Archive for February 28, 2010

Waging Wiki Wars Against Wildlife West?

by John Weckerle

It was just this past week that your editor decided to take a look at the Edgewood Wikipedia entry, having not done so in a very long time.  I was appalled to find that much of the community-related information had been removed – as had the external link to Wildlife West Nature Park.  We went through the edit history of the Edgewood article, and found some very interesting patterns.  One especially fascinating set of changes was wrought by a user named EdgewoodNMTown, who made a series of changes in late May 2009, “updating” the page by adding citations for the Town’s web site, updating the Chamber of Commerce web address, removing referenced and relevant information on the Town history, correcting sponsorship and date information on Run Rally and Rock, and adding information from the town of Edgewood meeting minutes.  When correcting the sponsorship information, EdgewoodNMTown provided an explanation: “corrected the sponsorship information.  If you have a question contact EdgewoodNMTown on wikipedia or the Edgewood chamber of commerce at www.edgewoodnmchamber.com.” This involved removing the external link to the Mountain View Telegraph article “Game of Chance Decides Mayoral Contest.”  Perhaps most significantly, EdgewoodNMTown also removed the external link to the Wildlife West Nature Park site just a few minutes later, explaining: “removed link to a private business, removed link to irrelevent (sic) reference (no bearing on content on page).”

Let’s take a look at what we see here, but first, there is an inaccuracy in the entries that should be addressed.  EdgewoodNMTown cites www.edgewoodnmchamber.com as the Chamber address.  It is not, and has not been for quite some time.  It is the address for Edgewood, New Mexico and the Surrounding Area.  That is an informational site about Edgewood, not connected with the Chamber, run by your editor.  EdgewoodNMTown had to have known this, as it was in fact this person who had updated the Chamber’s address on Wikipedia the previous day.  It is unclear whether this is a typographical error or some sort of a primitive attempt to pit uninvolved parties against each other. »» Waging Wiki Wars Against Wildlife West?