It's a racist, sexist world in Wikipedia
Wikipedia shows its colors with the death of Steve Gilliard and they are white and pink and and ivory and peach.
There is an astoundingly racist discussion going on in Wikipedia on the subject of whether Steve Gilliard should be included in Wikipedia. I have added my two cents to the discussion after I read this:
He was definitely widely cited by his peers, in the liberal blogsphere and therefore meets the notability requirement. If Atrios, Markos, Josh Marshall are all citing him, I think he should remain.
So as long as white, male bloggers like Markos Mooulitzas, Josh Marshall and Duncan Black quote you, you are opened the gates of notability. Anybody else, no matter how important they are to the blogosphere, is kept out.
Unless, of course, you publish a book --and that's only if the book is by a major publisher with wide distribution.
So somebody like me, Chris Rabb or BrownFemiPower, Jill Filipovich or Lauren Bruce are out. Barbara O'Brien, Jessica Valenti are in.
Lynne D. Johnson and George Kelly maybe are in if their companies push for the page. If they won't, then they're out as well. Lindsay Beyerstein could be included and so Amanda Marcotte given they are quote by 2 of the 3 BWM gatekeepers.
Ezra Klein is in there.
Amazing.
Talk about digital exclusions. And people wonder why I have been talking about a need to create a metrics based on influence not just reach --which are interconnected by not necessarily the same thing.
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Sickening, But Typical
I'd expect no less from the snobs at Wikipedia. Another strong, African American blogger has had similar problems at Digg. Her popular post mentioning Lebron James and a few others were shockingly removed by the site owners.
It's very disheartening, the way racism creeps through cyberspace. There's an ugly devaluing of quality work and meaningful contributions by minorities, even within the online community.
Thanks for bringing this to your readers' attention!
Best,
kweenkong
http://southsidestar.blogspot.com
http://blogbandaids.blogspot.com
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Yep.
So, about a year ago, someone put up a page for me, citing a couple of articles I was quoted in and listing various speaking engagements. They also put up a page for Chris. I was totally flattered, but didn't think it would last.
Chris was the first to go on the chopping block as discussed here. But he was kept as a 'notable programmer'. Note that Chris is not a programmer, but assumed to be one because he is a young white guy passionate about open source.
I was deleted not once, but twice. I was cited in as many, if not more, articles than Chris, but one of the commenters actually made the insinuation that the journalist covering the work I was doing must have had 'a personal interest in Hunt'. In my case, it may have been less about gender and more about their hatred for 'marketing people', which has come up quite often.
The gender thing that came up was that Chris is assumed to be a developer.
I've heard this many times over, too. Thanks for highlighting this story. Wikipedia is such a gated community, only opened to people the editors have heard of. If I was an editor, I would give Steve a strong keep and then I would go and put you in there.