From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com Subject: [WikiEN-l] How to deal with direct requests for articles?
My phone number and email are publicly available for media contact purposes. This means, of course, I get emails and calls about *everything*.
A common call is "How do I get an article about me/my book/my achievement?"
Now. What's a helpful answer to this? Better than "You don't, someone else has to write one," because you *know* they'll just write a really bad one themselves and it'll all end in a tearful AFD entry and someone hating or fearing Wikipedia henceforth.
Assume that referring them to a web page or policy page is less good than being able to answer on the phone right there.
Ideas please?
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David, I know that this will sound like it's self-serving promotion, but in all honesty, MyWikiBiz.com could potentially be another alternative to consider if your caller is asking about a notable, verifiable company or non-profit organization that currently lacks an article in the mainspace. We do our best to research the entity, evaluate both the "good" and the "bad" news associated with it, and write a NPOV article. Then, according to Jimmy Wales' request, we see if an independent, non-paid, non-employee editor thinks it's up to Wikipedia's standards for inclusion, and we see if it gets posted.
I think our examples at [[The Family & Workplace Connection]] and [[Arch Coal]] demonstrate fairly well that we are not here to spam Wikipedia, but rather, to fill in the gaps. Also, I know you have no way of knowing or verifying this, but we turn away the potential business of about 20%-25% of our contacts, usually on the grounds that they fail [[WP:CORP]]. One final note -- we are currently running a promotion where, if the client is a non-profit entity with a humanitarian mission, we complete the work on a pro bono basis (no charge).
Kindly,
Gregory Kohs MyWikiBiz.com