Wikipedia editing being reversed, despite the edit being the correct information

[brad465]

In the recent past I edited parts of the Wiki pages for both the Class 465 and 466 pages, which have seen units scrapped this year so far. In particular I sought to sort out the Class 466 page, because the table thinks there are 44 units, when actually only 43 were ever built, and it also has a few unit IDs in the wrong sections (such as 466043 being in service when actually it's stored, and 466024 down as scrapped when it's still stored). Despite this, a recent check reveals someone, or at least some automatic program, as reverted the table at least partially back to what it was before, including most especially the mathematically incorrect unit tally. The sources in the article should cover the edits as it's just tweaking a few things.

I can completely understand why blatant vandalism would be reversed, but it seems the admins and/or their programs need to polish up a bit. Does anyone know how this whole thing works?

 

[Lloyds siding]

You can find the history of the page here History of edits in Class 466 page There are two significant contibutors, one of which should be you. I assume that you can talk to other contributors...others will know.

 

[TUC]

I've had it before on other subjects, sometimes within five minutes of my edit. I am left wonder what kind of person is both convinced they are right, and are so obsessed with their article that they are free at five minutes notice to revert any changes.

 

[styles]

Speak with the other contributor, based on the edit history page.

I did just check out the profile of the editor who changed it back. I was surprised to learn that there are badges you can add to your profile page for e.g., "This user does not have a driver's license.", and, "This user prefers Windows XP over Windows Vista.", and even, "This user dislikes commercials that happen during TV shows and movies and finds them annoying".

I get that as the site basically supports creating whatever you want in your user namespace, you can create user boxes/badges for whatever you want, but some of these do seem a bit niche!

Not passing judgement though, each to their own

 

[Harpo]

And there, in a nutshell, is why wiki gets treated with great caution as a source of information.

 

[trainmania100]

You're supposed to cite sources and changes are often reverted especially if you're a new user.

 

[trainmania100]

Thought I'd add a few edits over the past few months and they've all been reverted. It's laughable how out of date some of the pages are, the 153 page for example shows the wrong number of units stored, 3 owned by network rail (when it's actually 5) etc.

I added a source of departmentals and they reverted it because it's "user submitted information", despite the below clearly showing 5 independent witnesses of it's existence.

153384 - departmentals.com

Network Rail Video Inspection Unit TCMU2 (class 153)

www.departmentals.com

Pathetic how anyone can rely on Wikipedia, glad I haven't submitted to one of their masthead donation banners.

 

[bleeder4]

I recently got tasked with updating our company wikipedia page, as it was out of date and no one could remember who created it in the first place. I spent half a day on it updating it all, only to find that the following day a wikipedia editor undid it all and banned my account. They said they did this because a) they believed I worked for the company the article was about and b) because it was a brand new account with no established wikipedia history. Both of this were correct. Apparently a company cannot update their own wikipedia page! It can only be updated by third parties with no connection to the company. Seems barmy to me. Wikipedia articles get cited by AI, as it is believed to be a source of authority, yet Wikipedia doesn't actually allow people who are experts in the article topic (ie, people who actually work for the company in question) to update the articles.

I've since discovered that an entire industry exists of people with established wikipedia accounts and a long history of submitting accepted edits who charge companies money in order to update their pages. I've been quoted £3k from one of them to submit the updates to our company page.

 

[sprunt]

It's a fundamental principle of Wikipedia that its contents are written from a Neutral point of view so it doesn't seem unreasonable that they wouldn't want companies to be writing their own pages - they obviously don't have a neutral point of view when it comes to themselves.

 

[43096]

It's a fundamental principle of Wikipedia that its contents are written from a Neutral point of view so it doesn't seem unreasonable that they wouldn't want companies to be writing their own pages - they obviously don't have a neutral point of view when it comes to themselves.

But on the flip side, external authors do not have full knowledge of the company.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Apparently a company cannot update their own wikipedia page!

Well of course they can't, it's an encyclopaedia not a public relations site. That means it should be written by a neutral third party.

I'm sure your company is completely above board and without controversy, but not all companies are. One person's "inaccurate" is another person's "controversial issue we want to hide". Hence the ban.

 

[AlterEgo]

Apparently a company cannot update their own wikipedia page! It can only be updated by third parties with no connection to the company. Seems barmy to me

Seems exactly what I would expect an encyclopaedia to be - written by people who aren't connected with the company or have any skin in the game.

 

[bleeder4]

Yeah, I get it. It's just such a faff to get it updated since we can't do it ourselves. I wonder how other companies do it? I'm getting some more quotes from other wiki consultants I've found but we will probably end up paying for it to be done. With the rise of AI search results, which are very fond of spitting out statements from Wikipedia pages, having accurate up to date information on there is now much more important than it used to be.

 

[lachlan]

I'm pretty sure you can register a conflict of interest and then suggest changes on the relevant article talk page. Companies charging for editing sounds dodgy to me.

 

[sprunt]

But on the flip side, external authors do not have full knowledge of the company.

No, but I wouldn't expect an encyclopaedia entry about a company to contain any inside information.