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."

Main IP offender no longer banned

[P0ldy]

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)

Re:Is anyone suprised?

[pohl]

It was Charles Sumner [wikipedia.org]. He did not die from the beating.

Re:Beaverl Attack: Wikipedia has NEVER been great.

[Jugalator]

Heh, even worse, this article [uncyclopedia.org] is current! :o

Your facts... aren't.

[rco3]

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:quarantine?

[oberondarksoul]

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])

Re:You know what this is....

[DavidD_CA]

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.

Re:double standard

[E++99]

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.

They're not ignored. It's called "POV Pushing" and it's removed no matter who does it. The standard for objectivity comprises neutral language and verifable facts. Anything that deviates from that will eventually get removed.

Re:Your facts... aren't.

[JourneyExpertApe]

It was a little worse than you made it sound. Brooks beat Sumner even after he lost conciousness until his cane broke. It took three years of recovery before he was able to return to the Senate. As a perfect example of the priviledged status and lack of accountability of politicians, Brooks' punishment was a $300 fine.

Re:Block IP address?

[RPoet]

I guess none of them know how to use TOR.

Wikipedia blocks all Tor exits. You can't even edit through Tor if you log in.

Re:Congress IP ranges

[fafalone]

156.33.0.0 - 156.33.255.255 -> senate
143.228.0.0 - 143.228.255.255 -> house

...
207.132.0.0 - 207.133.255.255 ->DOD
198.81.128.0 - 198.81.191.255 ->CIA
149.101.0.0 - 149.101.255.255 ->DOJ

...plus dozens of other netblocks owned by various departments. It's useful when you want to IP deny as much of the government as you can from your site.

Re:Congress blocked :P

[FhnuZoag]

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.

That's the rationale behind the infamous 3-Revert-Rule policy, if I recall correctly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3RR [wikipedia.org]

Re:Congress blocked :P

[CaptainCarrot]

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.

The Supreme Court had nothing to do with enacting rights for either minorities or women. It was done correctly, through Constitutional amendment and legislation, and not by activist judges. That is not their role.

See:

• The Thirteenth Amendment [cornell.edu]
• The Fourteenth Amendment [cornell.edu]
• The Fifteenth Amendment [cornell.edu]
• The Nineteenth Amendment [cornell.edu]
• The Twenty-fourth Amendment [cornell.edu]
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 [state.gov]

Without these laws (among others) in place, there wasn't a thing the Supreme Court could do about slavery, race or sex discrimination, or anything similar. It was perfectly legal.

That's not the "Tragedy of the Commons".

[CyricZ]

The Tragedy of the Commons has nothing to do with what you're talking about, and vice versa.

The Tragedy of the Commons has to do with the inefficient allocation of common resources. We're talking about people not having any incentive to limit their consumption of fish from a lake, for instance. Not only do they not have any incentive to limit the number of fish that they catch, but they may actually be better off if they catch more fish before everyone else does.

Your talk about there always being "trolls" has nothing to do with a purely economic situation.

Your interpretation

[Anonymous Coward]

From the link [senate.gov] you gave:

Sumner accused Andrew Butler of taking "a mistress . . . who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight -- I mean," added Sumner, "the harlot, Slavery."

How is this a personal attack? Sounds to me like he's attacking Butler's stance on slavery.

Sumner did personally attack another Senator, Stephen Douglas, but it was "Representative Preston Brooks, Butler's South Carolina kinsman" who caned Sumner.

It's clear that these men's respective stances on slavery were very much involved.

Re:Congress blocked :P

[CaptainCarrot]

You should read your own link. The decision in that case rested entirely on the 14th Amendment, on the grounds that it had been shown that racially segregated educational facilities could not be equal by their very nature. Without a Constitutional or other legal basis to forbid unequal protection by reason of race, the court would have been unable to do anything.

Also note that the Supreme Court must have a case before it to issue a ruling. It cannot issue decisions on any subject it chooses.

Re:Congress IP ranges

[MrNonchalant]

That's a very partial list. Some work on ARIN.net gives me this slightly less partial version:

Central Intelligence Agency CIA (NET-162-45-0-0-1) 162.45.0.0 - 162.45.255.255
Central Intelligence Agency CIA2 (NET-162-46-0-0-1) 162.46.0.0 - 162.46.255.255
Central Intelligence Agency CIA3 (NET-192-189-141-0-1) 192.189.141.0 - 192.189.141.255
Central Intelligence Agency CIA4 (NET-192-189-142-0-1) 192.189.142.0 - 192.189.142.255
Central Intelligence Agency CIA5 (NET-192-189-143-0-1) 192.189.143.0 - 192.189.143.255
Central Intelligence Agency CIA6 (NET-192-189-144-0-1) 192.189.144.0 - 192.189.144.255
Central Intelligence Agency CIA7 (NET-192-189-145-0-1) 192.189.145.0 - 192.189.145.255
Central Intelligence Agency CIA8 (NET-192-189-146-0-1) 192.189.146.0 - 192.189.146.255
Central Intelligence Agency NETBLK-CIA9 (NET-198-21-32-0-1) 198.21.32.0 - 198.21.81.255
Central Intelligence Agency OIT-BLK1 (NET-198-81-128-0-1) 198.81.128.0 - 198.81.191.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN1 (NET-198-136-64-0-1) 198.136.64.0 - 198.136.127.255
Central Intelligence Agency NETBLK-NISEN (NET-198-136-64-0-2) 198.136.64.0 - 198.136.113.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN2 (NET-198-136-65-0-1) 198.136.65.0 - 198.136.65.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN3 (NET-198-136-66-0-1) 198.136.66.0 - 198.136.66.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN4 (NET-198-136-67-0-1) 198.136.67.0 - 198.136.67.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN5 (NET-198-136-68-0-1) 198.136.68.0 - 198.136.68.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN6 (NET-198-136-69-0-1) 198.136.69.0 - 198.136.69.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN7 (NET-198-136-70-0-1) 198.136.70.0 - 198.136.70.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN8 (NET-198-136-71-0-1) 198.136.71.0 - 198.136.71.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN9 (NET-198-136-72-0-1) 198.136.72.0 - 198.136.72.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN10 (NET-198-136-73-0-1) 198.136.73.0 - 198.136.73.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN11 (NET-198-136-74-0-1) 198.136.74.0 - 198.136.74.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN12 (NET-198-136-75-0-1) 198.136.75.0 - 198.136.75.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN13 (NET-198-136-76-0-1) 198.136.76.0 - 198.136.76.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN14 (NET-198-136-77-0-1) 198.136.77.0 - 198.136.77.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN15 (NET-198-136-78-0-1) 198.136.78.0 - 198.136.78.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN16 (NET-198-136-79-0-1) 198.136.79.0 - 198.136.79.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN17 (NET-198-136-80-0-1) 198.136.80.0 - 198.136.80.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN18 (NET-198-136-81-0-1) 198.136.81.0 - 198.136.81.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN19 (NET-198-136-82-0-1) 198.136.82.0 - 198.136.82.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN20 (NET-198-136-83-0-1) 198.136.83.0 - 198.136.83.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN21 (NET-198-136-84-0-1) 198.136.84.0 - 198.136.84.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN22 (NET-198-136-85-0-1) 198.136.85.0 - 198.136.85.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN23 (NET-198-136-86-0-1) 198.136.86.0 - 198.136.86.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN24 (NET-198-136-87-0-1) 198.136.87.0 - 198.136.87.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN25 (NET-198-136-88-0-1) 198.136.88.0 - 198.136.88.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN26 (NET-198-136-89-0-1) 198.136.89.0 - 198.136.89.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN27 (NET-198-136-90-0-1) 198.136.90.0 - 198.136.90.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN28 (NET-198-136-91-0-1) 198.136.91.0 - 198.136.91.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN29 (NET-198-136-92-0-1) 198.136.92.0 - 198.136.92.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN30 (NET-198-136-93-0-1) 198.136.93.0 - 198.136.93.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN31 (NET-198-136-94-0-1) 198.136.94.0 - 198.136.94.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN32 (NET-198-136-95-0-1) 198.136.95.0 - 198.136.95.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN33 (NET-198-136-96-0-1) 198.136.96.0 - 198.136.96.255
Central Intelligence Agency NISEN34 (NET-198-136-

Re:That's not the "Tragedy of the Commons".

[Red Flayer]

You're right in saying that he's misapplied the Tragedy of the Commons. However:

"Not only do they not have any incentive to limit the number of fish that they catch, but they may actually be better off if they catch more fish before everyone else does."

That's not quite right either. They do have an incentive to limit their own catch -- the problem is that the risk of others not limiting their catch makes that incentive negligible. For sustainable sharing to not succumb to the tragedy of the commons, there needs to be a societal structure to create a disincentive for short-term selfishness.