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Who is editing wikipedia?

Forums: Politics, Wikipedia, God Of Knowledge
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wikipedia edits... who is doing them?

Quote:

How Republicans, Democrats, and Diebold fix Wikipedia
Wired News' John Borland had quite a fun story yesterday about a new tool to track down folks who are anonymously editing articles in Wikipedia.

An MIT grad student named Virgil Griffith developed the tool, called Wikipedia Scanner, after hearing about congressional aides who were fixing their bosses' WP entries. The service is a database of all anonymous edits to Wikipedia organized according to the Internet addresses of well-known groups: Want to know what people with Democratic National Committee IP addresses were doing on Wikipedia? Go here. (Among other things, such folks were calling Rush Limbaugh a "racist" and a "jerkoff.") Or check out the Republican Party's record, including this alteration of the U.S. "occupying" Iraq to our "liberating" it. [Note: Direct links to Wikipedia Scanner don't seem to be working right now; that's likely because everyone online is checking it out.]

Among the many other organizations whose edits you can track are Diebold, the faulty voting-machine company; Wal-Mart; ExxonMobil; Fox News; The New York Times; and Al Jazeera.

Wired's Threat Level blog is running a search for the most shameful self-promoting Wikipedia edits uncovered by the new tool. The leading contender, now, is Diebold's deletions of criticisms of its voting technology -- but if you unearth any yourself, be sure to let me (and Threat Level) know.

http://machinist.salon.com/
wired article... http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/08/wiki_tracker

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Type: Discussion • Score: 3 • Views: 9,868 • Replies: 145

I have never trusted Wikipedia for facts simply because anyone and everyone had free rein to edit it, now we know who edits.

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From your article, one would believe those evil conservatives are solely responsible for editing wikipedia...

Companies and party aides cast censorious eye over Wikipedia

Democrat party

Somebody using a computer inside Democrat HQ edited a page on conservative American radio host Rush Limbaugh, calling him "idiotic", "ridiculous" and labelling his 20 million listeners as "legally retarded".

NYT Bias Graphically Illustrated

Someone at the New York Times contributed the following edit to the Wikipedia page for "George W. Bush:" inserting the word "jerk" repeatedly.

Not really surprising though is it? Hell, I have even edited wikipedia...

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Wikipedia is tremendously useful for getting handles on technical subjects for which no real controversy exists.

For anything involving any sort of a controversy, particularly in cases of general paradigm controversies, wiki is basically worthless; you can assume that one side of whatever it is is being shut out.

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Re: Who is editing wikipedia?

blatham wrote:

wikipedia edits... who is doing them?

Quote:
.........
An MIT grad student named Virgil Griffith developed the tool, called Wikipedia Scanner, after hearing about congressional aides who were fixing their bosses' WP entries. ...........

http://machinist.salon.com/
wired article... http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/08/wiki_tracker

The grad student is at Caltech, but otherwise Wikipedia is notorious for the unreliability of every entry except, as noted by Gunga, technical subjects.

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"Wiki scanner", by Virgil Griffith (California Institute of Technology)

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I'd say it's a victory for wikipedia. The people who did this got caught and get put in a really bad light across the world. You'd never see this happen in any other media, even though it occurs just as often.

Hooray for open source.

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Going back to school over the last couple of years has given me a really unique perspective on wikki. Last time I was in school there was no publicly accessable internet, so I really paid attention when my teachers discussed how to use internet resources. In my first semester we were absolutly forbidden to use wikki. We all still did, we just found other research to support or confute what we found there and then didn't site it in our references.

In otherwords we used it as a jumping point.

Now it is considered a fairly reliable source, but just like any other source you need to be able to back up it's assertions with a few more resources, which any good researcher does anyway.

This is just another example of what your persuasive writing teachers have been telling you since the 5th grade. Don't put all your eggs in one basket and research thoroughly.

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Ted Frank (a.k.a. THF) Has Altered the
'SiCKO' Wikipedia Page 94 Times

http://www.michaelmoore.com/

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Isn't everything we read or hear someone's viewpoint or possibly incorrect, even if it's technical? Is there any media that gives the objective truth?

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Foofie wrote:

Isn't everything we read or hear someone's viewpoint or possibly incorrect, even if it's technical? Is there any media that gives the objective truth?

There are a lot of pernicious simplicities floating about but this one sits up near the top of my list.

As an epistemological stance, is so uncareful in thought that it is almost completely unhelpful. Worse, it doesn't clarify, it confuses and obfuscates. It's comparable to saying that everyone lies. That's true (lots of sociological work to support the claim) but does that mean a judge ought to assume that the murderer (convicted of lots of priors) in front of him will testify with the same unknown veracity as the policeman or victim at that same trial?

I don't think I've bumped into Foofie before but I'll wager that the fellow/fellowess has a fondness for Fox and considers himself/herself on the right, politically. I'll make that wager because the notion expressed above is a commonplace in rightwing commentary. Am I right?

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I've only ever seen Foofie in philosophy threads, and in the context of "what can/what can't be known" discussions, or, if one prefers, "no objectivity" discussions.

To me, it is highly revealing that Mr. Mountie judges this member, and judges this member pejoratively, based upon a highly particular and contemporary political criterion. It is entirely possible that there are many, many people in this world who don't filter every damned thing they see or hear through a North American political filter.

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Setanta wrote:

To me, it is highly revealing that Mr. Mountie judges this member, and judges this member pejoratively, based upon a highly particular and contemporary political criterion.

However, judged on the posts I've seen of Foofie on political threads, Mr. Mountie happened to be right.

Seems to me like he was simply just on to something here..

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Set wrote:

Quote:

To me, it is highly revealing...

Apparently, revelation comes to you with a similar facility as it does to me.

Happy to be wrong about the poster. What led me to my surmise/wager was the wording in the sentence noted below.

Quote:

"Is there any media that gives the objective truth?"

That's rather more reminiscent of modern rightwing boilerplate than a serious address to the epistemological issues.

But as I said, happy to be wrong. If so, we'll note it and you, Set, can go take a soothing bubble bath.

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The Internet. It's influence on our way of life and thinking is only just beginning to reveal itself.

It provides massive amounts of information to an enormous number of people, but it's anyone's guess if the sources are reliable.

Seems to me that the difference between now and pre-internet times are that far more people have access to the information, and there is a greater appreciation that the reliability of the sources is questionable.

All in all, a step forward.

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Foofie wrote:

Isn't everything we read or hear someone's viewpoint or possibly incorrect, even if it's technical? Is there any media that gives the objective truth?

I tend to agree with this post. There is so much self-serving propaganda out there to consume. From both vantage points, I believe.

If anyone is wondering whether my personal politics is left or right, it is not right, but rather "correct," in my opinion. I was always taught: don't bite the hand that feeds you. This country feeds me; Europe and other lesser known parts of this planet don't feed me. I owe them no allegiance. I owe this country my allegiance, having "pledged allegiance" thousands of times during my early schooling.

I don't dislike the "left." I just feel that that perspective is like the old joke about every kid in the lunchroom feeling sorry for the "orphan" (that had no one to make a lunch for him to bring to school), so everyone gave half their sandwich to the orphan. Voila, the orphan had a pile of food; everyone else had half a sandwich.

For those who think I'm wrong, just using arithmetic, count up this country's losses during all the wars we've been in (many for the benefit of others). We've earned our superpower position, and our economic hegemony in the world. Sorry, if that offends anyone.

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Foofie wrote:

Foofie wrote:
Isn't everything we read or hear someone's viewpoint or possibly incorrect, even if it's technical? Is there any media that gives the objective truth?

I tend to agree with this post. There is so much self-serving propaganda out there to consume. From both vantage points, I believe.

If anyone is wondering whether my personal politics is left or right, it is not right, but rather "correct," in my opinion. I was always taught: don't bite the hand that feeds you. This country feeds me; Europe and other lesser known parts of this planet don't feed me. I owe them no allegiance. I owe this country my allegiance, having "pledged allegiance" thousands of times during my early schooling.

Considering most of the products you consume come from overseas, you might want to reconsider what it means to "bite the hand that feeds you."

Quote:

I don't dislike the "left." I just feel that that perspective is like the old joke about every kid in the lunchroom feeling sorry for the "orphan" (that had no one to make a lunch for him to bring to school), so everyone gave half their sandwich to the orphan. Voila, the orphan had a pile of food; everyone else had half a sandwich.

And your attempt at an analogy fails miserably since the left has never given half of what everyone has to anyone.

Quote:

For those who think I'm wrong, just using arithmetic, count up this country's losses during all the wars we've been in (many for the benefit of others). We've earned our superpower position, and our economic hegemony in the world. Sorry, if that offends anyone.

I am not sure what you mean by this? Are you referring to the limited loss of US troops compared to many other countries. If we add up the US losses in WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam we don't even begin to match the French losses in WW1. We don't even make it to the British losses in WW1. That ignores that the largest losses by any country were by the USSR. Germany also lost millions more than the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

Even if we include 700,000 deaths of the US civil war we don't begin to match what some other countries have lost.

What kind of arithmetic were you using?
Certainly you are entitled to your opinion but you are not entitled to your own system of counting.

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I doubt Foofie needs me to speak for him, but I agree with his premise and so will respond from my own persective.

It's certainly not a question of pure historical death count, and such an interpretation is, at best, disingenuous.

The calculus is the number of American dead as a result of military intercessions which, arguably, favored the interests of others (including those of Humanity) more so than the interests of America.

WWI is a good example.

The Europeans brought hellfire down upon themselves.America could very easily of sat that one out and, some would rationally argue,perhaps should have.

Less clearly, but still arguable, America had, ultimately, far less at stake in WWII than did Europe. Even after Pearl Harbor, isolationists made credible arguments that America's best course was to stay out of WWII altogether.

Who had more to gain from our declaring war on Japan? Us or China?

Who had more to gain from us declaring war on Germany? Us or Europe?

Then came Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia, Bosnia and Iraq.

Even if we view the first two as proxy wars, we need ask ourselves what was the acute interest of America, and what was the implication for the rest of the world if the Other Side won?

You can have your arguments with American policy and conduct, but one has to question your capacity for rational thought if you believe the world would be better off with the Soviets or the Chinese as the worlds lone superpower.

Has America entered the fray to advance it's own interests? Yes - absolutely.

The fundamental difference between America and all other great powers is that America factors the interests of others into its calculus, and it is more than a conqueror.

We would own the world if we were like all of the other Empires in history.

This fact alone distinquishes America with glory.

Amazingly enough, Progressives-Liberals who call for an understanding of contex and the greyness of life, tend to demand absolutism from America.

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Quote:

Less clearly, but still arguable, America had, ultimately, far less at stake in WWII than did Europe. Even after Pearl Harbor, isolationists made credible arguments that America's best course was to stay out of WWII altogether.

That has to be the funniest excuse I have ever seen as to why the US entered the WW2. They only did it to save others.

You know Finn.. You really do yourself a disservice trying to make that argument. WW2 is the ONE war that Americans actually lost a fair number of soldiers. Not as many as any of the other major players, but talk about rewriting history to claim anyone made a credible argument that had any possibility of being listened to after we were attacked.

Perhaps you could point me to the close vote in the Congress for the declaration of war. I'm sure it must have been a squeaker with such a credible argument being put forward to NOT declare war.

History is a horrible thing....
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5635
It makes it difficult for people to rewrite it. Senate vote 82-0. House vote 388-1

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parados wrote:

Quote:
Less clearly, but still arguable, America had, ultimately, far less at stake in WWII than did Europe. Even after Pearl Harbor, isolationists made credible arguments that America's best course was to stay out of WWII altogether.

That has to be the funniest excuse I have ever seen as to why the US entered the WW2. They only did it to save others.

You know Finn.. You really do yourself a disservice trying to make that argument. WW2 is the ONE war that Americans actually lost a fair number of soldiers. Not as many as any of the other major players, but talk about rewriting history to claim anyone made a credible argument that had any possibility of being listened to after we were attacked.

Perhaps you could point me to the close vote in the Congress for the declaration of war. I'm sure it must have been a squeaker with such a credible argument being put forward to NOT declare war.

History is a horrible thing....
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5635
It makes it difficult for people to rewrite it. Senate vote 82-0. House vote 388-1

Pearl Harbor was attacked because the U.S. Navy was blockading Japanese shipping, I thought. So, it was the only thing for Japan to do; attack the U.S. Why was the U.S. blockading Japanese shipping, or the lendlease to Britain? I suspect it was for the benefit of other nations.

The U.S. has been victorious in wars, yet has not vanquished enemies. That's why today Germany is a thriving industrial nation; so is Japan.

It is very hard to respond intelligently to a poster if one doesn't know from where that poster posts (country). It would be nice to know if one is responding to a U.S. citizen, or a citizen of another country.

What I meant in my earlier post, about the number of losses of U.S. military, was that many of these wars the U.S. was sacrificing its own people for the benefit of other nations. Yes, those other nations lost more people, but they had no choice as to whether to be in a war or not. The U.S. joined wars to save other nations, and in effect sacrificed its own people.

The U.S. is the only superpower, and the world should be thankful (grateful is probably the more correct feeling) it is the U.S. and not some other nation with possibly less honorable intentions.

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