Wikipedia.
It's the world's largest online encyclopedia, lauded and lambasted for its tenant that anyone can edit it, making it both the most susceptible and most critiqued source of information on the planet. The English version alone has 2 million articles and the site is among the 20 most visited.
So exactly what kind of artifice did Traverse Mountain engage in to get on Wikipedia's naughty list?
The Lehi development -- about 800 homes -- was recently banned en masse from editing Wikipedia in an attempt to stop one person: Judd Bagley. When attempting to edit a Wikipedia article, a Traverse Mountain resident would instead get a warning that they were banned because their IP address (an Internet identification of sorts) was tied to Bagley.
Bagley, an employee of Patrick Byrne's Overstock.com, is accused by Wikipedia of using the site for inappropriate promotion.
"We're a project to write an encyclopedia, not to advance third-party interests; and obviously, we reserve the right to block inappropriate editing as proves necessary," wrote David Gerard, spokesman for Wikipedia, in an e-mail exchange. " 'Anyone can edit' doesn't mean 'free-for-all promotion.' "
Gerard unblocked Traverse Mountain on Friday after receiving an e-mail from the Daily Herald requesting information about the issue. It was originally blocked in September.
The neighborhood's Internet access is handled by Broadweave Networks, and the Wikipedia block claiming they were an "open proxy," which would allow anyone (Bagley in this case) to use them for identification. Bagley actually lives in Traverse Mountain.
Broadweave spokesman Jay Cobb disputes the open proxy claim, saying "We don't just allow anyone off the Web to bounce off of us."
From here, the story either wanders its way back to residents happily editing their favorite Wikipedia articles (there isn't one specifically for Traverse Mountain yet) or it's just the tip of the iceberg in a cover-up that involves national financial markets.
Go ahead, take a moment to recover from the whiplash.
Bagley and Byrne dismiss the promotion accusation as a few unimportant mentions of their company. After all, other companies are mentioned numerous times throughout Wikipedia without facing such sanctions. Instead the men say the block is part of an attempt to silence their opposition to short selling and naked short selling.
Short selling is a way to make money off of stocks when the price goes down. It's done by borrowing stock and selling high, then waiting for the stock to drop, buying it up at a lower price to return to the lender, and keeping the difference.
Byrne, the same man who led the school voucher charge, claims such methods destroy companies by improperly influencing their stock value. The method has long been criticized and has come and gone and come again via regulation.
The Wikipedia blocking isn't about Overstock, the men contend, but instead about their efforts to get their message out about short selling.
Bagley's problems really started, he says, when he tried to add a link to the Wikipedia short selling article. The link was to a presentation by Byrne critical of the practice. But the link was quickly removed several times in a back and forth effort by Bagley and another party.
It spirals from there, with accusations from both sides about "sockpuppeting" (one person having an online discussion with themselves but acting as two or more people) and "persistent inappropriate editing."
"We prefer to keep things unblocked as much as possible. In this case almost all the edits going back several months were from Mr. Bagley under a variety of names," Gerard wrote Friday, adding "I'd never heard of naked short selling ... before this, and really don't care."
Byrne begs to differ. He claims Wikipedia founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales has a deep interest in short selling.
Byrne unabashedly throws around words like "conspiracy" when discussing the issue.
"The people who run Wikipedia are using Wikipedia to perpetuate a cover-up," he said. "(Wales is) at the top of Wikipedia, and he's either hijacking these articles or has his stooges hijacking these articles."
The tussle was interesting enough in the tech world to be reported on by The Register, a popular online publication based in the United Kingdom that focuses on information technology.
It's the world's largest online encyclopedia, lauded and lambasted for its tenant that anyone can edit it, making it both the most susceptible and most critiqued source of information on the planet. The English version alone has 2 million articles and the site is among the 20 most visited.
So exactly what kind of artifice did Traverse Mountain engage in to get on Wikipedia's naughty list?
The Lehi development -- about 800 homes -- was recently banned en masse from editing Wikipedia in an attempt to stop one person: Judd Bagley. When attempting to edit a Wikipedia article, a Traverse Mountain resident would instead get a warning that they were banned because their IP address (an Internet identification of sorts) was tied to Bagley.
Bagley, an employee of Patrick Byrne's Overstock.com, is accused by Wikipedia of using the site for inappropriate promotion.
"We're a project to write an encyclopedia, not to advance third-party interests; and obviously, we reserve the right to block inappropriate editing as proves necessary," wrote David Gerard, spokesman for Wikipedia, in an e-mail exchange. " 'Anyone can edit' doesn't mean 'free-for-all promotion.' "
Gerard unblocked Traverse Mountain on Friday after receiving an e-mail from the Daily Herald requesting information about the issue. It was originally blocked in September.
The neighborhood's Internet access is handled by Broadweave Networks, and the Wikipedia block claiming they were an "open proxy," which would allow anyone (Bagley in this case) to use them for identification. Bagley actually lives in Traverse Mountain.
Broadweave spokesman Jay Cobb disputes the open proxy claim, saying "We don't just allow anyone off the Web to bounce off of us."
From here, the story either wanders its way back to residents happily editing their favorite Wikipedia articles (there isn't one specifically for Traverse Mountain yet) or it's just the tip of the iceberg in a cover-up that involves national financial markets.
Go ahead, take a moment to recover from the whiplash.
Bagley and Byrne dismiss the promotion accusation as a few unimportant mentions of their company. After all, other companies are mentioned numerous times throughout Wikipedia without facing such sanctions. Instead the men say the block is part of an attempt to silence their opposition to short selling and naked short selling.
Short selling is a way to make money off of stocks when the price goes down. It's done by borrowing stock and selling high, then waiting for the stock to drop, buying it up at a lower price to return to the lender, and keeping the difference.
Byrne, the same man who led the school voucher charge, claims such methods destroy companies by improperly influencing their stock value. The method has long been criticized and has come and gone and come again via regulation.
The Wikipedia blocking isn't about Overstock, the men contend, but instead about their efforts to get their message out about short selling.
Bagley's problems really started, he says, when he tried to add a link to the Wikipedia short selling article. The link was to a presentation by Byrne critical of the practice. But the link was quickly removed several times in a back and forth effort by Bagley and another party.
It spirals from there, with accusations from both sides about "sockpuppeting" (one person having an online discussion with themselves but acting as two or more people) and "persistent inappropriate editing."
"We prefer to keep things unblocked as much as possible. In this case almost all the edits going back several months were from Mr. Bagley under a variety of names," Gerard wrote Friday, adding "I'd never heard of naked short selling ... before this, and really don't care."
Byrne begs to differ. He claims Wikipedia founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales has a deep interest in short selling.
Byrne unabashedly throws around words like "conspiracy" when discussing the issue.
"The people who run Wikipedia are using Wikipedia to perpetuate a cover-up," he said. "(Wales is) at the top of Wikipedia, and he's either hijacking these articles or has his stooges hijacking these articles."
The tussle was interesting enough in the tech world to be reported on by The Register, a popular online publication based in the United Kingdom that focuses on information technology.
