NPR: Who's Been Messin' with My Wikipedia Entry?

Who's Been Messin' with My Wikipedia Entry?

When I started here at NPR several months ago, my orientation included a session with our incredibly knowledgeable librarian Kee Malesky. She gave me lots of great tips and only one real warning: Don't trust what you read on Wikipedia because you just don't know where that information came from.

I thought of Kee's warning as I read this piece on Wired about a new data mining service, called WikiScanner (that you can see at http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/), that lets you see who has gone into Wikipedia to make edits -- including in entries about them. And some of the names might surprise you.

Fox News is there. So are The New York Times, Al Jazeera and WorldNetDaily. Corporations like Diebold, Raytheon, Pfizer, Exxon Mobil and Wal-Mart. Not to mention the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, members of Congress, the CIA, the Church of Scientology and the Catholic Church. They all made changes of some kind to entries that included references or information about them.

Cal Tech computation and neural-systems graduate student Virgil Griffith, who wrote the data mining program, used IP addresses from millions of Wikipedia entries to trace their sources. "Everything's better if you do it on a huge scale, and automate it," Griffin told Wired.

Another reason why I love the Internet -- it just gets harder and harder to hide the fingerprints on the virtual cookie jars.

1:10 PM ET | 08-15-2007 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

Wikipedia should make this information available generally. If someone wants to post information for the general public, we should know who they are.

Sent by Lance Delano | 11:21 PM ET | 08-15-2007

Once Wikipedia provides the game for everyone to play, they should also clarify the rules and keep it "clean" and accurate. It's a good idea to collect resources this way but to make it perfect is another task to do.

Sent by say something | 6:41 AM ET | 08-16-2007

Although the invention is good and it's good to know who edited what, but from now on, those who really want to edit or doctor postings on Wikipedia, would do so from home or public computers, such as Internet cafe or public library etc. Don't you think?

Sent by Sil | 9:01 AM ET | 08-16-2007

This is a non-story. Wikipedia can already do everything that this grad student's site can do. Mediawiki recently (a few months ago) added the ability to display the edits for a RANGE of IP addresses, which is the primary feature of this guy's interface. I'm not sure if the feature has been enabled yet on en.wikipedia.org, but the point is that this NPR story makes this guy sound like a genius when he's simply reinvented the wheel.

The only story is that people have suddenly noticed this option and started looking for immoral edits.

Sent by brian0918 | 9:01 AM ET | 08-16-2007

Breaking news regarding a congressional vandalizing Wikipedia political bios fron goverment computer within the congressional offices of U.S. Representatiive David Davis:

Entries on Wikipedia edited by Davis aide
Press secretary also admits deleting info on brother via federal computer
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/aug/11/entries-on-wikipedia-edited-bydavis-aide/

Lawmaker's office awaits panel's verdict on aide's act
http://knoxnews.com/news/2007/aug/15/lawmakers-office-awaits-panels-verdict-on-aides/

Sent by Bob | 9:23 AM ET | 08-16-2007

I'm an enthusiastic Wikipedia user and some-time contributor. I think we wiki-heads have always known that entries are subject to vandalism and self-interested modification. We accept the risk because we also know that, because of its open characteristics, it's a repository of information we'd not have access to anywhere else.

Do we double check Wikipedia entries? Certainly; Wikipedia itself encourages footnotes, annotation, and links to other sources.

I've always double checked all sources of information, including print encyclopedias. Who writes and edits the entries in Encyclopedia Britannica? Why are they necessarily more expert than the academic down the block? What are their political affiliations? What's more, inaccuracies and unfounded opinion live on in book-form indefinitely.

Wikipedia is edited in real-time by thousands; sometimes the edits are beneficial, sometimes they're not. They are as subject to change as understanding and perceived truth themselves are subject to change.

Sent by Steve Mitchell | 9:32 AM ET | 08-16-2007

The spin on companies editing their Wikipedia pages was unneccessarily negative. A smart company absolutely SHOULD be involved in anything that impact the public's impression of their firm. The bottom line is that companies shouldn't lie; they shouldn't overstate earnings and things like that, and this tool will be useful to smoke this out. But, a company shouldn't let Joe Schmoe decide who the company is either. If a company is transparent and responsible in their involvement in Wikipedia, then I don't see this as a problem. A company has just as much right to edit a Wikipedia blog as an individual -- they just need to be careful of how this involvement will be perceived by the public and, in turn, how it will impact its public image.

Sent by ponimoi | 10:25 AM ET | 08-16-2007

Great interview. My one complaint is that the discussion made it seem like these malicious or mischievous edits were only discovered with this tool, and that anyone reading any of those entries is likely to be the victim of a spinjob or silly prank.

Virtually all the biased edits discovered through WikiScanner were reversed soon after they were made. It takes a lot more sophistication and subtlety than what most of anonymous editors did to actually create a lasting spin in a Wikipedia article.

That said, there are some companies and other parties whom many Wikipedians do suspect of more systematic and sustained attempts at Wikipedia PR management. The more people are aware of how Wikipedia works and the risks that go with trusting it blindly, the better.

Sent by Sage (User:Ragesoss) | 11:50 AM ET | 08-16-2007

I've got to agree with some of the other commenters. This isn't exactly breaking news - it's always been possible to track down the IP address of people editing Wikipedia. This new tool automates the process, sure, but plenty of Wikipedians have taken it upon themselves to examine the IP addresses of edits that seem suspect as part of their routine duties. People and entities editing Wikipedia anonymously get busted all the time. The tool just makes it easier.

One thing that's somewhat misleading about the WikiScanner tool is that it doesn't tell you how long it took for the edits to be fixed by someone else. On a lot of entries, particularly controversial ones, new edits are checked constantly. So while Wikiscanner may show that a particular entity made an edit to a page, often the edit doesn't survive very long before it's scrutinized by other wikipedians.

Sent by andy carvin | 1:06 PM ET | 08-16-2007

Open, Sesame!

Sent by Harriett Dunn | 2:26 PM ET | 08-16-2007

Did you check to see whether the changes you talked about were kept or whether they were undone? Did you talk to anyone who edits wikipedia? Basically, it would have been nice to see some actual reporting.

Sent by Ben Yates | 3:16 PM ET | 08-16-2007

I looked up NPR's IP addresses using a WHOIS search, and found a few edits which might bear some additional scrutiny. It looks like NPR's internet access is through 205.153.36.170 and 205.153.36.171.

I wonder who did the major edit on Nina Totenberg's bio on May 14th? Or Jackie Northam's on April 30th?

I was amused to find a quote on the "Tor" anonymizing service website stating that NPR foreign correspondents use that service to post stories while they are in locations with internet restrictions. Perhaps they should teach the home team a few tricks?

Sent by John Vann | 3:18 PM ET | 08-16-2007

Wikipedia has always had an open policy, they've never hidden the info about who's making what edits- they just don't track or automate the info. This guy from Cal tech did us all a favor by creating this program. I've followed IP's of posters who have disrupted my blogs and boards and found them editing wikipedia entries and generally making a nuisance of themselves there as well. This easier access will be beautiful for me personally as I like to double check my sources as often as I can, and I always like to know what my cyber stalkers are up to. Love it!

Sent by Hazel | 11:42 PM ET | 08-16-2007

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