[Gendergap] Advice for BLP situation (possibly off-topic)

[Deanna Zandt]

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

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Deanna Zandt
deanna at deannazandt.com
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