User talk:72.174.14.76

I had absolutely no idea that one was not supposed to add facts about oneself, one's colleagues or one's works or areas of interest to Wikipedia entries. I thought Wikipedia was an open forum (which had both positive and negative dimensions). I have just discovered that it is in fact closely monitored by a few people, who seem to be censoring political views as well as labelling facts as "promotional." For instance, I used to be the Director of South and South-East Asian Studies at University of Montana, and now I am the co-director. How is changing "director" to "co-director" promotional? I put in the title of a forthcoming book, for which I have a signed contract with the publisher. Isn't Wikipedia supposed to be for readers who want to find out about a particular field or author? And who would know better about those than the author and researchers in the field itself? One editor is now proposing to ban me from same-sex love in India as a field because it's one of the areas of my research. While you're about it, you can also ban me from all of British literature, especially Shakespeare, the 19th century, and Virginia Woolf; also Hindu philosophy; vegetarianism and animal rights, all of which are fields of my research. It seems that one should edit only fields wherein one is not a specialist? I'm sorry to have violated this rule. It's a revelation to me that this is what Wikipedia is actually about. I will now stay away from it. I'm happy to cancel my user id as well; only I don't know how to do it. Feel free to delete my Wikipedia page; there is plenty of information about my work online and I certainly don't need Wikipedia as a "promotional" forum.

Ruth Vanita