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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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 Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 2:37 pm Post subject: Companies and party aides cast censorious eye over Wikipedia |
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| Quote: | Companies and party aides cast censorious eye over Wikipedia
* Bobbie Johnson, technology correspondent
* The Guardian
* Wednesday August 15 2007
Wikipedia
Wikipedia entries ranging from Labour Students to a US supplier of voting machines have undergone some massaging
Editing your own entry on Wikipedia is usually the province of vain celebrities keen for some good PR. But a new website has uncovered dozens of companies that have been editing the site in order to improve their public image.
The Wikipedia Scanner, which trawls the backwaters of the popular online encyclopaedia, has unearthed a catalogue of organisations massaging entries, including the CIA and the Labour party.
Workers operating on CIA computers have been spotted editing entries including the biography of former presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, while unnamed individuals inside the Vatican have worked on entries about Catholic saints - and Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.
Meanwhile, an anonymous surfer from Labour's Millbank headquarters excised a section about Labour Students which referred to "careerist MPs" and criticisms that the party's student movement was no longer seen as radical.
And somebody from a computer traced to 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".
But the biggest culprit that the Scanner claims to have discovered is Diebold, a supplier of voting machines, which it says has made huge alterations to entries about its involvement in the controversial "hanging chad" election in the US in 2000. The company was criticised in the wake of the disputed results, but edits made by its employees on Wikipedia have included the removal of 15 paragraphs detailing the allegations.
"In August 2003 Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold, announced that he had been a top fundraiser for George W Bush ..." the deleted text read. "When assailed by critics for the conflict of interest ... he vowed to lower his political profile."
The change, made two years ago, was quickly reversed and the culprit warned off for "vandalism". A Diebold official was not available for comment.
It is not the first time people have been found editing their own Wikipedia entries, which is considered a breach of etiquette on the site. Last year some US Congressional staff were found to be removing information they deemed unsavoury from the profiles of the politicians they worked for, and this year computer group Microsoft back-pedalled after it was revealed to have offered money to experts to "correct" entries about it on the site.
The Scanner, built by Virgil Griffith, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, works by comparing 5.3m edits made on the encyclopaedia against the internet addresses of more than 2m companies or individuals.
Edited entries
Republican party
Apparently replaced the term "occupying forces" with "liberating" in an article referring to the Iraq war. Somewhat less controversially, a Republican staffer also rewrote a biography of American revolutionary leader George Rogers Clark.
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".
Fox News
Users traced back to the rightwing TV station have edited a number of pages about its presenters, including excising information about reporter Shepard Smith, who became infamous after saying "blowjob" on air.
CIA
Alongside numerous revisions about America's national security and geography, a surfer using a CIA address also took the time to add extensive sections on lightsabre combat in the Star Wars movies.
Labour party
A section on Labour Students was edited to remove a section on the rise of the career politician. "It is sometimes claimed that Labour Students has helped the rise of careerists within the party at the expense of more radical leftwingers," said the deleted text. |
heres the site http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/
also this site http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/vote-on-the-top.html shows some interesting edits ... diebold repeatedly deleting all criticism of its voting machines, walmart changing "it pays around 20% less than most other retail stores" to "the average wage is double the federal minimum wage" etc and someone changing george walker bush to george wanker bush  |
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Mandy
Joined: 07 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 3:57 pm Post subject: |
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Who owns & controls these big sites (including facebook) is becoming ever more relevant.
The following article about possible (they claim 100% proof) of manipulation is interesting
I did the following tests on google :
www.spiderednews.com : 2,590 links
link:www.spiderednews.com : 57 links
www.couchtripper.com : 6,120 links
link:www.couchtripper.com : NO DOCUMENTS found ...
link:couchtripper.com : NO DOCUMENTS found ...
Faceless : who have you upset at google ????
[recall a thread a few weeks ago when you indicated something funny about google results : well it looks like CT has ZERO link relevance .. you must have REALLY pissed someone off ... |
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faceless
admin
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 4:12 pm Post subject: |
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It is weird that there are no links showing especially considering there is at least one link from Wiki - but I kind of prefer it that way as it means more freedom to post things that might legally be a hassle.
I get Google alerts for links to the site and while there are never any direct links as such, there are mentions of couchtripper in quite a few places.
Sticking to the main subject, I just adjusted the Wiki page for the company which made serious (unfounded) allegations against me recently. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for them to notice. |
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Mandy
Joined: 07 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Regarding Wiki, I think Wiki does it in a way which hides the link (so sites don't get "credit" for being listed on wikipedia .. and there might lie the clue .. |
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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 4:22 pm Post subject: |
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interesting article mandy ... they apparently keep reseting viewing figures on certain videos on google video as well, to keep them lower ranked
what were the allegations made against you faceless?! |
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Mandy
Joined: 07 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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| faceless wrote: | | Sticking to the main subject, I just adjusted the Wiki page for the company which made serious (unfounded) allegations against me recently. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for them to notice. |
Be careful faceless .. these things are traceable .. they aren't worth the hassle ... |
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faceless
admin
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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I wrote a thread about the allegations in Lumpy bits, but I deleted it a week or so ago as I didn't want it polluting the place... haha
Let's just say I got one person on the ropes over her behaviour and it caused 3 of them to come out fighting - I still won, but only because of my strengths, where someone else might have become a genuine victim. It only resolved on Monday this week after an official investigation showed I'd done nothing wrong. The problem remains that their allegations still remain floating about and I want them removed. I'll just keep doing what I can to prevent it happening to others, even if it is something as simple as editing their Wiki page (which I'd not thought of, so cheers for this thread giving the idea). |
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Bob
Joined: 01 May 2006
Location: US
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| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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| There was a big faff about wiki on the whole deviant art website, when one of the guys that set it up got bounced from the company, a lot of the wiki info about the history of the site and the people behind it all changed, caused a fair bit of a stir, about a year or so ago, kind of amusing. |
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Mandy
Joined: 07 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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| The founder(s) left to set up their own moderated site {as opposed to "user" moderated} ... can't recall hearing much about them since |
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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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| Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:24 pm Post subject: |
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faceless
admin
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:37 pm Post subject: |
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cheers for that link Luke, I'm sure it will be useful for all sorts...
http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/ |
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