Google Depression
January 24, 2008
This is only going to be a short entry, but I’m really depressed at the moment. I Googled myself earlier when we were originally talking about it, but I was nowhere to be found. There is an American Screenwriter who comes up for at least the first 20 Google entries. Geez, doesn’t this guy know he should share!
I checked again today, in hopes that I might finally exist after all this blogging, but nope, I’m still non-existent. This is when I noticed that the “other” David McKenna had a wikipedia entry about him. Upon reading his entry, I decided that just because he is more famous then I am, it doesn’t mean I don’t deserve a space on that Wikipedia page. Therefore, because anyone can edit Wikipedia, I added myself to the page.
It is a very simple paragraph on me, and even as I wrote it, I debated whether I should put that information of me on the web. Anyway, here is is. On further inspection, I noticed the title of the Wikipedia page was “David McKenna (writer)”. I then second guessed myself on whether I had the right to be on the page because it specifically said (writer). On further debate, I decided that the word “writer” is pretty broad and can apply to me too. In fact, I am writing right now, so I think I still fit on the page.
Thats about all, just wanted to update everyone on what I’m wasting my time on. I guess it wasn’t such a short entry. 🙂 On the plus side, I’ll be on Google now, but by using the power of the screenwriters name. Whats everyone’s feelings on this? Do you think I overstepped my Wikipedia boundaries? The word “writer” can be taken as a reference to a specific person, so do I really have the right to be there? The beauty is, if everyone thinks I was in the wrong, I can still take myself off of it. The power of Wikipedia!
Cheers,
David McKenna
P.S. I couldn’t get any links to work on Wikipedia, anyone have any suggestions on how this works?
Filed in David McKenna, student posts
Tags: David McKenna, google, Wikipedia
UPEI - BUS442.0 
January 24, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I think that its fine to have a wikipedia entry on yourself. However, if everyone did this, think of how many duplicates there would be. If a John Smith put his name on wikipedia or (John MacDonald for PEI) there would be thousands of them.
This could also work for your advantage. Going back to talking about how employers could search your name in google, wouldn’t it be nice if they went to wikipedia and saw information on you that was favorable? But then again, if you had enemies (you’re a nice guy but you never know), they could edit your page to say that you’re racist or something.
I too have tossed around the idea of putting myself on wikipedia but decided against it because, well, I’m just not that interesting:)
January 24, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Wow, Dave…. you got shot down pretty quick. Apparently you did overstep your wikipedia boundries.
January 24, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Wow, I guess I didn’t have to get all of your opinion. I just went to take myself off of it (due to the above comments) and discovered that somebody had already erased what I had written. Meh, not life altering, but now I’m even more depressed. 🙂
January 24, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Personally, I feel that having my name on Google is scary enough. I’m not favourable to the idea of having pictures and other things about myself on the web. Although, as Jeremiah said, it can be good or bad to have people find information about you. I guess everyone if different but things can go really really bad if too much information is available to just anyone..
January 24, 2008 at 8:06 pm
I agree, it is pretty scary when you can find information about yourself on google. I agree with Jeremiah on how this information can be used in positive and negative ways. If this information is positive than it could help you out in getting a job. But if it is negative information, than it could impact you negatively by not getting a particular job.
January 24, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Wikipedia is interesting because anyone can really do anything to it. Take the following as an example….
Dave, funny you mention having your own wiki. My friend is an elite soccer player and we stumbled upon his wikipedia page (which he didn’t make) one day and decided to have a little fun…. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Anstey
Can you figure out what we added in?
January 24, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Haha wow thats awesome. It’s amazing at how efficient and accurate some articles can be because anybody can add to them, like the article of the bombings in the first section of Chapter 3 in Wikinomics. It’s also amazing how wrong they can be for the same reason. I wonder if anyone will ever catch and erase it? All in good fun I guess.
January 26, 2008 at 12:31 am
Sometimes the internet can be unbelievably helpful, but these days we are almost chronicle our lives because of the internet. Google is awesome…but sometimes it’s scary what you can find!!!
January 26, 2008 at 5:15 pm
That’s funny that you can randomly add, true or untrue information to these wikis. But, what i dont quite understand is how when david m. posted some info about himself on wikipedia, it got taken off, but when dave c. and his friend added some to his friends site, their additions stayed on?, Does it have anything to do with how often the site is checked/monitored?
January 27, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Wow I never knew Wikipedia was monitored this closely. I don’t get it thought, do they have that many workers, enough to supervise every post that people put up every minute or did some random person happen to read it decided to delete it?
March 8, 2008 at 2:06 pm
FINALLY! I just Googled my name again to see if I had made any headway and I found that I am 18th on the list. True, this is on the second page, and true nobody will probably ever be looking for me, but at least I exist. With my luck Google will probably change their algoritm and I’ll no longer exist again.
April 6, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Sorry if I’m acting obsessive. But I just checked again and I’m now the 4th listing on Google.