In a provocative commentary for The Guardian, Seth Finkelstein argues that having a biography in Wikipedia is a magnet for libel:

For people who are not very prominent, Wikipedia biographies can be an "attractive nuisance". It says, to every troll, vandal, and score-settler: "Here's an article about a person where you can, with no accountability whatsoever, write any libel, defamation, or smear. It won't be a marginal comment with the social status of an inconsequential rant, but rather will be made prominent about the person, and reputation-laundered with the institutional status of an encyclopedia."

As someone who contributed several biographies to the encyclopedia, I've held to the belief that as a person's entry becomes more well-read, it will attract conscientious editors at a greater rate than harmful ones. I still have all of the entries I've created on my watch list, and none has experienced the kind of abuse Finkelstein describes.

Like me, Finkelstein hovers close to being too obscure for Wikipedia. His biography only had been edited 53 times in two years before this Guardian piece ran.

When an entry's not well-read, the potential for abuse is greater because an edit by someone with an axe to grind is less likely to be reviewed by others.

The press should follow up on something Finkelstein reveals in his commentary -- Angela Beesley, the Wikipedia Board of Trustees member who recently quit, has been fighting to have her own biography deleted:

I'm sick of this article being trolled. It's full of lies and nonsense. My justification for making a third nomination is that my circumstances have changed significantly since the last AfDs -- I have resigned from the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. Given that this was previously kept on the grounds I was on that Board, there is no longer any reason for this page to be kept. This has already been deleted on the French and German Wikipedias.

Beesley's clearly too well-known to justify deletion from Wikipedia, considering her position as one of the site's leaders for three years. But as Finkelstein notes, this is a huge no-confidence vote in the Wikipedia concept. If she can't get fair treatment on Wikipedia, and founder Jimbo Wales has resorted to protectively editing his own bio on numerous occasions, what confidence should other living subjects have in their own treatment?