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News today: Obama's wikipedia page continuously scrubbed and censored....

This is a bit Orwellian. I really am tired of the whole eligibility issue (it's a dead horse) and it's pretty well established that WND has their own tilt. However a lot of the material being censored is perfectly relevant and should be left alone, particularly since it was significant in the campaign and is well sourced/documented. Hooray for free speech and stuff!

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91114

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WND Exclusive OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL Wikipedia scrubs Obama eligibility Mention of citizenship issues deleted in minutes, 'offending' users banned Posted: March 08, 2009 6:54 pm Eastern By Aaron Klein � 2009 WorldNetDaily From Wikipedia's Barack Obama page Wikipedia, the online "free encyclopedia" mega-site written and edited entirely by its users, has been deleting within minutes any mention of eligibility issues surrounding Barack Obama's presidency, with administrators kicking off anyone who writes about the subject, WND has learned. A perusal through Obama's current Wikipedia entry finds a heavily guarded, mostly glowing biography about the U.S. president. Some of Obama's most controversial past affiliations, including with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former Weathermen terrorist Bill Ayers, are not once mentioned, even though those associations received much news media attention and served as dominant themes during the presidential elections last year. Also completely lacking is any mention of the well-publicized concerns surrounding Obama's eligibility to serve as commander-in-chief. Where's the proof Barack Obama was born in the U.S. or that he fulfills the "natural-born American" clause in the Constitution? If you still want to see it, join more than 300,000 others and sign up now! Indeed, multiple times, Wikipedia users who wrote about the eligibility issues had their entries deleted almost immediately and were banned from re-posting any material on the website for three days. In one example, one Wikipedia user added the following to Obama's page: "There have been some doubts about whether Obama was born in the U.S. after the politician refused to release to the public a carbon copy of his birth certificate and amid claims from his relatives he may have been born in Kenya. Numerous lawsuits have been filed petitioning Obama to release his birth certificate, but most suits have been thrown out by the courts." As is required on the online encyclopedia, that entry was backed up by third-party media articles, citing the Chicago Tribune and WorldNetDaily.com The entry was posted on Feb. 24, at 6:16 p.m. EST. Just three minutes later, the entry was removed by a Wikipedia administrator, claiming the posting violated the websites rules against "fringe" material. According to Wikipedia rules, however, a "fringe theory can be considered notable if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory." The Obama eligibility issue has indeed been reported extensively by multiple news media outlets. WorldNetDaily has led the coverage. Other news outlets, such as Britain's Daily Mail and the Chicago Tribune have released articles critical of claims Obama may not be eligible. The Los Angeles Times quoted statements by former presidential candidate Alan Keys doubting Obama is eligible to serve as president. Just last week, the Internet giant America Online featured a top news article about the eligibility subject, referencing WND's coverage. When the user tried to repost the entry about Obama's eligibility a second time, another administrator removed the material within two minutes and then banned the Wikipedia user from posting anything on the website for three days. Wikipedia administrators have the ability to kick off users if the administrator believes the user violated the website's rules. Over the last month, WND has monitored several other attempts to add eligibility issues to Obama's Wikipedia page. In every attempt monitored, the information was deleted within minutes and the user who posted the material was barred from the website for three days. Angela Beesley Starling, a spokeswoman for Wikipedia, explained to WND that all the website's encyclopedia content is monitored by users. She said the administrators who deleted the entries are volunteers. "Administrators," Starling said, "are simply people who are trusted by the other community members to have access to some extra tools that allow them to delete pages and perform other tasks that help the encyclopedia." According to Alexa.com, Wikipedia is the seventh most trafficked website on the Internet. A Google search for the words "Barack Obama" brings up the president's Wikipedia page in the top four choices, following two links to Obama's official websites. Ayers, Wright also missing in Obama's bio The entire Wikipedia entry on Obama seems to be heavily promotional toward the U.S. president. It contains nearly no criticism or controversy, including appropriate mention of important issues where relevant. For example, the current paragraph on Obama's religion contains no mention of Wright, even though Obama's association with the controversial pastor was one of the most talked about issues during the presidential campaign. That paragraph states: "Obama explained how, through working with black churches as a community organizer while in his twenties, he came to understand 'the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change.' He was baptized at the Trinity United Church of Christ in 1988 and was an active member there for two decades." Ayers is also not mentioned, even where relevant. WND monitored as a Wikipedia user attempted to add Ayers' name to an appropriate paragraph. One of those additions, backed up with news articles, read as follows: "He served alongside former Weathermen leader William Ayers from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project, and also from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Joyce Foundation. Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1991. Ayers was the founder and director of the Challenge." Within two minutes that Wikipedia entry was deleted and the user banned from posting on the website for three days, purportedly for adding "Point of View junk edits," even though the addition was well-established fact. The Wikipedia entry about former President George W. Bush, by contrast, is highly critical. One typical entry reads, "Prior to his marriage, Bush had multiple accounts of alcohol abuse. ... After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism. In 2005, the Bush administration dealt with widespread criticism over its handling of Hurricane Katrina. In December 2007, the United States entered the second-longest post-World War II recession." The entry on Bush also cites claims that he was "favorably treated due to his father's political standing" during his National Guard service." It says Bush served on the board of directors for Harken and that questions of possible insider trading involving Harken arose even though a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation concluded the information Bush had at the time of his stock sale was not sufficient to constitute insider trading.

Big Brudda is watchin'!

meh, the Ayers and Wright crap should never have been mentioned in the campaign anyway. It was far fetched guilt by association...desperate tactics by old man Mccain.

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Also completely lacking is any mention of the well-publicized concerns surrounding Obama's eligibility to serve as commander-in-chief. Where's the proof Barack Obama was born in the U.S. or that he fulfills the "natural-born American" clause in the Constitution? If you still want to see it, join more than 300,000 others and sign up now!

right. so you're faulting an encyclopedia for trying to keep its information accurate and factual?

free speech doesn't mean i can go to the library and write my opinions in crayon throughout the books on the shelves.

Um, what's the issue here? Free speech? I don't believe it applies when what's being edited in is not verifiable fact - and furthermore, has been repeatedly discredited as nothing more than nonsense since last April.

And maybe you should re-read your Orwell... how is a private entity editing content on their webspace an example of Big Brother? This is a perfect example of why I think most Orwell fans haven't even read the original text.

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov And maybe you should re-read your Orwell... how is a private entity editing content on their webspace an example of Big Brother? This is a perfect example of why I think most Orwell fans haven't even read the original text.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Winston's job in 1984 was to constantly edit newspaper articles while making evidence of the originals disappear. I get your point about a "private" entity, but the Internet is rather public, no? Yes, I have read Orwell, but thanks for the passive arrogance anyway.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN right. so you're faulting an encyclopedia for trying to keep its information accurate and factual? free speech doesn't mean i can go to the library and write my opinions in crayon throughout the books on the shelves.

I said I didn't think that particular accusation had any merit, however according to the story the inclusion met the standard that Wikipedia requires for inclusion. I don't know about you, but often times when I've seen "questionable" material in Wikipedia, it is highlighted with a "*" or something, denoting it as controversial or questionable. However, this sounds more like blatant censorship. Whatever you think about Ayers and Wright associations, that is one thing. However, their presence in his life is certainly not irrelevant to many and their complete exclusion and repeated removal suggests something at least a little beyond the fold, in my most humble opinion.

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The entire Wikipedia entry on Obama seems to be heavily promotional toward the U.S. president. It contains nearly no criticism or controversy, including appropriate mention of important issues where relevant.

c'mon. Nuthin'? Nuthin' at all? He's totally spotless?? Please. I'm not trying to bash anyone here, just saying it sounds a bit over the line.

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Originally posted by Shakka This is a bit Orwellian. I really am tired of the whole eligibility issue (it's a dead horse) and it's pretty well established that WND has their own tilt. However a lot of the material being censored is perfectly relevant and should be left alone, particularly since it was significant in the campaign and is well sourced/documented. Hooray for free speech and stuff! http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91114 Big Brudda is watchin'!

Why is this an issue? Wikipedia has been sued because of faulty information and the first major incident caused them to require user accounts for editing.

Obama's entry is a featured article which puts it on a higher completion pedestal and under special scrutiny for edits. Other featured articles receiving the same scrutiny include Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Mariah Carey.

You're talking about a conspiracy involving Wikipedia administrators. Are you retarded? Do you even know how these people become administrators? Believe me this entire process is being debated somewhere end on end by hundreds of users in the community. Oh look here it is. If you want to complain I suggest that's where you do it.

The issue isn't getting any attention whatsoever in rational circles. That is why it isn't being considered as worthy material in Wikipedia. The idea is ludicrous.

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"This case, if it were allowed to proceed, would deserve mention in one of those books that seek to prove that the law is foolish or that America has too many lawyers with not enough to do," U.S. District Judge James Robertson said in his written opinion. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...94mlewD96O5TV03

This is a community that will spend months and months debating what goes into the episode summaries of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. To even suggest things like this could get past that kind of community without notice only shows you have no idea how Wikipedia works.

You've been waiting for 2 months for a chance to call me "retarded," haven't you Josh? I just cried a tear of unfathomable sadness.

I never said there was a conspiracy. I said information that meets the standards that Wikipedia puts forth appears to be getting removed. The article may postulate that there's a conspiracy to maintain a positive image of BO, but I don't know that they went quite that far.

Out of curiosity, what makes Reagan and FDR relevant to the same scrutiny, and why isn't Bush #43 under that veil when it is clear that his page has been tarred with some questionable marks. I'd think his page would be at least as relevant as Mariah Carey, no? Also, how do you know those specific topics are receiving the same scrutiny? Or did you pull that out of your ass?

p.s. I've created a wikipedia entry before. I don't think they spent months debating the worthiness of my contribution.

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Originally posted by Shakka Correct me if I'm wrong but Winston's job in 1984 was to constantly edit newspaper articles while making evidence of the originals disappear. I get your point about a "private" entity, but the Internet is rather public, no? Yes, I have read Orwell, but thanks for the passive arrogance anyway.

Ummm... wikipedia is a newspaper? And the same government institutions that apparently spend their time cleansing Wiki of bad Obama facts didn't care to do the same for comments about Bush? Seriously, you're just scraping the bottom of a barrel trying to find things to pin on Obama at this point. Very transparent.

The internet isn't really public either - domain space can be used however the owner chooses - that's why there are some sites that have limited access, etc. There's freedom of access to buying your own domain space, but that doesn't mean you have freedom to expect something from others on theirs.

Wikipedia has never been a completely credible source of information. Yes, it is an amazing tool with a great deal of accurate and verifiable information, but the fact that almost anyone can edit it to their whims has always been the grain of salt.

I've never felt Wikipedia was the authoritative source--it's clearly got faults. However, I guess after this brief thread we can conclusively say that nobody in this forum can ever use it for a citation ever again. That's fair. I'm cool wit dat.

Lez--apparently your world is so black and white that you're incapable of seeing things that are analogous. If there is not perfect correlation it simply must be completely uncorrelated and uncomparable. Because I even mentioned Orwell your gaydar went off and you had to step in to try to be some sort of literary authority. Give me a break. I stand by my comparison. It was about controlling public information and having people behind the scenes editing said information to maintain a particular illusion so as to fool the masses. Now go take your soma.

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Originally posted by Shakka I've never felt Wikipedia was the authoritative source--it's clearly got faults. However, I guess after this brief thread we can conclusively say that nobody in this forum can ever use it for a citation ever again. That's fair. I'm cool wit dat. Lez--apparently your world is so black and white that you're incapable of seeing things that are analogous. If there is not perfect correlation it simply must be completely uncorrelated and uncomparable. Because I even mentioned Orwell your gaydar went off and you had to step in to try to be some sort of literary authority. Give me a break. I stand by my comparison.

Wikipedia gets revised, scrubbed, erased and edited all the time. It's the nature of the site. Remember this? http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda...mmenselyflatter

I find great info on there but I take everything with a grain of salt and try to never use it as a primary source for anything.

And yeah I also think your Orwell comparison is shit.

Yeah, pretty sure George Orwell didn't invent revisionist history.

But by all means, police state, oppression, etc.

Lol. Page locked due to controversy. The ongoing discussions are amusing.

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Originally posted by Shakka You've been waiting for 2 months for a chance to call me "retarded," haven't you Josh? I just cried a tear of unfathomable sadness.

Actually I didn't call you anything - I asked a question. So there.

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I never said there was a conspiracy. I said information that meets the standards that Wikipedia puts forth appears to be getting removed. The article may postulate that there's a conspiracy to maintain a positive image of BO, but I don't know that they went quite that far.

I think the unwritten rules have so far been it's okay to assume people share the opinions of the articles spam they post.

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Out of curiosity, what makes Reagan and FDR relevant to the same scrutiny, and why isn't Bush #43 under that veil when it is clear that his page has been tarred with some questionable marks. I'd think his page would be at least as relevant as Mariah Carey, no? Also, how do you know those specific topics are receiving the same scrutiny? Or did you pull that out of your ass?

This is Wikipedia, if you're looking for some sort of structure or order you're in the wrong place. The whole site is just a mass of chaos with very fluid regulations and varying degrees of enforcement depending on each specific circumstance.

When an article reaches a certain level of completeness it is submitted for featured article status. There is some sort of process it goes through to achieve this status. The relative importance of any particular entry that achieves this status is of no consequence. It is simply a matter of which articles Wikipedia users spend more time on and which ones are submitted for featured status. Controversial entries (Bush #43) are going to have a high level of debate so those entries will be constantly changing and naturally reach this level of completeness later than others - if ever.

I don't know any specific topic is receiving scrutiny. I can assume that anything involving Bush #43 or Obama are going to be receiving this debate because they are hot topics. See the link I posted to the debate about Obama's citizenship status.

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p.s. I've created a wikipedia entry before. I don't think they spent months debating the worthiness of my contribution.

There are millions of articles and no set measure for what receives attention. Wikipedia users are just going to want to spend more time on issues surrounding the POTUS and Mariah Carey than your entry on penis enlargement.

Uh-oh, it's the authorities!

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Originally posted by Shakka Because I even mentioned Orwell your gaydar went off

Is that really the analogy you'd like to make? That my gaydar goes off when you post?

Whether he wants to or not, it's already out on the table.

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov Is that really the analogy you'd like to make? That my gaydar goes off when you post?

It was tongue-in-cheek. But it was more that the word Orwell sets off your gaydar since you clearly have spent many more hours of your time doting over him than the rest of us. And I couldn't come up with anything more catchy like Orwelldar, so I ran with it.

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Originally posted by josh4 Actually I didn't call you anything - I asked a question. So there.

Oh. Then in that case, the answer is no.

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I think the unwritten rules have so far been it's okay to assume people share the opinions of the articles spam they post.

Nah, not necessarily. Certainly not to a T. That would be a stretch. A person can surely agree with parts of an article and disagree with other parts (As I rather clearly and specifically did with the very first sentence of this thread).

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This is Wikipedia, if you're looking for some sort of structure or order you're in the wrong place. The whole site is just a mass of chaos with very fluid regulations and varying degrees of enforcement depending on each specific circumstance. When an article reaches a certain level of completeness it is submitted for featured article status. There is some sort of process it goes through to achieve this status. The relative importance of any particular entry that achieves this status is of no consequence. It is simply a matter of which articles Wikipedia users spend more time on and which ones are submitted for featured status. Controversial entries (Bush #43) are going to have a high level of debate so those entries will be constantly changing and naturally reach this level of completeness later than others - if ever. I don't know any specific topic is receiving scrutiny. I can assume that anything involving Bush #43 or Obama are going to be receiving this debate because they are hot topics. See the link I posted to the debate about Obama's citizenship status.

Well then I'm honestly glad we have such an authority on all things Wiki. You're my new designated go-to fact checker dude.

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There are millions of articles and no set measure for what receives attention. Wikipedia users are just going to want to spend more time on issues surrounding the POTUS and Mariah Carey than your entry on penis enlargement.

It was actually douchebaggery, but you're full of zingers as usual! Kudos!

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Originally posted by Shakka You're my new designated go-to fact checker dude.

Pretty sure I've already fallen into that slot by default whether either of us likes it or not.

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Originally posted by Shakka I never said there was a conspiracy. I said information that meets the standards that Wikipedia puts forth appears to be getting removed. The article may postulate that there's a conspiracy to maintain a positive image of BO, but I don't know that they went quite that far.

I have a slight hunch that the people who own and operate wikipedia actually like the current president of the United States.

The fact that this came from World Net Daily was interesting in of itself. But this deserves a little "uh oh" moment, and fuck is it funny:

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Fox Claims Wikipedia Whitewashes Obama's Past � Update Barack Obama's Wikipedia entry completely omits the president's "links" to former '60s radical William Ayers, Fox News reports. And it claims the entry contains only a fleeting reference to his controversial former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. This epic coverup was first reported by WorldNetDaily reporter Aaron Klein, who noticed that edits adding references to Ayers and Wright, among other things, were quickly being undone by Wikipedia volunteers. Klein found it particularly alarming that a Wikipedia user called "Jerusalem21" was recently hit with a three-day wiki-suspension after twice posting the neutral and encyclopedic fact that there are "some doubts about whether Obama was born in the U.S. " That was Sunday. Fox picked up Klein's explosive scoop today, noting in the first paragraph that -- in contrast to Obama's entry -- the Wikipedia "pages for Ayers and Wright are heavily peppered with references to the president." That's meant as evidence that Obama's real and supposed links to the men are newsworthy enough to include in his bio. Fame relationships aren't symmetric, though. If Obama had cut me off in traffic in 1997, the incident would occupy half my Wikipedia entry, while I wouldn't get a footnote in his. Of more interest is the identity of the mysterious Jerusalem21, whose courageous disregard of Wikipedia's ban on fringe material provided WND's Aaron Klein with his smoking gun in the first place, spawning what will soon be a national wiki-scandal. Curiously, it turns out that Jerusalem21, whoever he or she might be, has only worked on one other Wikipedia entry since the account was created, notes ConWebWatch. That's Aaron Klein's entry, which Jerusalem21 created in 2006, and has edited 37 times. Klein, who serves as WND's Jerusalem bureau chief, did not immediate respond to an e-mail Monday. Update: March 10, 2009 | 1:40:00 PM This morning the WorldNetDaily story, which is headlined "Wikipedia scrubs Obama eligibility," was scrubbed clean of the name Jerusalem21, who's now referred to only as "one Wikipedia user." Fortunately, Google cache never forgets. Second update: March 10, 2009 | 7:20:00 PM Aaron Klein has answered my e-mail. Klein says that there's an "undeniable trend" of Ayers and Wright references being scrubbed from Obama's entry� as he wrote in his article. But he now admits that he's responsible for the Jerusalem21 edits that he reported on, and says he's updated his WorldNetDaily story to reflect that. [QUOTE] I am not "Jerusalem21," but I do know the Wikipedia user (he works with me and does research for me), and I worked with him on this story, which focused on investigating allegations I had received from others of Wikipedia scrubbing Obama's page. I wanted to personally oversee whether indeed criticism of Obama was being deleted. For your information, often investigative journalists engage in exactly this kind of testing � like seeing if they can bypass mandatory disclosures while donating to a candidate (several newspapers did this prior to the November election), or if they can register a dog to vote in Illinois. Thus, even if I had personally edited Obama's page as a test to investigate allegations of scrubbing, this is entirely legitimate journalistic practice.

What's missing from this treatise on investigative journalism is the reporter's obligation to disclose when he's engineered events on which he's reporting. In a follow-up e-mail, Klein acknowledges that he should have made that disclosure, but suggests he's guilty of nothing more than an accidental omission in a hastily written story.

"It just slipped my mind," he writes.

Interesting. Let's look at some of the original text.

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Indeed, multiple times, Wikipedia users who wrote about the eligibility issues had their entries deleted almost immediately and were banned from re-posting any material on the website for three days. In one example, Wikipedia user "Jerusalem21" added the following to Obama's page: "There have been some doubts about whether Obama was born in the U.S. after the politician refused to release to the public a carbon copy of his birth certificate and amid claims from his relatives he may have been born in Kenya. Numerous lawsuits have been filed petitioning Obama to release his birth certificate, but most suits have been thrown out by the courts." As is required on the online encyclopedia, that entry was backed up by third-party media articles, citing the Chicago Tribune and WorldNetDaily.com The entry was posted on Feb. 24, at 6:16 p.m. EST. Just three minutes later, the entry was removed by a Wikipedia administrator, claiming the posting violated the websites rules against "fringe" material. [...] When the user "Jerusalem21" tried to repost the entry about Obama's eligibility a second time, another administrator removed the material within two minutes and then banned the Wikipedia user from posting anything on the website for three days.

That's a lot of mind-slippage. You'd think at some point in the writing, Klein would have a revelation, slap his head and say, "Silly me! Here I am writing about my researcher following my instructions, and I'm making it sound like I don't even know the guy! Glad I caught that."

The only other example in Klein's article of a user being suspended from Wikipedia also traces back to a Jerusalem21 edit � this time about William Ayers. That example found its way into the Fox News report. But, similarly, Klein forgot to mention that it was the same user � his unnamed researcher � and the same ban: i.e., the one that followed two successive edits accusing Obama of falsifying his birth.

If he'd disclosed all that, it might have been a different article. "Man Fails to Get Crazy Conspiracy Theory Into Obama's Wikipedia Entry" is a story not even Fox would pick up.

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Originally posted by MisterOpus1

Do you have your PhD yet?

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Originally posted by josh4 Do you have your PhD yet?

No - it's a Doctoral in Physical Therapy, DPT. Identical in status (sort of), but geared more for the clinical level rather than the academic/research one. But yeah, I've had it since last May, and have been fully licensed since July.

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