San Francisco TV News Dings Bureaucrats for COD4, Bully & Other Wikipedia Edits

San Francisco TV News Dings Bureaucrats for COD4, Bully & Other Wikipedia Edits

May 14, 2008

Activision's uber-popular Call of Duty 4 and Rockstar's controversial Bully are among hundreds of non-work related Wikipedia edits made by city and county government workers in the San Francisco Bay area, according to local TV news.

KGO-7 aired the report, which also noted a variety of non-game Wiki edits, including some related to movies, politics and American Idol. The station used Caltech grad student Virgil Griffith's Wikiscanner application to trace the edits back to government offices.

Spokesman Gregg Sass of the San Francisco Department of Public Health criticized the government employees' Wikipedia activity:

Clearly it sounds as if that's not city business. They're prohibited [by policy] from using city equipment for non-business use, period.

Comments

You know, this brings up some good quetsion

1. Being this is game Politics, what game related changes were made, by who, and what was the content of those changes. I remember in the past Leeland "I'm a lying dirtbag" lee had been caught editing stuff. Can anyone point me to that article?

2. Anyone thought to look at Jacks Wikipedia page and try and track it to see if he Tries to edit it?


Just a thought.

http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr
Jack has actually attempted
Jack has actually attempted to edit his entry on Wikipedia in the past. He allegedly added some highly biased material in his favor and, when it was reversed, threatened to sue the website unless they provided the names of everyone responsible for the writing of his page. Of course, nothing ever came of it. I believe some information is still available in both the "history" and "discussion" archives on the site.
Allegedly?
Allegedly?, come on dude we all know that is right up Jack's alley; his ego is the size of a whale and he loves to feed it
So
Did they say they were murder simulators or something?
I wonder...
Were they trying to upload their super cool high scores?
The quote from Sass

The quote from Sass strikes me a bit unrealistic. Sure, policy is to not use official equipment for anything other than work. Short of a draconian lockdown of the computers and/or the network, that's not likely to happen in the real world. Everyone uses the net for non-work-related purposes at the office, at least occasionally. It might be as little as checking the weather during a coffee break, or it might be editing a Wikipedia entry you're interested in on your lunch break, or it might be posting to a gaming news site when you should be working (ahem).

Whether or not there is a problem here depends on the nature of the edits, and on whether or not the workers in question got their work done anyway. If they're doing their jobs and also making legitimate article updates during their breaks, I don't see it as a big deal.

Oh brother...

This is why you don't have the CFO in charge of IT.  Yes they will be implementing a filter/logger for Internet usage, but who's going to monitor and maintain it?

As for the edits this just underscores why you can't believe everything on the Internets.

Well, what DID they type in it.
I'm just wondering, oy. And I'm surprised that there's conservatives who brave/foolhardy enough to live in San Francisco.
San Fran, Leeland Yee's home base.
I think we need to know what they editted. Seeing that it's the home of one of our most vocal critics.
It's a Gov't workers are lazy, not games are evil report

It doesn't look like the content of the edits themselves is the focus of the report.  It doesn't sound like there was anything we need to get up in arms about.  The report is about bored Gov't workers spending time on the internet.  They note that there were 475 edits in the past three years from the office in question, and it was for everything from Battlestar Galactica to Hitchcock, Wrestlemania, Call of Duty, and even gay porn.


It's sweeps week right now.  That time of year when the local news stations make a big deal out of nothing to try and grab some ratings.  For example, here in Orlando we've had all sorts of crap including "How to get into Heaven", and just last night "What to do when you're flamed on the internet."  I really wish I was making those up too. 

So how do you get in to
So how do you get in to heaven?
And what do you do when you get flamed?

Aside from murder, of course.

Edit: Yay, first GP edit. Glee

ConstantNeophyte: always the newb, ALWAYS.

You know, I don't know.  I

You know, I don't know.  I usually make it a point to avoid the news during sweeps week as the stories they run then tend to piss me off a little due to their absurdity.  Apparently it was a week long thing though and they were asking local religious leaders, of different religions, how to get into Heaven.


I did catch a little bit of that one about people flaming you online though while I was getting my dog ready for a walk.  It was some random guy basically saying prove them wrong.

Gay Porn?

Gay Porn, are you shitting me, why in the hell would a politician be editing thearticle ongay pornand whatwere theyputting upthere.

and no, I'm not going to the history page to find out; nothing against gay people but I'm not really comfortable looking through the gay porn page looking for what could amount to a grammer correction.

yay firs edit

What the hell did you edit?

What the hell did you edit? Cause it sure wasn't spelling or grammar...

-ConstantNeophyte: always the newb, ALWAYS.

Ohhh

Oh God-Fucking-Damnit

First FIRST

 Why can I not edit multiple times?

and yes, yes I know Epic fail

weird bolding

the bold button was bolding every other word and i used a smillie to turn it off and rewrite the words however on my post above not only did that not work it was bolding every word

GP I need you help

spaces

the lack of spaces was probable caused when I was fixing the bolded words and forgot to put in spaces

and yes, I realize that by trying to edit my post I just fucked it up even more

I posted this somewhere

I posted this somewhere else, but when you hit the B I U buttons they stay highlighted, so everytime you hit space you toggle them on/off again.

-ConstantNeophyte: always the newb, ALWAYS.

i know
yes i saw that but i edited my post before you figured that out
Not politicians, government
Not politicians, government workers, there's a world of difference between the two.  Basically think clerks and general office staff.
B I U buttons

GP the bold, italicisz(or however the fuck you spell it) and underline buttons don't umm, unbutton

this needs fixing, oh and the one edit "feature"

 

hehe

G.P. phone home.

G.P. phone home

B I U

Hmm, having played around, it seems the best way to do it is to type first then highlight and B U I etc afterwards. Pressing the buttons without having text highlighted seems to be the screwy bit.

Edit: Now it strikes me that perhaps this is something best mentioned in the "new look" topic.

Edit the Second: Well it seems you can edit a current comment, but not one you have posted and navigated away from, I will now experiment (stand back).

Edit the Third (Known as Dave to his mates): Well that didn't work, maybe you can only edit your most recent post. Stand back; more experimenting.

-ConstantNeophyte: always the newb, ALWAYS.

So....

The proof of the pudding is in the eating... or something.

Edit: Well so much for that experiment. I can edit all my posts except the 2nd one???

-ConstantNeophyte: always the newb, ALWAYS.

GamePolitics ShoutBox

Posted 07/04/09 at 03:48am
Michael Chandra: I missed out on Jack? =(
Posted 07/04/09 at 01:52am
Escanor94: hmm, looks like when someone gets banned all their comments are automaticly deleted
Posted 07/03/09 at 11:46pm
Arcanagos: aww, did i miss the JT party? :(
Posted 07/03/09 at 11:00pm
Leet Gamer Jargon: Where's the recent JT bullcrap? Which comments section has he vomited on? EDIT: Nevermind; it's in the "Radio" thread.
Posted 07/03/09 at 09:17pm
BearDogg-X: I wonder what the Metropolitian Moron of Miami said in response to my comment saying that he got a dose of his medicine on the SGC09 Debate thread?
Posted 07/03/09 at 06:51pm
Rodrigo Ybáñez García: He gets offended with a bunch of flowers.
Posted 07/03/09 at 06:49pm
GoodRobotUs: LOL He takes offence at the fact he might have *chosen* to be crazy?
Posted 07/03/09 at 06:47pm
Rodrigo Ybáñez García: He warned me to get a lawyer after I called him "crazy by his own choice"... that´s libel for him
Posted 07/03/09 at 06:45pm
HilaryDuffGta: "libel" what did he threaten now?
Posted 07/03/09 at 06:44pm
Rodrigo Ybáñez García: Was fun to be threatened for "libel" again.
Posted 07/03/09 at 06:26pm
HilaryDuffGta: hey so what did i miss??? the usual spam of "crap"
Posted 07/03/09 at 06:15pm
FlakAttack: Jack ruined his chance to have civil debates with us here. Glad you banned him (again).
Posted 07/03/09 at 04:04pm
Krono: Unexpected is probably the best word to describe it. Particularly as no decent reason is given.
Posted 07/03/09 at 03:59pm
GoodRobotUs: Just heard about that myself... kinda unexpected
Posted 07/03/09 at 03:58pm
Krono: Huh, apparently Sarah Palin is resigning.
Posted 07/03/09 at 03:34pm
GoodRobotUs: Sounds like he's been mainlining the Angel Dust again
Posted 07/03/09 at 01:50pm
ezbiker555: I'm back. Just in time too, my Jack Thompson sense were going wild
Posted 07/03/09 at 01:47pm
DarkSaber: You mean "playing with himself"? :-P
Posted 07/03/09 at 01:16pm
Matthew: Oh, Jack's back? I guess he got bored of playing single-player.
Posted 07/03/09 at 01:05pm
Andrew Eisen: I'm leaving most of his comments up but he'll be banned again shortly.
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