I'm not a public figure......but somebody posted a prank biography about me. It was "deleted" rather quickly but the information was accessible through the history. Also, the discussion page misrepresented me as well. Once an entry is "deleted" you can't change it, but the whole world can read everything that "was" there.
I had forgotten about it until a year later when legal issues at work made it important. I spent the next two months trying to get wikipedia to actually delete the page, make it unsearchable or some other compromise. TWO MONTHS! I even got an email from Wales saying it would "blanked" but that doesn't do anything really. I ended up complaining about it elsewhere online where one of the editors happens to visit and he fixed the problem to my satisfaction himself.
They have no easy way to deal with this problem which I bet is more common than any of us can imagine. If you are a poor, unconnected nobody what happens when erroneous information gets on wikipedia about you? I'm glad Siegenthaler brought this to light. Maybe they'll start addressing the problem now...now that somebody rich, famous and connected is bitching at them.
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I'm not a public figure... ...but somebody posted a prank biography about me. It was "deleted" rather quickly but the information was accessible through the history. Also, the discussion page misrepresented me as well. Once an entry is "deleted" you can't change it, but the whole world can read everything that "was" there.
I had forgotten about it until a year later when legal issues at work made it important. I spent the next two months trying to get wikipedia to actually delete the page, make it unsearchable or some other compromise. TWO MONTHS! I even got an email from Wales saying it would "blanked" but that doesn't do anything really. I ended up complaining about it elsewhere online where one of the editors happens to visit and he fixed the problem to my satisfaction himself.
They have no easy way to deal with this problem which I bet is more common than any of us can imagine. If you are a poor, unconnected nobody what happens when erroneous information gets on wikipedia about you? I'm glad Siegenthaler brought this to light. Maybe they'll start addressing the problem now...now that somebody rich, famous and connected is bitching at them.