Like most people, I'm a big fan of Wikipedia but I'm also aware of its limitations. I'll happily check the web site for a quick precis of a subject, meanings of acronyms and the like, but I'll never use it as a source for journalism or work. Today I came across a naughty journalist...

In January I noticed that the Wikipedia article on BedZED, the eco-village where I work, was pretty inaccurate. Since I do tours around the site and regularly talk to the press & politicians about our monitoring work here, I got stuck into the article, correcting mistakes and inserting citations to published reports. Then I noticed that the French article was even worse - not only were the figures wrong, but I had no idea where they came from! So I got some multilingual colleages to go through a few different languages bringing them all into sync.

Today whilst going through press cuttings I found an article in a Swiss magazine called Habitation. As I read through (my French is adequate) I got increasingly confused - where is this "centre medicosocial"? I thought, and "why does it mention a total energy reduction of 70%? Then I remembered that old French Wikipedia article. Sure enough, the journalist had copied this revision of the article despite it being full of contradictions, without bothering to follow up by talking to us, the architects, the housing association or anyone else who could verify them.

I feel a bit odd editing pages that discuss projects I work on, but then without our edits they're like the result of a Chinese whispers game!

In other news, the allotment is coming along in fits and starts - I've built a cloche, which needs some improvements and most things are growing well. I just need to do some weeding and get rid of the slugs. More pictures on Flickr as usual :).