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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Aside from murder, of course.
Edit: Yay, first GP edit. Glee
ConstantNeophyte: always the newb, ALWAYS.
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, 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? Cause it sure wasn't spelling or grammar...
-ConstantNeophyte: always the newb, ALWAYS.
Oh God-Fucking-Damnit
First FIRST
Why can I not edit multiple times?
and yes, yes I know Epic fail
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
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 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.
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"
G.P. phone home.
G.P. phone home
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.
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.