NDP leader Dix at centre of Wikipedia editing controversy
Critical information restored after being repeatedly deleted
Wikipedia editors, stung by the fact critical information had been regularly edited out of B. C. NDP leader Adrian Dix’s online biography, have restored the information and appear to be guarding against it being deleted again.
On Wednesday morning, after The Vancouver Sun reported that people had been cleansing Dix’s biography of his falsification of an executive memo while working for former premier Glen Clark, Wikipedia editors removed a block on changes to his page and restored critical details.
The B. C.- based volunteer editor who has been most active in removing critical sections of Dix’s biography has been identified as an actor and hobby historian whose regular edits of political pages have drawn complaints of bias from other Wiki editors.
Mike Cleven of New Westminster acknowledged in a comment to The Sun that he has been removing information about Dix’s memo- writing affair. But Cleven, who goes by the user name Skookum1, said he took the action because of what he sees as a concerted effort by B. C. Liberal supporters to skew the incident into a campaign issue for the May 14 election.
Cleven insists he is not aligned with the NDP, but said he was “a founding member of the ( federal) Green party” and involved with the National Party.
“My own view of this memo business is it’s completely overblown relative to what the ( B. C. Liberals have) done with billions of dollars of public assets
If the memo is all the Libs have to attack Dix with it’s pretty pathetic.
MIKE CLEVEN
PROLIFIC WIKIPEDIA EDITOR
and outsourcing Crown agencies and services to American companies,” he said in a Facebook message to a Sun reporter. “If the memo is all the Libs have to attack Dix with it’s pretty pathetic.”
Both the NDP and the Liberals say they are not behind the Wikipedia wars. The Liberals, however, are making Dix’s memo- writing incident an issue of trust in the campaign. Dix, on the other hand, refuses to engage in negative personal attacks and on Tuesday said he wishes for a higher discourse of opinion from the parties and public alike.
Cleven is an extraordinarily prolific contributor to Wikipedia, having made more than 71,000 edits since he became a member in 2005. He is one of Wikipedia’s 400 most active editors. Much of his work involves correcting and adding B. C. place names.
But Cleven also has a history of making changes to biographies — principally those of living politicians — that has brought charges that he’s politically biased. He has acknowledged in several posts that he has a conflict of interest when it comes to editing some pages because of criticism he has levelled on other websites and in blogs.
In the four days leading up to The Sun’s coverage, Cleven was responsible for removing references to Dix’s memo writing controversy five of the 10 times it was posted on Wikipedia by other users. He also has edited references on Premier Christy Clark and former premier Gordon Campbell ( in one case changing Campbell’s job as a real estate developer to “real estate lobbyist.”) He is actively involved in shaping how information is relayed about the BC Rail scandal that plagued Campbell’s government, and believes that mainstream reporting of the casino scandal that led to the fall of Glen Clark’s NDP government is biased and shouldn’t be used in any Wikipedia article about it.
Wikipedia is governed by a strong set of guidelines that dictate articles — particularly those involving living people or controversial subjects — must be written from a “neutral point of view.”