Seeking help?
How can one react against wrongful Wikipedia articles?
Are you annoyed by an article about yourself or an institution or organisation which you are responsible for? PR strategists, cyber-warriors and lobbyists have long since discovered Wikipedia. Spreading positive PR is the one side. But even worse is running smear campaigns against competitors and opponents on Wikipedia. Often people concerned are not aware of this – or react too late. How can one respond if a Wikipedia Article is obviously intended to discredit an person, institution or organisation and damage their reputation? Wiki-Watch provides information for those affected, which you will find in our FAQ section.
<< Request general Wiki-Watch help here >>
What you definitively should not do:
Don’t edit an article concerning yourself – this violates the Wikipedia rules in most cases.
What you might do:
- Use the discussion page of the article to indicate factual mistakes, missing sources, bias or violations of the rules on biographies of living persons. Post factual content and links to reputable, informative other pages.
- Always prove your point of view by refering to relevant sources.
- Inform an administrator about the main author and the deficiency.
- Brief Wiki-Watch about serious misinformation and violations of the Wikipedia neutrality principle(1). Transparency may help. << Brief Wiki-Watch here >>
- In case of sensitive issues that obviously allow you to propose their deletion, contact Wikipedia Oversight.
- In case of serious infringements of your personality rights consider legal measures against the operator of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation based and with place of jurisdiction in San Francisco, USA. This requires specialised legal advice. The success of the proceedings is uncertain.(2)
Less promising…
is taking legal measures against national Non-Profit-Organisations promoting Wikipedia in certain countries without being the responsible operator of the platform.
Legal advice on Wikipedia
- List of policies and guidelines
- Wikipedia copyright policy (primarily important for pictures)
Annotations
- „Neutral Point of View“ principle of Wikipedia
- Seigenthaler incident