Paid Wikipedia-fiddling on wheels It isn’t just feral estate agents who drape their cars with adverts. Reader James sent us this photo, which you may want to examine more closely if you’re an enthusiastic Wikipedian. The “London Biography Company” purports to boost your reputation on Wikipedia. On its website it claims clients are “FTSE100 CEOs, senior …
I'm fairly sure these "reputation management" firms are companies that have extended their existing activities to editing wiki articles for clients, rather than hordes of fed-up amateur wiki editors trying to turn a living on it.
Still, why let reality intrude on an attempt to sling mud at something you don't like. Pity you couldn't work in a way to have a pop at Stephen Fry along the way.
"I'm fairly sure these "reputation management" firms are companies that have extended their existing activities to editing wiki articles for clients, rather than hordes of fed-up amateur wiki editors trying to turn a living on it."
There is actually a company called, without the slightest trace of irony, Schillings.
reputational mis-management.
"Got competition? A company you want brought to its knees through death by a thousand cuts? Someone in power try to sleep with your wife? We can reputationally mis-manage them for maximum detrimental impact on their business!"
It's amazing how much you can get away with that's negative if it's portrayed in a factual manner backed up with bibliographies no-one checks.
@dotdan
0207/0208 for London followed on from the 071/081 codes (1990). The old "London" code being "01"
(those of a certain age may remember 01-811-8055). In those days, it was possible to dial a local number without the STD code.
Inner/Outer London - Beattie will explain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9oJdGaC-wA
No, the format is correct, it is you who are wrong.
+44 - UK
(0) - not required internationally but required in the UK
207 - inner London area (vs 208 - outer London)
205 - local exchange
7152 - number at exchange
But then I remember when it was 01 for London and (just about) when exchanges had names not numbers.
The BT phone book here tells you what the STD code for London is:
http://www.thephonebook.bt.com/publisha.content/en/search/uk_codes/search.publisha?Search=London+Greater#
The answer is '020'
There is no 'inner' and 'outer' any more. The number that corresponds with what used to be the local exchange is now defined as having four digits, and can start with a 7, or an 8, or indeed a 3 since 2005. So London numbers can be
020 3xxx yyyy
020 7xxx yyyy
020 8xxx yyyy
...and indeed it is expected that all the other digits can be used in that leading position.
Full details of the UK telephone numbering plan are published by Ofcom here:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/36070/numbering_plan_july2015.pdf
which can be found on this page:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/information-for-industry/numbering
There is a Wikipedia page dedicated to misconceptions about the numbering plan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_telephone_code_misconceptions
@Fruit and Nutcase, @AC and @'s water music
I know WHY people get it wrong, but they get it wrong. Just because you get it wrong too, it doesn't make it right!
All the downvotes go to show that there's still work to do. It's only been the case for 15 years - you'll get there eventually! Type a London phone number into your Android or iPhone: it'll put the correct spacing onscreen for you. Ditto Leeds (yes I know it used to be 0532 xxxxxx, but those old numbers are 0113 2xx xxxx now, NOT 01132 xxxxxx).
Just because a new fangled device formats a particular way doesn't mean its right!
New fangled devices, BT, OFCOM, 1995's PhONEday campaign, 2000's Big Number Change campaign and Wikipedia's article as linked above are right. You're not.
Pick up any London phone, try dialling your version of a 7-digit local number: it won't work. It'll only work if you dial it correctly as an 8-digit number, or if you superfluously dial the 020 code before the 8-digit local number.
If you really think that 0207 is inner London and 0208 is outer London, could you point out on any map where 0203 is?
The 0207/0208 format has evolved for a historical reason
It has: the historical reason is because some people do not understand how the 020 format actually works. It is perpetuated because those people, even though wrong, insist that they are right without either proof or use of logic.
London's area code is (020) domestically, or "+4420" internationally. The next eight digits are the subscriber number, and the first digit of this has no geographical significance, and there are three ranges in use at present: 7xxx xxxx, 8xxx xxxx and 3xxx xxxx.
The distinction only matters if you're phoning from another fixed line number within London; from a mobile, you always have to dial the destination area code, so it's fine.
The confusion is a legacy of the decade-long manoeuvring of London's phone-numbers in the UK's wholesale reinvention of its numbering plan between 1990 and 2000. From 1990, there were indeed two area codes (071) and (081) which changed to (0171) and (0181) in 1995 before finally being merged back into (020) in 2000.
On "Swap Shop", the (01) 811-8055 number was specially set up for the BBC by the Post Office a year into Swap Shop's run to reduce the number of mis-dials. They picked "811" as it was the most numerically-distant exchange code from existing London exchanges (when entered on a phone-dial). The original "call the BBC" number was (01) 288-8055 [yes, I did have to look that up]. After the 1990 London split, the number became (081) 811 8181, but that was long after my days of getting up early on a Saturday.
I couldn't trust someone to accurately work on a Wikipedia page when they format their phone number so badly.
I'm all for pedantry and accuracy but there are good historical and common-practice reasons for formatting a London number in that way. Not to mention that there are a lot better reasons to distrust a wiki-astroturfing outfit than telephone number formatting.
Marking the zero as ignorable in international dialling (ie, putting it in brackets) is fine, I do it myself if I have to give a number and I'm expecting it to be dialled from outside the UK.
What I don't understand is why you'd write it like that on the side of a vehicle that will probably never leave the M25?
Most of it is now done by turd polishing bots. Conversions of foreign language pages by AI with less intelligence than a log of wood. Scaping of gazette databases "Xstan is a village in Iran with 5 familes. The head man is very nice." Scraping from sports almanacs "Joesph Blight played football with Tesco under 21's in the 3rd division of the Truro league for two games in 1972"
THANK YOU.
On one hand, it's good to see that you're not getting ripped off, paying for some stupid bastard's flash M3 or whatever.
On the other hand, if you're selling "reputation", there's a distinct possibility that driving a useless, underpowered tin can isn't helping your cause. I mean, if you don't know what a twit you look in that, how much can you know about improving your customers' reputations?
Here's my experience:
I've been trying for several years to have a biography published on Wikipedia of someone who had a very long and influential career in video gaming, worked for almost every big name you can think of, has a very important patent and is the engineering leader of many of the most popular games you ever heard of in the past. You know, the person who makes the games actually work.
And that's the short list of his achievements. He is also very well known and respected inside the industry.
Yet it was rejected every time I tried to submit it with vague reasons given no matter how many times I rewrote it and scrupulously followed their guidelines.
He finally had to resort to paying someone to get it published.
I have no love for Wikipedia.
... That's my term for the assassination of facts for the sake of some fool's benefit. Marketing Morons (as opposed to Marketing Mavens) have contempt for those consuming the products they sell. In this case the Marketing Morons are selling propaganda, that ancient form of destroying people's ability to think sanely by way of aggressively shoving lies up their spinal column.
Marketing Morons are part of the core of self-destructive biznizziz, aka parasitic pseudo-capitalism.
I've contributed information, money and editing at Wikipedia for years. Crap like the disinformation described in the article is expected. People's reputations aren't only inflated into circus balloons, they're also destroyed at Wikipedia. I've don't plenty of recovery, helping out people attacked by dickheads and trolls who are out to hurt them in the net. It's a factor of open technology. Cleaning out this form of human defecation is a pleasure.
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