Re: <nettime> A Puff Piece on Wikipedia (Fwd)

[Oliver Gassner <carpe.com@gmx.de>]

On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 17:33:53 +0200, Florian Cramer
<cantsin@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

>Forwarded, with permission, from my friend tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE. -
>I think this raises interesting questions about the integrity and
>politics of open content, collaborative online projects and knowledge
>repositories.

I am not sure it does.

While the alterations made are surely a matter of opinion or
perspective: If someone 'messes' with 'my' wiki in a similar way I'd
also re-edit it. (Go and try: http://carpe.com/wiki/ ;-) )

Specially the remark, that this was done within less than 30 minutes
points more to the activity of a WikiGardener than to one of a person
from the said instituion.

You would not EARNESTLY (pardon me for shouting) believe, that a PR
person from Johns Hopkins has nothing else to do than monitor a
WikiPage several times an hour (even if by a script or
changedetection.com or the likes) and re-edit it if necessary?

But then I'd never dream of using wikipedia as a source for
encyclopedic content. (I'd consider putting some there, ok ;) )
And you? I mean: You might dream, but would you do it in scholarly
work( without consulting other sources)?

The sentence (you were quoting)
>It appears that Wikipedia is used as an advertising outlet 
>for "elite institutions". 
speaks for itself.

Remember: "That you are paranoid does not mean that they are not after
you". ;)

And: I do not see any reason for anonymity in trhis case. That is
childish. OK, except if the writer was a professor at JHU ;)

Let's see if he was, OK?

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johns_Hopkins_University

-> revision history

> (Revision as of 15:54, 24 Sep 2003) 

(cur) (last) . . 20:06, 29 Sep 2003 . . 67.87.234.159 
(cur) (last) . . 20:01, 29 Sep 2003 . . 67.87.234.159 
(cur) (last) . . M 04:24, 28 Sep 2003 . . ThereIsNoSteve 
(cur) (last) . . M 20:22, 25 Sep 2003 . . ThereIsNoSteve 
(cur) (last) . . 18:35, 25 Sep 2003 . . 67.87.234.159 
(cur) (last) . . 18:32, 25 Sep 2003 . . 67.87.234.159 
(cur) (last) . . 17:27, 25 Sep 2003 . . 67.87.234.159 
(cur) (last) . . 17:26, 25 Sep 2003 . . 67.87.234.159 
(cur) (last) . . 17:23, 25 Sep 2003 . . 67.87.234.159 
(cur) (last) . . 17:21, 25 Sep 2003 . . 67.87.234.159 
(cur) (last) . . M 17:19, 25 Sep 2003 . . Frecklefoot (+wikilinks) 

It was later corrected by a person regularly working on that page,
probably really someone from JHU, we will check that.

(cur) (last) . . 17:13, 25 Sep 2003 . . 67.87.234.159 
(cur) (last) . . 17:12, 25 Sep 2003 . . 67.87.234.159 
(cur) (last) . . 16:17, 24 Sep 2003 . . 67.87.234.159 

This was done by your anonymous writer
(cur) (last) . . 15:54, 24 Sep 2003 . . 206.80.158.11 

(cur) (last) . . 15:44, 24 Sep 2003 . . 67.87.234.159 

So let's look at the IPs

tracert 206.80.158.11 
->  zbay5-11.fyi.net
A sDSL Provider and the likes. Would 'bay' point to the SF Bay area? 

tracert 67.87.234.159 
-> *.optonline.net
'High speed internet and cable modem provider' (Rather definitely not
someone on the campus of JHU, right?)

He had edited the page only 10 minutes before the 'hack', so it's only
normal he'd override a silly edit like the one mentioned.

Another regular editor is 68.198.191.117 who also connects from
'optonline' so I'd guess it is the same person.

Let's complete this with a

tracert www.jhu.edu
-> jhuniverse.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.2.80]

No similarity to any of the other IPs.

So.
Before anyone indulges in paranoia they should just check the obvious:
Someone writing about JHU every day would rather not want the stuff
from the fyi-guy in there.

Rightyright?

IMO this quick re-edit is proof that the wiki-system (or: wikipedia)
works: Any nonsense will quickly be removed ;)

OG


-- 
oliver gassner - radbrunnengasse 1/2 - D-71665 vaihingen an der enz
og@carpe.com - mobil 0179 297 234 2 -  http://www.oliver-gassner.de/
literatur:  http://www.carpe.com/
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