September 4, 2007
A recent GamePolitics report looked at controversial edits made to the Entertainment Software Association's Wikipedia entry by someone at ESA HQ in Washington, D.C.Now comes word that the Wikipedia entry of a video game industry nemesis, California State Senator Leland Yee, underwent similar in-house editing.
Yee, of course, is the architect of California's 2005 video game law, which was recently ruled unconstitutional by a federal court judge. He is also among those critics calling for a government investigation into the recent re-rating of Manhunt 2 (see: Yee: What is ESRB Trying to Hide?).
As reported by John Meyers, Sacramento Bureau Chief for public radio station KQED:
For some reason, many more Wikipedia edits were done on computers belonging to the California Senate than the Assembly. In fact, all of the following entries were tweaked with computers logged on to Senate internet connections...
Take, for example, the Wikipedia entry for Sen. Leland Yee (D-SF), which was polished up to highlight his 2006 effort to ban violent video games being sold to kids. Between late May and August 2006, someone at the Capitol added glowing references to his fight "for children, mental health services, working families, the environment, and civil rights."
Someone also logged on from a legislative computer to delete references to a 1992 shoplifting charge against Yee, and several Capitol edits attempted to frame the violent video game debate in the most flattering light possible...
Yee's Wikipedia entry notes that some items are in dispute. The edits cited by KQED were discovered using the recently released Wikipedia Scanner tool.
Comments
Seriously though, this little Wiki thing is revealing more and more eyebrow lifting stuff, not that I'm surprised it happens, but just it's still putting a lot of people in somewhat interesting situations.
Not really a big deal in my opinion, but since 92 wasn't really that far away >_>; God, I feel old.
The wiki stuff is just an example of history books, people try to light it in the best way as possible. I'd argue many books, including the bible were subject to the same manners as whoever wins in a war or comes out on top. There are tons of edits from virtually every major commercial service, even Apple.
Apple also put NSFW piccies on wiki as an insult, makes you wonder why companies are so afraid of such things coming into light.
Anyway, Yee wants to look "perfect" in front of constituents, but that isn't possible. He'll always look like an idiot to someone, and the more he presses the issue of 'protecting children' by burning money and claiming it'll heat homes; the grimmer things will look.
There is irony though in that statement:
What is ESRB Trying to Hide
What are YOU trying to hide Yee?
That's just like polishing a turd. Yee has no scientific or rational basis for his proposed law, and like all the others, it was declared unconstitutional. It doesn't matter how you spin it, it was an attempt by an elected official to restrict his constituents rights at the cost of their tax dollars. No amount of preaching your misguided concern for the children or trying to take a moral highground can change that.
Your readers are probably not aware of the celebrated case involving Wikipedia in which a former member of the Kennedy Administration embarrassed the site terribly over its false history of him. Gee, Dennis, think you could have reported that?
GP: No reason why we would report on that, since this is GamePolitics.com and there is no video game angle in the case you are referencing. I do seem to recall your own dust-up with the Wiki Media folks in 2006, though.
Pathetic. Practice what you preach, loser: Grow up and get a life.
That said, to a certain degree Jack was right, there was a definite bias on the Wikipedia in his article, but making alterations that were equally biased in the opposite direction did little to further his cause.
I'm sure Jack could tell us what "fiction is fact" is all about, given that anything he writes falls into the former rather than the latter.
Maybe wikipedia don't trust you to get your date of birth right? I'm not sure I would trust you to tie your own shoelaces without accusing them of extortion...
And why is it you think every article here has to hover around a game? It's his site, and he can do what he wants with it. It's still related to the matter, and he's not going to get arrested for going off on a tangent for a few hours.
So, if someone else edited Jack's page so it correctly showed his birthday, it would've been fine, as long as it is the truth.
Jack, you do realize that lying on Wikipedia is discovered VERY fast.
Oh, and Dennis. When in this month do we get to hear again from the Florida Bar wether or not Jack will be disciplined ?
Oh really? And what evidence do you have that Yee wasn't convicted of shoplifting? Just whom is pushing fiction as fact?
And regarding "fiction as fact" are you still pushing the "Cho was a gamer" lie that the Washington Post itself pulled? Sad sad little man.
Doesn't Yee's attempts to edit his Wikipedia entry to highlight his (illegal) fight against violent video games and remove mention of his past crimes count as pushing "fiction as fact"? I guess in Jack's world it only counts when those pathetic, jobless, low-life gamers do it. When an upstanding citizen and servant of the people like Yee, who's never done anything wrong, does it, he's just getting the truth out.
Well, about time I get ready for work. Gotta go in early.
*Lee was allegedly accused of stealing tanning lotion. What a brute.
Everything about Yee is about perception. His campaign to eradicate the world from the evil that is violence in modern media is nothing but perception. He's taken on a position that appeals to the demographic voting for him. Nothing else.
So why wouldn't he try and alter the perception about him then? He does that on a daily basis for a living.
i agree with MR. B. Let's do an IP trace to see all wikipedia modifications by JT.
since it would be very unethical to give us his IP, i think we should ask that you undertake this bit of investigative work considering you already have it.
Oh jeez, now all the Yee haters are going to slam me... spare your wrath, I'm on YOUR side. sheesh.
-mw
There is another way to find Jack's IP address,look it up online.I found this cool website that will let you find IP address' by typing in their URL.That site is,
http://www.selfseo.com/find_ip_address_of_a_website.php
Well, it's not that the owners of the page can't edit the page (though you can't call them owners; the page is ABOUT them but they don't OWN the page), it's just that they can't make the article bias; which can be hard to do when writing about yourself, since many poeple like to make themselves look good. The article must remain unbiased. The reason these stories are news worthy is because Yee's poeple have been editing his arctle to make him look better, deleting anything negative in their history, and sugar coating their failures. This is a method of lying to poeple since their are many poeple you reguard wiki as a great place to go for accurate information; poeple often treat wikipedia like the real encyclopedia... i mean, would you think it would be right for a person to edit an actual encyclopedia article about themselves? It's not just politicans, but also companies, including a few game companies.
For me, it's about evidence against credibility. I want to know pretty much everything Yee, or Thompson, or anyone else I have a political and professional interest in opposing, does that I can use as legitimate evidence to discredit them.
Honestly, if we don't have evidence to back up our claims, we're no better than Thompson. We rip on him for spouting completely fabricated numbers, statistics, "conclusive studies" about how harmful games are, but if we're trying to convince someone that Thompson isn't a legitimate expert, isn't someone to be trusted, we should really have facts to back our OWN claims. Like specific bad-faith Wiki edits, or the true results of the studies he claims to cite.
To be honest, I'd really, really like someone to come up with a database, or at least a comprehensive list, of the studies done on the effects of violent gaming. I don't like simply saying "the studies don't say what Thompson says they do", I want to be able to cite what they actually say. It would go a huge way toward legitimizing our own positions, and bringing other people around. It's the reason he throws numbers out there, it gives the impression that you actually did your homework. The fact that he just makes his numbers up is so outrageous that people assume he is telling the truth.
In short, I want to know about this stuff because I want to be better than Jack.
I believe Dennis voluntarily lifted the IP ban awhile ago, under the promise that Thompson would refrain from threatening other GP posters and such. I may be misremembering that, though.
Which is an amusing thought. As Jack himself has threatened Dennis with legal action for not (quickly enough) removing Thompson impersonators. Stating that Dennis had a legal imperative to enforce the rules Dennis has posted. I wonder then the illegality of breaking those rules by getting around a ban.
Of course rules and laws only apply to everyone else, not Jack.
Actually, I recall reading something on Jack and his involvements with Wiki... Didn't you try to rearrange your own entry to reflect FAR more positively on yourself, Jack? They reverted the page back to a more factual basis than your 'version' of certain events. I'm more than willing to bet they didn't accept your changes because they thought you weren't a credible source.
Of course, any Professor on the planet will be happy to tell you that wikipedia shouldn't be cited because of it's malleability; So treating it as though Encyclopedia Britannica were attacking you is silly in the utmost.
Alas, what can we expect from YOU? The truth? pfft.
Recently, Jack Thompson commented:
“Good for Yee. I tried to alter my Wiki entry, to get my birthdate and birthplace right, and the knuckleheads at this “fiction is fact” site deleted my corrections!”
What's Thompson talking about? While he did alter his Wiki entry and he did claim his birthday was wrong, this is the correction he made:
“This is my favorite Internet site for fiction. Wikipedia's "experts" ("X" is an unknown quantity and "spurt" is a drip under pressure) on Jack Thompson even got the day and year of my birth wrong. What do you expect from pixelantes (I created the word--see Wikipedia for confirmation of that) to describe video game vigilantes. They're so confused, they think the term which refers to their abusive vigilantism is a term of endearment and honor. Mussolini would be impressed.” (Click the below link to see the rest.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jack_Thompson_%28attorney%29&d...
Yep, no mention of his actual birthday. Not very encyclopedic is it? Gee, I wonder why it was deleted. Anyway, a few editors pointed this out to Thompson who said:
“You goofs let video gamer cretins spew page after page of bile about me, and I try to correct some of it, and you say my responses are not "encyclopedic." I guess I'll just sue you, then. Thanks for the heads-up. Jack Thompson”
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Help_desk&diff=40194...
Click the following link to read about Thompson’s absurd letter to the Wikipedia Foundation board where he requested the personal information of anyone who has ever edited his Wiki entry.
http://gamepolitics.livejournal.com/228672.html
Andrew Eisen
"I tried to alter my Wiki entry, to get my birthdate and birthplace right, and the knuckleheads at this “fiction is fact” site deleted my corrections!"
Jack, editing one's own wiki entry is considered a faux pas, and is frowned upon, which is why the changes were reverted first and formost. You were instructed to submit your "corrections" to the talk page, and you refused. The info would have been reviewed and corrected had you submitted it properly...
As I recall, you wanted far more than your birth info changed.
Deleting the arrest incidents is just sad though. It only calls attention to them, and makes them look more serious than they really are. The shoplifting incident sounds like a misunderstanding, but by trying to hide the details, it makes it look like Yee really WAS guilty (don't know if he is or isn't, but by deleting the entry it makes it look like he's trying to hide it).
If it's embarrassing, PR spin it, but don't pretend it didn't happen.
As for the "polishing up", yeah, it's lame. Throwing in a bunch of comments about parental concerns while at the same time refusing to acknowledge constitutional hurdles... again, makes you look ineffectual or clueless...
As the proverb goes; history is written by the victor, and Yee failed, thus should be reprimanded for trying.
naughty yee!
(the same goes for jackie boy)
This isn't targeted at anyone in particular; it's targeted at everyone who, thanks to wikiscanner, has been caught in the act of altering a source of public information for selfish interest.
Anyway the Leeland Yee article is scrawny as it is, it needs more stuff in it.
It’s that time again! What’s Jack Thompson Talking About?
Recently, Jack Thompson commented:
“Good for Yee. I tried to alter my Wiki entry, to get my birthdate and birthplace right, and the knuckleheads at this “fiction is fact” site deleted my corrections!”
What’s Thompson talking about? While he did alter his Wiki entry and he did claim his birthday was wrong, this is the correction he made:
“This is my favorite Internet site for fiction. Wikipedia’s “experts” (”X” is an unknown quantity and “spurt” is a drip under pressure) on Jack Thompson even got the day and year of my birth wrong. What do you expect from pixelantes (I created the word–see Wikipedia for confirmation of that) to describe video game vigilantes. They’re so confused, they think the term which refers to their abusive vigilantism is a term of endearment and honor. Mussolini would be impressed.” (Click the below link to see the rest.)
Yep, no mention of his actual birthday. Not very encyclopedic is it? Gee, I wonder why it was deleted. Anyway, a few editors pointed this out to Thompson who said:
“You goofs let video gamer cretins spew page after page of bile about me, and I try to correct some of it, and you say my responses are not “encyclopedic.” I guess I’ll just sue you, then. Thanks for the heads-up. Jack Thompson”
Click the following link to read about Thompson’s absurd letter to the Wikipedia Foundation board where he requested the personal information of anyone who has ever edited his Wiki entry.
Andrew Eisen
And he believes gamers, or "pixelantes" to be all children.
Protecting kids my ass.
Questions criedibility
Insults gamer intelligence
Blames gamers for writing his page negatively
threatens legal action.
Jack jack jack, youre suck a one trick pony.
"Jack jack jack, youre suck a one trick pony"
Nah, he's a one trick "phony"
you;ll know when jack really jumps the shark when he boycotts spore for teaching the lies of evolution, thats the moment he gets just too nuts for anyone to cover him anymore.
It doesn't happen only to Jack. I don't take offense to "furfag" anymore since I hear it so often on the net. /b/tards hate it, but, heh, not my fault not one of them can come up with an original insult.