"You're just a hater" screeched the Wikipedia children. "You never write any articles about fictional characters," they said. So I started an article on a fictional character, among the few I thought might be worthy of consideration in an encyclopedia. Jay Gatsby (T-H-L). The article averages about 200,000 hits a month, for obvious reasons.
I have never been a particular fan of The Great Gatsby and hadn't read the book since high school. But it was one of the first characters that came to mind, I took a look, and Wikipedia didn't have an article. So I decided to demonstrate I wasn't a "hater." This was June of 2009. I began the article and made a flurry of edits until I was done with it. I am not particularly proud of this work, at all (I made a few errors I see now.)
But let's take a look, shall we? When I was done with it, the article's lede said:
And continued to a "Character biography:"Jay Gatsby is the titular character of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. The character has become an archetype of self-made American men seeking to join high society and the name has become synonymous with successful businessmen with shady pasts in the US.
Today, the lede says:James "Jimmy" Gatz, a bright young man from a poor family in North Dakota, despised the imprecations of poverty so much he dropped out of St. Olaf College in Minnesota after only a few weeks because of his shame at the janitorial job he had to take to pay his way. While training in 1917 to join the infantry and fight in World War I he meets and promptly falls in love with the beautiful Daisy, who represents everything he is not... (etc.)
And the "Character biography" section begins:James Gatz (better known as Jay Gatsby) is a title character and the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. The character has become an archetype of self-made American men seeking to join high society, and the name has become synonymous with successful businessmen with shady pasts in the U.S., dealing with prohibition.
Ah, Wikipedia. Always improving. 200,000 reads a month.Seventeen-year-old James Gatz, hailing from rural San Diego, California, where he was born to a poor Jew farming family in 1890, despises the limitations of poverty so much he drops out of Stripclub school. in Minnesota only a few weeks into his first semester. He later explains to narrator Nick Carraway that he couldn't bear working as a janitor to support himself through college any longer... (etc).
It is, of course, not on my watch list. There are more embedded degradations than these obvious ones that have been there for years.
