Ethical Dilemma -- Or Just My Imagination??

[Aminka Ozmun]

Hey...

There's a major fraudster of historical proportions (think a Bernie Madoff type, only much smaller [but still in the history books]) totally whitewashing his crimes online, and one of his targets of late is his Wikipedia page which, until just a very few days ago, detailed all his crimes and convictions.

This fraudster is one of those who helped cause the subprime mortgage mess. He deliberately targeted poor people who had little understanding (or, as less sympathetic observers like to point out, financial sense and discipline) with regards to housing matters. Now he's totally whitewashed the Wikipedia entry on himself!!

Due to the fact that I have personal knowledge of this affair, I cannot amend that entry myself as no more than five or six and as little as three people in the whole world know about this fraudster's attempts at "reputation management" (as these practices are known in the SEO industry), so I contacted Wikipedia as soon as I could but unfortunately I've yet to hear anything from them...so maybe what he's doing isn't a problem at all??

[Brutha]

Due to the fact that I have personal knowledge of this affair, I cannot amend that entry myself as no more than five or six and as little as three people in the whole world know about this fraudster's attempts at "reputation management" (as these practices are known in the SEO industry), so I contacted Wikipedia as soon as I could but unfortunately I've yet to hear anything from them...so maybe what he's doing isn't a problem at all??

Wikipedia isn't centrally organized and therefore you don't get far by contacting someone on the top.

How would I go about it?
Go to the talk page of the article and write your complained.
Afterwards you go to the talk page of a wikipedia admin with who edits articles like the one of this fraudster and you try to get the attention of that admin.

[Andras]

The truth will come out sooner or later. Your obligations is to speak out and tell the truth of this person. If somehow Wiki is not getting this and the facts are not as they occurred is not your problem but Wiki's. Tell your side and forget about it. This person is not getting away with this. Nobody is.

Originally Posted by Aminka Ozmun

Hey...

There's a major fraudster of historical proportions (think a Bernie Madoff type, only much smaller [but still in the history books]) totally whitewashing his crimes online, and one of his targets of late is his Wikipedia page which, until just a very few days ago, detailed all his crimes and convictions.

This fraudster is one of those who helped cause the subprime mortgage mess. He deliberately targeted poor people who had little understanding (or, as less sympathetic observers like to point out, financial sense and discipline) with regards to housing matters. Now he's totally whitewashed the Wikipedia entry on himself!!

Due to the fact that I have personal knowledge of this affair, I cannot amend that entry myself as no more than five or six and as little as three people in the whole world know about this fraudster's attempts at "reputation management" (as these practices are known in the SEO industry), so I contacted Wikipedia as soon as I could but unfortunately I've yet to hear anything from them...so maybe what he's doing isn't a problem at all??

[Aminka Ozmun]

Thanks, Brutha! I don't know Wikipedia much, so I'm glad for your suggestion about taking it to the specific article admin.

But you're also right, Andras. No one from Wikipedia has responded at all to me, and the fraudster's entry is still the recently whitewashed version.

[Aminka Ozmun]

Originally Posted by Aminka Ozmun

...and the fraudster's entry is still the recently whitewashed version.

Just for the record, the fraudster's entry has now been restored to the full list of convictions! No one on Wikipedia ever got in touch with me, however; it looks like some long-time contributor ("SnowFire") just happened to have finally noticed the "public relations vandalism" on one of his/her patrols through the site!