Wikipedia vs Congressional Staffers [Update]

There has been quite a bit of recent reporting on the recent troubles between Wikipedia and certain Congressional staffers. In response, abdulzis mentions that "an RFC, Wikipedia's mediation method to deal with 'disharmonious users', has been opened to take action against US Congressional staffers who repeatedly blank content and engage in revert wars and slanderous or libelous behavior which violates Wikiepdia code. The IP ranges of US Congress have been currently blocked, but only for a week until the issue can be addressed more directly."

Congress blocked :P

[the-amazing-blob (917722)]

And now Congress will vote to make freely-editable online encyclopedias illegal. Freedom of speech loses in a landslide. :D

Or perhaps we can come to an agreement where no one edits other entries for the purpose of skewing information. That would make me smile.

Re:Congress blocked :P

[by Anonymous Coward]

And now Congress will vote to make freely-editable online encyclopedias illegal. Freedom of speech loses in a landslide. :D

After their IPs posted on slashdot? They'll vote to make port scanning illegal...:p

Re:Congress blocked :P

[by Anonymous Coward]

Tis the season to reform i guess.

What might be more interesting to acknowledge is that Wikipedia is giving the public a glimpse at some of the ugliness of politics. Juvenille name calling, re-inventing the truth, hiding criticism, libel, slander, etc. Some may say that the majority is by junior staffers and even high school level pages and wash it under the rug. More than likely this is just a reflection of the atmosphere that exists in these offices. I say we consider wikipedia a honey pot for catching dishonorable officials :)

Re:Congress blocked :P

[fferreres (525414)]

Maybe artciles could come in versions, especially when facts are disputed, or several "biased" sources want to tell a different story. That would be good enough I believe. Especially for political or controversial facts. Wikipedia has no specific bias, so they could easily accommodate different versions of "facts"...

Just like in trials, you would be allowed to present your side of the story, but not to silence another version, ... unless (maybe) you can factually prove, and there are no opinions involved (just facts). This last I would guess would be problematic...more than one point of view would be best.

Re:Congress blocked :P

[plover (150551)]

Unfortunately, your second statment is the epitome of the "Tragedy of the Commons." There is ALWAYS another troll, someone who wants to maliciously sow dissent just to provoke a reaction. In some of these congressional cases it's a blatant attempt at a "revisionist history", while in others it's been purely "vandalism" -- the posting of the goatse trolls is a good example of that.

But the problem is that one man's troll is another man's political statement. Google for "santorum" some time, and hit "I'm feeling lucky". Some people consider that a political statement, and some consider it a troll. Both are right! So how do you include both points of view on a description of "santorum"? If you include the gross description, you've trolled Senator Santorum's supporters. If you censor the description, you're invalidating the political position of his opponents. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. And the third choice, eliminating mention of both santorum and Senator Santorum, does an even worse disservice to history by removing his legitimate accomplishments as well as the voice of his opposition.

While it would be nice to think otherwise, it's an impossible fantasy to hope that there will never be web vandals.

Re:Tragedy of the commons

[jacoplane (78110)]

Some would disagree [catb.org] with you that the tragedy of the commons applies in this case:

"When people reflexively apply this model to open-source cooperation, they expect it to be unstable with a short half-life. Since there's no obvious way to enforce an allocation policy for programmer time over the Internet, this model leads straight to a prediction that the commons will break up, with various bits of software being taken closed-source and a rapidly decreasing amount of work being fed back into the communal pool.

In fact, it is empirically clear that the trend is opposite to this. The trend in breadth and volume of open-source development can be measured by submissions per day at Metalab and SourceForge (the leading Linux source sites) or announcements per day at freshmeat.net (a site dedicated to advertising new software releases). Volume on both is steadily and rapidly increasing. Clearly there is some critical way in which the ``Tragedy of the Commons'' model fails to capture what is actually going on." -- Eric Raymond [wikipedia.org]

Re:Congress blocked :P

[sbrown123 (229895)]

Some people consider that a political statement,

Yes, it is a political statement. But it's by some guy who doesn't like Sen. Santorum. Stopping that page would be like taking away his right to free speech.

eliminating mention of both santorum and Senator Santorum, does an even worse disservice to history by removing his legitimate accomplishments as well as the voice of his opposition.

Wikipedia is meant to represent a non-biased view of people, places, and things. The anti-Santorum page you mentioned does not even try to make you believe that it is a fair and balanced view of Sen. Sanotorum. If I were to research Sen. Sanotorum for some reason, I would not use the page you mentioned but rather expect to find honest, non-biased information about him in Wikipedia: good and bad. Removing truthful information about Sanotorum that could be seen as negative by him or others is attempting to revise history or hide the truth.

Re:Congress blocked :P

[geminidomino (614729)]

I disagree on "always" ... under our current society rules, yes, but humans will stop making trolls when the purpose for our lives is to create a good and happy life for all people, and not "get all we can for ourself" ruleset we follow now.

Right. Shortly after Doctor Donut perfects cold fusion in his Licorice Lab on Lollipop Lane.

Pardon me if I don't hold my breath waiting for the overthrowing of human nature.

Re:Congress blocked :P

[hackstraw (262471)]

And now Congress will vote to make freely-editable online encyclopedias illegal. Freedom of speech loses in a landslide.

Although it is becoming more the norm to go against the constitution, I believe the system will prevail or there will be a revolution and government overthrow.

How long did it take for the Supreme Court to figure out that black people and women were people? A long time, but it did eventually take place.

Or perhaps we can come to an agreement where no one edits other entries for the purpose of skewing information. That would make me smile.

Wikipedia will always have issues like this, especially with "controversial" content.

"There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion."

-- Jeffrey Goines, 12 Monkeys

Popular opinion always rules. Maybe the Wikipedia code can be modified so that a "hot" article can only have X lines of changes per user per period of time. If congressman X edits a file and others are watching, the others will dominate and keep the popular opinion alive.

Re:Congress blocked :P

[Have Blue (616)]

"There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion."

-- Jeffrey Goines, 12 Monkeys

I am obligated to point out that the character you are quoting to back up your argument is a lunatic.

Re:Congress blocked :P

[killtherat (177924)]

I am obligated to point out that the character you are quoting to back up your argument is a lunatic.

That's just your opinion ;-)

Re:Congress blocked :P

[hackstraw (262471)]

That's just your opinion ;-)

That, and I seem to trust lunatics over "normal" people, regardless of the phase of the moon or its involvement at all.

Plus, many think I'm a lunatic, yet I get modded up on slashdot all the time. This could be the new era of the lunatic. From a silly album that came out in January of 1973:

The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me 'till I'm sane
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There's someone in my head but it's not me.

Its always "you" and "they" that screw with us lunatics. Odds are we would be fine without your compassion, labeling, or help.

Re:Congress blocked :P

[Shai-kun (728212)]

+1, Pink Floyd.

How best to lose one's Constitutional Rights

[by Anonymous Coward]

Glad I'm not the only guy to think the blocking could back-fire. Theoretically (and I'm sure someone will correct me), now members of Congress have standing to sue Wikipedia for an equal rights violation (you give everyone rights to edit information, to even possibly slander the politicians, but do not give those people who are theoretically best able to judge the accuracy that right.)

If they don't watch out, they could find themselves in a free-speech shoot-out with Congress passing laws that wiki owners are responsible for all content posted online, or that hey have a responsibility to get rid of "slanderous" information within a certain period of time.

So far the whole ISPs being protected because they're only allowing the info to go through them protection is, AFAIK, common law and if Congress starts passing laws saying "nope, that's not true... passing along 'bad content' is just as bad as posting 'bad content', printing it in a pamphlet, going on TV and spreading false information..." and then, if you believe in slippery slopes (I don't, but some people do) then before you know it allowing pirated media to pass through your Wifi connection makes you subject to copyright infringement suits because the argument gets made that you're responsible for whatever harm you allow to go live. Yeah, right now it's got protection in the courts, but passing a law could kill that protection.

I'm not saying steps shouldn't be taken, but how about a compromise with perhaps an Official Content seal? The Congressman and his aides are able to add a little icon or whatever to indicate that their changes came from them and is accurate or at least endorsed by them. Then the burden is back on the public: Trust what 3rd parties are saying or trust what the politician says it true. It's not going to change anyone's beliefs one way or the other, but at least the politicians will be happy knowing they can put on a PR campaign warning their knowledgable constituants not to trust Wiki content without their endorsement

Re:Congress blocked :P

[poot_rootbeer (188613)]

And now Congress will vote to make freely-editable online encyclopedias illegal.

"We'd love to fight this blatantly un-Constitutional law," a spokesman for the ACLU said, "but we're all too busy defending child molesters' right to ban school prayer in the womb."

There, now we've got two ludicrious misrepresentations out of the way. Is that enough that we can move on to relevant discourse instead?

Too much time on their hands.

[bigtallmofo (695287)]

Do we need any further evidence that congress people and their staff have too much time on their hands? I hope in the contentious atmosphere that plagues Washington these days that people from all sides of the political spectrum can agree that Congress is given too many resources to accomplish too little.

Next they'll be wasting all their time on Slashdot.

Re:Too much time on their hands.

[deanoaz (843940)]

>>> Do we need any further evidence that congress people and their staff have too much time on their hands?

Maybe not, but think of all the evil they could do if they really applied themselves all of the time. I sleep better at night knowing they waste a lot of their time fiddling Wikipedia entries and blogging, etc.

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone." - Bill Cosby

Priorities, not time

[truthsearch (249536)]

It's not that they have too much time on their hands. They consider this a big enough priority to spend time on it instead of other tasks. A politician's first priority is usually their public image. Legislative tasks come second. That's the real problem.

Re:Too much time on their hands.

[monkeydo (173558)]

Have you ever watched CSPAN?

trouble with the little ones

[Niartov (727073)]

Well children if you cannot play nice we are just going to have to take this away

Congressional Trolls

[Council (514577)]

Congressional trolls. This idea amuses me deeply.

I wonder if any of the trolls we've got on here are working for Congress.

Perhaps, somehow, Natalie Portman is a matter of national security.

Re:Congressional Trolls

[Too many errors, bai (815931)]

Governmental Nimrods Association of America?

Re:Congressional Trolls

[spungebob (239871)]

Make that "Goverment Idiots Association of America". Then I can catch all of the morons with one single regex ("*IAA")

Re:Congressional Trolls

[PFI_Optix (936301)]

Perhaps, somehow, Natalie Portman is a matter of national security.

"And in a recent Freedom of Information Act, these images of Natalie Portman were released..."

Ahh crap they blacked out all the good parts...

Re:Congressional Trolls

[alphamugwump (918799)]

Actually, when you think about it, a successful politician is not really that different from a successful troll. The idea with both is to somehow stir up an issue that people are rabid about. In the case of a troll, it is just for sheer fun or whatever, but when politicians do it, it gets them into office.

Re:Congressional Trolls

[rnpg1014 (942171)]

What disturbs me more is the idea that the people we elect to Congress behave childishly enough to get Federal IP addresses blocked from a major website. Quite honestly, I move to give literacy tests before giving voting privelidges...

I have no knowledge...

[IAAP (937607)]

nor do I condone such behavior from my staff, myself, or anyone. This was done by some rogue elements that were too aggressive in their desire to set the facts straight. There will be a thorough investigation into this matter and the appropriate action will be taken.

--[insert congresscritter's name here]

Beaverl Attack: Wikipedia has NEVER been great...

[nweaver (113078)]

Just look at this past entry for "Beaver" (now corrected, but Wikipedia's history allows us to see it in the full glory)

Beaver [wikipedia.org]

"Beavers explosively attack people with their menacing teeth. They are the most deadly animals alive."

Re:Beaver Attack: Wikipedia has NEVER been great.

[mooingyak (720677)]

And the people who removed that line are trying to suppress the truth about beavers.

Re:Beaverl Attack: Wikipedia has NEVER been great.

[meringuoid (568297)]

"Beavers explosively attack people with their menacing teeth. They are the most deadly animals alive."

I'm particularly amused by the note in subscript after that remarkable claim:

'Citation needed.'

Which gives me a mental image of a wikipedia editor like some genial dusty old university professor saying 'Not that we don't believe you about the deadly beavers, you understand, just that you haven't properly cited a source for this claim of yours...'

Re:What is your point?

[iabervon (1971)]

There was some news story where the mainstream sources mostly had the wording of some critical quotation wrong in various ways (which is actually generally true of mainstream news quotations, since they come from reporters quickly writing something down when it's said, not recordings; they usually get the right meaning, but rarely the right words). Surprisingly, Wikinews almost alone had the quotation exactly right (i.e., perfectly matching the available audio recording of the event). But the weather map that day was a picture of some guy's butt, a mistake that none of the other media sources made.

Re:What is your point?

[Savantissimo (893682)]

Republican hatchetman Ken Mehlman's entry had a picture of a flaccid penis on it when I looked him up. Interestingly, the page was locked to edits. When I mentioned on the discussion page that it seemed to be a more figurative likeness than most Wikipedia readers were expecting, both the picture and my G-rated comment disappeared.

escalation?

[usrusr (654450)]

so, does this mean the cia will sooner or later deploy botnets for distributed editwars?

wikipedia might end up as the surprisingly unglamorous battleground of the long-awaited "cyberwarfare"... i mean it's such an inviting target for groups who are out to mess with people's opinions and there's no group that fits that description as good as a gouvernment at war.

You know what this is....

[Otter (3800)]

DC underlings all hang out together, drink together, live together and brag incessantly to each other about who is the most important. My guess would be that this has nothing to do with the legislators themselves and everything to do with with interns generating ammunition for trash-talking at Lulu's. The Senators themselves aren't organized enough to be doing this in such large numbers, nor do they know what Wikipedia is. It's the 19-year-olds doing it.

Re:You know what this is....

[DavidD_CA (750156)]

Yeah I dunno about that "disorganization" part. I know my local reps for senate and congress, and they each have weekly video conference meetings with all of the other staffers and the senator/congressman. Each rep gets personally asked what they are up to, and what their constituents are talking about.

Further, one of the reps is wired to her Blackberry and is always getting pages about issues that relate to the congressman, so that she is "in the know" when talking to people. They use the Blackberrys to communicate moreso than email itself, and if they shut off their BB for more than an hour or so, people start wondering where they went.

Gone is the day where our politians know nothing about technology. They may not understand DRM or security or IP or TLDs like we do, but they certainly are "in the loop" when it comes to communicating and collaborating using tech.

Everybody's doing it!

[by Anonymous Coward]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/16 [penny-arcade.com]

Main IP offender no longer banned

[P0ldy (848358)]

TFS:

The IP ranges of US Congress have been currently blocked, but only for a week until the issue can be addressed more directly.

The main offending IP in question [wikipedia.org] is no longer blocked as of 30 January, this morning:

06:36, 30 January 2006 Michael Snow unblocked User:143.231.249.141 (Not consistently used by the same person; we shouldn't block people just because they work for Congress, and some people using this IP address are making commendable efforts at complying with our culture and policies)

quarantine?

[nietsch (112711)]

Maybe instead of banning them outright, the ip's involved in this matter (or any serious breach of the rules) should not just be banned, but silently rerouted to a server running a different copy of wikipedia. They could make all kinds of 'mistakes' etc there, but only similarly banned ip's would ever see that content. They keep wasting time (and taxpayers money) while the rest of the world would have a chance to do without their contributions to humanity.

Does anybody know of such a system implemented in any forum/community software? I think it would be quite effective.

Re:quarantine?

[Dachannien (617929)]

vBulletin includes such a feature, called "Tachy Goes to Coventry". It lets specified users post to the forums all they want, but they're the only ones who ever see their posts. No clue where the name comes from, though.

Re:quarantine?

[oberondarksoul (723118)]

To "send someone to Coventry" means to shun or ignore them - hence, the users who have this applied to them are ignored by the rest of the forum. (Reference: here [usingenglish.com])

double standard

[(arg!)Styopa (232550)]

Look, I think the political creatures in Washington are essentially pork-feeding, selfish, backbiting wh0res generally, but let's be honest - they are not alone.

The IP ranges of US Congress have been currently blocked, but only for a week until the issue can be addressed more directly.
This is simply WRONG. I'd wager that a HUGE number of people posting in Wiki are self-interested, or are grinding some sort of political axe.

Just because John Smith isn't actually EMPLOYED by the DNC doesn't mean his revision about President G.W. Bush is automatically based on an altruistic desire to post the truth. One minute reading any intarweb forum will tell you that much.

Roberta Johnson could be posting a revision to the Ted Kennedy article because she's an ardent Republican that hates him. Her edits are somehow more 'valid' than that of a staffer in Cheney's office?

Wikipedia is an open document. The revisions are clear and publicly visible. Why is it all right to censor and prohibit posters whose motivations are obviously suspect, while completely (naively?) ignoring the gazillions of posters whose motivations are probably no less base, but not obviously so?

This is wrong.

Congress IP ranges

[dtfinch (661405)]

FTA: 156.33.*.*
Maybe this'll come in handy someday. Can't imagine what I'd use it for though.

Evolution of a System

[j_f_chamblee (253315)]

Between this article and previous articles concerning the locking of Wikipedia pages [vnunet.com], I can't help but wonder if what is happening amounts to some kind of evolution. Depending on how Wiki solves this, what we may see is the system evolving to include some form of the old fashioned, but sometimes maligned [slashdot.org] model of peer review. Maybe I'm wrong, but it is an interesting process to watch -- especially for somebody (like me) who thinks peer review is good thing [slashdot.org].

Sad of Affairs

[Cal Paterson (881180)]

It's a sad state of affairs when we have to block our own goddamn house of government for vandalising public property.

founding parents

[Sebastopol (189276)]

This gonna sound kinda sappy, but reading this RFC, or an EFF suit, or a book by Lessig, or even the GPL, really makes me feel like I'm observing a "Founding Fathers Moment," like when the Constitution was drafted. I'm glad there are large, DIVERSE, collectives of rational people trying to define fair rules.

Every Wiki's Inherent Design Flaw

[rdmiller3 (29465)]

Any system which depends upon unrealistic expectations will doom its maintainers to an endless, futile battle.

Wikipedia has some really cool content, but the more generally appealing it becomes, the more it will attract the attention of vandals, propagandists, scammers, spammers, compulsive liars, and other pushers of misinformation.

The takers far outnumber the makers.

Re:Every Wiki's Inherent Design Flaw

[FhnuZoag (875558)]

The trouble with wikipedia is that it only works in reality, not in theory.

Re:DUPE

[XaXXon (202882)]

No, it's called a FOLLOW-UP. This article contains more information than the previous one.

I mean, the editors screw up enough, why call them out even more than we have to?

Your facts... aren't.

[rco3 (198978)]

No one died. Senator Charles Sumner was caned [senate.gov] into unconsciousness on the floor of the Senate Chamber, but recovered and continued to serve thereafter. Additionally, it's worth noting that the senator in question was attacked, not for speaking against slavery, but for his personal (very personal, and fairly ugly) verbal attacks against the other two Senators.

I'm sure that you would love to be able to point to this as being an example of how rabid Southern senators were about keeping slavery, but really it's an example of the fact that some people can only be insulted so much before they react irrationally. Seriously - I don't think it matters whether you're a senator or not, I think that if you call enough people "noise-some, squat, and nameless animal . . . not a proper model for an American senator" that sooner or later one of them (or one of their friends) is going to beat the shit out of you. Does that excuse the attack? Of course not. But it wasn't about slavery, it was about pride - and no one died.

Re:Is it just me?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only person who avoids Wikipedia like the plague because of these skewed entries and slanderous edit wars? I know I'm missing out, but after an entry I collaborated was "attacked" by someone who held a different opinion (read: blanked the article until Wiki delete minions got at it) I lost faith in its general ability to harbor legitimate information. I know it's there, but I don't want to have to sift through it. That's what the internet is for.

I added a contentious bit of information to an extremely contentious article once. It was outright deleted, reverted, spell checked, deleted, grammer fixed, reverted, opened up an enormous discussion with rabid opponents on both sides. Eventually it was split into a separate article that was renamed a few times, with the original article linking to it.

The quality of the article improved quite dramatically over time, and the POV portions that I didn't even realize I was bringing to the table were quickly killed off. The facts were *heavily* cross-checked and what's left now, despite being nothing like what I originally posted, is a satisfying contribution, even though none of what I wrote exists today.

Wikipedia rules.