Wikipedia vs Congressional Staffers [Update] 433
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Too much time on their hands. (Score:5, Insightful)
Next they'll be wasting all their time on Slashdot.
Re:DUPE (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, the editors screw up enough, why call them out even more than we have to?
Re:Too much time on their hands. (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Congressional Trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Congressional Trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what this is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Congress blocked :P (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
double standard (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Is it just me? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Congress blocked :P (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Solution: Autobiography and Biography Pages (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Congress blocked :P (Score:3, Insightful)
There is ALWAYS another troll, someone who wants to maliciously sow dissent just to provoke a reaction
I disagree on "always"
Re:Tragedy of the commons (Score:5, Insightful)
"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:double standard (Score:3, Insightful)
Evolution of a System (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Congress blocked :P (Score:1, Insightful)
Your utopia sounds great. Too bad it'll never, ever happen.
www.merkeylaw.com (Score:1, Insightful)
Sad of Affairs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too much time on their hands. (Score:5, Insightful)
Priorities, not time (Score:5, Insightful)
This is choice... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Congress blocked :P (Score:5, Insightful)
Add the IP blocks to the Blacklist? (Score:3, Insightful)
Refusing to route their packets would be a good corrective measure, and even patriotic!
--Mike--
Don't tread on my IP
Every Wiki's Inherent Design Flaw (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Priorities, not time (Score:3, Insightful)
Let them try (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Congress blocked :P (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Tragedy of the commons (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Congress blocked :P (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:double standard (Score:3, Insightful)
So when she does, she can be blocked as well.
No, this is exceedingly fair and open-minded, considering that the blocks will be removed in a week's time. They abused the system; therefore their access to abuse that system has been denied. It happens all the time, and not just to congress, but to most of the idiots abusing the system [wikipedia.org]. Besides, it's their toy, they can do what they want with it.
Future of Wiki (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Congress blocked :P (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Sad of Affairs (Score:2, Insightful)
Spray painting swastikas on government buildings is bad, but spraying them on a neighbor's garage door is somehow different?
The original comment has merit - our public officials shouldn't let their minions get away with stuff like this. The responsible thing for them to do is sh*tcan the individual(s) performing these borderline activities on public dollars, thereby sending a message to the rest of their staff.
But that'd require congresscritters to actually work for a living, so it'll never happen - if anything I can see some of them encouraging this kind of activity.
IP blocking is futile (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure what good that'll do; they'll just make their edits from private IP addresses.
Re:Congress blocked :P (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Congress blocked :P (Score:4, Insightful)
Business as usual (Score:3, Insightful)
Congress trolls internet.
Congress breaks the law.
Profit.
It's business as usual in the swamp known as DC.
Re:Congress blocked :P (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Congress blocked :P (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering that the usual connotation of "barbaric" is uncivilized, primal, and visceral, that's hardly surprising. However, just because they're "barbaric" doesn't make them any less "human nature." Civilization is all about overcoming primal instincts, not eliminating them.
The idea of, say, stealing food and killing anyone who would stop you begins looking a lot less "barbaric" and a lot more "necessary" when your family/genetic community is starving to death.
There are plenty like myself and grandparent who naturally recognise that a better life for everybody is more important than "more possessions for myself"
That's a philosophical position, NOT a natural one.
", even here in america where the exact opposite mindset is so ingrained into academia, government, and society that people such as yourself are able to percieve it as human nature.
Ignoring the misguided implication that your position is "natural" whereas mine is "ingrained by society," you have the whole thing backwards. There is no evidence in the natural world of any sort of "communist utopia" being anywhere near possible, much less practical, on a macrocosmic level.
It's simply a human philosophical invention attractive to idealists of a certain stripe.
Transhumanism might make for some bland SciFi, but as far as reality is concerned, it's a pipe dream.
Re:Congress blocked :P (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the food people CHOOSE TO EAT isn't as good. If we all demanded good food, then companies who want to stay in business would deliver better food. Other peoples' laziness caused bad food to be the norm, but good food is there for anyone who decides to eat it. Of course, that doesn't apply to places where people are starving, but those places existed 100 years ago too.
> cancer and heart disease are more popular now.
Could also be related to the fact that we can actually detect those things now, whereas 100 years ago it was a lot of guesswork, and a lot of cancer patients were misdiagnosed as dieing from things like "old age."
> There is more misery in 2006 than there was in 1906
Maybe in the U.S., but worldwide, I seriously doubt that.
> 100 years ago, the knowledge gap was nothing like it is now
You are correct, but not in the way you mean. The knowledge gap is SMALLER today. U.S. actual quality of education has declined, but there is a much, MUCH higher percentage of children in school today -- especially females, minorities. Now for the gap, class has very little to do with it, except for the existence of private schools that can sometimes afford to pay their teachers better, sometimes not. Sometimes private schools are worse than their public counterparts, which was the case where I grew up. To put the nail in the "knowledge gap," almost any family today can afford a computer and Internet access. That tool by itself outweighs any possible difference in access to education. Whether or not someone decides to learn is the real problem.
> The gap between knowledge and class is higher than its ever been due to [...] the high cost of college education.
Wow, do you actually read what you write? Do you have any idea how many people went to college 100 years ago? 95-100% of them were pretty much rich. Now, just about anyone can get into college if they try, and can afford to go, considering the grants available, and scholarships if they worked hard enough in high school.
You talk about all these things that we don't have, like underwater housing and flying cars... But none of those things would improve anyone's quality of life in the ways you describe. Or at all. Hell, most of them are terrible ideas because they would be death traps!
> until you or some politician shows me the plan, I don't think there will be a future.
So you must wait for your senator to come wipe your ass every time you take a crap? Worldwide cataclysmic events cannot be controlled by legislation. In fact, there is very little that a politician can do, it was foolish of you to make such a ludicrous statement. Continuing that line of thought, your opinion about the future has no bearing on its reality. YOUR cynicism, lack of hope for the future, and need to have the whole thing laid out before you just to agree that we'll exist also will have no affect on reality in the future.
Also, because you think life sucks today (I agree) doesn't mean life didn't suck 100 years ago. You really need to reevaluate your historical perspective, because it is obviously skewed wildly. Pick up your old history textbook and read through it for those major events. Then go on the Internet to see what was going on in the REST of the world at that time. The problem is that history teaches you individual events, it does not give you any context to it, such as the propaganda governments were putting out at the time to scaremonger. Stop thinking about just the U.S. as the entire world. One country being worse off doesn't make the rest of the world worse off.