VANCOUVER 鈥� If you go to sa国际传媒 New Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix鈥檚 biography online at Wikipedia, you will find that he is married to a poet, has Type 1 diabetes, is fluently bilingual and served as Glen Clark鈥檚 chief of staff when Clark was the NDP premier.
What you won鈥檛 find on the ubiquitous user-edited digital encyclopedia is any reference to Dix鈥檚 darkest days or his biggest admitted mistake, when he falsified an executive memo while serving Clark, in an effort to protect him from allegations of conflict of interest. Or that he was fired for it, or that the memo-writing affair was part of the casino scandal that led to Clark鈥檚 resignation and paved the way for the Liberal election rout of 2001.
It isn鈥檛 for lack of trying by a number of Wikipedia users, who have been adding those facts and others into Dix鈥檚 online biography, even if some of those additions are coloured with political invective.
But, for at least the past two years, ever since he became the NDP leader, Dix鈥檚 biography has been carefully stage-managed by a largely anonymous group of people who cleanse any negative comment, even if it has been cited by credible sources or has been accepted by Dix himself.
In recent days, as the province gets ready for the May 14 provincial election, the digital fight over Dix鈥檚 personal history reached a climax. Since April 6, details of the 鈥渕emo to file鈥� incident have been re-inserted at least 10 times, and just as quickly removed.
On Tuesday morning, a Wikipedia editor with powers to lock down the page did so, leaving online a cleansed version that omits any negative bits of Dix鈥檚 history.
For the leader of the opposition it has stopped 鈥� at least temporarily 鈥� the problem of subjective editing that has befallen many politicians and celebrities.
Premier Christy Clark isn鈥檛 immune from this. Her Wiki page has had personal and sexist comments added.
Unlike Dix鈥檚 page, there have been no efforts to remove a number of negative references, including her close connections in the sa国际传媒 Rail scandal. The biography of Conservative leader John Cummins hasn鈥檛 been tinkered with and all three party pages at Wikipedia are not subject to the same level of attention as Dix鈥檚 biography.
In the past 90 days, Dix鈥檚 online history has been read at least 20,000 times, according to Wikipedia. By comparison, Christy Clark鈥檚 biography was viewed nearly 60,000 times over the same period.
The NDP and the Liberals say they are not behind the continual editing of Dix鈥檚 Wiki biography. The Vancouver Sun was unable to contact any of the people making the changes.
