I'm looking into something that cannot be reported on yet, but in the meantime we noticed that Kenny had added more videos and tabletop icon pages for members of KenzerCo's D-Team. More inane AI-drafted drivel about some of the very first industry folks he screwed over when he resurfaced to start the Kickstarter scams that led to the reason we're both on different sides of this computer screen. It
should be infuriating to see these quantity-over-quality fluff pieces about people you've known and once considered friends. People you still think of fondly and can think of dozens of good times around and outside of the gaming table.
I'm sure on some level I am upset, and the word contempt comes to mind, but there's still too much emotion there. Derision maybe?
Regardless, I do find these attempts to shotgun out these verbose "fact-checked" articles, presumably to generate ad revenue, to be simply pathetic. That I'm still checking in from time to time isn't even close to fun for me. Instead it's a burden, but it is one that has to be done by someone, lest Ken "Whit" Whitman rise again to start the cycle anew. I think the case can clearly be made that it has happened before, from the Rapid POD era, to the Kickstarter era, and now possibly the AI era. All it takes is time, and some quiet scrubbing of the internet here & there.......
"...and just to let everyone know, I can start a Kickstarter anytime I want."
-Ken Whitman, 2024.11.07 The Vlog of Many Things Interview
Case in point: Wikipedia. I took a look (again) at Ken Whitman's Wikipedia page and while it isn't quite as "glowing" about the man as it once was, it's still overwhelmingly positive about the man....and I wonder why?
Well, there's a problem right there....."A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. Please discuss further on the talk page."
Now this warning isn't new. We mentioned it about a year ago....but that it is still up/there?
Hmmmmm......now I've never even looked at the "talk" page on any Wikipedia article, much less this one, but having done so.....well, surprise surprise....Kenny has entered the chat (as it were). Now, I'm not going to claim that every similarly named account on that page belongs to Ken Whitman. I don't have the evidence to establish that. What I can document is that Wikipedia itself flags the account Kenwhitman as potentially personally or professionally connected to the subject. Even more interesting, a later edit request explicitly states, “I have a conflict of interest as the subject, so I won’t edit directly.” Another editor subsequently addressed the user WhitWhitman while working through those requested changes. Kenny has used multiple Facebook accounts in the past (Edit: and evidently multiple RPG.net accounts as well) , although that alone obviously doesn’t establish that these similarly named Wikipedia accounts belong to him. What is interesting is that the edits associated with them consistently seek changes favorable to the subject. The user Kenwhitman is noted as "The following Wikipedia contributor may be personally or professionally connected to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view."
While I was at it, I did pop over to look at the Knights of the Dinner Table Wikipedia page and was surprised to see Not Another Dime (for Ken Whitman) listed as a source!
Now, generally speaking, I don't consider Not Another Dime the sort of independent secondary source Wikipedia should rely upon for contentious claims about Ken Whitman. I'm obviously not independent of the subject, and much of this site consists of primary-source documentation and my own reporting. There are certainly things NAD can establish—particularly what I personally documented or published at a particular time—but seeing it cited by Wikipedia was still a surprise.
