Staines has owned up to being the editor of his Wikipedia entry, and explained this on Twitter by saying he “had been invited to by the editors”, and had decided to “factually correct the record”.

I’ve updated the original post, which is here:

http://zelo.tv/Pr5oVV

And will leave others to draw their own conclusions.

Wouldn’t you, though?
It’s hardly news. Must be a Friday.

I very much doubt that ‘the editors’ (whoever they may be) asked him to edit his entry. Editing your own entry, or that of an organisation you work for, is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia.

I suppose left wing hacks are always above burnishing their own wikipedia credentials though…..lets not name names shall we?

@Tyler (Comment #4) : I assume you’re meaning Johann Hari’s self-editing? If so, wasn’t Paul Staines one of the bloggers who had a total field day about the low morality of Hari doing such a thing? Wouldn’t like to think that Staines has double standards here, oh no!

Maybe the whole blog thing is falling apart for him and Cole because everyone knows they’re tossers and refuses to speak to them. He’s indulging in some cheap reputation management as he looks for a new job.

@ 5 Martin

Johann Hari is a slightly different case as he used an alias to ammed his (and other peoples) sites…Staines is editing his own, for all to see.

I was actually thinking more about the hypocrisy of people like Medhi Hasan, who had whole sections of his wiki (the stuff about calling all non-muslims cattle etc) deleted or even LC’s own Sunny Hundhal, whose wikipedia entry has also been edited by himself and also has more than a touch of a “whiff of vanity”, “self justification” and “turd burnishing”.

I guess he’s just jealous than Staines’ site does so much better than his own.

Regardless, it’s a little bit rich to suggest that Staines is doing something wrong, when he does exactly the same things, and he only attacks those he dislikes whilst ignoring the same transgressions from those on his “team”. In short, he is a nakedly and purely party political animal, whereas Staines, whilst nominally right-wing, is happy to launch viscious attacks on the political establishment of all colours.

Who says you can’t polish a turd?

if i was interestimg enough to have a wikipedia page on me…id change it too.

also was this filed under ‘news’ as a joke?

It seems remarkable that any Wikipedia editor would invite the subject of an article to edit it when the subject is as, um, NPOV as Guido.

Here are the guidelines:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Article_subjects#The_information_in_your_article_about_me_is_wrong._How_can_I_get_it_fixed.3F

Such invitations basically don’t happen, ever.

It is possible that Staines has misread something as an invitation. I have asked him for a link to the actual text (he says it’s somewhere on a talk page), as he is making this extraordinary claim. If we know what he’s talking about, it may be possible to evaluate it.

You claim: ‘Wikipedia’s own rules strongly discourage people to edit their own entry’

Why not tell the truth about what they say:

‘Editing a biography about yourself should only be done in clear-cut cases.’

Bit different, eh?

Michael – editing an article about yourself is not strictly against Wikipedia’s rules, or even guidelines. It is, however, considered an inadvisable idea that frequently doesn’t work out too well in practice.

For the moment I’m assuming good faith and presuming Mr Staines mistook some comment as an invitation to edit. It would help understand what happened if he could actually produce said comment for the many, many people who have asked him, but nevertheless I think a mere confusion is a sufficient explanation for now.

I stopped reading at “his tame gopher”. This site is alright sometimes, but this writer is awful and only concerned with attacking people he wishes were his enemies (and he probably looks up to really).

Isn’t Paul Staines merely referring to this comment in the Talk section of his Wikipedia entry:

“Paul, feel free to edit your own article if you wish, this is no longer a taboo given the current revision of Wikipedia policy on biographies of living persons. If there is a comment which you contend is untrue, and in the article it is either unsourced or the source is wrong, then correct it. Personally, I can’t see anything terribly controversial or unbalanced myself at the moment, whether it be from the ‘scribblings of journalists’ or not, however… Whilst you may be right in stating you are a private individual with no official role, you undoubtedly are notable in Wikipedia’s terms as the author of one of Britain’s top-ranking blogs. If you’d prefer that this article be located at Guido Fawkes rather than under your own name, I assume people would be happy to consider that request. DWaterson 18:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)”?

This DWaterson guy calls himself an editor on Wikipedia, so presumably that is where Staines got his impression that he was invited to edit his own entry by the editors. Can someone please explain why he should not have got that impression?

Out of interest what is the correct form if your Wikipedia entry has information about you that is clearly incorrect ?

If you actually read the changes that GF has made many seem to be just simple sub-editing – eg “adds quotations marks”. Is that acceptable ?

Newspapers are required to print corrections if factually inaccurate, how does Wiki deal with this ? I presume in this case GF must have any number of tame gofers who could alter the more controversial bits.

Tyler: or even LC’s own Sunny Hundhal, whose wikipedia entry has also been edited by himself and also has more than a touch of a “whiff of vanity”,

I’m sorry, you what? Where’s your proof for this? You can’t even spell my name right let alone make proper accusations.

“Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy.”

In other words,” You, poster, ought to engage in civility, but I, Sunny Hundal, can engage in snark about Paul Staines, through Tim Fenton.”

Got it in one?

Sunnyy

Your wiki page says:

“Sunny Hundal (born 1977) is a British journalist and blogger.”

But I can’t see anywhere in it where your journalist jobs are listed?

I’m not sure this counts as Journalism does it:
“He has written articles for The Guardian, The Financial Times and The Independent, and other publications.”

Lots have people have written occassional articles for those papers, because they are active in a field the paper wants to report on – but that seems too little class as journalism?

What editors?

@ Ari

Doesn’t sound like an invitation to me. Certainly not in the way Staines presented in. Sounds more like a withdrawl of prohibition rather than an “invitation” as Staines contends. Saying “I’m not stopping you from doing this.” is a whole lot different from “Be my guest, come and do this please.”

Also Staines says he was “invited” by EDITORS – plural. I can only see one person involved in this so-called “invitation”.

After someone like Staines had such a go at Hari then, he leaves himself open to criticism of hypocrisy.

BTW; In my opinion he is a mysogynist, at least he made derogatory remarks about my appearance when responding to my tweet. But that does not surprise me.

But I can’t see anywhere in it where your journalist jobs are listed?

What do you mean he isn’t a journalist? Look at this:

Late last Thursday, someone with the same name made a whole raft of changes tohis Wikipedia entry, the first one being annotated “removed false claim that I [note first person] knocked over a camera woman”.

Only an investigative journalist of Woodward and Burnstein-like perserverence could have deduced that Paul Staines was responsible from subtle clues like the use of the name ‘Paul Staines’ and his seamingly accidental use of the first person pronoun.

Meh.

Stop focusing on this anti-woman ass-backwards neo-con future serial rapist and actually report something or atleast go back to doing op/eds

@tyler:

Shut up and go pack your things for the “promised land”

Meh, at least Staines doesn’t claim to stand up for the disabled then call posters on his own site “window lickers” eh Sundeep…

@ 19 JV

“Lots have people have written occassional articles for those papers, because they are active in a field the paper wants to report on – but that seems too little class as journalism?”

This site counts as journalism. (And yes, I can predict the response to this, but it’s still journalism even if you consider it to be bad journalism.) I know it says “blogger AND journalist”, but not all blogs are journalistic – I’m sure there are thousands of What My Cat Did Today blogs, for example.

Oh, and unless Sunny wrote his own page, which I bloody hope he didn’t given this article, I’m not sure why he’d be answerable for Wikipedia content anyway.

Incidentally, I assume that when Wikipedia says it’s ok to correct information about yourself in clear-cut cases, it means if someone spelled your name incorrectly or got your DOB wrong or something. Not in cases where the facts are debateable, and certainly not in such a way as to make the facts reflect better on you.

Chaise

> This site counts as journalism… but not all blogs are journalistic

So what makes LC ‘journalism’ in your view ?

In terms of trying to come up with a more solid definition of what makes a Journalist – wouldn’t the rules of membership to the Journalists union – the NUJ – be relevant: does Sunny fit any of these categories:

If you earn at least 50% of your overall income from journalism then you qualify for Full Membership…

If you’re trying to establish or re-establish yourself as a full-time journalist, and you don’t have another full-time job, you can apply for Temporary Membership…

If you’ve got a full-time job but also do journalism, because you want to contribute something to a public audience, and support trade union rights and journalistic standards, then you can apply for Associate Membership….

@ 28 JV

I don’t see that that’s relevant. That union doesn’t get to define “journalism” and I doubt it’s trying to: odds are those rules are to prevent the union being co-opted by people who get membership on a technicality.

Sunny runs a large, active blog that reports and comments on the news of the day. It would be weird NOT to call him a journalist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3APaul_Staines&diff=507880615&oldid=507874023

===

OPEN LETTER

Dear Wikipedia,

I am so sick and tired of people trying to use the authority of this site to take a pop at me.

Today various article editors repeatedly claimed that I had knocked over a woman, I repeatedly removed that claim. In exasperation I said that if it was repeated I would have no option but to sue for defamation. I was then told threatening to sue would lead to me being blocked from using Wikipedia. It is a lie frequently repeated on here, what the hell am I supposed to do?

Sort it out and make this more neutral.

regards,

–Paul

===

That’s hilarious. The man who’s been blasting the Leveson Inquiry for trying to stifle the freedom of speech of newspapers, which lie and manipulate facts for profit, threatened to sue someone on Wikipedia, a free site which empowers the common person to pursue truth for themselves.

The man obsessed with paranoid delusions about the imminent advent of Communist thought policing is actually threatening to sue Wikipedian dissenters into silence. The irony is delicious.

The fact that he originally published this addition at the top of the article’s talk page just makes it that much more pompous, too.