That day seems to have arrived. The Washington Post has been reporting this week about Wiki dickering in Washington. In response to politically-motivated manipulations of the profiles of some members of Congress, Wikipedia is now blocking some Capitol Hill IP addresses from having the ability to edit.
You don't have to do much digging on Wikipedia to see that similar shenanigans are going on in state capitals, too.
For example, look at the Wikipedia profile of Texas Governor Rick Perry. The first thing to notice is that Perry's profile is not languishing in some forgotten corner of the Internet. If you Google "Rick Perry," his Wikipedia profile is the third item in the search results--right behind his official state of Texas site and his campaign site. In other words, by Google's all-powerful reasoning, Wikipedia's profile is the 3rd most authoritative source of information you're going to find about the Governor of Texas.
Before I get to the substance of Perry's profile, there's one other important point to make. If you look at the history of changes to Perry's profile, you'll see that it is edited pretty frequently. Somebody tweaked the profile three times on Tuesday alone. In 2006, his profile has been finagled with 25 times by people bearing such noms de Wiki as "Digresser," "King of Hearts," and "Freakofnurture."
Now to the profile itself. Perry's Wiki world reads like a bizarre linguistic truce between his supporters and his enemies. The section labled "Governorship," in particular, sounds like a series of press releases from the Perry flak shop. We see that the governor "worked to reform Texas health care," and held a "tough stance on crime." We also learn that "He has been credited with attracting thousands of jobs to Texas in recent years by cutting payroll and property taxes." Wow!
Where Perry's foes seem to be winning the Wiki war is in a section labeled "Perry-isms." It says that Perry has "established a reputation for gaffes during his political career." Most notably, it mentions the time Perry got caught on videotape telling a reporter, "Adios, MoFo." That flub did make national news at the time. But really, are a pol's occasional gaffes the sort of thing that belongs in an "encylcopedia"?
I don't know that any of this sandlot stuff warrants intervention by the Wikipedia police. Tit-for-tat editing is a decent check on political operatives hijacking profiles for nefarious purposes. Heck, for that matter, if you read something about Rick Perry on Wikipedia that doesn't sit right with you, go ahead and edit it yourself.
What it does suggest, however, is that passive-aggressive political hackery knows no bounds.
