UPDATE:Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales reviews page about Amanda Knox for inaccuracies
Tue, 03/22/2011
Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales, considered one of the most influential people in the world, is currently reviewing the Wikipedia page "Murder of Meredith Kercher" as West Seattle-raised Amanda Knox supporters have been for months challenging Wales on details of the trial explained on that page. At this time there is no "Amanda Knox" Wikipedia page. The "Murder of Meredith Kercher" page has at times been ranked the 60th most read page out of 18 million.
A group who believe Knox and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, convicted of murdering Knox's college roommate, Ms. Kercher, are innocent, and that Rudy Guede, also convicted, was the lone killer, complained to Wales that the Wiki page contains evidence and witnesses since dropped in the course of the trial and other distorted and untrue details.
UPDATE: March 26 interview with Joseph Bishop-
Joseph Bishop, a New Haven, Conn. supporter of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito's innocence, said he was one of those involved with the main effort behind attempts to, in his view, make the Wikipedia page more accurate.
"I was the primary force behind it," said Bishop, a Dartmouth graduate and electrical engineer who has worked in Iraq, Ghana, Brazil, as well as back home.
"I think that Wikipedia is a marvelous institution even though they stumbled in the case of the 'Murder of Meredith Kercher' article. Wikipedia is an important place where people get their information. If you Google 'Amanda Knox' then you will see that the 'Murder of Meredith Kercher' Wikipedia page appears first.
"The contribution it has had toward the education toward our children is profound, all at no cost to the taxpayer. Jimbo Wales is an American hero. I thought that before he took an interest in Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito."
Bishop said Wales stated on the discussion page that he just purchased six Kindle books on Amazon on the Kercher trial.
"I was stunned by his responding," said Bishop. "My main complaint was that they did not incorporate ctiticism of many important experts, people like (CBS correspondent) Peter van Sant, and (investigator) Paul Ciolino, so that the article was not written from a neutral point of view. It was a troubled article. We are very impressed to see that Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales has come in and is taking a hard look at this.
Added Bishop, "Jimbo Wales has said there has been systematic exclusion of reliable sources which is something Wikipedia does not want to do."
From earlier artilce:
Wales was prompted to respond, in part, by this letter sent to him from a blog that supports Knox's innocence, www.injusticeinperugia.org, which says this:
MONDAY, MARCH 21, 2011
Open Letter to Wikipedia Founder Jimbo Wales concerning the Death of Meredith Kercher Article
To: Wikipedia Founder Jimbo Wales
Dear Mr. Wales:
We are a group of citizens concerned with the fairness of the recent trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. We ask that you and others in positions of influence at Wikipedia take a careful look at Wikipedia’s coverage of the subject. The Murder of Meredith Kercher article in its present form is not written from a neutral point of view and bears little resemblance to what reliable sources have said about the case.
The trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito has emerged as one of the most controversial and heavily criticized judicial proceedings in modern European history. None of this is properly reflected in the Wikipedia article which for the most part relies on obsolete and inaccurate British tabloid reports for its information. The omission from the article of the criticism of the numerous important experts who have stated in no uncertain terms that Knox and Sollecito did not receive a fair trial calls into question the article’s neutrality. Other flaws in the article include false statements about luminol evidence, the de-emphasis of Rudy Guede and Giuliano Mignini’s criminal acts prior to the crime, and the characterization of the support for Ms. Knox as a PR campaign. Until recently, the article contained a fabricated claim that the Rudy Guede’s apartment had been purchased for him by a wealthy Perugian family.
The article goes on to seriously misrepresent the statements made by Knox and Sollecito during interrogation. In fact both had repeatedly given the true version of events that they were at Sollecito’s apartment together and only toward the end after hours of intense pressure did Ms. Knox make any statements about Patrick Lumumba which were later shown to be false.
The reliable sources who have criticized the trial include John Q. Kelly, Judy Bachrach, Douglas Preston, Paul Ciolino, Timothy Egan, Peter Van Sant, Steve Moore, Bob Graham, Michael Scadron, Judge Michael Heavey, George Fletcher, Dr. David Anderson, and US Senator Maria Cantwell. These people have spoken in important media such as CNN, CBS, ABC, The Independent, and the New York Times and they have all used unprecedented language to condemn the trial(...)”
The current, mostly European, Wikipedia moderators who have taken ownership of the article are determined to see that this criticism is not presented to the readers. In addition, the article's list of books and television documentaries about the case deliberately omits certain works that conflict with the agenda of the article's moderators.
Wikipedia has a reasonably well conceived set of guidelines regarding biographies of living persons (which include Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito) but they have not been properly applied to this article. Clear and compelling documentation of irregularities in the article and in the conduct of the article’s moderators have been presented to Wikipedia without a proper response(...)
Currently 144 have signed the above letter. Below is a discussion to revise the page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Murder_of_Meredith_Kercher
In the above link, Jimbo Wales says: "This blog post (The Open Letter) llikely deserves some attention. My interest is simply in making sure that this entry accurately reflects what reliable sources have said and that no reliable sources are omitted based on anyone's agenda in either direction. I'm posting this notice on the BLP (biography of living persons) noticeboard and the talk page of the article."--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:03, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
"UTC" is a time identifier.
"A petition doesn't matter. Number of signatures doesn't matter. Getting it right is all that matters. I accept input from all kinds of sources, and we should always be willing to take another look."--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:07, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
"No one, least of all me, is arguing that the blog post should be used as a source. The blog post is a discussion of what has been going on here. It should be thoughtfully considered. Is it true that people have been banned for completely neutral edits? Yes. It is true that reliable sources have been systematically excluded? Yes. None of that is acceptable. I am not arguing for reinstating any of the badly behaved accounts from before - they are irrelevant to this discussion. My point is that badly behaved accounts are no excuse for bias."--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:28, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
The West Seattle Herald does not officially endorse nor discredit the Open Letter
but believes the feedback by Mr. Wales about his concern for accuracy in reporting the trial of Amanda Knox is newsworthy and of interest to our readers, particularly those in West Seattle, where Knox was raised and where her family resides.