This is beyond bizarre:

Justice Department IP doctors CAMERA article to remove reference to scandal

I don't know whether it's more offensive to me that the Justice Department has an employee who thinks defending CAMERA is part of his job or that they would have an employee so stupid that he'd get caught at it.

Can't Sleep, Clown Will Eat Me has just blocked the US Dept of Justice from editing Wikipedia for 99 hours. You'd think it would be 99 years and a day, but well, they do get special treatment. On account of their organizational notability. You know, someday there might be some people there who will grow up to be good editors on WP. And that other guy is the night janitor. Who knows the password to a US Justice Dept computer. No, I don't want to believe that. This is making me paranoid again. Stopit.

Dude. There's quite a few admins from the FBI et al. around there (and probably here). Noting that is not "being paranoid". It is simply good common sense. They are the paranoid ones. Read their literature, or their annual reports. They don't hide their mandate whatsoever.

Some people in those agencies get paid to just watch (and maybe edit or admin) Wikipedia, among other sites, to watch for "domestic terrorism" (i.e. to make sure you don't freak out and go "take out" the downtown mall, after editing Wikipedia in a politically incorrect manner).

Just keep an eye on who swoops in and protects the article.

Thats will be a fun project.

Honestly, why don't they just block all government IPs, permanently? If a government IP makes an edit for "official government business," it's probably propaganda that Wikipedia shouldn't want. If an edit is made for personal reasons, it's a misuse of government property, at least in the US. Why not avoid something that can only be used abusively, one way or another?

Look at the contribution history of the IP. If I had to guess, this is a snarky teenager who likes to watch E.R. and Tracy Jordan on TV, having fun on his dad's home computer with VPN access to his dad's employer, the DOJ.

Of course, Wikipedia will scale this up to a complete "Communications Committee" scandal-du-jour, seemingly forgetting that their project says "anyone can edit".

Greg

Since when is it Wikipedia's job to enforce employers' policies on misuse of work property or time, whether they're public or private employers? That's an internal matter at the particular workplace.

Some of you seem to be eager to spin conspiracy theories about "Government Agencies Infiltrating Wikipedia!!!!!!" when it's more likely to be simply a case of people who happen to work at such places being human, and sometimes going in and editing stuff they're interested in (whether appropriately or not), but unlikely to be part of any big conspiracy (which, if it existed, would likely be done in a much more covert and less traceable way).

That certainly wouldn't work for Britain. I have several e-mails from Government offices and none of the IPs can be identified as Government offices. Further, I'd doubt that there would be any objection to civil servants editing Wikipedia in their lunch hours as long as they didn't find any pornographic images. (Easier said than done!)

You know that the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (i.e. Dutch version of the US State Department) made a rule that civil servants there can't edit Wikipedia, right? (Not sure if that applies to other ministries in that country).

Any government office, in any country, given the way Wikipedia is mis-managed, is well advised to forbid all editing from their offices - even if the IP is masked, etc. It's a minefield that is more than likely to wind them up in the newspaper for no good reason. So many examples of this, in so many countries.

Lunch hour or no, it could land in the paper, and so "basta".

The only issue is that most people/institutions/management havent wised up to this, though if you are observing, it is amazing that they haven't yet done. The Dutch probably only instituted that ban after their Royal family got dinged.

I confess to having edited Wikipedia from a Civil Service machine. The IP I used before I registered a name resolves to "Cable and Wireless, Sheffield", not to my Department. I can claim only a small proportion of those edits; from the range of topics, at least two other people must have been involved.

(said in Clouseau voice)

AHA! Poetlister! You have outed yourself! You've just now revealed that there exist more of your socking alternate identities to be found! More of your lying, and faithless vandalistic behavior!

(cue: sounds of barking dogs chasing down every Wikipedia edit made by Poetlister for correlation and eventual online prosecution of the "Sheffield Sockpuppet Army©")

One of those DOJ IP addresses also smeared a Democratic Senator from Colorado, last year. They changed this text:

QUOTE

. He handily won his reelection bid against [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] [[Scott Tipton]] from [[Cortez, Colorado]]. Salazar won with 61% of the vote.

to this text: (link)

QUOTE

Immediately after the election Salazar’s campaign came under fire with allegation of election fraud. While the matter was put to rest briefly, both the Republican Secretary of State andthe Democratic Clerk and Recorder of Pueblo County are [http://chieftain.com/metro/1173765883/2 re-examining the matter.

It sat like that for about three months, until someone at a Georgetown University IP marked it as POV, and it was removed by an unspecified IP in Reston Virginia, that did cleanup on about three or four Congressional bios.

The DOJ IP that made the above edit was a talented number. They did about 98% of edits on TV shows and movies, and then made grammatical edits to some political bios, and then (whoops!) inserted the above smear.

Smooth. Whoever made the above edit knows the Wikipedia game.

This edit was probably official government business, given how the DOJ has been used in the Bush Administration. No irony at all intended.