A fact from Wikimedia UK appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 30 September 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that Wikimedia UK was initially denied charitable status by the British government on the basis that providing free access to information on its own was not a charitable purpose?
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Latest comment: 2 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
The summary section of this article was very out of date. I have updated it, with links to the Chapter's current strategy and latest Strategic Report. I have also updated the Chairperson, which is no longer Nick Poole but Monisha Shah. Please note that I am the Chief Executive of Wikimedia UK and so this edit represents a potential conflict of interest, however I have tried to keep my changes purely factual. I have not made any changes to the body of the article itself, just the summary section. LucyCrompton-Reid (WMUK) (talk) 16:04, 18 November 2021 (UTC)Reply
@Johnbod: It may not have been apparent from my edit summary, but hopefully the above is clearer and this even more so. My issue is not so much the COI (although WP:COI "strongly discourages" making direct edits) but that the content added is either unsourced (the appointees) or highly promotional (the mission statement). If you are a member of WMUK (as indicated on your userpage) then you also have a conflict of interest. While this may seem pedantic, I hope you agree that WMUK should uphold the highest possible standards around COI given that the organisation has previously advised PR firms how to handle COI. It is extremely hypocritical if the CEO of the organisation then adds a mission statement to the article and makes unsourced "updates". SmartSE (talk) 18:50, 18 November 2021 (UTC)Reply
Yup, the removal of any mention of controversies from the lede was grossly inappropriate. Like it or not, they have played a significant part in WMUKs history, and have been the subject of significant coverage in external reliable sources. This looks like exactly the sort of whitewashing that wouldn't be tolerated in coverage of any non-Wikipedia-related subject matter. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:57, 18 November 2021 (UTC)Reply
Hello, it's Lucy here. I'm really sorry to have caused these issues. Several trustees in the past week have mentioned the factual inaccuracies on the Wikimedia UK page and in the interests of expediency (and, I think, for the first time in six years) I edited the page myself. I removed the controversies from the summary as they were over 8 years ago and didn't feel like the most relevant content for that section - however I can see that I overstepped the mark there and understand why they have been reverted. I'm very sorry that I didn't uphold community standards and have caused these concerns. LucyCrompton-Reid (WMUK) (talk) 10:58, 19 November 2021 (UTC)Reply