This is something Jerry Pournelle used to complain about. He edited some pages relating to the US space program. Events in which he took part or knew the people involved. Then he'd come back a month later and find the page had been edited again with the incorrect information re-inserted. Eventually he just gave up.
And then there are political problems. The Tyson affair is a good example - Neil deGrasse Tyson spent many years spouting made-up quotes supposedly uttered by political opponents (Like this one, for instance - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_jG5kKfacY). Eventually someone compiled all the nonsense and it was something of a mini-scandal. The wiki editors refused to allow any mention of it on his page, so the whole affair is mostly down the memory hole now, just like they intended.
Wikipedia is good for historical references (pre 1900 or so), and a good place to start if you just don't know anything about the thing you're looking up. But to rely on it for anything that's the slightest bit controversial is daft.
The "famous person tried to contribute to stuff they were involved in" thing comes up a lot.
The wikipedia answer is that they want published sources that people can cite and review.
This seems a bit crazy when the famous person is someone you respect and trust, but as soon as self-publicists, frauds and quacks get involved, this becomes a useful guideline. And of course you can't have one rule for some and another rule for the rest.
> This seems a bit crazy when the famous person is someone you respect and trust
Bingo. Just because the person in question may even be the topic of the article, it doesn't mean that person can't be biased or want to spin things a certain way. By requiring citations and sources, you're providing some validity and "proof". Granted, sources can be faked too, but the level of separation works to minimize much of that. The faking of sources isn't something that would be very common anyways.
It sort of falls back on the Perfect Solution fallacy. You can never have a perfect solution so you have to choose the "least bad" option. The option with the least drawbacks or negatives.
"And of course you can't have one rule for some and another rule for the rest."
We can (and do) have recognition only for some (and not just for everybody, i.e. "the rest"). It may be a flawed solution, but that is how things work in the real life.
> Wikipedia is good for historical references (pre 1900 or so), and a good place to start if you just don't know anything about the thing you're looking up.
Whenever I see people say stuff like this I mentally replace what they said with "Wikipedia is a general-knowledge encyclopedia." Not a dig at you, but this should have always gone without saying.
IIRC research has shown that this isn't true. Britannica had a higher error rate. It is flatly absurd to claim that wikipedia is less complete than any other encyclopedia,which are all under 1% its size. Wikipedia's isn't 99% anime junk.
And then there are political problems. The Tyson affair is a good example - Neil deGrasse Tyson spent many years spouting made-up quotes supposedly uttered by political opponents (Like this one, for instance - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_jG5kKfacY). Eventually someone compiled all the nonsense and it was something of a mini-scandal. The wiki editors refused to allow any mention of it on his page, so the whole affair is mostly down the memory hole now, just like they intended.
Wikipedia is good for historical references (pre 1900 or so), and a good place to start if you just don't know anything about the thing you're looking up. But to rely on it for anything that's the slightest bit controversial is daft.