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..."

I find it interesting...

[Gordonjcp]

... that one of the Obama "editors" calls himself "Bellwether".

  Until recently, Bellwether, a.k.a. Kevin Bailey, was an analogue to Schilling on Obama's page.

Anyone know what a bellwether is? No? It's a neutered male sheep, with a bell on a cord around its neck. You let it loose in open grazing, and it will find other sheep, and then you find it by listening for the bell ringing as it ineffectually tries to mate with the ewes it's found.

Probably not the best nickname to choose, I'm thinking.

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

[rve]

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:HOLY CRAP

[rvw]

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:HOLY CRAP

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly don't have a shirt or anything.

born for the job?

[superwiz]

His name is Schilling? And he shills for Hillary? Is her campaign manager Miss Moneypenny? Am I the only who sees the irony?

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

[nguy]

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....

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

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.... ;)

Re:Well, as long as we're bringing fictional chara

[daff2k]

Suaron the Deceiver and Gandolf the Grey

Ouch, how did you manage to misspell both names?

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

[Riff10111]

My own two favorites I spotted were Edgar Allen Poe's entire article reduced to "Edgar Allen Poe was a homosexual." and the list of discontinued flavors of Doritos including the item "Creamy Cock".

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[galego]

if you're not paying attention, maybe you shouldn't vote. *shrug*

Bingo! If parent wasn't a 5, I'd say mod it up. Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe. It should not be granted or denied based on irrelevant factors such as race or gender, but I worry about the effect of our cluelessness and lack of perspective when voting in America.

Admittedly, I have been guilty of clueless voting in the past.

Maybe there should be a quiz to get to the polls, replete with being cast off of a cliff (Monty Python style ... Holy Grail) for trying to vote w/o being informed on the issues. ;) Thing is ... I'm certain we'd lose those administering the quiz, just like in the Holy Grail. :O

I giet speaketh Middle English...

[snarfies]

ye insaensitieve clode!

Re:As Steven Wright says...

[autophile]

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

I'd leave it all right where it was.

Re:Didn't any of you guys ever work on a farm?

[Gordonjcp]

Bellwethers are not necessarily male, or neutered, and they aren't used to find other sheep (that is something that could work, but not because a neutered ram "ineffectually tries to mate with ewes". Where'd you hear that?). Bellwethers are frequently older females.

I breed sheep, oddly enough. You're right about the older females, though. They're often "pet lambs" that have grown up and are prepared to sell out the rest of the flock for a munch of something tasty ;-)

Frankly, this is appalling

[Hillgiant]

How dare you compare the present administration to a bunch of carrots. Carrots are far to intelligent to warrant such a comparison.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[jesdynf]

I have a donation for your campaign below.

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Please employ them responsibly. If you run out, I may have some more.

Answer me THAT, Mr Churchill!

[SteveFoerster]

And what was the truth doing with its pants off that gave the lie such a big head start, hmm?