Blind author charged $300 to reinstate Wikipedia page

MANCHESTER, U.K. - June 19, 2017 - PRLog -- Sale author John Raynor, 72, has been on Wikipedia since 2005. After his first novel, A Comfortable Death, was published that year, he was thrilled to have his own Wikipedia page accepted.

But the page was removed by Wikipedia last year. He was given advice by Wikipedia on how to re-edit and add citations that would supposedly meet their requirements for reinstatement, but his revised version was rejected.

Recently he has been contacted by someone from Wikipedia who offered to reinstate the page with some editing for a fee of $300. Given Wikipedia's assurances to the press last year that measures to combat 'black hat' editing and 'sock puppet' accounts were working, John is not happy that the abuse is still going on and has been left asking the question "Am I being ripped off by Wikipedia?"

He added: "As a matter of principle, I would not take such a course of action to reinstate my page, but it does strike me that voluntary Wikipedians may be taking advantage of people in my situation."

Moorfields Eye Hospital

John suffers from the degenerative eye condition retinitis pigmentosa, which has resulted in him being registered blind at the age of 35. The royalties on John's novel, See All Evil, are therefore being donated to research at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital as the hospital is referred to in the story.

"Over the years, my Wiki page has been extended to include all of my three novels and two auto-biographical works. It also indicated that on my 2015 novel See All Evil I would donate royalties to London's Moorfields Eye Hospital Research, as this hospital is referred to within the story. I find it extremely disheartening that my fundraising efforts are being ignored by Wikipedia."

For more information about John's books, visit his website at  www.jsraynor.co.uk