Back In September. I wrote a little piece entitled: A Bit Of Editing On Bill De Blasio's Wiki Page (click here to read) about the flurry of activity on the Councilman's Wikipedia page.Now, The Brooklyn Paper has written its own story. Here is theirs:
‘History’ rewrites itself"
An online encyclopedia listing for a Brooklyn councilman is being repeatedly edited by a city employee to emphasize (and hide) the councilman’s position on two controversial development projects.
In a twist reminiscent of the memory hole in “1984,” someone is tailoring Councilman Bill DeBlasio’s entry in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia for political purposes. But who’s doing it? It’s almost impossible to say, although one culprit is known to be working from a city government Internet connection.
Like most other members of the Council, DeBlasio (D–Park Slope) has a page on Wikipedia, the popular encyclopedia that allows anyone — whether he or she has expertise or not — to create and edit articles.
The strength of the system is in its numbers. Unlike a standard encyclopedia, Wikipedia has hundreds of thousands of writers and editors. Its founder claims that those sheer numbers make it impossible for mistakes to last very long before someone finds the error and tosses it down the memory hole.
Since June, numerous revisions have been made to DeBlasio’s entry regarding his position on Atlantic Yards and the coming Trader Joe’s supermarket at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Court Street.
In fact, DeBlasio’s Wikipedia page has been in a near constant state of flux, with several people taking aim at his stance on hot-button issues. But unlike the memory holes of Orwell’s dystopia, Wikipedia edits leave a “paper” trail, making it possible to view a record of all changes made to any listing.
The most-recent changes, first reported on the blog, Pardon Me For Asking, have involved the insertion and deletion of a paragraph about whether DeBlasio is in tune with his constituents.
To read entire article, click here
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