11–20 of 37 posts
It's phrased like this is some big evil scheme going on but looking at the edits it's exactly the kind of stuff I believe the government should keep up to date on Wikipedia.
imagine the title (and source) if they were making controversial edits?
Better to just link to the tool: https://github.com/edsu/anon . ++ - Denmark ( https://twitter.com/FTingetWikiEdit ) - Sweden ( https://twitter.com/RiksdagWikiEdit ) - United States ( https://twitter.com/congressedits ) - Chile ( https://twitter.com/CongresoEdita ) - United Kingdom ( https://twitter.com/parliamentedits ) - France ( https://twitter.com/wikiAssemblee ) - Canada ( https://twitter.com/gccaedits ) ++ Loca…
This is one of those cases where the changed Title on HN misleads [1]. These aren't changes from the 'government' they are changes from 'parliament and government offices'. Occams Razor would suggest they are more likely to be staffers and the occasional Patsy Cline-loving MP, rather than cabinet policies being enacted. [1] Title as I write is "10 years of anonymous Wikipedia edits from the Norwegian government"
The kind of people you hire to do that sort of work are exactly the kind of people who are going to update Wikipedia when they see something wrong or incomplete — or possibly the person who might get a message if someone can't find the right info on Wikipedia.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing is we are conditioned to believe that anything the government does, especially anonymously, is necessarily bad. From what I've seem on the list, this has been some kind of an effort to actually improve the arcticles, and update government related information, like embassy addresses and websites. It looks like there is a bunch of responsible, well intentioned and helpful people in the government - at lealst…
Are you Norwegian? Because my understanding is that Scandinavians tend to be the most trusting of their governments and have the least corrupt and most transparent governments (perhaps excluding Iceland). It would strike me as odd to hear someone from Norway say they are conditioned to believe anything government does is necessarily bad.
I phrased like that because most of the comments here were highlighting the fact that they did not find anything sinister going on, just as it was implicit that if it comes from the government, it must be sinister.
I've been to Sweden and even if they are not particularly fond of their government, they do trust it ways of magnitude more than we - as in everyone else - generally do.
This is one of those cases where the changed Title on HN misleads [1]. These aren't changes from the 'government' they are changes from 'parliament and government offices'. Occams Razor would suggest they are more likely to be staffers and the occasional Patsy Cline-loving MP, rather than cabinet policies being enacted. [1] Title as I write is "10 years of anonymous Wikipedia edits from the Norwegian government"
This is one of those cases where the changed Title on HN misleads [1]. These aren't changes from the 'government' they are changes from 'parliament and government offices'. Occams Razor would suggest they are more likely to be staffers and the occasional Patsy Cline-loving MP, rather than cabinet policies being enacted. [1] Title as I write is "10 years of anonymous Wikipedia edits from the Norwegian government"
That deliberately inflammatory wording also relies on the fact that some people hear “government” and immediately thinking of intelligence agencies or cynical political operators and ignore the fact that, particularly in well-reputed free countries like Norway with extremely low corruption rates, there are many government employees who feel a mandate for actual public service, and are doing non-trivial research & ana…
I don't know if I'd attribute it to public service so much as boredom and personal hobbies, though. The headline, of course, is the same as in this case - that "the government" is making Wikipedia edits, with malicious implications - though there have at least been some cases of vandalism, probably by staffers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That deliberately inflammatory wording also relies on the fact that some people hear “government” and immediately thinking of intelligence agencies or cynical political operators and ignore the fact that, particularly in well-reputed free countries like Norway with extremely low corruption rates, there are many government employees who feel a mandate for actual public service, and are doing non-trivial research & ana…
The same thing is true for the vast majority of the Wikipedia edits attributed to the US Congress. Not only are most if not all of them written by staffers and other government employees who almost certainly not receiving any direction to make the edits, they're almost all innocuous spelling or grammar edits and a large portion of them aren't even on political pages. I don't know if I'd attribute it to public service…
Better to just link to the tool: https://github.com/edsu/anon . ++ - Denmark ( https://twitter.com/FTingetWikiEdit ) - Sweden ( https://twitter.com/RiksdagWikiEdit ) - United States ( https://twitter.com/congressedits ) - Chile ( https://twitter.com/CongresoEdita ) - United Kingdom ( https://twitter.com/parliamentedits ) - France ( https://twitter.com/wikiAssemblee ) - Canada ( https://twitter.com/gccaedits ) ++ Loca…
Nice. They should probably modify the tool so that the links go to the https version, not the http version.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing is we are conditioned to believe that anything the government does, especially anonymously, is necessarily bad. From what I've seem on the list, this has been some kind of an effort to actually improve the arcticles, and update government related information, like embassy addresses and websites. It looks like there is a bunch of responsible, well intentioned and helpful people in the government - at lealst…
Are you Norwegian? Because my understanding is that Scandinavians tend to be the most trusting of their governments and have the least corrupt and most transparent governments (perhaps excluding Iceland). It would strike me as odd to hear someone from Norway say they are conditioned to believe anything government does is necessarily bad.
Interesting data, but I fail to see anything sinister going on here. Skimming through the list, it looks like 90% of the articles fall into one of three categories: Streets in Oslo, embassies in Oslo and people I mostly haven't heard of (i.e. not politically controversial characters). I don't see any edits intended to sway public opinion.