User:Michael Vastola/Theresa Greenfield

Comment for WP:AN
I came to this post on WP:AN by way of an article in Wired (magazine).

I am a long-time reader and lurker of Wikipedia and -- although I'm not even an WP:ADMIN -- but I see a crucial perspective missing from this discussion, and I know I am as much a stakeholder in the outcome of this discussion as anyone.

I start this separate section because -- if this is to be a staging ground for a larger discussion on this topic -- it is crucial to not only examine this issue as it applies to existing policy, but also examine what new policies might be compelled by Wikipedia's ethical responsibility to the world in which it exists.

What Wikipedia Is
Over 15 years ago, Jimbo Wales envisioned Wikipedia's success. Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.

To whatever extent he intended this statement to be hyperbolic -- inasmuch as it describes the breadth of information contained on Wikipedia -- it accurately and literally describes the expanse of information readers often expect to find on it. Wikipedia's stewards, in focusing solely on what Wikipedia is(n't) according to policy here, (however inadvertently) exculpate themselves from their obligation to confront what Wikipedia actually is to non-Wikipedians, and the role it has taken in our sociopolitical environment, despite their good faith efforts to curate what it is WP:NOT.

That Wikipedia did not explicitly seek the exact role and authority it now enjoys in the realm of fact is immaterial to the moral and ethical obligations to which it has -- therethrough -- been bound by virtue of the expectations thrust upon it.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Everyone is probably familiar with the satirical adage "if it's on the internet it must be true", but -- as with all good satire, and especially in the case of Wikipedia -- it belies a nugget of truth.

The fact is that if someone can't be found on Wikipedia, it's hardly unthinkable that a reader would conclude that there is nothing worth knowing about them, or that they had done nothing of importance.

Even ignoring cases where any such impact can be dismissed as the fault of readers, it remains the fact that a candidate's Wikipedia page is often one of the top matches on a search for their name, and that there aren't likely to be many other sources of comprehensive information about candidates to which voters impute similarly high degrees of credibility.

The result is that, however fervently Wikipedia aspires to espouse a WP:NPOV, declaring just one major-party candidate unnoteworthy (for whatever reason) in a country with a two-party system forsakes, in essence, Wikipedia's neutral territory in favor of pressing its finger on the scales in favor of the status quo.

Likewise, though Wikipedia resists being a WP:CRYSTALBALL, it must be cognizant that readers are liable to conclude from the absence of an article that a person is not predicted to be WP:NOTABLE.

Ultimately, given its position, the onus is on Wikipedia to either provide relevant information about both candidates on an equal basis, or else preempt information about the election efforts of both individuals (with appropriate notices) until it has concluded.