Stowe Boyd

danah boyd, Wikipedia, The Fuzzy Hat, and All That

Cousin danah (not really, but aren’t we all cousins, really?) articulates how the Wikipedia process is broken, chronicling how it has led to so many inaccuracies in the entry about her:

[from apophenia: on being notable in Wikipedia]

I can’t fully put my finger on why the media-centric thing bugs me, but it does. The media has decided that i’m an expert because of my knowledge in a specific domain; Wikipedia has decided that i’m notable because i’m on TV. Why is Wikipedia not using transitivity and saying that i’m notable because of my knowledge in a specific domain? Why does it matter more that i’m on TV than why i’m on TV?

I think it’s totally brain dead to not approach living notables to clarify the details of their lives, or at least support a section of these entries with the individual’s asserted facts.

And to not get the fuzzy hat thing right?

Why does mainstream media play such a significant role in the Wikipedia validation process? We know damn well that mainstream media is often wrong. In the midst of this, the reference to my fuzzy hat had to be removed because it couldn’t be substantiated by the press and because i didn’t wear it on O’Reilly. Of course i didn’t wear it on Fox - i was trying to get across to parents, not be myself. As much as i don’t think of the hat as core to my identity, i’m very well aware that others do.

And if and when I am ever written up in Wikipedia (Tom Evslin managed to get Advisory Capital in there, and I am cited in an entry about Social Software), I want them to get the hat thing right: it’s not a beret, it’s a cap on backwards.

[pointer from David Weinberger]