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Too Much Free Time

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Mar 3rd 2008 2:16pm




Filed Under:
police chief, wikipedia


Police Chief Demands His Staff Monitor His Wikipedia Entry

from the abuse-of-power? dept

Just as Slashdot is reporting about the mayor of Florence suing Wikipedia comes the news that a police chief in West Yorkshire, in the UK, is so upset with the edits to his own Wikipedia entry that he's required his staff to monitor the page and make changes or revisions to it in response to critical comments left on the page. Now, obviously, having critical information about you on Wikipedia may not be pleasant, but aren't there more important things for folks in a police department to be working on?

24 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  1.  
    identicon
    Hellsvilla, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 2:30pm

    no.

    You got someone better in mind for the job? As long as the staff is maintaining truth, I see nothing wrong with this.

     

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  2.  
    identicon
    yes, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 2:54pm

    Re: no.

    Perhaps the vain moron should have his staff working on other more pressing duties and serving the citizens rather than having them replace edits to his self-serving web page with approved text he wants others to see. This is a wikipedia entry, anyone can edit it so be prepared to have it happen. If you want a restricted edit page then you should host your own on a website you own and can 'police' accordingly.

    As long as the staff is maintaining the truth - you forgot to add - he wants everyone to see then there is nothing wrong with this.

     

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  3.  
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    TheDock22, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 2:57pm

    Umm...

    You do realize by staff...they probably mean the secretaries and interns. Not the officers. I see no problem with this.

     

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  4.  
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    Yorkie, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 2:58pm

    Ridiculous

    What happens if he finds a disparaging YouTube clip? Would the staffers need to monitor YouTube as well? Forums, websites, blogs, all of these will of course have to be monitored to preserve this man's image of competency. In fact I propose that he enlists the aid of the entire constabulary for this endeavor, since the internets are a big place after all. Cost should be no issue when the abiding public is footing the bil. In fact I recommend we raise taxes, because after all, can we truly put a price on a man's self-image?

    Woe be to the naysayers, the West Yorkies are watching you.

     

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  5.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 3:00pm

    Seeing as the police's job nowadays seems to feature heavily the task of covering up their incompetence... nope, nothing out of the ordinary happening here.

     

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  6.  
    identicon
    Hellsvilla, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 3:06pm

    Why the hate?

    Really, he represents the office of a public official. If that wikipedia page is pertaining information about his post, then someone ahs to make sure that information is correct. Guess who that duty falls on? That's right. His office.

    Get over it. This is a part of this new life we face.

     

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  7.  
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    another mike, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 3:14pm

    streisand effect in 3...2...1...

    How much overtime will they be billing when we all start going to his page to make disparaging edits? Knowing farkers and /.'ers, no editorial power in the world will be able to keep his page how he wants it.

     

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  8.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 3:21pm

    He wouldn't be worried about what people say in his wiki entry, if he didn't have something to hide.

    Perhaps the root of this issue needs to be sorted out?

     

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  9.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 3:24pm

    Why should our tax dollars be used to protect his ego, though?

     

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  10.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 3:27pm

    They shouldn't.....because you live in America, and he lives in the UK (which is not a state of the USA [yet]).

     

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  11.  
    identicon
    StarFleet Command, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 3:40pm

    Re:

    ---He wouldn't be worried about what people say in his wiki entry, if he didn't have something to hide. Perhaps the root of this issue needs to be sorted out?--- "Hey Pot", says Kettle, "looking a bit black today aren't you?" Your comment is ridiculous considering you are posting as AC.

     

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  12.  
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    FUD Buster, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 3:59pm

    WikiPedia full of bad info

    There are dome great articles. Until you get to public figures and policitcs. Then there are people who have pet agends articles, that actually will change revisions back if you try to even have more neutral language.

     

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  13.  
    identicon
    Hard to Judge, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 4:55pm

    I work in the IT field and at times work on things that a non-IT person may consider a waste of resources and time for the IT department. But to me it's all related and you just wouldn't understand.

    Now, having said that to think that police would be taken off the street to secure some edits on a Wiki is ridiculous. I would make a more reasonable assumption that they would monitor this post on their downtime.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  14.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 6:04pm

    His page - Heh
    that's funny

     

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  15.  
    identicon
    Rob, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 6:09pm

    Perhaps we should all edit it.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  16.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Wombat, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 9:56pm

    Missing the point folks?

    You're all missing the point when saying "Good For Him"

    It's a conflict of interest. It goes against policy in Wikipedia to have someone self-edit or a party of that person to edit for them as it decreases the neutrality of the article.

    He's focussing on presenting a padded biography instead of a factual one. While this may be acceptable on a personal website, it is not acceptable on wikipedia. It is alright to remove libel, slander and opinion from the article, however to replace that with opinion is just as bad as the vandalism that initially took place.

    On top of that, the fact that he's directed staff to maintain his version of the story, and not necessarily a true representation (as saved by the Wikipedia editors) is a gross misuse of resources on his part as well as a violation of wikipedias rules against conflict of interest.

    He's nothing but in the wrong in this case.

     

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  17.  
    identicon
    George Bush, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 11:30pm

    Re: Re:

    "Hey Pot", says Kettle, "looking a bit black today aren't you?" Your comment is ridiculous considering you are posting as AC.

    That's funny. Talk about Kettle calling Pot black, here we have someone posting as "StarFleet Command" criticizing someone else for posting anonymously!

     

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  18.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Mar 3rd, 2008 @ 11:32pm

    Re: Umm...

    TheDock22 wrote:
    I see no problem with this.

    But then, you have no problem with being a notorious liar either.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  19.  
    identicon
    JustMe, Mar 4th, 2008 @ 5:53am

    Public funds used for personal business?

    I can only assume that everyone posting in support of this daft position is a sock puppet for the police chief. For those of you who don't see a problem would you be OK with a city employee baby sitting his children, cleaning his house, taking his relatives to the doctor? Hello, lab partner, it is THE SAME THING! You cannot use public funds for personal business. People go to jail for that kind of thing.

     

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  20.  
    identicon
    Overcast, Mar 4th, 2008 @ 7:10am

    Is he too lazy to monitor it himself?

    Or too egotistical?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  21.  
    identicon
    TheDock22, Mar 4th, 2008 @ 7:50am

    Re: Re: Umm...

    But then, you have no problem with being a notorious liar either.

    Awful strong words coming from a notorious coward.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  23.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Mar 4th, 2008 @ 9:38am

    Re: Re: Re: Umm...

    Awful strong words coming from a notorious coward.

    Ha, ha, ha! And just exactly who are you? Pot, meet kettle.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  24.  
    identicon
    Seth Brundle, Mar 4th, 2008 @ 11:36am

    Re: no.

    The problem with this is that he started to fight it publicly.

    What he should have done is ignored it.

    Now the whole world knows.

    Since his staff playing whack-a-mole around the internet doing damage control is neither in their job description nor does it scale, it would have been better never to go down this road.

     

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