US House of Representatives banned from editing Wikipedia following disruptive changes to pages

You mean this isn't actually true?

The biography of former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was edited to say that he was an "alien lizard".

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The folks who write our laws can't be trusted to edit Wikipedia entries?

We are so screwed.

Now we all sit back and wait for the cries of "But.... free speech!!!"

Don said:

The folks who write our laws can't be trusted to edit Wikipedia entries?

We are so screwed.

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It's a stretch to think lawmakers made the edits since they are only accorded to the IP address of what I'm guessing is the edge router. Anyone in the network could have made the edits.

Rumsfeld is no lizard, alien or otherwise. I believe he's some kind of amphibian, though.

LOG said:

It's a stretch to think lawmakers made the edits since they are only accorded to the IP address of what I'm guessing is the edge router. Anyone in the network could have made the edits.

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Yup. My reaction too. I really doubt that any U.S. Congressperson has enough free time or is tech savvy enough to edit Wikipedia articles. Or gives a crap about Wikipedia articles. This smacks of some low-level functionaries who have access to the network.

And could even, in many cases, be pranks.

Oh, yeah, and Rumsfeld is a slime mold. I have it on good authority.

caw

Honestly, after seeing some of the representatives that get into office, them altering Wikipedia wouldn't shock me. Or them telling someone that works for them to do it.

So, can we separate red IP addresses from blue ones? How many are editing their own entries and how many editing others' entries?

Cyia said:

Now we all sit back and wait for the cries of "But.... free speech!!!"

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That would be a fascinating claim from those used to paying for speech with money raised from their supporters.

blacbird said:

Yup. My reaction too. I really doubt that any U.S. Congressperson has enough free time or is tech savvy enough to edit Wikipedia articles. Or gives a crap about Wikipedia articles. This smacks of some low-level functionaries who have access to the network.

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And could even, in many cases, be pranks.

Oh, yeah, and Rumsfeld is a slime mold. I have it on good authority.

caw

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I once saw (and reverted, it's easy enough) some silly vandalism of a minor nonfiction author's wikipedia entry which said he was (among a couple other similar personal things that I forget) incontinent.

Silly vandalism is enough of a thing that that's the Official Wikipedia Name for it.

Don said:

The folks who write our laws can't be trusted to edit Wikipedia entries?

We are so screwed.

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On second reading of the question, those "folks who write our laws" are major financial contributors, and they probably see Wikipedia as irrelevant.

I agree with others, it's surely the interns and other low-level "true believers" who do the vast majority of edits from that IP range. If the Reps themselves or their contributors saw Wikipedia as important, they'd at least be more thoughtful and subtle in their edits.

Don said:

The folks who write our laws can't be trusted to edit Wikipedia entries?

We are so screwed.

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I laughed hard at this, thank you!

America, you are adorable.

Wikipedia administrators have imposed a ban on page edits from computers at the US House of Representatives, following "persistent disruptive editing.

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What good's that gonna do? Proxy anyone?

Don said:

The folks who write our laws can't be trusted to edit Wikipedia entries?

We are so screwed.

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x 10

A FOIA request of the IP addresses and logs for the wikipedia related IP traffic would likely reveal which office or personal machine changed/wrote what. It would not surprise me to see that information coming out in due time.

Considering I've heard of teachers editing Wikipedia entries to find out who is using it as a source and that a senator has been accused of plagiarizing from Wikipedia, I wonder if the motives behind these edits are less than honest and more than pranks.

LOG said:

It's a stretch to think lawmakers made the edits since they are only accorded to the IP address of what I'm guessing is the edge router. Anyone in the network could have made the edits.

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Staffers have a reputation in this area--so yeah, not the actual representatives but certainly people who are meant to be serving the process

Don said:

What, the buck doesn't have to stop anywhere? At the least, these are some of the minions of the CMFIC, ...

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I didn't immediately recognize that series of letters, so I hit Google [I do this regularly without much thought in Firefox - double-click to select a word/acronym, right-click, select Search Google for "CMFIC"], expecting an organization similar to ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), but nooooooooooo ...

Williebee said:

A FOIA request of the IP addresses and logs for the wikipedia related IP traffic would likely reveal which office or personal machine changed/wrote what. It would not surprise me to see that information coming out in due time.

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I recall hearing that a FOIA request can take "some time" to get a response, especially if the request is too general or ill-defined.

But with what has been going on with the IRS and such, I wonder if the response time might become arbitrarily long even for a very specific and well-written request (say, a request for where a specific IP address goes to at a specific time related to a specific Wikipedia edit).

Here's a short article on how to do it from the FDA (especially pay attention to point B), but I recall someone having more info or a blogpost about it. I've got a feeler out requesting the info, but for now:

http://www.fda.gov/RegulatoryInformation/FOI/HowtoMakeaFOIARequest/default.htm


ETA: My "request on FOIA requests" brought up two interesting Twitter feeds:
https://twitter.com/FOIAMachine
https://twitter.com/MuckRock

Hapax Legomenon said:

Considering I've heard of teachers editing Wikipedia entries to find out who is using it as a source and that a senator has been accused of plagiarizing from Wikipedia, I wonder if the motives behind these edits are less than honest and more than pranks.

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I know I shouldn't approve of this at all, but...that's kind of brilliant. Not saying I'd ever do it or recommend anyone do it, but in the neverending quest to make students do their own work, it's pretty impressive.

Interns.


Lock thread.

Don said:

It's by no means the rest of the world. There are plenty of people who know that our leaders regularly lie, cheat and steal in the service of the oligarchy in which they so proudly claim membership. Trust in all government institutions is at an all-time low in general, although that doesn't seem to carry over to this forum. During the Bush regime, many of those with their blinders off were liberals. Apparently who's captain of the ship is more important to a lot of folks than whether the ship of state is headed over a cliff or not.

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And why is political polarization at an all-time high? (one of the drivers of low trust in government)

MOD NOTE:

Derail has been excised and ported to The Landfill.

Carry on, this time with less personal crap, please and thank you.

kaitie said:

I know I shouldn't approve of this at all, but...that's kind of brilliant. Not saying I'd ever do it or recommend anyone do it, but in the neverending quest to make students do their own work, it's pretty impressive.

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I don't know, it might be an urban legend. I think it'd be pretty much impossible these days because wikipedia is so fast to notice and set right these things, and try to take action like this, so it'd be hard to do this to a page that gets any significant traffic, i.e. anything taught in school.

I don't think that would stop reps from attempting, though.

I have a friend (since waaaay back in school) who will probably make it to the Senate, or Governor's office, who probably got an enormous kick out of the edits from high in his lofty office in current government He's too smart to do the editing and probably doesn't actually support it, but I'm sure he thought it was funny.

You know those graduation pranks or Harvard hijinks where the really great students often take part? Like that. That's why interns are notorious for that sort of thing, imho. If that's what it is, then meh, except I bet some do get fired for it, lol.

BTW, this guy I know is really smart and effective and all that. He's just also amused by certain silly things It's juvenile, but I don't think it's a big deal (and graduation pranks are awesome!).