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Joe the Revelator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 12:19 AM
Original message
KOS: Palin scrubs her own Wiki Page
Edited on Sat Aug-30-08 12:20 AM by Wolsh
Sarah Palin scrubs her own Wikipedia entry?
by CarrieNYC
Fri Aug 29, 2008 at 06:02:30 PM PDT
This is a breaking story from NPR: Sarah Palin may have scrubbed her own Wikipedia entry shortly before her nomination leaked this morning.

Here is the audio from NPR.

I will be updating this diary as things develop. Will also update with any more info we can get from the Wikipedia page.

CarrieNYC's diary :: ::
Here's a transcript of some of the highlights from NPR for anyone who can't get the audio.

Just 15 minutes after rumor of her selection broke, a Wikipedia editor discovered something interesting. Yesterday, thirty mostly favorable changes were made to Palin's Wikipedia biography.

The user making the changes was "Young Trigg." Trig happens to be the name of Sarah Palin's son.

The changes, all from a single source, included the addition of a quotation calling Palin "a politician of eye-popping integrity." The edits diminished a reference to Palin's participation in a beauty pageant and minimized a section about a controversy over whether Palin used her influence to get her ex-brother-in-law fired.

If true... wow. Do these people know ANYTHING about the internets? This woman would have to be incredibly naive not to know that tampering with your own wikipedia entry is a no-go and will always get you found out. Um... especially with "Young Trigg" as your username.

Now... can someone with some Wiki savvy do some detective work to see what other mischief "Young Trigg" has been up to with his/her account? What did the diary say before "Young Trigg" got his/her hands on it? Team? Let's get on this!

Update: Thanks to Terre, here's a cached version from August 21.

Update 2: Thanks to dmsilev. Here's a list of all Young Trigg's contributions

"Young Trigg apparently just registered yesterday and is a "single-purpose user." In other words, its only contributions are on one topic: Sarah Palin.

Update 3: Thanks to teachingmathnow we have one of the edits. "Young Trigg" wants to make sure everyone knows:

Track now serves in an infantry brigade, and will be deployed to Iraq in September.

This information was added to a generic statement about Palin's son's joining the military.

Update 4: Thanks to alliedoc, another change noted. The "but has gay friends" part was removed:

She opposes same-sex marriage, but has said she has gay friends. Palin complied with an Alaskan state Supreme Court order and signed an implementation of same-sex benefits into law under protest, stating that legal options to avoid doing so had run out.

Damn... I guess she can't have anyone thinking she's, you know, TOLERANT if she wants to be on the GOP ticket! Note: there was apparently an edit skirmish with another user who pointed out quite correctly that the information was correct and properly sourced, so it was put back in. But interesting that someone tried to take it out!

Update 5: Teachingmathnow points out that many of "Young Trigg"'s edits cite to this Weekly Standard article, entitled "The Most Popular Governor" while removing citations to this WSJ article, "Alaska's Palin Faces Probe" that was much harsher in tone.

Update 6: teachingmathnow again gets a gold star for wikipedia hunting, as she (he?) points out that "Young Trigg" felt it important that we know that:

Sarah returned to office three days after giving birth.

Well, damn. I guess all of us women who take maternity leave are just a bunch of "whiners" like Hillary Clinton. We should just suck it up! Men don't take maternity leave, so why should we? /sarcasm

Update 7: Someone at Wikipedia has put up a pretty good "before and after" shot of the edits made over the ~5-hour period in which "Young Trigg" was messing with the entry. NOTE: Other users were also making changes during this time, so not every change can be attributed to "Young Trigg." In order to find out which specifically were Trigg, you have to dig a little deeper. But this gives you a general sense of where to start.

Update 8: There's some discussion in the comments about whether or not self-editing is permissible under Wikipedia policy. I have no idea or even opinion about that. What I do know is that registering a username of a close family member and then using that name to "improve" a Wikipedia article less than a day before a big announcement betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the internet and how it works. "Young Trigg" may or may not be in violation of Wikipedia standards. That issue notwithstanding, he or she is most certainly a complete moron.


http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/29/21034/4861/159/579549
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silverojo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 12:25 AM
Response to Original message
1. God, these Repukes are a total joke
I can't believe how stupid they are, thinking they could do something like this without being found out.

What a bunch of dicks.
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skooooo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 12:25 AM
Response to Original message
2. Yup time to get busy, Ms. Palin!!
:rofl:
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Qutzupalotl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 12:26 AM
Response to Original message
3. My, that Young Trigg certainly is an authority on Sarah Palin.
I wonder how he knows her?
:sarcasm:
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1corona4u Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 12:28 AM
Response to Reply #3
5. Isn't "Trigg the 4 month old?
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1corona4u Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 12:27 AM
Response to Original message
4. Someone did, but the old Google cache is still there,
Edited on Sat Aug-30-08 12:27 AM by 1corona4u
and the date on the cached version says it was last modified on the 21st, and was cached by Google on the 21st. The current page says last modified, today, the 30th, but has yet to be updated at Google.

Cached on the 21st;
http://209.85.215.104/search?sourceid=navclient-menuext&ie=UTF-8&q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSarah_Palin

I'm too tired to compare the two though....
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catgirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 09:20 AM
Response to Reply #4
15. She's certainly likes to dismiss people

The Matanuska Maid Dairy Board was dismissed because they made a recommended closing the state-owned
business that was unprofitable, only to eventually close it. Then, she couldn't even manage to sell its assets.

Sounds like she knows how to make good decisions (not). She is not qualified to run a state, let alone a
country.
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BzaDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 12:30 AM
Response to Original message
6. And this happened before any news was leaked or reported. Who else could have known?
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Jim Lane Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 12:50 AM
Response to Reply #6
8. That's not a smoking gun
Palin has been mentioned as a possible VP candidate for a while. I myself was prompted by those rumors to check out her article more than a month ago. I was pleased to see that her ethics scandal was already covered. I added the information that her husband worked for BP, which I thought might be important in a campaign. The article has been edited hundreds of times today but I'd say it's basically in decent shape. It does discuss the ethics scandal, notes her support for Pat Buchanan in 1996, etc. It still needs work (such as an update re her lawsuit against the Interior Department for trying to protect polar bears).

As for the "Young Trigg" username, that could mean simply that the user is an admirer of Palin's, not that it's Palin herself (or even a family member). If the issue ever became important, Wikipedia bureaucrats could do a "checkuser" and get at least some information about where the person was editing from. That's how Wikipedia determined that some Congressional staffers, from both parties, were editing their bosses' biographies -- the edits came from the House of Representatives.

The best cure for right-wing editing isn't to try to track down the editor, but for people who aren't Palin cheerleaders to work on the article. It's . It's semi-protected, so you can't edit it unless you have a registered Wikipedia account that's more than a few days old. Register now so you can edit by the time the Republican convention ends!
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BzaDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 01:07 AM
Response to Reply #8
9. It's definately not a smoking gun, but it is very curious.
You are right, Palin has been mentioned as a possible candidate for months. So why would someone edit it just one day before the news broke (at a time when no one really had any idea she was among the top tier)?

I'm not as concerned about the content of the article as I am about whether or not she tried to change the article to promote herself and to define the public's image of her. That would say something about her character. Of course the timing of it and the username are not enough evidence to indicate that. But Wikipedia could determine the location of the computer that made the change. I hope they do to clarify the issue.
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Jim Lane Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 01:49 AM
Response to Reply #9
14. Some provocative evidence from Cyveillance
in the Washington Post reports on the findings of Cyveillance, a company that "normally trawls the Internet for data on behalf of clients seeking open source information in advance of a corporate acquisition, an important executive hire, or brand awareness." Cyveillance decided "on a lark" to test its methods by monitoring the Wikipedia bios of Vice-Presidential prospects.

The conclusion? "At approximately 5 p.m. ET (Thursday), the company's analysts noticed a spike in the editing traffic to Palin's Wiki page, and that some of the same Wiki users appeared to be making changes to McCain's page."

I don't think it was Palin or a family member. I think it was people in the McCain campaign -- maybe the same ones who relied on Wikipedia for key passages of McCain's speech about Georgia!
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ncteechur Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 12:39 AM
Response to Original message
7. At least she can use a computer. McSame cannot!
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Ichingcarpenter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 01:09 AM
Response to Original message
10. Dudes and Dudettes.......... I'm am loving this timeline
on what has been accomplished by the web in such a short time!!


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rainbow4321 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 01:11 AM
Response to Original message
11. Has she scrubbed her marriage date and the birthdate of her oldest kid?

Guess we will be spoonfed the "and this poor young couple romantically eloped so their parents didn't have to pay for a wedding" bullshit during the repuke convention.

http://www.amazon.com/tag/politics/forum?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1S3QSZRUL93V8&cdThread=Tx3IAKJNJW14FM8

In her speech in Dayton today, Gov. Sarah Palin announced that she and her husband are celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary, which means they were married on August 29, 1988.

On April 20, 1989 - less than eight months after they eloped - their first son, Track, was born.

I think I can guess the real reason why they eloped, and it wasn't to save money on an expensive wedding.

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bleever Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 01:35 AM
Response to Original message
12. She's so competitive, she's reaching beyond Quayle
into Eagleton territory.

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New Dawn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 01:48 AM
Response to Original message
13. Here is her Wiki userpage
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NYC Liberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 09:34 AM
Response to Reply #13
17. And here are the changes side-by-side:
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Meshuga Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-30-08 09:26 AM
Response to Original message
16. You don't need a cached version in order to see the changes
All you have to do is look in the "history" tab in the Palin wiki entry to see what has been changed. Anyone can go there and revert to the old version of the page.
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