[WikiEN-l] People editing their own Wikipedia articles.
Joseph Reagle
reagle at mit.edu
Tue Nov 15 15:20:47 UTC 2005
On Thursday 10 November 2005 19:10, Matt Brown wrote:
> Daniel Brandt is far from the first subject of a Wikipedia article to come
> along, find the article, and try to 'fix' it, edit it, delete it, or even
> boost themselves on it. And he won't be the last. As Wikipedia becomes
more
> and more in the public eye, and as well-known people become more and more
> familiar with online things, we'll see it quite often.
Interestingly, I had just written about this with respect to Mike Godwin and
his Law.
http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/culture/wikipedia/godwins-law?showcomments=yes
2005 Nov 14 | Godwin's Law
...
In any case, the Wikipedia experience that Godwin wished to share was about
the article on Godwin's Law. While modifying the article to more accurately
reflect the history of the meme, some other editors objected. The trinity
of Wikipedia policies is that editors should be neutral in their
presentation of claims, not include original -- and potentially crackpot --
research, and provide citations such that any such claim can be verified by
others. So, this story brings us to the interesting question of how does
the primary source, such as Godwin, edit a related article? While
recognizing Godwin's authority, one might also then challenge his
neutrality and reporting of primary claims. It is not uncommon for
contributors to create "vanity" edits (pages or links) that are rebuffed
with these policies when the edit is not of encyclopedic merit. But what of
when the edit is of merit? Are the most qualified primary sources
disqualified from editing the Wikipedia article? Need a primary source
published her first person claim elsewhere before it can bear upon the
Wikipedia article?
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