I know this has been circulating for a few weeks (I missed it somehow); but I've just read an interesting article about the software a student developed to identify who was editing Wikipedia entries. Of course, many large corporations, organizations, and major religions were up in arms over this. Among the "revelations" listed:
"- Microsoft tried to cover up the XBOX 360 failure rate
- Apple edit Microsoft entries, adding more negative comments about its rival
- Bill Gates revenge? Microsoft edits Apple entries, adding more negative comments about its rival
- The Vatican edits Irish Catholic politician Gerry Adams page
- In the 9/11 Wikipedia article, the NRA added that 'Iraq was involved in 9/11'
- Scientology removes criticism and negatives article from Scientology page"
So, how much of this is really a surprise? If you had a Wikipedia page, wouldn't you remove anything negative? It's all just spin - PR 101 (of course, we all know the saying "there's no such thing as bad PR").
However, now I'm interested to know how involved Wikipedia is going to get in this whole debacle. Now that they can see who is editing pages, will they start to ban certain IPs from editing certain pages? How "human-edited" is Wikipedia going to be in the end? They already don't allow so-called "advertising" links to be posted in any entries (define "advertising"). How much more will they have to intervene (and should they intervene)?