[WikiEN-l] Re: Clearer policy on self-written and obscure biographies

Thu Jan 1 18:18:13 UTC 2004

Ed Poor wrote:

>I think Jimbo mentioned last month that there is a
>problem with self-written biographies: other contributors
>may be excessively reluctant to 'contradict' the person
>who presumably knows himself best. This issue arose
>over the Sheldon Rampton article, although it little
>or no problem for the William Connelley article.

Jimbo expressed his opinion that this might be a problem, but he 
didn't offer any evidence to support his opinion, and he didn't 
propose any policy for dealing with it. Jimbo's theory was that 
people might be reluctant to contradict an article about me to which 
I have contributed, but his _reasons_ for thinking this were 
inconsistent:

(1) Jimbo thought  people might not want to risk clashing with me, 
based perhaps on a perception that I have been combative on this 
listserv. There are several reasons, however, why this assertion 
doesn't hold up under scrutiny. To begin with, most Wikipedians don't 
subscribe to the listserv. Furthermore, there is no particular reason 
to expect that most Wikipedians consult an article's history before 
editing it, so many people wouldn't even _know_ whether I have edited 
the Sheldon Rampton article before undertaking their own edits. In 
fact, seven different people have made edits to the Sheldon Rampton 
article since I first contributed to it.

(2) The other issue, which Ed raises here, is whether other 
contributors would be "excessively reluctant to contradict the person 
who presumably knows himself best." This is indeed a bit of a 
dilemma, but the problem isn't in way unique to articles that happen 
to be self-referential. The same question would arise if someone with 
a PhD in biochemistry contributed to an article about serotonin, or a 
musicologist contributed to an article about Mozart. The fact is that 
people without special knowledge about a topic _should_ be somewhat 
careful about contradicting someone with special knowledge -- which 
of course doesn't mean that they should refrain entirely, just that 
they should be careful. But does Wikipedia want to adopt a _general_ 
policy that says people should make a special effort to avoid 
contributing to topics on which they have special knowledge, for fear 
of inhibiting lay contributors? That would be bizarre, and I think it 
would be equally bizarre to adopt that policy with regard to 
biographical articles.

(3) Perhaps the best argument against self-written biographies is 
that we all have a strong point of view about ourselves. There might 
be a problem with someone inserting a passionately slanted biography 
about himself and then adamantly defending it against all contrary 
points of view. However, I don't see any evidence that this is a 
worse problem than other POV conflicts that occur on Wikipedia, and 
in practice thus far it seems to be rare.

Interestingly, the concerns expressed in points (1) and (2) above 
could be entirely eliminated simply by adopting a policy that says 
people should contribute _anonymously_ whenever they contribute to a 
biography of themselves. If I had adopted some user name other than 
"Sheldon Rampton" when I contributed to the Sheldon Rampton article, 
no one would worry about clashing with me or about the presumption 
that I "know myself best." This, however, would come at the price of 
less transparency, and as a general rule I think transparency is a 
good thing.

As another interesting aside, the Disinfopedia recently had an 
exchange with Philip Stott, a British professor who is profiled 
there. Stott himself made a number of contributions to the Philip 
Stott article, and I think his participation improved it. Moreover, I 
saw no evidence that people who disagree with Stott's self-assessment 
were at all reluctant to contradict him. If people want to see how 
that article has developed to date, they can read it at the following 
URL:

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Philip_Stott

Having said all this, I think there _is_ a potential problem with 
"vanity biographies," but this is really just a special case under 
Wikipedia's NPOV policy. It might be a good idea to have a policy 
against people _creating_ biographies of themselves, even though this 
would be impossible in practice to enforce.
-- 
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
--------------------------------