Why NLP Will Never Be Accurately Represented on Wikipedia

When you visit the Neuro-Linguistic Programming article on Wikipedia you may notice the big bold warning at the top:

Screen capture at the top of the NLP Wikipedia article taken 7th January 2012.

How does something like Neuro-Linguistic Programming, an increasingly well established field that has existed since the 1970’s, become a battleground on a well known website like Wikipedia? Now, you may be wondering: How is that a problem? I feel it is a problem because when anyone in the world types “NLP” or “Neuro-Linguistic Programming” into Google the first result they are likely to see is this unbalanced account that has been hacked apart of many years by more than a few people with an agenda contrary to one of spreading accurate and reliable information. Yes, NLP has attracted skepticism. But it has also helped thousands, if not millions, of people around the world. If we count the client lists of Anthony Robbins, Tad James, John Grinder, Richard Bandler and Chris Howard alone then we are talking about huge numbers of people. That is before any consideration is given to those Trainers that they have trained to teach these tools and techniques too.

The best summary I’ve read of the situation with the NLP Wikipedia article is:

… “despite the Wikipedia rules about what can appear on the site, the NLP-related page has been awash with lies, misinformation and useless citations for almost as long as the page has been in existence. To put it bluntly, content of the page have been largely controlled by one or more “sockpuppet masters”, who have done their best to keep the page filled with highly selective “evidence” designed to support their attacks on what they imagine “NLP” to be. All comments and evidence which contradict the misinformation is usually cleared from the page within a day or two of being posted.”…

Source: http://www.bradburyac.mistral.co.uk/novella.html

It seems like the current situation exists because of a few individuals who have created fake accounts (Also known as sockpuppets) to spur on the debate. But the problem is that these individuals have more than the upper hand in this situation. Wikipedia has very, very strict rules that govern what can and cannot be posted to the website. And the content guidelines are very specific:

…”Primary (original) research, such as proposing theories and solutions, original ideas, defining terms, coining new words, etc. If you have completed primary research on a topic, your results should be published in other venues, such as peer-reviewed journals, other printed forms, or respected online publications. Wikipedia can report about your work after it is published and becomes part of accepted knowledge; however, citations of such reliable sources are needed to demonstrate that material is verifiable, and not merely the editor’s opinion.”…

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not

And this is the crux of our problem. NLP doesn’t exist in ‘reliable sources’ very often. In fact, the founders seemed to have made a conscious decision to focus on modelling what works, writing it down themselves and sharing it with their audience. There is a lot involved in Hangon, you’re probably saying, they wrote it down? Can’t we reference their hundreds of books? Nope. Books written by people within the field don’t count as ‘reliable sources’.

The biggest problem seems to be that the people most threatened by NLP, the biggest critics so to speak, are often in the best position to create criticism in ‘reliable sources’ such as University Journals, papers at Academic Conferences and so on. And while criticism in these ‘reliable sources’ is not very prevalent, under the Wikipedia rules it is much more acceptable to be included. In fact, contributions to the Wikipedia article referencing the books written by authors who are NLP Trainers can be deleted as an unreliable source!

Until Wikipedia relaxes their rules OR NLP becomes more established and verified in these ‘reliable sources’ I being NLP will never be accurately represented on Wikipedia. I welcome your discussion. If you have ideas, suggestions or comments then join the discussion and let me know!

Further reading for those who are interested:
- Wikipedia article on Neuro-Linguistic Programming
- Wikipedia Discussion Page for the article on Neuro-Linguistic Programming
- Master Sock Puppeteer Outed? on NLP Connections Forum

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