Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Hey, I made yesterday’s Concord Monitor!

Most of the editing to [potential US Senate candidate Jeanne] Shaheen’s Wikipedia profile has related to Iraq: Either adding or removing tidbits about her support for the war in 2002 or adding information about her criticism of the war since then.

Among the more notable edits: Someone working from a D.C.-area computer posted a link of the Shaheen YouTube clip to Wikipedia. (We checked – it appears not to have come from a Senate computer. The other Wikipedia editing conducted from that computer involved touching up the definition of “APR.”)

Then liberal blogger Betsy Devine got involved and snuffed out some of the newer additions to Shaheen’s profile, including the video link.

A sort of wiki-expert who has spoken at conferences and the like, Devine explained her doings this way: “Statements from right-wing think tanks or right-wing newspaper editorials denouncing Shaheen are not appropriate news sources. If they are introduced as examples of opinion or controversy, the opposing POV must get equal exposure. Campaign puffery is of course also inappropriate.”

Heh–well, when I rough-drafted that into a Wikipedia discussion page, I didn’t expect it to end up in dead-tree newsprint.

Yours now sort-of expertly,
Betsy

p.s. The new Simpsons Movie is really fun and funny–Frank and I are now baffled by its lukewarm reviews.

p.p.s. Thanks to Dean Barker at Blue Hampshire— without whom I would never have seen this story.