No Secrets in Cyberspace

There's this cool new Web site called Wikipedia scanner that reveals how different organizations are editing Wikipedia. While Wikipedia edits are technically anonymous, the site keeps track of the IP address from which the edits were made. IP addresses, in turn, can be matched up with specific organizations. So while you can't tell exactly what person made a change, you can pretty reliably figure out where they were working when they did it.

For example, on June 18th, 2007, at 6:32 PM, somebody using the National Education Association's IP address changed the following paragraph in the "National Education Association" Wikipedia entry from:

In recent decades the NEA has greatly increased its visibility in party politics, endorsing almost exclusively Democratic Party candidates and contributing funds and other assistance to political campaigns. The NEA asserts itself "non-partisan", but critics point out that the NEA has endorsed and provided support for every Democratic Party presidential nominee from Jimmy Carter to John Kerry and has never endorsed any Republican Party or third party candidate for the nation's highest office.

To this:

NEA has played a role in politics since its founding, as it has sought to influence state and federal laws that would have a positive impact on public education. Every political position adopted by NEA was brought by one of its members to the annual Representative Assembly, where it was considered on the floor, debated, and voted on by elected delegates.

They also changed this:

Furthermore, based on required filings with the federal government, it is estimated that between 1990 and 2002 ninety-five percent of the NEA's substantial political contributions went to Democratic Partycandidate [http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=11785]. Although this has been questioned as being out of balance with the more diverse political views of the broader membership[http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95000771], the NEA maintains that it bases support for candidates primarily on the organization's interpretation of candidates' support for public education and educators.

To this:

The Association tracks legislation related to education and the teaching profession and encourages members to get involved in politics through a comprehensive Legislative Action Center on its website.[http://www.nea.org/lac/] Because of its large membership, the NEA is extremely well-funded and exercises substantial power in the political process.

Interestingly, if you look at the entry today, somebody has gone in and changed them all back. (It wasn't us! We've only got two changes registered, both on a non-education topic. Gotta give those interns more work to do...)

Personally, I think it's fine if the NEA wants to support only Democrats; majorities matter in electoral politics and if a group judges that one party best represents its interests, it should be able to support them how it pleases. But there's no reason to be less than up-front about it.

I also note that three years ago someone from the NEA IP address also changed the this sentence in the "Thor" entry:

Much later, his father Odin decided that Thor had to be taught humility, and so transformed into '''Donald Blake''' (aka '''Don Blake'''), a human medical student who was lame in one leg, and erased his memory.

to this:

Much later, his father Odin decided that Thor had to be taught humility,
and so transformed into '''Donald Blake''' (aka '''Chad Don Blake'''), a human medical student who was lame in one leg, and erased his memory.

Arcane knowledge of comic book minutiae! That's the basis for shared understanding...