Improving Rachel McKinnon’s Wikipedia page

On a day when people are lamenting the “rescheduling” – reportedly due to lack of ticket sales – of Rachel McKinnon’s eagerly anticipated talk, which was due to take place in London soon, I’d like to continue milking my attempt to improve McKinnon’s Wikipedia page, the result of which can be seen here.

It has brought even more joy to people than I anticipated. I’m also a bit surprised at the lack of knowledge about Wikipedia in some of the responses I got. I’d like to address these for anyone wishing to pull a similar stunt – quite a number of people say they are inspired by my work.

I want to say first of all that when I edited the page I did so in the full knowledge that the edits would be reversed in minutes, if not seconds. People were disappointed when they looked at the page hours later and declared my amendments had “gone already!” No, they are far more efficient than that.

The sole purpose of editing the page was to make me feel better and to get a quick screenshot in the hope of cheering a few people up at what is for so many of us a very sad time. It succeeded on the first count – it felt almost as good as if I’d watched McKinnon fall off his bike into a steaming pile of horse manure. And more than a few people said it had made them laugh out loud and even made their day.

I suppose that’s a reflection of the love they feel for McKinnon.

Best of all was that someone said they’d read it to Magdalen Berns and she’d loved it.

What was I feeling when I decided to do it? If you already know that McKinnon is a monstrous individual who rejoices in cheating women out of sporting success, “jokes” about wanting ‘TERFs’ to die in grease fires and makes vile, despicable and dishonest comments about Magdalen, who is now terminally ill, you may think I don’t need to explain. But it’s not only about McKinnon. I chose to amend McKinnon’s Wikipedia page because he has one. But hours earlier I’d been alerted to the cowardly, anonymous Facebook page entitled This Trans Eats TERFs and what I saw there made me despair for humanity. I am told there are many similar examples across social media, presenting Magdalen as a hate figure and celebrating her impending death.

Why?

Once again, in order to justify their own inhumanity, these disgusting individuals I refer to collectively as the trans cult, have to resort to lies and DARVO.

I don’t need to point out that Magdalen has never celebrated anyone’s death, never advocated violence or rejoiced at violence. That is what the trans cult do to us!

What Magdalen does is tell the truth. She points out that people can’t change sex, that men can’t be lesbians, that it isn’t transphobic for a lesbian not to want to have a relationship with a male transgender person, etc, etc. And she does it in a way that is funny and insightful.

Sometimes she mocks the incredibly stupid things people say but she has never crossed the line into wishing anything horrible happens to them.

This has won her legions of fans from all over the world and because of this, because they know deep down that she is loved and that she is right, the cultists hate her. They are doing their usual thing of attributing to her views she doesn’t hold – as they do to all of us – and they are celebrating her incurable cancer!

Word cannot express my utter contempt.

Of course, none of them have sufficient insight themselves to realise that her life being cruelly shortened in this way and their own repulsive reaction to it will strengthen the impact of her legacy, will mean more people than ever will watch her videos over and over and be even more determined to carry on her work in fighting for women.

Anyway, back to Wikipedia.

You do not, under the current arrangement, have to be logged into a Wikipedia account to make edits but your IP address will be recorded and may be permanently blocked. Mine wasn’t but I did get a final warning, which they can shove where the sun doesn’t shine.

I’ve said elsewhere why Wikipedia sucks and, until my spontaneous alcohol-fuelled intervention two days ago, I had no intention of ever editing anything on it again and don’t care if I’m banned for life. I don’t use it as a source for anything on this site and I urge people not to support it financially, as I once did.

In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t just dived in like that but had planned it more carefully and changed more of the page.

It is important to be mindful that you might be breaking a law when you decide to improve someone’s page. Many people said that I had made McKinnon’s page more accurate but a Wikipedia editor claimed it was “defamatory”. Obviously that would be for a court to decide – rather than some jumped-up numpty of a volunteer editor – but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that some target of what Wikipedia calls “vandalism” might want to test it in court. If Stephanie Hayden had a Wikipedia page, I’d steer well clear of it…maybe.

From that editor’s page:

Well, that’s true. They could, for example, be doing some good for a worthwhile charity instead of wasting their lives on crappy Wikipedia.

Ultimately it’s up to you whether you think editing an article knowing that your edits will be almost instantly reversed, is something worth doing. If you do decide to, remember to log out of your Wikipedia account and be ready to take a screenshot of your work immediately.

Then share it widely.

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Published 31.08.19