(Image: Private Media)

A Wikipedia user claiming to be Liberal MP Tim Wilson has been blocked from editing the website after they suggested removing negative aspects from the article about Wilson. 

On July 31, user “TimWilsonMP” created a Wikipedia account with a message: “My name is Tim Wilson and I am an elected representative in Australia. I plan to contribute to the page about me while following Wikipedia’s policies and being as neutral as possible.” 

After months of the account lying dormant, the user posted a series of suggested changes to Wilson’s page, challenging the sources of the claims.  

“The Wikipedia page about me seems to be designed to put me in a negative light,” the account wrote. 

Shortly after, TimWilsonMP was blocked from making any new edits under the site’s policy protecting notable figures from impersonation. Tim Wilson’s office did not respond to a Crikey request about whether he or his office was behind the account. 

Editing one’s own Wikipedia article is frowned upon under the site’s norms — ”Avoid writing or editing an article about yourself, other than to correct unambiguous errors of fact” says one piece of advice — but it’s not against the rules. 

The user, if they are in fact the real Tim Wilson MP, someone from this his office, or otherwise, had taken the unusual step of creating a separate page suggesting edits for other editors to make in order to avoid perceptions of Wikipedia impropriety.

One user, Horse Eye’s Back, responded to TimWilsonMP’s message thanking them for their approach.

“Going through your draft there and the page I do see merit to a number of the questions you’ve raised. Thanks for taking the high road with this,” they wrote.

These recommended changes attempt to sand the edges off the harsher aspects of Wilson’s Wikipedia entry, but use the website’s rules to justify changes. The user points to Crikey, Huffington Post, Junkee and Michael West Media — “the publication has an agenda covering the rising power of corporations over democracy”, TimWilsonMP wrote — as being inappropriate for Wikipedia citations.

The account also suggested getting rid of information about the swing against Tim Wilson at the 2019 election because there was no citation. 

Some of TimWilsonMP’s efforts have worked. Facts such as Wilson’s opposition to plain cigarette packaging, opposition to a carbon price, and being rebuked by Speaker Tony Smith for his antics around the franking credits inquiry, were removed, although some of those changes were later reverted.

Other changes have been noted but ultimately not changed when users found other sources to justify claims. 

Wikipedia remains one of the most influential websites for shaping public perception of politicians. Tools like the Twitter account Aussie Parl&Gov WikiEdits use the known IP addresses of federal and state parliaments to track Wikipedia edits made by parliamentary users — sometimes linked to MP’s own profiles.