User talk:Bircham

Bloking of user: Bircham and IP Address

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bircham_International_University

Dear Mr. Guy Chapman,

You have blocked our user. Moreover you have blocked all user from our IP Address. We have requested a few times to be given the opportunity to exercise our editorial rights in an article that talks about our institution. We incorrectly understood that we could delete what we consider inaccurate or false provided the fact that we support our arguments with reliable links. It is not clearly explained that we can not delete or modified anything within the article but we have the right to add or incorporate any comments that are supported by the appropriate links. I think that this right to talk about ourselves in an article about ourselves has been confused with whitewashing.

You also talk about threats. I am not aware that any insults, threats or misbehavior can be accounted from our side. The fact that we are using lawyers to defend our right to exercise editorial rights about ourselves can not be accounted as a threat but as defending a right.

Mike Godwin, General Counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation, did send a letter to us in 2008 in which he states the following: You may check this letter at (or contact Mike Godwin) http://www.bircham.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=64

1- Any problems should be resolved with the editors community. Cary Bass, volunteer coordinator, has also confirmed this. Although we find that any contacts with the editorial community are always blocked.

2- The Wikimedia Foundation is not a publisher and does not exercise editorial or publishing rights. This fact is protecting Wikimedia from any civil legal actions about the contents of the article. Although it seems quite clear that there is and editorial judgement in the writing of the article about Bircham International University which does not correspond the service provider legal status of Wikipedia.

3- Mike Godwin urges us to correct any mistakes in the article ourselves, but this is not possible because we are blocked from you. Your blocking instructions state that any updates should be sent by email but the emails sent have been responded stating that: "We will not make edits to the article for you. The contents of the article are determined by consensus of site users, and not by a top-down decision from the email response team. You may, if you are not blocked from editing, add the material yourself, and site users will decide whether it will stay or not." So the question is how can we add any information to the article if we are blocked and any email request is answered saying that the editorial community does not make edits for us???

Based on the above we request that our user blocking (and IP) is removed and our editorial rights are restored. We will not delete or rephrase any part of the article but we have the right to exercise editorial rights about ourselves and we can add data to the article if such data is supported by the corresponding links. I see no reason why this conditions should not be accepted by the editors community.

Restore our editorial capacity and rights.

"Bircham (talk) 15:35, 17 March 2010 (UTC)"

1. There are relevant updates that affect the content of the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bircham_International_University which can not be contributed to the article. Initially we were told that we should submit any contributions by email. The we got the answer saying that we should edit ourselved, but we are blocked. What should we do?

2. Wikipedia is not an easy place to manage for a simple user. Wikipedia self-managing rules can be frustrating and lead to desperation to a user not acostumed to them. I think that an indefinite blocking is a way too severe way of punishing this learning process. You set the rules but you have to recognize that communicationg through your rules is not as easy as it may seem for an experienced editor.

3. We have made mistakes in our understanding of some Wikipedia rules. I was told that any contribution should be based on reliable references or documents. I worked on providing such reliable links. Then they were disregarded with not much research about its reliability. As an example I want to mention that references in Spanish were not considered reliable for an English article but they were later included when they served some editor point of view. I consider that Wikipedia policy should work equally for everyone but it seems that this is not the case.

4. Insistance in argumenting other points of view has been considered disruptive editing. We have submitted statements based on reliable links. The statements were answered in the talk page. I then provided more insights to the comments posted on the talk page and this has been considered repetitive intents for white-washing.

5. It seems that the bottom line or the general consensus is that Bircham International University is not accredited. This fact is mentioned several times in the article and we agree to it, but there are many more things that can be stated and supported with the corresponding links. This is and has always been our objective. I truly think that this will contribute to an actual NPOV.

6. In the past we did some editing contributions to the article itself, but the article is watched and any changes were simply washed out without any dedication to check if they really contributed to something. Just as an example the two first links of the accreditation section do not work for a long time. We provided other that were never considered to replace them.

7. This are the comments from the editor at the bottom of our article talk page: "I can't imagine who suggested this. Oh, wait, perhaps I can. I am opposed to this "resume padding". Four references to a register of training providers? Come back when the place calls itself "Bircham Training Inc". For now it calls itself a university but its degrees are worthless pretty much anywhere due to lack of accreditation" This editors is from the UK as he states and his opinion about a Spanish Institutions is based on his UK interpretation of us. Quoting his words: "I am from the UK where the post-secondary education sector divides basically into two categories: accredited universities, and diploma mills operating out of PO boxes" We do not pretend to be accredited or to be what we are not but we can not be monitored and judged by a single persons intervention and judgement. I do not know if this is the case but it seems so if you take the time to read all the contributions.

A final example of unfair treatment. The link about the Nairobi Business Daily was deleted. We informed the editors in order to delete the statement supported on such link. The editors replaced it by a link to a copy of the article in a web media storage. We were told that a rectification was needed. It took me a couple of months to get the rectification and send it to the editors community. http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Company%20Industry/-/539550/875402/-/t2qw1gz/-/index.html Then the answer is that they are not here to edit our article and that we should do it ourselves. We have tried to appeal our block following Wikipedia rules but we are even blocked from appealing to other editors help. Any request to the editor that enforced our block is not answered but any action that we undertake seems to be monitored by this editor and somehow blocked.

Please help me on this or advice how we proceed. Are we really wrong in our understanding or approach to this whole situation?

I think that the best way to help us would be to restore our editing rights. We will be updating the article with new input and will give time to the editors community to evalute our proposals. You have my word that we will not delete any word from what is already stated in the article but we will add new insights supported by the corresponding links that the editors may correct.

Thank you

The usage of "we" a lot seems to indicate that multiple people are using this account, not to mention that the username itself directly related to the school. This is likely a role account. –MuZemike 19:48, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No it's not a role account though the original owner may have shared the password; this account was registered by William Martin, the owner of BIU and thus far has not, to my knowledge, been used by anyone else - though this is immaterial as we're very unlikely ever to unblock it anyway due to past abuse. We know from past experience what their "new insights" will be, and they won't be anything to do with WP:NPOV. They have suggested changes, the changes have not been enacted because they are special pleading designed to obscure the lack of accreditation and problematic history of the place. BIU want to use Wikipedia to fix the fact that those authorities who have bothered to look, consider the place to be substandard or even fraudulent. BIU disagrees with those sources. That's not our problem. Our problem is BIU trying to pretend that the consensus view is other than it is. Guy (Help!) 12:45, 20 April 2010 (UTC)