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Wikipedia edits drama in NYTimes kidnapping

The New York Times worked with Wikipedia to keep news of the kidnapping of one of its reporters in Afghanistan off the online user-edited encyclopedia, the newspaper reported on Monday.

New York Times reporter David Rohde, who was kidnapped by the Taliban in November, escaped from his captors along with his translator this month.

A number of news organizations, including Agence France-Presse, at the request of the New York Times, agreed not to report the kidnapping out of concerns for their safety.

Keeping the news off Wikipedia was another matter however, the Times said.

It said that on at least a dozen occasions, user-editors posted news of the abduction on a Wikipedia page about Rohde, only to have it erased. Several times the page was frozen, preventing further editing, it said.

"The sanitizing was a team effort, led by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, along with Wikipedia administrators and people at the Times," the newspaper said.

"We were really helped by the fact that it hadn't appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source," Wales told the Times. "I would have had a really hard time with it if it had."

The Times said that two days after the November 10 kidnapping, Michael Moss, an investigative reporter at The Times and friend of Rohde, altered Rohde's Wikipedia entry to emphasize his work that could be seen as sympathetic to Muslims, like his reporting on Guantanamo and his coverage of the Srebrenica massacre of Bosnian Muslims.

It said that the next day, an unidentified user, citing an Afghan news agency report, edited the entry on Rohde and mentioned the kidnapping.

Moss deleted the mention, and the user promptly restored it, adding a note protesting the removal, the Times said.

It said the Times eventually reached out to Wales and Wikipedia put an indefinite block and then a temporary freeze on changes to the page.

"We had no idea who it was," Wales said of the unidentified user making the edits. He said there was no indication the user had ill intent.

The Times said Wales himself unfroze the page after the June 19 escape by Rohde and his interpreter, Tahir Ludin.

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At a recent lecture given by long time subversive artists Gilbert and George, there was a fantastic point made which highlighted the absurdity of institutionalised religion and the anomalous status it's given in today's society.

They said something along the lines of....

"Imagine if a biscuit company was able to sell itself the way the church does. The biscuit company would probably be able to do a lot better if it was able to offer eternal life (in addition to biscuits) as a reward for your money"

Now the idea also works in reverse.

Imagine if there was a company that didn't pay tax, had little or no oversight from the state legal system, was found to be fingering children- had tried to hide it- their leader and the leader's brother were both implicated and they still refused to open themselves up to public scrutiny.

You probably wouldn't buy their biscuits would you.

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This entire fiasco is an incredible over reaction. Australia is an easy target. Why? because we are honest, transperant and we talk about our failings. Is there aggression and iolence in Australia? Sure, like any country. But we face it head on and we work to eliminate it. What about the stories of the 100’s of thousands of Indian workers who are treated as slaves in the middle east and nobody says anything? What about the fact that India still has entrenched pedophilia in terms of child brides? What about the crushing poverty embraced by more than 60% of the Indian people while this nation runs around building nuclear warheads? A storm in a teacup, an over reaction, and a diversion from some the really bad issues facing India. What is really happening here is that students are being unnecessarily frightened. meaning they will miss out on what could be the opportunity of their lifetime. - Daryl
 
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I couldn't agree with Sean Maguire's article more on the recent Indian attacks. For all those who like the pretend the attacks are merely based on coincidence, try to imagine how we would react if the boot were on the other foot and an uncharacteristic number of Australia's had been murdered in India. Would you push for a travel ban? Would you be scared for your children in a seemingly hostile environment so many miles away?  - Kara Jensen-Mackinnon

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