Grounded In Reality

A new user group on Wikipedia called the “Companies WikiProject” is aiming to improve the quality of entries about corporations.

Wikipedia’s freeform collaborative nature has, understandably, created gaps in the site’s coverage of certain subjects. This becomes obvious after reading entries about notable companies. Issues like executive scandals, product recalls, and legal battles often take center stage. A clear anti-corporate bias can be seen in many entries.

To fix this, the group is using guidelines for bringing company-specific pages up to par. Entries about Fortune 500 companies are first on the task force’s priority list.

Although this project is just getting off the ground, it’s promising news for executives who feel their company’s Wikipedia entry deserves a second look. Since individuals are prohibited from creating or editing topics that they are affiliated with, the challenge of cleaning up content lies with Wikipedians.

Obviously, the goal of this project isn’t to turn company entries into sparkly-perfect brochures. The good, bad, and ugly will still remain. It’s all about providing balance and prioritizing the facts. It will be interesting to see if this project takes off.