Dear all
Firstly, many thanks to those of you who have said you would consider
responding to Wikimedia press enquiries in future, and I will be emailing
more about that within the next few days - particularly off the back of the
Media Handling and Crisis Communications course I've been on for the past
two days (and no, the irony of the timing wasn't lost on me).
In the meantime, we've had an enquiry from BBC North West online who
are working on a story about a music fan who apparently secured entry to
the VIP area of a gig by editing the band’s Wikipedia page to claim he was
a relative of one of the members. More fool the bouncers in my opinion but
anyway...the BBC has asked "we wanted to check that this change would have
indeed been processed this quickly and without being verified by Wiki
editors? Would Wikipedia be interested in adding a comment about users
making edits for their own means and what the organisation does to tackle
this?" Clearly the journalist in question doesn't understand exactly how
editing works and I think it would be most appropriate to have an editor
respond to this, and talk about processes in place to deal with vandalism.
The article is The Sherlocks <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sherlocks>
and the edit in question was made on 10th February at 8.28pm and reverted
by another editor at 4.15pm the following day.
Would anyone be willing to talk to the BBC about this today? If so, could
you let me know and I'll put you in touch.
Thanks
Lucy
--
Lucy Crompton-Reid
Chief Executive
Wikimedia UK
+44 (0) 207 065 0991
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
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Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The
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