By now, you all presumably know my feelings about Wikipedia (my last rant is here).
Yes, I try to ignore their “Harp Guitar” entry, but yes, I try to check it at least a couple times a year – for sheer entertainment value, if nothing else.
My most recent perusal highlights:
Somebody out there really must like Dan LaVoie! He’s currently the “man of the hour” in the “players” narrative (and no, I didn’t add it just to hype last week’s string blog). BTW, this is the sort of content that blatantly flaunts Wiki’s guidelines; part of a very public, continual game of “who can keep a promotional plug up for the longest amount of time” (Landman/Andrews/The Veils seem to get away with it by including a “citation.”).
I see that Sor is still included with “historical harp guitar players,” even though he never played a floating-strings guitar (this writer references my Encyclopedia, likely without having read Sor’s entry – he’s on it only for the “related” harpolyre).
The “Notable harp guitarists” list (typically the most grating part of the page) looks substantially stripped down. No Alder, Shinness, Hoyt or some of the many others who have often been added. Almost as if some volunteer editor is starting to take citations (sources) seriously. Though how Matt Thomas (remember him?) stays under the radar is curious.
Interestingly, someone finally did think to add a 
warning that “This section possibly contains original research.” That’s Wiki-code for “a bunch of hooey.” (I’m not sure why this is the correct term – isn’t all research at some point at the beginning “original”?) Regarding Wikipedia’s “inline citations,” one example at the end (tertiary) is Wiki itself (thus one could eventually create a round-robin of “legitimate-appearing” sources that serve to validate each other…a bit like “the fox guarding the hen house.”).
Regardless, source material veracity is of course irrelevant if you’re a rock star…they’re all still there. But hey, I finally found Michael Lardie’s credit this last week! Someone read my original blurb on the Players page (where I asked for any clues as to why he was on Wiki). Jeff Boen kindly sent me the link to a Great White video of “Save Your Love,” which shows Gardie (I assume that’s him, but with really big hair) “playing” a Gibson HG. If that’s not a gratuitous prop, I’ll eat my own Gibson.
But at least we finally found the “proof” of Lardie’s harp guitar notability. Who I’m still struggling with is Corey Petryschuk. Ah, but he actually comes with his own Wikipedia entry – I suspect that this irrefutable “source material” is what automatically guarantees his inclusion in “Harp guitar,” as it mentions that the ex-football player has the extremely notable credit of having once played harp guitar on a Christian Punk Rock album (I know – I have so many questions).
So as long as Petryschuk’s name appears on Wikipedia, so shall he also be archived on Harpguitars.net (I just updated the Wiki section accordingly). Which gave me an idea. I’m asking for a volunteer (someone with good Wikipedia protocol skills) to add a source citation in an appropriate spot somewhere in the Notable Players list/section (choosing where might be tricky, it’s gotta be “legit”) that links to my specific bookmark here.
In other words, Harpguitars.net is already sourced several times, but it would be very interesting to actually source /point their Notable list to my own, more detailed (and accurate and sensible) list of “Notable Wikipedia Players” (as opposed to just my full Players page, which clearly no professional Wiki editor has actually ever read). If the citation sticks, perhaps some Wiki-police watchdog will one day make the connection, understand what a harp guitar player is, and edit accordingly. Or perhaps they’ll become so frustrated they’ll just shut down the whole dang page (not my intended goal, but an improvement, now that you mention it).
P.S: And who changed Stephen Bennett’s name to “Steve”?
