User talk:24.18.134.216

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[edit] Reply

I have removed your personal attack, but am willing to reply to the allegations. That press secretary repeatedly blanked entire sections of referenced material from two different biographies. Site policy calls that vandalism. At the time when I reported that action I did not know who had performed those edits, nor was it possible to determine the person's identity on a technical basis. The United States House of Representatives IT configuration routes all 435 congressional offices through the same IP addresses. Tennessee has 10 representatives and hundreds of staffers. More than that, the particular IP address I chose as an example had scores of prior warnings and blocks and had been the very same IP address that had caused the 2006 congressional editing scandal, which had made national news and had led to pledges from several congressional representatives to implement better policies regarding their staff use of Wikipedia.

What happened was that some people in the Tennessee political blogosphere recognized that those two particular biographies had a common trait: one biography was a congressman and the other was a state legislator, and the state legislator's brother was press secretary to the congressman. A political reporter followed up on those rumors and called the press secretary, who admitted on the record that he had made those edits.

After that staffer had already gone on record the reporter contacted me. I referred him to the Foundation, contacted Cary Bass and Jimbo Wales, and eventually went on record myself. All of the information I had gleaned from Wikipedia was already public record, available to anyone on the planet who had the knowledge and skills to look for it.

As a result of that inadvertent act of whistleblowing, the staffer was referred to ethics training. It was the second time that fellow had received orders to enter formal ethics training at that job. He announced his resignation last month and made no mention of Wikipedia.

The article I had written that started the thing was an effort at outreach to public relations professionals that explained how to avoid serious PR risks at Wikipedia. It got published before the WikiScanner came out, at a time when most people looked at me like I was from Mars when I explained that there were real PR risks from unethical participation here. So a few examples were necessary and I chose the safest ones I could find. I learned afterward that the material that press secretary had tried to conceal was actually a political hot potato in Tennessee: both legislators had accepted donations from a controversial executive in the pharmaceuticals industry. Properly cited information of that type is the sort of thing voters usually like to find when they come to this site to learn about their elected representatives. My article completely nonpartisan; I selected examples from both parties. DurovaCharge! 08:08, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

You removed the "personal attack" because you are a Wikipedia administrator and you consider yourself immune from review. This is one of many reasons that Wikipedia's reputation is crashing through the floorboards.
I suggest you research more carefully: I am not a Wikipedia administrator. We also have a policy here called assume good faith. If you repeat further policy violations I will request independent review and intervention. DurovaCharge! 19:10, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
You really ought to do what you'll do anyway, which is to have me barred completely. This is how Wikipedia operates. As for you, if I'm not mistaken there are two people who have lost their jobs because of the good you've done. Merry Christmas! Does it make you feel good to know that you took away people's livelihoods? Give you a thrill, does it?

[edit] Typi-pedia!

An administrator censors a discussion page. The same administrator posts something on my talk page. I reply. The administrator censors my talk page. You just get worse and worse. Is it any wonder that Wikipedia's reputation keeps dropping, and that Google's "Knol" project is ready to wipe Wikipedia clear off the map?

[edit] "User-Edited Encyclopedia" Shuts Off All Access

Wikipedia has frozen all editing on the Matt Sanchez page for several months, preserving a slanted, promotional page that has omitted a whole series of verified facts about the subject. And now Wikipedia has frozen the talk page on the same subject. So much for the "user-edited encyclopedia." So, who's going to write the article now? A specially-selected group appointed by the Wikipedia Central Committee? Oh what a mess your site has become.