On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, Sean Barrett wrote:
Mark Pellegrini stated for the record:
what is to stop them from starting large, organized astroturfing on Wikipedia?
I think it would be a good idea to having some contigency plans in place should that happen.
From the back of the bottle of contingency plans: "Revert, ban, repeat."
Based on what I know of manipulating public perception, & the challenges of the Internet, I think we ought to look at our accumulated experience with another group: Scientology, & the related Wikipedia articles.
I have stayed away from this topic, except for the occasional peak & the minor edit or two (I find typos & bad grammar in other people's writings far quicker than in my own). However, to my knowledge none of the Scientology-related articles have turned into the no-man's land that some of our fiercely disputed articles have become.
I believe David Gerard has been monitoring the Scientology-related articles; perhaps David could offer some ideas of how to deal with possible astroturfing -- whether initiated by Microsoft or another corporation -- based on his experience.
Geoff