republicans freaking out evident in subtle ways

[NoodleBoy]

this time: vandalizing Wikipedia by adding baseless accusations to the pages of Democratic candidates while deleting emberassing information about Republicans.

I won't point out specific posts--Wikipedia doesn't like that--but I thought I'd share.

I seriously would not be surprised to find a few interns in the RNC's basement trying to figure out ways to exploit Wikipedia. I could just be paranoid, but I've noticed a few instances of very smart editing techniques used to cover up vandalism, as well as correlations between things the RNC does and their relation to Wikipedia.

[ThoughtCriminal]

1. The IP address of the edits is published

See if the same IP's are involved and look them up. A few months ago many of the edits were traced back to Congressional offices.

[NoodleBoy]

2. I remember that... I was somewhat involved in it, actually

I'll look it up tomorrow. Thing is, you can screw your IP adress around, fooling the Wikipedia servers, and while some of the vandal IP's have struck a few times, it's only maybe ten edits in a half hour, then nothing.

that whole thing was a trip. it was even weirder since the mainstream media didn't seem to cover it at all, even though if it had been traced back to a Democratic office Bill O'Reilly would have been fuming about "collectivist democrat socialists" were trying to control the internets.

[Mythsaje]

3. I gotta ask...

Why should you give a rat's ass what wikipedia does or does not like in these circumstances?

[NoodleBoy]

5. because, just like being active in the democratic party, by being active in wikipedia,

I am, technically, Wikipedia itself.

A little something called civic involvement for the internet. Wow, I thought this board would generally be in support of that.

Aside from that, it's the largest encyclopedia on the net, aside from the damn best, and I would do whatever I could to make sure lies and fabrications stay off of it.

[Jim Lane]

4. What DUers should do

Go to the Wikipedia articles about the candidates you know the most about (the good and the bad). If there's significant information that's not in the article, and that can be documented (to a reliable source, not to a typical blog), add it, with a citation.

Don't worry about making minor formatting mistakes. Somebody else can correct them. In fact, there are people whose major contribution to Wikipedia is to go from article to article making stylistic improvements.

I agree with NoodleBoy that the Republicans are probably devoting some organized attention to trying to bias Wikipedia. It's currently ranked by Alexa as the 15th most frequently visited site on the entire web, and it's one that they can't influence with their money (no advertising, no paid contributors).

On edit: Wikipedia versus Fox News

I know that Alexa isn't a perfect measure, but, FWIW, consider of wikipedia.org and foxnews.com in number of page views. In the first few years of the century, Fox News was well ahead. Wikipedia grew and ran roughly even for most of 2004. In late 2004, Wikipedia passed Fox News permanently, and kept going. Currently Wikipedia gets more than 20 times as many page views as Fox News. You think the RNC hasn't noticed this?