Sun, 29 Jan 2006 00:43:00
The WikiWars return…this time, it’s Congressional!
The latest round of Wikipedia warring has been heard from. A Massachusetts Democrat is altering his own history:
The staff of U.S. Rep Marty Meehan wiped out references to his broken term-limits pledge as well as information about his huge campaign war chest in an independent biography of the Lowell Democrat on a Web site that bills itself as the “world’s largest encyclopedia,” The Sun has learned.
The Meehan alterations on Wikipedia.com represent just two of more than 1,000 changes made by congressional staffers at the U.S. House of Representatives in the past six month. Wikipedia is a global reference that relies on its Internet users to add credible information to entries on millions of topics.
On some levels, it makes sense that you’d want to edit your own Wikipedia entry to correct blatant falsehoods. But...and with a Massachusetts Democrat, you know there is always a but, Meehan & company went further in an effort to whitewash his past:
“Meehan first ran for Congress in 1992 on a platform of reform,” the pre-edited entry said. “As part of that platform Meehan made a pledge to not serve more than four terms, a central part of his campaign. This breaking of the pledge has been a controversial issue in the 5th Congressional District of Massachusetts.”
The new entry reads in part: “Meehan was elected to Congress in 1992 on a plan to eliminate the deficit. His fiscally responsible voting record since then has earned him praise from citizen watchdog groups. He was re-elected by a large margin in 2004.”
That’s just sad and lame. It’s one thing when Adam Curry edits his entry to overly-glorify his role in podcasting. It’s quite another kettle of fish for an elected public servant to remove embarrassing statements he made on the record.
While vandalism is a problem, deleting factual information raises ethical concerns, said Geoffrey Bowker, director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University.
“The vandalism is just plain childish,” Bowker said. “The term-limit pledge (that was changed by Meehan’s staff) is a much more serious case. That’s someone trying to alter the public record.
“To knowingly remove a truthful statement is just wrong,” he added. “It’s not the place of any special-interest group to tamper with the facts available to the public.”
Exactly. But (always with the but)…
This latest round in the WikiWars just serves to illustrate the inherent problem with Wikipedia: its greatest feature is its greatest flaw, anyone can get in there and edit away. You can’t trust it as a primary source...you have to research the research.
Posted by JimK at 12:43 AM on January 29, 2006
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