I’m reading the ongoing debate on whether the Wikipedia article about me should be deleted.
It’s weird enough that I have a Wikipedia article. It’s weirder that four people have already chimed in in defense of the article, and they’re currently outnumbering those that think it should be redirected to Boobquake. Which oddly enough, has its own article as well.
EDIT: It’s also weird finding things wrong with my article and not being able to fix it, due to the rules about not editing stuff where you have conflicts of interests. I won the Undergraduate Student Research Award from the American Society of Mammlogists, not Microbiologists! And then there are other awards I’ve won that don’t have documentation available on the internet, and therefore get lost in No Citation land. Oh well.
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joshhelton
October 13, 2011 at 1:08 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
It’s been corrected to mammalogists now :)
Michael Hoffman
October 13, 2011 at 1:19 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
You aren’t forbidden from editing the article about yourself if you can do so in a neutral way, but doing so is just a bad idea.
It’s not your CV so there doesn’t need to be a place for every award you’ve won. If they aren’t notable enough to show up in some other reliable source, then they probably don’t need to go up there.
schism
October 13, 2011 at 1:32 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
*looks at deletion discussion*
*realizes the byzantine mess that drove him away from Wikipedia in the first place is, if anything, even worse now*
*resumes ignoring Wikipedia*
Nepenthe
October 13, 2011 at 1:38 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
If there’s anyone I’d like to set the tone for a deletion discussion about my biography, it’s Tryptofish. I was expecting snide vaguely sexist remarks, not a seemingly reasonable discussion.
BrianX
October 13, 2011 at 1:43 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Wikipedia (and its no-experts policy) is, in principle, an excellent idea. However, the wiki model leaves it wide open to seriously unbalanced people squatting on articles and rules-lawyering to death any edit that’s even slightly controversial. That’s why I stick to TVTropes and RationalWiki these days.
larianlequella
October 13, 2011 at 2:04 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I for one think it’s cool that you have a Wikipage. :)
Andrew Guyton
October 13, 2011 at 2:21 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’ve already said my opinion on the deletion discussion (disavian here) but I’d like to point out to anyone that doesn’t know: it’s not a straight vote, it’s more presenting arguments to whoever the closing administrator is and they decide what the “consensus” of the discussion is.
bitguru
October 13, 2011 at 2:45 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
If you document those awards on your blog, then your blog can be the citation.
athorist
October 13, 2011 at 3:33 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I vote for a re-direct to ‘boobs’.
DLC
October 13, 2011 at 3:35 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hey, at least there’s no [citation needed] next to your name!
Riptide
October 13, 2011 at 3:40 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’ve kind of lost respect for Wikipedia after one of Neil Gaiman’s original characters in American Gods was kind of turned into an actual god of Russian mythology completely by accident–well-meaning people editing the Wikipedia references to the character to exclude reference to Gaiman to be “culturally fair” or some such. Now the god has been cited by serious scholarly journals as having actually ‘existed’ in the popular mythos of the pre-Christian East Slavs.
Wikipedia’s a nice idea, in other words…but if it’s left to the ‘invisible hand’ of the marketplace of ideas, it has the potential to play havoc with certain academic fields like history and anthropology.
shreddakj
October 13, 2011 at 4:11 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
You know you’ve really made it when you’re on wikipedia!
Indeterminate Me
October 13, 2011 at 4:59 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
bitguru,
<blockquote<If you document those awards on your blog, then your blog can be the citation.
Blogs are not considered acceptable cites on Wikipedia.
Kevin
October 13, 2011 at 5:38 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Indeterminate –
they can be. It’s generally acceptable to cite a blog that is definitely written by someone for noncontentious information about themselves. you can’t use a blog to source an extraordinary claim (like, winning a nobel peace prize) but unless there are special reasons to doubt it, they are generally okay sources for information about the person who writes them.
Many minor awards won’t be worth mentioning in an article, though, since it’s not a CV.
Azkyroth
October 13, 2011 at 5:51 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Has someone gone through and added one to ever mention of the sky appearing to be blue?
Ethan
October 13, 2011 at 5:56 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
There’s a project by Susan Gerbic over at http://guerrillaskepticismonwikipedia.blogspot.com/ to make sure skeptics have up to date wikipedia articles. I’d give her a shout and see if she can’t add you to her to-do list.
Lukas
October 13, 2011 at 6:58 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Riptide, which American Gods character are you referring to? (I’m a massive fan of Neil Gaiman, and of mythology, so I always like learning new trivia about either.)
Blake Stacey
October 13, 2011 at 7:11 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
At some point, folks hanging out at Pharyngula noticed that Deepak Chopra’s Wikipedia article said that Time magazine had listed him as one of the most 100 influential people of some time period. I took the trouble to dig through the Time archives and couldn’t find anything of the sort. The statement in Wikipedia did have a citation, but to some random website floating around out there…which might’ve gotten the idea from Wikipedia in the first place, for all I know. Having soured on editing Wikipedia myself in 2006 or so, I didn’t have the gumption to push the issue further.
Blake Stacey
October 13, 2011 at 7:46 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Zorya Polunochnaya.
julian
October 13, 2011 at 8:28 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Here, here!
Daniel
October 13, 2011 at 9:06 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Nothing stops you from participating in the discussion page (see Randal L. Schwartz‘s article for an example.
If you want some awards to be cite, maybe you could take a pictures and upload it in the discussion section (I did that for some article about monuments – I take “article quality” pictures and also upload pictures of plaques or other documentation).
loreleion
October 13, 2011 at 10:39 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
It’s been a while since I was active on Wikipedia, but I still remember the link to my favorite rule.
Phillip Helbig
October 14, 2011 at 7:57 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Maybe it’s an acceptable cite if it’s an acceptable site (or, in Jen’s case [obligatory boobquake reference], an acceptable sight!)?
hoverFrog
October 14, 2011 at 8:05 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
You are more than just boobquake.
heironymous
October 14, 2011 at 9:37 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hear Hear
As in, everyone hear what this guy is saying. I agree with him…
heironymous
October 14, 2011 at 9:39 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Exactly! talk about objectification :)
zagrobelny8
October 14, 2011 at 10:39 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
How is this Wikipedia’s fault? Scholars and authors have an obligation to do research, not cut and paste the encyclopedia. Things like that have been happening long before Wikipedia.
zagrobelny8
October 14, 2011 at 10:40 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Blogs are acceptable if the blog author is providing information about themselves or their views.
Kate from Iowa
October 14, 2011 at 11:15 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Abso-frickin’-lutely!
Azkyroth
October 14, 2011 at 7:14 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
This.
(Although, I have to say, out of all the organizations to win an award from… ^.^)
susangerbic
October 14, 2011 at 8:00 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’m so very sorry to read about your attitude towards Wikipedia. I know that it can be frustrating when edits are reverted and some editors act like asses. But I feel you are ignoring the big picture. Wikipedia is the closest thing we have to a summation of all knowledge (according to Jeff Wagg) and is available world wide, for FREE, no pop-ups, no viruses and guess what we control it.
By WE I mean people with facts.
You might have given up, sorry, but I haven’t. You say you are ignoring Wikipedia, really? You don’t scuttle over there once in awhile to look something up? Where else would you go?
My point is that we can’t give up on improving Wikipedia for skeptical content. The world is visiting these pages. That is a fact. If you find that a page is in disorder then help fix it. If you are still having problems with your edit staying, then really look at what the other editors are trying to tell you. If you still think they are at fault then you can move to getting the disagreement settled by neutral editors.
There are solutions besides giving up.
susangerbic
October 14, 2011 at 8:13 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
The reference you are talking about seems to have been removed. You are 100% correct that references need to be checked over, I find them on psychic pages all the time, they say they have assisted the police and solved all kinds of crimes. Then they cite their own blog. Yikes!
We need to look for those kinds of things because they are very quick things to take out. People outside the skeptical community are reading these pages, they don’t know who Chopra is, he is just a really nice guy on TV that a lot of people seem to respect. If they are reading this nonsense then they are going to believe it.
Bring it to someones attention when you see this kind of thing, you can write it on the Discussion page or maybe just ask around on Facebook for someone who is willing to take the edit out.
What kind of numbers are we looking at? Chopra is getting 35-55 thousand hits each month. I think its important to keep on top of this.
susangerbic
October 14, 2011 at 8:23 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thank you Ethan!
Jennifer mentioned this on a blog a month or so ago, her followers really came together and helped out her page. As Ethan says I am trying to mobilize a editing “army” that will write/improve ect Wikipedia pages for critical thinking. The project is really important, Wikipedia is an amazing resource, we can’t ignore it. Seize these paranormal pages back from the woo that tries to change edits into promotional nonsense for themselves.
We also need to have the backs of our skeptical spokespeople which is exactly where Jennifer’s WP page falls. How can we ask the non-skeptical world to respect Jennifer (and others) if we don’t respect them enough to maintain their page?
My to-do list is pages and pages long. Please add her and others to YOUR list.
Please join me. If you want to remain just a part of the skeptical community, then fine, continue bitching over your beer at the next skeptics in the pub. But when you are ready to join the Skeptical Movement and you think editing Wikipedia might be just up your alley then visit my blog for ideas.
Heather
October 16, 2011 at 4:00 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
“And then there are other awards I’ve won that don’t have documentation available on the internet, and therefore get lost in No Citation land.”
List them here and cite your blog!
Kaleberg
October 16, 2011 at 9:36 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Your name and birthday are two pieces of hearsay evidence admissible in court.
Nick
October 17, 2011 at 1:27 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
There has to be a way for you leave some authoritative bio, or at least a way to correct what’s been written.
I would argue against deletion; if you matter enough for people to set about putting up and maintaining your page, you probably matter enough for Wikipedia.