I missed this story last week, but the Congressional Quarterly reports that Congressional staffers have been spending time editing Wikipedia:
Political spats, petty vandalism, cleft chins and Rep. Rahm Emanuel’s (fictional) death by shark attack — Wikipedia users on House computers clearly have a lot of time on their hands.
A new online tool has made it possible to see a full archive of edits to the popular online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, organized by the computer network from which they originated. The list of categories includes major corporations, media outlets, and, of course, Congress.
There are thousands of individual edits originating from computer users on the House of Representatives network. While most of the changes are nothing more than regular Wikipedia interactions on non-government topics, a hefty number include edits to lawmakers’ entries — and some House Wikipedians might not be entirely pleased to see their handiwork exposed.
I’m glad to see that the business of government is so stress-free that staffers have time to play on the Internet.
