Comments: Wikipedia Articles Can Be A Disaster Waiting To Happen

Keep in mind...
. the celebrity gossip factor.
. wikipedia as computer bulletin board.
. deleted wikipedia entries are still available.
. people's passionate interests in people, places, things.
. try the usual spin techniques of the advertising industry with the ad hominem attacks.
. notariety and ad hominem attacks can serve the interest of important issues... refocus and spin.

Posted by dsaklad@gnu.org at January 29, 2007 06:08 AM

Seth, you are a fact - your existence is a fact.
You are a member of the public.
The fact of your existence is public knowledge.
You cannot control the facts.
You CAN complain about untruths, and plead for their remedy.
Fortunately, the public is interested in truth, in the veracity of the facts that constitute public knowledge.

The inevitability that a nameless and anonymous collective (public subset) will err in collecting facts about you is one of those thermodynamic tradeoffs between the reputation of the author and the accuracy of what is written, i.e. anonymity vs rigour.

Trying to remedy what unthinking, anononymous near-automatons write about you, is probably like trying to forget an unpleasant memory. The greater the effort, the harder the task.

Of course, you may well be aware that railing against one's notability is likely to reinforce it. Perhaps this is a '15 mins of fame' niche you've spotted?

History does not consist of an accurate record of what happened, but an accurate record of what most people agreed happened.

I'm reminded of this movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074553/

Posted by Crosbie Fitch at February 7, 2007 07:25 PM