Wikipedia: political clues?
By Shalini Singh

In the USA, the Vice President is a heart beat away from the most important political job in the world, and so there is widespread interest in who gets to be the deputy.  By now everyone knows that Republican presidential candidate John McCain has chosen Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

8 of 43 US Presidents have died in office, and so the choice of Sarah is certainly a bold, audacious move as she has very limited experience in national politics.

The selection was so secret that even the selected potential VP Sarah Palin only told her son 1 hour before it was publicly announced. 

In a testament to the popularity of Wikipedia, the Republican political party started updating (fixing?) the Wikipedia page of Sarah Palin a few hours before she was announced as a possible Vice President.  Sarah’s Wikipedia page was changed 68 times on August 29 – the day she was publicly announced as the candidate.  Equally interesting was the fact that 54 changes were made in the previous 5 days.

What was changed?  Her achievements were highlighted and controversial actions like allegedly getting her ex brother-in-law sacked were downplayed.

This was the first time where Wikipedia gave a strong indication for such high political selections.  Naturally, Wikipedia will be more closely watched in the future. Wikipedia popularity differs from country to country, but in India it is generally considered a very good source for basic background information.