After dealing with the wikipedia's editors, who clearly felt much better now that they could hack off someone famous, Roth wrote an open letter to Wikipedia which was picked up by The New Yorker. Roth tried to fix an error on this page that his novel was "allegedly inspired by the life of the writer Anatole Broyard.”
Roth, who actually wrote the book, said that the plot was inspired by an event in the life of Roth's friend, Princeton professor Melvin Tumin. Wackypedia insisted that the book was based on Anatole Broyard who was a literary critic and editor for The New York Times. Roth barely knew Broyard when he wrote The Human Stain, there was no way he could have inspired the novel.
When Roth tried to give Wikipedia the true origins he says he was told by a Wikipedia editor that he was not a credible source. The Wikipedia editor said that he needed a secondary source, and a primary one would not do. The rules are designed to stop people from excising uncomfortable yet true facts from their articles and all facts must be backed up by references to specific sources.
Ironically by having his letter published in The New Yorker Roth actually has a secondary source so the problem is sorted.
Monday, 10 September 2012 10:03
Novelist is not an authority on his own books
Written by Nick Farrell
Wikipedia fake penis experts strike again
The American novelist Philip Roth has fallen foul of the daft editors at Wikipedia who claim that he is not qualified to talk about his own life. The fake penis experts, and other editors, who believe they are so important that they can make famous people disappear, have told Roth that he is not qualified to fix what he calls a glaring error in the Wikipedia page about his novel The Human Stain.
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