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WikiScanner – Causing Embarrassment Throughout the Ether?

30 August 2007 6 Comments

I’ve heard from several different several tech podcasts this week about WikiScanner, a new tool developed by Virgil Griffith, that can uncover salacious edits to Wikipedia articles.

Franco Folini of the NOVEDGE blog took the time to use this tool to uncover some of the edits from companies such as SolidWorks, Autodesk, and Adobe on their competitors Wiki entries.

I don’t think this is anything new, just a new way of spreading the FUD.  I do think it’s pretty funny that there is now a way to see what has been going on!

What do you think?

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  • I think it’s slimy and childish. Of course mindless rah-rah-ism marketing is one of the things I rail against frequently. If your product can’t sell on its own merits, then fix your product. Wikipedia is supposed to be objective, grass-roots, informational, non-commercial.

  • I think it’s slimy and childish. Of course mindless rah-rah-ism marketing is one of the things I rail against frequently. If your product can’t sell on its own merits, then fix your product. Wikipedia is supposed to be objective, grass-roots, informational, non-commercial.

  • I don’t think this is anything new, at all.
    It’s people bored art work, poking-around the internet. That’s what the internet is For. I didn’t look at the data trails, but it’s highly unlikely that Editing Wikipedia is a line on Any Dept Budget.

    In my office, we have a couple of folks that did some editing of our Wikipedia entry, and it was quite obviously people from Marketing. But they did a nice job, nothing too over the top, no flat-out lies, no badmouthing the competition. Hey, they did the world a favor and put-out some very possibly useful information, when they didn’t have to!

    I was particularly amused by Folini’s “What is particularly fascinating is the variety of topics edited from Autodesk computers.” As-if all activity on Autodesk computers is controlled by the corporate hive – by the Corporate IS EVP Android.
    They’re people, they get bored at work. Everything is gonna be ok.

  • I don’t think this is anything new, at all.
    It’s people bored art work, poking-around the internet. That’s what the internet is For. I didn’t look at the data trails, but it’s highly unlikely that Editing Wikipedia is a line on Any Dept Budget.

    In my office, we have a couple of folks that did some editing of our Wikipedia entry, and it was quite obviously people from Marketing. But they did a nice job, nothing too over the top, no flat-out lies, no badmouthing the competition. Hey, they did the world a favor and put-out some very possibly useful information, when they didn’t have to!

    I was particularly amused by Folini’s “What is particularly fascinating is the variety of topics edited from Autodesk computers.” As-if all activity on Autodesk computers is controlled by the corporate hive – by the Corporate IS EVP Android.
    They’re people, they get bored at work. Everything is gonna be ok.

  • I don’t think this is anything new, at all.
    It’s people bored art work, poking-around the internet. That’s what the internet is For. I didn’t look at the data trails, but it’s highly unlikely that Editing Wikipedia is a line on Any Dept Budget.

    In my office, we have a couple of folks that did some editing of our Wikipedia entry, and it was quite obviously people from Marketing. But they did a nice job, nothing too over the top, no flat-out lies, no badmouthing the competition. Hey, they did the world a favor and put-out some very possibly useful information, when they didn’t have to!

    I was particularly amused by Folini’s “What is particularly fascinating is the variety of topics edited from Autodesk computers.” As-if all activity on Autodesk computers is controlled by the corporate hive – by the Corporate IS EVP Android.
    They’re people, they get bored at work. Everything is gonna be ok.

  • I don’t think this is anything new, at all.
    It’s people bored art work, poking-around the internet. That’s what the internet is For. I didn’t look at the data trails, but it’s highly unlikely that Editing Wikipedia is a line on Any Dept Budget.

    In my office, we have a couple of folks that did some editing of our Wikipedia entry, and it was quite obviously people from Marketing. But they did a nice job, nothing too over the top, no flat-out lies, no badmouthing the competition. Hey, they did the world a favor and put-out some very possibly useful information, when they didn’t have to!

    I was particularly amused by Folini’s “What is particularly fascinating is the variety of topics edited from Autodesk computers.” As-if all activity on Autodesk computers is controlled by the corporate hive – by the Corporate IS EVP Android.
    They’re people, they get bored at work. Everything is gonna be ok.