The five attributes of a reliable source

Independent

The author and publisher have no affiliation with the subject being covered.

Secondary

It analyzes or describes the subject rather than restating primary information.

Published

It has gone through an editorial or publication process.

Professionally edited

It carries the editorial standards of an established outlet.

Reputation for fact-checking

The outlet is known to verify claims before publishing them.

What qualifies vs. what does not

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Two practical points. First, syndication does not multiply sources: a single wire story reprinted across many newspapers still counts as one source, not several. Second, companies are judged against a stricter bar (WP:NCORP) that puts more weight on the quality and independence of the sourcing and discounts routine business announcements. The same standards govern both whether a subject is notable enough for an article and whether a specific claim inside an article can stand.

The post What are Wikipedia’s reliable source standards? appeared first on Five Blocks.

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Why staying current matters

• An article that still lists an executive at their previous employer tells readers no one is maintaining the page, a credibility problem on a page that ranks high in search and feeds AI engines.
• Wikipedia articles are among the most-cited sources for executive profiles in both Google Knowledge Panels and AI-generated answers, so stale information spreads.

How the update works

1. Identify reliable sources covering the transition. Wikipedia requires independent, editorially rigorous coverage, typically a wire service or major financial outlet (Bloomberg, Reuters, Wall Street Journal) reporting the departure or new appointment.
2. Submit a Talk-page edit request. Because the interested party has a conflict of interest, direct editing is not the accepted path. Instead, post a Talk-page request that cites the sources and proposes exact replacement wording.
3. Independent editors review and implement. Community editors assess the sourcing and apply the update if the proposal meets Wikipedia’s standards. Straightforward, well-sourced requests are usually resolved quickly.

Proactive vs. reactive

For high-profile executives, have the Talk-page edit request ready to submit on the day of the public announcement, so the article is updated in the same news cycle rather than weeks later when the stale version has already circulated.

The post What happens to your Wikipedia page when you leave a company? appeared first on Five Blocks.

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Why the distinction matters

A well-managed article needs a handful of edits a year. A neglected one produces a crisis every few months. What separates them is not how the individual edits are made, but whether the managing work is in place to catch problems early and keep the article aligned with reality over time.

The post What is the difference between editing Wikipedia and managing Wikipedia? appeared first on Five Blocks.

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How the fix gets made

You do not edit the lead directly. The remedy runs through the article’s Talk page as an edit request that uninvolved community editors evaluate on its merits:

1. Identify the loaded language. Point to the specific word or phrase in the lead that characterizes rather than describes the subject.
2. Cite NPOV. Name the policy the wording violates, so the request rests on Wikipedia’s own standard rather than on preference.
3. Propose a neutral alternative. Offer specific replacement wording for the sentence, supported by reliable sources.
4. Let the community evaluate. Uninvolved editors review the request and implement it if it holds up.

What makes a proposed wording succeed

The replacement sentence should meet three criteria:

• Specific, it says exactly what the sentence should read instead.
• Demonstrably accurate, reliable sources support it.
• Properly neutral, it describes the subject rather than characterizing it.

Done well, this kind of request usually gets implemented, because the community broadly supports NPOV. It does not require an argument with anyone. It requires wording the policy plainly favors.

The post Our Wikipedia article describes us as ‘controversial’ in the opening line. Who can fix that? appeared first on Five Blocks.

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What clears the bar, and what does not

Notability depends on the kind of coverage, not the volume of company-generated material. Wikipedia judges this qualitatively, not against a fixed numeric threshold.

What a young company usually needs

For a recently founded company, meeting this bar usually takes a combination of:

• Sustained press attention – coverage that runs over time and across multiple outlets, not a single piece in one top outlet.
• In-depth third-party profiles – pieces that are about the company directly, not stories that merely quote it.
• Other independent notability factors – for example, credible third-party recognition that itself draws independent secondary coverage.

What happens without it

A company article that lacks sufficient independent coverage is likely to be nominated at Articles for Deletion (AfD), where any editor can open a discussion (it runs about a week) and an uninvolved administrator closes it by reading consensus. If the article is deleted, recreating it through the same channels without materially new reliable secondary sources tends to lead to another deletion. Build the coverage first, then create the article once notability is genuinely established.

The post How do you build a Wikipedia page for a recently founded company? appeared first on Five Blocks.

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The three Google effects of a Wikipedia article

1. Organic ranking for branded queries. For searches on the subject itself, the Wikipedia article typically ranks near the top of the organic results, which makes it one of the first results a searcher clicks.
2. The Knowledge Panel. Wikipedia and Wikidata are among the primary sources Google uses to populate the Knowledge Panel that appears in the right sidebar on desktop and near the top of mobile results. The description, founding date, and other facts flow from the article and from Wikidata into the panel.
3. AI Overviews and Gemini. Google’s AI synthesis weights Wikipedia and the Knowledge Graph as primary sources, so the article heavily influences how AI Overviews and Gemini describe the subject when answering related queries.

So one article shapes the Google experience for a subject in three ways at once. An error, gap, or non-neutral framing does not stay on Wikipedia. It carries into the organic ranking, the Knowledge Panel, and the AI answer together.

The post How does a Wikipedia page affect Google search results? appeared first on Five Blocks.

Who does the editing

The most active contributors are a mix of subject-matter experts, retired professionals, hobbyists with deep topic knowledge, and administrators who hold elevated permissions. They work independently of one another, so no one editor or group controls a given article.

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How edits are reviewed

Review happens continuously through several overlapping channels rather than a single approval step:

• Watchlists, editors monitor changes to specific articles they care about.
• Recent-changes patrol, volunteers scan the live feed of edits across the encyclopedia for inappropriate changes.
• Topical attention, editors with subject expertise watch the articles in their area.

When an edit fails policy, it gets reverted, typically within minutes on high-traffic articles and within days on lower-traffic ones, and the reverting editor often cites the relevant policy in the edit summary. Where there is genuine disagreement, the discussion moves to the article’s Talk page, where editors work toward consensus.

What this means for conflict-of-interest work

For anyone with a conflict of interest, this structure sets the rules of engagement. Direct edits by interested parties are routinely reverted. A well-formulated Talk-page edit request, backed by reliable sources, is a different matter: uninvolved editors judge it on its merits and decide whether to implement it. Working with the process gets results; trying to route around it does not.

The post Who edits Wikipedia and how are edits reviewed? appeared first on Five Blocks.

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Why the safeguards run higher for companies

The reason is straightforward: corporate articles attract the most conflict-of-interest (COI) editing and the most attempts at promotional framing, so the safeguards run higher to compensate. Reputation work that respects those safeguards has a path; work that tries to bypass them does not.

The post How does Wikipedia handle corporate pages differently from personal pages? appeared first on Five Blocks.

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1. Reader discoverability

Categories make an article findable by readers browsing a topic rather than searching by name. A company categorized in the correct industry and geography appears in the relevant category listings.

2. Related-article navigation

Wikipedia’s sidebar navigation, “See also” sections, and algorithmic related-page suggestions are partly driven by shared category membership. Correct categorization places an article alongside genuinely similar entities.

3. Entity signals into Wikidata, the Knowledge Graph, and AI engines

Wikipedia’s structured content, including category membership, flows into Wikidata and from there into the Google Knowledge Graph, which AI engines such as Gemini read when generating factual answers about companies, people, and organizations. Incorrect categorization (a private company tagged as public, a fund placed in the wrong investment category, a founder’s biography assigned the wrong nationality) carries that error into downstream systems and can surface in AI-generated descriptions.

Correcting a category error

Category corrections follow the same disclosed-COI Talk-page workflow as any other article change: propose the correction with the account, cite the supporting evidence (company filings, authoritative third-party sources), and wait for community editors to review and implement. Editors should not make category changes directly if they have a conflict of interest with the subject.

The post How do you handle Wikipedia categories and how do they affect visibility? appeared first on Five Blocks.

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Who the policies cover

• WP:COI, defines who. Conflict of interest is read broadly: it covers the subject, its employees, its PR firm, and anyone with a financial, personal, professional, or other material relationship to the topic.
• WP:PAID, requires disclosure. Anyone compensated to edit on a subject’s behalf must publicly disclose the employer, the client, and any other relevant affiliation.

The compliant workflow

For an editor with a disclosed conflict of interest, the prescribed sequence is:

1. Disclose the relationship publicly through the editor’s Wikipedia account, naming employer, client, and affiliation.
2. Propose, don’t edit. Raise changes as Talk-page edit requests rather than editing the article directly.
3. Source each change to reliable, independent, secondary outlets.
4. Let the community implement. Uninvolved editors review the proposal on its merits and decide whether to implement, modify, or decline it.

Two lanes, two outcomes

Five Blocks operates exclusively in the compliant lane.

The post How do Wikipedia’s conflict of interest policies affect what we can actually edit ourselves? appeared first on Five Blocks.