PAST MY SELL BY DATE
For some years, there has been a fairly lengthy artiucle about me on Wikipedia. When I looked at it today, I found it had been reduced to a single sentence. It would appear that on October 2nd last, someone decided I had passed my sell by date. sic transit gloria mundi.
According to the revision history, someone with the username "Czar" added and removed thousands of characters to and from the Wikipedia article on Oct 2. The reason for the removals were "rmv unsourced: need reliable, secondary sources".
ReplyDeleteOh well, better unsourced than ensorcelled.
ReplyDeleteThis Czar seems overzealous. Wikipedia policy is very strict about sourcing of controversial claims concerning living people (libel concerns), but I didn't see anything particularly controversial in the article as it was before Czar's edit.
ReplyDeleteMaybe someone just doesn't want me to get above myself. :)
ReplyDeleteProfessor, if you have or can obtain a copy of what existed before, why don't you source the material yourself? what better source is there? or have a credentialled follower do it? Where's Comrade Tom anyway?
ReplyDeleteAll of the Oct. 2 removals by Czar can be undone by another editor.
ReplyDeleteIt is my understanding that wikipedia does not generally regard people as reliable sources concerning themselves (and I am inclined to think that may be wise). But it is true that someone could restore the material Czar removed, ideally adding in links to sources where available. Maybe someone more familiar with our esteemed host than myself, who might as a result have a better idea where to find such sources?
ReplyDeleteIt is my understanding that wikipedia does not generally regard people as reliable sources concerning themselves (and I am inclined to think that may be wise)
ReplyDeleteI can understand they taking that attitude, the problem is that they don't enforce it -- at least they don't do it uniformly -- and I've seen Wikipedia editors under a pen-name quoting themselves in real life as authority.
As far as I can tell, there's a lot of ideological squabbling going on in Wikipedia. This often shows up as "editions".
For what it is worth, my take on it is that, with Wikipedia, you get back what you paid for.
This "Czar" character must have an agenda. Not unlike algorithms and the mathematicians behind them (at google for one) who are filtering out independent left sources.
ReplyDeleteReaders might be interested in the blog post below. A careful reading illustrates some of the more benign antics of Wikipedia editors interested in economics and philosophy
ReplyDeletehttp://econospeak.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-i-came-to-no-longer-be-kaldorian.html
The author of that post is J. Barkley Rosser and this is his website, where you can find his CV:
http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb/
"Oh well, better unsourced than ensorcelled"
ReplyDeleteAlso, better unsourced than uncolted.
[See Harry Levin, "Falstaff Uncolted" (Modern Language Notes, 1946), reprinted in his Shakespeare and the Revolution of the Times (1976)]
A cool word, though I have no substantive memory of the piece...