Posted on 08/30/2025 2:29:35 PM PDT by nickcarraway
This week, I had two separate meetings with people I’d never met before. In both, after the polite small talk, each confessed that before sitting down with me they had quickly “studied up” by glancing at my Wikipedia page.
(Note to readers: Please don’t do the same.) My Wikipedia entry is not a neutral profile — it’s a hit job. It’s a curated “greatest hits” collection of my worst moments, or more precisely my critics’ worst caricatures of me.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
WFMU used to play recordings of Alan Watts lectures at the same time I was on my daily commute home. Great sense of humor, very insightful.
After he was gone we had Don Imus and Howard Stern. Consolation prizes.
Good examples—and there are many many more.
Modern physics—including quantum physics, quantum mechanics and astrophysics are in turmoil these days—Kurt Jaimungel has some great discussions with many physics and math experts in his “theory of everything” podcasts/videos.
Wikipedia is deep in denial on all this stuff. They accept only the “official” version—no matter how outdated and debunked it may be.
It's not so simple. The activist trolls will "dispute" the updates and it will revert to its former state.
Well you have to dispute back. They want it more than you do evidently.
The Wikipedia crazies travel in packs—slander people 24/7—and will outlast anyone...
every time.
Good luck saving anyone’s reputation from that tireless evil vicious mob.
Of course they will. It's a constant battle for the truth. It's what I wrote up above in #16: "The price of a public bio is constant vigilance."
If one is not willing or able to keep an eye on one's own bio page, and fight the trolls, one should either accept the situation as unfortunate and tolerate it, or move to delete the page. Whining accomplishes nothing, as I also wrote above. The choice "Make what I wrote immutable and permanent" is not really on the Wikipedia menu.
I get the feeling that even moving to delete won’t save one.
The people who are doing this aren’t interested in simply ‘disappearing’ those with whom they disagree. They seem to have a need to ridicule, tear down and publicly destroy. If you try to delete, they’ll put you back up there.
These are not peaceful people. They’re militant and incredibly arrogant in their belief that they know best what others should be permitted to know and think.
Forgive me a personal note regarding my connection with Wikipedia and its founder Jimmy Wales. Back when Wikipedia was very young, I read up on Jimmy Wales and his vision. Like Wales, I as a child devoured the printed word, not just books but encyclopedias (in my case, my parents had the World Book Encyclopedia series and subscription). I was an avid reader, but most of all, I wanted to learn everything about the universe. Wales seemed to have the same sort of drive, but in addition he had the vision of an internet-based encyclopedia that everyone could contribute to. I was very excited by this.
Moreover, his personal beliefs and philosophy mirrored my own: A libertarian (but not the Libertarian Party, "a bunch of lunatics"), an Ayn Rand Objectivist, leaning somewhat right-wing, preferring capitalism, and strongly believing in individual rights. In recent years Wales has drifted considerably to the left in his social and political positions; oh well, I haven't.
Anyway, Wikipedia began with this idealistic notion that everybody would cooperate and contribute and it would be great. But like all communal activities, like swimming in a common pool, it only takes one or a few a$$holes taking a poop in the pool to foul it for everyone.
The radical Left saw in Wikipedia an opportunity to leverage its wide scope and universal appeal, to promulgate leftist thought, propaganda, lies, etc. And just like other optimistic groups, Wikipedia tolerated these troublemakers until it was too late to recover.
This is where it started:
"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." —Jimmy WalesUnfortunately it has become politicized to the point where large parts of it -- political and social sections especially -- are virtually useless due to their bias. Fortunately the vast majority of Wikipedia is still useful, and is likely to remain so, because most of life and the universe is not political or social, or personal, Thank God.
But when it comes to people's bio pages, it is utterly personal, and it's always going to be a difficult battle, and not always successful.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
My concern has less to do with politics - which I expect and am ready for - and more with their dictatorial approach to thought that they don’t consider ‘following the science’. (Even though many of the people they ridicule could buy and sell them in terms of intelletual accomplishment.)
The word, even the concept, of "science" has become so corrupted that it's unrecognizable.
Science is the application of the "scientific method" to the collection and organization of knowledge of the universe and everything in it. It's a process of constant investigation, questioning, developing, revising, testing, tearing it up and starting over, and sometimes proposing a cause or a reason.
The last thing in the world that science is, is "settled". Properly, the best science can provide is a description of things that matches the observations to date. A hypothesis, later a theory, perhaps in time, a law. There's darn few of those. I know a few - my degree is in Physics, for what that's worth.
These days, what has replaced science in public, while retaining its name, is the "narrative" -- the currently accepted platform of those in power or who would like to be in power.
Science is not a declaration, it's a question. These people are so wildly at variance with the truth about science that they don't even rise to the level of being labeled "wrong". They're not even that close.
I have a T-shirt from the company LibertarianCountry.com that has the message: "Tar And Feather The Bastards". That's pretty much my position on those who misuse, misapply, misconstrue, and misrepresent science.
I apologize for the rant. Thanks for letting me crank a bit. :-)
I enjoyed it :-)
Then conservatives will lose.
On Wikipedia conservatives have already been annihilated.
“Hey Bethany Mandel. Anybody can create, edit, comment on, etc. a Wikipedia page. Certainly a page about a person can be edited by that person.”
I agree that she could take constructive steps, but it’s not quite that simple. Wikipedia does have conflict-of-interest rules. You aren’t allowed to edit your own biographical article. (Of course, people have been caught doing so, and I assume some have gotten away with it.)
What Mandel could do is to edit the talk page associated with her article. She could sign a post to the talk page in which she noted specific problems with her article (things that should be changed, removed, or added). Then editors could consider her objections.
For example, she complains that her article is a collection of her “worst moments”. If something unflattering about her is false, she could say that. If the article is biased because it presents only one side, she could suggest favorable information that should be added. (FWIW, some accolades that she’s received are in the article — not buried, but in the second sentence. She could point out any others that have been omitted.)
If she put in the work to do this, what would Wikipedia’s editors make of it? It would be interesting to see how they responded. My guess is that she’s already moved on, though.
Nevertheless, as you point out, there are mechanisms for correcting both factual errors (including vandalism) and bias (such as Mandel claims) in one's bio page. The Talk page would be good for that.
In addition, she surely knows people who are sufficiently unrelated (not family) who could make corrections and additions on her behalf, as long as the changes meet the guidelines for citations, NPOV, etc.
“In addition, she surely knows people who are sufficiently unrelated (not family) who could make corrections and additions on her behalf, as long as the changes meet the guidelines for citations, NPOV, etc.”
I don’t know if that’s within the rules or not. She’d be safer going through the talk page.
Either way, though, the key would be, as you point out, to adhere to the general standards for encyclopedic material.
There are snowflakes on the right as well as the left. I can’t shake the suspicion that her real problem with the article is that it’s not unalloyed adoration. Even her Post piece doesn’t identify any specific issues in her bio. Compare it to the way she identifies specific issues about Israel-Palestine coverage.
It was created in 2007 with this notation:
"Created this page in order to spark discussion about good ways to get one's own information corrected."and has been modified over the years a few hundred times. It's not official (there are plenty of lengthy "official" pages on the topic), but it's mildly entertaining.
It’s so crazy. If an American puts in (machine translated) strategies of Jeopardy! on the Polish article about the game show, they say “not for Poland”.
These readers and editors have no understanding.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.