Wikipedia users and administrators should come to regard the problems with Members of the U.S. Congress or their staffers vandalizing Wikipedia article — as in the abovemention case of U.S. Rep. David Davis’ press secretary Timothy Hill — as also being acts of political campaign activity from congressional offices and utilizing assets of the U.S. House or the U.S. Senate.

In the case of the Hill-Wikipedia vandalism, he is clearly violating two U.S. House Ethics Rules with the force of federal law:

Highlights of theHouse Ethics Rules
http://www.house.gov/ethics/HighlightsMay2007.htm#_Toc169946664
Campaign Activities

[...]

* No campaign activities allowed in any congressional office or room (including district offices)

* No use of congressional office resources (including equipment, supplies, or files) for any campaign purpose

Furthermore, should this matter go before the U.S. House Ethics Committee, Mr. Davis could also find himself in some big trouble as well:

ETHICS MANUAL Chapter 5 STAFF RIGHTS AND DUTIES

“In addition to congressional ethical standards and rulings, legal implications arise if salaries are claimed from public appropriations for individuals performing nonofficial, campaign services on behalf of a
Member. As noted above, a Member may be held criminally liable for fraud against the Government for compensating individuals from public moneys for campaign services. (FOOTNOTE 76) In this connection, in 1979, a
former Member of the House of Representatives pleaded guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion for having placed on his congressional payroll 11 persons who were operating and staffing various reelection campaign headquarters. (FOOTNOTE 77)”.

So this Hill-Wikipedia vandalism is more complicated about the Congressman and his staff doublespeaking about “edits”, “mistakes”, or “missteps” — what is more important is that these actions are involation of U.S. House (and Senate) Rules…

My real qualm with Wikipedia editors is that they are very quick to pull the trigger. I feel that they don’t thoroughly or properly research edits before they shoot them down – they merely look for conflicts of interest and revert away. In the SEO world today, we all know that content is king. Because of this, alot of very legitimate e-commerce websites are making it a priority to offer excellent and helpful content and become the experts and authorities in their industry. Yet still, links to e-commerce sites on Wikipedia articles are deleted quickly and without discretion. We need more Wikipedia editors that can discern between good links and bad links, regardless of who created them. With the NOFOLLOW tags in use at Wikipedia, editors should certainly be much less hesitant to delete a link to content on an e-commerce site if that content is quality. I see very little difference between a link to content on an e-commerce site and link to content on a non-e-commerce site that contains advertisements: someone’s getting a piece of the pie, no matter how good their intentions are.

And regarding another commenter, I am a voluntary participant in a program called “administrators open to recall.” That means I’ll stand for reconfirmation of sysop status if half a dozen Wikipedians in good standing request it. Nobody’s ever initiated such a request. My candidacy for administratorship passed on an 81-0-1 vote (one neutral short of unanimous). So the community has expressed its confidence. I do, however, specialize in investigations and dispute resolution. So some sitebanned individuals sometimes turn up elsewhere on the Web with complaints.

Doesn’t federal law criminalize utilizing federal tax dollars for such blatan political activity by an active federal employee of the U.S. Congress? Does this information need to be forwarded to a U.S. District Attorney…?

When you put your company in Wikipedia, you do essentially two things. You put the name of your company up for comment to anyone and everyone – much in the manner of a blog, as Greg says. And two, you enter a world which has its own laws, its own organized rule-enforcement squad, comprised of people who spend most hours of most days online policing the site. The latter point is imperative to comprehend, as running afoul of this group can have deleterious consequences for your business.

Durova’s advice is wise if you choose to take the risk and put the reputation of your business in the hands of teenagers (most Wikipedia administrators are between 15-19 years old) and a smaller group of older people, many of whom aren’t the easiest to get on with.

Durova’s advice to openly declare your intentions as COI (conflict of interest) in her article sound good – but like much of Wikipedia, the intentions are good in the script of the rules, but the proof of the “pudding” in implementation often winds up “on the faces” of the business people who naiively trusted Wikipedia to be a professional and business-friendly place. It isn’t that.

Use Wikipedia as a platform? Sounds good. But be forwarned. The woman who wrote that article has had a hand in causing much havoc with good faith users, apparently for spite.

So if you take the risk – I would suggest you not only follow her rules, but prepare to affix your lips to her rear end. That’s the game, if you want to play it. Just don’t get tired of kissing.

When you put your company in Wikipedia, you do essentially two things. You put the name of your company up for comment to anyone and everyone – much in the manner of a blog, as Greg says. And two, you enter a world which has its own laws, its own organized rule-enforcement squad, comprised of people who spend most hours of most days online policing the site. The latter point is imperative to comprehend, as running afoul of this group can have deleterious consequences for your business.

Durova’s advice is wise if you choose to take the risk and put the reputation of your business in the hands of teenagers (most Wikipedia administrators are between 15-19 years old) and a smaller group of older people, many of whom aren’t the easiest to get on with.

Durova’s advice to openly declare your intentions as COI (conflict of interest) in her article sound good – but like much of Wikipedia, the intentions are good in the script of the rules, but the proof of the “pudding” in implementation often winds up “on the faces” of the business people who naiively trusted Wikipedia to be a professional and business-friendly place. It isn’t that.

Use Wikipedia as a platform? Sounds good. But be forwarned. The woman who wrote that article has had a hand in causing much havoc with good faith users, apparently for spite.

So if you take the risk – I would suggest you not only follow her rules, but prepare to affix your lips to her rear end. That’s the game, if you want to play it. Just don’t get tired of kissing.

Answer: Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia. It is a blog disguised as an encyclopedia, controlled by a limited number of people with admin tools who have particular axes to grind about living people with real names, all while hiding behind a cloak of anonymity.

Durova wrote an interesting article, but only the wise few will read between the lines and see that she’s as much a part of the problem as a couple of politicians sanitizing “their” articles.