It fascinates me that they had to put up this disambiguation.

I have to wonder what event required this note on Play-Doh to be added to the Wikipedia entry.  Or… events?  Did people keep complaining that they could not find the Greek philosopher’s entry?  Or that of the modeling clay?  They must have.

I am afraid to look at the Talk page, now. I don’t know what I will see there. But I know it might frighten me.

The Federalist has officially arrived: the Left is trying to delete its Wikipedia entry.

How droll.

Yep. It just happened. The science-loving censors at Wikipedia, not content with memory-holing unassailable facts about Neil Tyson’s history of fabricating quotes (part 1, part 2, and part 3), are now trying to completely erase The Federalist from Wikipedia. Seriously, take a look:

The folks at the Federalist might take some comfort in the fact that you really haven’t arrived as a conservative/Republican/Righty online publication until a progressive Wikipedia editor attempts to delete your site’s entry. RedState went through this ourselves, back in the day; and I have to say, the Federalist has had it lucky. Our particular drama included gay-baiting… and no, I have no idea why a bunch of anonymous progressives thought that that would work.  Heck, I don’t even know what ‘work’ would mean as a definition, in this context.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

[UPDATE]: Oh, it gets better.  The Cult of deGrasse Tyson apparently managed to get the Wikipedia page shut down, briefly.  I think that Federalist editor Ben Domenech’s comments here are worth noting:

“It’s funny to see how these Wikipedia crowds have gotten even more intense,” Domenech added. “Kevin Williamson was speaking at Heritage and pointed out that as the Left gets more exhausted it also gets more authoritarian. He was referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. saying that climate change deniers should be arrested. That sort of thing is something you see reflected on the Internet as well. They form these little mobs.”

And Wikipedia’s unique problem is this: it has no effective defense against mobs, and cannot really acquire one without having a lot of people go into full-bore hysteria on the subject.

Wikipedia bans Capitol Hill from making Wikipedia edits.

Of course.

Wikipedia administrators have imposed a ban on page edits from computers at the US House of Representatives, following “persistent disruptive editing”.

The 10-day block comes after anonymous changes were made to entries on politicians and businesses, as well as events like the Kennedy assassination.

The biography of former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was edited to say that he was an “alien lizard”.

Although that one arguably pales in comparison to the nameless Congressional staffer who needed the world to know that Mediate is “sexist transphobic*.”  Or perhaps not; but I’m noting it largely because I’d like the record to show that this is all at best (or worst) a bipartisan exercise in wearing-your-posterior-as-a-head-covering.  And, of course, to make it clear that, to the best of my knowledge, Donald Rumsfeld is NOT an alien lizard.  I mean, sheesh: everybody knows that he’s from a cadet branch of the Merovingian dynasty.  Where do you think he got the money to fund Fang Island in the first place? Continue reading Wikipedia bans Capitol Hill from making Wikipedia edits.

#rsrh (NSFW) Why Allen West (R, FL) replied…

…in the following manner to CAIR’s not-particularly-polite request that he disassociate himself from Pamela Geller and Brigitte Gabriel:

It’s because “Fuck you, you terrorist-defending sanctimonious assholes,” while an appropriate response, is probably not suitable for official House stationery. Continue reading #rsrh (NSFW) Why Allen West (R, FL) replied…

Argentine anti-plagiarism bill rips off Wikipedia.

I don’t care who you are, this is funny:

Techdirt reported recently that a politician in Argentina who introduced an anti-plagiarism bill has come under fire for apparently copying some of the language he used without crediting the source, a practice some have called “plagiarism.”

What makes it funnier is that the parts that got ripped off were from the entry on plagiarism itself.  I believe that the technical term for this is “You’re doing it wrong…”

A look from Wikipedia from the inside.

Via Instapundit comes this series of Volokh Conspiracy guest-posts on the topic of Wikipedia by an administrator of Wikipedia – an electronic entity that many if not most of the readers of this site don’t particularly trust*.  The author (one Newyorkbrad) knows this himself, which is why he has been providing TVC with basic explanations of the internal self-monitoring system, what the various levels of access are, and some of the philosophical disputes going on inside the site.  Essentially, he’s trying to demystify the whole thing for people.

If I had been asked for advice on this topic – which I wasn’t – I would have to say that the best way for people to handle perceived flaws in Wikipedia would be roughly similar to what I counseled people to do with the GOP; join up, make yourself useful, then start providing balance to the discussion. They’ll probably be overjoyed to see you and you can finally set the record straight on 18th Century coal mining techniques.

Moe Lane

*This statement is equally accurate for RedState.com & MoeLane.com. The non-political wiki wars can be just as epic.

Crossposted to RedState.