from Wired Magazine’s Blog Threat Level: Privacy, Security and Crime Online

Vote On the Most Shameful Wikipedia Spin Jobs
By Kevin Poulsen EmailAugust 13, 2007 | 11:03:01 PMCategories: Wikiwatch

Wikipedia Caltech graduate student Virgil Griffith just launched an unofficial Wikipedia search tool that threatens to lay bare the ego-editing and anonymous flacking on the site. Enter the name of a corporation, organization or government entity and you get a list of IP addresses assigned to it. Then with one or two clicks, you can see all the anonymous edits made from those addresses anywhere in Wikipedia’s pages.

Griffith’s work is a neat example of what can be uncovered just by reorganizing public information. Wired News writer John Borland has the full story here.

THREAT LEVEL predicts a lot of sad, embarrassing secrets will emerge from this project once netizens dive into it — and we’d like to be a part of that. So visit the Wikipedia Scanner and do some sleuthing. Post what you find here on our wall of shame, where you can join other Wired News readers in voting submissions up or down. We’ve seeded the list with a few finds of our own. Happy hunting!

New College of California Removes Probation, Pedophile Founder, IRS Forms

by Sappho

Vandals with names associated with New College removed: all trace of New College’s founder (a priest the Society of Jesus admits is a pedophile), the lack of an endowment fund, that the school is on probation, Controversy, History, References, Student Groups and Clubs, and its 990s. A week later, someone hacked a website which supplies New College news and info. including 990s.

[Ed. Note: Show school spirit and vote for New College! Don’t let Case Western beat our school. See the fine company New College is in: Dow Chemical, Scientology, Republicans. Read the full article and vote here.]

Update

Adam Cornford Spins Wikipedia Page, Warns Off Other Editors

Prof. Adam Cornford, head of the Poetics program and now Public Information Officer, made dozens of edits to the New College page as part of his job, in violation of Wikipedia policy. He removed links to this site, references to the WASC probation, and other information New College would rather you did not have. In notes removed by another editor, he wrote:

NOTE: As Public Information Officer, Adam Cornford has responsibility for correcting and updating the Wikipedia pages on New College and respectfully requests that individuals or groups wishing to correct or amend these pages approach him first.

Removed warnings by Cornford
History of edits