Well, this is unfortunate... CMS watch is reporting a rumor about an Oracle Wiki incident. An Oracle partner named Sten Vesterli posted some less than positive feedback about WebCenter on the Oracle Wiki... was promptly flamed by an Oracle product manager, then had his postings removed:

I placed some of the description and the pro/con discussion from my upcoming paper comparing Oracle development tools on the Oracle Wiki. And just like when I posted something not unambiguously positive about Oracle WebCenter on the Wiki, I was immediately flamed by an Oracle product manager, and any trace of negativity edited out of one of my pages.

Oops... looks like a Web 2.0 malfunction.

Firstly, CMS Watch sees this as something of a cultural problem. Microsoft's wiki is locked down tight: all submissions need prior approval. How quaint, they downgraded Web 2.0! In contrast, Oracle is much more open... which means Oracle probably has a policy for dealing with criticism. They need to react to posts from the occasional partner who flames them with product criticism that might help Oracle competitors. However, since the BEA acquisition, Oracle now owns 4 portals products! I'd argue the only real competition to WebCenter is inside Oracle, which may explain why passions are so high... Still, it would be good if Oracle changed their wiki terms of use to mention that they have reasonable editorial control if posts give away competitive information.

Second, Sten Vesterli is an Oracle ACE Director, like me. That means we have multiple channels for criticism if we don't like the feature set of the product. We're expected to extend Oracle some level of professional courtesy when we give criticism. I occasionally point out the flaws in Oracle products, but I almost always offer a workaround, and I don't put them on places as high profile as the Oracle Wiki... Naturally, some folks at Oracle would feel Sten was being a tad rude...

But ultimately, a wiki is the wrong place for criticism. Criticism almost always contains judgment, which by definition violates the neutral point of view policy that is on all wikis -- even Wikipedia. As Justin Kestelyn says:

A wiki is not the place for opinion, because opinion does not invite editing, only response.

The wiki was probably the wrong forum for Sten. Want to rant about WebCenter? Then your text belongs on a blog. Oracle's policy should simply be that: criticism belongs on your blog, not on our wiki, or any wiki. Then they should monitor pages that are "hot topics," and delete anything that looks like a rant. Clean and simple.

Hopefully Oracle doesn't try to lock down access to the wiki because of this drama...

UPDATE: Justin got in touch with Sten to figure out what really happened, it didn't seem to involve WebCenter, and CMS Watch blew it all out of proportion... The wiki is thankfully back to business as usual.