Get It Right, Wikipedia!
I know what you're thinking...
"Sally! You should be glad to even be ON Wikipedia!"
Well, given the fact that last year's Kennedy assasination fiasco shook the company up, calling their already-dubious credibility into question, that's true. I discovered this sandbox-add-an-entry thing to add one of my friends who is actually a celebrity in some circles. (No, he's not Egyptian, and no, I don't have some crush on him! It's just that he's made significant contributions to something, and I felt they should be documented. Hmph.)
At any rate, some person added me after the publishing of Mid-East Meets West, and has been updating my biblio- and filmographies with uncanny accuracy. (They obviously read my blog!)
Very interestingly enough, they have also added me to the categories of
"Egyptian Americans" and "Prominent Copts."
These are, then, Exhibits A and B in the case of "Wikipedia rocks."
However.
While they were adding me to these categories, they, sadly, have slacked in the
main entry for the hellion that is Sally Bishai.
I'm serious.
There's like 7 errors in there.
But that's not why I'm writing this day, dear friend!
Not by a long-shot.
Rather, I'm writing because some beasts in the customer care department replied to my kindly-worded and longer-than-long-winded "Can we fix these errors, please?" email in an unfavourable manner.
I know what you're wondering...
"Sally, it's an open-access encyclopaedia! Why don't you just change it and stop going on!"
Not that simple, lovebug. Know why? They've disabled that whole "muck about with the entry" feature, and one can't actually, erm, muck about any longer.
Hence, the name of my university is wrong, the name of my affiliation is inaccurate, and 3 other issues remain.
Back to my unfavourable reply, some gentleman wrote to inform me that, as he had "determined that my issues referred to the style and choice of facts presented," he had elected to keep the entry as-is.
Furthermore, he informed me that I was to inform him were I to find any actual factual errors.
Hello? I just spent 19 hours going on about the truckload of errors! Did he want me to pick up some Gerber and feed him with a spoon? Flames, he's worse than some of my bum students! (Hmph, don't get me started on them, either..)
Anyway, I guess I'm disappointed in this generation of non-listeners. You have to spell things out, where people used to use critical thinking and intuition.. and even then, they can't seem to get it right.
I think I was just born in the wrong century!
(I do love email, however..)
"Sally! You should be glad to even be ON Wikipedia!"
Well, given the fact that last year's Kennedy assasination fiasco shook the company up, calling their already-dubious credibility into question, that's true. I discovered this sandbox-add-an-entry thing to add one of my friends who is actually a celebrity in some circles. (No, he's not Egyptian, and no, I don't have some crush on him! It's just that he's made significant contributions to something, and I felt they should be documented. Hmph.)
At any rate, some person added me after the publishing of Mid-East Meets West, and has been updating my biblio- and filmographies with uncanny accuracy. (They obviously read my blog!)
Very interestingly enough, they have also added me to the categories of
"Egyptian Americans" and "Prominent Copts."
These are, then, Exhibits A and B in the case of "Wikipedia rocks."
However.
While they were adding me to these categories, they, sadly, have slacked in the
main entry for the hellion that is Sally Bishai.
I'm serious.
There's like 7 errors in there.
But that's not why I'm writing this day, dear friend!
Not by a long-shot.
Rather, I'm writing because some beasts in the customer care department replied to my kindly-worded and longer-than-long-winded "Can we fix these errors, please?" email in an unfavourable manner.
I know what you're wondering...
"Sally, it's an open-access encyclopaedia! Why don't you just change it and stop going on!"
Not that simple, lovebug. Know why? They've disabled that whole "muck about with the entry" feature, and one can't actually, erm, muck about any longer.
Hence, the name of my university is wrong, the name of my affiliation is inaccurate, and 3 other issues remain.
Back to my unfavourable reply, some gentleman wrote to inform me that, as he had "determined that my issues referred to the style and choice of facts presented," he had elected to keep the entry as-is.
Furthermore, he informed me that I was to inform him were I to find any actual factual errors.
Hello? I just spent 19 hours going on about the truckload of errors! Did he want me to pick up some Gerber and feed him with a spoon? Flames, he's worse than some of my bum students! (Hmph, don't get me started on them, either..)
Anyway, I guess I'm disappointed in this generation of non-listeners. You have to spell things out, where people used to use critical thinking and intuition.. and even then, they can't seem to get it right.
I think I was just born in the wrong century!
(I do love email, however..)
Comments
they did not disable the edit feature at all, I just edited your entry and added the line
"sally is known not to like her wikipedia entry"
worked fine, go ahead and edit the thing, make your changes
besides when you send emails you gain nothing, wikipedia is supposed to be peer reviewed, if you want to discuss or complain about an entry don't do it in private via email, do it in the entry's discussion page (see the nice tabs on the top, one says discussion and another says edit, these are the ones you want to play with).
this way the whole disucssion is in public.
oh and wikipedia is not a company, wikimedia is a non for profit foundation, wikipedia is not a profit seaking outfit.
i saw the line and it was hilarious. hehe. :) BUT. that was under filmography. the errors are in the paragraph thing above. they got the name of my university wrong! (for one.)
i know it's not a big deal, but i was just kind of depressed about it, because one of my students saw it and started going on about how there were so many errors that it looked like a fake entry. having been sleep-deprived at the time, i felt moved to mention this moshkela, just in case one of the shella might know how to fix it.
at any rate, i have come to the conclusion that both the factual errors and the rather libellous things--such as calling all my writings 'conservative coptic,' which doesn't even exist, btw, especially since i diss the 'coptic movement' as much as i try to mobilise copts--and, indeed, all egyptians.
see, if you're a writer and get lumped into one political leaning, you may have problems down the line.
for example, i had a deal to do a column for a website that was going to pay me all sorts of great money.
i guess they must've come across some of my other writings that weekend, because come the next week, they boycotted me. when i asked why, they said they couldn't afford to be affiliated with someone of my passionate views. when i pressed them, i was told that it was because i appeared pro-israeli!
as everyone knows, this is ridiculous, because i am, in fact, pro-HUMAN, and fight for the rights of everyone, whether black, white, arab, coptic, muslim, jewish, palestinian, israeli.
(they did offer to reinstate me if my first column was anti-israeli.. sad.)
i do have my own opinion on what should happen, but that has never come across in my writing, so what's up with that! anyway.
thanks (as always!) for your great comment, and for the information. please salem 3ala el madame, and hope you guys have a great weekend inshallah! salaam :)
sally
I'd fix it if I knew which college you went to (must be written here somewhere, but me lazy).
the classification part I suggest you post about it in discussion instead of just removing it.
and this is egypt remember the weekend is over khalas :-)
well, one of the errors is 'university of west florida,' which is much more prestigious than the ghetto 'west florida university,' which is a mail order degree.
but i don't even care about that.. (and i'm not so angry, just like 'uh...')
aslo, el ragel elli katabli kan REZEL we tale3 feeha beshakl, and gheles, bas not in a good way; the whole communique was actually ehana 3ala 7ello.. fa tab3an etdaye2t men el 7ekaya dy kollaha, and it SO was a 7ekaya. it was actually film hindi or whatever that new phrase was.
anyway, hope you're having a good WEEK, then, and rabena yekoon ma3akom every day of the week! :)
thanks again and salaam,
sally