Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Making public information more public--to the embarassment of some Wikipedia editors

Wikipedia and the art of censorship: "It was hailed as a breakthrough in the democratisation of knowledge. But the online encyclopedia has since been hijacked by forces who decided that certain things were best left unknown."

Fortunately the folks at Wikipedia and watchdogs among those who routinely edit tend to catch insults, conflicts of interest, and questionable deletions. But a new program links edits with the organisation with which the computer used is affiliated, and that's caused some embarrassment for companies, political parties, government agencies, religious groups, all sorts of people. It can't get specifically down to who made the edits, but it's picking up the conflicts of interest and tinkering being done in the interest of public relations and cover-ups.

Okay, I really am going to bed now. Oh, and here's the website for WikiScanner

Incidentally, I put in my own company and I went from a page that an unknown coworker apparently edited on Monty Python and the Holy Grail to this:

Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow

and incidentally, no it wasn't me....I have never edited a Wikipedia article, yet.

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