User:RRM - Dalhousie

Who am I?

My birth certificate says that my name is Ryan McNutt. My payroll slip says that I work with Communications and Marketing at Dalhousie University. My friends might call me a media junkie. All these facets come together in my current job, which is to expand the university's engagement in emerging Internet social media. Exciting stuff.

Why am I here?

Ahh...the big question. No, I am not here to turn Dalhousie's Wikipedia page into "dal.ca II: The Sequel." We have our own web presence that we can build and edit as we see fit, so filling our Wikipedia page with the exact same content would be more than a bit redundant. It would also miss the point entirely. What's so exciting about Wikipedia is that it allows everyone an equal voice in defining important information, so to march into the medium with a self-righteous attitude would only bring both myself and my university a healthy dose of well-deserved scorn and ridicule.

So why am I here? My first motivation is reactive - I want to make sure that false, defamatory or misleading information about Dalhousie isn't being posted as authoritative fact. The second is proactive - Wikipedia is an valuable resource for Internet users in this changing media landscape, and I want to help make sure that Dalhousie's Wikipedia page can be counted upon for up-to-date, accurate information about our university.

Some might argue that a university employee shouldn't be editing their own university's Wikipedia page. I could certainly see their point if we were being secretive about our editing (as so many corporations have done - well, at least until WikiScanner catches them, at least). But my approach to this is quite different. You're going to see me answering questions in the discussion page, starting discussions of my own and carefully explaining every edit I do make with comments. And no, we're not going to be taking out "negative" content if it's factual and properly sourced. Wikipedia is a giant conversation and I'm just looking to help Dalhousie have a voice there. That's really all there is to it (apologies to the conspiracy buffs hoping for something more insidious).

What am I going to be doing?

Glad you asked. A lot of what I'm looking to edit on Dalhousie's Wikipedia page is fairly non-controversial: giving updated enrollment numbers, adding important alumni or professors to the existing list, correcting when someone puts their own name as the university president (hey, it happens). That sort of stuff.

But I'd also like to start the discussion about making some larger changes to our Wikipedia site. I've spent a good deal of time reading through the Universities' WikiProject that aims to standardize and improve the way that Wikipedia covers institutions of higher learning. Dalhousie's page has a lot of room for improvement, and I'm looking to start discussions about building the Dalhousie Wikipedia page to present a fuller picture of what our institution stands for.

Any questions?

This is a two-way conversation, so if you have issues with any of the edits that I make on Dalhousie's Wikipedia page, please let me know. The best way to do so would be to respond on the discussion page so that we can involve the entire community in the conversation. You can also e-mail me privately at ryan.mcnutt@dal.ca if you prefer.

See you in cyberspace!

RRM

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Ryan McNutt

Communications and Marketing

Dalhousie University