Zepplin
08-21-2007, 01:28 AM
On multiple occasions, a user with an IP address of 159.153.4.50 which lies within a range registered to Electronic Arts' Redwood City headquarters removed hard facts from Electronic Arts Wikipedia page.
Expectedly, several paragraphs from the "Criticism" section had been removed. All references to the notorious EA-Spouse and other stories about EA's overworked and undercompensated employees have been omitted. A paragraph about the class action lawsuit filed by disgruntled EA employees was edited to say that EA has "led the industry in reforming work/life balance issues that are endemic to the software industry" and that " Since that time, many other game companies have been struck with similar lawsuits."
Some of the changes seem unreasonable. For some unexplained reason, reference to Trip Hawkins' founding of the company in the main description of the entry and a paragraph from the "History" section detailing Hawkins' business plan have been removed. A few months later, on April 5, the same EA ip deleted all remaining refrences to Trip Hawkins and added a paragraph emphasizing the achievements of Larry Probst, former EA CEO and current chairman, when he became sales VP in 1984.
Some people believe that it is unethical to edit Wikipedia pages about oneself. Others believe that you are allowed to rectify hard facts only, and not matters of opinion. But what EA did, was deleting historical facts and opposing opinions.
IP addresses registered to EA have made 1,351 changes to EA's Wikipedia page, about one third of these modifications have been made by the ip mentioned above. Many of the changes attempted by this EA-registered IP have since been reversed by the Wikipedia community.
Instead of referencing a class action lawsuit, for example, the revised entry describes the company as "having led the industry in reforming work/life balance issues that are endemic to the software industry." The entry also added a line to the effect that "many other game companies have been struck with similar lawsuits," without providing any references.
An EA spokesperson told GamesIndustry.biz that "EA sometimes updates websites with info about the company, games and employees. For example, EA has sent a correction to Yahoo Finance when they had misspelled the name of an EA executive."
While not specifically addressing the controversial changes, EA's spokesperson explained that "Many companies routinely post updates on websites like Wikipedia to ensure accuracy of their own corporate information."
According to Shacknews, the changes were subsequently revised by the Wikipedia community.
EA founder Trip Hawkins was on vacation and could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
Update: Although most sources have attributed the story to Shacknews, Darkzero claims to have broken the news five hours earlier.
Related Information
Expectedly, several paragraphs from the "Criticism" section had been removed. All references to the notorious EA-Spouse and other stories about EA's overworked and undercompensated employees have been omitted. A paragraph about the class action lawsuit filed by disgruntled EA employees was edited to say that EA has "led the industry in reforming work/life balance issues that are endemic to the software industry" and that " Since that time, many other game companies have been struck with similar lawsuits."
Some of the changes seem unreasonable. For some unexplained reason, reference to Trip Hawkins' founding of the company in the main description of the entry and a paragraph from the "History" section detailing Hawkins' business plan have been removed. A few months later, on April 5, the same EA ip deleted all remaining refrences to Trip Hawkins and added a paragraph emphasizing the achievements of Larry Probst, former EA CEO and current chairman, when he became sales VP in 1984.
Some people believe that it is unethical to edit Wikipedia pages about oneself. Others believe that you are allowed to rectify hard facts only, and not matters of opinion. But what EA did, was deleting historical facts and opposing opinions.
IP addresses registered to EA have made 1,351 changes to EA's Wikipedia page, about one third of these modifications have been made by the ip mentioned above. Many of the changes attempted by this EA-registered IP have since been reversed by the Wikipedia community.
Instead of referencing a class action lawsuit, for example, the revised entry describes the company as "having led the industry in reforming work/life balance issues that are endemic to the software industry." The entry also added a line to the effect that "many other game companies have been struck with similar lawsuits," without providing any references.
An EA spokesperson told GamesIndustry.biz that "EA sometimes updates websites with info about the company, games and employees. For example, EA has sent a correction to Yahoo Finance when they had misspelled the name of an EA executive."
While not specifically addressing the controversial changes, EA's spokesperson explained that "Many companies routinely post updates on websites like Wikipedia to ensure accuracy of their own corporate information."
According to Shacknews, the changes were subsequently revised by the Wikipedia community.
EA founder Trip Hawkins was on vacation and could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
Update: Although most sources have attributed the story to Shacknews, Darkzero claims to have broken the news five hours earlier.
Related Information