Wikipedia and the Intelligence Services
오마이뉴스, South Korea - 1 hour ago
While researching my next article about the Lockerbie bombing, I witnessed an incident that made me wonder whether intelligence agents had infiltrated ...

We made the news 3 times. Yay us. Woo hoo. Only one article though.

But this is pretty huge, and I bet it'll lead to lots more.

I agree, this is huge. It seems to be largely drawn from the Geocities article, which contains information which has been redacted from the WR.

Has anyone ever actively tried to touch base with the press, from here? I've seen a few comments on blogs, telling article writers to come here, but I mean, actively, like write articles, or something like that.

That would do wonders for the visibility of the mandate.

This is not the huge news now! Is nothing to be seeing here. You will be moving along now, yes?

Not to the extent that we probably will over the next 6 months or so...

Reporters usually want real names and don't like to interview people via e-mail, I've noticed. That's a bit of a stumbling block around here, and in Wikiland in general, I suppose.

Well, Daniel Brandt can give his real name. I have given my real name before. I am sure that we could sort something out. Individuals will have to decide whether or not they are prepared to give their real names though, if they want to be interviewed.

AP reporter Brian Bergstein and I already have a sort of "repartee" where we'll keep each other up to date occasionally, notably on things related to Wikipedia and especially Jimbo Wales. Bergstein seems to have Wales' number, and he's written often about the gigantic encyclopediblog.

If the WR wants a real person to represent the forum to a real reporter, you've got one such pairing right there.

Greg

I nominate Greg Kohs (or second his semi-self-nomination).

He's been a good spokesperson so far, and it is right up his alley.

Someone with name recognition needs to be the press person. And he is known for being a good-faithed person that got Wiki-slimed (pardon the pun on SV).

Besides him being a good representative, it raises his profile for Centiare and increases the case for his Wikibusiness. The more successful someone gets, the less easy it is to push them down.

This might be beyond the scope of what Greg was offering and I have my doubts if he would reap much in terms of personal value. Still I think Greg would be a natural choice as WR's spokesperson/press liaison/minister of information. I guess I would "second" DL's "nomination."

i think Greg would be great as long as he has the time to do so...i imagine inquiries from the press would be sporadic.

Somey would of course be the natural choice as he seems to do the day to day things around here...

Somey would be better than me, with the stipulation that he's willing to put a name and a face to himself for reporters/photographers/podcasters.

Just to dispel a couple of things if I do end up with this post -- first, I would have enough time to act as a press liason, especially if the gang "fed" me with clearly organized talking points on various issues, etc.

Second, I don't have much interest in promoting Centiare at this time. To concede a point to Guy Chapman, the world isn't yet ready for semantic web via the Mediawiki platform. Thanks to the 90/9/1 rule, too few average people actually know how to create a good wiki article. Even so, I'm surprised that an organization like Little League Baseball hasn't woken up to the possibilities of a semantic wiki database (imagine every pee-wee team in the world, immortalized with player names, positions, stats, and photos, which could be archived season after season after season. Then imagine doing semantic layered searches for things like "active left-handed pitchers with at least 6 wins, in the state of Nebraska".) Would be cool. And, it would have helped if perpetual critics like Guy Chapman would have endorsed the platform, rather than disparaged it.

But, as I said, Somey gets my vote, if he's willing to not be an anonymous source. Journalists won't go for that.

Greg

We probably should have someone. Has anyone got any reporting experience, or journalism ish?

I'm imagining it, and it is terrifying.


I beg to differ. What about deepthroat? He could be deep-Somey? (Deepblue?)

Okay, maybe Little League baseball wasn't the best example, considering our concerns with Wikipedia's various and strange pages featuring young children.

How about a semantic database of strip clubs?

Er, wait.

How about a multi-layered search of a list of former Mormons?

Harumph. Okay, I can see why Centiare should be nuked. There are no useful applications of semantic web software that don't lead to conflict!

Greg