[WikiEN-l] [Barry.Meatyard at warwick.ac.uk: Entry in Wikipedia]

Tue Sep 21 19:20:34 UTC 2004

----- Forwarded message from Barry Meatyard <Barry.Meatyard at warwick.ac.uk> -----

From: "Barry Meatyard" <Barry.Meatyard at warwick.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 12:04:35 +0100
To: <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: Entry in Wikipedia

Dear Mr Wales,

Our attention has recently been drawn to an entry for the National Academy on 'Wikipedia'.

The National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth is an English government agency and part of the national education system.

We are aware that the entry was initiated by a 16 year old Academy student with a less than complete knowledge of the Academy's remit. Subsequently a number of edits have been made by even younger students and we accept that some of these are getting the entry closer to reality. However we would be interested to know the level of editorial control beyond these edits. For example who removed the adverse comment (merely a student's perception) dated 30 Aug? Is this done by Wikipedia staff - and if so how are 1 million plus articles policed?

We would be happy to rewrite the entry to enable it to reflect more accurately the remit and contractual obligations of the Academy, which of course would be entirely factual as befits an objective encyclopedia. However we need to be reassured that such objectivity is not compromised by the facility for those who may have a skewed perspective to air it in public. 

Whilst for some entries it may be interesting to see the evolution of an entry, (as a professional botanist I was fascinated by the development of some of the plant focused entries), the fact that potentially damaging and inaccurate comments remain in the 'history' thread is of concern to us as a publicly funded body. You will appreciate that we are not convinced that a collegiate approach to evolving a definition for a government agency of which there may be a variety of subjective impressions is appropriate.

At this stage we are seeking reassurance with respect to the editorial policy of the site and to request whether inaccurate and potentially damaging entries can be removed from the history.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours,

Barry

Dr. Barry Meatyard 
Director of Student Services 
National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth 
University of Warwick 
Coventry 
CV4 7AL 
UK 
Tel: 44 (0) 24 76 574483 

----- End forwarded message -----

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