This morning in Ottawa CBC radio host Kathleen Petty lamented her Wikipedia entry was “filled with mistakes.” Petty was interviewing a local contributor to the collaborative encyclopedia when she made the comment about her entry. Ironically, the interview was about changes to Wikipedia’s editing policy aimed at preventing errors and vandalism.
Wikipedia is loved and loathed by communicators. I think of it as an endless source of information, information I need to triple check. Canada has seen a good number of Wikipedia inspired dust ups in the media:
- CBC: Government buffing Prentice’s Wikipedia entry
- ValleyWag: Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales dumps Canadian girlfriend on Wikipedia
- Now Public: IP address traced to the Canadian Government wiped out the “homosexuality” entry on Wikipedia several times
- Canuck author and uber-successful blogger Cory Doctorow writes of his troll troubles here in a 2006 post: “Correcting the Record: Wikipedia vs The Register”
Wikipedia isn’t just a website. It is a community. Wikipedia has extensive community rules, written policy and established norms. This means when your entry is vandalized, contains matters of dispute or you simply disagree with what a contributor has written you can follow the community culture to have them fixed.
So, how do you get a wiki entry about you fixed?
Although Petty didn’t seem too upset by the mistakes the wiki-writers had made, in case she wants to set the record straight, I looked into how Wikipedia wants you to correct an error about yourself.
The basic run down:
- “The simplest way to flag problems: email info-en-q@wikimedia.org with full details of the problems.”
- “Creating an article about yourself is strongly discouraged.”
- “In clear-cut cases, it is permissible to edit pages connected to yourself. So, you can revert vandalism; but of course it has to be simple, obvious vandalism and not a content dispute. Similarly, you should feel free to correct mistaken or out-of-date facts about yourself, such as marital status, current employer, place of birth, and so on. (Note it on the talk page.)”
- “If you are notable enough for an article but there are problems and not much attention being paid to it, you may also wish to place a note on the help desk detailing the problems and asking for uninvolved editors’ attention.”
- “If you do not like the photo, you can help Wikipedia by contributing a good photo under a suitable free content license. If you have a promotional photo you are willing and able to release under such a license, that’s ideal for us and you.”
More Wikipedia resources on correcting errors
