Wikipedia Blocks Suspicious Edits From DoJ 294
kylehase writes "The release of Wikiscanner last year brought much attention to white-washing of controversial pages on the community-generated encyclopedia. Apparently Wikipedia is very serious in fighting such behavior as they've temporarily blocked the US Department of Justice from editing pages for suspicious edits."
Overrules? (Score:1, Insightful)
The captcha is donkeyballs (kidding).
Good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
Until Wikipedia is served a court order requiring them to remove or alter certain information, they can do whatever the hell they want with their own web site(s) so long as they are law abiding.
The problem is one of opinon. (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as it is just facts then it seems too work pretty well. When it comes to opinion then things get into trouble.
One persons white washing is somebody elses setting the record straight.
What is funny is bias and opinion can creep into the strangest articles.
International differences (Score:3, Insightful)
Japan: "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam"
USA: "The defense department is in charge of Gitmo"
Should the DOJ and Gov't Edit Wikipedia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or does the 'openness' of wiki mean that the government is justified in making changes to whatever articles they want?
I personally don't want them even touching it, or influencing any media outlet.
Re:brave move that. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? I can't see the DOJ filing suit because a site is refusing input from them based on previous (perceived) abuses.
It's not like the DOJ has some inherent right to access Wiki any more than anyone else. They're free to have their own policies, and if they include blocking certain contributors, tough.
As has been pointed out, it is unlikely this is an official DOJ campaign to modify this page, just an individual within the organization. And, in all likelihood, DOJ isn't going to defend the ability for its staffers to contribute to internet sites.
Cheers
Summary has the wrong emphasis (Score:3, Insightful)
This needs to be the straw that breaks the PNAC's and neo-conservatism's back, and we can only hope that the Republican party rises from the ashes better and more rational for having done so. They're already making solid progress by picking the McCain horse, if only he would stop selling himself out to the fundies and stick to his old center-right positions. The time of the Religious Right's domination of American politics needs to come to an end, and if we can show their more moderate colleagues just how bad they really are I think there's a solid chance that they'll kick the monkey off of their back for good.
Re:Should the DOJ and Gov't Edit Wikipedia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Be Rational People and Think This Through (Score:2, Insightful)
I find the ban on the DoJ's IP address more humorous than anything else. If there's some sort of action in DoJ over the incident, it'll probably be a crackdown on Internet usage for productivity purposes.
As for whether or not "the government" is qualified to edit Wikipedia, who is? Nearly everyone will have some sort of conflict of interest, whether due to their employer, religious creed, or civic affiliation. I don't see why any of over fourteen million Federal civil servants and contractors, let alone the tens of millions of state and local government employees, should be less qualified to edit Wikipedia than any other netizen.
Re:Should the DOJ and Gov't Edit Wikipedia? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Should the DOJ and Gov't Edit Wikipedia? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Should the DOJ and Gov't Edit Wikipedia? (Score:2, Insightful)
EK
Re:Should the DOJ and Gov't Edit Wikipedia? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or does the 'openness' of wiki mean that the government is justified in making changes to whatever articles they want?
I personally don't want them even touching it, or influencing any media outlet.
Rick Mater, the WB network's senior vice president for broadcast standards, acknowledges: "The White House did view scripts. They did sign off on them -- they read scripts, yes."
Re:brave move that. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Our long national nighmare is almost over (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that 99% of people are idiots. Not only do very few people have the brains to actually understand what they're voting on, but the ones who do are generally too busy living their lives to read, say, 5,000 pages of a tax bill.
BTW, who is to write all this legislation? Certainly not Joe Sixpack. Lawyers write laws for a reason - it's a complicated undertaking, full of technical language which must be written to survive testing in courts. Letting the general public write laws would quickly swamp the country in unintended consequences.
Don't get me wrong - representative democracy sucks. The reality is that there is no good form of government where humans are involved.
As a way to deal with the information overload, after the baseline system has been established, citizens should be able to nominate a representative to cast their vote on their behalf. Not someone who has chosen to run, but anyone who they feel they trust most. This should be revocable at any time.
Baseline system: constitution in 1789. Representative to cast votes: congressman. Revocable: elections. Your proposal is a distinction from our modern system without much of a difference. If you think what you propose wouldn't quickly descend into a similar system of corruption, lobbying, and abuse, you don't know humans.
Re:Should the DOJ and Gov't Edit Wikipedia? (Score:1, Insightful)
Open* Encyclopedia = Good
(* - Except when "open" means edits are allowed by people/entities I personally distrust.)
That about sum it up?
Re:Wow, nobody read the article! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Our long national nighmare is almost over (Score:3, Insightful)
I consider the fact that laws are written in language that only the lawyers can understand to be one of the fundamental problems that needs to be put a stop to.
Why do you think legislation is less complicated than, say, source code? Joe Sixpack should be able to tell his computer what to do and it just does it without all the need for this fancy programming, right?
Re:Should the DOJ and Gov't Edit Wikipedia? (Score:2, Insightful)
To quote, ironically, Wikipedia: One consequence of this is that Bush's own reasoning, since he essentially personifies the executive branch under this theory, is that we should be able to hold him responsible for any and all infractions by the executive branch under his watch, including stupid shit like this. Not that that will ever happen - Bush has been lucky enough to have a complacent and ineffectual Congress and a Supreme Court that turns a blind eye to everything he does, so now he can have his constitution and eat it too.
Re:Our long national nighmare is almost over (Score:4, Insightful)
You write laws because there is a specific audience that is intended to be able to understand them and behave according to that understanding. That audience is a citizen.
These facts being true, which they are, I have two questions for you:
a) What makes you think it's impossible to craft laws in a way that the citizen can understand when it's possible to craft programs that a hunk of silicon can understand?
b) What makes you think it's important to dedicate such efforts to creating programs that a computer can understand, and yet not worth the trouble to make sure the laws that govern your behavior are understandable to you?
Re:Our long national nighmare is almost over (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes you think it's impossible to craft laws in a way that the citizen can understand when it's possible to craft programs that a hunk of silicon can understand?
I understand that it's illegal to murder someone. But the law regarding murder in my state runs to many pages, and necessarily so...what kind of murder? What are allowed defenses? Circumstances, penalties, etc. It all has to be spelled out in precise detail. And murder is a simple case. Now apply that process to something like rules of evidence, or under what circumstances companies are allowed to deduct expenses from prior years, or how probate is handled when a man dies intestate with a child by his wife and by a girlfriend, or rules for immigration, etc. The law is every bit as complicated as source code because humans are complicated. If you want to be ruled by law, then you need to spell it out to the Nth detail so there are no questions or loopholes...even lawyers who are pros sometimes don't get that right.
Re:brave move that. (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Respect other's rights.
Didn't work in California, won't work elsewhere (Score:3, Insightful)
No. Simply allowing people to propose and vote on legislation won't work because people will then push through all sorts of unfunded mandates. We've seen this in California, where the initiative system was gamed by special interests who pushed through mandates forcing the government to provide all kinds of services. At the same time, though, none of the voters acted to support the tax increases needed to fund the initiatives. The state was then faced with the double bind of being legally required to provide services, but being unable to raise taxes in order to pay for them.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:2, Insightful)
As for the rest - really, why is Wikipedia so worried about people trying to improve their articles with sourced information? Why are they so worried that systemic bias in the Israel-related articles might be (gasp!) removed?
For that matter, why is "Electronic Intifada" a source to be trusted in this regard? It's just as likely that there are already organized Muslim/anti-semitic groups on wikipedia messing with these pages; they used to operate openly (Wikiproject Islam: The Muslim Guild/The Sunni Guild/The Shia Guild/etc) until they decided they'd work better hiding their affiliation, and there are users to this day running around with pro-Hezbollah buttons prominent on their pages.
In fact, one of the users with a pro-Hezbollah button (User Tiamut) is one of the ones who was working so hard to get the complainant above banned from wikipedia. Think about it; since under real application of wikipedia policy their bias-pushing edits wouldn't hold, the next best thing is to try to get the opposition banned from wikipedia.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:4, Insightful)
That's pretty unfair, and definitely doesn't fit the other poster's comments.
We can separate the actions of governments from the people they govern, and criticise them accordingly. That's normal, rational behaviour.
I look at the previous government of Australia (my country) and often criticised them for their policies. I'm not anti-Australian, I'm just not pro-Liberal (the local conservatives have an ironic name).
Similarly I can criticise the governments of the US, UK and Israel for various things without being anti-US, anti-UK and anti-Israeli (or anti-Semite) respectively.
For the record, I definitely do criticise the Israeli government for their lying about nuclear capability, for their often lethal attacks on civilians and for their habit of occasionally killing a foreign journalist in cold blood and then pretending they didn't spot the bright orange outfits or the camera crews. I also criticise the Palestinian government and Hamas for their insane campaign of terrorism, their willingness to kill and die rather than shut up until they get to the negotiating table and the atrocious tactic of using civilians as shields so that they can then paint Israel as evil for killing civilians.
Maybe you'll call me anti-Semite too, but it's bullshit and we both know it.
Lastly, it's entirely possible that Wikipedia has issues of bias. Just about every publication around the world seems to be biased for or against someone. Exposing it is a good thing, as is exposing any unwillingness to correct bias.