Wikiscanner and Disney
 

I've seen several articles over the last few days about Wiki Scanner. In essence it allows you to see what changes people are making to articles in Wikipedia.

I plugged in "Disney". My, my my, the mouse has been a busy little bee...
Almost two thousand changed entries just from Burbank alone.

A quick run through shows some edits to soften up an entry on Digital Rights Management, and interest in "Calvin and Hobbs" and some positive edits to remove silliness from an entry on High School Musical II (ie things like "Zack is soooo cute...")

My library does not have a Wikipedia entry. I offered to begin writing one (if I had time, ha!) and I was told that I could begin writing it but could not post it until it got approved. I don't know if they have clamped down on anyone posting an entry (can they do that?) but the Library Board's stance is that they want complete control over what is said about them. I said to the tech dept, they can't be serious, can they? Don't they know what Wikipedia is, what web 2.0 is? They can't really control the web...never mind that their website is a JOKE in this day and age.

I've half a mind to make an anonymous log in and post it, just to show them that they don't get it. (No, this is not my immediate superiors I want to thumb my nose at, it's the Board, which has no clue what goes on in the real world.)

Just be careful what IP address you use. While they cannot control the Internet, employees are a different matter.

And technically, wikipedia entries aren't supposed to be made by the subject anyway ("You are strongly discouraged from writing articles about yourself or organisations in which you hold a vested interest.").

Write up a non-biased article and post it from somewhere else.

Or you can send it to me and I will post it. :)

And yet, that's exactly what goes on, day in and day out. Wikipedia supposedly has checkers who scan articles for changes made by the subject (there was a recent news story about them uncoverning a whole bunch of U.S. government changes, er, censorship). But I doubt they have the staff required to properly police Wikipedia so that it doesn't become simply a P.R. tool for whatever the subject happens to be.

There is nothing comprehensive enough in place to ensure that anything remotely critical remains on Wikipedia. It's a joke.

It's pretty much a free place - and we're as free as Disney or anyone else to keep changing it.

Hah, tell that to places that like to control their facads and have no idea how to function in a transparent world. "Somone else, state what we are?! The absolute nerve..."

Really? You don't say.