Talk:United States Department of Justice workers among government Wikipedia vandals

More research regarding the article's contents can be found here: Talk:United States Department of Justice workers among government Wikipedia vandals/Research.

Original
How is this original? If I am wrong in tagging this article please tell me why. This seems to have a lot of info to be original?? Jason Safoutin 15:24, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment; Jason I will remove the tag as I think your concern has been addressed. If you or anyone else feels the tag should remain,please feel free to put it back as I have to go out now. Neutralizer 19:25, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I started investigating at about 9:30 P.M. and continued recording my data in preparation for it to be posted on various popular Internet news sites, up until the present time, 9:30 A.M., in my area. I took the time to look through every edit listed in the "Other government" section of the page listing Congress staff edits. I looked through the ones relating to the CIA, Navy officials, the Department of Justice, Supreme Court Justices, and U.S. Congressmen first as they were most likely to be vandalized. Daniel Bush 15:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Concur that this is original. Sources are wikipedia history, and reverse dns lookups. Daniel Bush: please provide diffs and lookup data on this talk page. Kim Bruning 15:42, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I link to many diffs within the article. As such, I have omitted them from the following list of lookup data.


 * Marty Meehan's IP address: Meehan's old IP.
 * National Counterterrorism Center addreses:
 * Address
 * Contributions
 * Address
 * Contributions
 * Address
 * Contributions
 * Address
 * Contributions
 * Address
 * Contributions
 * Address
 * Contributions
 * Address
 * Contributions
 * Confirmed CIA and Department of Justice websites found at [Wikipedia:Congressional Staffer Edits Wikipedia] through the same web pages listed above.
 * I found the National Counterterrorism Center to be involved pureply by chance when I started to sift through the w:Special:Recent Changes page after having gotten done with the Department of Justice portion of my reseach. I wanted to see if the government had been editing any Wikipedia articles right then by chance, and on the fourth, fifth, or sixth address, I think, that I checked against the  American Registry for Internet Numbers, I got a match. I checked the NCTC acronym I got when I entered the .46 address when I looked it up on Wikipedia as a point of curiosity and confirmed it with the official website's domain name.
 * There are other diffs mentioned in that article not linked. Shall I link them here? Daniel Bush 16:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Better do it to be sure Kim Bruning 18:20, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Mentioned and not linked by order in the article:


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thad_McCotter&diff=37556976&oldid=35892458
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dan_Lungren&diff=37767468&oldid=37767027
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marilyn_Musgrave&diff=37675738&oldid=37675499
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_W._Bush&diff=prev&oldid=28797750
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_W._Bush&diff=prev&oldid=28795618
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tom_DeLay&diff=prev&oldid=24248490

Daniel Bush 18:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

The headline is all about DoJ edits but the DoJ edits aren't mentioned until the second section. just sayin'. Ripe 04:54, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

News?
Although this is a follow-on story to our previous article about the congressional edits, I'm wondering how "newsworthy" this is considered to be by the community. See Content guide

I really think it is news worthy, and is a good example of investigative original reporting. But I can see where it might not be considered news since it is not about current edits on Wikipedia. (There's also the worry of over-reporting on Wikimedia projects.) Since this story appears to have plenty of traction in the main stream press, I think we should pursue it. -  Amgine | talk en.WN 16:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Publish?
Okidoki, gotten some concerns fixed, can we go to publish? If not, what are we missing? Kim Bruning 18:20, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Dont publish just yet
Can you please proof that "National Counterterrorism Center" edited wikipedia? What's the IP and ARIN that points toward the NCC ?

NCTC is the acronym for National Counterterrorism Center, not CNN. The abbreviation NCTC is listed as the organization name, it is owned by a military e-mail address, and all surrounding IP ranges are either Navy or counterterrorism related. Daniel Bush 19:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * It's not NCTC but NCTS: look at: http://ncts.navy.mil . Show me the IP darn IP that points to the NCTC please!
 * Is there a way to see if any of These IPS have edited Wikinews? Jason Safoutin 19:59, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but I had gotten confused when I used the American Registry for Internet Numbers database.

They list the organization name for the vandals as NCTC, but this is probably just a coincidence and the address is probably owned by the Marines and/or the Navy. http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/ptr.ch?ip=138.162.0.43 on the same IP address leads to http://nmci.navy.mil/ and the National Counterterrorism Center is located in Washington D.C., not Pensacola, which is a major military base. I'll change the article, again, accordingly.

And yes, you can check this for Wikinews. Go to the recent changes page with logged in users hidden and enter IP addresses into either of the URLs previously mentioned, and you'll find information about who's using them. Daniel Bush 20:12, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Double-check of diffs linked to in the story.

 * Opie and Anthony By 149.101.1.124 resolves to wdcsun24.usdoj.gov contributions on wikinews
 * Julio Lugo By 149.101.1.125 resolves to wdcsun25.usdoj.gov contributions on wikinews
 * Talk:United States Marshals Service By 149.101.1.120 resolves to wdcsun20.usdoj.gov contributions on wikinews
 * Daniel O'Connell by 149.101.1.119 which resolves to wdcsun19.usdoj.gov contributions on wikinews
 * Tom Delay by 149.101.1.121 which resolves to wdcsun21.usdoj.gov contributions on wikinews
 * Tom Delay by 149.101.1.121 (again)


 * Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by 198.81.129.194 which resolves to relay2.cia.gov contributions on wikinews

--Brian McNeil / talk 20:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Breach of Trust by 138.162.0.46 which resolves to gate7-norfolk.nmci.navy.mil contributions on wikinews
 * Bill Clinton by 138.162.0.43 which resolves to gate4-norfolk.nmci.navy.mil contributions on wikinews
 * Danny Glover by 138.162.0.37 which resolves to gate8-norfolk.nmci.navy.mil contributions on wikinews
 * Martin Luther King, Jr. by 138.162.0.42 which resolves to gate3-norfolk.nmci.navy.mil contributions on wikinews
 * United States Navy by 138.162.0.44 which resolves to gate5-norfolk.nmci.navy.mil contributions on wikinews
 * Alert! Alert! 138.162.0.43 and 138.162.0.37. Nothing bad about those, though :) --Deprifry|+T+ 20:21, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Yah, I saw those, basically nothing to worry about. Its the wikipedia edits by the marines that bother me, I can imagine them getting in trouble for that. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

"government vandals"
"government Wikipedia vandals" implies that these employees acted with the authorisation of the government, i think. Doldrums 06:24, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I had it "United States Department of Justice among government Wikipedia vandals" at first and changed it to suggest they may or may not have been acting with government authorization. Government Wikipedia vandals also references Congress staffers. Given the short editing span of both the George W. Bush and Tom DeLay, only one hour, I assume that the individual employee at least had been looking over the article figuring out what to edit before the edits were made. But that can't be right, or else there would only be two or three edits edit, instead of ten or fifteen made rapidly and consecutively in short five minute sessions with breaks. Except by the head staffers, the individual staffers' edits did not have approval by their respective Congressmen either. Maybe it might have been someone really far down the line, maybe just rogue employees, who knows, but after looking through the contributions history the time span just arouses suspicion. Daniel Bush 15:30, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. It doesn't say "government-employed Wikipedia vandals", which is what you seem to be reading into it.  Perhaps something describing them as public servants?  Or is that term not used in the US? --Brian McNeil / talk 15:54, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I think there is also a problem with the use of the word vandalism in this article. Vandalism implies defacement of an article, an act carried out for no other purpose than to cause damage. What is happenning here is biased editing. 195.8.75.243 18:42, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * actually adding words like dick or whatnot IS vandalism...bias edits can be vandalism if the persons or person has been warned about their actions before. Jason Safoutin 19:00, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I see a lot of people unhappy with the title, but not a lot of suggestions as to what to change it to. Suggest a more appropriate word than "vandals" or "vandalism" and I'll use it. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:04, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * What is this article really about? The Department of Justice is not even mentioned until about half-way down the article. 212.126.143.186 19:56, 4 February 2006 (UTC)