Talk:Mark Taylor (politician)

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[edit] Caveats

N.b. this article is being used as part of an ongoing political campaign, and inappropriate allegations of the sources of edits have been made as part of a news release. Wikipedia insists on a Neutral Point of View (WP:NPOV) in all articles, but agrees with the insertion of any factual information that is relevant to a biography, so long as it is presented neutrally and with citations (WP:CITE). If information is relevant and verifiable, and if it is presented in a non-prejudicial manner, it is appropriate, and speculations/allegations about who added the information are neither relevant nor germane to the operation of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone may edit. Geogre 11:15, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, Wikipedia neither has the expertise nor the information to confirm the identities of the persons behind the keyboard beyond the information available to all on the history page. Anyone may search via rwhois to determine who an IP address is registered to, but no one at Wikipedia can determine if that registration information is correct. It would appear that these are the edits which have sparked media attention. Readers of Wikipedia are encouraged to examine the history pages and understand how an article has changed over time. --Gmaxwell 12:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

The same IP address started a small bio article on Morton Brilliant on June 15, 2005 at SourceWatch --Daniel Brandt 68.91.88.84 02:01, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Because this article is now part of ongoing news accounts and is receiving additional outside attention, readers are especially cautioned to be aware that its content may be fluid. Please take a moment to familiarize yourselves with Wikipedia's policies to better understand how the encyclopedia can be open source and yet, thanks to the attention of volunteers, informative, if not authoritative. Geogre 14:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Note regarding IP Addresses: the edit history stored by Wikipedia and available to all via the history tab on an article only shows the IP which made the edit. It is for enquirers to determine who owned, controlled or utilised the IP address at the time of the edit and which may not be the same owner or controller who presently owns or controls that IP address. The allocation of an IP address block may have changed since the recorded edit was made and Wikipedia are not able to provide any information in that respect. --Vamp:Willow 18:40, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Media attention

This article has been linked from an article on the CNN homepage [1]. Is there a template for an occasion like this where an article might become prone to vandalism? Cheers, --Jpkoester1 13:47, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

There is a slashdotting template, I believe (i.e. "we're getting slashdotted, so, if you came here to poke around, please read our policies" sort of thing), and there is an in-the-news template (i.e. "this article is part of an ongoing news event, please read our policies"). I'm not sure of their names, unfortunately, as I'm not one of the template illuminati. In the absence of these, it is perhaps wise to label the first section, above, as I will do in a moment, and to add an additional warning. At that point, an alert on the article page that directs readers (via link to eliminate folks having to know our topology (yes, I mean even seeing the tabs)) to this talk page ought to do it in the absence of a template. Geogre 14:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Helpfully, the template is just "slashdotted" which is a redirect to "high-traffic." I've also semiprotected the page. FCYTravis 16:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] From the Economist

"Virtual mudslinging

The race to become Georgia's governor got nasty in April. Cathy Cox, the secretary of state, and Mark Taylor, the sitting lieutenant-governor, are each vying to become the Democratic nominee to oppose Mr Perdue, the Republican incumbent. (No love is lost between Messrs Taylor and Perdue; in Georgia, the governor and lieutenant governor are elected separately.) In late April the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that a member of Ms Cox's campaign staff had altered Mr Taylor's biography on Wikipedia, an online open-source encyclopaedia, to include information about the 2005 arrest of Mr Taylor's 21-year-old son for drunk driving. Ms Cox insisted that she had told her staff not to bring up the arrest. Her campaign manager, Morton Brilliant, resigned soon after."

[edit] Jimbo Wales and the edit

It's not appropriate, I think, to direct readers to internal WikiMedia documents, and so I see no profit in making live links in this article to explain the tempest in a teapot of "the edit." However, as I understand it, Jimbo Wales did not indicate that the edit came from Cox's campaign, only that it came from a particular IP. The tracing of the IP to Morton Brilliant was done independently. In other words, no identification of the editor's identity was made by Wikipedia's organization, only the publically accessible information of the editor's IP address, which is available to any reader of this article simply by clicking on the History tab. Geogre 21:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)