2 on Wikipedia: Finkelstein Wants Bio out of Wikipedia & Boston-area Wikipedians
"My article is still there, at the moment. But I wish it weren’t," writes Seth Finkelstein, a noted programmer working against censorware, at the end of an editorial about what it’s like to be a living person with a biography in Wikipedia that gets vandalized and republished outside of his control.
Of course, now that Seth’s biography is in the news, the risk of it getting vandalized increases, like what Wikipedia user Bogdangiusca notes in the history of the page upon protecting the article and adding the disclaimer at the top about restricting editing access.
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The Boston Globe talks about how a few Boston-area Wikipedians got involved in the project. Starting with a correction or edit to an article found via a search engine seems quite common among the community members.
September 30th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Hi j.
I’m definitely familiar with the problem of sticking my head up and being hammered down, and I thought a lot about the implications before going forward with the column. Note, as I wrote on the Talk page, “There’s one issue of off-the-street puerile vandals, and another of a few attackers who have very deep grudges against me, and find Wikipedia functions as a great weapon of “asymmetric warfare”.”. I could end up worse off for discussing the issue (which reflects very badly on Wikipedia), it’s certainly a debatable proposition.
October 1st, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Hello Seth! I don’t want a bio in Wikipedia for some of the very reasons you cite. Luckily, I don’t meet their criteria as someone who should have an entry. = )