Ea Staffer rewrites ea History on Wikipedia (joystiq.com)

[7th lutz]

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/16/ea-staffer-plays-history-revisionist-on-wikipedia/

We already know that EA changes its screenshots, but is somebody trying to rewrite its history? Shacknews reports somebody with an IP address linked to the Electronic Arts Redwood City HQ is going into the EA Wikipedia page and altering the past. Using a tool called Wikipedia Scanner made by Cal Tech student Virgil Griffith, they discovered this IP address has made numerous alterations, the most damning occurred on Nov. 20, '06 when they erased Trip Hawkins as founder of the company. Later on, the same IP address added a paragraph emphasizing the work of Larry Probst, current EA chairman, and attempted to remove the scandalous EA Spouse saga.

Shacknews concludes saying that the IP address is responsible for one third of the 1,351 changes made by EA-registered IPs. Many of the changes made by the EA IPs have since been reversed by the Wikipedia community. EA would not comment on the issue. Maybe this person at EA is just striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that their next leap ... will be the leap home -- if those pesky Wikipedia people would just stop changing history back to the way it originally happened.

[8-bitNesMan]

Maybe they should change their motto to "Change everything"

[Matt-El]

Oooooohhhhh Boy, Sam!

[smokehouse]

Somehow this doesn’t surprise me one bit…as a company, I despise EA almost as much as Sony…

[heybtbm]

Remember when EA was just the company with the weird Genesis cartridges? Now they represent the worst of everything in the industry IMO.

Anyway, the good thing about Wikipedia is that bullshit usually gets corrected the same day and "convenient" deletions aren't missing for long.

[kjmontana]

Remember when EA was just the company with the weird Genesis cartridges? Now they represent the worst of everything in the industry IMO.


I remember when they made great Commodore 64 games(Dr. J/Larry Bird:One on One; Pinball Construction Set; Archon; M.U.L.E.; Robot Rascals, etc.)!

[GarrettCRW]

EA isn't the only company whose employees have been doctoring entries-someone at the New York Times has been meddling with the entry for the Wall Street Journal, and someone at Fox News has been attempting to smoove over aspects of Bill O'Reilly's entry while messing with the entries for Al Franken and Keith Olbermann. And I'm sure there's more.

[Berserker]

EA isn't the only company whose employees have been doctoring entries-someone at the New York Times has been meddling with the entry for the Wall Street Journal, and someone at Fox News has been attempting to smoove over aspects of Bill O'Reilly's entry while messing with the entries for Al Franken and Keith Olbermann. And I'm sure there's more.

As am I. However, unsurprised as I am, I think that whenever stories like this come up as much light as possible should be put on them. Embarrassments galore for any shameless company's attempts to fuck with community information.

[GarrettCRW]

As am I. However, unsurprised as I am, I think that whenever stories like this come up as much light as possible should be put on them. Embarrassments galore for any shameless company's attempts to fuck with community information.

Unfortunately, with major media outlets involved, few people not in tune with the 'net will get the complete story. The news story I saw (on Countdown) said something about Exxon's page being altered, as well as Bush's middle name being changed to Wanker, but I didn't catch whose employees were doing the editing.

[calthaer]

EA's motto? It probably goes something like:

"A fool and his money are easily parted."

This news doesn't even register as a minor tremor; this is par for the course when it comes to EA's sinistrosity.

[Sothy]

"Iggy says if you wanna get home you gotta work the shaft Sam! Work the shaft!"

[bangtango]

So who edited the entry? Easy guess. Just some shithead with 2 years tenure who wasn't around while Trip Hawkins was there.

[Push Upstairs]

Not surprised, but I don't care enough to get worked up about it.

[TheDomesticInstitution]

... By the company that has been running a huge scam (successfully) for more than a decade- Madden. But if they're able to make money off of it, that's capitalism right?

edit: reread previous posts and meant to title reply- "Also not surprised..."

[Sniderman]

And it's for precisely these reasons I don't let any of my authors use Wikipedia as a source in any paper, manuscript, or book I'm editing. Although useful and thorough, Wiki is so EASILY altered by anyone with an agenda. Or a vandal. Or damn near anyone.

Remember: All Wikipedia entries should be taken with a grain of salt. It is written by folks like us - and we're idiots.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

A grain of salt? Give me a whole shaker, Tim. Enough to melt a slug, if you don't mind.

[bangtango]

A grain of salt? Give me a whole shaker, Tim. Enough to melt a slug, if you don't mind.

How about a 5-pound bag of salt? According to recent Wikipedia "facts", the latest albums and singles from the likes of Billy Ray Cyrus, Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer (all of whom still record) have been racing up the Billboard charts like wildfire and going multi-platinum. Among many other one hit wonders that still perform, who suddenly have a more storied recording history than any of us ever remember.

The only thing I think their articles are good for at times is housing a lot of links on the subject you're reading about in one place. I've actually found a few useful web pages that ARE credible because they were listed as a source in some otherwise questionable Wikipedia articles.

[Berserker]

And it's for precisely these reasons I don't let any of my authors use Wikipedia as a source in any paper, manuscript, or book I'm editing. Although useful and thorough, Wiki is so EASILY altered by anyone with an agenda. Or a vandal. Or damn near anyone.

Remember: All Wikipedia entries should be taken with a grain of salt. It is written by folks like us - and we're idiots.

Oh, for sure. Wikipedia should never be cited as source material in any sort of professional context, IMO. I'm glad to hear that many Universities are taking a similar stance on this as well. User-submitted content is no substitute for real research.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I actually use Wikipedia to find links to places. So if someplace says "E=MC Squared" and has a reference link, I'll go to the link and try to verify that the statement is correct.

Anyway. Back on topic.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=27751

[The_4th_Survivor]

EA's motto? It probably goes something like:

"A fool and his money are easily parted."



No offense to any Madden NFL or any EA Sports Fans here, but that pretty much describes them, especially if they buy it on launch day.

Interesting Tidbit - I'm sure you all know this, but the value of Madden 07 has plummeted dramatically. My cousin traded in his PS3 copy and only got $5.00 credit for it. rofl

Serious sports games are so volatile. Hell, I have more of a chance of selling a copy of SMB/Duck Hunt for the NES at $5.00 a piece instead of 20 copies of any Madden game from 06 or earlier.

[Ed Oscuro]

Honestly, with names like CIA, Bush, the DRC, and The Vatican thrown around in related news stories, I'm surprised that there wasn't really much of substance. EA's news is the closest to "sinister" any of them had gotten, with the possible exception of the alleged changes from the Holy See.

[bangtango]

No offense to any Madden NFL or any EA Sports Fans here, but that pretty much describes them, especially if they buy it on launch day.

Interesting Tidbit - I'm sure you all know this, but the value of Madden 07 has plummeted dramatically. My cousin traded in his PS3 copy and only got $5.00 credit for it. rofl

Serious sports games are so volatile. Hell, I have more of a chance of selling a copy of SMB/Duck Hunt for the NES at $5.00 a piece instead of 20 copies of any Madden game from 06 or earlier.

The fact the prices fall so quickly on sports games allows a late buyer like me to reap the benefits.

I have a big pile of sports games from the PS1, PS2, XBox and Cube which date from 99' to 06'. None of which I bought at launch. I got every last one of them for $10 or less, most of them were $5 or less.

I don't care what anyone says. Some of the mid-life PS2 and XBox sports titles still look pretty damn good when you take into consideration you can get just about any of those titles complete for $4 or less at Gamestop. Most of them are 99 cents and when you take into account their "Buy X, Get X Free" offers, well you get the idea. Rosters that are outdated by 3-4 years don't bother me. At least I'm still getting real teams and real players.

[ProgrammingAce]

So i guess i'm the only one here who goes in and edits the wikipedia to win arguments?

One of my favorites was when i changed the expiration date for Baily's liquor so i would feel better about drinking a 3 month old bottle (for the record, it is supposedly good for 6 months).

Or if i can't remember what an acronym stands for, i'll just go in and make it whatever i want.

[Push Upstairs]

Oh, for sure. Wikipedia should never be cited as source material in any sort of professional context, IMO. I'm glad to hear that many Universities are taking a similar stance on this as well. User-submitted content is no substitute for real research.


Heh...I used sources from Wikipedia for both a paper on Steel and Green Plastics...neither teacher cared.

But then again there isn't much to be gained from continually changing articles on those two subjects.

[Ed Oscuro]

You shouldn't use Wikipedia as a source, but rather use the sources listed in the article.

[Kitsune Sniper]

You shouldn't use Wikipedia as a source, but rather use the sources listed in the article.

Sometimes the sources aren't any good either. :p

[Ed Oscuro]

Caveat emptor...and to abuse another cliche, beggars can't be choosers!

Book references are especially problematic, as you can't usually read the text. For anything contentious I demand to see the actual text of before I use it as a source.

[Push Upstairs]

Well I already wrote the papers (got an A on the plastics one) but I'll be wary of "teh Wiki" in the future.

[James8BitStar]

Wasn't there a survey conducted which showed Wikipedia to be more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica?

What does that say about the Enc. Brit then?

[E Nice]

Who did they survey?

[Ed Oscuro]

Wasn't there a survey conducted which showed Wikipedia to be more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica?

What does that say about the Enc. Brit then?
Wikipedia ALMOST as accurate as Britannica (http://news.com.com/Study+Wikipedia+as+accurate+as+Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html)

Edit: Or not (http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/vandals.html)

[Dave Farquhar]

Some Wikipedia articles are very good, but for each good one, you can find at least two that have serious problems. At one time I was a top-1,000 contributor over there. Even in 2005 when I was at my peak, I saw people with agendas deleting stuff from my entries. I got pretty tired of that. I do the occasional edit/update now but I don't spend nearly the kind of time there that I used to. I got tired of the agendas, and I figured out more profitable ways to spend my weekend hours.

I look at Wikipedia as a good place to get a quick overview of something, and I probably visit it almost every day for that purpose. It's also nice that it has lots of entries that would never see the light of day in a regular encyclopedia. EA is a good example. But in research papers, you really shouldn't be quoting the World Book either (I knew some instructors who would let the Brittanica slide). If I were a teacher (I'm not) and a student could show me a mistake in a Wikipedia article and a source that proves it, I'd be happy. It proves the student was doing real research.

[Rob2600]

Wikipedia.org is a great tool, but when researching a topic, people should always refer to more than one source, whether it be in print, on disc, or on the internet. Imagine a college student writing a report using only Encyclopedia Britannica or only Microsoft Encarta. That would be foolish, so why do people think they can use Wikipedia.org as their only source?