Consultant Case Study
It’s A Wiki World F
Campaigners and Wikipedia don’t mix well—except when they do By William Beutler
ew websites present as many potential opportuni- ties and pitfalls to the campaign professional as Wikipedia. Whether a Wikipedia article is friend- ly or unfriendly toward a candidate, it is going
to be highly ranked on Google. But Wikipedia is unique among other influential websites because its content is not under one person’s control: Anyone can—and will—try to change what a given article says. Wikipedia is something of a paradox: its content appears
authoritative and is often very useful, but it can also be inaccurate or distorted. If you’re a campaign consultant and you’re not following
your client’s Wikipedia entry, you’re not doing your job. But if you attempt to edit Wikipedia and create a bigger problem than formerly existed, that’s not doing your job, either. Strictly speaking, campaigns are not supposed to edit their own Wikipedia article. Of course, it would be fool- hardy to think that a campaign won’t try if they think they can get away with it. In this way, the interests of Wikipedia and a campaign
are almost invariably at odds. Campaign communications seek to highlight positive information and marginalize negative information. Wikipedia, however, considers its mission to provide an accurate representation of the facts as reported by trusted news sources. Likewise, the most effective campaign communications work happens in the shadows, whereas Wikipedia asks that its contributors dis- close their conflicts of interest. Anyone with a vested interest in a given article—es-
pecially a financial interest—is asked to avoid editing that Wikipedia page. This is not a blanket ban, but it is an ad- visory to understand exactly what they are doing and to be certain that an unaffiliated Wikipedian would find their edits constructive. Unless you have an experienced Wiki- pedia editor on staff, this is probably not you. One supposed solution is for campaigns to engage a vol-
unteer to make edits on their behalf. This is almost certain- ly what happened in August 2008 when someone going by the name YoungTrigg overhauled Sarah Palin’s Wikipedia article just days before she was named John McCain’s run- ning mate. This case was problematic because the editor chose a conspicuous moniker—Trigg is the former Alaska governor’s son—and edited Palin’s article exclusively. The edits very quickly prompted a slew of unwanted media
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attention. While Young Trigg clearly knew his or her way around Wikipedia, one is still supposed to declare their in- terest before making edits. We’re back to the same conundrum: How does a candi-
date or campaign improve Wikipedia entries while work- ing within Wikipedia’s rules? To some extent, the opposing interests can be recon- ciled—although it requires the campaign to think different- ly about its engagement on Wikipedia compared to other online channels of communication. There is a great deal which political campaigns can do to improve their Wikipe- dia articles while staying within the bounds of Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines. But remember, as a collaborative effort there is no guarantee Wikipedia will say exactly what you like, and that may dissuade some campaign profession- als from engaging except on the sly. Ignoring Wikipedia could be a wasted opportunity for campaigns. Only a candidate’s official website and local news coverage are as important as Wikipedia in determin- ing his or her reputation, and information from those other websites often finds its way to Wikipedia.
The short history of politicians trying to influence their Wikipedia articles is one mainly of defeat—but it does not have to be.
The Risks For all of Wikipedia’s self-proclaimed openness, it often feels opaque to outsiders. Its rules are arcane, difficult to find if you don’t know where they are and time-consum- ing to read once you have found them. Then you still have the community itself to contend with. Many editors act in good faith and want to make Wikipedia a better informa- tion resource, but others have personal and political axes to grind. Here is one recent case which is unusual only because it made its way into the news: In June 2009, an anonymous
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