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batesie Posts: > 500

As i know many many people use Wikipedia, i thought this maybe of interest

Online reference site Wikipedia blames US Congress staff for partisan changes to a number of political biographies.
Computers traced to Capitol Hill removed unpalatable facts from articles on senators, while other entries were "vandalised", the site said.

An inquiry was launched after staff for Democratic representative Marty Meehan admitted polishing his biography.

Wikipedia is produced by readers who add entries and edit any page, and has become a widely-used reference tool.

'Liberal' to 'activist'

Using the public history of edits on Wikipedia, researchers collected the internet protocol numbers of computers linked to the US Senate and tracked the changes made to online pages.

The site lists half a dozen prominent biographies that had been changed by Senate computers, including those of Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, California Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa.

Senator Coleman's office has confirmed that staff there had made a number of changes to his online record.

Where he was described as a "liberal" back in college, this was changed to "activist".

Among other changes, staff also deleted a reference to Mr Coleman voting with President Bush 98% of the time in 2003, despite running as a moderate the year before.

Wikipedia said staffers of Senator Tom Harkin had removed a paragraph relating to Mr Harkin's having falsely claimed to have flown combat missions over North Vietnam, and his subsequent recantation.

A handful of miscellaneous vandalism edits had been made to some senators' articles, it said.

One example was the entry for Republican Senator Tom Coburn, of Oklahoma, who it was falsely alleged had been voted "most annoying senator". (TRUTH HURTS EH?)

FULL STORY BELOW....
Copyright BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4695376.stm
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Posted: 2006-02-09 12:35:30
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SCORPIONKING1982 Posts: > 500

Suppose thats the risk you run having entries that anyone can edit!
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Posted: 2006-02-09 13:05:13
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axxxr Posts: > 500

no suprise their then.....i really think wiki should delete the edit options,its silly that anyone can come and add/remove information at random.
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Posted: 2006-02-10 02:39:06
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