The Loneliest Blogger

By Kevin Robinson in News on Dec 19, 2006 2:50PM

What happens when you combine a zest for development, poor video editing skills, and a DSL connection? You get this.

Being a Chicago Alderman, by default, makes you something of a historical figure. Being notable, then, ought to warrant you your own page on Wikipedia. The funny thing about Wikipedia is that it is created and maintained by anyone with an internet connection. As Stephen Colbert illustrated all too clearly, that system doesn't always lend itself to the most credible information. In fact, sometimes it breeds Wikiality. That said, it seems that two fictional personas of the internets have conspired to change the perspective of history.

With this in mind, we were stunned to find a real-life example of such a situation. If you scroll down to the heading entitled "Aldermanic career" you can see the history of Alderman Shiller veer off into a political diatribe against her policies, complete with links. Most interesting is the link to this page, prominently displaying this post. Considering that nobody comments on what-the-helen, except Irish Pirate, it's not too hard to connect the dots.

Chicagoist has commented on the bizarre "movement" behind the opposition in the 46th Ward before. To be fair, Helen Shiller is not the Alderman she was in 1987 when Harold Washington helped carry her to victory. And while we may not agree with everything James Cappleman advocates for Uptown, democratic principals and the wishes of the people that live in this neighborhood dictate that he get a fair hearing before the constituency. Hopefully voters will do more than check Wikipedia before heading to the booth.

UPDATE: As of 6:15AM this morning, Wikipedia has updated it's entry for Helen Shiller, deleting most of what was written about her, and removing the links to both what-the-helen and dumphelen.com . We're not sure if their editors read Chicagoist, but it's good to know someone is minding the store.