Wow, I just saw the saddest thing. It’s a section of the Wikipedia article about Red Hat, listing programs and projects that Red Hat does in the free software and open source communities. This is ‘programs and projects’ in the sense of, “Build a road is a project, build a freeway system is a program.” Here is the article section:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat#Programs_and_projects
It lists a number of projects that are not really in existence, and are arguably not any more worth calling out than other projects.
Take a look at that content and the section on utilities and tools, then compare it with this canonical page on the Fedora Project wiki:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Red_Hat_contributions
In that comparison, realize something – both of those pages now share a content license. The list of Red Hat contributions is licensed CC BY SA 3.0 Unported. The same as the Wikipedia page. (I’m asking about the GFDL question on fedora-legal-list.)
As a Red Hat employee I feel socially awkward rectifying this situation. Is that incorrect? I don’t know, I’m not a regular Wikipedia contributor and have lapsed my knowledge of what is right and proper in authoring an article. Maybe it’s better or worse if the content is an aggregate from the Fedora Project wiki.
One idea would be to link to the canonical article from the Fedora Project. That’s not bad. But what about a new Wikipedia Red Hat contributions page? (Or would that be [[Red Hat software contributions]]?) I would envision the Wikipedia version to be a downstream usage, meaning someone would commit to maintaining it the way we maintain packages in Fedora. For example, watch the page for changes, then carry those changes to the Wikipedia downstream page.
The value added on the Wikipedia side? A properly categorized downstream page that re-sorts the content in to ways useful by the general Wikipedia audience. There are probably other ways to enhance the content to be useful to Wikipedia, and still refer to the canonical upstream.
On the other hand, maybe one of you Wikipedians will tell me that it’s perfectly fine for me to write and maintain this page on Wikipedia myself. In that case, maybe I’ll do it. Otherwise, I’d be happy to help contribute, and I know of a few others who would likely do this already.
Or you’ll tell me it’s not appropriate for Wikipedia, in which case, I’d like to get the two sections I reference above to be removed from the [[Red Hat]] page. They stand in stark contrast to the reality.
It’s some time ago since I wrote my last Wikipedia-article, but I suggest you do the following:
Start a new paragraph at the discussion page in which you briefly summarize your problems with the existing section and propose to change it to be like the fedoraproject page. Don’t fail to mention that you are an employee of redhat. Explain why your proposed changes do not count as advertisement but are indeed The Right Thing for an encyclopedia.
Wait for a week or so. If people start to discuss things with you, fine. If not, add a comment to your discussion Paragraph in which you state that you will change the section in another week if nobody objects to it. Wait another week, then do it. In your change summary, point to the discussion.
Don’t do it anonymously. Sign in, then sign every comment you write. Leaving a written trail where you explain everything you do is IMHO the most important thing in Wikipedia. If you do it like that (and your changes are indeed good), I doubt that anybody would object to it.
Good Luck!
I don’t think you would be the wrong person to update Red Hat’s presence on Wikipedia. It is everyone’s responsibility to make sure that the pages on Wikipedia are current and who better than a source on the inside.
I just got finished updating the Fedora Project page and submitted it for peer review. I got a few requests for changes back, re-reviewed, and got it through the “good article” criteria. Among other things, they check for bias so you shouldn’t worry about the way you write.
Heck, just copy what’s on “our” wiki to “their” wiki and be done with it! 🙂
My advice is to understand that Wikipedia is not an exhaustive project page, but a reference page. Wikipedia should list *examples* to help people understand the highlights, and should reference the fedoraproject.org page. Wikipedia should by not any means attempt to be an exhaustive reference to all ongoing projects.
Thanks for the tips, all. I’m going to keep my mind on the advise of comment #4 when working through the process of comment #1, and knowing it’s possible I’ll get rejected for being @redhat.com anyway. At the least, I continue to pave the path for someone else to fix the situation.