Wikipedia editing

The HoS reports:

Auckland Museum’s head of public relations has written a glowing Wikipedia entry for his under-fire boss during business hours.

Russell Briggs omitted the controversy that has plagued Dr Vanda Vitali’s tenure as director of Auckland Museum.

His entry appears to breach Wikipedia’s guidelines, which state that entries should be unbiased and balanced.

I’m quoted in the article, and said to the reporter that Wikipedia is meant to be a neutral point of view, and it is hard to achieve that if you are writing about your boss!

Having said that, creating a page without criticism for your boss, is not as big a “sin” as editing a page to remove such criticism, and I predicted that one the article appeared, other Wikipedians would edit it, so it is a more balanced article.

And indeed, if you go to her article now, it has been edited several times, and is now much more balanced.