[Foundation-l] Wiki Scanner & wikinews

[Dan Rosenthal]

On Aug 21, 2007, at 10:00 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On 8/21/07, Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org> wrote:
>> Okay, you've been living under a rock if you haven't heard of the
> [snip]
>> Comments/feedback? Are we unduly crucifying Fox? :-)
>
> Oh lets see... How about the little detail that without confirming
> evidence there is no reason to believe that an edit made from a Fox IP
> was an action endorsed by Fox?
>
> With the widespread existence of things like open wireless access
> points we can't even be sure if any particular edit was made by
> someone employed by For or even using a Fox owned computer.
>
> Yet the Wikinews article seems to happily go on and describe every
> action coming from a company IP was an action of that company.
>
> "the BBC had edited", "FOX News, and its parent company, News
> Corporation had a history of unproductive edits" "FOX also edited"
> "the CIA had been editing" "FOX's edits" "AP had made a few edits"
>
> So would you also say that countless other Wiki(p|m)edians are editing
> on behalf of their employers every time they edit from home and forget
> to log out of their VPN? When they edit during a coffee break?
>
> Is the only thing protecting me of an accusation of "Greg's employer
> defends Fox in Wikipedia Whitewashing scandal" the fact that Gmail
> doesn't send IP addresses?
>
> It's sad to see us peddling the same sort of irresponsible journalism
> that we've seen from the commercial market on this matter. At least in
> their cases we can give them a pass due to a lack of understanding of
> the technology.
>
> Whats your excuse?
>
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I agree 100% with Greg. Reputable news sources have been saying  
"Edits coming from the IP range owned by XXX" or even just "Edits  
from XXX's network". Jumping to conclusions like that is shoddy  
journalism that would never be accepted in print, and certainly  
should not be accepted by us.

-Dan Rosenthal