Posted on 08/08/2012 12:44:28 PM PDT by grundle
Tech President's Micah Sifry, who introduced the idea that Wikipedia revisions could help predict Mitt Romney's selection of a running mate, reports that Wikipedia has put a lock on the pages of the leading veep candidates following a segment on the topic by Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert.
The pages of Tim Pawlenty, Rob Portman, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie and (following yesterday's Drudge bump) David Petraeus have been locked after Colbert, citing a Fox News report about the jump in revisions to Sarah Palin's page in 2008, encouraged viewers to "go on Wikipedia, and make as many edits as possible to your favorite VP contender."
On Monday, I endorsed Sifry's thesis; on Tuesday, I tried to refute it, arguing that the number of Wikipedia revisions did not account for random edits by individuals who had no bearing on the veep selection. Clearly, I should have also pointed out that the number of citizen editors would increase as Sifry's thesis gained publicity.
But the question now is: Will Wikipedia open the pages in time for the Romney campaign to make edits? While I still think Sifry's thesis is flawed, the campaign will almost certainly try to clean up the Wikipedia page of Romney's VP before the announcement is made. That is, if they can get past the administrators.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I think there is a grain of reason in saying that Wikepedia is a harbinger of a possible VP pick.
Those in the know would be doing things like cleaning up Wikipedia entries to remove possible entries that could prove problematic.
What about Bob McDonnell’s page? I think he’ll be Romney’s choice, though I don’t have any inside information.
Many of the rumoured picks were released as distractions, so it’s certainly possible you are correct.
Wikipedia has its special uses, despite being a liberal dominated site.
With biographies and companies, the insiders do clean articles up when something breaking is about to happen.
Critics also like to dump negative information into articles. Of course these edits are reversed quickly. User tip: go to the history of the article and look at the larger versions (byte size) to get the dirt (unverified dirt of course, user beware)
I also use it for detailed plots of shows or movies, expanded details about real life events and anything else that I have an interest in. Again the watchers quickly reverse the over-detailed plots or exposition of whatever the article topic is, but I find what was written by looking into the history of the article.
Seeing what random interested people wrote before the self-appointed editors erase it, has been very informative to me in many cases in the past. At a minimum it can give you key subtopics to do a good web search on.
Thanks grundle. Similar link:
http://www.mediaite.com/online/wikipedia-locks-pages-of-possible-vp-contenders-after-stephen-colbert-wreaks-havoc/
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.