HERE IS HOW DUROVA LIBELS

Entries on Wikipedia edited by Davis aide
Press secretary also admits deleting info on brother via federal computer

By Tom Humphrey (Contact)
Saturday, August 11, 2007

U.S. Rep. David Davis’ press secretary has acknowledged using a congressional office computer to delete unflattering information about his boss and his brother from biographies on an Internet encyclopedia. (The guy actually removed cruft from radical pro-lifers - Durova didn't bother to read it, duh!)

The efforts of T----- H---have been deemed “blanking vandalism” by an editor for Wikipedia who detected the alterations to articles about Davis and state Rep. Matthew Hill, R-Jonesboro. The state Democratic Party also criticizes the changes.

Hill said in an interview that he made a mistake that would not be repeated. He said he was not familiar with Wikipedia and its procedures and was simply trying to perform his job.

“My job is to make sure statements about my boss are truthful and, sometimes, as positive as possible,” he said. “That’s what I do.”

H--- said he regularly searches the Internet for references to Davis, a freshman Republican from Johnson City. When he came across the Wikipedia entry on the congressman, Hill said some of the information struck him as “inaccurate” and “trying to hurt my boss.”

“I tried to take it out (information he considered inaccurate) and replace it with accurate stuff,” he said.

His efforts were detected by a Wikipedia administrator who restored the text to its former version and later reported on the episode in an article for another Web site. (Guess which Wikipedia Administrator?)

The changes to entries about Davis and Matthew Hill were made in June.

Part of the information Hill sought to delete involved political contributions to both his brother and Davis by former King Pharmaceuticals CEO John Gregory as well as other ties to the Gregory family.

“It wasn’t anything that was intended to be destructive or disruptive,” Hill said of his efforts. “What took place was just simply a misunderstanding of how to edit the site.”

A Wikipedia spokesman confirmed the article had been written by one of its volunteer administrator/editors, who uses the pen name Durova. In a telephone interview, she identified herself as Lise Broer of San Diego. Her full article may be found at http://www/searchengineland.com/070717-113550.php.

Broer said Wikipedia has paid particular attention to submissions from congressional office computers since a “scandal” in 2006 over revisions to biographies of several members of Congress. In general, the revisions would delete negative information, such as broken campaign promises, and replace it with more favorable information. (Ok, that happened in 2006, but that's not what TH did, and Durova made a false allegation. And published it. And took interviews on the topic.)

Davis took office in January. Hill came to Washington with Davis.

Broer said “vandalism” occurs when someone deletes information from a Wikipedia article that has been properly attributed, providing the sources of the statement or documents.

Under Wikipedia procedures, if a person deems a statement unfair or inaccurate, he or she should contact the Web site and present his or her case.

Wade Munday, spokesman for the Tennessee Democratic Party, said the situation “calls the judgment of Congressman Davis and his staff into question about what is the appropriate and inappropriate use of their time as public servants.”

Munday said it would be appropriate for a political campaign, following Wikipedia procedures, to challenge information deemed incorrect on a Web site entry. Many campaigns do so, he said.

But he said it was inappropriate for “a staffer on a federal payroll” and using the U.S. House computer system to do so.

Hill said that, had he understood Wikipedia rules, he would probably have logged in as required and sought to make revisions from his home computer.

When initially contacted about the attempts to revise the Davis and Rep. Hill biographies, Hill told the News Sentinel he was not personally responsible. But he called a reporter back later to say he had spoken off the cuff on his cell phone in the midst of a hectic event involving the congressman and “miscommunicated.”

He had, indeed, made the revisions, Hill said, and “I apologize for the confusion.”

Tom Humphrey may be reached at 615-242-7782.

• This false allegation resulted in a US Congressional House Ethics investigation (which found nothing)
• The office of the Congressman sent the Press Officer to "classes" for punishment
• He left his job three months later.
• He was granted a Wikipedia bio (now thankfully erased)
• But the wikinews still has it online as "news".

QUOTE

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/found...une/043849.html

Oh, it goes beyond that. Even if the behavior has clearly crossed the line
into criminal conduct then getting law enforcement to stop them is difficult
to impossible. In my lifetime I have stood in front of police officers,
restraining order in hand, and pointed to the precise lines that the perp
(who was standing ten feet away) was violating at that very moment before
the officers' eyes, and the officers refused to take the perp into custody.
That happened not once but repeatedly with different officers. And their
chain of command supported them. I have witnessed police refuse to take a
report for a direct death threat even when a restraining order was already
in place. And after I did get police reports, the police misplaced physical
evidence repeatedly. When I went to court with an armful of physical
evidence, the prosecutor himself showed up at court having left the entire
case file behind on his desk, and cut a sweetheart deal with the defense
attorney while shutting me out. I asked to speak to the prosecutor
repeatedly, but was denied the opportunity until after the judge had already
ruled, at which point the prosecutor told me all my evidence was past
history and might as well be thrown away.

I did get that fellow behind bars, though. And I did some things to make
sure that prosecutor's office never handled another case that sloppily again
(when it changes endorsements in the mayor's race they change their tune).

In short, I'm no noob and I'm no fool. These last few months several people
have been telling me who Gavin de Becker is, as if I hadn't already read
"The Gift of Fear" years before I joined Wikipedia. I don't entirely agree
with Mr. de Becker. I see where he's coming from, but he and I have
philosophical differences. I also think Wikipedia is different enough from
the world of his usual clients that his approach requires modification.