McCain volunteer found shaping Palin's Wikipedia entry hours before announcement

[sabra]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/technology/01link.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&ref=business&oref=slogin

Don’t Like Palin’s Wikipedia Story? Change It


IN the 24 hours before the McCain campaign put the finishing touches on its surprise announcement Friday that Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska would be the Republican vice presidential candidate, one Wikipedia user was putting the finishing touches on her biography on the site.

Beginning at 2 a.m Eastern time on Thursday, a Wikipedia user with the name YoungTrigg began an overhaul of the article, adding compelling stories about her upbringing, including that “she earned the nickname ‘Sarah Barracuda’ because of her intense play” as point guard for her high school basketball team and that she and her father “would sometimes wake at 3 a.m. to hunt moose before school.”

Many details were culled from, and footnoted to, the book “Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment on Its Ear,” by Kaylene Johnson.

...

In total, YoungTrigg — whose user name is a reference to Ms. Palin’s infant son, Trig — made 30 “edits” to the article, all positive and largely unnoticed, since they came at a time when few were discussing her as a possible running mate of Senator John McCain’s.

...

By Sunday morning, YoungTrigg came forward, still anonymous, on his or her Wikipedia user page: “It’s not true that ‘all of my edits made Palin look better.’ ”

The user narrowed down YoungTrigg’s identity: “I am not Sarah Palin. I think it is obvious that I am not the five-month-old Trig Paxson Van Palin. I am not a member of Sarah Palin’s family, or even Michael Palin’s family.”

YoungTrigg was a user name picked for this task; for other editing, he or she chooses other names: “I will acknowledge that I volunteer for the McCain campaign, one of thousands of people nationwide who are working to elect the best candidate for the job. Palin was not the nominee when I made my edits, though I am certainly excited about the selection. I don’t believe I have a conflict of interest problem.”

That said, nobody will be hearing from YoungTrigg again anytime soon. On the bottom was a black-bordered box surrounding the word “retired.”

[ErinBerin84]

1. lol....YoungTrigg.

I keep thinking that I'm in a dream.