MUCH AS WE'D LOVE to overshadow the CIA's alleged rewriting of its Wikipedia entries with more shocking edits by UK charities, we've found nothing that warrants genuine excitement.

In fact we're impressed by the restrained behaviour we've seen (and by the web-savviness where behaviour has not been entirely kosher).

If you know what I'm talking about, scroll down. If you don't know what I'm talking about: last week a website was launched that unmasks anonymous editors of the world's most popular encyclopaedia, Wikipedia. To be precise, it reveals the organisation within which the editors made their changes.*

A simple hour's research reveals that the website concerned, Wikipedia Scanner, is good for only three things where charities are concerned:

As spin-o-meter
Some organisations appear to have made major changes to their own pages, especially where they have been criticised. For example someone at Amnesty International once deleted reference to all articles critical of the organisation. Someone at the Salvation Army didn't like general criticism of Christianity. You'll find small edits like this all over the place. It's not good but it isn't breaking any laws. If you find anything truly shocking, feel free to submit to Wired's wacky wiki-chicanary page.

As proof of policy line
You can find some policy pressure points. For example someone at the NSPCC changed: "...and has argued against the view that marriage is necessarily the best way to create stable relationships" to "...and has argued against the view that marriage is necessarily the only way to create stable relationships". You can see policy changes over time too.

As proof of employees' outside interests

• Someone at the Royal Opera House is clearly an expert on New Zealand air force bases
• Dwarf tossing has, understandably maybe, an expert at Comic Relief
• There's a big Rodgers & Hammerstein fan at the British Red Cross
• Christian Aid has a problem: someone there likes Michael Winner.

* We stopped after an hour because we have charity profiles to write. Nonetheless there's hours of entertainment to be had here. Just bear in mind that you should treat Wiki Scanner carefully because:

• You can't be 100% certain that the individual who made the edit is from the named charity. You just know they used its network. The British Library for example has over 1300 edits, but they're probably made by its visitors.
• The scanner only shows activity from anonymous users. The most active users are usually registered ones. So a cunning charity marketing head may be registered and happily deleting negative comments about the charity, and s/he won't appear in the scanner's results. (Now there's a tip).
• The network names are confusing and change over time, so you might not be looking at what you think you are.
• Look at the dates. Some stuff happened a year or more ago, possibly all on the day when the finance director's son came in on work experience...

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