Hi Deanna,
This is a great question, and something that comes up a lot. There's lots that can be
said, but I think the best piece of advice is this: it is NOT prohibited for her to edit
her own biography. The "conflict of interest" guideline is just that..a
guideline, not policy.
Of course it's a delicate area, and the way she comports herself will have a lot to do
with how influential she is. It would probably be a good idea for her to explore Wikipedia
editing elsewhere a little before tackling stuff on her own page, to get a feel for how
things go.
But if anybody tells her she simply *can't* edit the page, they're flat-out wrong.
I would highly recommend she clearly disclose who she is, and put her energy more into
removing poorly sourced information (rather than writing original material). Writing
original material is not entirely off-limits either, but it's more likely to run into
resistance.
Hope this helps. I've done a lot of work in this area, with both people who were
successful and others who were not; so please feel free to contact me on- or off-list if
you want to discuss further.
-Pete
On May 11, 2011, at 9:58 AM, Deanna Zandt wrote:
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
Site:
http://www.deannazandt.com/
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/randomdeanna
Facebook: Public:
http://facebook.com/deannazandt
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http://facebook.com/deannaz
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
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