The Man Who Guards Clinton's Wikipedia Entry

Timothy found a profile in The New Republic of Jonathan Schilling, a 53-year-old software developer from New Jersey who works to keep Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia entry clean and fair throughout the election season. "After he started editing her page in June 2005, Schilling became consumed with trying to capture her uncomfortable place in American culture, researching and writing a whole section on how she polarizes the public... [T]he attacks on Hillary's page mainly take the form of crude vandalism... It's different on Obama's page, where the fans — no surprise — are more enthusiastic, the haters are more intelligent, and the arguments reflect the fact that Obama himself is still a work under construction... The bitterness of the fights on Obama's page could be taken as a bad sign for the candidate. But it may actually be Hillary's page that contains the more troubling omens. Few, if any, Hillary defenders are standing watch besides Schilling. In recent days, the vaguely deserted air of a de-gentrifying neighborhood has settled over her page..."

Losing my faith in politics

Maybe I'm just getting older, but this election is really making me lose my faith in the political process. Elections seem to be nothing but bitter slander now. Sure, it's always been that way to some degree, but at least Bill Clinton's first run in the early 1990s, for all the debate and polemics involved, managed to be entertaining (remember Primary Colors [amazon.com] ?). This whole process, on the other hand, is just sad.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

No, I think you're just getting older. Read about the U.S. presidential election in 1828 [wikipedia.org] between John Q. Adams and Andrew Jackson. They really brought out the mudslinging: Jackson's marriage got attacked while Adams was accused releasing an American servant girl to the Czar of Russia to appease his sexual appetite.

The thing is that bitter mudslinging is good for the process in some ways -- the First Amendment allows us to talk trash about the political candidates and some might be true, some not, but in the end, the real truth usually surfaces.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

The problem with the mudslinging is that if you do not follow the process on a daily basis, you may hear about falsehoods spread, but do not hear when those falsehoods are proven to be wrong. The same goes for these small clips that are all over the place that can easily be taken out of context.

There really isn't a lot of press coverage for when baseless accusations are proven to be nothing, but there is a ton of coverage when those initial accusations are made.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

That's not the fault of the First Amendment or of the U.S. political process. That's the partially the fault of the media's sensationalism and everybody's short attention spans. But there is press coverage when baseless allegations are proved false and, IMHO, the ultimate responsibility lies on the voters -- if you're not paying attention, maybe you shouldn't vote. *shrug*

Re:Losing my faith in politics

In some ways I chalk this up to the media. They have become increasingly good over the years at capitalizing on scandal and drama with reductionist articles like this one. Stereotyping the arguments and behaviors of each cap in order to enrage the other and you have yourself an anger inspiring sound bite a talking head can use to sell some commercials. I'll be willing to bet if you look at what candidates themselves are saying it isn't, to any drastic extent, more or less intelligent than 20 or 30 years ago. But if you look to open public internet forums for ideas on politics you may come across some people literally frothing at the mouth posting any sort of stab they can think of on both sides.

So yeah considering Wikipedia as some kind of "omen" of general consensus among voters just makes me think of the jokes (from SNL i think?) around when WP was created like: "Wikipedia this July will celebrate America's 600th anniversary of independence thanks to General Hello Kitty's heroic strategies in the war with China."

Re:Losing my faith in politics

So yeah considering Wikipedia as some kind of "omen" of general consensus among voters just makes me think of the jokes (from SNL i think?) around when WP was created like: "Wikipedia this July will celebrate America's 600th anniversary of independence thanks to General Hello Kitty's heroic strategies in the war with China."

That actually sounds funny, so it can't be SNL. Probably the Onion.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

It is indeed The Onion. Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence. Founding Fathers, Patriots, Mr. T. Honored [theonion.com]

Re:Losing my faith in politics

Elections seem to be nothing but bitter slander now.

That's largely how they've been for most of the history of our republic. Try looking up some of the things that Alexander Hamilton said about Aaron Burr.

-jcr

Re:Losing my faith in politics

Try looking up some of the things that Alexander Hamilton said about Aaron Burr.

And we all know how that one ended [wikipedia.org].

Hey! Maybe Hillary and Obama can have a duel to settle the nomination once and for all. Anyone want to place any bets? Will the brother pop a cap into Hillary's ass? Or will Hillary dodge his shots as she did the sniper fire in Bosnia before taking him out? Or will they both have to duke it out with dull steak knifes because both are in favor of gun control?

Coming soon to a pay-per-view station near you! Don King is gonna make a fortune.... ;)

WP:OWN

Just make sure to keep http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles [wikipedia.org] in mind, Jonathan.

It's just a property of wikipedia

It's not just Hillary Clinton's page.
Just for a laugh, check how often pages on completely neutral and uncontroversial subjects are vandalized.

The Carrot (vegetable)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carrot&action=history [wikipedia.org]

Just in the past week:
- Replacing the entire page with "carrots cause wicked diarrhea"
- Replacing paragraph headers with "==Uses== (I LOVE NICK JONAS) .com! everything free!"

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

Should have used the preview button...

Just in the past week:
- Replacing the entire page with "carrots cause wicked diarrhea"
- Replacing paragraph headers with "==Uses== (I LOVE NICK JONAS) 3" and "==History== (I LOVE THE JONAS BROTHERS)"
- Inserting "CARROTS A.K.A Juno's mum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
- Adding nonsense like "the carrot was invented by the fairy princess Isis in 5009" and "The Glazed Carrot was Alexander Graham Bell's Favorite Food."
- "The carrot/ Reece(who likes the carrot) Hannam"
- Adding nationalistic bullshit
- "They look like penises."
- replaced page with "Everyone Go To www.some url.com! everything free!"

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

For some reason I'd really like to vote for the humble carrot for our presidential candidate for 2008.

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

Just for a laugh, check how often pages on completely neutral and uncontroversial subjects are vandalized.

Neutral? Uncontroversial? I'm being haunted by killer carrots from outer space, you insensitive clod! Aieeeee....

Self-appointed dictator?

Having browsed through the Hillary Clinton page today I can't help feeling that the article has been vacuumed clean of any real criticism against her. One thing is removing obvious vandalism, but has Schilling (or someone else) gone too far in removing any reasonable criticism of Hillary?

1. Where is the mention of her being criticised for taking lobbyist money?
2. Where is the mention of critisism for her "exaggerating" her own stories for dramatic effect?

These are just two issues I can list at the top of my head which are completely missing from the article. Instead there is ample reference to awards she has been given.

As far as I know, Schilling has no official authority at Wikipedia and at the moment just acts as a self-appointed dictator that spends so much time on it that he manages to keep it "clean". When this happens, it is only fair to question whether he actually has an overly censoring position with regards to this article.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

The campaign page has a few more of the criticisms, but you're right that her biography page is carefully missing anything negative.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

That's pretty common for any wiki entries relating to current political events. Any criticism will be removed.

For instance looking at John McCain, there is some small mention of the Keating Five but it's limited to simply saying "He survived it", Which is interesting considering it is probably the biggest blight on his career. It doesn't even acknowledge the lessons he learned from that, which one can either see as smart politics, or cynicism. That being, when caught with your hand in the cookie jar, attack the makers of cookies. aka his "Maverick" quest for political reform.

Or if you want to get into games of political gotcha. There is no mention at all of his quotes on not knowing anything about the economy, or wanting us to stay in Iraq for 100 years.

Whether criticism is fair or not is entirely dependent upon your biases.

OT comment on her body language

I finally decided to watch one of her speeches the other night and discovered that she has an amazingly obvious tell. If you pay attention to her head motion you sill see that every time she make an affirmative statement she nods her head (as if to agree with herself). Contrary, every time she make a negative statement she shakes her head from side to side. There is also a diagonal gesture to accompany the ambiguous statements as well. She does this for every fact that she speaks, however if you watch her head during her declaratory statements, she does the same thing, but these are the promises she is supposed to be making and she will actually show which ones she really believes in. For instance at one point she made a statement to the effect that

.. this will provide health care for all Americans

while simultaneously shaking her head as if to say no, not really, not all - only some.

When I watched her speech and payed attention to her body language, almost all the "good" parts (IMNSHO) are qualified as negative or ambiguous and all the self serving political promises are affirmative. If anyone else cares to post some specific examples that lay out what her real intentions are I would gladly like to see them.

Re:HOLY CRAP

This is the worst slashdot story I've ever read and I'm an avid reader, have a shirt and everything. Make a bookmark people, this is it, one of the milestones of the decline and fall of slashdot.

You have a shirt!?! And everything??? Wow, that's impressive.

I've bookmarked your reply. I think it's even worse than the article. Not that I read it.

Re:As Steven Wright says...

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

Everywhere?

Re:I find it interesting...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellwether [wikipedia.org]

A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings.

Re:I find it interesting...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellwether [wikipedia.org] A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings.

and the very next sentnece reads: "The term is derived from the Middle English bellewether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) in order that this animal might lead its flock of sheep." Which is what the parent stated.

Re:I find it interesting...

Given that just about no one uses Middle English anymore, and that almost no one uses the term that way, the more current definition applies. This is just another example of the many words we use that effectively don't mean what they originally meant, just like the surname "Smith" doesn't mean you're a blacksmith.

I giet speaketh Middle English...

ye insaensitieve clode!

Re:Original research?

True, the research may be searching for sources. It still looks like he has his own ideas he wants to get across. That might count as POV rather than original research, but is still not very objective. From tfa:

"At the same time, he also believes Hillary the woman is widely misunderstood. "One of the things I've tried to get across in the article was how much people were impressed by her before she got married to Bill," he says."