This article appears to be pure public relations. To what extent is Wikipedia just chock full of professional resumes?

They seem quite rare, but this looks like one of the worst. Includes a black and white posed photograph and stuff like "Burgstone has been an active donor to schools and universities."

In principle, I don't dispute articles that veer towards puff pieces. Real encyclopedia articles tend to display a more empathetic side of their subjects by their nature. But it looks like guys such as Burgstone don't deserve any more slack than they already get...

Bah!

I spent a month or two earlier this year, keeping an eye on what various corporate entities were slipping into Wikipedia. It doesn't take much skill to "wikisleuth" the edit histories of such articles. Then, you can check the contribution history of individual editors, such as (in this case) Sanfran94123. That particular contributor to the greatness of Wikipedia apparently only has a one-track mind: Jon Burgstone. Even worse are the contributions of IP address 24.7.56.201. Do the Wikipediots really assume good faith, that these editors are not Burgstone himself, or one of his close associates?

While I don't give a fig any more, you can report this garbage to the WP:COI/N (Conflict of Interest/Noticeboard) or to WikiProject Spam. But in my experience, they only do a half-assed job when it comes to shutting down these long, long articles that seem important, but are really only self-aggrandizing curriculum vitae.

Of course, my solution would be to develop another wiki where people can come and make whatever laudatory, self-promotional pieces they want about themselves or their companies. Oh, wait -- I'm already doing that.

Greg

But, G, Greg, what good is a self-promotion if people know it's a self-promotion?

That would be — The Horror !!! The Horror !!! — honest …

That's why Wikipedia is providing the Inestimable Public Soivice of a place where self-promoters can promote themselves under the guise of being Not-Praised-But-Buried by "objective" wikipæanizers.

Ayn't that what the Cult Of Objectivism (COO) is all about !?

Jonny

Less than a week after this thread began, the article Jon Burgstone was summarily deleted by Ryulong after what looks like an edit war.

These guys were chatting about it, expecting an afd:

I know the article was a load of old crap, but er... wasn't there like... er... supposed to be a... you know... "consensus discussion" about these kinds of things? Ryulong just went ahead and deleted a full article that looked like this. Is this proper?

It's history.

Will there be a DRV?

Ryulong reads WR. He must love us.

The deletion summary reads, "Overly puff piece biography of a non-notable individual".

I thought good Wikipedia admins were supposed to be more careful about how they call living persons when they're judging their merit for the encyclopedia.

That is, Ryulong should have said, "Biography whose authorship seems to violate WP:COI and did not meet standards of WP:NOTE."

Instead, too many admins seem to want to get in a parting shot. "Puff piece" is straight out of the Jimbo lexicon, and to say someone is a "non-notable individual" (especially one who has probably accomplished 18 times more notable things in life than Ryulong has) is really offensive.

I hope Jon Burgstone finds his way to Wikipedia Review, so we can help him understand why, even though he's probably pissed off right now, it's actually better for his well-being not to have an article in Wikipedia.

Greg

There aren't many such articles. Those that do exist are usually found and justly deleted in short order. Few people can write about themselves in the voice of Wikipedia. PR people cannot stop writing like they've been trained to write.

But these tendencies do not mean people should reflexively shout "DELETE, COI!" when such articles are discovered. My preferred counter-example is Richard Hack. The actual content hasn't been changed much from what the subject himself (Or someone else named 'Ricky Hack') wrote. All everyone else has done is touch the article up.

That's an interesting concept.