The New Editor’s Paul Geary has a post on a report by the Lowell Sun (MA) that congressional staffers for US Rep. Marty Meehan (D-MA) altered the congressman’s entry in Wikipedia by eliminating references to his broken term-limits pledge as well as information about his huge campaign war chest (the largest of any member in the US House):
The Lowell Sun reports that over 1,000 changes from congressional IP addresses have been entered into Wikipedia in the last six months, including childish ‘vandalism’ of some entries.
Apparently, the problem got so bad that in November and December Wikipedia actually blocked at least one congressional IP address from entering changes to Wikipedia entries.
Congressman Martin Meehan (D-MA) is obviously still sensitive about breaking a pledge he made in 1992:
Members of U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan’s staff have acknowledged they deleted unflattering information about a broken campaign promise from an online encyclopedia, according to a published report.
Content on Wikipedia, an encyclopedia that relies on volunteers to post information, was replaced to remove references to Meehan’s broken term limit pledge, the Sun of Lowell reported.
Meehan’s chief of staff Matt Vogel told the newspaper that he oversaw the removal last July of information, which was replaced with a staff-written biography.
The Lowell Sun generally is pretty friendly to Meehan, usually running stories like this one.
Meehan was running in the Democratic primary against Chester Atkins, a 20-year incumbent, when he made the pledge. On the Republican side, businessman Michael Conway and former congressman Paul Cronin, both of whom I worked for that year, made the same pledge. The 2006 run will be his eighth, four more than the honored pledge would have allowed.
Meehan has downplayed the issue in recent years, saying that the pledge was a lesser issue in the 1992 campaign, was a “youthful indiscretion,” and that he had “moved on.” Sorry Marty: I was there. It was a central issue to the campaign, and my memory can’t be erased like a Wikipedia entry. Meehan, in fact, was vociferous in his advocacy for term limits well after that election:
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.” Meehan failed that test in March, telling his constituents that he had gained too much influence in the House to step aside. In 1995, however, he had written a letter to the House clerk to ensure his term-limits pledge. “Should I be elected to serve more than two additional terms in the U.S. House of Representatives following the 104th Congress,” Meehan declared, “by this letter I hereby resign and direct you to remove my name permanently from the Roll of Members.”
Of the nearly 20 representatives who took term-limit pledges in the 1990s, only Meehan remains in Congress.
Update: The Lowell Sun also reports that the abuse by one congressional staffer was so bad that Wikipedia had to block the user’s IP address.
Wikipedia’s online honor system has made it ripe for abuse by vandals. Recently, a user wrote in a Wikipedia bio that Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor “smells of cow dung.” Another wrote that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is “ineffective.” These statements were traced to the House Internet-protocol (IP) address.
In November and December, The Sun has learned, users of the House’s IP address were temporarily blocked from changing content because of violations described by the site as a “deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia.”
“I’m not denying it,” Jon Brandt, a spokesman for the Committee on House Administration, which oversees the House computer network, said when asked to confirm House ownership of the address.
For security reasons, Brandt declined to say to whom the address is assigned.
Hell, I’m still waiting for somebody to create an entry about protein widom. I break promises daily—and in addition to that, I have a host of imaginary friends that are far more interesting that just about anything Martin Meehan has done (or will ever do)—unless, of course, he manages to bang a group of horney Smith teens on video, or talk Ted Kennedy onto the Atkins diet.
In which case, the whole pw clan will tip their collective hats to the dude and defer to his quite technological inept audacity.
Provided, of course, that we’re wearing hats. Which, barring a mining emergency, I’ll admit isn’t very likely.
(h/t Tom Elia)
I was going to make a page for you; went so far as to create a user ID. But apparently they’re preventing a barrage of spam by making it frickin’ impossible to figure out how to create an entry. And I don’t have time.
I would have made time for a man who delivered armadillo dancing. But for you, nothing.
We can start it here and then post it to Wiki. I’ll go first:
—
Protein Wisdom, written by Richard Goldstein, is owned and manipulated by Pajamas Media. As a blogger, Goldstein has enjoyed his travels to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, as well as the Open Sores/PJM launch party.
—
Goldberg, a “house negro” for the Republican Industrial Military Complex, is known for his blind parroting of the Bush Administration line on issues ranging from the Cuban boycott (“if they’re so poor, how come I can’t get one of those little chiquitas to come up here and rub my feet for less than $250 a month?”) to the global war on terror (“I like to see Arabs being killed.”) Steinberg’s personal history is murky at best, with occasional veiled references made to sexually-charged periods of incarceration and mysterious teaching jobs at private girl’s boarding schools.
I found putting the word “integrity” in the same sentence as “wikipedia” pretty hilarious since the president of Wikipedia was caught updating his entry in violation of wikipedia’s rules.
What is my entry on Protein Wisom in Wikipedia that it is? Yes. Well, you may well ask what is my entry. And well you may. Yes, my word, you may well ask what it is, this entry of mine. Well, this entry, that I have, that is to say, which is mine… is mine…. Where? … Oh! Oh! What is my entry? Ahh! My entry, that I have, follows the lines that I am about to relate. (starts prolonged throat clearing) The Protein Wisdom Entry by Anne Elk (A for Ann, not “An Elk”) This entry, which belongs to me, is as follows…This is how it goes… (clears throat) The next thing that I am about to say is my entry. (clears throat) Ready?
The Protein Wisdom Entry by A. Elk (Miss) is along the following lines…
…All Richard Goldsteins are thin at one end, much thicker in the middle, then thin again at the other end. That is the Protein Wisdom Wikipedia entry that I have and which is mine, and what it is too.
The IP address probably belongs to a pool used for outbount NATing, and gets remapped as needed. They know who it was, based on time info, but won’t say.
But do you have a huge war chest (the largest of any member of Pajamas Media)?
And are you going to post a photo of it, just for the ladies?
Right, then. Here’s mine: Richard Goldstein was born in 1840 in a Ken Russell film iust outside St Petersburg. His father (Leo McKern), a free-lance bishop, was married to Vern Plachenka (Julie Christie) but secretly deeply in love with Margo Farenka (Shirley Abicair) and the strangely flatulent Madame Ranevsky (Norris McWhirter). Soon, however, the family (Eldridge Cleaver, Moira Lister and Stan the Bat) moved to the neighbouring industrial village of Omsk (Eddie Waring) where they soon found themselves, sadly, quite unable to cope (Anthony Barber). In 1863, however, Richard was sent to Moscow to study the piano and, when he’d finished that, the living room.
Well, if you can imagine the size of Nelson’s Column, which is roughly three times the size of a London bus, then Richard was much smaller. His head was about the same size as that of an extremely large dog, that is to say, two very small dogs, or four very large hamsters, or one medium-size rabbit if you count the whole of the body and not just the head.
Er, or maybe that was Tschaikowsky.
protein wisdom: That Goldberg fella is one funny Jew.
Goldman, Jeff: Apologist for all this crap.
Protein Wisdom: Blog funded by the International Jew/Halliburton/BushNazi/Armadillo/Language Deconstructionist/Oil/Drug Cartel/Gay/Anti-Gay/Jew Conspiracy, Ltd.
Protein Wisdom: Authored by the fictional entity Richard Goldstein, reputedly a nephew of Emmanuel Goldstein, Protein Wisdom is a weblog dedicated to causing mass insanity among left-wingers, one at a time.