Several months ago, I discovered that I was being “considered for deletion.” Or rather, the entry on me in the Internet behemoth that is Wikipedia was.

For those of you who are (as uncharitableWikipedians sometimes say) “clueless newbies,” Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. But it is like no encyclopedia Diderot could have imagined. Instead of relying on experts to write articles according to their expertise, Wikipedia lets anyone write about anything. You, I, and any wired-up fool can add entries, change entries, even propose that entries be deleted. For reasons I’d rather not share outside of therapy, I created a one-line biographical entry on “Marshall Poe.” It didn’t take long for my tiny article to come to the attention of Wikipedia’s self-appointed guardians. Within a week, a very active—and by most accounts responsible—Scottish Wikipedian named “Alai” decided that … well, that I wasn’t worth knowing about. Why? “No real evidence of notability,” Alai cruelly but accurately wrote, “beyond the proverbial average college professor.”

The bulk of Wikipedia’s content originates not in the stacks but on the Web, which offers up everything from breaking news, spin, and gossip to proof that the moon landings never took place. Glaring errors jostle quiet omissions. Wales, in his public speeches, cites the Google test: “If it isn’t on Google, it doesn’t exist.” This position poses another difficulty: on Wikipedia, the present takes precedent over the past. The (generally good) entry on St. Augustine is shorter than the one on Britney Spears. The article on Nietzsche has been modified incessantly, yielding five archived talk pages. But the debate is largely over Nietzsche’s politics; taken as a whole, the entry is inferior to the essay in the current Britannica, a model of its form. (From Wikipedia: “Nietzsche also owned a copy of Philipp Mainländer’s ‘Die Philosophie der Erlösung,’ a work which, like Schopenhauer’s philosophy, expressed pessimism.”)

The toothing hoax was so good that not only didn’t I know that it was a hoax, but CSI Miami Season 3 Episode 20 “Killer Date” was specifically about “toothing” and the consequences of it (in this case a cop loses his badge while humping around and the woman he was with pockets it, hoping that it will be more than a one night stand, but instead her criminal brother uses it to commit crimes.)

Is there any place that one could look up internet hoaxes?

Add me to the list of those who found your blog via Slate/Wikipedia. I hope they keep your entry!

I just wanted to share my disgust with what is happening on your
wikipedia entry. Whether someone believes your page should be removed
or not, it should not grant anyone the right to vandalize your page.
I am sure that this will blow over soon.

Regards,

He has a B.A. in Political Economy from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, Wired News, Slate, Mobile magazine, Playlist Magazine, Oakland City Magazine, Business 2.0, The San Mateo Daily Journal, MacAddict, The Age (Australia), and The Daily Californian. He was one of the first journalists to cover the concept of Podcasting in the New York Post.