Hi Cora-Lee,
Glad to meet you! I'm an engineer and biochemist working for Kraft
foods, but in my spare time, I work on the Wikipedia project. I've
been an editor since 2006, and a few of us are currently involved in
setting up a local chapter of the Wikimedia organisation. I've copied
our mailing list as well so that our other members can join the
discussion if they want.
It would be great if you could give me a fuller introduction to
yourself and your work with Gift of the Givers.
In this email I'll give you a brief introduction to Wikipedia's aims
and philosophy, explain how to examine the history of a page, and give
some information on how to handle editing a page where you have a
conflict of interest. Along the way, I'll also point out some ways to
get help with the editing and review process of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia, as you probably know, is a free online encyclopedia,
written entirely by volunteers. The fundamental principles of
Wikipedia are summarized at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PILLARS - an excellent page to
start learning about the project. Please read this; it will take you
5 minutes, and it has links to pages with more details. Pay specific
attention to the first one: this will guide you in terms of what kind
of content is appropriate.
A wikipedia page is a living document, as you already know: anyone can
edit it. The interesting thing is, every edit that has ever been made
to a page remains available in the page history. When you click on
the "View history" tab at the top of a page, you can see exactly who
did what, and when. Take a look at the Gift of the Givers page
history at
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gift_of_the_Givers&action=his…
- you'll see it's quite a brief history, but it tells a story. See if
you can follow it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Page_history
should help you with this! One bit of information that you won't see
there is the deletion and undeletion of the page. That's available at
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&…
.
Now the thorny issue of conflict of interest. While it is not against
Wikipedia's rules for someone who is close to a topic to edit the
page, it is full of pitfalls, one of which is clear from this case: if
you don't write from a neutral point of view, your edits might vanish,
or even the whole article might be deleted! Also, if you don't
declare your interest, even valuable edits that you make stand to be
deleted because the other editors lose all trust in your good faith.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:COI for more information on
this.
Now the good news: As a member of the organisation, you're uniquely
placed to help. If you can release pictures of Gift in action under a
free license (I can help you with this - contact me for assistance),
this would be great for the article and the project. Also, if you
have someone in your organisation who has a list of articles and
documentaries featuring Gift, this would be a great place to find
reliable sources. Because you'd be editing under a conflict of
interest, you have to make sure that each fact that you give is firmly
supported in a reliable, neutral source. I can help you format these
citations.
Some last suggestions: I would very strongly recommend that you create
a username for yourself, and put a brief description on your user
page. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Register for more
information. After editing, please fill in the "edit summary" box so
that it's clear in the page history what was edited. Please also read
your text and ask yourself: does this look like something you'd read
in a mainstream encyclopedia? I would also VERY STRONGLY recommend
that you send out a request for comment after editing. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RFC for more details, or ask me for
help.
I hope this wasn't too confusing! Let me know if you hit any snags.
Kind regards,
David
On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 8:57 AM, Imtiaz Ismail Sooliman
<info(a)giftofthegivers.org> wrote:
Dear David
Thank you ever so much for contacting us and for restoring our page. I am
definitely interested in assisting with this project and await your
instruction on how to get started.
Warm Regards
Cora-Lee
________________________________
From: "David Richfield" <davidrichfield(a)gmail.com>
To: info(a)giftofthegivers.org
Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2012 9:59:31 PM
Subject: Gift of the Givers Wikipedia page
Hi,
I write for Wikipedia, and I have just managed to get the Wikipedia
Encyclopedia entry on Gift of the Givers (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_of_the_Givers ) reinstated after it
was deleted. I would like to help your organisation to contribute
effectively to our encyclopedia, but this will require some
understanding of our processes, which can be confusing at times. If
anyone in the organisation is involved in editing the article, they
will need to understand our policies on conflict of interest, and
either learn or get guidance on encyclopedic style, reliable sources,
and the neutral point of view that we strive to achieve. I am happy
to help in this process.
What happened in this case was that a brief page had been created with
the basic facts about the organisation; someone, possibly with ties to
your organisation, had edited the page in a style that looked more
like an advertisement than an encyclopedia article, and that a
Wikipedia administrator who didn't take the trouble to review the
history of the page deleted it as "blatant advertising". I then
contacted this administrator, explained the situation to him, and the
page was restored to an earlier version.
I would like to help incorporate more information into the article, so
if anyone in your organisation is interested in helping with this
project, please contact me either by email or by posting a note on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Slashme
Thanks and kind regards,
--
David Richfield
[[:en:User:Slashme]]
+27718539985
--
David Richfield
[[:en:User:Slashme]]
+27718539985