joaoflux / digital / analog / culture

Joshua Meadows, the guy who engaged in a Wikipedia edit war about the article on Anshe Chung, has emailed me multiple times. He claims that his motivation to edit the article was not malicious: “I saw what I did as no different from someone reporting on a real estate company that had a history of ripping customers off, or any other business that employed questionable methods of operation.” Please also look at Joshua’s comments on my previous post.

It seems that it was actually Joshua, who got the article on Wikipedia locked, not Anshe. That, however, does not convince me of his good intentions - to the contrary it shows an obsession with the subject that I find rather unsettling. Joshua, who calls Anshe a cunt in one of his posts, says his “beef with Anshe goes way back“. I believe him, that he is truly upset about certain business practices and Anshe’s overall behavior. And I believe that he has all the right in the world to utter this on his blog. But engaging in an edit war on Wikipedia is a different thing. It’s an attempt to use it’s authority for giving weight to a certain opinion. Of course this happens all the time and it is naive to think of Wikipedia entries as neutral articles by people who do not have personal interests in the subject.

Joshua seems to think that he is the right person to shape the starting page for many people’s researches regarding Anshe Chung (this of course includes including journalists). The energy he spent in the controversy suggests that he sees himself on a mission. I don’t know what made him choose this mission, but I do know that people on missions are not to be trusted. They’re certainly not the ones I like editing Wikipedia entries. “The world ought to know the truth about…” is no good reason for getting involved. Especially not, if this truth is that someone is a cunt.

Rule of thumb: If you ever called someone a cunt publicly, don’t go editing their Wikipedia entry.

Technorati Tags: anshe chung, stalking, trust, virtual reality, wikipedia