digg

Join DiggAbout

Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.

ESA Altered Wikipedia Entries on Mod Chips, Abandonware

gamepolitics.com — Read how the game publishers' association, the ESA, put its spin on issues like mod chips and abandonware by altering the Wikipedia entries.

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • Fraff5, on 10/10/2007, -2/+25Bastards.
    • ICSU, on 10/10/2007, -9/+2But they are correct about abandonware.
    • rabidbob, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Well, bastards, yes, but is anyone really surprised by this?
  • CPUsports, on 10/10/2007, -1/+28They get more and more like the RIAA every day.
    • Bartboy919, on 10/10/2007, -20/+2Dude, they ARE the RIAA of Video Games, I was on Bittorent downloading ***** (like everyone does) and they sent me a goddamn letter for downloading Katamari Damacy. I was scared ***** for months!
    • KibibyteBrain, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Its more like the other way around. The RIAA didn't start trying to infiltrate schools and brainwash kids with their agenda until this decade. The ESA has been doing it since the 80s...

      The ESA also sues its customers not for sharing their software online, but for honest license mistakes!
    • kickinass, on 10/10/2007, -6/+2Teach you to use lame torrents.
  • dualscreenman, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11NPOV, ESA needs to learn it.
    • Jugalator, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I'm pretty sure they know about that policy already. :-p It's hard to miss anyway. But it's a different matter of respecting it.
  • bakkouz, on 10/10/2007, -26/+4You know what, These "Some organization edits some Wikipedia article" posts were interesting like 2 weeks ago, now.. not so much.
    • ShinRaTDR, on 10/10/2007, -3/+19You know what? Shut up.
    • probabilityZero, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3And who cares about that whole Presidential election thing anyway... we've had like a hundred of them. They were exciting the first few times, now... not so much.

      Seriously, these things are important. Just because a similar thing has happened in the past and you find it boring due to your shallow world view doesn't make it any less important.
  • alciadanet, on 10/10/2007, -20/+0You don't have to buy hardware from companies that allow modchips / DRM / etc. so I agree with ESA.
    • alciadanet, on 10/10/2007, -7/+0I meant of course "... that don't allow modchips ... "
  • dchomper, on 10/10/2007, -15/+6Who trusts wikipedia for credible factual information anyway? It was a nice show when it lasted. It's time to move on.
  • SeBBBe, on 10/10/2007, -2/+35Abandonware ftw. When a game isnt available elsewhere, it should be legal to distribute it on the net.
  • BackOrder, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5We are increasingly reading articles in regard to conflict-of-interest editing from various commercial entities. The real question is: What will Wikipedia do to protect its policies, its content, its honest users (and authors) while keeping its ideal to spread information (and not propaganda, for example)?
    • scabbers, on 10/10/2007, -10/+3Wikipedia can't even get themselves honest editors with genuine credentials, so why would anyone believe anything on there?
      • Audacitor, on 10/10/2007, -3/+6If Wikipedia were as bad as all that you imply, it would have been abandoned a long time ago.

        Being a Wikipedian myself, I know that there is a "Recent Changes" feed, at that there are users who will just patrol it constantly to make sure edits aren't destructive, and there a few bots that go around watching out for vandalism. Any article that gets changed at all is most often checked by one or more other users, even if it's marked as a minor edit.

        There are also WikiProjects set up specifically for maintaining and creating articles. These projects might be wide-ranging, and just shoot for general maintenance, but there are also projects that target specific areas of interest.
        • scabbers, on 10/10/2007, -5/+2Yeah, cos popularity means something must be good, right? Looked at YouTube or MySpace recently?
  • Clade, on 10/10/2007, -3/+14And THIS is way our employers will continue to block more and more of the internet at work. There's been a glut of "Organization X edits wiki entry Y...OMG!" stories lately. Every time I can't help but think it's one over-zealous geek on his lunch hour making edits which then get attributed to his entire organization by IP address. How many of us would want all of our worktime digg'ing, /.'ing, fark'ing, etc to be posted on blogs all over the web?

    Next on Digg (looking at most dugg stories) "OMG Dept of Homeland Security is obsessed with Baby Chewbacca!"
    • Charron, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Thing is, it's probably not the lunch hour geek throwing around wide amounts of spin and, in some cases, downright propaganda. They probably don't care that much. Hell, they might not even like their company. No, the way most of these read, it's as though Wikipedia is being seen by the PR branch as just another site to spin for their angle, when it's supposed to be an encyclopedia. Going off this article's list, it's the lunchtime geek editing Beer pong and Yo La Tengo, it's the PR department editing Mod chips and Abandonware.
  • naonao, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I didn't realise it was ok to falsify laws, guess I was wrong.
  • Gornall, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Wikipedia freely editable. Its useful for quick info or as a secondary source but anyone who uses it to make a decision or anything like that is a fool tbh.
  • ZeRux, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Forget Jack Thompson, mod-chips are the main enemy of video games
    /sarcasm
  • potp, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9Woohoo now we can Add ESA to the "***** THE" ARGUMENT

    ***** THE RIAA, MPAA AND ESA.
  • manova, on 10/10/2007, -9/+6Another damn story about who edits wikipedia. Get over it. Everyone edits it!
    • WernerCD, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Another damn comment about ZOMG THIS STORY IS TOO COMMON!!!. Get over it. Everyone is interested in this stuff!!!
  • cfd339, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4Wikipedia was designed to be updated -- even fought over -- in a democratic way. Democracy isn't about everyone doing the right thing in some grand understanding of universal goodwill; it is about each acting in their own self interest but with the agreement to subjugate their interests to a reasonable degree when faced with a majority holding an apposing view.

    In other words, its working as it should -- just as congress does. Its a catfight. It was designed to handle a catfight. Nothing to see here, move along.
  • Ouze, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3the real mystery, in my mind, is why the ESA's own wikipedia page has not been updated with this valuable information as to their business practices. Surely everyone can agree that the ESA drafting a government agency into raiding american business over a civil complaint is both factual and NPOV?
  • brinkofdanger, on 10/10/2007, -7/+2This is why Digg sucks now. Everything is NOT a goddamn conspiracy. Come on.
    • TheEditor1, on 10/10/2007, -10/+1I agree 100%. Wikipedia is a joke at best and who gives a ***** if it is edited. Wake up idiots, Wikipedia is made to be edited by any moron that wants to edit an entry and NO it doesn't need to be on the front page of digg.

      digg was a good site a year ago, now it is just filled with inaccurate ***** and propaganda.
    • dualscreenman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I fail to see how a company editing wikipedia with a view that caters to their interests qualifies as a conspiracy theory. Seems like there's only one entity involved, and their actions and motives are straight forward.
  • juicebag, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3***** THE *insert acronym for copyright enforcement body here*!
  • ThlslsmyNaMe, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Well I for one am glad that homeland security is being used to apprehend these dangerous mod chip terrorists.
  • danandre, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11Well ... someone go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_Software_Association and edit THEIR info, saying that they're involved in false wikipedia editing.
  • yingjai, on 10/10/2007, -6/+3So what if they edit the entries? Anyone can do it, that's the point. Are we going to see articles about Wiki edits every time someone does it? If so, then I hate Wikipedia more than the iPhone. I know you Wiki fanboys are going to Digg me down.
  • smek2, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3So did the CIA, Electronic Arts and others. It's not like the truth is valued in these times anyway.
  • chipwar, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3LOOK at it this way.
    It's not like corporate/government interests haven't had a stranglehold on information for the length of human history anyway.

    At least now we have a certain degree of transparency.

    This is a good thing.

    Information can be taken with a grain of salt, and seen within the context of the ebb and flow of power structures. At least the people have the right to correct these attempts by the hegemony to tint the tide of information the same shades of black, white, and green.

    Try and get a correction in Encyclopedia Britannica, or CNN, or your science textbook.
  • Yokwe, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I personally think wikipedia is heavily flawed. It can be edited by biased sources and half the content is cut and paste from other locations. We continually read stories of people adding their little comments or even putting up slanderous information. The idea of Wikipedia is solid but the execution is lacking....
  • Jade10145, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3OK the wikipedia thing is pretty important, but what angers me the most is this "Earlier this month, as reported by GamePolitics, federal Homeland Security agents, supported by the ESA, raided 32 locations in 16 U.S. cities over alleged copyright violations. The federal agents were seeking mod chips under provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).
    ***** HOMELAND SECURITY is pursuing copyright violators WTF!!! When large companies make laws then use federal agents on your homeland security dollars to enforce them you know your country is in ***** trouble. I do understand that copyrights are important, but homeland security enforcing them? Apparently the terrorists plan in bringing down this great country of ours by selling mod chips, who knew?
  • Rob223, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1Subway edits it's own article, proclaiming it's sandwhiches 'tasty'

    Wikipedia is just a big mish-mash of warnings, embarrasing information and corporate advertising nowadays.
  • dillibob, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4i can understand the esa not liking obviously. say as you will about modchips, 99% of the people using modchips arent using them for their media center capabilities. most people are using them to download games (and usually games they dont own). But come on abandonware? what game company seriously has a beef with abandonware? its just a bunch of old ass games that you cant play anymore and their giving them away for free. its not like you can find halflife 2 or oblivion on there.
    • mookieXL, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Cause without abandonware you have to buy latest games even when only real difference between them and their predecessors are hardware requirements (i'm looking at you, EA).
    • masterthiefster, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1They oppose abandonware because, as far as copyright law goes, it's illegal unless the company says otherwise (in which case the game becomes some form of freeware and is no longer abandonware anyway). As a representative body for defending companies' copyrights, they have to take the moral high ground on this matter.
  • nogami, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Just a thought for Wikipedia - it appears that within articles, only certain sections (the ones that may contain controversial content) are extensively re-edited or updated. Perhaps they could have an option to toggle "colour coding" of the article, where areas that don't get updated much have backgrounds tinted more towards green, where areas that are constantly being updated and revised are tinted more towards yellow/orange/red?

    By toggling that option on, you could instantly see which areas of articles are more likely to be inaccurate due to repeated edits and updates. As time goes by and those areas haven't been updated, they'd gradually fade from orange/red back towards green. If someone made more edits in a section, that section in particular would go back to yellow/orange/red.
  • cyrusthevirus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Hmm, looks like someone changed the article back to the way it was before... It once again discusses legal uses of modchips and their specific legality not only in Australia, but also in countries like Sweden, Spain, and Italy.
    • masterthiefster, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2On popular pages, significant reductions like this are generally rewritten or reverted quite quickly.
  • Rupan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2So... am I suppose to be pro Jack Thompson now? Get the ESA taken down before they turn into the RIAA. Then when he gets that job done go Brutus on his Ceaser ass?
  • nephilimx, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Well considering ESA would know the laws of mod chips better then a 16year old kid from gamefaqs. I dont really see the problem
    Sure they may put spin on it, but atleast its the facts
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.