User:Arationalguy/GW

Discovery of longstanding disruptive editing by a tendentious editor
This summary demonstrates an sample of edits made by a sophisticated editor, who, over several months has been closely guarding and tendentiously controlling the POV of a Wikipedia article in order to perpetuate negative bias. Note the elaborate network of supporting articles at the bottom. Overall, it's a fascinating case study of strategic planning. I also recommend the GWU discussion page, which is even more interesting in chronological sequence.[]

Background

“You do realize this is not a real "university" right?”

This response by the editor who created most of the article was the first clue something was wrong -- especially since the suggestion by the other editor was merely to conform irregular formatting to mirror any other university article.[]

After a bit of digging, the school appeared like any other of its genre (a small liberal arts college complete with bumpy start and growing pains) with nothing to support his claim of illegitimacy. After looking through the edit history, I discovered that attempts had been made to restore a NPOV, but nearly had been immediately reverted--mostly by this single editor. But most surprisingly, I discovered evidence pointing to this editor actually creating an elaborate network of mutually supporting WP articles for the sole purpose of satisfying whatever this vendetta was about. With over 5000 edits to his name, he is very experienced. And his subtle technique is remarkably effective. Whatever his complaint, I can't imagine it being appropriate for WP editors to think themselves in a position to pass such judgments--especially just to use WP as a soapbox.

Some highlights from this history are documented below chronologically.

Edit history diffs

 * - Relabeled of "off campus programs" (which use physical classrooms) and "distance programs" (which includes telephone mentoring) in a way that removes context to make appear like a diploma mill.


 * - Renamed the Comanity heading to make the school appear to award course credit in a questionable manner. No references support this. In reality, it appears that students may only earn limited Field Experience practica credit (not course credit) if approved and demonstrably applicable to academic studies. This includes an extensive paper documenting lessons learned by the student. See talk page for discussion.


 * - Removed the text indicating who the school was named after. (Based on the other pages he is creating about Jefferson, he fully realizes relevant significance of this namesake.) Adds instead a piece of outdated history to the introduction.


 * - Rearranged wording so that the "merit scholarship" becomes a "discount of up to 50% dubbed a 'merit scholarship'" A rather condescending edit.


 * Switching from neutral verbiage to the more absolute "the school would be accredited by 2002" is clearly intended to reflect poorly on DeMille. The citation does not justify language this concrete.


 * Used a minor cleanup opportunity to remove legitimate regional attractions and cast the school's location in a trivial and negative light for a liberal arts school.


 * Used minor cleanup to eliminate mention of housing with SUU students. Effect is to protect his portrayal of the school as isolationist.


 * Deliberately portrayed the school as commercialized and for-profit by adding a sentence on ways the school generates revenue to the introductory paragraph in order to highlight "selling products". (Of course, all colleges generate extra revenue like this via bookstores, athletics, etc., but they are not introduced that way in WP articles.)


 * To drive home his "commercialism" portrayal, he then creates a link to the WP article on "product sales" -- as if somehow relevant.


 * Removed "Liberal Arts" and adds "claims to be" in the introductory paragraph.


 * Added a quote box with a manipulated mission statement: "The mission of this university is not to expand or convey knowledge... It is to build men and women" (compare actual mission statement: http://www.gw.edu/about/mission/)


 * Removed remaining sentence about student life mirroring SUU students (apparently even that was too generous).


 * Gruntsmith, apparently with some knowledge about the school, recognizes article bias and makes numerous corrections (although unreferenced) and deletes some sections. He states "Content was persuasive, not informative and often irrelevant. This article is about GWU, not Dr. Tracy or AALE. . . ."
 * Gruntsmith removed "dubbed" to restore NPOV on applying for the merit scholarship.
 * TrustTruth reverts everything back, calls it massive vandalism and posts on the talk page that Gruntsmith was a vandal. It's doubtful Gruntsmith understood the norm of taking major edits to the talk page first, although he did at least justify his edits in the remarks.


 * Added a section on degrees no longer offered. Seems unprecedented and skews negative. Purpose?


 * Added mention of a tuition increase. Is this standard in WP articles?


 * Deleted text that put Comanity in a neutral context. Said it was redundant because it's already talked about on its own page. Doesn't grant same treatment to other topics he guards like the accrediting agency, Ann Tracy, etc.


 * Spends 26 minutes creating the Meadeau View Institute article to display as an isolationist fringe group.
 * Created two links to his new Meadeau View Institute article high in the GW article in order to create "guilt by association."


 * Added more Meadeau View links and took out Sills' designation.


 * States new campus will be an "insular community" (another "isolationist" way to describe it) and "similar to Doughty's" (he had just made the Doughty page, founder of Meadeau View) No evidence supports these comments.


 * Cherry picks items from DeMille story and skews them; ignores main thrust of the referenced article: school's plans for adding live virtual classroom technology.

Articles strategically created to support bias in the GWU article

 * BLP pages created by TT to link from the GWU article: Shanon Brooks, William H. Doughty, Donald N. Sills, Glenn Kimber and Ann Blake Tracy (who's page has since been deleted for the following reason: "violated BLP because it is unbalanced and does not properly reflect the subjects life and works")


 * Other pages created by TT to link to from GWU article and other related artcles: Thomas Jefferson Education Foundation, Institute for Constitutional Education, National Center for Constitutional Studies, Coral Ridge Baptist University, Meadeau View Institute, Mammoth Valley, and Comanity


 * User subpages prepared for future WP articles?
 * * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TrustTruth/History_of_GWC
 * * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TrustTruth/Richard_Stout
 * * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:TrustTruth/Thomas_Jefferson_Education_Plan&action=history Sections appear designed just to oppose Oliver DeMille's book, A Thomas Jefferson Education.