From Pauvre Plume (originally from Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)
Let’s face it, I was stalling; instead of prepping for my looming dissertation defense, I was skimming news bites on the Internet. I stumbled upon the obituary for Nicholas Hughes – the son of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes – who had recently committed suicide. The online obituary held little information about Hughes himself, but made much of his famous parents and manner of death. Struck by the lack of biographical detail, I turned to Wikipedia for a quick gloss on who he was and what he’d done. The Wikipedia entry had little more to offer: a few details about his work, a quote from his sister regarding his love of nature and his struggles with depression, a mention of his dual British/American citizenship.
Most striking of all, the Hughes entry was flagged for possible deletion on the grounds of “general notability”. The Wikipedia community was invited to discuss whether Hughes was important enough to warrant an entry of his own, or whether the entry should be deleted completely. The discussion was brief but vigorous, reflecting a vocal range from lofty academic to colloquial chat. There were those who suggested that his only claim to notability was as the son of two (in)famous literary icons; he was at best a footnote to their Wikipedia entries. Others felt Hughes’ research and scholarship had been completely misrepresented, not to mention mislabeled; he was not a marine biologist, but rather a fisheries biologist with a broad range of applied research behind him. A couple of discussants huffily questioned whether the sensationalism surrounding his death (he committed suicide as did his mother and stepmother) was enough to warrant his presence on Wikipedia. Some found the timing of the whole deletion discussion tacky. After all, the man had just died; couldn’t we spare him a moment’s attention before confining him to oblivion?
I found myself completely sucked into the discussion, as the participants negotiated Hughes’ virtual right to life. Who do you have to be, in order to be? What does it take to become visible — and stay visible — in a socially constructed world? Especially a world that precludes physical embodiment? As we explore virtual community in all its shapes, forms and permutations, how do we co-construct presence and absence? And what does it mean when we do so?
Postscript: Are you wondering what happened to the Nicholas Hughes entry? After a roughly a day’s debate, the decision was made to keep him as an independent entry. A general call went out for more information, and as of this writing, the sketchy “stub” that initially drew my attention has tripled in size. Hughes is now more “present” on Wikipedia than before the threat to his virtual existence. Present, but perhaps not completely visible there…There still is no picture of Hughes posted to his profile.
‘The unbearable lightness of being’ it used to be under a dictatorship and now it seems to be in a virtual world. Nice post.
Your post makes me think of the often anonymous forces that create our virtual identities, the alien beings carrying our names. Ratemyprofessor is a good example.