I was listening to an interview at the end of June from Simon Sinek with Jimmy Wales from Wikipedia.
I liked what the co-founder of the Encyclopedia was sharing about how information was power, about trust, fake news, the danger of social media and more. So I thought maybe I need to make a Wikipedia page about myself. To make sure that what is on there is true, complete and not fake. I admit I was also a bit curious to find out how this process worked.
I asked a copywriter I am used to working with for other digital stuff to take care of it as I did not have the time and I am so happy I did not start myself. It would not have been good for my heart.
I had so much respect for the ‘reviewers’ & and ‘moderators’ after what Jimmy Wales shared but I have to be honest my respect for them is going down. I respect the time some take to review and advice. But the tone others use is unrespectful, some even share lies, no idea where their ‘truth’ comes from.
I wonder if there is a quality control on the reviewers, is the ecosystem waterproof?
Who decides whether someone is relevant for society or not?
I have the feeling some people forget we are all biased, and that a source is not necessarily taking a bias away.
I hope nobody told Puttin he needed to start a war to become more relevant and get a longer Wiki page.
I understand that you want to have as many sources as possible, to build the links, as that is actually what it is mostly about. It is great that you double check on things, but sometimes there are no sources available especially about things that happened before the digital era. Does it mean it is fake news, does it mean it is irrelevant because it did not get in the newspaper?
I recently had a talk with someone about Wikipedia (before I started this journey), I defended the platform. I do not remember who I talked to, but if you read my blog, I apologize, you were right: it is not complete, nor always correct.
I should not generalize my experience, as not all reviewers shared something on my article (luckily because I might have needed a therapist afterwards -just kidding).
The things I read from some reviewers on myself that were simply not correct, made me angry first, sad afterwards. It almost made me decide, let’s forget about the article, I am indeed irrelevant.
But my fantastic, young, passionate, creative copywriter likes a challenge. He rewrote the article many times, asked me for extra sources as he really wanted to get the article published.
And then a great reviewer popped up, instead of only giving critics he helped Sam to write the article totally Wikepedia proof.
I respect Sam's dedication and stamina. I think I would prefer giving birth again than making a Wikipedia page and I can tell you they were quite something (do not believe me it was not in the newspapers)
Curiosity sometimes leads to frustration.
I understand why some very significant people rather not have a page on Wikipedia. I do hope I can invite Jimmy Wales one day for an interview to talk about my Wikepidia experience, my published page by then and most of all about how we can make this world a better place. With the help of relevant people, whether they have a Wikipedia page or not.
