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The Internet

Wikipedia Founder Edits Own Bio 411

Posted by Zonk from the poor-choices dept.
Carnildo writes "Wired News reports that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has edited his own entry in the online encyclopedia at least 18 times, in violation of Wikipedia's policy on autobiography. Edits included removing phrases describing Larry Sanger as a co-founder of Wikipedia, and changing phrasing describing Bomis.com, another of Wales' sites, as a pornography site."
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Wikipedia Founder Edits Own Bio More

Wikipedia Founder Edits Own Bio

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  • *Not* policy, just a guideline (Score:5, Interesting)

    by idonthack ( 883680 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:46PM (#14301652)
    OP:
    Wikipedia's policy on autobiography
    Wikipedia's page, linked to in that phrase:
    This page is considered a guideline on Wikipedia. It illustrates standards of conduct, which many editors agree with in principle. However, it is not policy.
    Emphasis mine, on both. Of course, on the same page is this:
    "It is a social faux pas to write about yourself," according to Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's founder.
    Ooops.
    ---
    PS - This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.
    Generated by SlashdotRndSig [snop.com] via GreaseMonkey [mozdev.org]

    • Re:*Not* policy, just a guideline (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:47PM (#14301689)
      Oh come on... if someone vandalizes your bio to say "I love the cock" you wouldn't change it too?

    • Write vs Edit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Valiss ( 463641 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:52PM (#14301771) Homepage
      Not that I have an opinion either way ('cause I don't), but it seems to me that he did not write about himself, but rather edited content about his entry. I don't see why editing your bio, espcially to correct errors, would be such a terrible crime worthy of news.
      • he did not write about himself, but rather edited content about his entry. I don't see why editing your bio, espcially to correct errors, would be such a terrible crime worthy of news.

        Editing your own bio is just like writing it. If Charles Manson edited his to turn "murderer" into "serious self-defense practitioner", in his eyes he might think he's right and absolutely entitled to correct the error, but the result would be wrong.

        I think the phrase is "you can't be judge and jury".
        • "I don't see why editing your bio, espcially to correct errors, would be such a terrible crime worthy of news"

          Perhaps because Whales was in the hardcore porno industry before his work with Wikipedia, and the article referended his past in the industry with the facts. Whales didn't seem to like the bio including his work in the porno industry and so he deleted those portion(s).

          He owned several very big porno websites and was a porn cameraman for several years.

          He doesn't want this information to be let out of

          • Re:Write vs Edit (Score:3, Insightful)

            by technoid_ ( 136914 )
            And you have what to back up your statements? Come on, if you're gonna give the guy hell about editing his own bio, have some proof to your claims of what he is covering up.

            technoid_

        • Re:Write vs Edit (Score:3, Insightful)

          by AlvySinger ( 900304 )

          So when John Seigenthaler is libelled, the crowd shout: he could edit it to make it correct.

          When a Wiki bod edits their own entry it's wrong.

          I know this is /. a place where reason comes a distant second to dogma, but sheesh, really. At least having it every which way means you're never wrong, right?

      • Re:Write vs Edit (Score:2, Insightful)

        by timeOday ( 582209 )
        I don't see why editing your bio, espcially to correct errors, would be such a terrible crime worthy of news.
        Simple: because it shows the anonymous masses got it wrong, which undermines the very foundation of Wikipedia. If nothing else, what does it say for the accuracy of the vast majority of Wikipedia biographies about people who *don't* closely monitor their own entries?

        • Re:Write vs Edit (Score:5, Insightful)

          by timster ( 32400 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @03:24PM (#14302229)
          Nonsense. Anyone who has ever tried to write an article about anything knows that it is quite difficult to come up with something that is one hundred percent accurate. There are plenty of errors in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, as demonstrated by the recent study.

          Please distinguish between the PROCESS of Wikipedia and the CONTENT of Wikipedia. Certainly it's possible to find errors in the content, but these do not prove that the process is invalid unless the number of errors is excessive (see again the recent study). Similarly, attempting to "prove" that the process is invalid through some logical stroke (as you have attempted to do) is irrelevant unless you can show that the theoretical problems with the process do meaningful damage to the content.

        • Not quite. (Score:5, Informative)

          by CarpetShark ( 865376 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @03:32PM (#14302366)
          Ermm, you're forgetting that he is one of the masses too. No one is particularly anonymous. Nor is he special enough that his entries wouldn't be changed if others thought they were wrong. So, he's just another peer, contributing to a great site. Nothing new there for Wikipedia :)

        • Re:Write vs Edit (Score:5, Insightful)

          by PenguiN42 ( 86863 ) <taylork@alum.mit . e du> on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @03:42PM (#14302504) Journal
          Simple: because it shows the anonymous masses got it wrong, which undermines the very foundation of Wikipedia.

          The "very foundation of Wikipedia" is not that the "anonymous masses" will get everything 100% correct. Claiming that this is the case is a pretty disingenuous strawman. I see you got 5 insightful points out of it, too, which points to a growing, somewhat confusing, anti-wikipedia fever on Slashdot.

          If nothing else, what does it say for the accuracy of the vast majority of Wikipedia biographies about people who *don't* closely monitor their own entries?

          This has nothing to do with biographies, but rather is about all articles on wikipedia: There are going to be some mistakes. Don't use an encyclopedia as a primary source. Nothing new here, please move along.

      • Re:Write vs Edit (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara.hudson@b ... m ['on.' in gap]> on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @03:14PM (#14302095) Journal

        Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has edited his own entry in the online encyclopedia at least 18 times, in violation of Wikipedia's policy on autobiography.
        This is dumb. ... the wiki is just as bad
        You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved. This particularly applies to autobiographies

        The only person, by definition, who CAN write an autobiograhy about Wales is Wales.

        definition: autobiography: The biography of a person written by that person.

        Is english the first language of any of the editors of slashdot or wikimedia?

        • Re:Write vs Edit (Score:3, Insightful)

          by rbarreira ( 836272 )
          Is english your first language? It isn't mine, and I can still understand what they mean with these two sentences:

          You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved. This particularly applies to autobiographies (...)

          The first sentence is the general case. The second one is a more particular case of writing about subjects in which you are personally involved, in this case the subject being "your own life". Got it?

    • Barbossa [imdb.com] : ."..the Code is more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner."

    • Arrr, matey, it's not so much a code [wikipedia.org] as it is a guideline.

      -h-

    • Re:*Not* policy, just a guideline (Score:5, Informative)

      by MikeBabcock ( 65886 ) <mtb-slashdot@mikebabcock.ca> on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:56PM (#14301856) Homepage Journal
      There's a difference between writing about one's self ("Michael is a genius") and editing out others' comments about one's self ("Michael is an ass^H^H^H").

      In any case, Wikipedia allows the viewing of historical changes; so people can be held accountable for such edits anyway.
    • "It is a social faux pas to write about yourself," according to Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's founder.
      And we all know that geeks have the greatest level of social grace attainable, eh?

  • Why is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kelson ( 129150 ) * on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:46PM (#14301660) Homepage Journal
    I thought it was extremely silly that this showed up on Wired. Now it's doubly silly that it's shown up on Slashdot.

    I mean, seriously, the last time there was a controversy over someone's Wikipedia bio, the suggestion was that he should've fixed the errors himself, right?

    As for violating policy -- that "policy" itself says "This page is considered a guideline on Wikipedia. It illustrates standards of conduct, which many editors agree with in principle. However, it is not policy." In RFC terms, that's a SHOULD NOT, rather than a MUST NOT. (And that's not a new, self-justifying edit, either.) Yeah, it's a little tacky, but as long as he's making corrections and not inserting falsehoods, it's a matter for a gossip column, not tech news.

    • Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Funny)

      by suso ( 153703 ) * on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:51PM (#14301749) Journal
      I thought it was extremely silly that this showed up on Wired. Now it's doubly silly that it's shown up on Slashdot.

      And now its become even more silly that people are commenting about it.
    • The "violation of policy" is irrelevant.

      Wikipedia is under a lot of scrutiny right now, and the real issue is this: does collecting information in the Wikipedia style actually work? Does even its own founder really believe in it, when it comes to information he personally cares about?

      • Re:Why is this news? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Kelson ( 129150 ) * on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @03:18PM (#14302148) Homepage Journal
        Does even its own founder really believe in it, when it comes to information he personally cares about?

        Given that he made a few edits instead of locking it down, I'd guess the answer is "yes."

        • Re:Why is this news? (Score:2, Insightful)

          by timeOday ( 582209 )

          Given that he made a few edits instead of locking it down, I'd guess the answer is "yes."

          But he intervened with the process by getting involved. If we can only trust Wikipedia on topics where key people happen to be interested, what good is it?

          Wikipedia is an experiment in gathering information from self-selecting sources who are essentially anonymous. Jimmy Wales is the experimenter. Remember in school when your physics experiment concluded that gravitational acceleration was 9.5 m/s? What did you

          • Re:Why is this news? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Kelson ( 129150 ) *
            Since when is Wikipedia an "experiment in gathering information?" It may be an experiment in the colloquial, "let's see if this will work" sense, but I don't think they've ever claimed it was an actual scientific experiment.

            Really, saying the founder of Wikipedia shouldn't make contributions because it's an experiment to see what other people will do is like saying that CmdrTaco shouldn't make comments on Slashdot, because it's an experiment in gatering comments from random geeks who have too much time on

  • NOTE: not a violation of "policy" (Score:3, Informative)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) * <yayaguNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:46PM (#14301668) Journal

    A point of order from the slashdot "article"... from the article:

    Wired News reports that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has edited his own entry in the online encyclopedia at least 18 times, in violation of Wikipedia's policy on autobiography

    But, the actual link includes in the very first paragraph:

    This page is considered a guideline on Wikipedia. It illustrates standards of conduct, which many editors agree with in principle. However, it is not policy.

    While there may be a patina of suspicion for self-edited bio's, it doesn't sound like Wales committed any overt actions warranting this scrutiny. (for example, I've just visited bomis.com, and had it not been referred to in this article as potentially a porn or soft-porn site, I never would have guessed by scanning the home page -- his "correction" is probably warranted.) I guess it's a price to pay for the internet fame.

  • So what? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .reggoh.gip.> on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:46PM (#14301675) Journal
    If it's to remove bullshit and/or to straighten the record???
    • I don't give a shit if he's correcting errors about himself. I would encourage that. He knows his own life best, doesn't he? I see this more as a bunch of wikipedia haters trying to cause a stir over something that isn't. Now if he starts inserting "facts" about having 17 dicks and 19 balls, then people can bitch. But setting the record straight is a _GOOD_ thing.

  • Wow. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mille Mots ( 865955 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:46PM (#14301677)
    Stuff that matters. Finally!

  • Slashdot sez... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FooAtWFU ( 699187 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:47PM (#14301679) Homepage
    Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

    I mean, come on. If you want to throw dirt at Wikipedia, can't you come up with something better than this? Not news, people. Not news at all.

  • his website - he founded it....He sets the rules and the policy - Why is this such a big deal? We don't complain (too loudly :) ) when dupes happen here, or things are changed. It IS Taco's site, much like Wikipedia is his own...
    • We don't complain (too loudly :) ) when dupes happen here

      except Taco didn't write "it is a guideline that the Slashdot editors should spell-check and dupe-check submissions". Since they didn't set the trap, they don't run the chance of getting caught in it.
    • "He sets the rules and the policy"

      Its wikipedia, cant someone just edit the guidelines before breaking what used to be against them?

      (note: joking)

  • in other news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tibor the Hun ( 143056 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:48PM (#14301704)
    Well, as long as we're posting shit I'd like to add that I used the bathroom twice today, had a good lunch and installed a new monitor.
    I'm also considering making a dupe of this post later in the conversation.
    What have other /.ers done today?

  • Really... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ElGnomo ( 612336 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:48PM (#14301708)
    Critical question: Who cares? Why is this important?

  • It must be "beat up on Wikipedia week" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by yppiz ( 574466 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:49PM (#14301713) Homepage
    It seems like everyone is jumping on Wikipedia this week. Seriously, who's writing these talking points?

    --Pat

  • Bit misleading (Score:3, Informative)

    by chrisbtoo ( 41029 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:49PM (#14301718) Journal
    First, it's a guideline, not a policy.

    Also, the first revision of the Autobiography page [wikipedia.org] states:


    This is a proposed new guideline. Don't take it seriously yet!!

    If you, or something you are responsible for, is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia, somebody else will do it soon enough. Let them do it.

    Note that this guideline is not intended to discourage people who have articles about themselves or their works from contributing to those articles in the interests of accuracy and fairness.


    JW didn't edit the page until over a year after it was created, so not really against the guideline, either.

  • He's not the only one getting caught (Score:5, Interesting)

    by u2boy_nl ( 927513 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:49PM (#14301719) Homepage
    Recently Adam Curry was caught changing the Wikipedia article about 'podcasting'. (You know, the amazing technology which allows you to download audio from the internet and then listen to it!!!!)

    Former MTV veejay and podcasting entrepreneur Adam Curry appears to have been caught anonymously editing the podcasting entry on Wikipedia to remove credit from other people and inflate his role in its creation.

    http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/2818 [cadenhead.org]

  • latest entry (Score:4, Funny)

    by joemawlma ( 897746 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:51PM (#14301763)
    "Jimmy Whales also has a 12-inch... um, ruler?"

  • i feel libelous (Score:3, Funny)

    by sardonic2 ( 576701 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:52PM (#14301777) Homepage
    WAIT! didn't that dude who was involved in the murder of Kennedy change his own Biography? He's the one that started all this shit
    • WAIT! didn't that dude who was involved in the murder of Kennedy change his own Biography?

      Lyndon Johnson has been dead for more than 30 years; there's no way he could edit his bio on Wikipedia...

    • Re:i feel libelous (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Billosaur ( 927319 ) *

      You're referring to John Siegenthaler of course. I find it interesting that while it is not policy to edit one's bio and is considered a social "faux pas" if you do, when Mr. Siegenthaler complained about his bio, he was told he should have edited it himself. Doublethink lives!

      Of course, this is old news [theregister.co.uk].

  • About WP:AUTO (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thephotoman ( 791574 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:52PM (#14301785) Journal
    Actually, he didn't create the article, but has just edited it for factual information. This is perfectly kosher, even if it is a faux paus socially. Other notable WP contributors have edited pages about themselves, providing factual information only.

    Furthermore, it's his website, he can do whatever the hell he wants with it.
    • And people can also stop going to the website because of the tendency of its developers, administrators and editors to create scenes that devolve into a circus. I used to edit the site (I'm actually an administrator on wikibooks and meta) because I was interested in the content I was writing about, but I left because people (including administrators) resorted to preschool antics of trying to humiliate each other in order to try to discredit each other. After I left the site, I started my own website where

    • Actually, he didn't create the article, but has just edited it for factual information.

      Are you suggesting that Sanger wasn't a cofounder?

    • Re:About WP:AUTO (Score:4, Insightful)

      by geoffspear ( 692508 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @03:23PM (#14302222) Homepage
      Furthermore, it's his website, he can do whatever the hell he wants with it.

      It's fine for you to believe that, as long as you're not also one of the people who belives that WP should be taken seriously as a source of unbiased research.

      Personally, I don't care if he edits the article on oxygen to claim it has an atomic weight of 600, and then locks the entry from further editing. It's his website, and I don't use it for research. Those who do take it seriously should have second thoughts if he shares your attitude, though.

    • It's interesting how he changed "a [[wiki]] pioneer who is best known as the co-founder and leader of [[Wikipedia]]" to "a [[wiki]] pioneer who is best known as the founder and leader of [[Wikipedia]]". That's not fact; it's opinion. He seems kinda, what can you say, arrogant. That's not just judging from this incident, but from recent news articles.

  • That's an amusing trick (Score:5, Funny)

    by Demona ( 7994 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @02:55PM (#14301832) Homepage
    considering Mr. Wales was shot dead last week [theregister.co.uk]. Apparently he's editing his own entry from the grave. (Sweet Lord, do those clowns at the Register need to get laid.)

  • Wikipedia is flawed (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Oldsmobile ( 930596 )
    I think Wikipedia is flawed. It is based on NPOV but there is no such thing. This is discussed in depth by post modernistis (who I don't agree with on everything, but they have valid points).

    The problem is, that any point of view is in some way a personal point of view, there are always nuances, deletions and viewpoints that stress one thing over another. It is simply not possible to write about something in a neutral way. Even netural is a point of view.

    However, I don't think this has ever been a problem u
    • You might not be able to write from a wholly neutral point of view but I think you'll find that if you tell people to try to write neutrally they'll write something that's useful to far more people. If the appearance of neutrality isn't maintained then Wikipedia will just degenerate into a flamefest - which remarkably it doesn't. An ideal but unattainable goal can still be a good goal to aspire to.
    • I think Wikipedia is flawed. It is based on NPOV but there is no such thing. This is discussed in depth by post modernistis (who I don't agree with on everything, but they have valid points).

      In that case, what makes this problem unique to Wikipedia? Isn't the same true of any traditional encyclopedia?
    • You should probably read the Wikipedia description of NPOV [wikipedia.org] and determine whether you in fact disagree with it. As it is expressed in actual pages, NPOV usually means presenting multiple viewpoints, weighted in proportion to the general "neutral" consensus.

      (Alternatively, you may be more interested in Wikinfo [wikipedia.org], which attempts to provide a "sympathetic POV" instead of a neutral POV.)
  • From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AUTO [wikipedia.org]:
    It is difficult to write neutrally about oneself. Therefore, it is considered proper on Wikipedia to let others do the writing, unless you are Jimmy Wales

  • Is this a good policy? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by massysett ( 910130 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @03:07PM (#14302005) Homepage
    The article actually invokes some interesting questions which the discussion here isn't quite getting at. Wikipedia has a policy/guideline that says it's ill-advised for persons to edit their own biographies. The question is, is this a good policy/guideline?

    On the one hand, Wales' case shows why it might be a good policy to advise against people editing their own biographies. He insists that the other man was not a "co-founder" of Wikipedia. Wales is in a position to know this, and it seems to me to be a bad idea to bar knowledgeable people from editing articles. Clearly Wales is knowledgeable about his own life.

    On the other hand, it looks like Wales was trying to rewrite history. It appears likely that his Bomis Babes was at least so-called "adult entertainment," the modern euphamism for porn. He often removed these references to porn entirely. This seems to be injecting falsehood and bias into Wikipedia.

    A lot of the Slashdot reaction has been "why does this matter" but it really does invoke some interesting questions if you stop for a minute to think about it.

  • If you ask me, the minute WikiPedia was mentioned in a national news setting, it was time to nuke Bomis, or at least sever the ties.

    babes.bomis.com says "Hi, Mom". Spare me!

    http://images.google.com/images?q=bomis [google.com]

  • He who own the gold makes the rules...As a wikipedia co-founder he has a right to allow exceptions.

    (where are the Bomis Babes?)

  • He should have... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Brandybuck ( 704397 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @03:16PM (#14302117) Homepage Journal
    He should have edited the entry anonymously from a public library. No one cares if Wikipedia has random anonymous edits.
  • "and changing phrasing describing Bomis.com, another of Wales' sites, as a pornography site" /em types "bomis.com" into Firefox.

    Aw, man...
  • What exactly is it about Wikipedia that ruffles so many feathers? It seems like no other website has generated as much controversy as Wikipedia; is the Wikipedia foundation to blame or is it a result of the fact that the open source idea is viewed with more skepticism if it's applied to encyclopedias?

    I just don't see it, I suppose.
  • something you write about yourself, isn't it? If this is the social faux pas to write about yourself, than all autobiographies are faux pas. (unless they are written by the host writer which is apparently not a faux pas). I'm confused.

  • There is a saying.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Kutsal ( 514445 )
    Do as the Priest says, not what he does..

    Sounds eerily familiar?...

  • Revisiting John Seigenthaler Sr. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TerraFrost ( 611855 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @03:33PM (#14302376)
    I'm sure everyone knows who John Seigenthaler Sr. [wikipedia.org] is - the guy whose recent criticisms [slashdot.org] have been the point of several slashdot.org articles...

    Anyway, a common response wikipedians made to his complaints was that he should edit his own article if he felt it was factually inaccurate. If Jimbo Wales is in the wrong for editing his article, then I suppose all the wikipedians who suggested John Seigenthaler edit his own article are in the wrong, too?

  • The latest attempt at silencing wikipedia (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @03:34PM (#14302383)
    This is just the latest FUD piece from a webzine attacking wikipedia. Many in the internet media have been attacking Wikipedia because it threatens the viability of their businesses. Despite millions of denizens' acceptence and support of wikipedia, legacy webzines continue to try and paint wikipedia as this evil rogue web venture hell bent on distorting truth. This is the sixth salvo from Wired this month alone ( http://search.wired.com/wnews/default.asp?query=wi kipedia [wired.com] ).

  • Wow, lots of anger so far... (Score:5, Informative)

    by deacon ( 40533 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @03:39PM (#14302462) Journal
    All modded +5 of course...

    And not much analysis of facts on the ground.

    Let's Begin:

    Claim 1 from Wired:

    Public edit logs reveal that Wales has changed his own Wikipedia bio 18 times, deleting phrases describing former Wikipedia employee Larry Sanger as a co-founder of the site.

    If Larry Sanger was a co-founder, (I don't know and don't have time to check) deleting that fact is at the very least petty and vindictive. It does not really matter if it is or is not against some "code" or "guideline". Giving credit where credit is due is the right thing to do. Deleting credit over and over again... well, you will each come to your own conclusion.

    Claim 2 from Wired:

    Cadenhead said other Wikipedia editors described Bomis Babes as "soft-core pornography," but Wales changed it to "adult content section" on Sept. 4, and later twice removed references to pornography, instead describing it as "Bomis Babes blog based on Slashcode."

    Going to Bomis Babes here: http://www.bomis.com/tree/babe [bomis.com] gives me two sponsored links at the top of the page, cut and pasted one of them below:

    Searching for Porn?

    Sponsored Link

    Find the Best Subscription Sites Search XXX Videos, Pics & More

    FantasyFinder.com/CreditCardRequire

    So at the very least the site has no problem with advertising for porn. Trying to find some pics, I find links to ring sites, cut and pasted below:

    Hot Asian Sucking Whores

    Sponsored Link

    Cute Japanese School Girls Sex $14.95/Mo

    Huge. No Limits. Ad Free!

    www.guba.net

    Still no pics. Maybe the site is just a search engine for porn, with no pics? Beats me, and with the lack of immediate pics I don't care, but "porn related" seems a fair claim.

  • Umm, has anyone looked up "autobiography" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NotQuiteReal ( 608241 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @04:02PM (#14302746) Journal
    You know, the key feature of an autobiography is for one to write about one's self.

  • Is any of it wrong? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by logicnazi ( 169418 ) <gerdes@inv[ ]ant.org ['ari' in gap]> on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @04:59PM (#14303411) Homepage
    If not I don't really see the issue. Not editing your own bio isn't some sort of absolute commandment or moral principle, it's just a guideline to prevent fights and unpleasent disputes. Often people are inclined to remove true statements or overestimate their own importance in their bios and it is alot easier to tell them they shouldn't be editing their own bio than have to argue with them and tell them they aren't as cool as they think they are.

    If Wales was adding paragraphs praising himself, or if it is true that this other guy is a co-founder (rather than employee) then there is a problem. Otherwise what is the issue? So long as his edits ultimately further the accuracy of the encyclopedia that's great. The entire point of wikipedia is that you don't validate the editor but their edits.

    There are always different rules that apply to the site manager/owner than the rest of the users. These are sometimes because the owner needs more freedom/control than the other users or in cases like this because you have to trust the owner no matter what. If Wales wants to skew wikipedia he has *way* more power to do this than any other user so you need to trust him anyway. The question is whether he is abusing that power and so far this doesn't seem to show that he is.

  • William Randolph Hearst - not forgotten (Score:5, Informative)

    by Magickcat ( 768797 ) * on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @07:15PM (#14304794)
    If you try to add to the article any discussion that Bomis may be pornography, you find yourself banned, and the article is reverted immediately. My comments in the discussion section were also removed a number of times - so you aren't even allowed to argue in favour of a differing point of view.

    I tried to add that some people believed that Bomis is in fact not "glamour photography" but "pornography", and found myself accused of vandalism and given the boot.

    The sheer doublethink in the article is absurd.

  • Zonk is responsible for the misleading post. (Score:3, Informative)

    by brian0918 ( 638904 ) <brian0918.gmail@com> on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @08:27PM (#14305347)
    According to Carnildo [wikipedia.org], who submitted the post:

    "My original submission described it as 'against Wikipedia's guideline' -- Zonk must have decided that 'in violation of Wikipedia's policy' sounded better."

    Is it normal for Slashdot's editors to change submitters' comments into falsehoods? Now, if only Slashdot had an "edit" button....

  • Jimmy Wales makes self-promotional edits (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gregory Rider ( 923948 ) on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @08:28PM (#14305363) Homepage
    This is something which I have been tracking for quite some time. Most of the edits Jimbo makes to his own biography are not for the purpose of removing personal attacks, such as "I love the cock", but rather to promote his involvement in the creation of Wikipedia or downplay the fact that Bomis Babes was a softcore pornography website.

    Wales has gone so far as to have incriminating information about him and Bomis removed from the database entirely by Wikimedia developers; meaning it will not appear in either the edit history or the deleted items history.

    Here are some examples which have not (yet) been deleted from the history outright:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jimmy_Wa les&diff=27799694&oldid=27799660 [wikipedia.org]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jimmy_Wa les&diff=27799453&oldid=27756307 [wikipedia.org]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jimmy_Wa les&diff=26756907&oldid=26709690 [wikipedia.org]
    Above, Wales discredits Larry Sanger as co-founder as Wikipedia.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jimmy_Wa les&diff=26702273&oldid=26658959 [wikipedia.org]
    Discredits Sanger, strikes pornography reference.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jimmy_Wa les&diff=25994722&oldid=25960410 [wikipedia.org]
    Eliminates reference to Bomis Babes erotica section.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jimmy_Wa les&diff=22555355&oldid=22551871 [wikipedia.org]
    Eliminates reference to Bomis Babes softcore porn.


    Mind you, if anyone else on Wikipedia violated this policy, or "guideline", they would be nailed to the cross, as has been done in the past.

  • I edited my own entry... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Russ Nelson ( 33911 ) <slashdot@russnelson.com> on Tuesday December 20, 2005 @11:30PM (#14306415) Homepage
    I edited my own Wikipedia entry because it wasn't written from a neutral point of view. I see nothing wrong with doing that.

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