[Foundation-l] Wiki Scanner & wikinews

[Brian McNeil]

Okay, you've been living under a rock if you haven't heard of the
WikiScanner that combines a decent IPtoLocation and Whois database with a
list of all the "anonymous" edits to Wikipedia. Wired were first off the
blocks with their story on Diebold whitewashing, and lots of others followed
picking up on diverse groups like the CIA and the Vatican editing Wikipedia.

 

Wikinews has been playing with the tool too, our interest was "what have the
*media* been manipulating?" - And the first question we shot at the guy,
Virgil, who set up the scanner was, "Can you include other Wikis?" With what
we've found here:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/FOX_News_fares_poorly_in_investigation_of_media_
edits_to_Wikipedia we'd like to know if WikiSource or Wikinews have been
"whitewashed".

 

The talk page of the above article has a section for questions for when we
interview Virgil, we want to cover the aftermath of his little toy getting
slashdotted and abused by every popular website on the net, as well as
quietly get other wikis integrated and start looking at where else there is
manipulation.

 

Comments/feedback? Are we unduly crucifying Fox? :-)

 

 

Brian.