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Fo those of us who believe that protecting your on-line reputation is a crucial element of any reputation management strategy, there’s a must-read front page article in today’s Wall Street Journal on the health and future of Wikipedia (Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages). The main point of the article is that the number of volunteer editors and contributors to the web’s fifth-most visited site is decreasing significantly, and goes on to explain the difficulties editors have in making their contirbutions to a site that solicits the unfiltered collective wisdom of the world.
I frequently remind clients that when anyone runs a search engine on them or their company, Wikipedia is often one of the top items that comes up. Many people use the shorthand of Wikipedia– notwithstanding its obvious lack of peer-review or fact checking– to get information. The only catch is that no one is allowed to edit their own page (or their company’s). Yet, if there is damaging or inaccurate information contained in that Wikipedia entry, it can do real damage with customers, policy-makers, or other key audiences.
How then, to correct innacuracies? We recommend three steps that can be taken, although none is guaranteed to fix the problems.
1)– Identify any innacuracies in the entry and have documented proof of the errors. Without credibile sources of available information, preferably on-line, Wikipedia editors will not permit the corrections.
2)– Have positive, interesting and relevant information that can supplement your entry. Often, the only items in a Wikipedia entry may be what adversaries have submitted. Rather than focusing only on purging those from the entry, it can be more effective to add doucmented positive information to surround the negative.
3)– Find a credibile Wikipedia editor that can submit the information. We have several that we have built credible relationships with that are accredited by Wikipedia (that just means that they frequently submit entries on various topics and thus have a track record with the web site). A credible editor knows how to get information accepted and make the arguments if it needs to be adjudicated by the web site (there are numerous rules and practices on what is and what isn’t acceptible).
Please be aware that adversaries do monitor changes, and many times will fight to have them removed or edit back in their negative information. You have to be dilgent, have patience, and persevere, but the results in the end are worth the effort.
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