Auren Hoffman is one of the Silicon Valley’s most connected people. For a while, he made his living with his Rolodex, hooking people up through his firm Stonebrick.
Last year, he started a company called RapLeaf, designed to keep track of your reputation for reliability as you buy and sell things online. It works across Web sites, and so takes eBay’s reputation system and extends it universally (our story here).
So it is ironic that Hoffman has been attempting to tidy up his own online reputation, by signing onto Wikipedia under the name “MLK Hamilton” to make changes to his profile there.
Someone first noticed that “MLK Hamilton,” the alias of the person making changes to Hoffman’s Wikipedia entry, seemed a strong coincidence, given that Hoffman lists Martin Luther King and Alexander Hamilton as two of his personal heroes. When, in turn, that person noted the coincidence at Wikipedia, another anonymous person, with the same IP address of MLK Hamilton, came along and removed the reference. Was Hoffman secretly trying to clean up his online profile and then, additionally, trying to protect himself when he was found out? Valleywag, Silicon Valley’s gossip site, began asking questions, though didn’t get confirmation from Hoffman himself.
We called up Hoffman, and he told VentureBeat that he had gone in to change his profile because a friend, Jonathan Abram (of Friendster fame) had added “silly” things to his profile like how his San Francisco loft is decorated with pictures of prominent Rebublican politicians, and that he was a good dancer. Hoffman said he is not a good dancer, and that pictures on his wall aren’t relevant. Since Abrams had added the entries as a prank, Hoffman said, he felt justified using pranksterish means to make the changes. “I didn’t change anything relevant,” he told VentureBeat. “I didn’t put anything up there that makes me sound good.” When we asked whether his actions might contradict the spirit his own efforts to create a reliable online reputation company, he said he didn’t think so.
Another reported deletion request was about his connection to a public relations firm that took Pentagon money to bribe Iraqi journalists.
Tags: co:Rapleaf, co:Wikipedia, people:Auren-Hoffman16 Comments
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noah kagan said:
Auren is a solid guy. I think Valleywag needs to find better things to write about then chastising people.
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Jeremy Toeman said:
Not quite sure where the story is here… If he was out writing comments on stories like these as anonymous, and got caught, that’d be something. This sounds like the combination of an inside joke and someone with way too much time on their hands…
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Anon said:
Mlkhamilton aka Hoffman seems to have created wikipedia entry for himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Auren_Hoffman&limit=500&action=historyhmmm silly!
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Steve Bryant said:
I had dinner with Auren once, and he seemed like a good man to me. Valleywag — and Venturebeat — should really find someone else to pick at.
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Trent said:
This reporting IS very relevant because of Hoffman’s Rapfleaf (buyer/seller reputation tracking) affiliation. It shows that reputations can be easily manipulated using shills and fake identities.
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John Doe said:
This reportng is 100% relevant because VentureBeat is a VC/Startup Blog and anything valley should be reported. I am glad to read these kind of stories.
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Dave said:
Can we all just check ourselves for a moment. Do you really think anyone outside of our echo chamber gives a hoot about this? C’mon. Say what you want about Auren, good and bad, he’s actually a nice guy, a mensch, who does his best to contribute to the upward march of humanity. But we’re not talking about Mel Gibson here. Shouldn’t we all be rooting for everyone to succeed? Rising tides lift all boats, even the haters among us if they let it.
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Robin Wolaner said:
I agree with Dave and am putting my real name behind it. This is a non-story being pushed way out of proportion. Get a grip.
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Daniel Ciomek said:
Good guy, bad guy, who knows or dares to judge? It does not matter. If you are really such a good guy, you should not have to worry about some comments about there, but that is just my personal opinion. What matters is the idea behind (”pictures on his wall aren’t relevant”). When someone who runs a reputation related business starts cleaning up his profile by deciding himself on what is relevant or not, that becomes interesting. Where do you draw the line? Can you decide for yourself about what is relevant to your profile within his database?
Let’s be real, people might write stuff about yourself or your product that you don’t like, these days maybe on another blog. Should you be entitled to have it removed if you think it is not true or not relevant, or is it ok as it is their opinion and thus free speech? What I like about Ebay is the comments stay and give a perspective, for you to make up your own decision. Give some praise to those that wear their negative remarks and not quickly change their profile. They are real people, not some polished masquerade. Thanks for posting this! I think is is an excellent Valley related discussion topic. -
Gordon Mohr said:
Editting one’s own article on Wikipedia is allowed; Cory Doctorow has done it; even Jimmy Wales has done it. Not bad company for Hoffman to be in.
It’s also understandable, moreso than ironic, that someone who is building e business based on the importance of online reputations would monitor and improve information about himself on the web, such as on Wikipedia.
What I do find ironic is that even if your edits wind up making the Wikipedia article more accurate and more ‘encyclopedic’, you risk looking “foolish and vain” (as noted by Andrew Orlowski here about someone else’s self-editting).
Oh, well. That’s an occupational hazard of caring about your public persona. I have observed Auren to be energetic, smart, and principled, going back 15 years. Nothing reported or alleged here calls that into question.
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Dina Kaplan said:
It’s interesting that amidst the valleywag stories about Auren there is an article about tech executives who give money to Republican candidates, as if that is akin to a crime. It makes this seem like something of an attempted character assasination, without any base.
It’s probably fair to say a number of people edit their wikipedia entries.
And regarding another facet of valleywag’s ongoing character assault, I believe being as warm and friendly to people as Auren is - some high profile, many not - is not something to be criticized, but admired.
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Anon said:
while
>>Editting one’s own article on Wikipedia is allowed
creating one is strongly discouraged.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AUTO#Creating_an_article_about_yourself
which is what Auren did. -
Neal said:
Bashing is not journalism.
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hunter walk said:
this whole thing feels like it would be more interesting as a depersonalized discussion of wikipedia’s policy, norms and community, than specifically of anything Auren did or did not do.
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Lynne Jolitz said:
Seems to me the question is “What do you do if a wikipedia article on you is in error”? Unlike a debate over 18th century authors, many people profiled in wikipedia (and their work) are still alive.
So, do you beg others to fix the error, or do you do as intended by the originators of wikipedia and fix it yourself?
And what if the entry has been assembled by someone hostile to you - say your ex-husband or a stalker? Is it OK for them to write their own “spin” on you when they are obviously biased as well?
And what about people who have no personal knowledge of you, your work, or your career, yet presume to write about it? How is their veracity superior? Why should they merit any consideration at all?
Perhaps this little episode with Auren indicates a need to examine why it is OK for friends, enemies and those with private agendas to write personal bios on wikipedia but the person himself is an object of ridicule when he objects to it or wishes to make corrections.
After all, even the accused is allowed the right to make a defense in our society, right? :-) -
Peter said:
is anyone here suggesting that Auren’s kickin it with Bush and Brownback and all sorts of shady racist characters is not relevant to who he is as a person? i mean, it _is_ a wikipedia entry, innit?
i didn’t like that auren guy from the first time i realized he was hanging with George, and it turns out i was right. he’s up to his eyes in Republican slush money. public relations contracts. it’s all horrific stuff, and it should all be mentioned in his wikipedia entry. and his acting as an imposter should and will be in any future wikipedia entry - i’ll see to it.
as atrios would say, “Nice work…if you can get it.” and apparently, Auren can.
how pathetic is that? erasing a wiki entry cause you got caught lying? and this guy is gonna sell online reputation services. perfect Republican. it’s like having Mark Foley as head of the child sex predators group in the House. brilliant.
