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A grad student at CalTech has developed Wikipedia Scanner, a search tool for Wikipedia that allows people to search edits by IP address and see if there are people out there who are trying to spin entries on the site in their (or, rather, their employers’) favor. Wired’s Threat Level blog is keeping a running diary of egregious self-edits; so far, they’ve only found one music-related one–the above edit by the country singer Roger Hallmark, who at least is up-front about his shilling.*
But if there’s one thing we know, it’s that some musicians’–and music-biz types’–egos are wayyyyy too big for that to be an isolated occurrence. Anyone want to give Wikipedia Scanner a whirl with, say, Warner Music Group’s IP block? Or, if you happen to know his ISP offhand, Eddie Van Halen’s, for that matter?
Roger Hallmark [Wikipedia, via ThreatLevel]
* Not that we’re above shilling for ourselves–too bad some Wikinerd-beloved band has already bitten our page title.
Someone at the RIAA is quite vigilant with regards to the TLC content on Wikipedia: [en.wikipedia.org]
Clearly, it’s time for an Idolator disambiguation page.
ok, this is freaky, my iTunes shuffle just played Mr. Hallmark’s “Message To Khomeini” a few hours back and now i see this… are we about to start bombing Iran today, is that what you’re telling me, universe? Or are you just reminding me I need to rip the b-side (Maharishi) too?