Before he was indulging in sock puppetry on left and right wing blogs as well as more traditional media outlets, before he was Superintendent of Public Instruction, John Huppenthal was selectively editing his Wikipedia bio, as well as the bios of current Secretary of State Ken Bennett and a former political opponent, State Senator Slade Meade, who Huppenthal defeated in the 2004 senate primary.
That’s two cardinal internet sins Huppenthal has indulged in: posting comments as someone else to praise and defend himself, and altering Wikipedia pages to make them more favorable to himself and unfavorable to his opponents. Neither action is illegal, but both indicate Huppenthal has a shaky grasp of the concepts of honesty and integrity.
You can learn more about Huppenthal’s sock puppetry here (a Brahm Resnik news clip) and here (my first post on the subject). And you can go to Blog for Arizona for continuing updates.
The newly discovered information is that Huppenthal was actively altering Wikipedia pages in 2006 (recently brought to light in this BfA post), and admitted as much in an email which contains a truly hilarious passage in light of his current anonymous commenting. Geo wrote a November 24, 2006, post on the now-defunct blog, Precinct 134: Senator Huppenthal, you’re BUSTED! Geo describes and details the thorough sleuthing process he used to show that Huppenthal went onto Wikipedia at least 28 times to edit entries. He began by editing “Merit pay” and “Standardized testing” pages, then went on to edit his own page 10 times, Ken Bennett’s page twice and Slade Meade’s page twice.
[I]t would seem that Senator Huppenthal not only has a penchant for writing his own glowing Wikipedia entry (and deleting embarrassing details) as well as fluffing up issue entries to reflect well on him and support his political views, he also edits the entry of his opponent to suppress facts that reflect poorly on him.
According to Geo, Huppenthal inserted 8 glowing references to himself on the “Merit pay” page, added paragraphs supporting high stakes testing on the “Standardized testing” page, removed a reference to a recall initiative from his page, removed two passages from Ken Bennett’s page referring to controversies about Bennett’s oil company and some trouble his son got into, and removed the information on Slade Meade’s page that Huppenthal outspent Meade 2-to-1 in the primary.
Geo points out that a number of Huppenthal’s edits were submitted during work hours, but I’m more struck by another time grouping: the number of edits submitted in the wee hours of the morning. Seven of the edits went in between 1am and 4am. We found the same thing in the time stamps on comments Huppenthal left on Blog for Arizona under the names Thucydides and Falcon9. Many of them also were written during early morning hours when most of us are snug in bed.
Self-serving editing of Wikipedia entries falls into the same jaw-dropping category as Huppenthal’s more recent sock puppetry. But a passage from the email where Huppenthal admits he was indeed a serial Wikipedia editor takes us into “You can’t make this stuff up” territory. In the email, Huppenthal defended himself by saying he left a clear trail of IPO addresses that anyone could follow, and that proves he wasn’t trying to hide his work (It doesn’t prove that, by the way. It comes closer to proving the opposite). Then he praises himself for not hiding behind the veil of anonymity.
Wikipedia has an option for posting anonymously. I chose not to do that. That’s the honest man’s trademark. He leaves his signature.
Put that statement next to the hundreds of comments Huppenthal has posted hiding behind the names Thucydides, Falcon9 and Socrates. By Huppenthal’s standard — “That’s the honest man’s trademark. He leaves his signature” — he’s flunked his own honesty test big time.
This article appears in Jun 12-18, 2014.
LOL So who takes Wikipedia seriously? I think this guy has too much time on his hands.
Want to bet he wins the election anyway? After all, this is Arizona and he’s the White Guy.
Fraser, as a matter of fact, I take Wikipedia seriously. I would never use it for my sole source, but the information is often solid and, like a good encyclopedia, condensed and easy to follow. And it has helpful footnotes at the end. When I check with other sources, I rarely find any important discrepancies.
A few years back, some people sampled Wikipedia pages for errors, then sampled standard encyclopedias for errors. They came out pretty close to equal.
Because of the value of Wikipedia as a first stop (but certainly not the only stop) for general information on a subject, the kind of self serving editing Huppenthal indulged in — other politicians and public figures are often guilty of similar activity — is important. It should be pointed out and frowned upon.
I use it for some basic topics or biographical sources. But not “seriously” like you. I have books in my house. Several thousand.
What no Basis article this time.
I knew this guy we as a nut when he ran
It just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser.
Vote for David Garcia for Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Huppenthal’s Mission From God is to destroy public education as it exists. He never attended public school while growing up in Tucson (a fact his staff does not acknowledge willingly) and wants to replace it with vouchers and charter schools. He is a one-dimensional human being who has no business serving as superintendent of public instruction. Shame on AZ voters for electing this putz and sleazy Tom Horne to supervise public education in our state.
Huppenthal is nothing more than a slimeball.
Somebody please beat this sleazebag ASAP. If I have to look at one more campaign ad photo of his snap-on hair and his darling litter of white-toothed whelps, I’m gonna puke.
Sad thing is, he could be in bed with his wife in those wee hours of the morning. And…don’t worry folks, he may run, but because his political career is over, he can only hide. And the Hoopster has only his mentor, tom horne, to thank for his downfall. We’ll, because the Hoopster won’t ever blame himself. Too righteous. And that’s why he won’t step down. Even if God tells him to, because…in his own tiny mind he is already going to heaven.