people were impressed by her before she got married to Bill," he says."

  4. Re:I find it interesting... by squiggleslash · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is true, but it's still worth being careful. The word "Cretin", for instance, is (ultimately, via a level of indirection) derived from the word "Christian"; for those who know the etymology it's generally wise to be careful about whose company you use the word in.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  5. OT comment on her body language by Froze · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I finally decided to watch one of her speeches the other night and discovered that she has an amazingly obvious tell. If you pay attention to her head motion you sill see that every time she make an affirmative statement she nods her head (as if to agree with herself). Contrary, every time she make a negative statement she shakes her head from side to side. There is also a diagonal gesture to accompany the ambiguous statements as well. She does this for every fact that she speaks, however if you watch her head during her declaratory statements, she does the same thing, but these are the promises she is supposed to be making and she will actually show which ones she really believes in. For instance at one point she made a statement to the effect that

    .. this will provide health care for all Americans while simultaneously shaking her head as if to say no, not really, not all - only some.

    When I watched her speech and payed attention to her body language, almost all the "good" parts (IMNSHO) are qualified as negative or ambiguous and all the self serving political promises are affirmative. If anyone else cares to post some specific examples that lay out what her real intentions are I would gladly like to see them.

    --
    -- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
  6. Re:Self-appointed dictator? by sheldon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's pretty common for any wiki entries relating to current political events. Any criticism will be removed.

    For instance looking at John McCain, there is some small mention of the Keating Five but it's limited to simply saying "He survived it", Which is interesting considering it is probably the biggest blight on his career. It doesn't even acknowledge the lessons he learned from that, which one can either see as smart politics, or cynicism. That being, when caught with your hand in the cookie jar, attack the makers of cookies. aka his "Maverick" quest for political reform.

    Or if you want to get into games of political gotcha. There is no mention at all of his quotes on not knowing anything about the economy, or wanting us to stay in Iraq for 100 years.

    Whether criticism is fair or not is entirely dependent upon your biases.