congress's million little pieces

[firsty]

dont think your govt is trying to rewrite history? well, they ARE. literally.

http://news.com.com/2061-10796_3-6033082.html

Congress caught making false entries in Wikipedia
January 30, 2006 5:26 PM PST

We already know, of course, that politicians live primarily for re-election and typically view the truth as an impediment to the higher purpose of unfettered self-aggrandizement.

Still, we can be excused for feeling mildly nauseated when fresh confirmation of this distasteful aspect of modern politicking surfaces.

The latest episode appeared last week in the form of a report that aides to Rep. Marty Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat, deleted references to his broken term-limits pledge and massive campaign war chest on Wikipedia.

Then the trusty editors at Wikipedia got together and compiled a list of over 1,000 edits made by Internet addresses allocated to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The IP address subsequently was blocked and unblocked.

An extensive analysis reveals how juvenile official Washington secretly is, behind the mind-numbingly serious talk of public policy.

One edit listed White House press secretary Scott McClellan under the entry for "douche." Another said of Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma) that: "Coburn was voted the most annoying Senator by his peers in Congress. This was due to Senator Coburn being a huge douche-bag."

(Keep in mind these are the same holier-than-thou political climbers tasked with writing laws telling the rest of the country how to behave. Or else.)

This juvenalia is, of course, thoroughly bipartisan. Another change to the Iraq invasion entry shows that the anonymous congressional editor played up the dubious connections between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

It's true, of course, that the cretins who are behind the Wikipedia alterations can (and probably will) do this from their home computers in the future. But the difficulty in policing the political class shouldn't make us any less alarmed at the most recent evidence of its misdeeds.

[mtmynd]

What public good does Wikedpedia offer if entries can be erroneously changed by anyone with a cause?

[firsty]

well, thats a whole different question. wikipedia is actually a very good tool, and was very recently studied by scholars who found that it was only marginally less accurate than the encyclopedia brittanica.

changes are tracked and usually mistakes are fixed and documented pretty quickly.

[mtmynd]

Is is that open that anyone has access to the info?

[firsty]

anyone, yes.

when pope benedict was selected, a picture of the emporer in star wars was very briefly put in his place. ha ha. pretty funny. it came down within minutes.

the idea is that it's a community site. it's certainly going to be subjected to trolls. but the community is self-sustaining. it's a great example of people working together to sustain their community.

really, the issue here is how frivolously our congresspeople deal with facts. that our elected officials are really internet trolls is sort of frightening.

[firsty]

here is a list from wikipedia of all the entries changed by congressional staff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_ ... the_senate

i got to listen to a brief portion of a segment on this on npr while i was getting my lunch a few minutes ago. what i took from that is that wikipedia's detailed history logs are very valuable and are able to, with much work by dedicated staff at wikipedia, track any changes that might throw the truth off track. also, from the point of view of full disclosure, wikipedia, unlike most resources, provides that detailed account of where each element of information came from. anything subjective is discussed in great deal within the article, controversial elements are flagged as such, and the built-in checks and balances of the community are very strict and strong. it's enlightening to see just what some congresspeople consider harmful or valuable, and enlightening to see which ones will attempt to alter the facts in their favor. if the american public didnt have their collective heads up their collective asses, this revelation of CONGRESSPEOPLE ALTERING HISTORY might actually help us make future choices.

but i fucking doubt it.

[mtmynd]

thx, firsty... i guess i need to be a joiner to open some of that info up.

good to see that wikipedia has an alert staff. that smooths me out. ahhh....