Multiple news agencies, including the New York Times and CNET yesterday suggested that a campaign operative for Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, worked on the Wikipedia article on her in the 24 hours before the vice presidential candidate was announced. After seeing these allegations, Wikinews decided to investigate the claim further.
The user who allegedly added the content on Wikipedia was known as Young Trigg, and Wikinews has learned that the account was created at exactly 08:02 UTC on August 28. Just eight minutes after the user made their first edit to Wikipedia. In this first edit the user said that Palin "briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations, while also working as a commercial fisherman with her husband, Todd, her high school sweetheart".
In the second edit Palin and her family were described as "avid outdoors enthusiasts." This edit also said that "Sarah and her father would sometimes wake at three am to hunt moose before school, and the family would regularly run 5k and 10k races".
Young Trigg made a total of 43 contributions and announced they would retire from Wikipedia at 07:58 UTC on August 31. In addition to editing the article on Sarah Palin, the user also gave an anonymously contributed to Wikipedia to say that Palin was the VP nominee before the official announcement
This unusual editing pattern aroused some suspicion among other editors of Wikipedia. One of these editors is Justen Deal, who told Young Trigg that "some of yours edits may have affected the article in such a way so as to reflect more favorably on the subject of the article."
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Monday, September 1, 2008
News agencies suggest campaign operative for Republican Party edited article on vice presidential nominee
Monday, August 25, 2008
Staffs for US presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama caught making questionable edits to Wikipedia
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Wikinews has learned through an investigation that the staffs for 2008 United States presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain have been spending some of their time making questionable edits to Wikipedia, the open content, online encyclopedia. The investigation also found that Obama's campaign staff seems to be removing more questionable edits more often than they are making them. McCain's campaign staff favored less, in most cases removing unflattering information regarding certain articles.
While using the online internet tool Wikiscanner, Wikinews was able to determine the Internet Protocol Address range for the campaign headquarters for Obama, Obama For America and McCain, mccain08hq.com. After determining the ranges, we were able determine the individual IP addresses used to edit Wikipedia and cross reference them to current edits as early as August of this year for both campaigns.
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