Talk:Ruth Spearing

Inaccuracies in my bio.

Thank you so much for putting a piece about me in Wikipedia. However, there is a major inaccuracy which has recently nearly caused embarrassment in a univeristy publication . I did not train at the Univeristy of Otago but at Medical School at Bristol Univeristy, UK. ( 1971-1977). I promised the Dean I would try to get it changed. The other thing I would love to have in there is that I did Voluntary Service Overseas teaching in New Guinea for a year as an 18 year old at Banara Mision Station, north of Madang. That year was life changing for me as that is where I first encountered serous illness and applied and got accepted for medical school, depsite doing the wrong subjects at school. ( An interesting aside that I dont expect you to add is that Epstein of Epstein-Barr Virus fame and who was studing the Koru virus which is transmitted by New Guineans eating human brains, was on the selection committee - He introduced himself to me in my first week at Bristol and I had the strong impression that this world famous guy in the medical field at least had strongly influenced me getting into Bristol Medical School because of the association of the New Guinean cannibalism!) RuthSpearing (talk) 21:52, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Hello @RuthSpearing, and welcome to Wikipedia. You are concerned by the WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY guideline of Wikipedia, which means you should not edit the page. This is not "your bio", it is a page about you, written by the Wikipedia community. Those are two different things. Per our policy on living persons, everything in the article must be sourced to a reliable source. You attending the University of Otago is sourced; they claim you are one of their alumni. If you want it changed, you need to provide a publicly-available source that shows otherwise, just like anyone else would.

The same thing goes for your other requests. You need to provide reliable sources so these changes can be added to the article. If they do not exist, they cannot be added. If you have any more questions, feel free to reply here. For more details, you can read Wikipedia:Contact us/Article subjects. win8x (talk) 21:59, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Absoltuely know that I can't edit it myself but obviously don't like seeing the wonderful wikipedia ( I have been a regular donor for many years and strongly support the amazing concept of Wikipedia) being inaccurate especially when it causes embarrassemnt. I have been trying for a year plus to find out how I can send documentation that makes this accurate but I have found this VERY difficult to know how to.

When my husband is less critically ill I can find my graduation certificate and if I know how and where I can attach this I can send it to you. OR I can send my CV to you at this stage with a supporting email from the Dean.

Volunatary Service Overseas say they no longer keep records of 55 years ago but I have picutres of me in the New Guinean jungle as proof. RuthSpearing (talk) 22:15, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

@RuthSpearing, that's what I meant by publicly available source. A graduation certificate, CV, or a record from VSO won't work, because they are personal documents. They do not meet WP:Verifiability, a core policy of Wikipedia. An acceptable source would be, for example, a journal article describing you mentionning studies at Bristol, or a website talking about your teaching in New Guinea.

If those don't exist, then I'm afraid it cannot be changed. That's how Wikipedia works. win8x (talk) 22:22, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Another policy concerned here is WP:BLP, which clearly states All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source. (emphasis mine) win8x (talk) 22:25, 28 November 2025 (UTC)