SubscribeThere has been some controversy when a person or organisation edits the article about themself on Wikipedia. Such a person is Sir Norman Bettison, the chief constable of West Yorkshire, who has apparently ordered his underlings to monitor his article:
“A chief constable has told his staff to monitor online encyclopedia Wikipedia - to stop its users posting rude comments about him. Sir Norman Bettison took exception to being described as a “greedy, vain moron” on the online encyclopaedia, according to Police Review magazine. The 52-year-old chief constable of West Yorkshire - favourite to succeed Sir Ian Blair as head of the Met - has ordered employees to check for changes often.”
There is an obvious issue here regarding misuse of public funds.
But I think a more interesting issue is that of vandalism of Wikipedia, and other online encyclopedia projects. When Includipedia is fully up and running the policy will be to limit what people can do with their own articles. If someone edits an article about themself, or about an organisation they work for, or a person or organisation where they are being paid to edit it, then they will be obliged to state their connection with the subject on the article’s talk page. And any such editor will be forbidden under Includipedia’s terms and conditions from removing material that is uncomplementary to the subject.
Which brings up an interesting possibility. Unauthorised modification to a computer system is illegal in Britain under the Computer Misuse Act. Modifying Includipedia contrary to its terms and condictions is clearly unauthorised modification, so if Norman Bettison got his staff to do so then both they and he would be breaking the law; it’d be amusing to see a chief constable charged under this.
What Say You?