[WikiEN-l] Rod Liddle, Spectator, on his Wikipedia article

[Charles Matthews]

Follow-up letter I have emailed to the editor of The Spectator:

Sir,

An appeal to Rod Liddle’s better nature was indeed a long shot; he is 
after all paid to dispense laddish rudeness. Your salaried jester of a 
columnist has been given an opportunity to retract his fanciful account 
of what he sees (no doubt) as an amusing prank. The logic of the 
situation is that he continues to maintain that he committed a series of 
malicious actions on Wikipedia, while a number of those who have looked 
into the matter see no vestige of those edits.

Doubtless Liddle kept enough details to substantiate his side of this 
important slab of investigative journalism: the simple provision of 
dates, times and titles of the articles he defaced would be a convincing 
proof that the story contained no element of fabrication. Certainly the 
alarming news that he was thwarted in improving the article “Rod Liddle” 
would snap into focus if we could see how he attempted to remedy its 
deficiencies, and who prevented him from so doing.

The spat over this matter could therefore be resolved simply enough, if 
he could support vague assertions that he went to the site and did this 
and that, from his well-kept notes; with the added benefit that the harm 
he has done could be checked and corrected. This is what I meant in 
writing before about “professional courtesy”. It happens that Liddle’s 
manners and credibility are bound up together in this matter.

Charles