Why Wikipedia Cannot Be Trusted

November 24, 2007. For weeks we battled to expose the truth, against determined opposition from anonymous enemies. But in the end, an uncomfortable truce was reached, that will inevitably end in total victory for the Corporate Empire.

It may not have been that dramatic, but the events are accurate.

Wikipedia.org calls itself the "The Free Encyclopedia", and boasts that they are more accurate and timely than conventional encyclopedias.

That may be true in other areas, but not in the case of computer-related corporate entries, which contain nothing but sales-brochure puffery. FreshBaked attempted to interject some truthful, historical, but not complimentary information onto the site of one such enterprise.

The company name is Avanade, a business formed by Microsoft and Accenture (former consulting division of Arthur Andersen, remember them?) in 2000, to promote Microsoft's .NET development system by developing large projects and using them as examples of the proficiency and effectiveness of the platform.

Microsoft apparently became disenchanted with the partnership, because they dropped their stake in 2001, and Avanade became a subsidiary of Accenture.

Both companies are well-known here in Colorado, along with another large IT consulting company, EDS, for being associated with huge software projects undertaken by the State of Colorado, which cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and turned out to be spectacular failures.

Even though their culpability in these events is un-denied and undeniable, no mention of them appears in their Wikipedia entries!

FreshBaked attempted to add entries based on newspaper articles into the "History" section of Avanade's entry in Wikipedia.

Each time, the entries were removed by anonymous individuals. Usually, they left no reason for the deletion, contrary to the site's policy.

After 3 weeks of deletes and un-deletes, a volunteer moderator stepped in and declared that the entries did not belong, because they were actually "criticisms", and not historical information.

If actual events involving a State Government and reported by legitimate news media are not "History", then what is? Apparently, in the case of Avanade, "History" means when the firm was founded, their corporate goal, and a list of companies they have acquired.

FreshBaked protested the removal and questioned Wikipedia's commitment to truth, accuracy, and lack of bias, whereupon the text reappeared in the Avanade listing, only under a new heading, entitled "Criticism".

The "Criticism" heading will undoubtedly disappear in the fullness of time, leaving the pristine, unsullied, marketing-brochure-like entry for Avanade.

When interested individuals visit the sites of Accenture, Avanade, EDS, and their ilk, they will find no useful information there, only a mirror of those companies' home pages. Responsible, diligent researchers will visit other sources and will probably find all of the failed projects and other significant historical information and will pass it on to the parties who will make the decisions.

And those researchers will remember that visiting Wikipedia to research corporations was a waste of time.