By now, everyone and their respective mothers, and probably fathers too, are aware that someone working for a certain android candidate for president might try to edit the Wikipedia entry of the GOP’s vice-presidential candidate before such a selection is announced and the nation’s lazy voters immediately flock to that person’s first Google result. This includes Stephen Colbert, who helpfully exhorted his viewers last night to “make as many edits as possible to your favorite VP contender.” In response, Wikipedia decided to lock the pages of Rob Portman, Tim Pawlenty, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and what the hell, David Petraeus. Only users who have “made at least ten edits and been active for more than four days” can now alter those pages, which is actually a decent number of people. It may help to keep Colbert’s rabble-rousers at bay, but it probably wouldn’t stop the Romney campaign from sprucing up someone’s page.
