As reported in a recent Sydney Morning Herald article, politicians, or possibly staff of those politicians are altering articles in wikipedia usually to remove information they do not like about themselves. This disgusts me. I have to be held accountable for all my actions. Every time I go for a new job, they do a background check on me, and my future employers query anything they think may require further explanation. Do our politicians truly believe that they are untouchable, and can just tell people what they want them to believe. Somethings they can't avoid - like if they were born into families of great influence. Other things they can - like choosing not to drink and drive.
Politicians (or their staff) should not alter their own wiki articles. It causes a waste of resources for people to patrol these articles instead of patrolling normal articles. Go and publish lies or cover ups on your own website guys, and leave wikipedia to the people! Fortunately, mediawiki comes with it's own versioning system, which allows for rollbacks to occur to more truthful versions. The only problem is that it takes resources for this to occur. The flip side to this is people posting lies on a politician's article page. My belief is that happens less then politicans attempting to cover up information. Any wild accusations need to be followed up with some external references. Keep in mind that "the truth is always the best defence against slander".
For more information, have a look at Timeshift9's wikipedia user page.
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." -- V (V for Vendetta - 2006)
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