Waldo Jaquith - Dave Albo vs. Wikipedia.

Dave Albo vs. Wikipedia.

On 15 November 2008 with 8 comments

Dave Albo keeps editing his Wikipedia entry in total violation of Wikipedia’s standards, leading to ongoing edit wars between him (who keeps inserting advocacy language using text reproduced verbatim from his website) and neutral editors (who are trying to take out the self-promotion). The result is the worst Wikipedia entry for any member of the General Assembly. I’ve proposed wiping it out and starting again, this time adhering to a neutral point of view.

When somebody created a Wikipedia entry for me a couple of years ago, I adhered to Wikipedia standards and refrained from editing it. (I might be the world’s leading expert on me, but I can hardly be neutral in my viewpoint.) I asked that somebody propose that it be deleted, since I’m not a notable figure. Somebody did so, and Wikipedia editors agreed that I wasn’t up to snuff.

5pm Update: I totally overhauled the entry. The puffery is gone, it’s stripped down to the facts that I could verify (and a couple that I couldn’t), everything is footnoted, and it is now completely neutral. Much better.

8 Comments

I suppose that if somebody else said that he “passed some of Virginia’s most important legislation in the past 15 years” and called him an “accomplished trial attorney”, it might be a compliment. But to say that about himself? That’s just embarrassing.

And, what’s with the last sentence in the entry? “By combining Delegate Albo’s financing plan and the South County parents’ land swap idea, we were able to build the school.” Who’s the “we”?

Posted by Harry Landers on 15 November 2008 @ 4pm

You’re right, it didn’t make any sense on its own (let alone as a Wikipedia entry). Wikipedia should be a place for impartial, factual, verifiable information.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 15 November 2008 @ 5pm

It’s pretty funny that he calls it “his” entry. It’s about him but Wiki owns it not Mr. Albo. I also didn’t know that removing biased information, which has no place on wiki, is now considered “vandalism”.

Posted by Kevin on 15 November 2008 @ 5pm

Looks like one of the versions was a copy of davealbo.com. “South County Secondary School. SCSS was the first school in Virginia built and financed by a private company.” I don’t believe this is the first private school in Virginia. Remember, every entry on Wiki and every encyclopedia is “biased information.” The bias is what you think is important enough to be in the entry. You leave out or include info according to your bias.

I’ve followed the Wikipedia for neighborhoods controversy in Cville Weekly. The bias of experts is to create the appearance you’re more knowledgeable than anybody else. The bias of realtors is to sell more. Wikipedia is based on the idea that self-proclaimed experts provide the most biased and least reliable info.

Posted by Blair on 15 November 2008 @ 10pm

Um. Whatever. But here in in the normal world, we have a definition of “bias” that makes it plausible to be non-biased, so let’s stick within the confines of reality here.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 15 November 2008 @ 11pm

They saw you rollin’ . . .

Posted by MB on 16 November 2008 @ 6pm

Waldo, I disagree on you not being up to snuff for being on wikipedia. My latest experiment on http://www.hightechcville.com has been to pull in wikipedia data. It’s not released to the main site yet, but one of the folks on HTC, Angela Orebaugh, has a ton of great info. I wish more folks were on wikipedia, as that helps flesh out their picture.

Posted by Eric Pugh on 17 November 2008 @ 1pm

I love that the edits are still going on and that Albo Must Go was added today – follow up post with a screenshot or two might be necessary if this continues.

Posted by brian on 20 November 2008 @ 10am

← A British tale of a conservative fall and rise. McAuliffe: “It’s not whether I win or not.” →

← Back to Home

© Waldo Jaquith. Powered by WordPress using the DePo Skinny Theme.