Now that the furor is dying down over Virgil’s WikiScanner some helpful souls are moving the conversation towards how companies should manage their reputation on Wikipedia. It’s starting to sound like White Hat SEO banter - “Don’t do anything that would upset Wikipedia”. There’s an article over at Search Engine Land by a Wikipedia editor that gives advice on how to get incorrect or slanderous content removed from your Wikipedia page which says, in short: Don’t do it yourself. The comments got so contentious that Danny closed them down before I had a chance to post.

Why doesn’t Wikipedia want you to edit information about yourself or your company? Their position is that someone who is too close to a company/person/topic may not be able to provide the neutrality Wikipedia prides itself on. Fair enough, but what if you want to correct an obvious flaw in the article about you or your company? Are you really going to wait around for some Wikipedia “angel” to swoop down and edit it for you?

I am in complete agreement that Wikipedia articles should be kept neutral and unbiased but I do not agree that just because you are “close” to the company you are unable to edit the article in the correct manner. I am not referring here to whitewashing or spin tactics, I’m talking about fixing obvious errors such as spelling mistakes, dates, numbers and other openly verifiable facts.