Wikipedia blocks US Congress IP address

Wikipedia blocks United States Congress IP addresses due to rampant vandalism by Hill staffers. [CNET]

The statement of dispute from Wikipedia's Request for Comment [RFC] page on the dispute surrounding the United States Congress entry:

This [Request for Comment] is being opened in order to further a centralized discussion concerning actions to be taken against US Congressional staffers and possibly other federal employees who have engaged in unethical and possibly libelous behavior in violation of Wikipedia policies (WP:[Neutral Point of View], WP:[Civility]). The editors from these IP ranges have been rude, abrasive, immature, and show disregard for Wikipedia policy. The editors have frequently tried to censor the history of elected officials, often replacing community articles with censored biographies despite other users' attempts to dispute these violations. They also violate Wikipedia:Verifiability, by deleting verified reports, while adding flattering things about members of Congress that are unverified. The offending editors have been blocked. This RFC is needed to gather community comments. It is proposed that a one week block is not enough.

Here's Wikipedia's page of Congressional Staffer Edits.

Comments

[ashok]

Good for Wikipedia. It's a disgrace Hill staffers act like that, but it doesn't surprise me in the least.

[JR]

I just looked (at random) at Tom Lantos' Wikipedia biography. It's a bizarre collection of straightforward facts with stupid negative stuff dumped in.

Example: "His most significant act related to transportation was when he ran over a teenager in the Capitol parking area and refused to stop despite screams from the crowd. He never apologized for his hit-and-run either."

The truth, apparently, is that he ran over a kid's foot- no broken bones. The kid fell, then got up and walked away. He didn't know he'd hurt anyone.

Looks to me like Wikipedia has a troll problem.

[j swift]

Idolators worshipping their false prophets?

[cookie]

However I'm pretty sure that Scott McClellan is a douche. Or at least a closely related species.

[ghostcatbce]

What's disturbing is the sheer childishness of the behaviour. These people work in the very heart of the US government. But they're acting like two year olds who have just discovered a new toy. One sure to drive the grown ups batty.

[William DeSoto]

My comment on all this is rather round about-- bear with me.
Being President is a very difficult business--- especially because lots of people may want to at least harm you because they take umbrage at your actions. There may even be ready opponents versed in the art of termination with extreme prejudice.
Nonetheless, it seems to me the federal law which makes it a crime to threaten the Executive is a strange one. Just what kind of threat is someone who says out loud they want to harm the executive?---after all the FBI would immediately conduct survellance. It is those who do not say a thing but harbor the same intention that are the true threats to life and limb. We never heard that any threat was issued by the guy who threw a grenade at bush a while back--- oh my goodness, it was a dud!----it is the stealth that is dangerous. Thus, the law is a peculiar thing which instructs serious assassins to plan quietly. Someone like a Tim Mcveigh would be untouched by the law. All he would have to do is park his well disguised fertilizer laiden truck on a block in D.C.through which the President may pass by car at some point and wait and wait-and wait-- in stealth. And when the President passes ---Blooey! Clearly this law will not stop such a thing. I surmise then that the law is meant to stop a scenario wherein three hundred people or perhaps even more!-- across the nation, tie up thousands of FBI folk by all threatening the President simultaneously-- thereby reducing overall Presidential security and leaving him more vulnerable. I wonder why it hasn't been tried in the past--before this law went into effect? Seems a logical thing. The other reason for this law is that if the idea of terminating the executive was agitated for long term-well, a lot of people, perhaps millions, may assent to its viability and efficacy.
Overturning tyranny-- as the Constitution says is the right of the people to do ---can be accomplished by tyrannicide ---(god preserve the tyrant!)-and I suppose the law is meant to poo- poo the idea with long jail sentences and so on.
Of course, documents and so the historical record may be altered such that the offending crimes worthy of sudden extremity may be re-spun to
make them appear innocuous. It is typical of dictators and of politicians generally that their huge egos strive to control what those in future will say of them. And certainly, the record of several hundred or thousand or even millions of people agitating for your demise, justified or no, would leave an inevitable blot on the Executive history--- and any Executive, especially one who aspires to a Mussolini or Stalin -like status, (do we know any such?) would welcome a law which keeps to a minimum the public advocacy of such solutions in response to overwhelming evidence of tyrannical pretensions actively pursued. If those who publicly advocate such a solution are quickly silenced forever, thereby repressing others (perhaps the tip of a vast iceberg) who could be coaxed into venting such a sentiment in response to obvious crimes against freedom and the nation that may justify a solution with finality--the pages of history will register barely a ripple-- thus saving face for the concerned, deserving public figure.
My point is that the hill staffers engage in character assassination of their opponents and they repair or tidy up their boss' image as a matter of reflex, knowng instinctively that , for the benefit of posterity of course, this is an integral part of the political process.
The law which forbids threatening the Executive--- despite reasons which compell---seems just another such image saver.
Until such time as this law is repealed (fat chance) after which perhaps millions of people no longer fear to expose their advocacy of one obvious solution (cia does it all the time- it's popular in Texas)-to traitorous action-- well, they will just have to be the silent 600 pound gorilla waiting behind the curtains in the oh so civilized parlor of national political discourse.
Traitors are tried, fairly of course, and sentenced-- and as a result in time of war may certainly be terminated with extreme prejudice.
Impeachment anyone?

[Dan Schneider]

Wiki's problems go way beyond trolling. Their intellectual thuggery and blatant biases for certain editors, subjects, and points of view are palpable. Any side by side comparison between theirs and an entry on the same subject will point up the yawning gap in competence, factuality, writing, and editing. The Lowest Common Denominator has kyboshed even the dissemination of the most basic facts.

[Mandos]

Wikipedia's best role is in scientific information, particularly math and CS.