Keeping up with the new Defra wiki was too much for the Miliband blog. It badly 
backfired yesterday and had to be removed after more than 170 people posted suggestions that were not considered appropriate - and some naughty wags even defaced it!
It sounds like this was the first time you could have had some fun reading Miliband’s dour blog, which has so far failed to impress as it is nothing other than another ministerial site. Now the offending post has been removed.
It seems the wiki invited too much openness and transparency, as well as some hilarious mischief making!
“Mr Miliband, who writes his own blog, had put the draft document online in the hope that readers would add to the “starting-point” text.
“A few hours after the site went live, administrators at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) withdrew the page, the suggestions of more than 170 people having proved less than earnest.
“Among the ideas posted by visitors to the site were: “The likes of Jeremy Clarkson, in promoting pollution, should be penalised thrice over” and “We just can’t help but meddle, interfere, impose our views on others, and generally use taxpayers’ resources in ways that are wasteful except in our own self-aggrandisement.”
“Under a list of things that citizens should do, a reader had added: “Pay a higher proportion of their income to the Government, and see little tangible improvement in their standard of living.”
“The complex question of “what tools can be used to deliver the environmental contract?” met with the response: “Spade, Organic Yoghurt Stirrer, Old washing-up liquid bottle, Sticky Back Plastic.”
“In a list of “tools that show that government practises what it preaches”, someone had inserted: “Tony Blair mask; Full Tony Blair outfit”. A list of items that “create the right incentive frameworks” was altered to include “Big stick” and “Owl magnet”.
“Among the edits that were more surrealistic than political, the heading “Who are the parties to the environmental contract?” became “Where is the party for the environmental contract? Can I come? Will there be cake? Hooray!” The attack on the site apparently began after blogs alerted readers to the presence of the document on the Defra site.
“By last night the defaced page had been taken down, and the original text — still with an exhortation to “amend or add” to the points “as you think necessary” — had been restored. The administrators had added a note that the wiki facility had been “locked” for the time being to prevent editing.”
I guess that’s the end of Miliband’s wiki. It’s obviously too unpredictable a tool for Government, you cannot control the contributed comments, but you can delete them, which is what happened here. Still, it gave a few people a good laugh.
The great news for Minister Miliand is that so many people read his site, which usually attracts very few comments on crucially important, high profile issues. Perhaps if there was more interaction and openness, his readership would soar.
