Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia Founder Edits Own Bio
Carnildo writes "Wired News reports that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has edited his own entry in the online encyclopedia at least 18 times, in violation of Wikipedia's policy on autobiography. Edits included removing phrases describing Larry Sanger as a co-founder of Wikipedia, and changing phrasing describing Bomis.com, another of Wales' sites, as a pornography site."
I thought it was extremely silly that this showed up on Wired. Now it's doubly silly that it's shown up on Slashdot.
I mean, seriously, the last time there was a controversy over someone's Wikipedia bio, the suggestion was that he should've fixed the errors himself, right?
As for violating policy -- that "policy" itself says "This page is considered a guideline on Wikipedia. It illustrates standards of conduct, which many editors agree with in principle. However, it is not policy." In RFC terms, that's a SHOULD NOT, rather than a MUST NOT. (And that's not a new, self-justifying edit, either.) Yeah, it's a little tacky, but as long as he's making corrections and not inserting falsehoods, it's a matter for a gossip column, not tech news.
If it's to remove bullshit and/or to straighten the record???
I mean, come on. If you want to throw dirt at Wikipedia, can't you come up with something better than this? Not news, people. Not news at all.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Critical question: Who cares? Why is this important?
Not that I have an opinion either way ('cause I don't), but it seems to me that he did not write about himself, but rather edited content about his entry. I don't see why editing your bio, espcially to correct errors, would be such a terrible crime worthy of news.
-Valiss
Actually, he didn't create the article, but has just edited it for factual information. This is perfectly kosher, even if it is a faux paus socially. Other notable WP contributors have edited pages about themselves, providing factual information only.
Furthermore, it's his website, he can do whatever the hell he wants with it.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
On the one hand, Wales' case shows why it might be a good policy to advise against people editing their own biographies. He insists that the other man was not a "co-founder" of Wikipedia. Wales is in a position to know this, and it seems to me to be a bad idea to bar knowledgeable people from editing articles. Clearly Wales is knowledgeable about his own life.
On the other hand, it looks like Wales was trying to rewrite history. It appears likely that his Bomis Babes was at least so-called "adult entertainment," the modern euphamism for porn. He often removed these references to porn entirely. This seems to be injecting falsehood and bias into Wikipedia.
A lot of the Slashdot reaction has been "why does this matter" but it really does invoke some interesting questions if you stop for a minute to think about it.
Penny - plain text accounting
You'd think that since he's the FOUNDER, he would have some wikipedia equivalent of root.
In other words, why wasn't he able to edit his own entry without having his edits tracked?
Like you, I think the fact that he left his actions apparent for anyone to follow shows that he didn't think there was anything wrong with his edits.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
You know, the key feature of an autobiography is for one to write about one's self.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.