POLL: Do you know anyone (friends, family, colleagues) with a Wikipedia article?

[Giraffe Stapler]

I am curious about how many people on Wikipediocracy know people who have Wikipedia articles. And I mean actually know them. People who are your friends, family members, colleagues. Please don't count people who have Wikipedia articles for Wikipedia activities (like Newyorkbrad or GorillaWarfare etc).

For privacy reasons, I'm not expecting anyone to say how any people they know with Wikipedia articles or identify who they are, but you can if want to. I know more than one.

[DanMurphy]

Too many.

[The Blue Newt]

Whaddaya mean by “know?”

[redbaron]

I have two distant relatives with articles in several languages, but I don't know them personally.

[iamOberranks]

does this include people you went to education with but don't know personally?

[Giraffe Stapler]

does this include people you went to education with but don't know personally?

Not for the purposes of this poll. I mean people who know personally. Friends, family, colleagues, etc. People who know your name and would stop to talk to you if you met on the street by chance.

[redbaron]

does this include people you went to education with but don't know personally?

Not for the purposes of this poll. I mean people who know personally. Friends, family, colleagues, etc. People who know your name and would stop to talk to you if you met on the street by chance.

One of my old classmates does have a Wikidata item

[The Blue Newt]

does this include people you went to education with but don't know personally?

Not for the purposes of this poll. I mean people who know personally. Friends, family, colleagues, etc. People who know your name and would stop to talk to you if you met on the street by chance.

What about people you knew? The dead? People you worked with, and knew you, and would have talked to you, but, hell, its been 3 decades? What about politicos, some of whom would recognize you a decade or three on, but you didn’t have a strong connection with?

[Bezdomni]

No. I no longer live in the same place as the (few) famous people I've known, most of whom would be hard pressed to cross the road to say hello due to advanced age or being dead. I was pleased to see that some of the I worked with twenty years ago have fr.wp pages though.

[Mojito]

Too many.

Sorry to hear that...

Do you think that they've been treated fairly by Wikipedia?

[Kraken]

I probably do know wikifamous scientists and engineers If considering colleagues, but I chose to ignore that and focus on the friends part.

The answer is a depressing but perhaps also pleasing no.

Growing up we were close family friends with a fundraiser for hospital equipment. For decades of their later life they did excellent work with a whole host of firsts to their name. Their legacy lives on after their death in continuing fundraising. Their name is actually even immortalized on one Wikipedia page, in connection to one of their achievements.

But they will never get a biography, because their work (and thus their coverage) was decidedly local, and mostly pre-internet. And they were a modest person, so coverage only ever focused on their work with the minimum of backstory (unless there is an in depth local profile out there I missed in my nostalgic searching). Wikipedia gives very little attention to the impact or longevity of good works, not when they are local.

While having a Wikipedia biography would be welcome recognition, the downsides are just too great. Up to and including the very real risk that the mere act of someone with an emotional investment making the good faith mistake of trying to write a biography based largely on snuffling through local sources, Carrite style, could lead to false accusations of COI editing which by their very nature cannot be refuted. This sort of smear and a probably quite nasty AfD is the very last thing a small charity needs.

The very fact people like Carrite are able to use policy and accepted practice to cloud people's minds and suggest that Wikipedia is indeed up for hosting "biographies" which in reality would be anything but, is a real problem. The guidance could and should be so much clearer about how unwise it would be to start a page for this woman, and why.

It's sad to think she might not even get the protection she deserves by virtue of being dead (local sources would be needed to even record basic biographical details like date of death and resting place). Indeed it troubled me to realise she might potentially be harmed by a Carrite doing a deep dive on local sources and applying their own judgements about worrying inconsistencies that potentially make her out to be a fraud (but which in reality were probably just the result of lazy local reporters). Corrections may or may not exist, but would not be easily found.

Ironically many of the changes made to Wikipedia to prevent the quick creation (and deletion) of unworthy biographies by well meaning newcomers who don't know any better, means that in potentially ambiguous cases like this, a novice could end up wasting a heck of a lot of time and effort trying to get this woman a biography, and still fail. Perhaps in a very bad way.

[Vigilant]

Did you count Jess Wade, Crowken?

[eppur si muove]

My answer depends on whether the people have to be still alive. Quite a few I've thought of have died. Another one Christopher Priest (novelist) (T-C-L) went this month.

[Giraffe Stapler]

What about people you knew? The dead? People you worked with, and knew you, and would have talked to you, but, hell, its been 3 decades? What about politicos, some of whom would recognize you a decade or three on, but you didn’t have a strong connection with?

It's not intended to be any kind of scientific or useful poll. I was just curious because someone I know approached me last week asking if I knew anything about Wikipedia and did I think I could help them with some issues in their article.

I hadn't considered people you knew but are now dead. I would say that counts. I guess. I assumed that people in some jobs would know a lot of people with Wikipedia entries, which is why I added the 10+ option. Sounds like you're in that category.

[Beeblebrox]

I knew the Eagle Lady (T-H-L), just a little bit, but she died in 2009. She was something else.

[MaterialsPsych]

I've met a few people who have Wikipedia articles through my work, and I've worked closely with someone whose name is red linked in a couple articles (I wouldn't want write it because I have a COI and it could easily out me), but I wouldn't say that I have a very close personal relationship or work connection with anyone who already has a Wikipedia article.

[Ming]

Ming went to the kind of school that cranks these people out, so Ming has several schoolmates with articles.

[Kraken]

Here's a good potential poll.

If your partner has a Wikipedia biography but isn't a Wikipedia editor, do you....

* Never look at it
* Never tell them you're a Wikipedia editor
* Tell them to never look at it
* Keep an eye on it for serious issues
* Have it on your watchlist
* Check it every hour, in a state of panic
* Edit it without declaring your interest
* Post any issues to talk pages or noticeboard for uninvolved editors to address
* Jokingly threaten to delete it to win domestic argument
* Jokingly remind them that if they ever leave you, you can destroy their world with just a few clicks of a mouse
* Jokingly remind them that in the eyes of Wikipedia, they can never leave you
* Teach your partner how to raise potential issues without editing their own biography
* Teach your partner how to edit without being suspected of a COI
* Charge your partner the same rate you charge anyone else for your (declared) Wikipedia services
* Charge your partner the same rate you charge any other CLUEless sucker
* Boost their biography so you make more money as a couple
* Neuter their biography so they make less than you
* Tell people at parties you're sleeping with someone Wikipedia famous
* Teach your kids how to prank your partner by making joke edits
* Print it out and use it as toilet paper (caution advised lest they take this not as a critique of Wikipedia's approach to biographies but a comment on their person)

[Zoll]

Here's a good potential poll.

If your partner has a Wikipedia biography but isn't a Wikipedia editor, do you....

* Never look at it
* Never tell them you're a Wikipedia editor
* Tell them to never look at it
* Keep an eye on it for serious issues
* Have it on your watchlist
* Check it every hour, in a state of panic
* Edit it without declaring your interest
* Post any issues to talk pages or noticeboard for uninvolved editors to address
* Jokingly threaten to delete it to win domestic argument
* Jokingly remind them that if they ever leave you, you can destroy their world with just a few clicks of a mouse
* Jokingly remind them that in the eyes of Wikipedia, they can never leave you
* Teach your partner how to raise potential issues without editing their own biography
* Teach your partner how to edit without being suspected of a COI
* Charge your partner the same rate you charge anyone else for your (declared) Wikipedia services
* Charge your partner the same rate you charge any other CLUEless sucker
* Boost their biography so you make more money as a couple
* Neuter their biography so they make less than you
* Tell people at parties you're sleeping with someone Wikipedia famous
* Teach your kids how to prank your partner by making joke edits
* Print it out and use it as toilet paper (caution advised lest they take this not as a critique of Wikipedia's approach to biographies but a comment on their person)

Half the users here are banned

[Berberis]

I've met a few dozen scientists at academic conferences who have Wikipedia articles (but most of them may not remember meeting me).

I think I've been invited to the homes of around 10 Wikipedia article subjects (including 3 now-deceased relatives I visited a few times as a child).

There are two people I've worked with on a near daily basis over the course of several years with articles. I suspect one of those articles was a self-creation. The subject of the other wasn't pleased when I told them somebody had created a Wikipedia article about them, and later asked me to make some updates to the article after they had retired.

[Randy from Boise]

If you get back to the original Jimmy Wales vision for WP, virtually everyone would have an article and that would be a good thing.

It's utopian, it's unencyclopedic (so to speak), but that was part of JW's original thinking.

I'm for a low inclusion bar, but not quite that low.

t

[Kraken]

If you get back to the original Jimmy Wales vision for WP, virtually everyone would have an article and that would be a good thing.

.... that was part of JW's original thinking.

Not that I necessarily disbelieve you.

But I think I disbelieve you.

[Ritchie333]

I'm mentioned on Wikipedia, for something I did when I was about 14. Or at least I was ten years ago, it was unsourced so hopefully it's been removed.

[Catfish Jim & spd]

If you get back to the original Jimmy Wales vision for WP, virtually everyone would have an article and that would be a good thing.

.... that was part of JW's original thinking.

Not that I necessarily disbelieve you.

But I think I disbelieve you.

It was originally touted as an attempt to gather "the sum of all human knowledge." The requirements for notability and verifiability came much later.

[SarekOfVulcan]

Three I can think of offhand. Father of a colleague, who made national news a few years ago and whom I run into regularly; one of my favorite folk groups; and one of my favorite authors.

[Kraken]

If you get back to the original Jimmy Wales vision for WP, virtually everyone would have an article and that would be a good thing.

.... that was part of JW's original thinking.

Not that I necessarily disbelieve you.

But I think I disbelieve you.

It was originally touted as an attempt to gather "the sum of all human knowledge." The requirements for notability and verifiability came much later.

My recollection is that "sum" was always meant to be read as "summary", meaning Wikipedia was not there to document everything in the world ever. And that was Jimmy's vision, an encyclopedia. It could be as large as SIZE allowed, while still not being a vast data dump. Surely NOT was one of the first ever policy pages written? Perhaps before they were even called policies.

[Catfish Jim & spd]

If you get back to the original Jimmy Wales vision for WP, virtually everyone would have an article and that would be a good thing.

.... that was part of JW's original thinking.

Not that I necessarily disbelieve you.

But I think I disbelieve you.

It was originally touted as an attempt to gather "the sum of all human knowledge." The requirements for notability and verifiability came much later.

My recollection is that "sum" was always meant to be read as "summary", meaning Wikipedia was not there to document everything in the world ever. And that was Jimmy's vision, an encyclopedia. It could be as large as SIZE allowed, while still not being a vast data dump. Surely NOT was one of the first ever policy pages written? Perhaps before they were even called policies.

"Sum of all human knowledge" has meant "sum total" since the phrase was coined by Schrödinger, and I haven't seen any evidence that Jimbo meant it any other way. Mind you, if this was his vision, it's fair to say the rest of the community moved on pretty quickly. Here's where the concept of notability for persons was inserted into NOT: link. It is early, but doesn't seem to have been the result of any long discussion to gain consensus... it really was a case of making rules up on the spot back then.

[No Ledge]

The cynic in me thinks Jimmy wanted the "Sum of all human knowledge" because that would maximize the volume of data he could "sell" to Google, Amazon, and the like. The more data Jimmy gives to them, the more money, in the form of "donations", he gets back, and the higher Wikipedia rises on the list of the world's most-visited websites.

It's why editathons focus on recruiting people to add content, not curate it. Why Wiki Education Foundation focuses on adding articles rather than training students in copy-editing skills.

[Boing! said Zebedee]

"The sum of all human knowledge" is a marketing phrase, as is "The encyclopedia anyone can edit". Noone should take (and should never have taken) either of them literally.

[Giraffe Stapler]

The cynic in me thinks Jimmy wanted the "Sum of all human knowledge" because that would maximize the volume of data he could "sell" to Google, Amazon, and the like. The more data Jimmy gives to them, the more money, in the form of "donations", he gets back, and the higher Wikipedia rises on the list of the world's most-visited websites.

I feel pretty confident saying that, in 2005, Jimbo was not thinking about selling data to Google, Amazon, and the like.

[SarekOfVulcan]

Three I can think of offhand. Father of a colleague, who made national news a few years ago and whom I run into regularly; one of my favorite folk groups; and one of my favorite authors.

Four. A politician with fairly close ties to my family.

[Kraken]

The origin story of Wikipedia (which wasn't begun as a non-profit) doesn't support the idea that at any time in its early history (i.e. before NOTE) that it was intended to contain every last little bit of crap in the world. It was likely always sum as in summary, not sum total. A new Kind Of Encyclopedia. An encyclopedia without limits. Because free labour.

The market (donors, readers) would clearly support a vastly bigger encyclopedia, one where if you can source it to any kind of third party source (local, promo, database), it should have it. The problem being the editor base cratered once Wikipedia went mainstream under the weight of the bureaucracy and culture (neither of which has ever answered the central question, what is Wikipedia for, the thing behind the marketing bullshit). Ultimately stabilizing at a level where it's debatable whether Wikipedia (whatever that is) can even cope with the bar for biography notability where it is now, which is pretty high.

Hence why it should rightly be very rare for someone to know a wiki-famous person. Because unless they're actually famous or they make their living by being a publicity whore, it's probably not worth it.

[Bezdomni]

Ah.

the some (of all gnarledge) & the any (which ones who prune)

a bit like the growth of wraps in these post-frosty times (§)

[Guido den Broeder]

I am curious about how many people on Wikipediocracy know people who have Wikipedia articles. And I mean actually know them. People who are your friends, family members, colleagues. Please don't count people who have Wikipedia articles for Wikipedia activities (like Newyorkbrad or GorillaWarfare etc).

For privacy reasons, I'm not expecting anyone to say how any people they know with Wikipedia articles or identify who they are, but you can if want to. I know more than one.

Easily more than a thousand.