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.