Is Grant Shapps being naughty on Wikipedia – or did a Lib Dem stitch him up?

The story of Grant Shapps and Wikipedia – which dominated news coverage of the General Election for a whole day last week – shows that new media can make a monkey out of respectable old media – even with a tale that falls far short of old media’s standards of proof. The purpose of what follows is not to defend Shapps, who is …

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Bailey

claims to have inserted mildly odd "facts" into his Spotlight entry ..

"Is OK around poultry"

"Can work up stepladders"

"Can adopt a Japanese accent"

and my favourite

"Can hover"

[sabroni]

We can see the edit history and discussion.

It's either a very elaborate stitch up or the edits of a very stupid tory toerag. Reading the wikipedia discussions around contribsx's edits leads me to suspect the latter.

[Shoot Them Later]

Re: We can see the edit history and discussion.

I think this is the important point - there are only two plausible explanations for contribsx's actions in my view - either a deliberate fit-up of Schapps by a malicious third party, or Schapps or some other associate has actually been using that account for edits. Nothing else really makes sense.

Sure, the LibDems may have an axe to grind against Schapps, and it certainly seems like they have jumped on this one to cause him difficulty, possibly leaking stories and getting a not-so-independent-wikipedian to act. But that is very different from actively framing him for something he or his associates did not do.

When it comes down to the choice of whether contribsx is a Tory/Schapps sockpuppet or was it an elaborate framing by another party, then on balance of probabilities I would easly choose the former because Schapps has form in this area and (in my personal opinion) he is so untrustworthy that I don't really believe a word he says.

In the interests of balance I hope both Schapps and the LibDems get shafted at the forthcoming election.

[100113.1537]

Re: We can see the edit history and discussion.

"Schapps has form in this area and (in my personal opinion) he is so untrustworthy that I don't really believe a word he says."

This is exactly the point Andrew is making - you are not using anything other than your own opinion to determine the truth in the absence of any evidence (previous actions are not evidence). You are perfectly entitled to do this and may very well be correct, but this is NOT how journalists are supposed to operate and especially not during an election campaign.

Journalists are expected to show a level of professional integrity, which is why they receive a certain amount of trust over an above other members of the public, including a different handling under the law with respect to naming sources etc. It is clear that many journalists are not living up to their responsibilities.

[Doctor_Wibble]

Re: We can see the edit history and discussion.

Does it need to be one or the other? Why not some combination of the two?

That way we get to blame *everybody* which is always more fun.

[Voland's right hand]

Re: We can see the edit history and discussion.

I do not need to think here.

Let me just consider it. A "Web Marketeer". Once again, let me consider it, "A Web Marketeer". No, I do not need to even consider which one is more likely to be telling the truth and which one is not.

[Ian K]

Overly generous to the tabloids

"The point is that respected media organisations have become so in awe of Wikipedia that they’re prepared to flush age old journalistic principles – such as requiring two sources, or asking for hard evidence of an allegation – down the toilet."

TBH the principle of two sources or hard evidence is something most tabloids are happy to ignore whenever there's a nice headline to be had.

Get them in full blown election mode and they're not fussed about having even one source, or any sort of evidence, if they think they can get out a smear against "the other lot".

[Anonymous Coward]

"the unchecked allegation of a Wikipedia administrator"

"the unchecked allegation of a Wikipedia administrator was enough to make the story run."

Er, no, actually.

The unchecked allegation would likely have gone nowhere if it weren't for Shapps already rather checkered career history, which is glossed over (to put it politely) in the article here.

[codejunky]

Re: "the unchecked allegation of a Wikipedia administrator"

Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck but its just an image on a screen. Unchecked allegations are just that. There is plenty to catch out the many people in the government, no need to make stuff up or 'guess'.

[Thought About IT]

Re: "the unchecked allegation of a Wikipedia administrator"

Shapps credibility wasn't helped when he said that you only needed to look at his diary to see that he was elsewhere when the edits were made. That from a man who made his fortune out of the Internet!

[Thought About IT]

Re: "the unchecked allegation of a Wikipedia administrator"

Surprised to get voted down for that, in a forum where everybody must have heard of wi-fi! Was that you Contribsx?

[S4qFBxkFFg]

For those who need a laugh.

New readers may not be aware, but Mr. Shapps once decided to try his hand at writing for El Reg:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/06/tory_tech_savvy/

[teebie]

Re: For those who need a laugh.

so he provides services to both the Register and the Conservatives? Suspicious.

(No, of course it isn't suspicious, but nor is getting training from the same company as someone else)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For those who need a laugh.

"Mr. Shapps once decided to try his hand at writing for El Reg:"

I'm not a new reader, indeed I'm an old reader (yea, even unto the days of the Mageek) but somehow I seem to have missed that article. Even though I probably wouldn't have been aware at the time of who Michael Green or Grant Shapps were, I wouldn't have completely forgotten the rubbish in the article or the gems from the commentariat in entirely appropriate response.

Your comment needed more than an upvote. Have an anonymous pint on me.

[Pen-y-gors]

Hang on a minute

He's a politician, in particular he's a Tory politician. Someone who, by definition, cannot tell the difference between truth and falsehood.Therefore he's fair game. It's not a question of whether he's guilty or innocent, but is it plausible?

e.g. if someone tweeted that top tories eat babies for breakfast, as a way of cutting down on the child benefit bill, would we believe them? Would the BBC pick up the story? Would it matter if Theresa May actually eats 3 shredded wheat for brekkie, and saves the babies for a mid-morning snack? Truth is the first victim of the fog of politics.

[god, I'm getting too cynical. I blame the guverment]

[ToddR]

Re: Hang on a minute

Groan, yep only Tory MPs tell fibs!

[sabroni]

Re: only Tory MPs tell fibs!

Well, this one just "over firmly denies" things. Not fibbing as such.

[FredBloggs61]

Re: Hang on a minute

They eat babies? I knew it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Letchworth Salad.

That is all.

[JimmyPage]

"It can't have been me, I was out of the country"

was Mr. Shapps defence on radio, last week. I had to pull over to roll on the floor.

It summed up everything that is wrong with politicians and technology.

[Lamont Cranston]

Re: "It can't have been me, I was out of the country"

Yes, I rather enjoyed that, too. Listening to him squirm is delightful.

Nick Clegg's suggestion that "Michael Green did it" was one of the rare instances of a politician actually making a good joke, too.

[Alan Denman]

Re: "It can't have been me, I was out of the country"

No, he said he was busy adhering to religious events.

Rather strageley, the small print in his religious policy let him carry on tweeting on those 'unavailable' days.

[Alan Brown]

Re: "It can't have been me, I was out of the country"

Well, it worked for the Prime Minister of New Zealand when challenged about the Kim Dot Com stuff...

[Anonymous Coward]

No side is looking good here

I wouldn't go as far as a Reg commenter who, in replying to Mr Shapps' Register article from 2010, called him a "lying, clueless gobshite" - but the problem is that Shappsy has got form.

Even though it looks very much like he has been stitched up here by Lib Dem activists and the media, his denials are ringing hollow because he's been caught out previously in some major lying action.

Of course, being a politician he didn't actually admit that he'd lied. He said that he had "over-firmly denied" the accusation. Much as I dislike the guy, I have to admit this is a beautiful bending of the English language, at least as good as anything they came up with in Yes Minister. It will no doubt make it to the lexicon of great political euphemisms, alongside "economical with the truth" and other such classics.

[Alan Brown]

Re: No side is looking good here

"Even though it looks very much like he has been stitched up here by Lib Dem activists and the media,"

Looking at the edits and the writing styles involved and comparing to other material, I'd say the only stitching up required was the tiny amount required to link account A from X years ago with account B fwith more recent activity.

Wikipedia may well not keep data, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if certain individuals have been tracking activity for a long time to see if the IP addresses match up.

[John Lilburne]

Unfortunately this isn't about a tory sleezebag

The main issue is that in general the media have something of a blind spot with regards anything that comes out of a wikipedia (similarly with twitter, facebook, reddit, and maybe even 4chan). They don't understand the nature of the site, in particular that its contributors are the same people that 20 years ago you would hear in the pub[1], pontificating as experts, on any number of subjects they knew practically nothing about.

A slight exaggeration as few of the wikipedia regulars are of legal drinking age.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chase me's mistake

Was to do what he did himself. If they had pointed out the editing to another administrator, who would probably have come to a similar conclusion about a possible Shapps/wiki link and then reported the incident to the (onside) paper then they could have come out looking like a "concerned citizen" rather than giving the Daily Mail the opportunity to put LIBERAL SMEAR CAMPAIGN on their front page.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, the guy had form and form and form!

He had already broke the rules editing his own Wiki describing his action as 'deleting grafitti'.

As we know deletion is 'Undo', no prolific spin was needed which was a trait at the time.

Heck, even his 'Get Rich Quick' alias 2nd life is the same.

The only difference I see in him to most of the Tory party is that he was just unsubtle about it !

Look at Cameron, peas of the same pod, we can see that now in this election.

[Naselus]

Shapps is known both for sock puppeting, and for denying it. Even if it is a stitch-up, it's one that highlights his dodgy behaviour in the past - which is itself scandalous.

Besides, the idea that modern journalism involves any checking sources is decidedly out of date. Since the 1980s, journalism has increasingly become a matter of producing as much copy as possible in the shortest amount of time and who cares if it's true. The number of stories which are just PR releases inserted verbatim is both enormous and pretty obvious if you read two of three newspapers on the same day. Nick Davies pointed this out extensively in Flat Earth News over ten years ago (and Noam Chomsky was suggesting it ten years before that).

[Yugguy]

Liars all of them

None of the entire shower of shite of them of any party is worth voting for.

[Yugguy]

Cock Jockey

I once changed Tim Westwood's wiki page to read "cock jockey" instead of "dick jockey". It lasted a surprisingly long time, almost 48 hours, and I still maintain is a far more accurate description.

[AbelSoul]

Re: Cock Jockey

I once changed Tim Westwood's wiki page to read "cock jockey" instead of "dick jockey"

I'm going to take a punt here and guess that you meant disc?

[Chris King]

“It’s the wisdom of the crowd that gives you the best results in the long-term"

Rory Cellan-Jones has obviously never encountered:

(a) Riots ;

(b) Political party conferences ;

(c) Chimpanzees flinging dung to make intruders run away.

The edit-wars I've encountered on Wikipedia mostly resemble (c).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: “It’s the wisdom of the crowd that gives you the best results in the long-term"

I'd add the tyranny of enough votes called democracy to this list of disproofs, this doesn't even have to be a majority of voters with a first-past-the-post (most unfair) voting system like we have. I rarely like any of the political parties enough to maybe consider voting and a vote is often pointless because of too many sheeple vote elsewhere, or the elected politician (thug), or political party (gang) with whips, just do what they like once elected, irrespective of some specious manifesto!

[Primus Secundus Tertius]

BBC and sources

The BBC are not supposed to call anything "News" if there are not at least two sources. That is, or was, written into their "Guidelines for Producers".

Some ten years ago I prepared a set of comments relating to the renewal of the BBC Charter, and studied those Guidelines.

[Will Godfrey]

Just another minus grade

This has to be the worst election run-up I've ever known by a country mile. The lot of them are behaving worse than a playground full of kids, and if anyone previously had any doubts about the media's part in political 'management' they must surely have lost them now.

At this moment in time I really can't see any point in bothering to vote at all. I'm almost convinced my time would be better spent sat in the garden watching the grass grow.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Just another minus grade

"The lot of them are behaving worse than a playground full of kids"

When politicians resort to this kind of thing you know that the party policies aren't worth a shower of shit.

[Chris King]

Re: Just another minus grade

"At this moment in time I really can't see any point in bothering to vote at all. I'm almost convinced my time would be better spent sat in the garden watching the grass grow."

I haven't become quite that cynical yet, but I know I'm going to have a difficult time deciding where to place my "X".

It's no longer a case of "Which candidate will serve me best ?" - it hasn't been that way for a long time.

Now, it's more a case of "Which candidate will cause me the least damage ?"

[sabroni]

Re: Which candidate will cause me the least damage ?

It's the government of the whole country. Don't you think about other people just a little bit?

[sabroni]

Re: Don't you think about other people?

That wasn't supposed to be a stumper.....

[hi_robb]

Grant Shapps

Is innocent.

/edited by Grant Shapps.