Hi Cora-Lee,

Glad to meet you!  I'm an engineer and biochemist working for Kraft foods, but in my spare time, I work on the Wikipedia project.  I've been an editor since 2006, and a few of us are currently involved in setting up a local chapter of the Wikimedia organisation.  I've copied our mailing list as well so that our other members can join the discussion if they want.

It would be great if you could give me a fuller introduction to yourself and your work with Gift of the Givers.

In this email I'll give you a brief introduction to Wikipedia's aims and philosophy, explain how to examine the history of a page, and give some information on how to handle editing a page where you have a conflict of interest. Along the way, I'll also point out some ways to get help with the editing and review process of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia, as you probably know, is a free online encyclopedia, written entirely by volunteers.  The fundamental principles of Wikipedia are summarized at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PILLARS - an excellent page to start learning about the project. Please read this; it will take you 5 minutes, and it has links to pages with more details. Pay specific attention to the first one: this will guide you in terms of what kind of content is appropriate.

A wikipedia page is a living document, as you already know: anyone can edit it. The interesting thing is, every edit that has ever been made to a page remains available in the page history. When you click on the "View history" tab at the top of a page, you can see exactly who did what, and when. Take a look at the Gift of the Givers page history at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gift_of_the_Givers&action=hist... - you'll see it's quite a brief history, but it tells a story. See if you can follow it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Page_history should help you with this! One bit of information that you won't see there is the deletion and undeletion of the page. That's available at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&... .

Now the thorny issue of conflict of interest. While it is not against Wikipedia's rules for someone who is close to a topic to edit the page, it is full of pitfalls, one of which is clear from this case: if you don't write from a neutral point of view, your edits might vanish, or even the whole article might be deleted! Also, if you don't declare your interest, even valuable edits that you make stand to be deleted because the other editors lose all trust in your good faith. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:COI for more information on this.

Now the good news: As a member of the organisation, you're uniquely placed to help. If you can release pictures of Gift in action under a free license (I can help you with this - contact me for assistance), this would be great for the article and the project. Also, if you have someone in your organisation who has a list of articles and documentaries featuring Gift, this would be a great place to find reliable sources. Because you'd be editing under a conflict of interest, you have to make sure that each fact that you give is firmly supported in a reliable, neutral source. I can help you format these citations.

Some last suggestions: I would very strongly recommend that you create a username for yourself, and put a brief description on your user page. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Register for more information. After editing, please fill in the "edit summary" box so that it's clear in the page history what was edited. Please also read your text and ask yourself: does this look like something you'd read in a mainstream encyclopedia? I would also VERY STRONGLY recommend that you send out a request for comment after editing. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RFC for more details, or ask me for help.

I hope this wasn't too confusing! Let me know if you hit any snags.

Kind regards,

David

On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 8:57 AM, Imtiaz Ismail Sooliman info@giftofthegivers.org wrote:

Dear David

Thank you ever so much for contacting us and for restoring our page. I am definitely interested in assisting with this project and await your instruction on how to get started.

Warm Regards Cora-Lee

---

From: "David Richfield" davidrichfield@gmail.com To: info@giftofthegivers.org Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2012 9:59:31 PM Subject: Gift of the Givers Wikipedia page

Hi,

I write for Wikipedia, and I have just managed to get the Wikipedia Encyclopedia entry on Gift of the Givers ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_of_the_Givers ) reinstated after it was deleted.  I would like to help your organisation to contribute effectively to our encyclopedia, but this will require some understanding of our processes, which can be confusing at times.  If anyone in the organisation is involved in editing the article, they will need to understand our policies on conflict of interest, and either learn or get guidance on encyclopedic style, reliable sources, and the neutral point of view that we strive to achieve.  I am happy to help in this process.

What happened in this case was that a brief page had been created with the basic facts about the organisation; someone, possibly with ties to your organisation, had edited the page in a style that looked more like an advertisement than an encyclopedia article, and that a Wikipedia administrator who didn't take the trouble to review the history of the page deleted it as "blatant advertising".  I then contacted this administrator, explained the situation to him, and the page was restored to an earlier version.

I would like to help incorporate more information into the article, so if anyone in your organisation is interested in helping with this project, please contact me either by email or by posting a note on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Slashme

Thanks and kind regards,

-- David Richfield [[:en:User:Slashme]] +27718539985

-- David Richfield [[:en:User:Slashme]] +27718539985