LIARS GONNA LIE: Wikipedia founder advocates for updating policies following ‘The Hunting Ground’ controversy.

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is looking to tighten his website’s rules about editors altering pages with which they have a conflict of interest.

Wales renewed interest in the policies follows a Washington Examiner report that a crewmember of “The Hunting Ground,” a one-sided film about campus sexual assault, had been editing Wikipedia pages to promote the film and conform facts to its narrative.

“I have long advocated that we should deal much more quickly and much more severely with [Conflict of Interest] editors,” Wales wrote after citing the Examiner. “The usual objections (from some quarters — I think most people agree with me) have to do with it being hard to detect them, but in this case, the COI was called out, warnings were issued, and nothing was done. Now the editor has been called out by the media embarrassing him (he deserves it), his employer (who may not), and Wikipedia.” . . .

Another Wikipedia editor, KirkCliff2, chimed in on the thread by suggesting that the crewmember didn’t break just COI rules but also Wikipedia’s rules against gaming the system and neutrality. This editor also noted how Edward Patrick Alva, “The Hunting Ground” crew member, “has also been fairly disingenuous about his actions” and had been “shamelessly plugging the movie and the ‘stars’ thereof.”

Alva had made multiple edits to the Wikipedia pages of subjects from his film, including former Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston, who was accused of rape by fellow FSU student Erica Kinsman. Some of Alva’s edits included removing information that cast doubt on Kinsman’s story and made the Tallahassee police look worse — in line with how the movie portrays the situation.

KirkCliff2, who wrote that he is “a veteran editor who rarely even weighs in on such issues” believes Alva “must be banned.”

Banned or not, his sleazy conduct should be widely publicized.