A case study in Wikipedia failure

by Dahlia Raven (see also: Part One, Part Two, Epilogue)

If you look at the current version (at the time this blog entry was written) of Wikipedia’s Nicholas Alahverdian article, you will see it includes a picture of a white guy with a beard. That is where the story goes from a case of sockpuppetry and promotional editing to something weirder, because that is not a picture of Nicholas Alahverdian.

That picture is of Jonathan Finer, former Chief of Staff and Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State. It appears to have been taken from the “Leadership” page at the Foreign Policy for America website, flipped horizontally, edited slightly, and then uploaded to Wikimedia Commons in October 2017. The uploader gave it a description which reads, “Nicholas Alahverdian sits for a portrait in March 2017.”

[Editor’s note, 1/31/2021: This image has since been deleted from Commons.]

Well… that’s strange

It was Wikipedia editor and administrator Nihonjoe who noticed that the picture was not Alahverdian. They removed the picture (“rm photo with dubious claim of being the subject”) and nominated it for deletion on Commons. And then it went from weird to weirder. Norsk81, the uploader in 2017, returned to claim that it was indeed Alahverdian, even though it didn’t look like him.

As the photographer working on assignment I took this photo of Nic (the subject) at the statehouse in Providence RI. Nihonjoe gave ten year old photos for proof, and the photo I shot was seven years more recent. I am unsure how to respond other than I know who I photographed in 3/2017 and it was definitely him. Norsk81 (talk) 01:22, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Pointing out a few things would not be wrong

…continue reading The Nicholas Alahverdian Story, Part Three