8 ms·

1800 edits on a single page in only a few years is essentially a sickness. I'm not a doctor, but that should be classified as obsession.

dpwm 8y ago
If indeed it is one individual. With the intensity of edits it would not be at all surprising if this editor was in fact more than one individual masquerading behind a single account.
- justonepost 8y ago
  What possible benefit would accrue from doing something like that?
  - neffy 8y ago
    Look at who get's the favourable edits, and figure out their agenda? A stipend for the editor is small change to some of the financial types.
  - StanislavPetrov 8y ago
    Controlling the narrative through the use of propaganda? Its what governments and spy agencies spend billions of dollars doing, annually, around the world, in every format.
- asdfaoeu 8y ago
  Why would they pretend to be one editor?
  - wyclif 8y ago
    To shroud and conceal their motive and activities.
    - pygy_ 8y ago
      They'd be less noticeable as many accounts, and would get more than one voice in discussions.
      - notahacker 8y ago
        And of course if you were orchestrating a shadowy conspiracy to denigrate certain figures on Wikipedia by subtle edits as opposed to an individual with an interest in politics and lot of time on their hands, you probably wouldn't use the same handle to copyedit political bios and vent your opinion on the particular individuals on Twitter...
        dpwm 8y ago
        Why not mouth off on social media? Yes, it draws attention. But it also adds legitimacy to the operation if he is not an individual. If a PR firm is making edits to Wikipedia, they get heavily frowned on. If it appears that an individual is doing it, especially one with a long history of good edits, they will be defended. I don't have a particularly conspiratorial mind and I prefer coincidence until conspiracy becomes the simpler explanation. Just so it's clear we're not entering the unfundable fantasy realm, PR firms can easily afford a competitive salary for a Wikipedia editor just from one or two clients. As can think-tanks. I can see how I'd set up and scale up such an operation. I'd keep the one editor to one account for reasons above. I'd probably have them be more like a newspaper editor -- they keep a consistent style across the edits. I'd offload the real work to researchers who dig up sources and to write the bits they want inserted and removed. Look at the first edits by this account: they're on Jazz musicians and politics, and the political stuff isn't too biased. Eventually the cover of Jazz edits decreases. Maybe he started out as a Wikipedia editor and enjoyed writing so got picked up by one of the many many think-tanks that pay journalism money for advancing what will make their sponsors money. Maybe he's an internet sock-puppet. Snowden revealed that the UK has a unit that engages in such activities. [0] This very site has not been immune from individuals who work for a very-well-funded, highly-litigious, politically-motivated organization posting op-eds that masquerade as thought-provoking articles. Sometimes they make the front page. It so happens that one of the few handles that only post articles from there are paid to do so and have re-used a handle that as far as I could tell was only used to ask questions about lipstick on Reddit. It was also her real name and she was confirmed as head of social media at the organisation. This was easy to catch, because the only stuff they posted was from one domain. Perhaps this is an individual living off passive income with a lot of time on their hands and nothing more they want to do. But perhaps this is somebody being funded for doing what they do. I am reminded of Poul-Henning Kamp's talk "Operation Orchestra" at Fosdem 2014, in which he humorously outlines how entrenched interests could invade or could have invaded open source [1] [0] https://theintercept.com/2015/06/22/controversial-gchq-unit-domestic-law-enforcement-propaganda/ https://theintercept.com/2015/06/22/controversial-gchq-unit-... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcl17Q0bpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcl17Q0bpk
philwelch 8y ago
So, here's the Wikipedia page in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway The revision history is interesting to look through as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Galloway&offset=&limit=500&action=history https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Galloway&o... Many of Cross's revisions seem to revolve around removing unreliable sources (such as RT and Sputnik), integrating edits such that the verbiage flows better, and so forth. I can't find any edits that he's performed that were out of line. It's also not especially interesting to have a high number of edits. For example, of Cross's most recent 50 edits, the vast majority are to a single article (which is not the George Galloway biography): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Philip_Cross https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Philip_C... The more I look into this, the more convinced I am that the bad actor isn't this guy, it's the Russian propaganda network who are mad that he's getting in the way of them using Wikipedia as an outlet.
- jakobegger 8y ago
  That’s a very generous interpretation. Usually, when you find something that is not sufficiently well sourced, you add “citation needed” or mention it on the talk page or something. You don’t just delete entire sections that aren’t obvious vandalism.
  - notahacker 8y ago
    You generally do on Biographies of Living Persons, particularly when it's controversial political figures and particularly when the material has a source which just happens to be RT
  - philwelch 8y ago
    In my opinion, it's only fair to respond to hit pieces with generous interpretations. The internet outrage machine needs more coolant, not less.
    - jakobegger 8y ago
      That is a good point.
xorcist 8y ago
Wikipedia is number one on any Google search, with especially advantageous snippets on every search engine. It it hard coded into things like Siri. It's not hard to imagine the economical value of a bit of inside access to the platform. There are several types of organizations with a big budget whose job it is to influence public discourse. It wouldn't surprise me if some of them were found to be in control of an editor's account in some way. The easiest way is probably to hire one, but seeing accounts are bought and sold on pretty much every other online service the possibility is there. You just have to be very careful not to burn them. Sloppiness would probably look like editors working exactly the same hours every day for a decade without ever tiring, vacationing or being sick.
rurban 8y ago
Less like a obsession, more like a paid agenda. He is discrediting reliable anti-war (i.e. anti-government) news sources.
dx034 8y ago
Depends on how you edit. Same with commits in github. If you describe issues very granular and commit for each, you can accumulate a lot of commits each day. Others might only get one a week for the same code produced. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

dpwm 8y ago

If indeed it is one individual. With the intensity of edits it would not be at all surprising if this editor was in fact more than one individual masquerading behind a single account.

justonepost 8y ago
What possible benefit would accrue from doing something like that?
- neffy 8y ago
  Look at who get's the favourable edits, and figure out their agenda? A stipend for the editor is small change to some of the financial types.
- StanislavPetrov 8y ago
  Controlling the narrative through the use of propaganda? Its what governments and spy agencies spend billions of dollars doing, annually, around the world, in every format.
asdfaoeu 8y ago
Why would they pretend to be one editor?
- wyclif 8y ago
  To shroud and conceal their motive and activities.
  - pygy_ 8y ago
    They'd be less noticeable as many accounts, and would get more than one voice in discussions.
    - notahacker 8y ago
      And of course if you were orchestrating a shadowy conspiracy to denigrate certain figures on Wikipedia by subtle edits as opposed to an individual with an interest in politics and lot of time on their hands, you probably wouldn't use the same handle to copyedit political bios and vent your opinion on the particular individuals on Twitter...
      - dpwm 8y ago
        Why not mouth off on social media? Yes, it draws attention. But it also adds legitimacy to the operation if he is not an individual. If a PR firm is making edits to Wikipedia, they get heavily frowned on. If it appears that an individual is doing it, especially one with a long history of good edits, they will be defended. I don't have a particularly conspiratorial mind and I prefer coincidence until conspiracy becomes the simpler explanation. Just so it's clear we're not entering the unfundable fantasy realm, PR firms can easily afford a competitive salary for a Wikipedia editor just from one or two clients. As can think-tanks. I can see how I'd set up and scale up such an operation. I'd keep the one editor to one account for reasons above. I'd probably have them be more like a newspaper editor -- they keep a consistent style across the edits. I'd offload the real work to researchers who dig up sources and to write the bits they want inserted and removed. Look at the first edits by this account: they're on Jazz musicians and politics, and the political stuff isn't too biased. Eventually the cover of Jazz edits decreases. Maybe he started out as a Wikipedia editor and enjoyed writing so got picked up by one of the many many think-tanks that pay journalism money for advancing what will make their sponsors money. Maybe he's an internet sock-puppet. Snowden revealed that the UK has a unit that engages in such activities. [0] This very site has not been immune from individuals who work for a very-well-funded, highly-litigious, politically-motivated organization posting op-eds that masquerade as thought-provoking articles. Sometimes they make the front page. It so happens that one of the few handles that only post articles from there are paid to do so and have re-used a handle that as far as I could tell was only used to ask questions about lipstick on Reddit. It was also her real name and she was confirmed as head of social media at the organisation. This was easy to catch, because the only stuff they posted was from one domain. Perhaps this is an individual living off passive income with a lot of time on their hands and nothing more they want to do. But perhaps this is somebody being funded for doing what they do. I am reminded of Poul-Henning Kamp's talk "Operation Orchestra" at Fosdem 2014, in which he humorously outlines how entrenched interests could invade or could have invaded open source [1] [0] https://theintercept.com/2015/06/22/controversial-gchq-unit-domestic-law-enforcement-propaganda/ https://theintercept.com/2015/06/22/controversial-gchq-unit-... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcl17Q0bpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcl17Q0bpk

philwelch 8y ago

So, here's the Wikipedia page in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway The revision history is interesting to look through as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Galloway&offset=&limit=500&action=history https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Galloway&o... Many of Cross's revisions seem to revolve around removing unreliable sources (such as RT and Sputnik), integrating edits such that the verbiage flows better, and so forth. I can't find any edits that he's performed that were out of line. It's also not especially interesting to have a high number of edits. For example, of Cross's most recent 50 edits, the vast majority are to a single article (which is not the George Galloway biography): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Philip_Cross https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Philip_C... The more I look into this, the more convinced I am that the bad actor isn't this guy, it's the Russian propaganda network who are mad that he's getting in the way of them using Wikipedia as an outlet.

jakobegger 8y ago
That’s a very generous interpretation. Usually, when you find something that is not sufficiently well sourced, you add “citation needed” or mention it on the talk page or something. You don’t just delete entire sections that aren’t obvious vandalism.
- notahacker 8y ago
  You generally do on Biographies of Living Persons, particularly when it's controversial political figures and particularly when the material has a source which just happens to be RT
- philwelch 8y ago
  In my opinion, it's only fair to respond to hit pieces with generous interpretations. The internet outrage machine needs more coolant, not less.
  - jakobegger 8y ago
    That is a good point.

xorcist 8y ago

Wikipedia is number one on any Google search, with especially advantageous snippets on every search engine. It it hard coded into things like Siri. It's not hard to imagine the economical value of a bit of inside access to the platform. There are several types of organizations with a big budget whose job it is to influence public discourse. It wouldn't surprise me if some of them were found to be in control of an editor's account in some way. The easiest way is probably to hire one, but seeing accounts are bought and sold on pretty much every other online service the possibility is there. You just have to be very careful not to burn them. Sloppiness would probably look like editors working exactly the same hours every day for a decade without ever tiring, vacationing or being sick.

rurban 8y ago

Less like a obsession, more like a paid agenda. He is discrediting reliable anti-war (i.e. anti-government) news sources.

dx034 8y ago

Depends on how you edit. Same with commits in github. If you describe issues very granular and commit for each, you can accumulate a lot of commits each day. Others might only get one a week for the same code produced. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.