Wikipedia entry sparks war of words

The City of Cornwall Ontario has come out swinging over postings in its Wikipedia entry saying a person or persons is out to make the city and its citizens look bad.  The stink started last week when some one posted this:  “Cornwall has not enjoyed a good environmental reputation due in large part to decades of heavily polluting industries. Although most of these industries have shut down or moved away, their legacy is a riverfront contaminated by mercury, soil contaminated by coal tar and byproducts, and most evidently, ‘Big Ben’.”  By Friday, the statement was removed but  another describing Cornwall’s recent environmental standing remained, according to a report in the local newspaper, The Osprey Standard Freeholder.  But then Cornwall officials noticed that in the demographics section had this statement: “Many from the city’s work force prefer to live in these communities over Cornwall; ironically including the mayor and a number of ‘Team Cornwall’ members (a group drawn from the business community, pledged to promote Cornwall).”  The page also contains figures regarding the city’s murder rate and the low placement of local schools in a recent provincewide report on school success.  On Friday, a new message written by city development officer Mike Metcalfe appeared on the page and took aim at the anonymous user who has been modifying the contents of the page: “For whatever reason . . . you appear to be bent upon showing our community in the most negative light possible and I am at a loss to understand why. And frankly, the personal references are unwarranted. Perhaps, you might consider contacting me here at economic development to explain your penchant for slamming the city. While our submissions tend to be (positive) in nature, our purpose is to interest both business and individuals to consider locating here which benefits the entire community . . . including you.  “Do you not wish to see your city grow and flourish? By the way, it may interest you to know that I am not from Cornwall but moved a young family here some years ago. It was one of my better decisions. I’ll wait and see if you would like to ‘show’ yourself or to continue what you’re doing. If you do, we’ll move on to other matters,” Metcalfe wrote.  City officials contacted Wikipedia but it isn’t going to change anything, besides, no one is desputing the facts of this case, just the negative light it places the city in. Such stinks aren’t all that abnormal. Wikipedia bas been beset by a rash of recent controversies. When Middlebury College in Vermont this month restricted the use of Wikipedia citations, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales concurred, saying, “Students shouldn’t be citing encyclopedias. I would hope they wouldn’t be citing Encyclopedia Britannica, either.” The site has promised changes in the way it handles editors and the site is currently home to almost 2 million entries.