Water Cooler Games - Tactical Iraqi's Wikipedia Spin

Tactical Iraqi's Wikipedia Spin
August 15, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

A year and a half ago, Gonzalo ignited a debate here on WCG about Tactical Iraqi, a game funded by DARPA and created at USC ISI. Gonzalo's took the position that there is no moral way to support U.S. military aggression, even if it seems

Sometimes I follow referral links into the site, and today I noticed that we were getting some clicks from the Wikipedia page about the game (officially titled, Tactical Language & Culture Training System). Imagine my surprise upon reading how it concludes:

There has been little controversy about the use of the software in the serious games development community. After viewing the emphasis the language teaching program places upon the culture of the community where the lessons will be applied, even skeptics are hard pressed to find fault with the system.

What? Little controversy? Clearly the entry has been cleverly modified to put the product in the best possible light from the perspective of its creators. To get the full extent of the alteration, read the salient edit.

Last month I pointed this out to WCG friend Liz Losh, who has written extensively about the game, who wrote some extensive thoughts about the Wikipedia edits, including a link to a NY Times story about the journalistic uses of Wikipedia. Clearly the article is in violation of numerous Wikipedia guidelines, but what I find more interesting is that someone saw the opposition as a credible enough threat -- perhaps to the project's commercial prospects -- that they felt compelled to edit it.

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Comment from Gabriel Heinrichs on August 15, 2007

By making this salient edit, 'Phoenix76' probably intends to win the hearts and minds of Wikipedia users. I've rarely see 'em as blatant as this one - even on Wikipedia (a system even skeptics are hard pressed to find faults with [citation needed]).

Comment from Liz Losh on August 20, 2007

Looks like someone came in and reverted to the text of the paragraph that I wrote about Tactical iraqi, which included Gonzalo's critique. Whoever it was, this editor noted, "the original was sourced, the replacement unsourced and POV."

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