[WikiEN-l] Daily Mail article on Sam Blacketer case

[Giacomo M-Z]

Nothing of substance done to refute the Hattersley rubbish. Jimbo claimed to
be in conversation with the paper - in truth, the paper dismissed him and
Wikipedia's PR trembled from the sidelines.

Giano

On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 11:49 PM, Andrew Turvey <andrewrturvey at googlemail.com
> wrote:

> I can't speak for the Foundation, but I assure you that we at Wikimedia UK
> are doing our best to defend and promote the Wikimedia projects against all
> unfair criticism, including these articles.
>
> Personally, I thought the article would have been worse if it had omitted
> the paragraph from Wikimedia UK - the damage was done in the rest of the
> article which was largely derived from other sources.At least they gave us
> an opportunity to say how we were responding.
>
> As I said before, I think the main damage has come from a trusted user who
> has deceived the community over a number of years and from our controls
> which were completely inadequate to deal with this. Our credibility and
> reputation would be easier to defend if we could show that we were actually
> doing something to improve these controls.
>
> I've opened a discussion at [1] - please add you comments there.
>
> Regards,
>
> [1]
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Guide_to_requests_for_adminship#Sockpuppet
>
>
> ----- "Giacomo M-Z" <solebaciato at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > From: "Giacomo M-Z" <solebaciato at googlemail.com>
> > To: "charles r matthews" <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>, "English
> Wikipedia" <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> > Sent: Tuesday, 9 June, 2009 22:43:32 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland,
> Portugal
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Daily Mail article on Sam Blacketer case
> >
>  > Charles says: "All that can be done with the press is to try to get
> your own
> > spin in there, along with what they'll print anyway." Charles is quite
> > wrong; that is not all that can be done. Once can refute vociferously -
> > anywhere and everywhere. Sadly though, Wikipedia and Jimbo are afraid to
> do
> > that, as I learnt to my cost in the "Giles Hattersley affair"- Some of
> you
> > may remember that Jimbo blocked me for defending his encyclopedia from a
> > high profile attack. A high profile attack, incidentally, that has never
> > been properly reputed. It's almost as though they are frightened of
> > defending themselves - or do they just dismiss the European press, and
> > indeed Europeans, as less important than the American. One can only
> > speculate as to why this is? Wikipedia's governors and public relations
> > people are worse than nothing; they are incompetent, amateurish is the
> > kindliest thing one can say.
> >
> > Giano
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Charles Matthews <
> > charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> >
> > > AGK wrote:
> > > >> Gross inaccuracies that harm our public image? Not that I can see.
> Some
> > > of
> > > >> the details are wrong - number of ArbCom cases for instance, but
> that's
> > > >> pretty irrelevant to the story or indeed our reputation. Likewise
> with
> > > the
> > > >> relationship between Wikimedia UK and the Foundation.
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > (Belated reply to Andrew's post of one day ago.)
> > > >
> > > > The article certainly doesn't give a positive impression of us. It's
> > > quite
> > > > clear to me that there are inaccuracies and that the article harms
> our
> > > > public image. Wikipedia gets quite enough stick for being "totally
> > > > unreliable" (and such) without the Mail spreading incorrect
> information
> > > > about how we operate.
> > > >
> > > But that, largely, is how the press operates - without regard for the
> > > impression Wikipedians would like to be given of Wikipedia. and with
> > > obvious inaccuracies (often exacerbated by the efforts of subeditors
> who
> > > know little about the topic itself). All that can be done with the
> press
> > > is to try to get your own spin in there, along with what they'll print
> > > anyway.
> > >
> > > Charles
> > >
> > >
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