The Daily Telegraph reports (May 26), in a story widely circulated in the British media, on Wikipedia editing to articles of Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom prior to the May 7 United Kingdom general election from IP addresses assigned to Parliament. The editing included the removal of a sex scandal and involvement in the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, as well as the addition of "flattering" details. Many of the edits have been restored or removed by other editors. None of the politicians contacted by The Telegraph admitted that they or their staffs were responsible for the edits. A spokesman for one MP, Joan Ryan, denied responsibility, pointing out that she "did not even have access to the Parliamentary Internet network from which these changes were made" as she was not in office until the May 7 election. The Telegraph wrote: "It is impossible to prove the changes were made by the MP in question or their staff. However it is unclear why people unconnected to the politician or party would gloss up the Wikipedia biographies from inside Parliament."
The news outlet provided details on changes made to the articles of twelve MPs, listed in the chart below. G.
| MP | Party | Constituency | Content of edits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stephen Hammond | Conservative | Wimbledon | Removal of his frequent use of chauffeured cars available to government ministers. Hammond was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport until 15 July 2014. |
| Craig Whittaker | Conservative | Calder Valley | Removal of a 2012 arrest for assault. The case was not prosecuted. |
| Gordon Birtwistle | Liberal Democrats | Burnley | Removal of his opposition to same-sex marriage; addition of a long promotional section called "Record Of Delivery" praising his "delivering jobs and growth". |
| Gavin Barwell | Conservative | Croydon Central | Removal of a Croydon Advertiser editorial calling on Barwell to "stop launching campaigns" that it viewed as self-promotional. |
| Stewart Jackson | Conservative | Peterborough | Removed comments by Prime Minister that he was "appalled" by the revelations of the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, of which Jackson was one of many MPs involved. |
| Joan Ryan | Labour | Enfield North | Removal of an expense claim on her second home as part of the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal; removal of report from The Independent on over 30 attempts to remove this information. |
| Robert Blackman | Conservative | Harrow East | Removal of citations about his 11-year affair (Blackman is married); modification of material about inaccurate mileage claims. |
| Geraint Davies | Labour Co-op | Swansea West | Modification of material about repaying mailing expenses, second home renovation and taxi fare expenses, and staff and office costs. |
| George Freeman | Conservative | Mid Norfolk | Modification of coverage of his loss in the 2005 United Kingdom general election; addition of his appointment as Minister for Life Sciences. |
| Natascha Engel | Labour | North East Derbyshire | Addition of award of Parliamentarian of the Year in 2013 by the Political Studies Association. |
| Bill Wiggin | Conservative | North Herefordshire | Addition of promotional section called "Campaigns for improve rural communications networks". |
| Robert Jenrick | Conservative | Newark | Addition of Jenrick as purchaser to the article Eye Manor. |
The New Statesman writes about gender bias on Wikipedia and asks "does it matter if our biggest source of knowledge is written by men?" (May 26) The Statesman notes the failure of the Wikimedia Foundation to increase the number of female editors from around ten percent and provides more examples of the disparity in article coverage: the well-maintained List of pornographic actresses by decade versus the "sprawling dumping ground" of List of female poets and the single article for six seasons of Sex in the City versus the 43 articles about Top Gear. The Statesman interviewed several women about their experiences on Wikipedia. Zara Rahman spoke about her negative experience editing the article on inventor and actress Hedy Lamarr, where Lamarr's discoveries were de-emphasized in the introduction in favor of information about nude scenes and a male film director's opinions about her appearance. (Rahman has previously blogged about her experience.) Theresa Knott (User:Theresa knott) became a Wikipedia editor in 2001 and was an administrator and member of the Arbitration Committee, but she stopped editing in 2012. She said about Wikipedia "The women who were on there were more likely to be people like me...Very geeky kinds of females who thought in a certain way and kind of fitted in with the men. There weren’t many women who would not traditionally be in a male sphere." Claire Millington, a PhD candidate in classics at King’s College London, began editing at a 2013 editathon. She said "There’s a pattern in what’s written about women and their achievements, and it’s basically that they’re not written about. I don’t want Wikipedia to be a place where women are written out of history again, because if it’s not on Wikipedia, it’s not visible." G.
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Politicians' biographies
The problem with that story is that as usual no one asks whether all the content that was removed was appropriate in context. No one asks whether Wikipedia biographies should properly be long laundry lists of any and all complaints ever published about a politician in a local or national paper. No one asks who the anonymous editors were who added the material that was removed. Would the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography use a source like "Quote of the day: “Bob was a terrible lover ...", London Evening Standard, 17 December 2012.?
There is a lack of clarity and vision as to what Wikipedia should be: A reputable reference work like Britannica? An anonymously compiled compendium of yellow-press gossip and hatchet jobs? A PR brochure? It is all of those, in part. Andreas JN466 18:26, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]