If you consider yourself a fan of both Wikipedia and “The Colbert Report,” a kind of cognitive dissonance is inescapable at times — and Monday night was one of those times.
The first was last August, when the faux winger unleashed upon Wikipedia his so-called Colbert Nation — an unknown percentage of his audience willing to carry out simple online tasks (e.g voting in online polls) at Colbert’s request — to make two specific Wikipedia edits: that Colbert’s opinion of Oregon is that it is “Idaho’s Portugal” rather than “California’s Canada” or “Washington’s Mexico,” and that the number of African elephants in the wild had tripled over the last six months (you’d have to see it, but alas, as I advised against, it has been removed from YouTube). The Nation responded, causing headaches for Wikipedia editors and administrators that persist to this day.
On Monday Colbert struck again. While the segment isn’t on YouTube, it is available through Comedy Central, thereby meeting a minimum standard of web literacy but (surprisingly for this show) failing to understand why increased fan control over the content is a good idea. There is an embedding capability to let fans put the videos on their own sites, but the back end is terrible. Just click on the image below — or better yet, open it in another tab:

The subject this time was the recent controversy about Microsoft paying an independent contractor to correct perceived errors on Wikipedia. It’s a new issue and a complicated one, but for now suffice to say that my take is closer to the TWiTters‘ than Michael Arrington’s.
“The Colbert Report,” being the late-night comedy it is, went with the same angle as last time, per the show’s website (image has been altered to remove other segment panels):
I digress.
In the August and latest segments’ opening moments, Colbert announced the night’s Word. Last time it was “Wikiality,” this time it was “Wikilobbying” — and instantly, throughout the Eastern time zone, fingertips fell upon keyboards: was there an entry for Wikilobbying yet?
At that point, no. In those first five seconds (or so) I was one of several hundred, possibly even a couple thousand, Internet users requesting that file. And of that crowd, the quickest-fingertipped member of the Colbert Nation exhibited the same wit that brought us “Frist!” and Fitz!”:
I hit refresh. Moments later, another loyal vandal referenced the recurring migraine mentioned above:
Among those thousand or few who turned up inside of the segment, a handful were actual Wikipedians who had obviously expected this:
Remember, maybe a minute has passed, and Colbert hadn’t specifically asked anyone to do anything. But then he did. According to Colbert, Microsoft’s actions tampered with the very concept of reality itself, and so this time he issued a specific directive:
Actually, this vandal was either a moron or a poor typist, because what Colbert actually asked for was:
Reality has become a commodity
Multiple Wikipedia administrators went into action, cleaning up the mess…
…and even correcting their own mistakes:
One of the great things about Colbert’s show is the audience participation enabled by the Internet. Colbert’s “feud” with Oregon’s own The Decemberists grew out of similarly-themed user-generated video contests. I enjoyed the “green screen challenges” — those were creative. The Wikipedia onslaught may be harmless insofar as pages are immediately fixable and reliably fixed, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t destructive. Not to mention, Colbert’s pranks reinforce overwrought fears about the website’s supposed vulnerability.
But think of Wikipedia like the Internet itself. The structure of the network and the community of editors is redundant by its nature. If one thing goes wrong and even if many things go wrong, the corrections are usually prompt. Yes, they’re less reliable along outlying nodes and even some overtrafficked ones. Neither claimed to be without flaws, yet both will withstand virtually any attack (save electromagnetic pulse).
You have to be a loser with no life — or a late-night comedian and his his unblinking minions — to think vandalizing Wikipedia is a good idea. And it provides further evidence for all the comparisons to “The O’Reilly Factor,” Colbert’s program is not just a parody of O’Reilly’s fanbase, it is the mob they presume to be parodying.
Yea, Though I Walk Through The Valleywag of the Shadow of Death…
Readers of Blog P.I. probably don’t venture very far into the tech blogosphere (a.k.a. the first blogosphere) but one of its higher profile, more controversial sites, is Valleywag. It’s another title owned by Nick Denton’s Gawker Media, where since February of this year, editor Nick Douglas (formerly of publicity stunt-turned-blog Blogebrity) has chronicled the embarrassing hygienic deficiencies of Google’s top brass, suspicious promotional practices of Google’s founders, and… some other stuff about Google, as I recall. But I kid. It’s a fun blog — Wonkette for the IT department. Or, it was until today.
Sometime over the weekend, Denton dismissed Douglas from the site, implemented a new layout, new typesetting, and apparently a new focus (more money, less sex). Here’s what it looked like yesterday:
And what it looks like today:
Moreover, Denton has installed as interim blogger none other than himself. Which could work — he was a tech journalist prior to being an entrepreneur, and was an early, uh, blogebrity himself (if you remember Glenn Reynolds linking favorably to Denton’s hawkish post-9/11 proclamations, pat yourself on the back).
However, here at Blog P.I. we make no bones about getting a kick out of comment sections that turn on the site’s bloggers, and the reaction to Denton’s first post is truly something to behold. Some of the better responses:
And elsewhere, tech bloggers are none too pleased, either. Here’s Zooomr evangelist Thomas Hawk:
Ethernet inventor Richard Bennett looks at it from a different angle:
And he’s not alone — Matthew Ingram updated a critical post to praise Denton’s later report on mega-sites Fark and Digg ditching John Battelle’s Federated Media for a new ad network run by Maxim (yes, that Maxim). It’s a new direction, for sure. Whereas Gawker, Defamer and Deadspin reign as the definitive gossip sites for NYC media, Hollywood and professional sports respectively, Valleywag wouldn’t be considered a rival to, say, frequent Douglas target Michael Arrington of the hugely popular TechCrunch. It looks like Denton wishes to compete with Arrington, rather than merely antagonize him. And Denton certainly has the connections to make that work. But Douglas’ Valleywag was something different. Denton’s Valleywag, not so much.
Meanwhile, lit fic crit Edward Champion keeps things short and sour:
As I always say about this time: Tough crowd. But that’s the blogosphere for you, and if anyone’s developed an epidermal layer strong enough to withstand this onslaught, it’s Denton. And if there’s anything serious to be said here, it’s that the blogosphere expects accountability and openness from its counterparts in cyberspace as well as its subjects/targets in meatspace. That’s one thing you would think Nick Denton would have figured out by now.
P.S. For what it’s worth (and I realize it may not be much) I was among the first to notice Blogebrity when the site launched as a preview of an alleged blog equivalent of People Magazine speculate about what it was way back when it launched in May 2005. I would also add that I was among the first to report the truth — it was an entrant in the first Contagious Media contest — although I believe I was the only political blogger to pay it any attention at all. History repeats itself.
Update: Via 10 Zen Monkeys, I learn that I didn’t read far down enough to find the actual best comments to Denton’s first post:
If there’s an Adam Sandler joke to be made here, I don’t know what it is.
Second Update: Wisely, Valleywag has dropped the use of Courier in the regular copy.
And again via 10 Zen Monkeys, the truth comes out: Douglas was indeed fired, apparently for trying to lure News Corp. (!) into suing Nick Denton. Can’t say that sounds unreasonable.
But as I added to the comments at the end of the linked post, I recall when Denton launched Defamer in early 2004, Mickey Kaus quipped:
Can’t say that doesn’t sound like Denton’s ethos caught up with him.