Wikipedia flawed?
I got a little annoyed with wikipedia the other day. I was googling my own name 
and it came up with a wikipedia entry for Andrew Nesbitt, but it wasn’t me.
It was in fact a famous Scottish rally driver of the same name, I can understand why he was there (recently was on the news for winning an English rally)… he is more famous than me, but what happens if I do get famous?
He is the first, I’m sure they won’t remove him if I became more famous, but how will that work? Jus because he came before me puts me at a disadvantage, when people search for me in wikipedia (if I get “famous”) they will find him instead, a little unfair if you ask me.
Or in the spirit of wikipedia I could change the entry to me, I’m Andrew Nesbitt and as long as I write a honest, unbiased history of me what’s to say that that is wrong?
I struggle to think of an example of two famous people with the same name, but I’m sure it has happened before, do they just go on the most famous or well known person gets first pick or has more weight behind them to force their name to the front?
Wikipedia works great as a knowledge base for science, and history and factorial based content, but as soon as you start making lots of people allowed to put in their own “profile” it almost has a myspace-esque quality to it.
I’m not positive, but it would make sense if printed encyclopaedia’s only included people who have died (so their details and achievements can’t change), why not do that with wikipedia?
Or how about introducing a set of categories to allow more people to be added without blocking others? i.e. put Andrew Nesbitt (the rally driver) in Motorsport and me in Technology or Blogging
Wikipedia has become a great source of information and I would hate to see it fall into disarray due to problems like this, but as they allow anyone to create entry’s about pretty much anything including people (famous or not-so famous) something needs to be done to the organization of it before it gets messy.
What you say makes sense, but the basic argument is flawed.
“He is the first, I’m sure they won’t remove him if I became more famous, but how will that work? Jus because he came before me puts me at a disadvantage, when people search for me in wikipedia (if I get “famous”) they will find him instead, a little unfair if you ask me.”
This isn’t really Wikipedia’s problem. What you’re actually arguing is life; yes, he was before you. So technically yes, you’re at a disadvantage for people to recognise you as Andrew Nesbitt, “Atariboy” which, incidently leads me to the other point: in your case that could be an article that links to “Andrew_Nesbitt_(web_personality)” or so on.
Lucas on June 29, 2006 5:23 pm
There’s a few ways Wikipedia handles multiple articles with the same name.
Usually if there are only two articles, the most notable or commonly used entry is the default and at the top of that entry is a link to the other entry (e.g. “Andrew Nesbitt is also the name of a Rally Driver.” with a link).
If there are a lot of articles, each of the articles has a link to a disambiguation page at the top (e.g. “For other uses, see Andrew Nasbitt (disambiguation).”) The disambiguation page would have links to all the various different meanings.
Riley on June 29, 2006 6:09 pm
Maybe they’ll put u both on the same page? Or maybe by the time you get famous Scotland will have its own domain and he’ll be moved to wikipedia.scott/ and u’ll stay at wikipedia.co.uk
Dan on June 29, 2006 8:32 pm
I think its because I’m a Libra that I have such a strong sense of fairness, I love having it although many people don’t understand why I make some arguments.
I sometimes come across as selfish but it is purely because i want everything to me fair, even and balanced.
Andrew on June 30, 2006 9:50 am
I speak for the cabal
The Wikipedia has a notability policy. Also, we have disambiguation.
The biography notability policy states:
* The person made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specific field.
* Political figures holding international, national or statewide/provincewide office or members of a national, state or provincial legislature. (For candidates for office, see Wikipedia:Candidates and elections.)
* Major local political figures who receive significant press coverage
* Widely recognized entertainment personalities and opinion makers (ie - Hollywood Walk of Fame)
* Sportspeople/athletes who have played in a fully professional league, or a competition of equivalent standing in a non-league sport such as swimming, or at the highest level in mainly amateur sports, including college sports in the United States. Articles about first team squad members who have not made a first team appearance may also be appropriate, but only if the individual is at a club of sufficient stature that most members of its squad are worthy of articles.
* Notable actors and television personalities who have appeared in well-known films or television productions. Notability can be determined by:
o Multiple features in popular culture publications such as Vogue, GQ, Elle, FHM or national newspapers
o A large fan base, fan listing or \”cult\” following
o An independent biography
o Name recognition
o Commercial endorsements
* Published authors, editors and photographers who received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work
* Painters, sculptors, architects, engineers, and other professionals whose work is widely recognized (for better or worse) and who are likely to become a part of the enduring historical record of that field
* Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events
* The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person. (Multiple similar stories describing a single day\’s news event only count as one coverage.)
(the policy is called WP:BIO)
So with no offense, if you created an article about you I would send it for deletion.
Also, let\’s say you were in WP:BIO, your article would be under Andrew Nesbitt (blogger), and a link to this would be added to the top of the ralley driver\’s article. See the WP:DISAMBIG policy
Joe Anderson on June 30, 2006 6:27 pm
Thanks for the offical word on wikipedia.
Again I hav to stress all my posts are just thoughts that i have had and mulled, I would not create an article for me (I’m not that big headed or famous, it would be a crappy article!)
I was just thinking how it works and it doesn’t seem quite right to me.
I have a ‘thing’ against “celebrity” in general, mainly from TV and tabloid news papers and Wikipedia defintaly has an element of that (o Multiple features in popular culture publications such as Vogue, GQ, Elle, FHM)
Andrew on June 30, 2006 11:28 pm
To quote Joe Anderson in comment #5: “your article would be under Andrew Nesbitt (blogger)”. That’s fine until another blogger called Andrew Nesbitt comes along…
What happens when two or more people in the same field share the same name? Surely there must be examples of this on Wikipedia already.
Bon on July 1, 2006 12:05 am
Exactly, thank you Bon
Andrew on July 1, 2006 9:26 am
It wasn’t official, my word.
It would be further disambigutated!
Joe Anderson on July 8, 2006 12:14 pm
Seeing as I’m yet another Andrew Nesbitt and I blog, you may want to jump on that Andrew Nesbitt (blogger) wiki entry while you can.
Cheers
Andrew Nesbitt on October 24, 2006 2:57 pm