[WikiEN-l] Office actions

[bbatsell]

On Dec 14, 2006, at 2:13 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> Let me just start by saying that I am completely in favour of
> [[WP:OFFICE]] (I for one have no intention of paying the legal bills
> we would undoubtedly incur if we had no such system in place).
>
> But...
>
> Take for example Pacific Western University.  This is a verifiably
> unaccredited school, there are numerous credible reports in the press
> about people being disciplined after claiming its degrees, it is not
> in the accreditation database, it is listed in several sources as a
> diploma mill.  A university it ain't.
>
> Here's a typical example of external coverage:
> http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html? 
> res=9B0DE1D81E30F937A15754C0A961948260
>
> Look up the "unaccredited correspondence school" in the press report
> and you get an article on what appears to be a legitimate school
> offering various degree programmes.  No mention of accreditation.
>
> The article was stubbed and OFFICEd, no doubt in response to
> complaints from the school or its alumni.  No problem with that, the
> history sows some, ahem, problematic content.  But well over a month
> ago I asked Danny if we could at least add {{unaccredited}}.  No
> response.
>
> Where is the mechanism for review and feedback in respect of OFFICEd
> pages?  I can't find any.  Should I be bold, ignore all rules and add
> {{subst:unaccredited}} in the lead, as I have done for every other
> unaccredited school article I've found being whitewashed by its
> students?  Right now we provide a directory entry for an institution
> multiply identified as a diploma mill, which makes no mention
> whatsoever even of the trivially verifiable fact of its being
> unaccredited.  Doesn't look good, does it?

The procedures w.r.t. [[WP:OFFICE]] should be more fully fleshed  
out.  But looking at what we do have in this case, in particular the  
[[WP:OFFICE]] template, the text says this: "This page is currently  
under the scrutiny of the Wikimedia Foundation Office and is  
protected. **If you are able to edit this page, please discuss all  
changes and additions on the talk page first.** Do not remove  
protection from this article unless you are authorized by the  
Wikimedia Foundation to do so."

 From that, I think it's fair for administrators to edit the page as  
long as the changes are factual and discussed on the talk page first,  
which I assume are monitored at least partly by Danny or someone else  
at the Foundation, who could throw the axe down on an edit that might  
affect the Foundation legally.

My $0.02.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PGP.sig
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 186 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20061214/96e76248/attachment.pgp