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 Zandt
deanna(a)deannazandt.com
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Author: Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking, Berrett-Koehler,
June 2010
http://www.sharethischange.com/
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." -- Oscar Wilde