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.