The Wikipedia entry for Sarah Palin was overhauled substantially for the better in the 24 hours before the surprise announcement of her selection as Republican vice-presidential nominee. A mystery Wikipedia user — under the name Young Trigg — put in about 30 edits to the biographical article on the website.
Young Trigg also notes how the Governor had high approval ratings and kept her campaign pledges. A profile in the conservative Weekly Standard magazine was used as a source of details about how Mrs Palin was willing to “take on oil companies” and that she had “eye-popping integrity”.
All this took place before the Republican candidate John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate in the presidential elections.
Since the announcement the Sarah Palin page has been edited many hundreds of times more and Wikipedia has now put in place a partial block so that only established editors can change the entry. Some of Young Trigg’s entries have been amended or toned down.
Young Trigg made his or her last edits hours before the announcement and the unusual activity was noted first by National Public Radio. Arguments raged among Wikipedia editors about the alleged bias of Young Trigg’s entries and whether he or she was a “sock puppet”, an alternative anonymous account name taken on by the user to deceive.
I wonder if Young Trigg could be commenting, here, eh?
Pretty funny. A couple weeks ago I wrote to his facebook page asking why he listed “race” as Af American and left out his Anglo-Am heritage. I just checked and “race” wasn’t listed… LOL.
Now get this from his page:
Employer: United States Senate
The guy thinks he’s “employed” by the Senate!
ROFL!
He doesn’t even know he works for the people and State of Illinois!
You do realize, don’t you, that paddy-o’s last name is Goebbels.
#23 Great rebuttal! How long have you worked as an Obama shill?
#11, “The bottom line is that this selection demonstrates how intellectually bankrupt the GOP is.”
Joe “Let me tell you how smart I am” Biden is so much better. Both candidates are tools who made their choices mostly out of political expedience. So what’s new? At least Palin hasn’t already run, and been rejected, for President several times before.
I think this is much to do about nothing, people edit wikipedia all the time with questionable information based upon a questionable agenda. It’s both the blessing and the curse of wikipedia. This is just another distraction from the real issues of the campaign.
To Editor
“taken on the by user to deceive.”
Switch “the by” for ‘by the’.
[Edit: the Brits use spell checkers as rarely as do Americans]
so how many people have changed it back since then? That I would like to know.
Oh get over it people. As if any one of you wouldn’t arrange that to happen for your secret unknown running mate. Sheesh.
#24 – Didn’t deny it, eh?
Let’s try an example of your statements of attainder: Gee, Paddy-O, I understand your concern, now that it’s clear which side of the White Supremacy issue you really care about.
And that’s only a half-way premise.
Dude, you’re not capable of verification, validation or intellectual honesty. Is that clear enough?
too bad, my ip is currently block for edit from wikipedia.
That’s cool! Even a retard can edit a wikipedia page!
There are an ocean of posters from both parties who will post for free. Why hire someone?
I do admitt that on occasion I have wondered if both sides of a debate were posted by the same person at some sites.
“she had “eye-popping integrity””
Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll keep my distance.
#17, Greg,
Good post. I have come to trust Wikipedia for a quick lesson if I want to know something right away. If my interest is piqued, I will dig further.
I do know NOT to trust anything concerning a living person or current political controversy.
Rule of Wikipedia #n: Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to stupidity.
“Young Trig” is probably just a button-happy McCain-Palin supporter who knew or had a hunch that she would be picked. Wikipedia is fine for basic information and links to resources about people, but I wouldn’t trust it for accurate or unbiased information, especially during campaign season. Barack Obama’s page looks pretty spiffy as well, just take it all with a grain of salt. Blaming each other for editing a freely editable encyclopedia to favor themselves is counterproductive. If something’s inaccurate or overstate it, edit it!
Lets Define Bikini Fit and then I will tell you how to get their easily.