WikiBios: Recipe for libel, divorce, maiming & bitter recrimination

Here's a stupid idea to end all stupid ideas.

WikiBios believes, in complete denial of the human experience, "that everyone in the world, no matter who they are, has a unique and interesting story that deserves to be told." Now, I want you to think about this. Think of your 20 nearest and dearest. As much as you love them, how many of them have an "interesting story that deserves to be told" (to the rest of the world)? If you came up with even one, your friends are remarkable or you are deluded.

WikiBios, however, believes everyone deserves a story. So it offers a wikispace where anyone can start a biography about anyone else. Here's the catch: the subject of the biography cannot edit his or her own biography:

"While we appreciate that you want to tell the world about yourself, the unique part about this project is that it gives you the opportunity to find out what makes you special in the eyes of those who care about you. Therefore, we have one basic rule of our community that we ask you to abide by. While we encourage you to edit and create new biographies for your friends, we simply ask that you do not edit your own biography and instead allow those who care about you to write about you. Trust us, it's better this way. "

Better for whom? If my friend Lee Hopkins has urges-that-shall-not-be-mentioned (and I am not for a moment saying he does, but he's a handy example), and I find that a "unique and interesting story that deserves to be told," I'm encouraged to write his biography. That Lee might have an opinion about this unauthorized biography is apparently irrelevant.

Trust me... this stupid idea will last about as long as it takes the first attorney to pick up the phone

Technorati Tags: wikibios

Posted by Allan Jenkins on July 5, 2006 at 09:03 AM in Bizarre & Unexpected, In Defense of Elitism, Is Tedious in the House?, Law | Permalink

Comments

This is an unbelievably bad idea.

I was clicking around the "Random Bio" link and came upon Melanie X's bio, which included a snippet from a "friend" that said something like, "I've slept with Melanie; I admit it."

Yeah, I'm sure there are millions of people who would like anybody at all posting humiliating secrets and episodes from their lives they'd rather forget.

What in God's name were they thinking?

[NOTE: I have redacted the last name upon request. While I have reasonable grounds to believe the WikiBios founders manufactured the request or the bio itself, I am going to act as if the request is legitimate. -- Allan Jenkins]

[NOTE 2:] No, that was wrong. The name is restored.

Posted by: Shel Holtz | Jul 5, 2006 5:28:27 PM

You know citizen journalism has died when your Kitty Kelley is a blogger in a bathrobe.

Posted by: Allan Jenkins | Jul 6, 2006 8:39:23 PM

As the lead programmer for the WikiBios web site, I feel it is important for me to clarify a few things about the site. While we hope that the site is used to help bring people together, we realize that people are not always altruistic to say the least. In this manner, your concerns are very valid and important. Therefore, early on we made the decision that while individuals do not have the ability to write their own biographies, they do have complete control in the removal of any entries in their biographies in their ability to "roll back" their biography to any previous state. We thank you for taking the time to visit our site and hope we have addressed your concerns.

Posted by: John Erickson | Jul 10, 2006 3:23:20 AM

Well, gee, John, that's a relief.

So I can just roll that "Allan Jenkins was on the grassy knoll" comment back? Until...when? Until it gets put up there again?

Posted by: Allan Jenkins | Jul 19, 2006 12:30:39 AM

Hey, I just wanted to respond as a slack Wikibio user and a close friend of the aforementioned... I do recognize that there are casual browsers who read random bios, but I feel for the most part that they are for friends to post inside jokes and it's actually usually a compliment when someone updates your bio. Obviously this can get abused, and I'm sure it does, although I haven't personally seen it. The girl whose bio you're talking about started it for those reasons and all of our friends and I have just posted fun things that are really for ourselves. The "slept with" comment is one of those - that guy's talking about an embarrassing comment he made about an innocent sleepover, a story that all of our friends know. He's actually gay. The issue is really privacy, when other people read things and don't understand the backstory. If a group of friends enjoys hearing random stories and facts about their friends and sharing, I don't see the harm in that. I do admit that "random searches" or just the openness of the site lead to the kind of humiliation and misunderstandings that occured when the poster of that comment read Mel's bio. Poor girl found it on a google search for her name... not exactly a great suprise. Anyway, just my two cents... and for her sake I'd appreciate not sharing people's full names in such references.

Posted by: The Roomate | Jul 26, 2006 2:04:27 AM

Roomie,

The reason WikiBios is such a bad idea is precisely that "friends" can post what they want, but the "rest of the world" easily finds it.

Your post is from an anonymous hotmail account, and an email I received from a purported "Melanie X" was from an anonymous Yahoo account.... apparently, your circle has learned its lesson.

Good luck.

Posted by: Allan Jenkins | Jul 26, 2006 11:28:39 AM

If what these circles of friends want is a place where they can share inside jokes that aren't open to misinterpretation by the rest of the world, there's a place for that. It's called MySpace and you can limit access to your MySpace page to just your friends. WikiBios is open to the world, so making inside jokes is something undertaken with risk; no fair complaining about it later.

Posted by: Shel Holtz | Jul 26, 2006 7:35:31 PM

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