...However we
would be interested to know the level
of editorial control beyond these edits. For example who removed
the adverse comment (merely a student's perception) dated 30 Aug?
Is this done by Wikipedia staff - and if so how are 1 million plus
articles policed?
There is no wikipedia staff.
This is the wikiway: People write stuff and more people correct,
mold, copyedit, verify, and add to it.
That is how the 1 million plus articles are bettered over time.
We would be happy to rewrite the entry
Great, please do.
At this stage we are seeking reassurance with
respect to the
editorial policy of the site and to request whether inaccurate and
potentially damaging entries can be removed from the history.
Unfortunately, that is not the wikiway.
While we understand that your institution may feel a need to control
the image the public at large may have of it, it is not the wikiway
to tell people what opinions they should hold, but rather to give
them balanced and unbiased information upon which they may draw to
form their own conclusions and views.
Actually, we can accurately be much more polite than this.
If you as an expert in a particular field -- for instance, as the
possessor of the formal documents describint an institution's scope,
mandate, and resources -- come with facts and references to back up
your statements, and write a good and balanced description of your
organization, there is a body of editors who will preserve your
contributions in proportion to their balance and precision.
Many of these will be people with no interest in the subject matter at
hand, who will watch edits to that page only in order to moderate the
article's development.
Indeed, direct editing by an agency is an unusual enough event that I
think a number of NPOV experts would drop in on the article to join in
the discussion / community moderation of its development. It is not
the case that people with idiosyncratic views can add whatever
unsubstantiated opinions they want to articles, and we should be very
clear about this fact when explaining the wiki way on Wikipedia (note
that this is not the wiki way everywhere...).
This may be something that needs to be addressed by
the W as a whole.
I think that having 5 or 6 wikipedians email the man independently
would confuse him rather than anything. If there a place where
"answers" to letters can be edited by the group? And the recipient
directed there?
Please see
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/PR .
That page was created to deal with responses to the media, but it can
probably handle collaborative responses to letters / feedback as well.
I suggest this because I see this sort of letter will
become more
common, and that we might want to not reinvent the wheel with each
letter.
Quite right, and the responses we send to individuals like this will
likely come up in articles about us in the future.
--
+sj+