
The Wikipedia war over Paul Revere - fogus
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/0_if_by_land_1_if_by_sea_sarah_palin_supporters_tr.php
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macrael
Is there any way to see the age of the text on a wikipedia page? Might be a
good way to combat the sense that everything on the page is solid. If most of
the page is years old except for a couple of sentances from the last two days,
I might check the history to see the motivation behind the change.

~~~
thwarted
I was thinking that an interface that colored content based on how old it was
would be pretty cool. Then I realized that, duh, a SCM style blame function
would be cool for wikipedia (which may be available in the diff functionality,
I don't remember or use the history diffing ability on wikipedia enough to
know off hand). Then I thought, it would be nice to have wikipedia content in
SCM anyway, and was thinking of writing something to import it into git.

And it may already exist. A search turned up
<http://scytale.name/blog/2009/11/announcing-levitation> and the code is at
<https://github.com/scy/levitation>

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Androsynth
A politician's followers are rewriting history to fit what their leader says?
How Orwellian.

~~~
code_duck
It happens all the time, only this time we get to see it unfold in detail,
with revision history.

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InnocentB
Jay Walsh's estimate for the number of articles under protection is quite a
bit off. I count 7631 right now, not 1500 (see
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ProtectedP...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ProtectedPages&namespace=0&type=edit&level=0&sizetype=min)).
His count is pretty close to the number of fully-protected pages, so he may
just be confusing the two numbers.

Still a small number of the total articles, but I do regularly come across
articles that I want to do some editing on, and am unable to without logging
in (or in some cases, without being an administrator).

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tobylane
I find this funny, but typical as in the facts win, and the losers get shown
up. My mum just said "There's no hope, when there's people like [Palin]" I
hope Palin keeps on bumbling while she's on this tour.

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shii
This is an example of why I like Wikipedia and was an Editor there for several
years: they handle drama and follow a set of principles pretty rigidly. NPOV
is a clear rule to follow and it's great when I see it being enforced without
flame drama to distract.

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nitrogen
Is there any way to disable those Apture Wikipedia pop-ups and just get to the
real Wikipedia directly? The article refers to the Paul Revere revision page,
but there's no clear way to see the revision history from the annoying Apture
window.

~~~
endian
Ghostery. It's like AdBlock, but for all 3rd-party code.

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lurkinggrue
I do wonder if she is just trolling us as a way to keep in the media to fund
raise.

~~~
Helianthus
The difference between intent and effect is not always clear.

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drivebyacct2
I've stopped being angry about Palin and have just entered a morbid sadness
for this country.

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Helianthus
>The really awful thing, though, is that we live in an age where, on every
level, it is considered a sin to be wrong.

This seems to me to be really, really incorrect (and dangerous): we must
maintain that it is a 'sin' to be wrong. The reason for this is that there are
different sorts of wrong, from willful incompetence to dangerous reality-
bending, from good-faith incorrectness to (to borrow the tvtropes phrase)
Didn't Do The Research.

The startup mentality that the writer references--embracing failure and being
willing to be wrong--comes from understanding hard facts about risk and
managing it.

Palin and her ilk _actively distort reality_ to suit their worldview, and that
is _wrong_. That's why the battle over the wikipedia page is important (and
fear not, the page is now protected).

So the writer misses the point. Palin can't admit she was wrong because that
would unmask her 'sin,' which is _why_ her 'renfields' (a term I rather like)
are up in arms on Wikipedia.

He also repeats the FUD mantra about Wikipedia. Meh. If you're gonna cover a
story on Wikipedia, there are basics I expect.

~~~
kevinskii
You're taking the author's words out of context and misrepresenting his
opinion. He actually agrees with you. Here's the relevant text:

 _The really awful thing, though, is that we live in an age where, on every
level, it is considered a sin to be wrong. From advertisers to kids on the
playground to the world of corporate PR to politicians, the all-too-common
wisdom is to defend the indefensible. That's what Palin is doing and that is
what her renfields on Wikipedia are doing, and that's sad, because as anyone
remotely successful in Silicon Valley can tell you, without owning our
mistakes we cannot learn from them and without learning, we cannot win._

~~~
miked
_Boston University history professor Brendan McConville said, “Basically when
Paul Revere was stopped by the British, he did say to them, ‘Look, there is a
mobilization going on that you’ll be confronting,’ and the British are aware
as they’re marching down the countryside, they hear church bells ringing — she
was right about that — and warning shots being fired. That’s accurate.”

Patrick Leehey of the Paul Revere House said Revere was probably bluffing his
British captors, but reluctantly conceded that it could be construed as Revere
warning the British._

[http://bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?articleid=1...](http://bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?articleid=1343353)

This is something of a reprise of the incident when Palin gave a Tea Party
speech in front of a banner that read "1773". The Left jumped on it and said
she was ignorant for not using a banner that said "1776", showing themselves
ignorant of when the Boston Tea Party actually occurred.

All of this is perhaps besides the point though. I don't think Sarah Palin is
qualified to be President and I hope she doesn't run. But Obama wasn't elected
because he had anything decent qualifications. He's a Chicago political hack
who stole Dem ballots from Hillary Clinton in Texas and who (literally)
couldn't get a stop sign installed in Chicago. His "qualifications" are that
he's black and many on the Left enjoyed the thought of themselves voting for a
"person of color", never mind that his ancestors on both sides (especially his
father's side) were slaveholders.

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mattdeboard
>Obama wasn't elected because he had anything decent qualifications. He's a
Chicago political hack who stole Dem ballots from Hillary Clinton in Texas and
who (literally) couldn't get a stop sign installed in Chicago. His
"qualifications" are that he's black and many on the Left enjoyed the thought
of themselves voting for a "person of color", never mind that his ancestors on
both sides (especially his father's side) were slaveholders.

...

The irony of you starting a paragraph with "All of this is perhaps besides the
point though." and ending it with the above utter non-sequitur is pretty
intense.

Blatant political axe-grinding, get it the fuck out of HN.

~~~
miked
>> Blatant political axe-grinding, get it the fuck out of HN.

The following are other comments on the post, which I quote without further
comment:

1) _Palin and her ilk _actively distort reality_ to suit their worldview, and
that is _wrong_.... So the writer misses the point. Palin can't admit she was
wrong because that would unmask her 'sin,' which is _why_ her 'renfields' (a
term I rather like) are up in arms on Wikipedia._

2) _A politician's followers are rewriting history to fit what their leader
says? How Orwellian._

3) _My mum just said "There's no hope, when there's people like [Palin]"_

~~~
mattdeboard
Yes, people commenting on the issue at hand. Your point?

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bugsy
Palin's account was more correct than the accounts of her detractors.

[http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/06/sarah-
pal...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/06/sarah-palin-says-
paul-revere-warned-the-british.html)

This is similar to the Orwellian incident where Palin made a true and factual
comment about the fact that you can see Russia from an island in Alaska, Tina
Fey made fun of it by changing the words to say that you could see Alaska from
her house or office, then people started promoting the Tina Fey comedy routine
as if it was reality.

edit: downvote this all you want it won't change reality

~~~
burgerbrain
The point of Tina Fey making fun of Palin in that way was to point out how
absurd it is to suggest that being able to see Russia from Alaska is related
to competency in foreign politics.

It seems like this has escaped pretty much nobody _but_ Palin supporters.

~~~
yty77
She was making a joke. Calm down.

~~~
burgerbrain
I know, and I think it's a funny one too....

