Former Feinstein staffer edited Wikipedia entries

[Newsjock]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/09/MNGSCH5M1V4.DTL

Washington -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office acknowledged today that a former staff member had removed references to the California Democrat's net worth on the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, as well as altered entries about her husband Richard Blum's Chinese investments in 1997.

A former staff member "independently went on to Wikipedia to correct some material he felt was not appropriate," said Feinstein spokesman Howard Gantman. "The senator was not even aware of it."

[Wilms]

1. Scrubbed is a better word.

The less we know about DiFi's husb, the better for DiFi.

[seemslikeadream]

2. "This RFC concerns the behavior of editors from the United States Congress

so did a lot of other people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/United_States_Congress

Description
This RFC is being opened in order to further a centralized discussion concerning actions to be taken against US Congressional staffers and possibly other federal employees who have engaged in unethical and possibly libelous behavior in violation of Wikipedia policies (WP:NPOV, WP:CIV). The editors from these IP ranges have been rude, abrasive, immature, and show disregard for Wikipedia policy. The editors have frequently tried to censor the history of elected officials, often replacing community articles with censored biographies despite other users' attempts to dispute these violations. They also violate Wikipedia:Verifiability, by deleting verified reports, while adding flattering things about members of Congress that are unverified.

The offending editors have been blocked. This RFC is needed to gather community comments. It is proposed that a one week block is not enough. The block was lifted January 30, 2006. A new block for additional vandalism was enforced for three hours February 1, 2006 at 14:59.


Evidence of disputed behavior
A full list of details can be found at Wikipedia:Congressional Staffer Edits. A lot of details are self-evident. Additional background can be found in this newspaper article:

[izzybeans]

3. It seems there was a staffer war going on.

One of them added Scott McClellen's name to the entry for Douche, which per Wikipedia editorial policy should have stood. Well its disputable anyway.

Daschle's entry was vandalized right about the time he recieved the Anthrax letter; by implication it seems by a republican staffer.

[myrna minx]

4. Norm Coleman's staffers did the same thing...

http://palladio.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/1/31/175627/365
Norm Coleman's staff whitewashes Wikipedia
Some of the changes made by Coleman's staff include:

* A description of Coleman's former political views was changed from "liberal Democrat" to "activist Democrat;" this later become just "active"
* Coleman's first-year voting record (he voted with Bush 98% of the time) was removed from the biography
* Numerous references to Karl Rove were removed from the article, including:
o Details of Coleman's role as "the lead Senate Republican defender of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove"
o Information on Karl Rove's efforts to push Norm Coleman into the 2002 Senate race
o A quote from Norm Coleman describing how Karl Rove helped alter a bill in order to secure Coleman's vote
* In a section on CAFTA, the article originally stated that Coleman "settled for quotas" when voting for the bill. Coleman's staff changed this to a claim that Coleman "managed to broker a deal with the White House that protected the sugar industry"

[joeybee12]

5. Dem and Repuke staffers better just leave it the fuck alone!

Honestly, you can't trust anyone in Washington.

[geomon666]

6. Who cares?

It's Wikipedia, you can put whatever you want on there. Whoever goes there to learn the truth about anything is clearly insane.

[PatsFan2004]

7. We have seen that from Massachusetts politicians.

A Massachusetts congressman had his terms limits pledge scrubbed from his Wikipedia entry.