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Yes, I am William Beutler. I'm a writer and consultant in Washington, D.C., where I have lived since August 2002. I was born in Portland, Oregon in September 1979 and grew up there before attending and graduating from the University of Oregon in Eugene in June 2002. From August 2002 through March 2006 I was a writer with National Journal's The Hotline. From April 2006 through July 2010 I was a social media strategist and client manager with New Media Strategies (NMS) in Arlington, Virginia. In August 2010 I decided to hang out my own shingle, and here I am.
In March 2005, I co-created The Blogometer, which I wrote until leaving for NMS. From July 2006 of that year until my most recent post, I have written about politics and blogging plus traditional and social media at Blog P.I.. Other blogging activity has focused on national media and politics at Armed Prophet (2003-05) and goings-on around the District at The Washington Canard (2004-09). You can also find me on Twitter at @williambeutler. As an undergraduate at Oregon, I served for two years as editor-in-chief of a student-funded magazine, the Oregon Commentator (est. 1983).
As of March 2009, I am writing The Wikipedian, a blog about Wikipedia intended for readers of the English Wikipedia (i.e. Internet users) who have never understood the project well enough to get involved. In conjunction with this site, I maintain two Twitter accounts:
- @thewikipedian – hand-tweeted highlights of Wikipedia news, commentary and announcements of new blog posts
- @wikipedian – an automated stream of social media links related to Wikipedia
I first started editing Wikipedia as a reader who finally decided to try my hand at editing the articles I read. Beyond that I continued with simple spelling, grammar and formatting corrections, which led to more substantial contributions to existing articles and, eventually, creating new ones.
Eventually, I started working in ad hoc collaboration with uninvolved (i.e. neutral) Wikipedia editors to develop by consensus best practices for following Wikipedia's conflict of interest rules where organizational or financial interests are involved. With advice from another editor, in August and September 2007 I created the existing Wikipedia article about NMS. As my investigations along these lines progressed, by April 2008 I had decided to cease editing the NMS article from this account and, following a discussion at the Village Pump, I created the secondary account NMS Bill to discuss issues of interest to NMS and its clients. Further explanation of my thinking along these lines is available on the NMS Bill user page and my introductory post at The Wikipedian. Upon leaving NMS, this account has been retired, and where similar situations arise I will use the account WWB Too. In May 2011 I wrote "The Grande Guide for Wikipedia", published by Eloqua and JESS3, a guide to understanding Wikipedia for the marketing community. Released as CC-BY-SA, I plan to continue improving this guide in my user space as The Grande Guide to Wikipedia (Revised).
I have written about and been quoted on Wikipedia's role in U.S. electoral politics several times. In July 2008 I was quoted by Wired[1] about the controversy at that time concerning the addition of details about John Edwards' extramarital affair to his Wikipedia profile. In April 2010 I wrote an article for Campaigns & Elections' Politics Magazine[2] about appropriate campaign engagement of Wikipedia, and in April 2011 I was quoted by Politico about self-interested editing by Rep. David Rivera's office staff.[3]
I have also been sought out as a Wikipedia expert in other media. In June 2010 I appeared on KCRW's To the Point defending Wikipedia against Internet critic Lee Siegel. In January 2010 I was invited to the WikiWars conference, organized by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India to deliver a presentation on how and why editors leave Wikipedia. In January 2011, I worked with the creative agency JESS3 to create an animated short called "The State of Wikipedia", narrated by none other than Jimmy Wales and released to coincide with Wikipedia's tenth anniversary.
[edit] Articles I have created
[edit] Articles to which I have contributed (relatively) significantly
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