Standard Mischief

A bunch of congress-critter staffers can’t get together a decent sockpuppet.

Wikipedia, my favorite encyclopedia in the whole world is under attack. It started with some creative PR work over on U.S. Rep Marty Meehan’s Wikipedia entry. Apparently staffers went in and removed the fact that Meehan ran on a pledge of strict term limits. There’s a good article on the edits in the Lowell Sun.

From the wikipedia entry:

Meehan first ran for Congress in 1992 on a platform of reform. As part of that platform Meehan made a pledge not to serve more than four terms. He won the 1992 election and was re-elected to Congress every two years since, including the latest election (2004). On the House floor in 1995 he scolded members who might go back on their promise to limit their tenure in office. “The best test of any politicians’ credibility on term limits,” he said, “is whether they are willing to put their careers where their mouths are and limit their own service.” [2] In the year 2000 when he again ran for Congress, exceeding four terms, he stated that not to run would be a disservice to his constituents who continued to want him to be their Congressman. [3]

Now however, it has seemingly escalated into edit wars on a number of the congress-critters articles. Apparently the sons and daughters of wealthy campaign contributers can?t figure out how to use a proxy, because a number of IP addresses point directly back to the Senate. There is interesting chatter on what to do about this (emphasis mine):

Wow, an RFC against the entire US Federal Government? Count me in! What an awesome idea! –Cyde Weys 15:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Organized POV pushing, IMO, will be the major threat to Wikipedia in the upcoming decade – much more serious than scalability, server issues, or the threat of litigation. My current experience with this has not been encouraging – blatant POV pushers have been given the run of Wikipedia as long as they are canny enough to not violate specific rules like the 3RR. We need to start treating organized POV pushing at least as seriously as we do blatant vandalism, or Wikipedia will be useless as an information resource. How long before every major corporation has PR agent(s) assigned to Wikipedia editing? Crotalus horridus (TALK ? CONTRIBS) 20:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I’m in favor of banning the entire IP range for both House and Senate for a minimum of seven years. These people’s salaries are paid with our tax dollars, and I’m not interested in seeing my money going towards Wikipedia vandalism. If people still want to contribute, they are welcome to do so on their own time, at home, when they’re not using government computers. Astarf 20:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. We need to nip this in the bud before it goes further. No one should be allowed to make campaigns of disinformation, as this is not at the heart of wikipedia. 30 January 2006

Endorse. There needs to be greater punishment than a 1-week block for those IPs involved in violations. But I also like JeffBurdges’s idea below for creating a Congress IP watchlist. –Aaron 20:50, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I’m in! Let’s see how it feels for them to be censored by us, for a change ! Elfguy 20:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Endorse. I can’t believe they’re doing this to wikipedia. Shows how popular it has become.Matthewvelie 21:05, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Besides being personally offended by the attempted annoying AND anonymous actions of teenybopper staffers, I?m suitably unimpressed with the caliber of their actions. Use someone else?s Wi-Fi, use a proxy, got to a cafe, try to pull together a sockpuppet that does not lead directly back to your doorstep. Oh and try to understand how easy it is to revert your edits and remember the press that?s going to be churned up will not look good to your patron-critter. Even if you get to keep your job. Thanks.

Update: Looks like frequent commenter Countertop beat me to this story.