Donald Sterling, Clippers Owner, Alleged Housing Discriminator, Gets Wikipedia Bio Scrubbed of All Things Controversial

By Dennis Romero Tue., Apr. 5 2011 at 8:00 AM

Both sides of Donald Sterling.

Donald Sterling is something like a Jekyll and Hyde of Los Angeles society for some. If you've seen his full-page ads in the Los Angeles Times, you'd think he was the city's greatest humanitarian. Ever.

But if you've read some the lawsuits against him, you'd see that he's been accused of discrimination at the apartments he owns (he paid a record $2.7 million settlement), age discrimination with one of the coaches he employed (that suit was recently rejected) and, well, doing good work for the homeless that wasn't really done.

His Wikipedia once reflected both the good and the controversial. But no longer. It appears to have been scrubbed like a baby's bottom after birth:

Deadspin noticed that his page has gone from having a six-page "controversies" section to having none. But "heartwarming notes" have been added, according to the site.

Ah, when Sterling's not #winning as owner of the Clippers, he's (allegedly) polishing his image. Good man.

What's funny is that Deadspin wonders aloud if it was done not-so-surreptitiously by one of Sterling's publicists, Seth Burton.

The handle of the Wikipedia user who gave the page a better cleaning than the Real Nannies of Beverly Hills: Sburtonclips3335.

Hmm. Awkward.

You know what's cool about Wikipedia? Anyone can go there and weigh in.

Tags:

Clippers, Donald Sterling, housing discrimination, NBA, Wikipedia

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Michael Cohen

Looks like the controversies are back at wikipedia for Sterling see:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

Gregory Kohs

"his page has gone from having a six-page 'controversies' section to having none"

Really? What sort of encyclopedia that was not an online defamation platform would have a "six-page" section about controversies related to a living person?

Oh, wait. Wikipedia *is* an online defamation platform.

Editing one's own page, or that of one's employer, is made out to be an etiquette breach of the highest order by mostly pseudonymous Wikipedia administrators who have never done anything in life that would rise to the level of having a Wikipedia article about themselves or their companies.

Look, Jimmy Wales (the "sole founder" of Wikipedia who has never, ever been associated with Internet soft porn) has himself edited his Wikipedia biography, many times, to "sanitize" it beyond recognition of the truth. His business partner Angela Beesley has edited the Wikipedia article about their business, many times.

This here about Mr. Sterling isn't "news" -- it's standard operating procedure on Wikipedia.

Henry__Chinaski

[quote](2) Emily Burns says: :

Gregory Kohs is just mad because he was banned from Wikipedia in 2006. He was banned, ironically, for offering services editing Wikipedia in favour of people. Axe to grind, much?

His “more factual” statement doesn’t change the reality. All it does is attempt to cast aspersions on Wikipedia editors.

The “standard operating procedure” is what happened here: the biased changes got edited out.[/quote]

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