“Monitoring Wikipedia regarding your brand, products, executives and competitors is absolutely mandatory for the Web Strategist, but before engaging, have a strategy that will help all readers, provide factual information, and of course, not end up in an embarrassing situation.”

What did he find out? That employees from companies like Diebold have deleted negative paragraphs in the Wikipedia page for their company. Virgil seems to just be getting started.

From a journalism standpoint, it seems to prove the age old questions of “Yes, people really do prefer good press to bad press.” In some respects, removing anonymity from portions of the web may make it a better resource. Although, things like this are a slippery slope; how many will want to use Wikipedia if every action they take is being monitored. Increasing paranoia may not be good for business.

“In an ideal world we could throw in a sense of plausibility, balance and humor… That’s asking a lot, and in truth I’ll be happy so long as it manages to avoid becoming some sort of robotic-zombie-assassins-against-African-ninjas-in-space-narrate d-by-a-Papal-Tiara type of thing.”

“…focal point and support mechanism for communities to post news that would not normally be covered by the paper.”

When talking about failed efforts in the past, he makes two notes:

• Cultivate a community of users first.
• Don’t think that it is a cheap and easy way to get content.

Knowing the caution that many established players feel, Jimmy is working on functionality in the software that allow more control and address some of the chaos scenarios that people lose sleep over.

One entrepreneur created a website and originally hired freelancers to create articles. However:

“To his surprise he found that many of the entries generated by Internet users — free — were more informative than those written by freelancers.”

Is this the same as traditional journalism? Perhaps not, but these lines are already blurring online. And people’s desire to collaborate should not be understated:

“Sondra Crane, a 75-year-old retiree who lives in Altamonte Springs, Fla., has written scores of entries for wikiHow on subjects both practical (how to make pot roast) and profound (how to get old without feeling old). “I’ve been writing all my life and I always wanted to have my name known,” she said. “I’d like to get paid — I put a lot of hours in. But it’s nice to know that people are being helped.”

In related news, Aaron Swartz offers further insight into exactly Who Writes Wikipedia?