GrodsCorp

Chris Johnston: Wikipedia editor

Sunday 26 August 2007, 6:45 pm

Recently, the media has been working itself into a frenzy over the revelations that John Howard’s office has been editing Wikipedia articles to show him in a more positive light. I seriously doubt Howard knew about this (as technical matters are beyond him), but what would happen if you used WikiScanner (the site that busted them) to look up the IP addresses of other people?

For instance, what would happen if I looked up the IP address of (and this is a completely random example) Age journalist Chris Johnston, who has an alarming habit of leaving anonymous comments both here and on Random Brainwave, as well as googling himself to see if he the darling of the Australian blogosphere (he isn’t)?

Clearly bored with self-googling, he has now moved on to editing (and occasionally vandalising) Wikipedia.

His many, many, many edits include Airbourne, the tragic 1998 Grand Final (in which he sagely notes that “Many believe North Melbourne’s defeat was due to the presence of a bloke called Mario”), Age editor Andrew Jaspen (he created the page), the Bra Boys, Henry Kissinger, Big Brother contestant Simon Deering/HotDogs (in which he enthused that HotDogs posed naked “with a strategicly [sic] placed hampsster [sic] covering his genitals” and that “He lists his favourite food as Kinder Suprise [sic] - “It’s a delicous [sic] snack and a toy, bonus!”), Wayne Carey (he removed a link to the Herald Sun), the talk page of The West Australian (in which he defends his employers honour - “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black: how can you mount an attack on a paper’s journalistic style with a one-sided rant such as this, packed with unsourced [sic]and unsubstantiated claims?”), and puzzlingly, Sunrise host David Koch (where he states “*Koch rates turkey slapping, co host Mel, as funniest incident of 06.”)

His ongoing contributions can been seen here, and we applaud his excellent work.

Update: The good people at Girlfriend Magazine have also been hard at work.

The Editor updates (29 Aug): Chris has popped in to deny that he is responsible for these edits. Even so, they’re still hilarious edits for Fairfax staff to have made.

Update (30 Aug): Telstra go nus on Wikipedia. Very entertaining.

15 Comments

Bruce (Sunday 26 August 2007, 7:56 pm) #

Um…. Why would Girlfriend Magazine be editing entries about books by A. E. van Vogt?
John Surname (Sunday 26 August 2007, 10:43 pm) #

Who can say?
Christine Keeler (Monday 27 August 2007, 7:17 am) #

I’m impressed. They’re certainly a very bookish bunch over at Girlfriend. We should alert PBL about the terror in their midst.
The Editor (Monday 27 August 2007, 8:04 am) #

Chrissy got the front page of The Age today and treated us to some more of his cliched, turgid prose.

THE MCG, twilight. Not yet September. Two teams unlikely to make the finals are playing: Richmond, who went in at the bottom of the ladder but somehow won, and Essendon. But it was far from an ordinary night. In fact, as a spectacle, it was extraordinary. A blockbuster crowd of 88,468 witnessed the emotional final act in the story of two of Melbourne’s football immortals.

“THE MCG, twilight. Not yet September.” How can one man be so offensive using just six words?
Kevin from Bathurst (Monday 27 August 2007, 9:58 am) #

Wikipedia, the MMORPG of encyclopaedias.
I thought you needed Asperger’s to edit it anyway.
John Surname (Monday 27 August 2007, 10:36 am) #

Chris Johnston: Made the front page but somehow sucked.

And not regular sucked.

He tennis sucked.
Bridgit Gread (Monday 27 August 2007, 6:24 pm) #

And the reason Chris hasn’t yet commented in reply to this post?

“Google, search engine. Not yet propagated. A man’s brow furrows as, eagerly seeking hits on his own name, he turns up nothing new.”
The Editor (Monday 27 August 2007, 7:29 pm) #

The hush. The Google hush.
Christine Keeler (Monday 27 August 2007, 10:28 pm) #

Hi, Kevin from Bathurst! I used to live in Bathurst! Exciting, non?
chris (Tuesday 28 August 2007, 9:30 am) #

Hi.

I don’t mind you hooking into me as you seem to delight in doing, but please get the facts right. I have NEVER edited a Wikipedia entry, least of all on Airbourne, Kochy or Andrew Jaspan. I have written (but not edited or uploaded) one Wikipedia entry, last year, on Meredith, after a friend involved in it asked me to. But I’ve certainly never done what you claim.

I’d rather you check your facts a little more carefully if you’re going down that road in the future. It’s obviously not my personal IP address. Must be someone else in here. OK?

Thanks.
chris (Tuesday 28 August 2007, 10:21 am) #

Actually, the IP address you’ve wrongly used is not my personal one, but in fact the first code in the Fairfax Melbourne network’s IP range. That’s easy enough to prove.

I’m sure many people on the network edit Wiki pages, but I haven’t yet. When I do I’ll let you know.

Vitriol can be fun, but if the facts are correct it always means just that little bit more, I find.
Bridgit Gread (Tuesday 28 August 2007, 5:08 pm) #

I’m with Chris all the way. There’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest he’s been messing about with Wikipedia (for one thing there’s no page to be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Johnston.html)
Bruce (Wednesday 29 August 2007, 3:36 pm) #

Wikipedia, the MMORPG of encyclopaedias.
I thought you needed Asperger’s to edit it anyway.

Actually, this isn’t entirely unreasonable (I’m assuming it’s tongue in cheek). So many arguments stem from people thinking that their point of view is somehow magically neutral, “the objective view point” and everyone else’s are simply biased away from this “objective truth”.

A bit like Ayn Rand and classical music really.
Bruce (Wednesday 29 August 2007, 3:37 pm) #

Arguments on Wikipedia that is.
GrodsCorp » More sly Wikipedia editing (Thursday 30 August 2007, 2:59 pm) #

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