chessgames.com: <saffuna>
<Are the player bios intended to be historical and accurate, or are they simply what the player wants written about himself?>
They are certainly intended to be accurate. While I fully confess a bias toward positive achievements there should be absolutely nothing false or anything contentious or unsubstantiated.
<Do players have right of approval over the bios on their player pages?>
No, absolutely not.
There have been two occasions (before GM So) when a grandmaster contacted me to have their biography changed.
That was before all changes were logged, but I heard them out and stand by my editorial decision. In one case the biography mentioned a legal conviction for a crime that the grandmaster was ultimately acquitted. I felt it had nothing to do with chess, and besides, the courts vindicated him.
Wikipedia takes a very strong approach: if you are the topic of a page on Wikipedia you have absolutely no right to be involved in its creation, editing, amending, or anything to do with it. If you did, it would be regard as "first hand research" as well as "conflict of interest."
I don't think CG needs to be that heavy-handed because it's entirely possible a GM is able to write a wonderful autobiography on their own, perhaps with a little help to get the formatting nice. (Perhaps I am being naive and I should switch to the Wiki policy; but let's see how this one goes.)
However, that doesn't mean that a GM has the right to say "remove everything!" or replace it with a mysteriously selective account of their career. We are striving for the best biography possible; if we can achieve that with the GM's own help, that's just wonderful. If the GM interferes in our mission, we can either modify what he or she provides, or in the worst case take away the editing power.
<If so, that's fine. But then let's not pretend the bios of active players, especially those who post here, are something they are not.For example, the written section of the So biography (in other words, not the list of tournament results) makes no mention of Webster University or Susan Polgar. I would think that would be important information for someone coming to the page to learn about So and his career. Why isn't it included?>
As you know, Wesley recently had the power to edit his biography and apparently did a massive edit.
I have been out of doors at an eye doctor and was able to only see a blurry rewrite on my cellphone. Unable to read the actual words I mused at how the ♣ symbol was used instead of • but at this point that's all I know about it.
I cannot tell you why GM So (or whatever PR people were hired to write it) removed the section about Webster University or Susan Polgar. I can't explain any other insertion/deletion that was made.
Glancing at the Bistro I see that at least a few people are upset with the rewrite. Although the opinion may be fully justified, getting angry about it is an overreaction. Perhaps our policy and the ability of the software is not fully understood.
First, let is be clear: just because he's the second highest rated player in the world doesn't mean that he has some special privilege as a CG editor. In the world of chess, he's one in a million. As a CG editor, he's one of a few dozen.
Just because an editor rewrite a bio doesn't mean we have to keep it. The new feature that logs changes to articles (Edit History: Wesley So) allows us to "roll back" changes, in part of in full, to any point we deem necessary.
And so, for right now, let's not get too excited. A few points:
• For starters we don't know if GM So is done with it. Maybe things deleted will be reinserted or rewritten.
• Next, it's just one biography out of thousands and we have all the time in the world to look at it and decide what changes to make, which could include a complete reversion to the way it was, or a mixture of the old version and the new, or a complete rewrite, or whatever we deem necessary.
• Due to the new logging mechanism, it's important to keep in mind that anything that has been done can be undone. Like wikipedia we can "roll back" edits. It is impossible to now vandalize an article.
• Would "My 60 Memorable Games" have been a better book if Fischer didn't pick the 60 games? Of course not. So if Wesley wants to focus on certain tournaments, I say those are the ones that we need to look at. Knowing what achievements Wesley himself wants to highlight will help us create a biography that is even better than what we have (or had). Even if the bio gets completely rewritten (again) what work is done now can only help our efforts.
• The policy to allow people to edit their own biographies is not written in stone. Perhaps Wikipedia has a very good reason to enforce a "conflict of interest" policy and it's not out of the question that this incident will force us to adopt a similar one. I was hoping this would be a good experiment to find out if we can rely on GMs to present a good biography. Whether the answer is "yes" or "no" the experiment was a valid one.
I hope this answers everybody questions and concerns. Now let's take it from here.
Kibitzing
