Talk:CongressEdits

Scope
Unless we're going to have a suite of such articles (not least about the first of such accounts, the UK parliament one), this should be recast as an article about them all. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:28, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Other accounts include:


 * ParliamentEdits
 * the North Carolina General Assembly
 * Australian Parliament
 * Chilean Congress
 * Irish Government
 * Israeli Government — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.119.142.31 (talk) 17:39, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
 * French National Assembly
 * Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)

-- Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:24, 16 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Russian Government — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.206.63.238 (talk) 08:20, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Name
Should it be CongressEdits, Congressedits, or congressedits? The sources go all over the place on how to describe it with regards to uppercase and lowercase. Tutelary (talk) 01:56, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't know what sources you mean, but strictly in terms of readability, I vote for CongressEdits. JohnValeron (talk) 03:04, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Same, I was referring to the sources that come up when 'CongressEdits' is googled, there's all sorts of variation. Tutelary (talk) 03:15, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

False flag operations
Now that Congress has become aware of CongressEdits people should be on the look out for false flag ops. Congressional offices may be making positive edits to their opponents to make it look as though that representative is making their own page better. Did someone in Frederica Wilson's office really add to her page that she wears the prettiest hats in the whole Congress, or was it a false flag op by Sheila Jackson Lee? Conspiracy!? 143.231.249.138 (talk) 12:48, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
 * You... uh... you do realize CongressEdits caught the fact that the False Flag post here came from a congressional account, right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.120.171.161 (talk • contribs) 19:33, 21 July 2014‎

Are you insinuating that posts from a congressional account are prohibited on this Talk page? If so, I'd be grateful if you'd link to the Wikipedia policy or guideline that establishes that prohibition. Thanks. JohnValeron (talk) 18:52, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Conflict of interest
This article was created by an anonymous user, whose IP address turned out to be the US Congress itself. Sounds like a conflict of interest there. Digifiend (talk) 08:02, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
 * As a user, I've made a couple of edits to this article but was unaware of its origin. Thank you for pointing out that it was created by IP 143.231.249.138, at whose user page and user talk page I've been heavily involved of late. Currently, IP 143.231.249.138 is blocked for 10 days due to disruptive editing.
 * However, notwithstanding the long history of abuse associated with IP 143.231.249.138, I see no WP:CONFLICT here. As shown by the edit history, IP 143.231.249.138 submitted this page for review in draft form on 15 July 2014. Aside from the usual tags, IP 143.231.249.138 added only one sentence of text: "CongressEdits is a Twitter bot created in 2014 to track anonymous changes to Wikipedia by Congressional IP addresses." Since then, IP 143.231.249.138 has made no edits to this page, which was reviewed and approved by admin Pigsonthewing on 16 July 2014.
 * In my opinion, the mere creation of this page and inclusion of a single, straightforward and uncontentious sentence does not constitute a conflict of interest. Moreover, it's important to note that since IP 143.231.249.138 may be shared by multiple users, it's impossible to tell whether or not the person who has been persistently vandalizing Wikipedia from that address also created this page.
 * Even so, we should be alert to the possibility that IPs within the dedicated Congressional range might indeed have a conflict in editing this page. Thank you for drawing attention to this adverse potential. JohnValeron (talk) 15:20, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: I'm not an admin. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:16, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I apologize for misidentifying you. When I saw that you'd written on your user page "I am an administrator on uk.wikimedia.org," I presumed your admin privileges carry over to en.wikipedia.org. Thank you for correcting my misunderstanding. JohnValeron (talk) 20:52, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I concur with JohnValeron that there isn't a problem here (so far?). Generally I see COI as more of a warning/advisory info than a problem in and of itself. The problem comes with non-neutral, biased, or misleading editing that a person with a COI may be more likely than the average user to engage in. Thanks for pointing it out though. HistoricMN44 (talk) 13:58, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Capitol Hill training - August 18
Hi! In case anyone here is interested, there's going to be a panel discussion on Congressional edits to Wikipedia, ways staffers can be helpful and good community members, and issues of notability, neutrality, and conflict of interest. The panel discussion will be in one of the House office buildings in Washington DC on August 18 and is open to the public. RSVP and read more about it here. Thanks! HistoricMN44 (talk) 13:29, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for informing us about this important development. I won't be able to attend, but I hope you and/or other attendees will give us an update here afterwards. JohnValeron (talk) 15:49, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Link to a block log
In the controversy section of this page, there is a link to a block log (this one). Do we really need a link to it? The only people who will understand that page are experienced editors and I don't think that the link clarifies anything for the majority of readers, if anything it will only confuse readers who have never edited WP before. The link is in bold in the following text "Referring to an admin's 10-day block for disruptive editing, imposed on July 24 against IP 143.231.249.138, a shared address within the range assigned to the U.S House of Representatives..." Thanks.  Seagull123  Φ  10:46, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

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