As if messing up your candidacy petition were enough...

User talk:Gutknecht01
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Welcome to Wikipedia, Congressman. It has been brought to our attention that you, and or your staffers, have tried to ammend [sic] the article of yourself at Wikipedia. I would like to draw your attention to our policy on editing entries about yourself. Also, I would like you all to understand that we need to have a ballance [sic] view on our articles. While I am sure that you are a good Congressman, but the edits that you or your office has [sic] done has [sic] been considered self promotion and were removed by another one of our editors. If you have any more questioms [sic], please, talk to me. Thank you. User: Zscout370 22:58, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

We'll assume the congressman's staff was unaware of the Wikipedia policy prohibiting autobiographical editing. It is not an uncommon error. But combining this with their potential goof-up (depending upon what the Minnesota Supreme Court decides) on his candidacy petition, well... could there be some question of competency here?

The Minneapolis Star Tribune and Rochester Post-Bulletin cover the faux pas in full, and Bluestem Prairie features it as well, with links to supporting evidence.

One of the offending clauses in the Wikipedia entry that Gutknecht's staff tried to change was this:

Gutknecht is running for re-election in 2006, despite a promise when first elected that he would never serve more than 12 years, saying then "if I ever break this contract, throw me out."

The entry refers to this article in USA Today as a source.

Kevin Diaz in the Strib article writes:

A spokesman for Gutknecht did not dispute that his office had tried to change his Wikipedia entry. But he called into question the reliability of the service, which was created in 2001 and claims to be the largest reference website on the Internet.

"We're concerned when anyone looks to Wikipedia for factual information," said Gutknecht spokesman Jon Yarian.

Yarian is absolutely correct given that there is no central editorial control for Wikipedia. Rather, members of the Wikipedia community are responsible for editing a fact-checking each other.

More fun and games in the world of truth and politics. Vox verax.

LP