Wikipedia:Requests for comment/United States Congress

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In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 08:06, 30 January 2006 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 18:32, 28 May 2024 (UTC).

This RFC concerns the behavior of editors from the United States Congress

Specific IP Addresses

United States House of Representatives

NOTE: Jon Brandt, spokesman for the Committee on House Administration confirmed House ownership of the IP [1] . —This user has left wikipedia 18:06 2006-01-30

United States Senate

  • Senatorial IP range is 156.33.0.0/16. Contributions from IP's from this range may also be similar.

Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute[edit]

Description[edit]

This RFC is being opened in order to further a centralized discussion concerning actions to be taken against US Congressional staffers and possibly other federal employees who have engaged in unethical and possibly libelous behavior in violation of Wikipedia policies (WP:NPOV, WP:CIV). The editors from these IP ranges have been rude, abrasive, immature, and show disregard for Wikipedia policy. The editors have frequently tried to censor the history of elected officials, often replacing community articles with censored biographies despite other users' attempts to dispute these violations. They also violate Wikipedia:Verifiability, by deleting verified reports, while adding flattering things about members of Congress that are unverified.

The offending editors have been blocked. This RFC is needed to gather community comments. It is proposed that a one week block is not enough. The block was lifted January 30, 2006. A new block for additional vandalism was enforced for three hours February 1, 2006 at 14:59.

Evidence of disputed behavior[edit]

A full list of details can be found at Wikipedia:Congressional Staffer Edits.

Key:

G - represents good faith contributors
P - represents POV (point of view) pushers
V - represents vandals

United States Congress[edit]

United States House of Representatives[edit]

Range: 143.228.0.0/16[edit]
This list contains 1 IP that originated from this range. This list is complete.
Range: 143.231.0.0/16[edit]
This list contains 1 IP that originated from this range. This list is complete.
  • 143.231.249.141 (talk • contribs) - Already blocked. The original IP address, possibly used by staff of Congressman Meehan and possibly other House of Representatives staff members, registering over 1000 edits over hundreds of articles.

United States Senate[edit]

Range: 156.33.0.0/16[edit]
This list contains the offending users of 175 IPs that originated from this range and edited Wikipedia.

Additional background[edit]

The following policy violations are documented:

Continuing Violations[edit]

In the article for Congressman Thad McCotter (R-MI) removing references[2] to Tom DeLay:

"In 2005, he has come under srutiny for accepting campaign contributions from embattled former house leader Tom Delay"

This violation occurred 19:39, 31 January 2006.

IP was blocked for 3 hours, see the noticeboard. ~Cheers —This user has left wikipedia 16:53 2006-02-01

In the article for Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) removing references[3] to Tom DeLay:

"Musgrave received $30,000 in campaign contributions from former majority leader Tom DeLay's ARMPAC."

This violation occurred 14:16, 1 February 2006.

In the article for Congressman Dan Lungren (R-CA) removing references[4] to percentage of vote received in defeat for Governor of California:

"Lungren received 38% of the vote."

This violation occurred 01:05, 2 February 2006.

POV-pushing[edit]

The Congressional staffers constantly push their unverified point of view (POV) and have no regard with editing policy.

Marty Meehan

  1. "whitewashing" Marty Meehan
    "Meehan is also known nationally as one of the tobacco industry’s toughest critics" - where is the evidence for this?
  2. Removing legitimate content again.

Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users

  1. Saying "criticism" of the act is silly

Personal attacks through vandalism[edit]

Congressional staffers behind this IP have constantly made personal attacks against other politicians through vandalism.

Douche

  1. Adding Scott McClellan's name as a personal attack

Applicable policies[edit]

{list the policies that apply to the disputed conduct}

  1. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
  2. Wikipedia:Civility
  3. Wikipedia:Vandalism
  4. Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point
  5. Wikipedia:Biography
  6. Wikipedia:Ownership of articles
  7. Wikipedia:Libel
  8. Wikipedia:Editing policy
  9. Wikipedia:Assume good faith

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute[edit]

(provide diffs and links)

  1. User:MC MasterChef tries to inform the Congressional staffers about policy [5]
  2. User:Ryan Delaney tries to reason with the Congressional staffers not to break the 3RR and why it goes against policy [6]
  3. User:Geo Swan attempts to reason with the staffers about POV-pushing. [7]

There are also attempts to reason with a whole host of IP ranges from the Senate; discussed in talk page. Some diffs as example

  1. [8]

It's also apparent from the talk page that many people from the community are exasperated with the Congressional staffers.

Despite attempts from the community to reason with these users, they have failed to respond. This shows their dissonance and disharmony with the community.

Users certifying the basis for this dispute[edit]

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

(sign with ~~~~)

  1. 68.50.103.212 05:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!)
  3. Ryan Delaney talk 11:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Geo Swan 13:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Other users who endorse this summary[edit]

(sign with ~~~~)

  1. clearly if we dont punish this, its just going to egg on more public figures to hire PR firms to regularly POV push on WP.  ALKIVAR™ 08:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. agree with ALKIVAR as per above —akghetto talk 09:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. I agree. Mushroom 09:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. I agree as well. We need to make every effort to point out these disinformationists, embarrass them and their employers publicly, and point out how terribly wrong their actions are. A side question - How many good edits have come from this IP block? Any? If not, maybe we should block ALL editing from .gov computers for a year or so. Sukiari 09:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Don't forget folks like nasa.gov . It's not all evil :-) Kim Bruning 04:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  5. I found it a bit disconcerting that no evidence that this IP is actually from the House [had] been presented, so I dug it up. This indicates that it's registered to "Information Systems, U.S. House of Representatives" in Washington, D.C. and provides a contact of "Joseph Adams". This, however, traces it to New York, not Washington. Anyway, regardless of who is behind this, it's definitely wrong. Johnleemk | Talk 11:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The 'geographic trace' is effectively meaningless. ARIN is authoritative for who the IP block has been assigned to, and ARIN's record says its assigned to the House. Anyone using that network does so only becuase the IT Dept at the House (or whoever they outsource that function to) allows them to. Some of them may or may not be in New York, but even the geobytes site says their info comes from users self-providing the information. Also, I suspect the 'Joe Adams' listed is a different one than the one the WP link refers to. 68.188.220.62 15:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The first footnote provides an authoritative source confirming ownership. And it's obvious.
  6. --Terence Ong (恭喜发财) 11:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  7. I think this whole affair is rather sad. —Nightstallion (?) 11:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  8. I concur. A one week block is not sufficient. Forever? While that's a nice, feel good idea, I think in practical terms, they've already got PR Boiler rooms ready with botnets to eventually get around the blocks.
    • Wow, an RFC against the entire US Federal Government? Count me in! What an awesome idea!
    That leaves the question, "How Long Is Long Enough To Make The Point?"
    Seven Years.
    That's the maximum term of anyone whose staffer's are involved, PLUS ONE ( for good measure, I suppose. )
    MikeLieman 11:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Concur and endorse. — TheKMantalk 12:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Concur. I may not have made many contributions on Wikipedia as I'm a Wikinews admin, but these guys need a long-term ban to make an example of them. According to how this is reported, it is mis-use of Goverment computers, so those involved should be disciplined for that. However, as the case laid out by this page shows, they cannot be trusted, so I'm for a long block. Tough luck for those who have made positive contributions. --Brianmc 13:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Tossing both babies and bathwater is appropriate in this case. I suggest waiting until after the November elections to unblock. Heck, can't these politicos mail stuff to every home in their district for free anyhow? Why do they need to do this? kctipton 14:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  12. There should be blocks for this behavior, and nothing we say here can enforce one. I would be shocked if one of the staffers actually responds on this page though. Has anyone informed them that this is ongoing? (ESkog)(Talk) 14:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Wow, an RFC against the entire US Federal Government? Count me in! What an awesome idea! --Cyde Weys 15:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, the legislature anyways... --L33tminion | (talk) 17:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Organized POV pushing, IMO, will be the major threat to Wikipedia in the upcoming decade - much more serious than scalability, server issues, or the threat of litigation. My current experience with this has not been encouraging - blatant POV pushers have been given the run of Wikipedia as long as they are canny enough to not violate specific rules like the 3RR. We need to start treating organized POV pushing at least as seriously as we do blatant vandalism, or Wikipedia will be useless as an information resource. How long before every major corporation has PR agent(s) assigned to Wikipedia editing? Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 20:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  15. I'm in favor of banning the entire IP range for both House and Senate for a minimum of seven years. These people's salaries are paid with our tax dollars, and I'm not interested in seeing my money going towards Wikipedia vandalism. If people still want to contribute, they are welcome to do so on their own time, at home, when they're not using government computers. Astarf 20:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  16. I agree. --KAMiKAZOW 20:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  17. This is disheartening, to say the least. Hall Monitor 20:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  18. I agree. We need to nip this in the bud before it goes further. No one should be allowed to make campaigns of disinformation, as this is not at the heart of wikipedia. 30 January 2006
  19. Endorse. There needs to be greater punishment than a 1-week block for those IPs involved in violations. But I also like JeffBurdges's idea below for creating a Congress IP watchlist. --Aaron 20:50, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  20. I'm in! Let's see how it feels for them to be censored by us, for a change ! Elfguy 20:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Endorse. I can't believe they're doing this to wikipedia. Shows how popular it has become.Matthewvelie 21:05, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Concur. Jredwards 21:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  23. More and more I wish that wikipedia had signatures like PGP so I could judge the validity of the information I'm receiving. This just shows that political intentions could render wikipedia unreliable as a source of unbiased information. Kitsune818 21:16, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  24. It would seem that anyone who has personal feelings about the entry(minus historians) would be in a conflict of interest if editing such articles. I see no reason why any IP from the U.S. Government ever be allowed to edit Wikipedia articles. Amitst 21:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  25. I disagree. Their actions will be revealed in the media, and the truth will come out. Blocking them denies them rope they will use to hang themselves. Besides, the activity may be a violation of federal campaign laws, since they are using government resources to promote candidates for office. Let them deal with the FBI. qhist
  26. Endorse Wikipedia has to stand as the one place where fact is not a public relations piece. Congress has not acted in any way different from a vandal; blocking out content, inserting POV, removing issues that may cause a black eye, etc. Information demands to be free --Larsinio 21:31, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Endorse - 1 week is not long enough, but I feel a perma-ban is overkill. I like the suggestion about creating an IP Watchlist for the government in addition to whatever ban-length comes out of this. --Cybersavior 21:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  28. Wikipedia is not intended for furthering crass political causes. — Phil Welch Are you a fan of the band Rush? 21:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  29. Endorse. It's a serious threat to Wikipedias goals to provide free and accurate information. Cuecla > Talk 21:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  30. Endorse. Congress has no rights to modify this information. --MichaelKing 21:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  31. Endorse - I suggest keeping a list of IPs and a list of pages in which vandalism is likely, and let users use that page to easier find vandalism and malicious edits. Or perhaps a page showing edits from the currently banned list of IPs. DrIdiot 21:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  32. Endorse. If Congress has so much time that they can surf, edit, delete, or otherwise modify community contributed content, then they should have no problem editing, deleting, or modifying poilcy such as the Patriot Act. In this manner, our tax dollars would be better served, instead of wasted in the pursuit of vanity issues. --Rivenwind
  33. Endorse. I don't want politicians trying to use an encyclopedia to try to spin things in their favor. That's what Fox News Channel is for. --Thephotoman 22:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  34. Endorse. Block for a period of time not less than 1 month, up to a maximum of four months, plus probationary monitoring through the November elections. Jjk 22:06, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  35. Endorse.- Lets protect Wikipedia integrity. Andy 22:07, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  36. Endorse. Anything I could add has already been said better. --coldacid 22:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  37. Endorse - Perhaps Government IP's should be restricted from editing certain articles, at least those in the Politics catagory. Bmgoau 22:10, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  38. Endorse concur with previously stated reasons. Frogular 22:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  39. We need to start calling the Congressmen's offices and ask them to stop "Vandalizing the Internet." Be quick, frank, and give your name/address. Tell them "I'm blogging this!" aphor 22:15, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  40. Endorse - agree with Bmgoau's idea. Tjic 22:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  41. Endorse per above. Itamae 22:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  42. Endorse clearly biased and unprofessional Tkessler 22:22, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  43. Endorse As per above. This is insane, my tax dollars at work indeed! Kingfox 22:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  44. Endorse with much the same reasoning as those above. jacksonj04 22:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  45. Endorse per above. Jokestress 22:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  46. Endorse per above. Wikipedia is not to be taken advantage of.
  47. Endorse Agree with above stop wasting tax dollars and spending time on wiki when you should be doing it on your own time. SirGrant 22:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  48. Endorse. Hopefully banning Congressional IPs will send a message. I doubt it's a permanent solution, but it's a decent first step for the time being and it should send a message to the politcians that Wikipedia is NOT their playground. Tomunist 22:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  49. Endorse These people have no respect for the guidelines and procedures of our community that are there to protect the truth and innocent. They wish to judge themselves instead of being judged by those who elected them. This is a heinous crime, even for me as a non-US citizen. Freedom of speech is something that I respect the US and Wikipedia for. Greg Robson 22:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  50. Endorse Wikipedia isn't a playground for politicans to push propaganda. --SirNuke 22:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  51. How utterly irresponsible. They should have a third party investigation. Despicable. KI 22:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  52. These people don't have the basic ethics to adhere to society principles. For them, their corruption starts right at home. I 101% endorse this reaction to their wrongdoings.
  53. Endorse. This isn't the place for that. Politicians can have their PR blurbs on their own websites. Christy747 22:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  54. Endorse. The attitude and action presented are unacceptable, seeing it done -organized and coordinated- by congressional staffers is outrageous. --tickle me 22:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  55. Endorse. Sadly, this was bound to happen. Bill Curnow 23:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  56. Agree. IMHO, fork the sections on US Government: one area for "legitimate freethinking discourse", another for "self-serving press releases". Leave the latter unmoderated; over time, the divergence will serve to illustrate the point. 66.241.84.143 23:15, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  57. Endorse. A reasonable length of time might be set at one tenth of the current length of copyright protection. Richard 23:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  58. Endorse. I especially agree about the threat of organized misinformation. There must be some sort of system we can used to oppose that threat. -ZendarPC 23:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  59. Endorse. It is disturbing the lengths that the agents of elected leaders have interfered with open public discussion regarding their effectivness. A long(er) term block is need. Until after midterm elections is the shortest ban that should be considered (Congress goes into session on Jan 3 2007). kurtm3 23:15, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  60. Endorse per above 80.100.30.125 23:32, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  61. Endorse as per above. Sdalmonte 23:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  62. Endorse. As an American taxpayer I view these people as persons who I have paid to do a job. I pay my taxes which, in part, fund these people to run the country's business. Surfing the net and editing Wikipedia articles is not appropriate work to be done on the tax payers dime. All Americans are paying Congress and the support employees to do work. I think that American Wikipedians have a responsibility to enforce that return on our investment, much like a very large board of directors. Editing Wikipedia articles is not appropriate for work unless your work is to do that. I didn't elect my representatives to office so that I could pay them and their aides to edit their own biographies. — Mperry 00:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC)— Mperry 23:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  63. Endorse Welcome to TRUE Freedom of information! Propaganda will NOT be tolerated! Fosnez 00:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  64. Endorse So sad.--Abg 00:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  65. Endorse. Amazed it took this long... Deal with it now or else... L3on 00:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  66. Endorse Heartily! --Dogbreathcanada 00:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  67. Endorse Perhaps a tag on a politicians page that expands to "Supporters of this Politician have repeatedly vandalised this page and are blocked from changing it."...and another that starts "Opponents of this..." - that way people reading the article will know that it's not safe information. Leave the tag there until the page goes unmolested for (say) 6 months. SteveBaker 00:25, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  68. Endorse Don't these elected officials have jobs they're supposed to be doing? Aren't their staffers supposed to be busy helping with said jobs? This is a waste of everyone's time, and it constitutes a serious danger to the freedom and veracity of Wikipedia. Please keep politicians out. Chandra Page 00:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  69. Endorse Wikipedia is not a beauty contest. Cwolfsheep 00:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  70. Endorse I wonder if it is possible to obtain the names of vandals who are assigned these congressional IP addresses through the Freedom of Information Act (United States)?
  71. Endorse I hope the staff responsable for this are found and listed. --GinsuGuy585
  72. Endorse --FyreFiend 01:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  73. Endorse Suppafly 01:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  74. Strongly Endorse While 'censorship' is too strong a word for this, it's certainly disquieting and disturbing. --DolphinCompSci 01:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  75. Endorse This is unacceptable action from our government. 65.172.181.6 01:45, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  76. Endorse As with every new technology, people have to learn how to handle it ethically. -- Peak Freak 01:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  77. Endorse per ALKIVAR, way up at #1. --^demonYo 01:58, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  78. Endorse I endorse this summary on the grounds that there is undeniable evidence (in a rather overwhelming amount) regarding the misbehavior of these individuals. Although a ban would probably be the wrong way to go about these things, they deserve whatever they get. Dtrinh 02:12, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  79. Endorse Overwhelming evidence. huwr 03:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  80. Endorse and humiliate them in the media. Let's get this into the New York Times. With the recent Wikipedia press problems, it'd be nice to make this blow up in their faces. Rob 03:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  81. Endorse. This is an unbelievable breach of ethics. Wikipedia, to much of the Internet, is authoritative and consultable. Its articles tend towards completeness and a neutral point of view which strives to inform readers of the complete facts surrounding an issue without cluttering them up and obscuring them behind ambiguity and omission. The government of the United States of America has many times before overstepped its bounds, believing that it can rewrite history and wipe clean bloody and scarred slates. This is a line that we must draw. The government cannot be allowed to talk about itself as a historical authority without any regard to the consensual process by which we Wikipedians build our repository of knowledge. The time to stop this nonsense and foolishness on the part of our elected representatives and the people who serve them is now. We cannot allow those who write the law to place themselves above it, allowing the mouse and keyboard to replace common sense and the law of the land. Let us therefore make this cleansing action which removes the bad and purifies the unclean permanent, and eject from this assembly the subjective and opinionated government and its many tongues. - CorbinSimpson 03:16, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  82. Endorse. Wikipedia isn't a campaigning center. GeminiDomino 03:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  83. Endorse Commander Nemet 03:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  84. Endorse --Vironex Vandals need to be banned, regardless of who it is.
  85. Endorse. Thanks, Congress, for spending time screwing off on Wikipedia instead of doing things that are important. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 04:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  86. Endorse. And I am afraid to say that more drastic actions is necessary.A formal press release by the foundation is a must as this appears to be systematic. A formal complaint and legal actions.. oh well...Just hope "Wikimedia Foundation v. United States" will not happen. SYSS Mouse 04:22, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  87. Endorse - agree with Alkivar's comments. Alex.tan 04:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  88. Endorse - Allowing them to continuously remove remarks that are against their view, and change the public record is wrong and should be stopped. The Decryptor 04:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  89. Endorse - Csarge AYJ/KANATA , ONT 04:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  90. Endorse - The whole project is doomed to failure unless this issue is resolved quickly and decisively. Josh Kagan 05:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  91. Endorse, Alkivar is right. AngryParsley (talk) (contribs) 05:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  92. Endorse, I like the idea of blocking the IPs for seven years. This needs to stop here. Natedubya 06:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  93. Endorse, Inappropriate. sokweman 08:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  94. Endorse - Wholly inappropriate, and starting down a very slippery slope. Alex Ravenel 10:16, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  95. Endorse - *drew 11:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  96. Endorse - Enfors 12:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  97. Endorse - Otto ter Haar 14:41, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  98. Endorse with comment - It is unfortunate that politics must get in the way of getting accurate, unbiased information. I'm glad that Wikipedia is taking a stand against this form of vandelism. While I endorse this blocking, I'm not sure how much it will do to curb this problem. These representatives or anyone in politics can easy pay someone to make the changes. I'm afraid blocking the congretional IP address will only make things more difficult to edit. Purhaps that's the point. But all it takes is a VPN or even VNC installed on a remote computer to make changes. I disagree with some here. I believe Congress has just as much a right to edit articles as anyone here. (Otherwise, aren't we saying that information is only for those not in government?) Congretional aids can provide good information, and should provide information the public may not have ready-access to. However, like all users, this MUST be done fairly, unbiasly, justly. Punishment is necessary. I don't think we should block all government IP's. To do so would be irresponsible. sohmc 15:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  99. Endorse - though this may be a bit heavy handed, I don't see politicans not trying this whole thing again at some other point in Wikipedia's history.
  100. Endorse Ebelular 15:58, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  101. Endorse --Mike 16:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Disagree as demonstrated further down the page there have been valuble contributions from this IP, and there's no evidence that a block will stop people from editing via other IP's. Much better would be a simple permanent sign that it has been messed around with. 81.105.192.22 16:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)Sri Theo[reply]
    • This is an RFC, not a poll, 81.105.192.22. If you don't agree with a view, don't sign your name under it to endorse it. If you have a different outside view, create your own subsection. Uncle G 16:48, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  102. Endorse, but something like JeffBurdges idea needs to be undertaken also. Discordance 18:22, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  103. Endorse - I shouldn't but I find this surprising. Do they really have that much time on our cash to mess around on Wikipedia? Pan 20:30, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  104. Endorse - We should definitley permablock all government IPs. But isn't it pretty easy to just grab a public computer and do the same damage? I think that government employees are too close to the government to writte accurate, neutral articles. 69.19.14.23 23:32, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  105. Endorse JereKrischel 23:30, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  106. 64.82.252.17 04:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  107. Endorse nihilism 23:45, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  108. Endorse codepoet 04:16, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  109. Endorse - However, it is unlikely you will dissaude for long those who are determined to edit articles in their favor so long as they can remain anonymous and go virtually unpunished. Above and beyond IP blocks. Public shame is not much punishment in light of the public's short attention spans, especially when oppenents of articles could bias an article in the positive regard hoping for Wikipedia to overreact and label it as biased. More likely if you could determine a way to extract escalting financial penalties from users (deemed by the community to be abusive) it would discourage long term organized abuse. Since the correction of baised attacks articles does require time and effort, I don't think it's unreasonable to require a financial donation from abusers. Most people think with their pocketbook, and until you threaten them there, they don't really take you seriously.
  110. endorse - ++Lar: t/c 05:06, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  111. Endorse. This is a really childish game beetween politicans. --192.35.241.134 13:28, 2 February 2006 (UTC) Sorry, I have forgotten to sign in. --NewAtair [[User Talk:NewAtair|Δ]] 13:33, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  112. Endorse. It's incredible that members of the government would attempt to interfere with a non-profit organization. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 04:12, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  113. Endorse. Speaking as a non-US citizen, it is actions like these that further ruins the credibility of the United States Federal Government in general in front of the international community. Especially its supposed "position" regarding "freedom" -Lemi4 05:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  114. Endorse. Q: What kind of spineless and utterly malicious person would try to alter the greatest source of knowledge on the internet with disinformation for their own benifit? A: U.S. Government officials. There needs to be a ban or some sort of action taken against those involved and preventative measures so this doesn't happen in the future. To me, our leaders have sank to a new level. Zeak Harbors 00:58 3 Febuary 2006
  115. Endorse. This is just sickening. Archer7 18:59, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  116. Endorse 196.1.53.7 07:15, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  117. Endorse 65.145.117.127 12:32, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  118. Endorse. These people are giving America a bad name. Congress should spend their time dealing with Hurricane Katrina, or the War on Terror instead. SYCTHOStalk 19:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  119. Endorse. Sempf 03:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  120. Endorse. Actions taken here are less severe than what would happen to an institution vandalizing US Senate owned pages. l1wulf 22:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  121. Endorse. Durova 18:55, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  122. Endorse. --Malthusian (talk) 17:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  123. Endorse - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 17:30, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  124. Endorse We cannot let Wikipedia be subject to the same political/corporate control that other forms of 'the press' are subject to. This violates not only WP policies but the spirit of the Bill of Rights. The parties involved should be strongly warned, blocked, or whatever is required to make them stop perpetuating POV edits. They should also frankly, be ashamed of their actions and owe an apology. Pedant 18:04, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  125. Endorse -- Tvaughn05e (Talk)(Contribs) 10:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  126. Endorse. While I do not like what some of these staffers have done; what annoys me more is that my tax dollars is paying for this. Y'all should be focused on my safety and security, not padding your boses' ego's and bios on Wikipedia. Go back to doing what you are supposed to do: serve you constituients, serve your country. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 04:40, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Other users who oppose this summary[edit]

  1. Oppose All points of view should be allowed. --Masssiveego 21:24, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Response[edit]

This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section. Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

Congressman Meehan response[edit]

Congressman Marty Meehan has responded to the January 27 2006, the Lowell Sun of Massachusetts article [9]:

Yesterday's story, "Rewriting history under the dome," accurately reported that in July of 2005 an intern in my office responsible for updating my biography also updated my online Wikipedia entry. I did not know that this change was being made at the time and was only made aware of it yesterday when informed that The Sun had inquired about it. Though the actual time spent on this issue amounted to 11 minutes, according to server logs, I do not consider it time well spent or approve of it in any way.
Part of being an elected official is to be regularly commented on, praised, and criticized on the Web. For example, one of the many anonymous users who have edited my own Wikipedia entry also updated Sen. Tom Daschle's entry by adding that Daschle is a "professional hack" and that "his brain was significantly altered" after his office was targeted by terrorists in the anthrax attacks on the Capitol in 2001. This is a predictable and unavoidable part of being in public life and, tempting as it may be to get involved, we should not. The Internet is a place for the free and open exchange of ideas and opinions. It was a waste of energy and an error in judgment on the part of my staff to have allowed any time to be spent on updating my Wikipedia entry. I thank The Sun for bringing it to my attention.'
MARTY MEEHAN U.S. Representative

Steve Rothman's Intern[edit]

As an intern at the office of Steve Rothman, I can testify that I was blocked from editing from work while the blocks were active. This is outside of DC, at Rothman's local office in Hackensack, NJ. Thus, blocking the IP probably blocked the entire House network. —Cuiviénen (Cuivië) 19:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Outside views[edit]

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

McClenon[edit]

The only reason why I have not endorsed the above summary is that I have not done the research to verify that all of the allegations are correct. I can see that there is a pattern of misuse of Wikipedia. The originators of the RfC have, unfortunately, made a number of specific allegations that they have not backed up by diffs. There are enough diffs so that I agree that there is blatant POV-pushing and bad faith editing.

By the way, the ARIN lookup is authoritative. If some other lookup disagrees with it, the other lookup is mistaken. However, I assume that the POC is a different Joseph Adams.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

  1. Robert McClenon 12:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Merecat 23:33, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BMgoau[edit]

Government IP's should be restricted from editing certain articles, at least those in the Politics catagory.

Restriction may come in the form of the need for registration before contributing, or being banned from editing political category articles (contributions can be made through reference in the talk page of an article). The effect of this will to be allow Government employees to still contribute to wikipedia while also limiting any negative effects of their editing.

  • Endorse Bmgoau 04:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Note: I corrected the spelling of category. Cynical 22:23, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments moved to talk page.

JeffBurdges[edit]

Eloquence has given powerful arguments against permanent bans on wikinews [10] and the same reasoning applies to organizations. A more effective "punishment" would be to permenently retain, on the relevant talk pages, notices of past attacks by congressional staffers.

Watchlist functionality could also be enhanced to allow watching of users, IP ranges, and collaborative lists of such (see talk). For example, IP addresses and registered users affiliated to the U.S. Congress could be added to "Watchlist:U.S. Congress". Users could view the combined contributions history from this page, or watch all edits by all listed IP address ranges and users by adding this page to their watchlist.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

Update: I've added a refined version of the technical side of this proposal here. JeffBurdges 16:00, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like this idea, but I wonder if it make any difference in their behavior. I doubt that it possible to embarrass a politician; they'll simply disavow all knowledge of their staffers' activities ➥the Epopt 15:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • --Nlu (talk) 16:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good idea. Mushroom 17:01, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I concur. We don't block all AOL contributors just because of some (well, sometimes it seems like a lot) bad apples abusing the AOL proxies and I see no reason to do any different here. Reverting vandalism is annoying, no doubt about it, but in general its not very difficult to do, especially if we know where it's coming from. It's also unfair to good faith contributors operating out of the blocked shared IP, of which there are quite a few. Plus, now that this whole issue is starting to show up in the media I doubt we'll see any large scale vandalism from House IPs after this. What also bothers me is that many of the people advocating a permablock seem to be mostly basing their choice on the novelty of being able to block the U.S. Congress rather then agreed upon policy for vandals (see Wikipedia:Dealing with AOL vandals), or a consideration of the collateral damage that would result from such a large scale block. It should also be noted that as we do not have a policy of blocking all governmental IPs, blocking just this one (even if it is used by vandals) could be construed as bias. -Loren 20:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Concur, though I want to make the point that said watchlist can only be used to monitor future activity, and my endorsement of this idea doesn't mean I believe no further action needs to be taken against those IPs listed above who have already committed violations. --Aaron 20:53, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Especially in the case of employment organizations, the employees can just vandalize from home. Better to keep them in a known IP range, and watch them from there. --Interiot 21:11, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • As for blocking IP's being construed as a bias policy or not, wikipedia should not become the next arena for political mudslinging. The watchlist idea is great, I recommend a step further, flag all items submitted by a watchlisted writer so a new visitors to wikipedia recognize the potential of the writer to be biased, slanderous or completely innaccurate. In that instance, Wikipedia remains neutral, and the readers can make up their own mind. As far as a politicians disavowing their staffers, it is time they devise a new policy for the 21st century! Get all of your staff together and let them know that wikipedia is off limits and that it is as any other medium in history. TV, Radio, Newspaper, whatever, they all have the same types of leak/misinformation problems, wikipedia should not have to step in to clean up political messes they didn't make.
  • I like this idea, the users behind each IP are subject to change over the election cycle. -Krbrowning 21:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Perhaps some middle ground can be had by simply making a list of changes available as a sidebar in political articles. It would allow users to remove information as they see fit, but it makes it more obvious for the non-wiki literate (myself included) to see what had been removed. Or to give a "verification value" to material so that "verified" material is displayed one way and can not be removed/edited without a number of verifications equal to/greater than the number of verifications of the original material. The unverified material is displayed in another way until it becomes the verified material. Or how about controversy pages, one an officially sanctioned version of the information as proposed by the politician and another page containing information subject to controversy (ie, material edited more than x number of times in a set period of time.) Telling Congressmen that EVERYONE but them can edit is able to edit their information is little more than a short-cut to new free-speech vs. slander legislation so how about making the controversy known and providing both sides their own battleground?
  • A watchlist makes sense; a hard-ban of the IP addresses in question will only cause them to post the same content from another computer somewhere else, but a system that appears to let them try to edit and then red-flags changes to articles in which they have vested interests would catch them in the act. Also, this needs to be scalable in such a way that edits from any organisation to articles in which they may have a direct interest (whether it be ford.com and Ralph Nader or Steve Ballmer and Google) can be made easy to spot. Ad agencies and PR firms should be flagged on every edit, as they may be inserting POV for multiple clients. I wouldn't expect the POV issues to begin and end with Congress, even though this is a high-profile incident and very much cause for concern. There needs to be a systematic approach to organisational POV as a whole. --carlb 22:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    This is the crux of the IP block issue. The block is not sufficient to stop these users because they can go to other addresses. Furthermore, we should be warned that political edits will soon be coming from hired Public Relations companies. TomCerul 15:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with the idea of more transparency on such articles. However, can we suggest a policy which would allow staffers to positively contribute to the article? Could we encourage them to, say, post factual, verifiable information on the Congressman or Congresswoman's site and link to it on the talk page of the article to which they would like the information to be included? Maybe that's not the best way, but I feel that we should have some way to encourage beneficial contributions, some way to separate those who want to help from the vandals. L3prador 22:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. I don't think the all the staffers should be barred when only some of them are causing problems, but a better way of keeping watch would be nice. 66.74.80.21 22:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Doesn't Wikipedia already have a means of locking pages during edit wars? Let's see if Congressional staffers still have the stamina to keep setting up sockpuppets and to resume the edit wars whenever the locks come off, even after bad publicity in the news, before we block potentially thousands of people who weren't involved. As offensive as this behavior is, I'd say give the current policy time to work before changing the policy. J. Brad Hicks 22:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. I believe that these staffers would not have the motivation to make these edits from non-government IPs (outside of work). Also, banning everyone in the House and Senate for the actions of a few is unfair and breaks past precedent on Wikipedia for such matters. -- Barfooz 23:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with much of the above. I think it would be better to flag these articles to a watchlist group and flag the IP ranges to other watchlist groups so people can watch and fix changes made by staffers who violate Wiki standards. Doing a block IP ban seems to violate User Conduct RFC and adds precedent to this type of action which wiki tried to resolve with marking articles as register edit only and such. So either keep it all open but make watchlists or make watchlists and allow temporary anonymous editing bans as previously added to wiki. Dharh 23:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. I disagree that staffers would not have the motivation outside of work to abuse this service. With Wikipedia's ever growing popularity this type of malice will only get worse. Idleline 23:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Through my professional work, I have knowledge of the House of Representatives internal network architecture. I can't reveal it for security reasons, of course, but I can tell you that they have multiple firewalls using NAT-ing. In other words, all access to the Internet by anyone on their internal network will appear to originate from the IP address of one of the firewalls. You will never see the real internal IP of the user nor be able to determine which office they were in. Also, the House of Representatives has 10,000+ employees, and if you block the firewall IPs, you will block all of them: Democrats, Republicans, and Independents; Liberals, Moderates and Conservatives; and every Capitol Hill staffer who works for a Member or Committee, or is part of the non-partisan general support staff. I know it's tempting to say, "Oh, those evil politicians are doing something sleazy again!" but you really have no clue who is really responsible. It may very well be some student interns, acting without the knowledge or consent of the Members and professional staff, and blocking their office access may do no more than prompt them to perform their vandalism from a Starbucks hotspot instead.
  • Endorse. Better to keep abuse where we can know where it is coming from, rather than push it to untraceable addresses. - SimonP 00:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Outlier 01:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. An elegant solution, similar to the AOL IP warning. Not offensive, not impractical. effectively banning people in the know from editing seems impossible. -- Ec5618 01:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. This is the best solution yet. They deserve special treatment because it seems to be an organization that refuses to police itself and has a history of mudslinging and rewriting history (Howard Zinn, anyone?). But blocking an entire range because of a couple bad guys who are going to be out in a couple years? Unfair if you ask me. -Copysan 01:47, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Blocking the U.S. Congress is a Bad Idea. For one thing, there are some legitimate edits. But far more importantly, it shows that we know where they're editing from, and even 40-year-old Congressmen who wouldn't know the difference between Ethernet and Internet are going to realize that they can evade the block by just editing from elsewhere. And they will edit from elsewhere, don't doubt that for a second. So, we need to keep a closer eye on Congress—not tip our hand and get them to edit from a place we can't track. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:01, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Sensible comments. Skud 02:32, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Regardless of the ban length, this is a more permanent solution. --Cybersavior 02:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. There's no reason to restrict entire subnets. There are more of us than there are of them. We can keep this under control via the normal channels and observation... blocking users rather than IPs. neoliminal 02:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse—Kbolino 03:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse — WCityMike (T | C) 03:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse — I guess this is one of the better solutions. 203.197.196.1 04:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. This is a very reasonable solution. Another idea is to earmark all IP user pages associated with Congressional Offices with some sort of template that states that they are a congressional staffer. That way, it is easier to audit changes made by staffers. Solarusdude 04:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse; moved from above; on reflection I don't think they should be blocked, just watched with great vigilance. Antandrus (talk) 05:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. This problem cannot be solved through longer or broader IP bans. --Ryanrs 07:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. I believe this is the best approach FOR NOW. If abuses continue, it would be very reasonable to limit edits from the IP address range to those who are logged in. I am pretty firmly on record as being an opponent of anonymity in public discourse (just look at my user name), and as a taxpayer, as an observer of the political process, and as someone who has sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, I personally would prefer to require all edits by anyone in ANY government position to be clearly attributable by name. I realize that's a pipe dream, but if we cannot resolve this issue with a tracking method as I am endorsing here, at least we could force those editing from these IP ranges to leave a clearly documentable trail. Ray Trygstad 08:30, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. This is indeed in my eyes the best approach for now. Inter\Echo 11:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse -- I believe this is the best course of action. (Should I move my comments from the other section here? I'm not sure how this works.) sohmc 15:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Let's try this for a while and see how they respond. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 17:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse The most appropriate approach for now. Georgewilliamherbert 23:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse, and would be a better approach than blanket blocks. - Mailer Diablo 06:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Blocking the entire Hill would deprive us of the appropriate edits made by (hopefully) the majority of staffers. A watchlist, perhaps in conjunction with the moderation suggested by STrRedWolf below, is IMO the best option in terms of both protecting accuracy and avoiding censorship. Jacie87 13:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Mtelewicz 16:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse —Cuiviénen (Cuivië) 05:00, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • endorse - document POV pushing in a special section of the articles that were pushed. The light of day does wonders sometimes. ++Lar: t/c 05:10, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse if technically possible. This seems teh best solution. GeeJo (t) (c) • 00:01, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. I'm curious how this edit happened. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 01:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

DrWitty[edit]

I believe that the following belongs in the Response section, which permits a comment "by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete." If members agree, feel free to move the content.

This dispute is unjustified and the complaint is biased because it implicates the entire staff of the United States Congress in a violation of Wikipedia policies that is miniscule in comparison to the asserted scope. The RFC proposes to block/ban 3 Class B IP address ranges, totaling over 195,000 IP addresses, and cites as support the actions of users posting from 11 IP addresses over a time period that apparently reaches back to November 2004, 14 months ago. If the reader takes to the time to parse the support material, they will discover that the RFC admits that 9 IPs have only posted legitimate content, and that 4 IPs are "Legit, sort of" or the equivalent.
Banning 195,000 possible IP addresses for indeterminate but lengthy time periods (>1 week) violates established Wikipedia policy regarding range blocking in the Blocking Policy. In addition, even if we do not reach the issue of the proxy/aggregator identified by 143.231.249.141, the User Conduct RFC process that the community has selected requires a complaint against an individual user. The summary suggests, but does not demonstrate, that the conduct originating from 11 IP addresses justifies the blocking/banning of an address space more than 17000 times the size of the documented problem, with no suggestion that users are IP hopping to avoid individual IP blocks/bans. This is a policy question, not a user conduct question. It belongs in the Village pump.


I disavow the the following paragraphs, but I will not delete them in view of the list of endorsements. Because of an editorial dispute the comment does not serve the purpose that I intended it to. DrWitty 19:41, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I realize that this page attempts to discuss an important issue, however Wikipedia cannot violate its own policies in attempts to solve problems caused by individuals that violate Wikipedia policies. This RFC is in blatant violation of the policies that apply to User Conduct RFCs. Most notably, this RFC admits that there are issues with multiple IPs and multiple, if unknown, Congressional staffers. This RFC "must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users." Three blocks of IP addresses, including an IP address that may be a proxy, and the near certainty of there being multiple users (e.g., the legit edits from U.S. Senate IPs) clearly places this problem outside of the scope of the User Conduct RFC process.

It is not Wikipedia's place to decide whether or not employees of the U.S. government should edit Wikipedia content. It is a futile attempt to regulate an editorial problem based upon the putative origin of the traffic, which as we all know could easily shift to Starbucks and McDonalds Wi-Fi points in Washington D.C., as well as home offices, campaign offices, election consultants' offices, etc. Those who say that it is "tough luck" for those who are making legitimate contributions will not be so pleased when every Time Warner cable internet subscriber in Kansas City receives a long term ban because a church with a religious agenda begins to abuse Wikipedia entries in the name of some cause. The willingness of many of the endorsers to ban all Congressional IP addresses for the next seven years represents a serious erosion of the Wikipedia ethos. Like it or not, because the service is becoming increasingly visible and well known, Wikipedia is either going to have to resist the partisan (in the broad sense) contributions to the work on an individual basis, or it is going to have to sacrifice its soul. Wikipedia:Introduction

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

  • It's sad that everyone's eager to throw out policy whenever it's inconvenient. If you really think Congress should be blocked without fitting the usual criteria for being blocked, make some new blocking policies and get them accepted, first. Ken Arromdee 22:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - While I agree that the summary at the beginning of this article about behavior of likely congressional staffers is probably true, I do not see why Wikipedia policy should be modified. There have been other organized, NPOV-violating groups before. I do not see a need for a policy change based solely on this group's actions. --Zippy 22:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - The actions of congressional staffers are distasteful to say the least, however if we allow their vandalism to shift policy towards a more 'secured' and 'accountable' system, we are playing right into their hands. Lets approach congressional editing as we approach all vandalism, on an individual basis, the system has been dynamic enough for our purposes to this date, the only difference now are the personal feelings regarding the origin. Regulating Wikipedia, even if by vote = bad news and tyranny of the majority. Nhandler 23:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - I have yet to see any compelling reason why this differs from other systematic efforts at POV-pushing. While we shouldn't deliberately ignore patterns, we should treat each instance of abuse as a separate case until that strategy is proved to be insufficient. --Saforrest 00:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse — I find it remarkable that so many editors are willing to entertain a pro forma solution here. We have policies on Wikipedia; let's follow them. What if a particular ISP, or country, became the source of a huge number of destructive edits? Would we ban the ISP, or the entire country? Our policies say we discipline users (or individual IP's standing in for users), not groups. --TreyHarris
  • Endorsed, we've delt with vandalism from shared IPs before without resorting to permablocks. Permablocking this IP would do nothing to stop a committed vandal or POV pusher, and would only discourage good faith contributors. I wonder why I have never seen an RfC for the hundreds of AOL or Telstra shared IP vandals that we enounter everyday. Sadly it seems that with a high profile IP like this reason and policy go out the window and people start grabbing their torches and pitchforks. -Loren 00:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - It is difficult to drag myself away from the temptation to endorse the RfC, but I thank DrWitty for bringing up a point of policy that I, as a novice user, had not yet learned. --Markzero 00:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional Endorsement - As one of those Time-Warner Cable users in Kansas City, this one strikes a chord with me. I don't think that Wikipedia should ever be in the business of blocking certain IP addresses for an extended period of time (a short-term block to head off a flood of edits is a different matter). However, I may not fully understand what 'block' means in this context. If it simply prohibits anonymous edits from the addresses in question, while allowing logged-in users to contribute, I'll remove my endoresement from this section and support longer-term bans on anonymous edits from IPs with a history of bad-faith action. The Monster 00:43, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - Primarily for the reasons given. And secondly even if it was wiki policy to block entire IP blocks, these edits are not consistenly bad. Some have been vandalism but the major offense is simply POV. With many legitimate edits interspersed. --<strong>Dark</strong>fred [[User talk:Darkfred|<sup><strong>Talk to me</strong></sup>]] 01:01, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. It is unfair to completely ban all of the United States Congress (or AOL) because of a few young interns, but it would be useful to review their edits and watch for patterns. It is equally unfair to believe that "all politicians are evil." Andrew_pmk | Talk 01:50, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Regardless of anyone's beliefs on what the appropriate resolution for this problem is, this RFC is inappropriate and not valid within established Wikipedia policy. The simple inclusion of both House and Senate IP addresses effectively guarantees that this RFC is attempting to lump incidents from multiple individuals into one dispute, which is a clear abuse of this RFC system. Implementing this proposal would therefore be a violation of Wikipedia policy, and should not be attempted. -- Foogod 02:16, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - I agree. This problem won't be solved changing policy and/or banning IP blocks.--Colin Faulkingham 02:45, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional Endorsement - Under the same condition stated by The Monster above. Long term banning of IP ranges (especially when used by multiple people) is not fair and goes against the wikipeida philosophy. However, somthing does need to be done about this. --Cybersavior 02:55, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. The problem is not that they're capable of editing Wikipedia, the problem is that it's so easy for them to do it from the desk. Rob 03:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is an RFC, not a poll, Baldghoti. If you don't agree with a view, don't sign your name under it to endorse it. If you have a different outside view, create your own subsection. Uncle G 16:48, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. I can't believe this is a serious RFC. – ugen64 03:43, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. You are right. Especially at times like this, we need to remember what got us here. Johnsolo 07:30, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. As pointed out elsewhere there is already an effective way to deal with repeatedly vandalized pages: page protection. Banning IPs will simply move the worst abusers to different IPs and does nothing to ameliorate the work of cleaning up after the mess. With semi-protected pages at least they have to wait a few days and make ridiculous numbers of new accounts to continue the shenanigans they are accused of. Congressional staffers making the changes on the job is the an issue between them and their employers, not WP. -wac(talk contrib) 08:11, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. IP banning is a slippery slope. These cases of page vandalism are nothing more than a concentrated (and worse, politically charged) version of a problem that is inherent to Wikipedia. Diligence and vigilance on the part of the Wikipedia community is the only way to attack the problem - not half-measures that would do more to give a false sense of security than actually stop abuse. DrWitty states to do so would be for Wikipedia to "sell its soul" - it may be more appropriate to say "give its soul away". – Scottzed 08:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. The way this is going to stop is the news stories which have started. Pols won't let themselves be linked to something this blatant. No reason for WP to change policies (and soul) when an outside force will take care of what ails us. -Jcbarr 14:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Anonymous IPs engaging in vandalism and POV-pushing (most of it unsophisticated)? Film at 11 on CSPAN. Blocking congress would be counter-productive anyway, in that the vandals would become less identifiable. Andjam 02:57, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. This is crazy! First, IP banning is hardly effective. Second, singling out a group in a specific class of articles is totally anti-wikipedia. Finally, those being blocked are in a good position to be authoritative on said topics. This type of issue could happen in virtaully any wikipedia entry. Why are politics being singled out. Pbreit 21:57, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. It seems a bit extreme to (if I am reading this correctly) block 3 class B IP ranges (65,536 possible hosts each) for the transgressions of what looks to be 177 hosts. Kidigus 18:23, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Sempf 03:09, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

STrRedWolf -- Moderation of Congressional IP addresses[edit]

In many forms of medium, a third party review of content submitted has proven fruitfull. It filters out the spam from the ham, the wheat from the chaff -- or in this case, the facts from the political spew. For example:

  • Usenet has the ability to have all posts to a group be filtered through one person, and approved by that person. Any post is first emailed to the person, who can approve or disapprove by adding an appropriate header. Some groups are robomoderated as such to filter out known "evil" entities.
  • Yahoo! Groups also has this ability, but extends it to more than one person/moderator, as well as have registered users be deemed "clean" and able to post w/o need for moderation. The Comic Genesis email list on Yahoo! Groups was one that once express moderation was turned on, and individual users were marked "clean," spammers would be immedately trapped and banned.

I do not know if a Watchlist will allow the an entry's edit to be held until approved. I welcome the clarification if it does. However, it is becomming more and more evident that Wikipedia would need moderators for clients which constantly violate the rules. 23:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I strongly believe that these "incidents" reveal a flaw in Policy and Procedure, and that changing Policy is needed not only to resolve these issues in this case, but to try to prevent such things happening again. There are plenty of Governments and Organisations that would love to see substantial revisionist edits across Wikipedia. I believe that the policies as they stand at the moment make assumptions about the fundamental goodness of people. There will of course alwys be some people who have malicious intent, but they will be the exceptions IMHO. Organisations however will always tend to whatever is in the benefit of the organisation (IMHO), regardless of the feelings or inclinations of the individuals concerned. Policy does not adequately address violations by organisations or "agents" at this time. I'll go so far as to suggest that what we're seeing is exactly what Plato was suggesting when he ripped into Democracy in Republic, and in order to preserve and monitor the "goodness" of the Wikipedia knowledge/community a similar benevalent dictatorship is called for, much as it would have help saved Athens from Sparta - note the parallel is extremely strong, where we replace "Sparta" with "House Staffers". Johnpf 23:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Users who endorse this summary: (sign with ~~~~)

  • Endorse - This seems the only reasonable way to deal with this or any other group vandalism effort.--Silverhand 15:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse, provided this moderation is limited to specific, coherent organizations. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 04:22, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - Admins should be able to review edits made by Congress before they are accepted. Thor Malmjursson 20:05, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Snow[edit]

I would take some of the reasoning from Eloquence, cited above, a step further. Contrary to some of the overheated rhetoric being bandied about, a one-week block was way too long. This should not be about punishing anyone; the only issue should be how to improve Wikipedia articles and/or prevent harm to them. Here we clearly have more than one person using this IP address, and valuable contributions being made from it, unfortunately tarnished by some edits that appear to be vandalism. Since I unblocked it yesterday, someone using it has already corrected two outright errors on Wikipedia articles about members of Congress, mistakes we as editors should be embarrassed about. Do we seriously want to forego these contributions?

Most congressional staffers are intelligent people who are perfectly capable of making valuable contributions to Wikipedia. If we assumed good faith about them, as we do for other contributors, and tried to understand any concerns they have about Wikipedia articles, this wouldn't even be an issue. Monitoring for and reverting instances of actual vandalism is easy enough here. More important is helping these people learn how to contribute to Wikipedia more effectively, but still in an appropriate manner.

Users who endorse this summary: (sign with ~~~~)

  • Michael Snow 00:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse LamilLerran 01:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Assume good faith, work with people who have misbehaved in the past, and avoid punishing whole groups for the actions of individuals. As to persistent vandals and POV pushers: file a FOIA request to get the name behind the IP, then shame them publicly. AxelBoldt 02:59, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. I like the idea of assuming good faith. I really do. Also, it's hard to be so bold in this day and age and I commend Michael Snow for doing so. However, if this idea doesn't work out, an alternate means of dealing with it should be ready as a failsafe (one of the previous ideas, maybe?) MrFiver 04:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is becoming way overblown. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 03:50, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse, just looking at the comments in favor of blocking makes it look as if this is turning into a witch-hunt. -Loren 03:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Blocks should be preventive, not punitive. --cesarb 03:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. --Zippy 05:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. Perhaps instead of using outright blocks, topics that are known targets of vandalism and whitewashing can be peer-reviewed, in which the edits are held for a couple hours until they can be checked and OK'd by one or two people from unrelated IP addresses. 69.136.118.51 07:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. -- Flambergius 08:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. --KBrown 18:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. --Dystopos 19:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse.-- ~ender 2006-01-31 - some other suggestions: I'd like to see them have their own agreement page everytime they go to make an edit (if they don't have user-accounts) - warning them of political edits, and linking to the NPOV policies, etc (in case they're new). And for the editted pages to say, last editted by 'government official' (in this case: US congressional official) as well as a link to the last community-editted webpage. And for congressional IPs to be labeled as such within the edit-history, etc. I agree: preventative not punative. In the cases of slander/libel (considering wiki's reach/authoritativeness; slander & libel here may be more far-reaching than doing so in many/most newspapers), such violations of the law need to be reported and the criminals held liable - and their bosses, especially if they're posting from work computers.
  • Endorse. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 04:24, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse --- Charles Stewart(talk) 17:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wise words. Kim Bruning 01:33, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse AGF! --Dragon695 02:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Keep faith. —Cuiviénen (Cuivië) 04:58, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Blocking the entire range might be sexy and mediagenic, but it's not an appropriate solution. We don't block other problematic ranges outright, because it's an extreme solution, and one that harms genuine contributors. As for the problem edits originating from there, I'm happier having them come from an IP range that we can keep a close eye on. We can keep on reverting vandalism, just like always, without hurting good editors. Adrian Lamo ·· 18:25, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse PhatJew 08:53, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-vandalism tools[edit]

We already have mechanisms in place to detect suspect edits. It would be almost trivial to modify CDVF, and the current bot run by the wikipedia anti vandalism unit to mark all congressional edits as suspect and track them. Also, perhaps roomba can be modified to also spot congressional edits. This is no different from watching AOL or (previously) tor, really. It's just kind of ironic that this time it's the leaders of the free world we need to watch.

Users who endorse this summary: (sign with ~~~~)

  • Kim Bruning 04:22, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • James S. 04:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • CSarge AYJ/KANATA,ONT 04:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Alister 06:45, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • --Barista | a/k/a マイケル | T/C 09:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • In addition to the watchlist thing, this is also good. Inter\Echo 11:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • -Kieran 11:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC). I hope this happens quickly.[reply]
  • --Lundse 12:43, 31 January 2006 (UTC). Keeping watch, we can hopefully show that the system works, even against government propaganda.[reply]
  • Endorse --Joe Decker 18:58, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse with a cavaet: this won't do anything about staffers editing from user accounts. A sort of expanded CheckUser that checks logged in users against House IPs might help too. Then again, they could always edit from home too, but there's only so much we can do, and we should do it. --Cyde Weys 03:39, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse and Comment - A CheckUser was already performed that revealed that no accounts that have edited from the House IP range are vandals. Myself included :) —Cuiviénen (Cuivië) 04:57, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cema 07:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 04:25, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It's less ironic and more axiomatic that we'd end up having to watch legislators like some watch AOL users. Adrian Lamo ·· 18:30, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Computerdan000 15:26, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dragon695 - John Seigenthaler Sr. Standard[edit]

First off, in the interest of full disclosure, you can find out my bias on my userpage. That being said, I recall that when the Seigenthaler hullbaloo happened there was an outcry from the Wikipedia community asking why couldn't he just correct the misinformation rather then go on a crusade? Well, it seems to me that is what some of these people are trying to do, even if they are acting in bad faith. I see absolutely no reason to treat them any better or any worse then any other anonymous contributor with a POV. I vehemently disagree that their edits should be marked as suspect. They should have just as much freedom to contribute as anyone else does. Handle each ip on a case-by-case basis in the same way as any other anonymous user. Where proxies are concerned, follow the same policies as we do with AOL users.

Users who endorse this summary: (sign with ~~~~)

The established conduct methods have not been used[edit]

Both the Senate and the House have established ethics bodies which, so far as I can see, have not yet been used in an attempt to resolve this matter. Those bodies can also link IPs to offices and perhaps individuals as part of their investigations. Since we have not yet used the usual ethics process, I suggest that no long-lasting action is taken until the matter has been referred to the House ethics committee and Senate ethics committee so they can remind members and their staff about proper conduct. Jamesday 01:24, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Sounds like a plan! Kim Bruning 01:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • An excellent general principle is that in order for abuse to be controlled, there MUST be consequences for abuse. If Congress fails to control the abuse from its network ITSELF, wikipedia MUST defend itself by imposing consequences. Just reverting the abuse is IMO insufficient a consequence. I see several appropriate,moderate options: We could for a significant period (months) ban only anon edits from the range, and/or only political page edits, and/or mark/flag for review edits from such IPs; I endorse all such options. Elvey
  • You seem to be laboring under the mistaken belief that the House and Senate ethics committees show more signs of life than a sack of sand. Worldwalker 19:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Correcting: "The established conduct methods have not been used"[edit]

Some of these comments originally posted under "The established conduct methods have not been used" heading

  • Comment -- Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but only members of the respective body can refer matters to the ethics committees. --Dragon695 03:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment -- However, members do sometimes respond to constituent requests about things. One could certianly write or email one's congressman, expressing whatever view they felt was appropriate including requesting an investigation if warranted. For the record, I know my congressman does have someone read and respond to incoming email, since I have received responses in the past. Is there a cogent summary of the issue yet developed? I suspect that asking a staffer to slog through the whole RfC (to see what the issue is) might not result in the desired action. ++Lar: t/c 05:30, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment -- Though I agree that writing one's congressman could be useful I do not believe it could be considered an "established conduct method." -- 68.50.103.212 12:03, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

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