Everyone, thank you SO much for all the wonderful & supportive advice. I've forwarded it on to my colleague, and she's *extremely* appreciative. We had no idea there were so many resources available for these situations.
I didn't identify her at first because I wasn't sure how comfortable she was being a test case on a public listserv, but I did get permission from her this morning, since a couple of folks asked. Here's her page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Valenti
There's nothing egregious going on right now (tho lord knows we'd all love for the Althouse incident to be rounded out by other stuff, since it was what many consider an "insider baseball" moment); I'm also taking this opportunity to show her some of the do's and don'ts that I'm familiar with. We're also keeping an eye on a user that's been editing her page for years, adding random, unrelated negative attack pieces (which have since been edited out over time).
Random technical question on sources: there are calls for citations on the page to which there aren't really the technical "reliable sources." (i.e., her high school-- does that belong there at all? And the birth of her daughter, plus its complications.)
Thanks again for all your help. Really glad to be a part of this list/community.
cheers dz
On May 11, 2011, at 11:21 PM, Fred Bauder wrote:
Hi Deanna, There is some basic advice for people wishing to edit (or complain about) their ownbiographies here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notable_person_survival_kit Otherwise, drop me or some of the established women editors on this list a private note identifying the article, along with some sources that could be used to balance the article. Andreas
Yes, I keep forgetting this is a publicly accessible list. Please drop me a note if you want me to work on the problem, or use Wikipedia mail to User:Oversight if the problem needs immediate attention.
Fred
--- On Wed, 11/5/11, Deanna Zandt deanna@deannazandt.com wrote:
From: Deanna Zandt deanna@deannazandt.com Subject: [Gendergap] Advice for BLP situation (possibly off-topic) To: "Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects" gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Wednesday, 11 May, 2011, 17:58
Hey all, Apologies if this isn't the appropriate list/discussion to post to; I learned a lot by following the last BLP discussion, so I'm hoping to get some advice here. It's a question that as a technology consultant I'm asked a lot, and I don't have the greatest answer... I have a friend & colleague, a popular young NYC feminist, who's got a Wikipedia page. She's often been the subject of multiple troll/flame/stalking/etc wars, online and off, for many years now-- she was a favorite target of Anon and 4chan/b/ at one time, to give you an idea. Her page is rather sparse, but often people swing by and add inflammatory and other negative material to it. Since she's not *that* well known, her page isn't watched/edited by enough people to keep that in check, and she's often left frustrated that this material figures so prominently in her profile. I told her the best thing for her to do is find people in her community who can add more biographical information and really flesh out her page, so that anything negative has at least more balance to it. Since her community is mostly women, we butt up against the gendergap issue... there just aren't that many women (esp feminists) who are into this work. She's asked on multiple occasions if I or other consultants can be paid edit the page for her, but I advised that this not kosher in the community. So, she's feeling extremely stuck. She's not supposed to edit her own page, she doesn't have a strong enough community to maintain her page, and she can't pay anyone to do it. What to do? I understand, and she understands, that negativity is just part of the Wikipedia world; but having it be so prominent, and most of it being inflammatory, is just... ugh. So much of her work has been extremely positive and productive, I just hate to see her being recorded in history this way. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
dz
-=-=-=-=-Deanna Zandtdeanna@deannazandt.comSite: http://www.deannazandt.com/Twitter: http://twitter.com/randomdeannaFacebook: Public: http://facebook.com/deannazandtFacebook: Personal: http://facebook.com/deannaz Author: Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking, Berrett-Koehler, June 2010http://www.sharethischange.com/ "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." -- Oscar Wilde
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