Despite the Senate’s reputation as staid and reserved, users of the chamber’s computer network are nothing of the kind, judging from several edits to the online reference tool Wikipedia.

The Web site, which allows users to edit entries but tracks changes made to the originating network, has logged hundreds of edits made from Senate offices.

Most are innocuous, but some rise to the level of political whitewashing. Others are, well, just juvenile.

Take a recent entry dealing with Republican presidential contender John McCain of Arizona. Someone used a Senate computer to raise his stature from 5 foot 7 to 5 foot 9.

The Wikipedia profiles of Democratic Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Dianne Feinstein of California have been tinkered with a bit as well — to clean up negative-sounding information.

Alaska Republican Ted Stevens’ Wikipedia entry was altered to reflect his doubts about “climate change” rather than “global warming” claims. A Stevens spokesman said the entry was made by someone in the senator’s office, but it wasn’t authorized.

Wikipedia officials suspect that summer help on Capitol Hill may be behind some of the more recent changes. It sure seems that way, based on a now-deleted entry to Florida Republican Mel Martinez’s profile.

“Sen. Martinez now has a talented group of interns,” it read.