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Wikipedia and the Tyranny of the Lowest Common Denominator

I’m currently watching a tug-of-war over my entry on a wikipedia page dedicated to the 2008 Election. Some self-appointed “editor” has decided that the presidential primary shouldn’t be cluttered, so he keeps deleting my entry as well as the entry for John Cox.

There are other pages within wikipedia where I don’t see any such housekeeping, but this particular editor has decided that only candidates who have previous held high elected office should be permitted. Oddly, the published criteria for inclusion makes no such mention, and then under “individuals who have expressed serious interest” is listed Michael Savage???

I’ve heard some folks comment that the wikipedia model has a detrimental effect by homogenizing our knowledge base and only including the blandest of consensus views. In my case, where I’m very dependent on exposure through channels other than the mainstream media, this dumbing-down of the data is quite frustrating.

Anyone who has a moment, feel free to spot-check the page United States presidential election, 2008 and if you find my name missing under Candidates who have filed with the FEC (Republican), please feel free to edit me back into the page.

Michael


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Comment from Random832:

I just have to say – I don’t agree with the removal… but, it’s really, well… not considered “cool” to go posting stuff like that to your blog, particularly specifically encouraging people to edit war about it. It’s much better to discuss this sort of thing on the talk page of the article.


Posted by Random832    Mar 8, 06:49 PM    #
Comment from Michael Smith:

I see your point, but it looked as though there wasn’t a consistent standard being applied. I’ll check out the talk option if the problem persists tomorrow.

Thanks Random832,

Michael


Posted by Michael Smith    Mar 8, 08:30 PM    #
Comment from Roy Jacobson:

Those self apointed “editors” and edit wars sure take the luster off of wikipedia.
That is a shame as Michael has some really great ideas. If we could only enact automatic runoff elections than all that “clutter” would be taken more serious.


Posted by Roy Jacobson    Mar 10, 04:49 PM    #

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