There are a number of things Wikipedia discourages its users from doing when editing or adding to the site. Actions that incur a good bit of wrist-slapping include, for example, the construction or amendment of autobiographies. The reason of course for this is that subjectivity (as opposed to objectivity) can be tricky thing, and for that it is a soft line that users are told not to cross. Another no-no is spreading falsities and generally causing a ruckus in one or more pages on the encyclopedia through some digital hooliganism. That kind of stuff annoys the heck of out administrators and editors alike, so any naughtiness may well bring the people with power to lock any page(s) temporarily and bar the bad blodd from perpetrating any further disturbances.

We’d now like to add another guideline to the list: Post no romantic break-ups to the Wikipedia. Especially if your name is Jimmy Wales and happen to be the site’s founder and chief evangelist. ‘Cause, as you know, the site is an information reference. It’s pretty much Britannica version Web 2.0. Not place for personal gossip.

As some of you may now, A so-called tryst (we use this term loosely) between Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales and conservative commentator Rachel Marsden leaked to the Web not too long ago, according to Valleywag’s Owen Thomas. It was an alleged match made very evident that you may have in turn found quite unappealing. But that’s neither here nor there.

What’s more pertinent is Wales’s recent “slippage” where his adamance for that good ol’ by-the-book behavior he’s requested of all Wikipedians, including himself. This weekend’s news of Wales’s public disavowal of any existing or past relationship with Ms Marsden is quite unbecoming of the man, wouldn’t you say? He knows better than any other that Wikipedia has no rightful home for such chatter. Any severance with Marsden would probably have been better left noted in Jimmy’s Facebook profile. Which is apparently where all the kids these days are hooking up and cutting ties with one another.

We understand Jimbo’s all about open, but come on now. Some decorum, sir. Please.