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Meanwhile...

In the meantime, WP:PAIDHELP has been working just fine. As has CREWE. A bit slow as of late on the former, but I attribute that more to the time of year, possibly, than anything else. It would be nice to get some other hands to help out around there though. There's not that much traffic flow through it, but it's still a bit much every once in a while for just me and the occasional other person or two to deal with. But, anyways, at least on this part of it, paid editing seems to be working just fine.

Personally, I think there should be more focus on the other end of things. If we get better response times on talk page requests by paid editors, companies, article subjects, and such, then it would lessen the mystique of them using the bad players out there to have editing done (though in the case of Wiki-PR, it seems more that the customers has no idea that Wiki-PR wasn't playing by the rules. They were being lied to. You should read the Wiki-PR guy's statements at the CREWE page, they're amazing obtuse. And the guy was rightfully trounced by a number of members because of it.) My two cents. SilverserenC 03:09, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Logo of WP:PAIDHELP
Funny me, but I like this one better.

"Working just fine" is, of couse, in the eye of the beholder. If "working just fine" is defined as "helping corporations to learn to spin subtly, learn the right hot buttons to push, and whatever else is required, as a tactical matter, to get toxic spin into the Wikipedia" then maybe you are working just fine.

I wish you all would pipe down about CREWE: I can't read CREWE's page because it's on Facebook, the Facebook TOS requires one to register under one's true name, and I don't trust Facebook's security, and I assume the same constraint applies to other prudent editors. (Names of page visitors have been harvested in the past by third-party apps; Facebook says they've closed off that possibility now, but I don't trust Facebook's competence, diligence, or intent on these matters.) The last thing I need is some guy from Bell Pottinger or whomever on my personal case, thank you very much.

The dichotomy between "those cruel, ruthless and clumsy PR flacks" and "our kind, loving, PR flacks who live only to serve humanity" is a false dichotomy. Give PR reps their due: they're here to serve their clients period, and if they're not they're defrauding their paymasters. The only difference is tactics, you know. Or I guess you don't, and I suppose that naiveté holds a certain artless charm, if one finds that sort of thing appealing. I don't. Herostratus (talk) 19:29, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I can read CREWE's page on Facebook, including this link. Full marks for the chutzpah of the timing. 94.197.165.191 (talk) 19:45, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
I love the "Nodollarhandshake.jpg" image on the right. I just copied it and put it on my user page. Everybody should have one! Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:10, 27 October 2013 (UTC)


So you combined a number of personal attacks with insults with statements clearly showing that you are incredibly biased and should have nothing to do with WP:WPEW, does that about cover it? You've more or less shown that you have no place editing Wikipedia (or at least this topic area), because you are completely incapable of being a neutral editor within it. SilverserenC 21:27, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
He spoke the truth. Your efforts at helping with the corruption of Wikipedia are well noted by many.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:43, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Really, Jimbo? That's surprising, coming from you, considering i've contributed to people actually following your Bright Line rule. I've actually organized a process that enables better interaction between Wikipedia and companies in a manner that lessen the capabilities of groups like Wiki-PR. I've actually made an effort to make a difference, to make our coverage of such subjects more neutral and more comprehensive. Rather than let them fall into a derogatory mess. SilverserenC 22:09, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Or is it more that i'm the one that has pioneered the process? I'm the one that accomplished it, not you? That i've made you less involved and less important to Wikipedia overall because of it because you aren't necessary anymore as an intermediary between us and companies? SilverserenC 22:12, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Right, sure. Knock yourself out.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:04, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Jimbo, to be fair, the "useful idiot" doesn't always know they are a "useful idiot". That is, after all, generally why they are a "useful idiot". And before anyone gets all NPA on me - useful idiot - it's a well known term, not an attack... I'm actually defending Seren here, to the extent I don't think he actually understood what his "initiatives" entailed, and the use that would be made of them. I really think he thought he was trying to help everyone. Naivety happens. Begoon talk 18:16, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Well I'm not really for or against anyone/thing in this topic, but I have to interject here; as one who had the term thrown in one's face many times during the early Bush Jr. and GWOT years, it is indeed a pejorative and derogatory term as it is a form of poisoning the well. The implication is that if someone's beliefs happen to be similar to those of a much-derided enemy, then the accuser just has to paint the association between the two, and that if your opinion carried the day, then the bad guys would win. Tarc (talk) 18:29, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Not really. It implies use of a person who believed they were doing "the right thing" to in fact do something else, that they may not have done had they realised the implications. At least that's how I used it. Sure it implies naivety, but I said that. I may be misjudging some motives somewhere, all things are possible, but I'm not attacking anyone. Begoon talk 18:37, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Let us take a look at an example of how Silverseren's work has "actually organized a process that enables better interaction between Wikipedia and companies in a manner that lessen the capabilities of groups like Wiki-PR". I'm going to paste something I wrote on the BP talk page a few months ago:
Silverseren wrote on Arturo's talk page: I would suggest you just focus on answering my questions and ignore them. I'll also make sure to get some outside editors to review the sections before implementation so there isn't a problem. SilverserenC 07:25, 17 March 2013 (UTC). So you see, this is what we have come to. When I think how many hours I have put into this article it is heartbreaking to think that editors that have not put anything at all into it can come and push through anything they want. In just a few years we shall have the very best Wikipedia that money can buy. Gandydancer (talk) 13:42, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
And true to his word, that's exactly what Silverseren did with the BP PR's suggested rewrite of the Prudhome Bay section. After a review by only one editor, he placed it, without change, into the BP article. After that experience I remain more concerned about editors that appear to be corporate friendly in general, than about paid advocates in general. Gandydancer (talk) 16:24, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
As much as CREWE has helped to accomplish--a broader/fairer public discussion of Wikipedia's processes, an exploration of where companies and Wikipedians can interact to the mutually beneficial end of accurate/updated articles--the inch-high curb we keep running into is that people here conflate "public relations" with "paid editing." This is inaccurate. I suspect that people who thought Wiki-PR did "public relations" just based on their name also expect a jacuzzi and foot-rub when they check into the "Quality Inn."
All that I know is that there are a ton of PR folks who want to do right by their clients *and* Wikipedia. This can be done. I've seen it happen. More and more people recognize this.
Unfortunately, it's glibness like this that makes things awfully difficult. To the degree that Wikipedia writ-large relies on public shaming as its primary posture toward PR, it ought to take the approach of many Wikipedian CREWE members: use that energy in a positive way to help companies learn the right way to do things while addressing the very real accuracy/responsiveness issues that plague the encyclopedia. --Philgomes (talk) 14:42, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
I think it could be useful to explore alternate models of "paid" Wikipedia editing, so that we're not just trying to veto one idea all the time. For example:
  • Arrange with universities to formally acknowledge that a certain portion of the time updating Wikipedia is a valid work activity for salaried employees, not just a way of goofing off. Not just professors, either - grad students and even the people from Buildings & Grounds could do some really outstanding article work that is closely related to their normal activities.
  • Convince states that have a work requirement for welfare that editing Wikipedia should count toward that.
  • Work toward setting up a system of grants and peer review for offering funding to independent Wikipedia contributors that would work much like the usual NIH grant system, only with smaller dollar figures.
I think that if we're constantly having an argument of company money vs. no money, we'll remain at a disadvantage. If it's company money vs. respectable money, a stronger balance might be held. Wnt (talk) 23:28, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

This might seem like a silly question, but why do the helpers at "paidhelp" help paid editors? I can never figure it out. The advertising companies, obviously get advertising out of it; the paid editors get paid; and the helper gets diddly-squat. Perhaps it's that nice warm feeling that you get from helping a charity. Except that the companies involved are not charities in any sense of the word. They are for-profit companies who can afford to pay for advertising in another space; they can call press-conferences and issue press-releases and get stories put into the mainstream press. What gives the paidhelpers that nice warm fuzzy feeling in doing this? Wouldn't it be better and more charitable to help, say, women, ethic minorities or other under-represented groups of Wikipedia editors. Or maybe just go and help your church or feed the homeless off-wiki? Any information on this would be appreciated. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:49, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

It's not a silly question. I think the answer is they think they are helping to provide a legitimate way for COI editors to edit. The problem is, they also think that because they offer that help in good faith it will always be treated that way, and that the COI editor wants to "do the right thing". Sometimes that is the case, I have no doubt, but also sometimes the COI editor thinks "great, a willing unpaid ally who will argue my case", and takes advantage of that goodwill. I've been told off once for my evaluation above of what that results in, so I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions on how often that results in good stuff for the pedia, good stuff for the intermediary, or good stuff for the PR guy (or perm any 1, 2 or 3 from 3). It's not hard maths, though, really. Do I have a solution? No. But I do know that any form of saying "you can edit in a COI way as long as one of our self-appointed monitors says that's ok and you've convinced them you're a nice guy" is never going to really fly, in any sort of "build a neutral encyclopedia" kind of way. That's just kidding ourselves. Begoon talk 22:06, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
I agree that the PR industry's cynicism in its dealings with Wikipedia has been noteworthy, as is the wide-eyed naivete that they have encountered in their dealings with Wikipedia editors. Yes, we do indeed have people who are functioning, without pay, as "facilitators" for highly paid and ruthless public relations operatives. The depth of this problem, the sheer vacuousness at work here, is such that it's hard to conceive of a solution that the community can enact to deal with the situation. That's because the community, collectively, has its head firmly lodged in its rear on this subject, and said head does not show any sign of emerging any time soon. I would add that I have no doubt whatsoever that in their internal discussions, in contrast to the slick courtesy and oozing civility that one sees exhibited on- and off-wiki, PR people refer to WIkipedia editors in the most dismissive, vulgar kind of way, as easily manipulated individuals who are suckers and idiots. Can't say I blame them for feeling that way. They are doing their job and we, collectively, are not. Coretheapple (talk) 22:35, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
That's because the community, collectively, has its head firmly lodged in its rear on this subject, and said head does not show any sign of emerging any time soon.. ^ This. Begoon talk 23:10, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)My guess is that it's complicated and there are various factors in play, but I always assumed that libertarian ideology plays some part. Libertarians strongly tend to valorize private entities and the profit motive in general. I'm not really an expert on this so I won't expound further, but you can see how this could lead down some tortuous paths.
I think you touch on a key point Begoon. Wikipedians are mostly not professionals in this area, in fact a lot of us are high school and college kids or not much older. It's pretty easy to bowl some of us over with some kind words and implicit flattery and an air of patient reasonableness, and it's really no contest if doing just that is an important part of your practiced professional toolkit. So I think that "convince them you're a nice guy" is probably about 80% of the way to getting your work posted in Wikipedia. Humans are pretty strongly socialized to be helpful to nice guys, so I don't know what the answer to that is. Herostratus (talk) 23:24, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Neither do I, H, if I had an answer I'd have given it. I'm glad you understood the point I was making, though - it's hard to express exactly, but your elaboration helps a lot. Begoon talk 23:29, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
In addition to the foregoing demographic and ideological factors noted above, please keep in mind that Wikipedia policies and principles, and anonymity, make Wikipedia an exceptionally soft target for exploitation by the PR industry. Hence there will be no resolution without intervention at the highest levels, as Wikipedia editors do not understand this issue and never will. Coretheapple (talk) 23:36, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Actually there is a way to strike back at the PR industry, hard. We can make use of the economic terrorism that is rooted in an understanding of the hypocrisy and deceit of our economic system, namely, that capitalism cannot abide a free market. Nobody wants to invest in an Econ 101 company that promises a return equal to the interest rate, if nothing goes wrong, when they can invest in some company like Boeing that has one competitor halfway around the world and any time one of their customers switches loyalties it's world news. Which means that as long as we make it possible for User:Tom, User:Dick, and User:Harry to get together and offer a company a Wikipedia PR service that is as effective as one of the established PR leaders, we can destroy their industry and see to it that nobody is investing in it. (Sort of like Linux PCs, no?) So leaving a "proper" path to PR can be the basis for a quite effective strategy for destroying it (as would work in the War On Drugs, for example). However, the counter to this is that one assumes the Few Entrenched Competitors that would emerge would work out such a network of contacts, revolving door hires, and campaign help with the admin corps that they would get enough of an advantage that companies wouldn't go to Tom Dick & Harry Inc. after all. Which means that the power of the admin corps also needs to be diluted and rationalized, and watched over very closely indeed on these issues. Wnt (talk) 21:00, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia image summaries are used to advertise things

I just reported and had removed an advertisement hidden in the image summary of the picture on the Wikipedia main page. I searched and found that many other such images do exist on Wikipedia. Everything from a picture of just a naked girl not used in any article with the edit summary of the uploader telling you where to buy a book that apparently has naked girls in it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Girl_reading.jpg to pictures of famous people with a message on the image page asking people to pay a hundred dollars for pictures of her https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nicole_Richie_%287270950706%29.jpg to something used in article which has a commercial for it in English and in Chinese even telling you the guy's cell phone number if you want to buy a copy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Captured_Republican_prisoners,_Hankou.png My first page of results when searching for the words buy this photo in a Wikipedia media search shows most results are commercials. [1] Rather surprising. I guess an administrator will have to go through and search for websites that sell images and anything with the word "buy" in it at times, doing patrols to stop this from happening. I erased some ads on Wikimedia earlier, it a problem there too. Dream Focus 04:06, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

  • Good luck getting commons to be interested in doing anything about this but I do agree that we should either remove or fix any images here. I'm too technically inept to find the images myself but if you want to show me how or give me a list feel free to ping my talk page. Ta. Spartaz Humbug! 12:16, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Just a pedantic note: issue was with an information template entry on Commons and not with the caption on the English Wikipedia (or blurb on the MP). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:46, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Both of the examples given by Dream Focus appear to be the result of Commons users uncritically slurping images off Flickr without bothering to ensure appropriate image metadata afterwards. This is a known issue with Commons, unfortunately. — Scott • talk 14:27, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
The pic of Nicole Richie says, "Any fans who wanted a photo with Australia loving Nicole had to part with about $100 to buy product, before a photo and meet and greet could happen," the photographer is not asking for $100, he apparently had to buy $100-worth of merch to take the pic . . . the girl reading a book is clever advertising but I doubt it has sold any books. Not sure what Scott Martin is saying about Metadata: many professional photographers on Flickr hide their metadata.Raquel Baranow (talk) 15:11, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
The metadata of an image include its title and description. It sounds like you're talking about EXIF data. — Scott • talk 15:57, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
I'd just like to point out that if you see something like this, fix it, don't just go to a different wiki to complain to someone who doesn't edit on the project you have issue with! Yes, occasionally there are images with bad descriptions, just as there are shoddy articles on wikipedias. Too much scope, too few eyes, it's the same problem we all have. -mattbuck (Talk) 16:20, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
"Too much scope..." - Can I quote you on that??? Carrite (talk) 17:30, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Why not quote it as "Too much Scope...""? That ought to be worth five bucks to somebody, and it adds up. Herostratus (talk) 17:59, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Would you not quote it if I said no? -mattbuck (Talk) 18:04, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm afraid I already did a couple paragraphs up. I did enjoy the irony... Carrite (talk) 15:14, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
The issues here seem to be with the original image title, and url of where the image was uploaded from. If you remove or alter any of these they you are failing to comply with the terms of the license. Which clearly states that you must provide the URI from whence you got the image, and that you must give attribution as specified by the works author. License section 4c. Anyone removing such information creates a copyright violation and possibly falls foul of the CRI section of the DMCA which carries a $2500 - 25000 per work penalty. John lilburne (talk) 21:16, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
This is a misunderstanding that is clarified on the new drafts Section 3 – License Conditions: a Attribution: 2: "You may satisfy the conditions in (1) above in any reasonable manner based on the medium, means, and context in which the Licensed Material is Shared. For example, it may be reasonable to satisfy the conditions by providing a URI or hyperlink to a resource that includes the required information." So, we can ignore all the other attribution requirements as far as we provide a URI; no need to maintain those file descriptions. JKadavoor Jee 02:43, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
You aren't using v4 licenses (which are still draft) you are using v3 licenses. In any case even if you were using v4.0 licenses removal of the data is problematic as you are already using a URI on the article pages to link to the the CMI on the image page (that is what the v4 license clarifies). What you are proposing is that attribution is fulfilled by a chain of URIs, any of which can break, which may eventually lead to the CMI data. That is not what the v4 license says it says that YOU must hold the attribution but that attribution need not be on the page itself but via a link. Think of it as a book where the photocredits are at the end of the book. John lilburne (talk) 12:22, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
I can't believe lilburne has a valid point, but ... it does actually say the title should be preserved. There is enough mumble in the other parts of the license ("to the extent reasonably practicable") that I wouldn't be much concerned, but we shouldn't make a practice of intentionally breaking attribution, no matter how justifiable the motivation. To be sure, we can and do move files all the time, and it would be a lot late to claim that that is improper, but there might be a difference between doing so with a reasonable intent of making the name more applicable while preserving a traceable history (even if some admin help is needed) and doing so as a deliberate snub to the author. We might also keep in mind that at some point, someone setting up a mirror of Wikipedia may not have access to old revisions, and we should try to reduce the amount of material they are forced to purge. Wnt (talk) 14:58, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
The simple solution is that if you don't like the attribution then don't use the image as Mattbuck did with image below. Delete and gone problem solved. What you can't do is say we'll keep this image but we don't like the name of the photog or the original title so we'll not do the attribute thing 'K. John lilburne (talk) 15:23, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Currently, the attribution requirements are a bit ambitious; that's why this discussion/proposal. :) JKadavoor Jee 16:01, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, saying we'll have a better license for some other files really doesn't prove much (though arguing that was CC's intent might conceivably help in some hypothetical case, I suppose). And deleting is no answer - for one thing, every time we delete we leave the people who copied the image and attributed to Wikipedia at least as high and dry as we would be doing the renaming. No, the thing is, we should put the delete button away and just move files, making sure it's as easy for people to look at the naming history as it is with any other sort of edit. We know full well that we can delegate attribution to the history - otherwise no page on here would be legal! - but for example, I think it is asking too much for people to manually type the filename into a Logs page in order to get the move history. I'm not going to say that's illegal (if it ever comes to it, I'd certainly shout otherwise) because the attribution can be obtained, but I don't think it's fair or in the spirit of how we should be doing things. We simply should accept that a certain amount of promotional naming is acceptable in the revision history, just as we often accept a certain amount of out and out copyright infringement in the histories of many of our articles. Wnt (talk) 18:10, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Downstream re-users shouldn't be attributing WP for images they use. WP is not the copyright holder, it is not the photog, it is just one of the place where the image happens to have been copied to. John lilburne (talk) 20:47, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Technically correct, but this is a lot of people to leave high and dry. Wnt (talk) 21:28, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
As they aren't properly attributing all of them risk a copyright claim by the photog regardless of what WP does. John lilburne (talk) 00:44, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

For another example of image title and description being used for promotional purposes, see: File:Innovated and Invented Circular Chess Variant for 9 players invented by an Amazing special kid Hridayeshwar Singh Bhati from India that made him youngest patent holder of India and youngest disabled patent holder of the world..jpg. While on wikipedia we try to limit such self-promotion, AFAIK on commons there is no policy preventing it. Abecedare (talk) 21:30, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Ha, ha, i love that, it's more about his son than selling a chessboard.Raquel Baranow (talk) 22:06, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Deleted the lot on grounds of personal information. -mattbuck (Talk) 22:52, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Is the PR industry inevitably our enemy?

Conflicts involving professional promoters and advertisers is an everyday reality on WP. For some reason the PR industry simply refuses to understand that WP does not accept promotional content - they seem to believe that there is no real difference between Facebook and Wikipedia. Consequently there is a growing feeling among Wikipedians that "exterminate on sight" is the only way to deal with PR editors. I think its time we tried to reach out to the PR industry and attempt to teach them what we are really about. Could we ask that some of the clever marketing people at WMF write and submit articles explaining WP's Five Pillars to various prominent PR industry journals. Speak to them calmly and rationally, in their language, in their publications - instead of contantly waging (sometimes quite viscious) war against them here on WP. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:51, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry Roger, but I have to say this is a very leading question. About the only way to answer it starts off with "Of course not, ..." So I'll just answer "Of course not, as long as they just leave Wikipedia alone and realize that they are not wanted or needed to write an encyclopedia." Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:27, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for this. It's constructive. A few reactions here:
  • CREWE and WP:Cooperation have shown that there are people in the PR trade that want to do it right. Focus should be placed on elevating those efforts rather than leaning on the "Public Shame Button" (PSB) by default.
  • "Exterminate on sight" is a just and proper way to deal with bad PR editors who engage in rampant subterfuge. Unfortunately, depending on the Wikipedian involved, the PSB is pressed for sometimes rather mundane reasons.
  • And let's be honest: When the PSB has been used, it's been fairly ineffective at discouraging large-scale transgressions like Wiki(not)PR. What it does do, however, is rile up a mainstream and tech press that is very quick to run the bad-company-behaving-badly story. There are people within Wikipedia who know this; I'm pretty certain Jimbo does. On this topic, Wikipedia has benefited from an incredibly sympathetic press... that is, up until fairly recently.
  • If there is a serious effort to do as you recommend, I will gladly help facilitate the conversation between Wikipedia volunteers and trade/business magazines and journals. --Philgomes (talk) 15:12, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Phil, Sorry, but I'm one of those people who wouldn't touch facebook with a 10-foot pole, so I don't know too much about what you do over there. I imagine that you all write yourselves little notes on how you can get stuff onto Wikipedia and still be able to say that you are acting ethically. Is there anything more to it than that? More questions:
  • Are all the PR folks over there familiar with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines on the law on undisclosed advertising, Endoresment Guidelines and Dot Com disclosures:How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising. Do you know of any situation where a PR person could edit a Wikipedia article without breaking those rules?
  • What do you mean by "people in the PR trade that want to do it right"? What do you mean by "doing it right"?
  • What alternatives do you see for a Wikipedia editor who wants to stop a particular instance of advertising than to hit the "Public shaming button"?
  • What steps would you take to stop the problem of PR and advertising on Wikipedia?
  • The PR industry does a terrible job of public relations in communicating about itself, at least most Americans can't think of a positive thing to say about PR off the top of their heads (see, e.g. [2]) What actions (not just words) can you think of that will prevent the PR industry from getting a black eye in its dealings with Wikipedia? Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:27, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm pretty sure that as an SVP at Edelman that, Phil is, in fact, familiar with the FTC guidelines and other relevant regulations :P. I don't think that a paid communications/PR professional disclosing their affiliations in edit summaries, on their user page, and on talk pages who tries to edit in a neutral manner would be breaking the FTC guidelines, but IANAL. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:48, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
  • The disclosure has to be clear and conspicuous and close to the edit. Edit summaries, talk page and user page disclosures (even all combined) clearly wouldn't cut it. I'd be very surprised if anybody paid by a company could put anything even potentially controversial into an article and still follow Dot Com disclosures:How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising without ripping apart Wikipedia's basic formatting in a totally unacceptable way. Please read Dot Com disclosures and tell me how you think a clear and conspicuous disclosure would work. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:11, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Answering Smallbones:
Phil, Sorry, but I'm one of those people who wouldn't touch facebook
with a 10-foot pole, so I don't know too much about what you do over there.
I imagine that you all write yourselves little notes on how you can get
stuff onto Wikipedia and still be able to say that you are acting ethically.
Is there anything more to it than that?
Actually a lot more.
Are all the PR folks over there familiar with the Federal Trade Commission's
guidelines on the law on undisclosed advertising, Endoresment Guidelines and
Dot Com disclosures:How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising.
Do you know of any situation where a PR person could edit a Wikipedia article without breaking those rules?
I can't speak for "all PR folks," but I am quite aware of these guidelines, thanks. I don't endorse "direct editing" of a Wikipedia article save for the narrowly drawn instances described in this guideline. Most CREWE people would agree, I think. As to the rest, that is, items having to do with positioning/emphasis? The FTC recognizes that quality-of-user-experience is also important, and you'll see that the "dotcom Disclosures" document gives (non-Wikipedia) examples in the back. So given that disclosure in an article itself would crap up the user experience, I imagine that the FTC would look at the edit record. Since the very foundation of Wikipedia creates an audit trail (something that all regulatory groups value greatly) I think that they'd treat it like, say, financial regulators might treat business-event data in an investigation. If a case were to be brought up, I imagine they'd take a "we know bad stuff when we see it" posture.
What do you mean by "people in the PR trade that want
to do it right"? What do you mean by "doing it right"?
What I mean is that I believe CREWE's mission is to educate the PR community that there are ways to do right both by the Wikipedia community and the companies that PR represents.
What alternatives do you see for a Wikipedia editor who
wants to stop a particular instance of advertising than
to hit the "Public shaming button"?
If we're indeed talking about a "particular instance" rather than a widespread attempt at subterfuge (which does warrant the PSB), then I say revert the edit just as they would any other COI and take time to show the person how to work with Wikipedians the right way. You'll find that most will cooperate.
What steps would you take to stop the problem of PR and
advertising on Wikipedia?
Education, not only of the PR trade, but (they hate to hear this) Wikipedians as well. The former need to familiarize themselves with the community's mores and norms, just as they would/should with any other community they might engage with on behalf of a company. The latter need to realize that most PR folk don't look at "whitewashing" as "success," but would be perfectly satisfied with "accurate," "balanced" and "responsive." If, in the end, a more accurate article is produced, everyone wins. As I've said before, the PR industry will do well when it does good.
The PR industry does a terrible job of public relations in
communicating about itself, at least most Americans can't
think of a positive thing to say about PR off the top of their heads
(see, e.g. [3])
No one knows that more than me. I've long been critical of our trade organizations and practitioners for allowing this to happen.
What actions (not just words) can you think of
that will prevent the PR industry from getting a black
eye in its dealings with Wikipedia?
Recognizing based on your tone that 1) no answer besides "Tell clients to never address Wikipedia ever" is likely to satisfy you, and 2) the PR industry will get a "black eye in its dealings with Wikipedia" no matter what it does, there are some things we're already doing.
  • First, there's CREWE which is the first serious convening of PR folks and Wikipedians. (We chose Facebook as a platform because it allows us to reach more of the folks we need to get in front of: PR people who want to do things right.) Thanks to the thoughtful and consistent participation of people like RKlawton, SilverSeren, John Broughton and Andrew Lih, the group is kept quite honest and it doesn't even come close to descending into a meeting of the International Media Svengali Society or whatever fever dream too often gets cooked up. I argue we are doing far more to improve the understanding and state of the relationship than the industry's trade orgs, educational bodies, etc.
  • Given that I travel a lot to speak to universities and consortia, CREWE's message is delivered every chance I get. Universities, in my opinion, are exceedingly important in this regard, since they're graduating the young talent that is most likely to have a visceral understanding of communities like Wikipedia.
  • Then there's a flowchart produced to help guide PR's Wikipedia interactions, the second version of which is available for editing by whoever cares to. I keep pushing the ship date of this back, time being what it is, but I'm now looking at end-of-year.
So, I'm curious: Do you similarly take the piss out of, say, activist groups who have a clear COI and yet appear to get a free pass? Or are they the "good" practitioners of "PR?"
I'll make you a deal: You stop judging "PR" based on the least of its practitioners, and I'll continue to refrain from judging Wikipedians based on the least of its volunteers. --Philgomes (talk) 16:09, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

CREWE is part of the serious effort to explain to the PR industry what Wikipedia is about, and through their efforts leading PR American PR societies have already made Jimbo's bright line rule there own policy. Does this help? Yes. It signals to the rest of the world that respectable PR people do not edit Wikipedia's article, thereby giving them a clear "red flag" that PR firms promising to edit articles on their behalf are operating outside the boundaries of accepted practice. Rklawton (talk) 15:39, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

That is a succinctly put point. It is curious that the OP seems to be calling for AGF with respect to the chicanery spewing PR people attempting to transgress the various policies and 'guidelines' at issue and co-opt Wikipedia for their private commercial aims.
This group Chartered Institute of Public Relations already exists and has been referenced at the WP:No paid advocacy Talk page, as has this report Wikipedia Best Practice Guidance for Public Relations Professionals.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 19:51, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
How do you reach a conclusion that I approve of PR people violating our most fundamental principles? I'm asking whether we can't at least try to reach out to the PR industry and teach them that we are not a legitimate part of their "social media" campaigns and that they need to respect our standards. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:10, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
No offense intended, but there has been a lot of discussion about this, with which I've tried to keep up with to the extent my time allows. In short, it appears that this is not a new issue, as shown by the material linked to above, which I learned about through the ongoing discussions elsewhere. Have you been following the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:No_paid_advocacy?--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 20:18, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
The proposal there appears informally to be favoured by only about a third of editors at most. AFAICT. Collect (talk) 20:25, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
I believe that is about right. The extreme anti-PR segment of the WP community is a minority of about 1/3. Unfortunately, that's a big enough minority to sink any normalization effort '"unless they come around to seeking a compromise. So we've got gridlock ahead, it would seem... Carrite (talk) 01:33, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Or... The PR industry comes around to the realisation that WP will never loosen the NOT, ADVERT, NPOV, RS, NOTABILITY, and other rules they routinely violate. Lowering WP's fundamental standards is impossible, so do you see any actual space for compronise? I can't see any room for movement by WP. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:52, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

To address the question posed at the top: Editors need to approach PR professionals on Wikipedia in a clear-eyed fashion, realizing that the rule of "assume good faith" does not apply (because their first loyalty is to their clients, not Wikipedia) and to take all representations made by the PR industry with a healthy dose of skepticism. I think that the question is posed in a way that turns logic on its head, and is reminiscent of the tactics I've seen employed by the PR industry and its supporters to put skeptics of their Wikipedia role on the defensive. If one has a healthy skepticism of the role of PR on Wikipedia, and especially if you feel that it should have no role, you are "demonizing" them and view them as the "enemy." I think that the way this question is phrased is yet another example of the widespread naivete on this subject, and how Wikipedia is a "soft-target" for PR professionals seeking to cynically exploit Wikipedia for their own selfish ends. Coretheapple (talk) 17:28, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

To focus on PR to the degree that many are simply serves to supply red meat (or a "soft target" if you will) in the form of a boogeyman. As stated earlier, people largely misunderstand 1) the role of PR, and 2) that there are good and bad practitioners, just like in any other field.
As long as the PR representative discloses his/her affiliations and reasons for showing up on Wikipedia, isn't AGF satisfied?
Shouldn't Wikipedians take any contribution (from PR or otherwise) with a "healthy dose of skepticism?" --Philgomes (talk) 18:26, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Disclosure by no means precludes the need for Wikipedians to apply the greatest scrutiny to PR contributions, and to realize that AGF should not apply, because all disclosure does is verify that the editor's loyalty is to the paymaster, not to Wikipedia. One can publish an advertorial or even an advertisement that is neutral in tone and factual, but it is still an advertorial/advertisement, and the people providing such copy are doing so in the service of their employers. If there is any fealty to Wikipedia policies, it is purely incidental.
One of the more prolific paid editors frankly addressed the AGF issue as follows: "There is no such thing as ABF/AGF when it comes to PR participation, because PR is agnostic to the success or failure of the independent websites it works with. Any benefit or damage is merely incidental. We should only assume they're trying to do their job and acknowledge that each PR rep has a different competency-level, corporate bureaucracy and overall approach. What would be more on-target is to discuss the strategies PR reps use to serve their clients that are generally unwelcome and how to discourage them."[4] Coretheapple (talk) 19:13, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Conclusion

From the above it seems to me that the short answer to my original question is "Yes". Wikipedia and the PR industry are unavoidably doomed to be in a permanent state of conflict. Efforts such as CREWE, noble as they may be, are merely small boys pissing upwind in a hurricane. We may as well stop discussing the whole issue and go back to the trenches and continue the battle because neither side is willing to give up any ground. Have I summed it up reasonably? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:52, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

No, you have not. You have summed it up in a hard-headed, facile, impractical way. However, I suspect that your "back to the trenches" solution will ultimately be the lasting one. This is Wikipedia, after all. - 2001:558:1400:10:3461:A128:3088:D6A7 (talk) 17:10, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
So you start by saying No but then you do agree that the conflict is unavoidable. This is exactly why I asked the question in the first place - do we really have to be at each other's throats all the time? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:47, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Not even close, Roger.
Where exactly have you found my views obstinate? If anything, I've been primarily advocating for changes within PR, not Wikipedia. The only thing I'm asking Wikipedians to understand is that not all/most PR interactions are or need to be adversarial. --Philgomes (talk) 18:00, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

@User:Philgomes

I was surprised that Phil Gomes and I agree on so much. It appears to me that he:

  • He agrees that PR folks shouldn't edit the article page (except for noncontroversial edits), i.e. he support the Bright-line rule
  • He seems to agree that the FTC's guidelines on Endorsements and DOT COM disclosures are basic reading that all PR folks should be aware of.
  • Regarding an advertiser editing a Wikipedia article, he agrees "that disclosure in an article itself would crap up the user experience"

I'd even think that he agrees that the problem of undisclosed advertising on Wikipedia is long-term, that there is no single simple solution for it.

He and I do disagree on whether a combination of disclosures on talk pages, edit summaries, etc. would be compliant with the required Dot Com disclosures. I'll just quote DCD "If a disclosure is necessary to prevent an advertisement from being deceptive, unfair, or otherwise violative of a Commission rule, and it is not possible to make the disclosure clearly and conspicuously, then that ad should not be disseminated."

I've put a list of actions (a few sections above) that the community/WMF could potentially take to put a major dent in the problem. Could Phil recommend which of those actions he thinks the community/WMF should take to help solve the problem? I'll say that just talking to other PR folks and "educating" students, doesn't do it for me - it might just be a pile of slippery words - but please suggest some concrete solutions that the community/WMF might take, from the list of 8 above or ideas of your own. You can lead by example here and now. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:10, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Feedback at the right level

To protect Wikipedia we use feedback mechanisms. If we see that an article is edited in a problematic way, we take an action so that the problem goes away. Usualy an action is taken at the level of editors. If the problem persists we take additional actions. In case of problems caused by PR industry, acting at the editor level is seen to be inappropriate for various reasons. But then we don't necessarily need to act at that level, we can also act directly against the involved companies by naming and shaming them. That amounts to negative PR which would undermine the work of the PR company. The pressure would actually be on the companies on whose behalf the PR companies are editing. They have to make sure they hire PR companies that won't abuse Wikipedia, or they will eventually end up with their Wiki articles being tagged by a notice that says that the company has put undue favorable information about their product/services in the article. Count Iblis (talk) 20:32, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Problem

Dear Mr Wales.

I have just started this whole Wikipedia-thing and I have a serious problem.

Why is it so important to use sources? I have a lot of infos about things and I cannot write about them, because - they hadn't been published before. I find it nonsence. My pages are being checked and if something is not correct, I delete it. If something is not important, they can delete it. But what if everything is all right? If our goal is to give people information, then it's not a good solution. At least that's my opinion.

Thannks for your answer in advance. --Kapeter77 (talk) 12:36, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, an encyclopedia is not an originator of material, it is a reference work for what already exists out in the world. What you want to write about has to exist in some form "out there" beforehand. Tarc (talk) 12:49, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Pretty much what Tarc said - an encyclopaedia is not meant to be the be-all-and-end-all reference work, it's meant to summarise the contents of other works, and point readers to those works for more in-depth information. For instance, you wouldn't expect to see information on where the janitor's cupboard is on the 17th floor of the Empire State Building on Wikipedia - that's trivial information. It would however be in a detailed book dedicated to the Empire State Building. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:21, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Can you give some examples Kapeter77? Perhaps Wikimedia Commons or Wikisource may host some of them. emijrp (talk) 14:30, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

WebCite

WebCite has become an important tool of choice in sustainable citations for Wikipedia, but it seems to be underfunded, and threatening to shut down. Anyone know how their fundraising is really doing, and whether shutdown is truly being considered? If they are in danger of failing, might it be a good idea to absorb WebCite into WMF? Dovid (talk) 16:27, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

The question has been much discussed here. I'm not the right person to ask, but I support the idea of WebCite asking the WMF for a grant to fund their ongoing operations. Perhaps a matching grant to encourage them to build a sustainable donor base. I do not know if they have been in contact with the Foundation about this, and if they have, I of course also don't know the outcome.
It doesn't seem very efficient to me for the WMF to absorb it - it's a completely different kind of service, different software, etc.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:31, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
I still think the best option is for an entity such as Google to do it right, not just create a haphazard list of entries that misses more than it hits. I wrote to Google and Jimbo about this, unfortunately got responses from neither (which, of course, could mean that it is such a bad idea it isn't worth a response.) I think it would be easy for Google to create a service that would allow you to look up in an internet for any given day. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:15, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
I really like Jimbo's suggestion. The idea should be, not to absorb the entity, but help them to become self sustainable. Isn't there a discussion on how to spend WMF monies, or has that ended. Could it be suggested in that discussion?--Mark Miller (talk) 20:36, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
Yes, there is a discussion about how to spend WMF Monies. It has five more days to run. It is too late to add new proposals, but there is still time to comment on existing proposals.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:15, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

To try and "build the web" of what's going on: m:Talk:WebCite#Proposal_superseded links to active work being done by Internet Archive that is superseding the focus on WebCite, in my opinion. User:Sj, also on the board, is mentioned in the blog post, and there is also a related thread here. Where this goes, I'm not sure. But preventing/fixing linkrot would be awesome. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 18:04, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

  • I'll be having a meeting with someone from the Internet Archive later this week to talk about our linkrot problem. I don't want to give away the ending in advance, but am expecting some rather exciting news. Kevin Gorman (talk) 18:12, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Good luck! Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 18:21, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
      Yes, I worked with the Internet Archive on their linkrot vaccine. They've added new servers dedicated to preserving cited links, and are checking en:wp articles daily for new external links, and taking snapshots of them. Hopefully this will soon extend to all Wikimedia wikis. The Wayback Machine supports timestamped links to URLs, which fits smoothly with {{cite web}}'s notion of "archivedate" and "archiveurl". Legoktm is helping them figure out how bots could help fix deadlinks that fail.
      Kevin: Glad to hear it, do share an update (and crosspost to wm:Archived Pages). As for WebCite, their software and service is similar to IA's, so it may make sense for those to merge now that IA has focused on this work. Perhaps a WMF grant could help support such a migration. – SJ + 21:34, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Rand Paul plagarized Wikipedia

Thought you might find this interesting: "Rachel Maddow: Rand Paul ripped off Wikipedia". GabeMc (talk|contribs) 19:39, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Apparently, it's not the first time. "Rand Paul Has Given Speeches Plagarized From Wikipedia Before" GabeMc (talk|contribs) 20:07, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Interesting story! It happens fairly regularly. remember this one? and this one? Pretty bad idea to plagiarize from Wikipedia since basically everybody reads Wikipedia and will notice. :-)
I was once in a breakfast meeting in which Shimon Peres was being introduced by Yossi Vardi (who is known to be a very funny guy!). In his introduction he said "I think I should just ask Jimmy Wales to speak instead, since anything the President says was written by his aides, and anything his aides write was looked up in Wikipedia." Ok, that sounds negative towards Peres if you don't know Yossi, but it was just good humor.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:40, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
That's interesting, but don't they have some sort of legal obligation to cite Wikipedia as a source, since I assume that the transcripts of those speeches end up getting attributed to them, and not us? GabeMc (talk|contribs) 20:52, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, keep in mind it was just a joke. And presumably responsible speech writers might use Wikipedia for some background research, which would not require them to give us attribution. (And of course, to avoid risk of embarrassing errors, they should also have multiple sources for any factual claims, especially controversial ones!)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:04, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
(ec) I was referring to Rand Paul, not Yossi. If Paul is using prose written by Wikipedia editors, then shouldn't he attribute those text-strings to us in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0? GabeMc (talk|contribs) 21:08, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm not a lawyer but ideally, yes, people who reuse our work should attribute.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:38, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Copying a few lines, even a few paragraphs, without attribution is a huge academic faux pas, but it's no different legally from properly attributed Fair Use quotes of the same size from copyrighted sources. At least Rand Paul can say that he is speaking for the people... :) Wnt (talk) 21:07, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
I remember a skit on SNL about the Greek Gods about a year or so ago that seemed to have entire passages lifted from our articles. I laughed until I was crying.--Mark Miller (talk) 22:06, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
First let's realize- Plagiarism itself is NOT illegal, copyright infringement is illegal, plagiarism CAN also be copyright infringement however, but not all plagiarism is.[5] Plagiarizing Wikipedia would fall under civil, not criminal laws anyways, and IMO probably would be hard for the WMF to sue for as it might require getting all the relevant editors who worked on the plagiarized piece to agree, and they could derail the lawsuit if they didn't on grounds of who had proper standing. There is also the fact- Unless Rand Paul received compensation for what was plagiarized, and the WMF could prove it caused irreparable harm and/or monetary loss (both of which I don't see possible) WMF might not have standing for a civil lawsuit anyways.Camelbinky (talk) 23:23, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

See also here. Count Iblis (talk) 00:36, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

It gets even more bizarre re: "Rand Paul Has Given Speeches Plagarized From Wikipedia Before" with text from our article on the movie Stand and Deliver underlined, right by the text of a Paul speech. Our article is plagiarized from IMDB. See this edit [6] and IMDB synopsis Now if anybody can tell me who "The Numerators" is/are, I'll be able to tell you who can sue for copyright infringement. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:47, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Interestingly enough, it seems IMDB's synopsis for Gattaca is copy-pasted from Wikipedia without attribution.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 05:09, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Some people pay to get in Wikipedia without getting credit for doing so, while other people take out of Wikipedia with similar failure to disclose. Sort of balances out. Coretheapple (talk) 02:17, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

In other words, when you plagiarize from somebody, you plagiarize from everybody they've plagiarized from, and everyone those people have plagiarized from... :) Wnt (talk) 15:37, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Obligatory Ayn Rand fanfic

Roarke strode past the members of the House Agriculture Committee, his aides shoving invitations to campaign breakfasts into the hands of anyone who looked like they might hint at objecting to his presence on the floor of the pursestring-holding chamber.

"Mr. Paul, I presume?" Roarke looked harried and proud, as a man who labors rightly in the towers of industry must when dealing with the hippies who had infiltrated the establishment.

"Howard Roarke? What an unexpected pleasure, sir!" Paul was filled with the delight of knowing that his reelection was almost guaranteed with the hoped-for favor of the world's first fully licensed asteroid miner. Prospecting had been arduous, but both the press and the congressman's aides had made it clear that Roarke's ability to corner the world's platinum markets had insured his ability to finally deal the needed political death blow to Pelosi and her conspirators.

"Dispense with the pleasantries, Paul, I don't want to hear any more of that Christian claptrap. Do you know what your Science Committee chair has been doing to the human resources department of my vaccine division? If we were in a less civilized time...."

Paul was stunned. He stood straight up, his tiny ego suspended in time awaiting his benefactor's next words.

"You know me, Paul, I get to the point. I don't mince words. You listen up and you listen well. If you don't one, re-instate Eisenhower's top tax bracket two, get your cronies in the Senate to stop filibustering Paul Krugman and three, let RoarkePharma sell the 100-hour morning after pill over the counter, then by the very values of reason, purpose, and self esteem, I swear to you Paul, I promise you I will personally see Reid take you back to Kentucky on his shoulders. Do you hear me? On his shoulders!"

[to be continued] EllenCT (talk) 02:43, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't Ayn Rand have asserted that our Wikipedia editors have the right to blow up the building to protest the terrible injustice of the misuse of their creative prose? :) Wnt (talk) 15:37, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Taipei Times article regarding the Chinese Wikipedia

Today, Taipei Times released this editorial:

It discusses a few recent issues regarding the Chinese Wikipedia (which it erroneously refers to as "Wikipedia China"). What does the one and only Jimbo think about the political faultlines on the Chinese language Wikipedia, and how that particular Wikipedia project is moving forward in general? Do you have any concerns regarding how the Chinese Wikipedia has turned out? --benlisquareT•C•E 03:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I think it is great. Of course like any language version they've got their issues and problems. But what is great is how by keeping the community together, people have to confront people of different viewpoints and find a way to reach NPOV together. One of my big regrets is that we have a separate Croatian and Serbian Wikipedia, because it allows bias on issues where the two groups tend to disagree to fester for longer than it should.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:54, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Would you still say that it's too late for a Serbian/Croatian merger? After all, the Chinese Wikipedia began as two separate projects, zh-hans and zh-hant, each with their own completely different local content, before they were merged and the automatic script converter was adopted. --benlisquareT•C•E 14:48, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't know. You ask a very good question. Of course it is not up to me. And it's politically (not in the sense of governments, but in the sense of the internal politics of the two communities) quite difficult. I would like to see as a first step continued and increased cooperation between the communities, including as much face-to-face visiting as possible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:24, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

YGM!

Hello, Jimbo Wales. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Please, check in your spam folder, just in case. Thank you. Miss Bono [hello, hello!] 19:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I have to ask...are we overthinking this?

Paid advocacy has been a topic of conversation in many places on Wikipedia. Many proposals, suggestions and ideas have been bounced around to combat the issue.

Is it possible that we are over thinking how to handle this? Is it possible that a simple WikiProject could be the very way to begin? We would gather all of our current policies, guidelines and procedures together and allow these editors to join willingly and see what happens. Or am I am under thinking here? --Mark Miller (talk) 05:31, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

You mean the Wikiproject that I already created? SilverserenC 06:15, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I think Silver seren's initiative or something similar is the way forward. The ovewhelming consensus so far in the discussions has been that while (paid) advocacy is a bad thing, you can't keep people with a COI out because editors are given the right to be anonymous and any attempts to find out their identity against their will and use that information on Wikipedia amounts to harrassment.
An analogy. Money is to Wikipedia what oxygen is to life. It is potentially destructive; if we don't deal with this properly, we'll be doomed. The best way to deal with this is to allow it to be used properly, instead of trying to create an environment that is totally isolated from it. The latter would be similar to being anaerobic archea, the former would be like becoming modern animals. Count Iblis (talk) 15:05, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Count Iblis, you're actually raising a point I hadn't considered, but it is such an important an obvious one that I feel like a dunderhead that it hadn't dawned on me: the affect on donors of PR influence on Wikipedia. I assure you that that influence is emphatically not positive, unless the donors are themselves corporations with a PR presence on Wikipedia. I know of no evidence that they are. Coretheapple (talk) 22:07, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
So, how is the project going? Could you link to it please? What effects, if any, has it had on the current situations of PR firms etc.?--Mark Miller (talk) 19:51, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Mark, the project is here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Cooperation. WikiProject Cooperation advises that a company seeking a new article on Wikipedia should make the request at Articles for creation or Requested articles. One of the problems with this is that only about one in four "Articles for creation" ever becomes an article, and the Requested articles about Companies is probably not much more successful, considering that the line-wrapping on the page isn't even formatted correctly (when it was screwed up by this edit over a year ago). - 2001:558:1400:10:D4F8:5823:CB76:A438 (talk) 16:57, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
That's true. I really wish more editors would help out in those areas. I would push more for them to use WP:PAIDHELP instead, but that still has the same issue of not enough people helping out with the requests. I'm not sure what the best method is to deal with this. SilverserenC 21:18, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Uhm...why was my post deleted?--Mark Miller (talk) 22:02, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what was wrong with that post for it to have been removed. If this was just a mistake, of course I'm fine with it, but if there was a reason, I would like to avoid it in the future.[7]--Mark Miller (talk) 03:42, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Mark, judging by the time stamp on your post followed very quickly by Jimmy's post (in the next minute on the clock), I would suspect that there was an edit conflict. Most editors who encounter an edit conflict notice take the time to ensure that their post will not erase the previous editor's post, but apparently Jimmy wasn't doing that yesterday. (It happened to another editor, too.) - 2001:558:1400:10:A49C:C990:CD35:6D1 (talk) 13:56, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
That actually was no edit conflict (that's a difference of ten minutes). The post went up and Jimbo deleted it (Edit: It appears the timing was within a minute[8], but I saw the post after I hit "save page" Then Jimbo posted and deleted at the same time). I don't care that he deleted it, just that he usually says why and admits mistakes when he makes them. Since there was no such disclaimer I assumed I did something he did not appreciate. Still no word from him...so I guess I will have to now assume he didn't know what he was doing when he made that deletion. Everyone makes mistakes, even our founder.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:09, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Jimbo deleted my post by accident, of that I am sure now. But, I was never assuming "bad faith" on his part. Just that either it was a mistaken deletion or he didn't approve of the edit (for whatever reason) and that if it was for the latter, he is always good enough to explain why. generaly he will hat, not delete. Also, considering I just did the exact same thing on AN, it is even clearer what happened.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:47, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Mark. I, personally, forgive you, even despite your aggressive behaviour here and elsewhere. I feel sure that everyone else will forgive you too. Please try to relax more. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:10, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
We can do without the additional drama here, don'tcha think? I don't need your forgiveness, but thanks anyway. I wasn't aggressive here at all and if you want to begin discussing me, please be prepared to be discussed as well. Because I do not feel you should be removing any posts on any other editor's talk page that is not clear vandalism. If I am aggressive, I can tell you this much, it is never with Jimbo, as I see him as an editor that I hold in high regard. Mr. Wales has been very generous with his time and helpful to me and when he has had words for me, I have taken them to heart. Please do not attempt to write your version of events here after deleting a post against Wikipedia policy. Perhaps you should relax as well.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:21, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Accenture breaking Bright Line Rule

Jimbo, you'll see here that just a couple of months ago, an Accenture IP address (170.251.91.70) directly modified the Wikipedia article about Accenture, to change the headcount of Indian employees from 80,000 to 87,000. The reliable source was not updated, so Wikipedia now says "87,000", while the source says 80,000. This is an example of how Wikipedia is degraded by those who would directly edit articles about their employer, without following our rules for reliable sourcing. This should have been handled on the Talk page, according to the Bright Line Rule! Accenture is a "Diamond sponsor" of the upcoming Alfresco summit, where you will be delivering a keynote speech. Will you maybe mention in your talk that Accenture should strive to adhere to your Bright Line Rule, rather than directly editing the Wikipedia article about their company? - 2001:558:1400:10:3461:A128:3088:D6A7 (talk) 14:40, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the IP is being sarcastic. Which number is accurate? Right is right and wrong is wrong, which is the number one most important thing always. By the way, there is no such thing as a "Bright Line Rule" — it is a rejected idea. Carrite (talk) 15:06, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Of course there is such a thing as the "Bright Line Rule" and it is in no way a "rejected idea". What it is, is a best practice. It is what companies should do.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:00, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Seeing that this is from a Comcast account in New Jersey, I'm guessing this is a trolling attempt... Carrite (talk) 15:10, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
"Comcast Cable serves more than 1.37 million customers in New Jersey", so it's a trolling attempt? - 2001:558:1400:10:3461:A128:3088:D6A7 (talk) 16:19, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
No, it's a trolling attempt because it is a trolling attempt. That it comes from that location just gives a reasonable indication as to who it is. My advocacy of the bright line rule is well known. As my speech at the Alfresco Summit is not about public relations, and as the audience will be IT professionals rather than corporate comms people, beating up on a particular company with 275,000 employees worldwide would be rather odd. Let's just confront what our troll repeatedly comes here to imply: I speak strongly against conflict of interest editing but (in his view, albeit with no evidence of any kind - it's just a smear) I am hypocritical about it. It's stupid and not gaining any traction so keep it up. My favorite thing is to let you waste your time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:00, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't get it. If the bright line rule prohibits any editing on a subject where your company is involved, it would seem to prohibit even "innocuous" edits such as changing a number. After all, it's a bright line--you don't get to argue that you can violate it as long as your violation is innocuous. If so, doesn't this violate the rule, and therefore, if you support the bright line rule you must be against it? Ken Arromdee (talk) 21:41, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I'm strongly against it. The discussion about trolling has to do with the tone and the rather silly suggestion that if I think someone has done something wrong in Wikipedia, I should shame them in a speech at a conference they are sponsoring. This is a pattern for our ip friend.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:49, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
It's quite a contrast how Jimmy was able to take "Accenture should strive to adhere" and twist it into "shame them in a speech". Nothing was suggested about "shaming" until Jimmy characterized it that way. Whatever the case, the facts shall remain: (1) money will be accepted by Jimmy in exchange for talking about Wikipedia; (2) the money will have come from companies that have not followed his Bright Line Rule on Wikipedia; and (3) during his paid speech, Jimmy will not mention the fact that the companies have not followed his Bright Line Rule on Wikipedia. If everyone is comfortable with that, then there's nothing to worry about! - 2001:558:1400:10:D4F8:5823:CB76:A438 (talk) 16:49, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment from editor previously working with Accenture

I'd like to weigh in here, since I previously worked on behalf of Accenture to make some updates to their article. I'd like to make it clear, first and foremost, that I followed the "bright line" rule in my work with them. You can see the changes that I proposed on Talk:Accenture (in several rounds: 1, 2, 3, 4) along with detailed discussions about said changes with editors lasting more than two months. (You'll also note, for what it's worth, that not all of the changes that Accenture hoped to make were implemented, due to consensus among other editors.)

Although Accenture's communications department is on board with addressing Wikipedia properly, and following the bright line rule, they are a very large international company with employees in many offices around the world. They can't ensure that no employee will ever make an edit to their article.

I think it is pretty clear, given that the IP edits on Accenture's page are one-offs—not to mention that they hired me as a declared COI editor, as clearly indicated at Talk:Accenture—that these edits don't represent Accenture attempting to circumvent Wikipedia's policies and procedures; they're simply an employee who saw something inaccurate, who doesn't fully understand how Wikipedia works, and who went ahead and changed it to what they think is correct.

I'm going to reply about the specific edit in question over at Talk:Accenture, but briefly—if the change is made by an IP editor, who would seem to have a COI, and the material isn't properly supported by the source, it seems to me that it should be undone. Cheers, ChrisPond (Talk · COI) 22:19, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I haven't investigated this in any detail, but if things are as you say, then this is the way things should be done.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:49, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Just to complicate matters, the sentence in question was copied directly from the source in this edit. It really should read what the source says, but we should not be in the habit of retaining plagiarism. As such, I have re-written the sentence and stuck in the number from the source. --TeaDrinker (talk) 22:05, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Major modern organisations order staff to follow bright line rule

I can't speak for Accenture (I have never worked there and know little about them), but some modern organisations of a similar size actually specifically forbid their staff from correcting incorrect information about the organisation that they may find on Wikipedia. They have mandatory training telling staff so, which includes an amusing "should I edit Wikipedia to correct the mistake?" case study question, to which one has to click the correct answer ("no") to proceed.

To me, this may indicate two things. First, it means large organisations are capable of understanding the bright line rule and why it might be a good idea for them. (Even if their motivations for that, are, naturally, fairly narrow-minded.)

Second, it indicates that the Accenture edit above may well be the random edit of an employee who either had not taken the training, had not remembered the training, or just was a little off base after an unhappy lunchtime or somesuch. Or that Accenture doesn't have such policy/training yet, but might have in the future.

I don't think we should declare that an entire company "has not followed the bright line rule" just because one of 275,000 people happened to be inadequate in such a way. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:14, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:WORKINPROGRESS and anti-engineering graphic in Sustainable development

Does this attractive diagram bias the Sustainability and Sustainable development articles against the engineering of emerging technologies?

Hi Jimbo, I thought about asking about this at the teahouse or noticeboards, but after trying my best to assume good faith, the extent to which bad actors may be at play convinced me to try to err on the side of an abundance of caution. Would you please comment on Talk:Sustainability#Engineering emerging technologies with reference to [9]? I am particularly bothered by the diagram at right, which while attractive and certainly filled with informative words and lists, omits engineering. I am told not to attribute to malice what can be explained by insufficiently advanced editing, so I will spare you my theories about how this diagram was produced by fossil and nuclear fuel interests to exclude their more recent competition. I understand that there is some way to create a request for comments, by adding some template, and I hope you or one of your readers might do that if they know how, so that these questions might see a greater breadth of opinion on whether short WP:WORKINPROGRESS sections are correct on high-visibility articles pertinent to their subject matter. Thank you. Yours sincerely, Tim AFS (talk) 23:52, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we don't even need to reach that determination. It's a bad graphic anyway. It appears to be original research, for one thing. (One may argue that it was published elsewhere as well, but I'm not persuaded that the original publication was really third party.) The axes are not labelled so we have no way of knowing what is being measured nor how. I think it could be used in the Circles of Sustainability article itself, because it is an illustration of how the method is used, but it is not clear to me (but I am not an expert in this area) that Circles of Sustainability is really something that should be featured as prominently as we feature it, anyway. I have no opinion about bias for or against engineering, etc. I'm just responding to the graph in and of itself - it is not a very good illustration.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
There's something really strange about that: according to the image, it looks like Melbourne has "satisfactory" labor and welfare and wealth and distribution, but "critical" waste and emissions and "bad" water and air. (Assuming it's top to bottom and not clockwise or something) Is Melbourne that city in China with the smog index of 1000? Otherwise, I suspect if you went there and talked to the locals they might express different priorities. According to the image description, it is "based on a template that I developed for the UN Global Compact Cities Programme, I did an assessment of the city of Melbourne, and then designed and constructed the diagram to best show Melbourne's sustainability." I'm not clear on whether this is sourced or just WP:OR in fine clothing. Wnt (talk) 16:11, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
That's where I came down. It's just not very good, and that's reason enough to get rid of it in my view.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:24, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Out of interest, what headings would you put in the "Engineering" tab that aren't already in the "ecology" section? Materials & Energy, Constructions & Settlements, and Emission & Waste would seem to cover most of the points (and I hardly think a person with a non-renewable fuel COI would rate all the factors that changing to renewables would affect as "highly unsatisfactory" or lower). MChesterMC (talk) 16:34, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
For me, I don't think it's really right that we should, as Wikipedians, discuss what the "Circles of Sustainability" methodology should really be like. The question is whether or not this particular methodology is important enough to be prominently featured in the main articles (I have no opinion, but the sources will tell the story) and whether or not this particular example/chart approach is original research.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Thank you all very much. The diagram was done around the same time and in the same style as this one which describes the allocation of government subsidy to fossil and renewable fuels in the U.S. which in turn understates the annual ~$600 billion fossil subsidy when oil shipping defense costs are included. Tim AFS (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Bridgespan Group has an interesting origin

Jimmy, are you familiar with the Bridgespan Group? Apparently, they have done a lot of strategy work with the Wikimedia Foundation. Indeed, the WMF's Senior Manager of Global Learning & Evaluation, Jessie Wild, came to the WMF from Bridgespan. Wondering what you think of the provenance of Wikipedia's article about Bridgespan Group. It would appear to have been created by a user with a highly-focused agenda on Wikipedia. Then, the article got some follow-up editing by User:Linqink, who is "an employee of The Bridgespan Group". Do you think that you or the WMF leadership might discuss with Bridgespan Group your Bright Line Rule, so that in the future they might strive to adhere to it? Or, would that be shaming the Bridgespan Group? - 2001:558:1400:10:D4F8:5823:CB76:A438 (talk) 17:20, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't know anyone at Bridgespan. You'd best speak to Jessie WIld if you'd like to know who to speak to at Bridgespan. You could also leave a note for Linqink.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
This claim seemed odd to me, because I could have sworn I remembered Bridgespan Group being pretty closely tied in (to the tune of $720,000) with the Wikimedia Foundation board. So, I looked up "Bridgespan" and "Jimmy Wales" on Google. Are you sure you don't know anyone at Bridgespan? Laura Lanzerotti is a manager with Bridgespan, and you and she attended the same WMF board meeting in Argentina in August 2009. Maybe you stepped out when she was introduced. You were together again at another meeting in February 2010. Maybe you forgot, since that was more than three years ago. But then there is Libbie Landles-Dowling, a case leader at Bridgespan, who attended a board meeting with you as recently as March 2012. Three board meetings with multiple personnel from Bridgespan present, but you don't know anyone at Bridgespan? That's kind of weird, Jimbo. Memory loss? - I'm not that crazy (talk) 21:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
There is nothing inconsistent between the links presented and the statement "I don't know anyone at Bridgespan". Johnuniq (talk) 22:22, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with having met people from dodgy companies. Come to think of it, why is "I'm not that crazy" so involved with people from dodgy companies? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:07, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

"not about living persons or scandals"

I have been "invited" to assist in presenting a glossy version of my country, i.e. "not about living persons or scandals". In such a version there is no room for unathorized proliferation of nucler technology to other nations; transnational investigations involving FBI agents presenting themselves during interrogation in a non-US embassy in Brussel; investigations by parliamentary oversight committee. (The above are links to diffs before the last round of apparent revisionism sets in.) Does the request sit well with you? --Boreumo (talk) 09:42, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate you linking to your little gem of an edit summary “introducing positives about him helping his billionaire buddy and later beating parliament's charges about partiality”. One thing that might interest Wales and should concern him is that after reverting several edits to the article made by this user, as well as removing undue negative stuff introduced by another now indeffed user, I stopped reverting for fear of being blocked for edit warring. Instead I brought the article to the BLP Noticeboard and voiced my concern there. However, despite the article being an obvious BLP violation of a leading Norwegian politician, nobody reacted, even though I insisted on something being done. Only when I filed a successful sockpuppet report was the case resolved. I can say generally that there have been and partly still are significant BLP problems with several politic-related Norway article; maybe in particular Labour politicans. This has not gone unnoticed in political circles in Norway. Regards, Iselilja (talk) 10:36, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
And I appreciate your gem, which follows this edit [10], where you remove the entire section about the parliamentary hearing, in your words justified by "Cleaning up article to remove undue weight to criticism, per WP:BLP, see talk page". Now that there is no mention about the parliamentary hearing about that politician's actions—has that "gone unnoticed in political circles in Norway" where you are privy, according to your hint? I intend to revert your "balancing" act in that article. --Boreumo (talk) 12:12, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Boreumo, you should improve the tone of your edit summaries. The third one about the "billionaire buddies" seemed to have little to do with the edit, which seemed more modest. However, any large deletion of sourced material like the one you list should indeed come with an explanation of either (a) why the sources are not valid reliable sources, or (b) listing a more relevant place where the section is going (and it should arrive there). Wnt (talk) 18:59, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Belgian analogue wikipedia

Hi Mr Wales,

this is the Belgian "paper wikipedia" from 1920 that I was talking about during our interview at the Brussels University last week:

Mundaneum

The dream of the founder: "that one day, somehow, all the information he collected could be accessed by people from the comfort of their own homes." must sound quite familiar to you :-)

The building and the collection still exist here in Belgium and can be visited. If you were to visit Belgium again some day, and would like to visit the mundaneum, just let me know and I'll make the arrangements.

Greets, and thanks again for the interview, Mushlack (talk) 11:58, 31 October 2013 (UTC) aka Lieven Scheire

Commercial editing

Jimmy, I have thought about this some more, and the main problem is one of terminology. Paid advocacy editing is the wrong neologism because there is lots of opposition in the form of, "This policy is unnecessary because all advocacy is forbidden on Wikipedia."

What we really mean to ban is Commercial editing. This nicely distinguishes from scholarly editing, which also might be paid, but is allowed. Commercial editing also encompasses situations where the editing is not being paid, but instead is intending to profit from their edits. If you look at the definition of commercial, lines 3 and 4 really hit the nail on the head.

What do you think of this Wikipedia:Paid editing policy proposal/2nd draft? Jehochman Talk 13:18, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

My own preferred term is "Paid COI Editing." This describes the situation and the relationship of the writer to the subject without impugning the result, which may be either good or bad. A Paid COI Editor monitoring and fixing vandalism is not the same thing as a Paid COI Editor inserting unsourced and dubious content to fluff up a piece, if you follow me... Carrite (talk) 00:51, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Every day, I have to patiently tell clients not to use their internal nomenclature for marketing. While they understand it, the public does not. Think, would the common man or woman on the street understand what you mean by Paid COI Editing? That's internal Wikipedia jargon. It is far better to use ordinary words according to their plain meaning. "Commercial editing" matches it's dictionary definition: editing for profit. We could use "Editing for profit" if you prefer. Jehochman Talk 02:17, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Happy Halloween!

 Trick or Treat! Happy Halloween Jimbo Wales! I hope you have a great day and remember to be safe if you go trick-or-treating tonight with friends, family or loved ones. Happy Halloween! —  dainomite   15:14, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Help spread Wikilove by adding {{subst:User:Dainomite/HappyHalloween}} to other users' talk pages whether they be friends, acquaintances or random folks.

Hello Jimbo Wales, Mark Miller has given you an lovely bat, to wish you a Happy Halloween! You see, these things promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a lovely bat! Enjoy!
Spread the goodness of a lovely bat by adding {{subst:User:Miss Bono/Halloween}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Happy Halloween Jimbo

Hello Jimbo Wales, Miss Bono has given you an lovely bat, to wish you a Happy Halloween! You see, these things promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a lovely bat! Enjoy!
Spread the goodness of a lovely bat by adding {{subst:User:Miss Bono/Halloween}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Fixing up BLP article in exchange for a charitable donation?

Jimbo, do you believe it's OK to fix up a BLP article in exchange for a charitable donation by the subject? Under "charitable donation" I mean donation to any charitable organization, not necessarily the WMF. 24.4.37.209 (talk) 05:43, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

My bet is he does not believe that. Really not. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:51, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Especially not to the WMF.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:34, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, your senior administrator user:Jehochman who himself works in the areas of Internet Marketing, SEO, PPC, Web Development, and ho started his Wikipedia career with writing an advertisement believes that such activities are perfectly alright. "Once in a while I might introduce them to an editor who is willing to fix up their article in exchange for a charitable donation. My feeling is that if Wikipedia gets a better article, the business receives value and pays for it, and the editor is happy that some charity benefited, then it is ethical." He doesn't even exclude the WMF, he's simply talking about "some charity". 24.4.37.209 (talk) 13:55, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Sounds like you'd be better off asking him than me, then. In any event, I think this sort of thing is not ideal. But I particularly think it extremely unwise to solicit or accept donations for the Wikimedia Foundation that appear in any way to be tied to donations. It has the feel of a protection racket or something, it's just not right. If I were approached with something like this, I would decline saying "I'm happy to help improve Wikipedia, and if you'd like to donate to charity then please know that it is unnecessary in terms of Wikipedia. If you want to donate, donate for your own reasons, not as an exchange for editing favors."
But let's be clear that while I think this is not ideal, I don't think it is nearly as bad as being paid to engage in undisclosed paid advocacy editing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:22, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for the response. Just like to mention that asking Jehochman is useless. In the best case scenario you'd get something like that: "Violations of WP:AGF and dull posts are removed" 24.4.37.209 (talk) 15:49, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
IP, could you please login and use your real account? Perhaps you can't because it's blocked. Jehochman Talk 17:57, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Jehochman, I could have used your language to respond to you, something like "Violations of WP:AGF and dull posts are not allowed", but instead I'd like to quote another person, a person who quit Wikipedia because he has seen too many admins become "Self-righteous, arrogant, self-centered, conceited... jerks" just as yourself, Jehochman. So here's the quote "I've seen the way accusations of "sockpuppet" have become a way of life in content disputes, and I've see how the admins on wikipedia do absolutely nothing about it. Too many despicable pov warriors spend their time accusing anyone they disagree with on one article or another of being a "sockpuppet", and never does a CheckUser come back innocent." 24.4.37.209 (talk) 21:58, 30 October 2013 (UTC)


  • Jimmy, it is really unfair for you to jump to assumptions. No donation was solicited for WMF. That's not on the table. Who is the IP that posted here, trashed my name, and didn't even bother to notify me? I am a named person. I don't like being forced to respond to trolls by what could be a banned user. Finally, Jimmy, would you please point to the paid editing policy? Oh wait, we don't have one. The community is extremely divided on the issue. It's not ideal to hold people to a non-existent standard.
  • There is a broader issued called The Right to Respond. Wikipedia is a user-generated content site. We don't have professional writers or editors. There is no assurance that an article about a subject includes that subjects explanations, unlike any professional newspaper, magazine or encyclopedia article. It is very unfair to talk about somebody, such as an article subject, without giving them a chance to respond. Until we have a clear policy on how this works, we need to be careful not to trample on The Right to Respond while chasing off obnoxious, unhelpful paid editors. Jehochman Talk 17:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I've been thinking about this for a long time. If there is a poor-quality Wikipedia article about a business, that can damage the business's reputation, they have every right to take steps to improve that article. If making suggestions on the article talk page is not sufficient to get the job done, why can't a business transparently edit their article or offer compensation for somebody else to do so? In my view offering a donation to an unrelated third party (such as EFF or Rotary's polio eradication campaign) to compensate the value received, is better than corrupting the editor with payment. This may not be ideal, but it is also not ideal to damage a business' reputation by presenting them in a false light, due to an incomplete or outdated article. Sometimes we have to choose among the lesser evils. This is a very interesting topic worth discussion. Though I dislike the non-neutral presentation above, but I am happy to discuss the issue if framed fairly. Jehochman Talk 17:52, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
It is virtually impossible to find a case where a business has tried to do things correctly and failed to get good results. There is no need to directly edit the article, and it is a very poor approach to the issue and something that should never be suggested. Instead businesses who have a concern should be told where and how to escalate beyond the talk page - up to and including coming to me directly with their concerns (I'm here every day answering questions and there is plenty of capacity for concerned volunteers.) You see, this idea that businesses should be able to edit Wikipedia directly because they have no choice if they want to correct an error is simply false - and a fig leaf for very bad behavior.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:30, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
You don't know what you don't know. There is lots of discontent in the business community, and very little guidance for them on how to get help from Wikipedia. Please point me to the page that provides a clear list of steps that a business can take to get help. Jehochman Talk 19:33, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Contact_us - Subjects. If you are asking if this page can be improved and expanded, then I will agree with you. But it's pretty darn good and it is easy to find.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:36, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I have a client who is very unhappy with their Wikipedia presence and has had a horrible experience trying to get it corrected. I'm helping them with other things and have thus far done nothing to their article. I will refer them to that page and we'll test how it works. I'll get you feedback. Okay? In addition to what's on the page, there should be a statement to the effect: "If your article has been damaged by obvious vandalism or slander, please feel free to fix it yourself without delay and then (notify us | post a note at WP:COIN to request review of your actions)." Last I looked, WP:COI includes an exception allowing COI editors to fix obvious vandalism and BLP violations. Jehochman Talk 19:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Are you at liberty to discuss the example in more detail? We can do it by email if that's helpful. I want to explore solutions to any problems that people are having - solutions which don't involve destroying the integrity of our model.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:53, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I'll email when I get a chance. Jehochman Talk 20:15, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I've often compared paid editing to BLP editing. In this case it's even more appropriate because the article is a BLP anyway.

Yes, of course it's perfectly true that someone who is paid has a conflict of interest and there are all sorts of bad things he might do, and which people like him really have done.

But it's also true that someone who is the subject rather than being paid by the subject, would do exactly the same bad things. He has as bad a conflict of interest, is unlikely to respond to anything contrary to his interest, is as likely to insert something promotional, etc.

And yet we permit the subject to edit his own article. It's discouraged, and is often bad, but we don't categorically prohibit it, because we know that Wikipedia's system often breaks down and the only person with a motive to fix it may be the subject.

If we can permit subjects to edit their own articles, despite of the weight of all the horrors of COI being against it, shouldn't we allow similar types of paid editing? Jimbo just claimed "It is virtually impossible to find a case where a business has tried to do things correctly and failed to get good results." Would we ever tell a BLP subject trying to edit his own article "It is virtually impossible to find a case where a BLP subject has tried to get Wikipedia to fix his article and failed to get good resilts"? Ken Arromdee (talk) 21:39, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

The IP made a good point. If you're driving across the great state of Joebobia, and a cop pulls you over and says you were speeding, and you ask is there anything you can do, and he says, you can give a donation to the Fraternal Order of Porkers, a lot of people are going to take that as a request for a bribe that's not a request for a bribe, since there are a lot of officials in the world who make a business of getting paid and not all that many who say they take bribes. So it is indeed best to avoid any confusion in this regard, even if your intent isn't to request a bribe. And asking who the IP is is not a useful thing to do; it's just an ad hominem attack frustrated by the lack of a hominem. Wnt (talk) 22:29, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Somebody emailed me the identity the IP. They are banned, and even had talk page and email access removed by an ArbCom member. As for the charity for edits, it's a thought. If people don't like it, then it won't happen. Jehochman Talk 23:11, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
The problem with saying "well, it turned out to be an abuser" is, again, that that reasoning is not accepted for normal BLPs. If someone tried to edit their biography, and it turned out to be a banned user and they were editing their own biography to whitewash something they did or some other nefarious reason, you might say "good riddance" to that one person, but you would never say that that is a reason to prohibit all cases where someone edits their own BLP.
Just like "that BLP editor is an abuser" is not a good reason to ban all cases of editing your own BLP, "that paid editor is an abuser" is not a good reason to ban all paid editors. Ken Arromdee (talk) 02:32, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Re "If we can permit subjects to edit their own articles, despite of the weight of all the horrors of COI being against it, shouldn't we allow similar types of paid editing?" No. No, we shouldn't. Does that answer your question?
Re "I have a client who is very unhappy with their Wikipedia presence and has had a horrible experience trying to get it corrected". Hmmm. Maybe I have a client who is very unhappy with the article about them in the Economist. Image the trouble I have when I ask the Economist for permission to edit the article source! You have it easy! It's already so much easier to fix things in the Wikipedia. It's a wiki! All you have to do is convince the other editors.
Re "If there is a Wikipedia article about a business, that can damage the business's reputation, they have every right to take steps to change that article." No they don't. Of course they don't. "If making suggestions on the article talk page is not sufficient to get the job done" shows a profound misunderstanding of what we're about here and what kinds of "jobs" we're trying to get "done". Didn't you have to pass some kind of test or something to become an administrator? I thought there was a test. We don't make suggestions on talk pages and then, when the other editors say "that's a bad idea", go ahead and do it anyway. Was this not explained to you at some point?
Now if there's unsourced and untrue info in your client's articles, that's different of course. But you're not saying that. You're not saying that because you know that everyone knows that it's easy to remove unsourced passages from any Wikipedia article. You're saying "can damage the business's reputation". That's a different thing. You're saying "my client thinks that the whole deal with the price-fixing and the waste-dumping and the politician-bribing and so on should be downplayed and replaced with more info about their products, but I can't get the other Wikipedia editors to agree." That's a different thing.
Sometimes corporations do things that damage their reputation. Here's a tip you could pass on to them: "Let's not do those things" might be a better strategy than "Let's edit these things out of our Wikipedia article". I'm just saying.
I'll tell you what Jehochman. When Britannica adopts the policy "corporate subjects of our articles are welcome to come in and change them", then we'll consider doing that too. Deal? Herostratus (talk) 05:55, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
"Does that answer your question?"
Of course it doesn't. In a discussion, it's implicit that people will provide reasoning; just saying "no" is non-responsive. Exactly why is it that
  • all these problems can happen with people editing their own BLPs
  • yet, that is not a reason to prevent people from editing their own BLPs
  • yet, basically the same thing is considered a reason to prevent paid editing?
(And about Britannica: Britannica doesn't have a policy of "anyone can come in and make a random malicious change to a company's article", so it doesn't need a policy that lets someone from the company come in and fix them.) Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:35, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but there needs to be a better solution to people vandalizing articles and adding malicious content than "Just let the subject edit the article directly or pay someone else to do it for them." You're essentially proposing giving the subject a veto over anything they don't want in their article. There cannot and should not be any sort of assumption that such edits will be neutral and NPOV (Which isn't to say they can't be). As Mr. Wales says, there is a process for subjects with concerns about things in articles about them and I must assume both Wikipedia as a whole and the WMF would be open to suggestions on how to improve it. Simple Sarah (talk) 16:27, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
I think you're confused over what I'm arguing. I didn't propose anything for the BLP case--what I describe is already existing policy. Allowing editing means giving the subject a veto? Existing policy allows the subject to edit and it doesn't amount to giving the subject a veto. Edits by subjects are non-neutral and POV? Well, existing policy allows edits by BLP subjects and we seem to be able to handle non-neutral and POV edits.
All the things you describe are not problems when it comes to BLPs--at least not such big problems that we categorically prohibit BLP subjects from editing their own articles, ever. Why do we need to categorically prohibit paid editing in order to solve the exact same problems that are solved without a categorical prohibition for BLP editing? Ken Arromdee (talk) 17:40, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
I think it's clear that there are things that are important enough that they trump ordinary enforcement. If somebody edits Jimbo's article to say he's an ax-murderer, and the worst banned user of the lot uses an IP to fix it, we're not going to revert the edit just because he's banned. And if he goes on to tell ANI that somebody just posted kiddie porn to our article on SpongeBob, we're not going to cite WP:DENY and ignore him. I'm perfectly happy to let him "get away with it" both times, and not even have any process afterward by which somebody adds half a year to his lifetime ban. The same should be true for paid editors: if they fix something that was clearly intolerable, we should just forget about it. Do we expect them to get out of control and start "fixing" the facts to please them? Of course! But I'd prefer we wait until they're in the wrong before we slap them down. Wnt (talk) 19:29, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
WP:COS makes it clear that there is an exception to the general guideline of not editing your own article for extreme cases of problematic content, but it also makes clear that you must then bring it up either with WP:OTRS or on WP:BLPN. In other words, any such edit is supposed to be specifically brought forward for special and specific scrutiny. This is vastly different from saying they can edit the articles to remove major issues without any additional special oversight. And anything that doesn't actually require immediate action should go through established channels. Simple Sarah (talk) 20:13, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
All this is true, and the basic reason is that we've decided as a community that living individual people are different from other things. Which is proper I think. Herostratus (talk) 00:53, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out - it's been a while since I looked at WP:COI, I guess. Wnt (talk) 03:25, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
WP:BIOSELF also says that people can edit their own article to fix very obvious errors--and that version doesn't contain a requirement that you bring it up on OTRS or BLPN. WP:AUTO#IFEXIST also says that you can edit articles about yourself to "remove obviously mistaken facts about yourself, such as marital status, current employer, place of birth, and so on." It requires mentioning it on the talk page--but not on OTRS or BLPN. I would also argue that those cases don't cause immediate harm like saying you're an ax murderer, so they aren't "extreme cases of problematic content". So it appears that Wikipedia has contradictory policies, and some of them do let people edit their own article without informing OTRS.
I think it's clear that there are things that are important enough that they trump ordinary enforcement.
That seems to contradict the concept of a bright line. Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:28, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

"Bright line" is a bad concept because many of these situations have nuances and require common sense to deal with them justly. I think a better concept to discuss is slippery slope. We don't allow commercial editing (editing for profit) even for small edits because it's hard to define what's inconsequential and what's significant. The best way to avoid falling is not to step on the slippery slope. If a user is fixing facts in their bio, that's not really editing for profit. It's just setting the record straight. We should apply common sense and not sanction or harass them for that type of edit. We don't want some dense, immature admin (we have more than a few) slapping a ban on an editor because they correct their own age or marital status. Jehochman Talk 15:33, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I think that someone changing the number of employees at their company from 80,000 to 87,000 should count as setting the record straight as well. It's not editing for profit in any meaningful sense, even if it was done by an employee of the company. Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:26, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

An editor is restating "Exactly why is it that 1) all these problems can happen with people editing their own BLPs yet 2) yet, that is not a reason to prevent people from editing their own BLPs yet, 3) basically the same thing is considered a reason to prevent paid editing?" The editor is needing an explanation beyond "No" (which is short for "Well, that's self-evidently a false analogy and logical fallacy") so let's drill down on this.

It's not the same because human beings are different from other things in significant ways. I thought that this was generally understood, but I guess you learn something every day. It's important to grasp this, because it's the reason why that controlling rule in question is called Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons and not Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, and also articles about everything else.

So let's look at the article Human in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, where it describes humans as "the only extant species of the genus Homo". This is important, because "Humans are uniquely adept at utilizing systems of symbolic communication" and "Humans are variously said to possess consciousness, self-awareness, and a mind... [giving rise to] self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment", and then we have "Happiness, or the state of being happy, is a human emotional condition" and "Emotional experiences perceived as pleasant, such as love, admiration, or joy, contrast with those perceived as unpleasant, like hate, envy, or sorrow" and so on. Read the whole article -- it's quite enlightening.

Contrast to, for instance, Tree which is "a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, supporting leaves or branches" or Corporation which is a "separate legal entity that has been incorporated through a legislative or registration process". See the difference? See also Consciousness, Career, Family, and Emotion, which are all things that humans have, and trees and corporations don't.

But: Reputation. A reputation is something which humans, trees, and corporations do have -- along with the Byzantine Empire under the Angelos dynasty and the spork and most anything that humans are able to perceive, think about, and talk about.

Therefore it certainly is possible to damage the reputation of a tree. There are lots of things I could insert into the article Hundred Horse Chestnut that would damage its reputation. I could write write "The Hundred Horse Chestnut was listed in the article '100 Most Boring Tourist Attractions' in Jaded Traveler magazine" and I could write "Scientists at the Institute of Botanical Science have traced the origin of chestnut blight to a genetic mutation in this exact tree" and I could write "A recent study in Dendrochronology Today revealed that the Hundred Horse Chestnut is actually probably only 500 years old and therefore not the oldest living chestnut tree" and so on.

All of these things could damage the reputation of the Hundred Horse Chestnut, but guess what? It doesn't know or care what people think of it -- it's a tree. See what I'm saying? If and when "willful infliction of emotional distress on tree" becomes recognized as a tort or felony we can revisit this question.

So instead, whether these examples are good edits or not are mainly determined by a simple test: is there sufficient reliable sourcing for the material? (See WP:RS etc.) There are very many secondary considerations that come into play if we've determined it is reliably source, such as "is it trivial?" and "is it too much detail?" and so on, and reasonable people discuss and argue about this all the time, here.

Of course, corporations are different from trees because they are, essentially, made of humans. So are towns, countries, sports teams (and their fans), religions, political movmenents, armies, clubs, royal families, professions, cutural movements, drug gangs, musical groups, rampaging hordes, the class of people who tend or care about or sell souvenirs depicting the Hundred Horse Chestnut, and many other communities of interest.

But I dunno. If you want to make the case that all these things, being made of people, should fall under a BLP-type rubric, you can make that case I guess, and maybe you'd have a point. The case you can't make is "some of these should fall under a BLP-type rubric and some not, depending on whether it's worth a chicken dinner to somebody". Herostratus (talk) 00:53, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

There is no need to make those fall under BLP-type rules allowing editing your own article because the restrictions on them are already looser, so you can edit them anyway. If you come from a town, are a member of a religious or political movement, etc. you are perfectly free to edit articles about those things. We don't need an exception to the general prohibition on editing them because there is no general prohibition on editing them. Only companies and editing your own BLP have such restrictions.
The reason that we allow some editing of your own BLP is that in practice, the person affected by the article may be the only person with the motivation to fix it. Wikipedia is notoriously full of poorly-maintained articles about marginally notable subjects. And this applies to companies too. Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:37, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Translating

Santtu37 from Finland here hello! I saw that you don't have a user page translated to Finnish Wikipedia, so I want to ask do you want that I will translate for you a user page there? I don't know are you able to understand Finnish language, but if you are not, I can help you with my translating skills. :) Santtu37 (talk) 18:41, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

That sounds wonderful, thank you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:26, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
That was very nice. Cool.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:47, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I can translate Finnish version from your English user page tomorrow, because I don't have enough time to do It today. But anyway, I'm doing It for you of course. ;) Santtu37 (talk) 19:50, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
And that Finnish user page for you is finally ready. You can check Its present situation from there. Santtu37 (talk) 17:41, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Now waiting for the first troll to show up on Jimbo's Finnish talk page...--ukexpat (talk) 16:47, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections - Can you help between 7 Nov and 9 Nov?

Hello Jimbo. Per the 2013 ArbCom Election RfC, you have been selected to appoint the Electoral Commission overseeing the ArbCom elections. The selection of the commission is currently happening at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Electoral Commission. Will you have time in your schedule between November 7 and November 9 to appoint the Electoral Commission? 64.40.54.186 (talk) 02:56, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, no problem.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:16, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

"Happy Diwali!"

While Diwali is popularly known as the "festival of lights", the most significant spiritual meaning behind it is "the awareness of the inner light". It is the belief that there is something beyond the physical body and mind which is pure, infinite, and eternal, called the Atman. The celebration of Diwali as the "victory of good over evil” refers to the light of higher knowledge dispelling all ignorance, the ignorance that masks one's true nature, not as the body, but as the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality. With this awakening come compassion and the awareness of the oneness of all things (higher knowledge). This brings Satcitananda (joy or peace). Just as we celebrate the birth of our physical being, Diwali is the celebration of this Inner Light. While the story behind Diwali and the manner of celebration varies from region to, the essence is the same – to rejoice in the Inner Light! And this year Diwali and All Souls' Day come together to fully defeat the Evil! "Happy Diwali!" – JKadavoor Jee 06:27, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Just another curiousity, non-controversial fun question for Jimbo

I like to give these questions for Jimbo as it gives us all a break from the drama and the policy discussions, so I hope he in particular does not mind. So here's my question- Jimbo, given the success of The Social Network (a movie about Zuckerman's [Zuckerberg] founding of Facebook), has anyone ever approached you regarding a movie based on you and Wikipedia's founding? If so, any word that this could be in someone's pipeline?Camelbinky (talk) 00:22, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

A movie about that would be great. Miss Bono [hello, hello!] 12:50, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Julian Assange was apparently not keen on The Fifth Estate. The big question is, who would play Jimbo?--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 13:14, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Hugh Jackman, no question. Seattle (talk) 13:46, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
I was going to say the same. Miss Bono [hello, hello!] 13:58, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Out of interest, is Jimbo mentioned in The Fifth Estate at all? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:38, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
See Category:Films about Wikipedia.—Wavelength (talk) 16:45, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
I believe you're looking for WP:MOVIE. – SJ + 21:11, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Combine intrigue as art film with other-language wikipedias: Indeed the story behind Wikipedia is so broad and multi-faceted, with the tension between Nupedia's slow 7-step approval versus rapid wiki-collaboration of open articles, the growth of the user base, expansion into hundreds of languages and typesetting glitches, the rise and fall of wp:WikiProjects, fundraising milestones, the Wikimania conferences, the verifiability-not-truth debate, the spamming of navboxes, million-article counts, the Lua-speed revolution, the VisualEditor shootout, site-banning of editors, etc. It could become a fascinating film, balancing the intellectual challenges (re copyvios, BLP rules, Bot mania, wp:data hoarding/templates, or Britannica) with the drama of vandalism, topic-bans, blocks, Islamic images, nude photos, German Wikipedia mandates, and the Italian and SOPA blackouts. I would offset the slow period of Nupedia with an overview of wiki technology and background of Jimbo leading to approval of 22 Nupedia articles, before Jimbo created the wiki website, then show a rapid progress of events afterward. A clever director could make it all blend together, for multiple audiences, to cover 15 progressive years. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:34, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
And directed by Christopher Nolan or Spielberg. Miss Bono [hello, hello!] 18:50, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Spielberg...not Nolan please, but then I am biased so...--Mark Miller (talk) 02:17, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
No objection, since they are not white and nerdy···Vanischenu (mc/talk) 07:59, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you User:Wikid77, that was interesting and led me to read about Nupedia and Bomis. Amazing that one could argue that porn actually paid the way for Wikipedia to be born (much like Bayer's profits from heroin paid for the development of Aspirin after the govt decided heroin should be illegal). So, I do have some questions though perhaps you or Jimbo or someone could answer- the article on Bomis says the server hardware was not transferred to the WMF... does the WMF own the servers today, if so when/how did that happen? Also- who currently owns the nupedia.com and bomis.com domains?Camelbinky (talk) 19:27, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
All I know is what I read in sources, being an IP editor in 2001, and then 9/11 happened and I stopped reading WP awhile. Seems nupedia.com was registered in Jacksonville, FL (styled "NuPedia.com"), and bomis.com was registered in Drum, PA. -Wikid77 01:50, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Somewhere in the dim and dusty parts of my memory, I think there was also a very short film (or perhaps it was a photo-montage style cartoon? see how dim my memory is?) made by, and starring, Jimbo and some other notable people at some get-together somewhere. Apologies to Jimbo and all other notable people if this memory is incorrect. The brief exercise in question was also, of course, not a film about Wikipedia. In other Jimbo/films crossover trivia, Jimbo has served on the jury of the Tribeca Film Festival, according to Wikipedia. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:38, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
It'd have to be Wiki-scripted, Wiki-produced and Wiki-edited, a bit like this! http://maxitmagazine.com/index.php/articles/news/948-mytweeturefilm Barnabypage (talk) 08:03, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
I've never heard of there being any interest in a fiction/dramatization of Wikipedia's early days. Despite the accidentally exciting moment here and there, my life is actually much too dull for a documentary film. There was of course the documentary film Truth in Numbers. I still dream wistfully that there could be a director's cut of that by Nic Hill someday. He was doing great work on showing and explaining the community, before he lost creative control and the new guy turned it into a pretty weak talking head piece.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:50, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
That's Truth in Numbers?, for anyone curious.PamD 16:27, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

So, to play along (just for fun) who would you cast in a movie to play Jimbo and Larry?--Mark Miller (talk) 03:29, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Hugh Jackman and Jason Alexander. Camelbinky (talk) 17:40, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Well then it could be Wikipedia: The Musical... I'll write the music for "Verifiability Not Truth" (song), as a tango, where the two could never be separated. ;-) -Wikid77 20:33, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Expert review project

Hi. I was wondering if you could tell me what you think of this idea.

Presently, even our best peer-review process, WP:FA, offers no guarantee of completeness, veracity or pertinence. It usually ensures the article is well-presented, and that the sources comply with WP:RS, but only a genuine scholar or someone who has taken the trouble to read deeply into the topic can judge completeness, veracity and pertinence. Our FA process doesn't mandate that reviewers have any expertise.

I'm thinking of starting a project: paying experts to review featured medical articles for completeness, pertinence and veracity and, once it's passed the review, putting a clickable badge at the top of each article inviting readers to view the version that has passed scholarly review.

It would be expensive, I know, but I hope we could get funding from the relevant disease-related and other charities for a lot of it. The project's procedures and its criteria for selection of reviewers will need to be sound of course, but what do you think, in principle, of having experts review our medical content and linking to the reviewed version at the top of the article? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:10, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

A Scandinavian chief of defence

RESOLVED: 2 pages updated to show new name. -Wikid77 15:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Several of our articles claim that my nation's chief of defence has been replaced. One of our most influential dailies, Aftenposten, said here [11] two days ago that he will retire on November 19. Please have someone make corrections at [12] and the succession box in [13]. The linked article in Aftenposten scrolls down to a discussion page about the subject. Should that stop us from citing the article itself? --Dresden gardenere (talk) 09:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

He is scheduled to be replaced on that date, not necessarily retire. --Dresden gardenere (talk) 09:33, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

  • Pages set to automatically update: Thank you for the correction, and I have set the text of the pages to delay the new name, per sources, until 19 November 2013, but if the Admiral does not take the post on that day, then the pages can be changed again. I am busy and easily distracted, so it is safest to have those pages auto-update to the new name on 19 November 2013. -Wikid77 15:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Thoughts on paid advocacy

Hi Jimbo, and whoever else may be interested,

First, I wanted to thank you, Jimbo, for your concerns with paid advocacy. I think you've taken a very helpful stance. I just wanted to follow with some thoughts; I'm sure others have written all this before, but anyway:

In academic publishing, if the author of a paper has received or will receive tangible benefits from someone who has a financial interest in the subject of the paper, this conflict of interest is supposed to be noted clearly within the paper. Not to do so is academic fraud. For encyclopedias this is not even an issue: Authors of entries are always supposed to be independent of conflict of interest for the subject of their entries. This is because encyclopedias are not supposed to be position or argumentative papers, but general, neutral accounts. Conflicts of interest have always been recognized in the academic world as undermining this neutrality to such an extent that it is rigorously avoided. For example, if it was discovered that Robert Duce accepted money from the aerosol industry in order to write the entry "Aerosols" in the Springer Encyclopedia of World Climatology, he would be rightly scandalized, and his department at Texas A&M would try to remove him as best as they could. We should keep this encyclopedia at the same high standard.

Paid advocacy editors have responded that Wikipedia already has policies to keep things neutral and that their edits— or those of the responsible ones among them at least —are kept within these policies. This response is a non-starter. Every academic encyclopedia has neutrality as an editorial standard, but their editors still do not accept authors with a conflict of interest. We should not fail to learn from the best practices of the academic world.

Paid advocacy editors cannot produce even a single example where an effective paid editor has produced an overall negative impression for the firm or a client of the firm which pays this editor. Of course this is the case: If such a paid editor is going to produce a negative impression of the benefactor, then the benefactor has no interest in paying out money for such a service. Overall unbiased editing from such paid editors is a contradiction. A necessary condition for the continued practice of paying editors to produce content about oneself or one's clients is that there be a systemic bias in the production of content. Neutral editors have no effective mechanism for dealing with this biased production apart from banning it: Neutral editors are volunteers who can only act in their free time, the paid editors have as much time as their pay can afford them.

Claims that the community here is divided on whether to maintain the high standards of academic publishing are suspicious. The community is that body of neutral editors who are here to write an encyclopedia collaboratively. The editors who are paid to produce content concerning a benefactor, insofar as they take that role, are not part of this community. As such they are not here to work collaboratively, but are rather here to benefit themselves. What percentage of those who want to allow, and indeed expand the number of, encyclopedia articles written with a conflict of interest are actually part of the community, and what percentage are themselves paid editors? That is hard to answer. Instead of counting votes on what practices to take up, we should look to the academic world, which has soundly rejected conflict-of-interest writing. Thanks for reading. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 18:59, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. This is all completely wonderful. The analogy is a very useful and helpful one.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:26, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
No academic journal allows anonymous editors to vandalize articles after publication. We are not the same. Jehochman Talk 19:27, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
It's an analogy, a very valid one. I'm sure you aren't suggesting that the solution to vandalism is to allow undisclosed paid advocacy editing by pr flacks. That doesn't even begin to make sense.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:32, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I did not assert that undisclosed paid advocacy editing should be allowed. It is manifest bad faith by you to falsely attribute things to me. Please let me speak for myself. Jehochman Talk 19:38, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I didn't falsely attribute anything to you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:01, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
If Wikipedia has a page about me, but I am only semi-notable, and very few people watch my page, vandalism to my page might go unnoticed for a long time. If I see that somebody has inserted malicious content into my page, I can fix it in 10 seconds myself. Are you suggesting I should go through a time consuming bureaucracy instead? No, Jimmy, your assertion that Wikipedia is a site where anybody can post slander and the subject (and only the subject) cannot respond, is what makes no sense. Jehochman Talk 19:36, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Your analogy is completely broken. Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia with a paid editorial staff that ensures accuracy and article quality. Britanica does not put out half baked articles about people, businesses and organizations the way we do. If a person, business or organization is harmed by one of our half baked articles, they have every right to self-help, as long as they are transparent, respectful, and helpful. We need to define what steps they can take to help themselves. Jehochman Talk 19:23, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I think you are missing the point of the analogy if you think he is arguing that we should not allow people the "right to self-help". Or that you think he is not saying that we should define what steps they can take to help themselves. The point is that we can and should define those steps in such a way that people aren't forced into very risky (for their reputations and ours) paid advocacy editing. As it turns out, this is quite easy - the cries that we have to allow this kind of nonsense because there is nothing else to be done about it flies in the face of the reality of how we work every day.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:34, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Three is nothing risky about reverting vandalism to one's own page. So, some editing is allowed. You are mixing up paid advocacy with paid editing. The two are not equivalent. Jehochman Talk 19:40, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I am not mixing up paid advocacy with paid editing. Indeed, for a while I have been leading the charge for people to stop talking about paid editing or using the term because it really really confuses the issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:52, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Above you agreed that for an employee to change a description of the company from 80,000 employees to 87,000 employees should be prohibited. This might be considered paid editing, but to call it paid advocacy is to stretch the concept beyond all useful meaning. Ken Arromdee (talk) 21:49, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Not sure anybody will see this any more, but I think that you all miss an important point when comparing WP with academic journals or academic encyclopedias: those can prohibit paid advocacy editing very effectively. No anonymous users can edit their content (for better or for worse). We cannot effectively police this, if paid advocacy editors go underground. --Randykitty (talk) 09:35, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
The policy would largely be preventative in nature, not about policing. Several editors have pointed to extant laws and regulations governing advertising on the Internet and disclosure, which would pertain to Wikipedia, and WMF has issued a statement declaring that paid advocacy editing is already prohibited by the Terms of Use.
Promulgating a clearer policy statement at the community level would add force to the above and provide increased visibility as well as system-wide coherence to the deterrence measures.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 11:00, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Okay, I think we have each clarified our positions and understood each other. Why don't we have a "no paid editing of articles" policy? What about all the edge cases, such as scholarships? The lack of a page I can point to makes it very hard to educate interested parties about the proper way to do things. I can live with any policy, but what is difficult is trying to abide by an amorphous standard. Jehochman Talk 20:04, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I feel like, and just said this in email, you're a bit behind on the discussions. Scholarships are not edge cases but perfectly acceptable. "Paid editing" is not the appropriate term to use because it mixes up too many different things. The preferred term is "paid advocacy editing"
- "paid" to clarify that we are narrowing the discussion to a particular type of conflict of interest (there can be others, but that's not what we are talking about.
-"advocacy" to clarify that we aren't talking about people who are being paid to improve articles in their field of expertise, etc.
-"editing" to clarify that we aren't talking about engaging with us on talk pages, by OTRS, etc. but editing the articles directly
By narrowing the conversation to this, we can make clear that we aren't at this time concerned with questions about scholarships, or questions about POV pushing partisans of other kinds, etc. We are talking about one particular problem only, a real one, and one which we have the opportunity to do something useful about.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:17, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
"Paid advocacy editing" is your preferred term, Jimmy, and while I think your preference for it is absolutely sensible, the complicated nuances that you're trying to capture by using it are exactly the problem. No offense, but it's hard not to get the impression that you're not entirely sure what you're campaigning against. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 23:06, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
No, I am being very clear and precise about what I'm campaigning against. Precise language and clear definitions solve problems of ambiguity. I am asking people to stop using vague terms like "paid editing" that clump different kinds of things together and focus on a single, specific, and very precise problem: paid advocacy editing, as I have explained it up above. Does that clear things up for you?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:33, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I didn't actually need anything cleared up for my own part. I just don't think your ever-more-specific neologisms are getting your message across very effectively. Someone smarter than me might come up with a good sound-bitish word that says "don't edit wikipedia to polish your image ("you" referring to either an actual person or the "corporate person" we talk about these days). --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 23:47, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Atethnekos makes a comparison to academic journals and traditional encyclopedias, which usually have clearly identified editors (granted, some encyclopedias withheld author names from the public). Authors of Wikipedia are mostly anonymous, editing under pen names or as IPs. There are good reasons for Wikipedia editors to seek anonymity, such as to avoid harassment from those who disagree with their edits or their actions. The only way to sanction or limit the work of a paid editor is if the editor deliberately or inadvertently discloses his real identity, or if someone violates WP:OUTING via off-wiki sleuthing, based on facts the editor let slip. A ban on paid editing may inspire a warm fuzzy feeling in the belief that it preserves the purity of the encyclopedia, but it seems inconsistent with allowing anonymous editing. It will hamper only the very honest or the very naive conflict-of-interest editor or paid editor. The only benefit I see of a "No paid editing" policy is that it would prevent anyone from advertising as a writer-for- hire his Wikipedia credentials, such as having a large number of featured articles and good articles, and thousands of edits, and positions of responsibility such as being an administrator. Edison (talk) 20:43, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
The main problem with the comparison to academic publishing is that in academic publishing there are checks and balances that keep the journal from just throwing in a couple of random falsehoods or misleading statements about someone. Mostly, the fact that the journal knows that it or the writers it publishes will be held responsible for them. In Wikipedia anyone can toss in a random fake fact on a page and have it sit there for months when the subject is of marginal interest and the page is not watched very heavily. Journals won't do that, even online ones, so there's no need for subjects to edit in order to fix it. Ken Arromdee (talk) 21:58, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
If we cannot prevent such conflict of interest editors from creating content on Wikipedia pages (as is done in other encyclopedias), then at least we can clearly disclose the conflict of interest in the article (as is done in other academic publications): Here's a template which can be placed on the top of such articles:

{{coi hatnote|entity=Relevant Corporation|pronoun=its}}

Really, the inclusion of such a notice is the minimum we should do if the article is being created with a conflict of interest. Merely placing a disclosure on a user page which the average reader of an article will never see, is pointless. I do hope however that people will agree that including such a notice is worse than just not allowing such editing in the first place. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:01, 30 October 2013 (UTC)


I'm not a fan of templates - mostly they just sit there for years and uglify the page. I also don't think it would work as far as making the ads on article pages legal - e.g. in the "clear and conspicuous" part of the Dot Com Disclosure rules of the FTC, they go on about how scrolling the page to get to a disclosure is bad (if not outright banned),that the disclosure has to be in close proximity to the claim (edit) and that the disclosure has to be clear and conspicuous on all platforms used, e.g. on mobile phones. Pretty hard to do on Wikipedia.
Somebody is bound to say here that Wikipedia doesn't allow ads, so this situation couldn't possibly come up. To the contrary - the FTC is very broad in its definition of ads, and there are thousands of Wikipedia articles that have ads in them by the FTC definition.
It's also very unclear how a disclosure would work on a Wikipedia page. For example, say an endorser wrote "XXX corp's products all meet industry safety standards," (clearly an ad by FTC standards if the editor is paid) then a non-paid editor adds "applicable" after "meet," and then another editor writes "according to a November 2009 study." Is the disclosure still going to be accurate? How about after 3 years of additional edits - both pro and con?
BTW, there is situation here that you might not expect. According to the way most editors here understand WP:NPOV, this sentence would be NPOV if there is a citation, say to a NY Times article, that discusses the study. Not so with the FTC, if the study was paid for by XXX corp, that must be disclosed "clearly and conspicuously" and in close proximity to the claim.
FWIW, my reading of how the minimum disclosure according to FTC rules would read on Wikipedia would be something like this, (Advert), where the link goes to a page that lists the advertiser and the editor and explains that he's been paid. I don't think any true Wikipedian wants something like that in an article. Phil Gomes above, thinks that if the disclosure "craps up" the user experience, then the paid advocate can rely on edit summaries, talk page disclosures, etc. to be the proper disclosure. That clearly is not the case, the FTC says if proper disclosures can't be made, that the ad can't be included. In short, we'd have to jump through a lot of hoops to make Wikipedia safe for advertisers. I certainly don't want to do that. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:54, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
I think I would agree with all of this. The legal issues are beyond me. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 17:46, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
(ec reply to Atethnekos) The idea of paid editors staying to the talk page is that a neutral editor will then come along and review the work, making any necessary corrections ("Sure, updating the number of employees is fine; no, we can't say that Example Corp. is a great place to work and makes the best widgets in the world. We can give a more neutral presentation of those two awards you put in sources for though..."). At that point, it's that reviewing editor who's ultimately responsible for what goes in the article, and we don't need a warning template on the article. The trouble comes when Example Corp. edits the article directly, and decides the mention of those two highly-publicized product liability lawsuits isn't really necessary, is it? That's where COI editing causes trouble. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:02, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. I would only suggest using the notice when such a editor actually writes part of the article. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 17:46, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
You're re-inventing the wheel a little, as there is already Template:COI.
One of the interesting thing about that template is that it regularly has paid advocates running to multiple Wikipedia helpdesks to ask how to get it removed from "their" article. There's nothing that gets paid advocates' attention so quickly as something that might be perceived as bad publicity for their client/themselves (e.g. a huge orange COI template at the top of the article).
Having said that, once the COI issues are resolved - which means an independent editor not just checking the language and structure and emphasis for neutrality, but also checking the sources provided do support the statements made, and also doing a bit of internet searching to look for encyclopedicly acceptable negative points of view that may have been omitted - then the COI template should be removed.
That's why I suggested earlier that there should be a template making clearer, that a COI-infested article needs such an independent review, and suggesting places to look for it. Like I said, paid advocates move to talk pages very quickly when upset in this way. And once they do so, they can also be told, "and now that it's fixed, you should stay off the article itself."
Just to add, mainly for User:Atethnekos, the essay Wikipedia:An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing is one that I've always found a particularly powerful and relevant exposition of why people/organisations should think twice before COI editing. Although its title suggests that it's mainly about articles about people, there's also a fair bit of focus an entire section later in it that's on companies. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:53, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree complete with Atethnekos, and especially applaud his points concerning the need for disclosure within the body of an article that has been impacted by paid editing. While it's nice to read the rare sensible talk page post on this topic, I nevertheless am convinced that efforts to influence the community to see the light on this subject are fruitless, and that nothing will be done unless there is action by the WMF, making paid editing as verboten as NPOV is required in all projects. Coretheapple (talk) 16:28, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia has legal counsel. I suggest that if there's a genuine question about whether FCC requirements for disclosure are incompatible with Wikipedia editing, Wikipedia needs to get a legal opinion from them. Otherwise we shouldn't be making policy decisions based on such legal claims. Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:32, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know anything about FTC (I think you mean that) disclosure rules. The purpose should be not only to make disclosure legal but to far exceed any such rules, to inform readers when articles in Wikipedia are influenced in a material way by corporate subjects. This would include creation of articles based upon text provided by the company, and the companies providing text that is adopted in the articles by other editors. Coretheapple (talk) 16:37, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
As a minor point, the US rules really are at least primarily FCC, not FTC, rules. They have to do with the laws and regulations enacted by Congress after the payola and free-plugging scandals, involving undisclosed advertising on network TV and radio. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:35, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
My point is this. Wikipedia should be a leader in transparency. On this issue, Wikipedia is not just lagging behind, but has its priorities backwards. Its loyalty is not to the reader but to the contributor, no matter who that contributor is, and after that to the subject, with the reader a distant third. When it comes to COI, the contributor has only voluntary COI behavioral guidelines, the subject has the ability to influence the article about itself in ways that would be unheard of in academia or the real-world media, and there is zero disclosure of all of this to readers. Coretheapple (talk) 16:45, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
@Atethnekos I like your analogy. You overstate slightly what happens in academia: an expert in a field may have a career built on their own school of thought; and may well be asked to write the overview article on their field, even though they have a clear COI. And sometimes the expert in a practical area is the lead scientist at an institution or company; that employment does not invalidate their research, though they are expected to note that affiliation. These are known weaknesses in the modern academic process; we should strive to eventually do better, but please note that some of these problems are unsolved in academia as well.
@Coretheapple I love your take on the issue. We should find ways to lead in transparency; until we have much better tools for helping readers and other editors see these facets of an article, we should limit predictable sources of bias and capture sources of COI. We already have casual ways to do this for unpaid advocacy and zeal: the # of advocates on either side of a popular issue often balance out. For paid advocacy, if we allow channels for payment to thrive, the side with money can easily drown out the other; which is why we should make special efforts to catch that bias, and create policy that gives its opponents extra leverage. – SJ + 21:22, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Well thank you. I think that Atethnekos deserves major and massive props for raising the analogy of academic research. There are a considerable number of Wikipedia editors who are acquainted with that field of endeavor, and perhaps may be the nucleus of a counter-paid-editing insurgency. It is important for Wikipedia editors to know how totally out of step Wikipedia is with the rest of the world on COI, and how dreadful its COI standards, such as they are, would be if employed elsewhere in the real world. I have actually heard on several occasions the pro-paid-editing excuse-mongers condemn as "extremists" those of us who believe that standard practice in these issues be deployed at Wikipedia. On the contrary, it is Wikipedia and its welcome mat for paid editing that is the outlier and the extremist. Welcome as this breath of fresh air certainly is, my feelings on the subject, the need for initiative taken by the Foundation, remain the same. Coretheapple (talk) 22:26, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

PROPOSAL: Let's make lemonade out of paid advocacy editing lemons

I oppose all rules against paid advocacy editing. All editing is subject to the biases of the editor in question. I don't understand why we need to identify and treat paid advocacy differently from any other kind of bias. We already have policies, guidelines, practices and mechanisms for dealing with article content that is problematic due to editor bias. We revert. We balance. We fix. We find sources. We modify. Etc. Etc. Etc. Addressing paid advocacy editing as a distinct problem is quintessential WP:CREEP.

As others have noted Atethnekos' analogy with academic paper and other encyclopedia standards and policies fails at the gate. Every WP article is written by a disorganized and usually unidentified panoply of mostly anonymous editors all with unknown biases and viewpoints. The essence of Wikipedia is that articles come out remarkably well despite this - precisely because we allow such a diverse group to edit each article. Democrats and Republicans edit US political articles. Theists and atheists edit religious articles. Socialists and anarchists edit government articles. People with inherent biases as well as pay-influenced biases edit all kinds of articles... so what?

Paid advocacy editing is GOOD for Wikipedia. We are always looking for help to increase and improve content. Paid advocacy editors are not the WHOLE solution, but they can be a healthy and productive important PART of the WHOLE solution. Let's harness that resource rather than try to defeat it in vain.

I propose we make lemonade out of paid advocacy editing lemons. Instead of banning paid advocacy editing, or trying to restrict it, or pretend requiring disclosure it going to work or even help, let's drop it all. Let's embrace paid advocacy editing. Let's encourage them to produce their content - and then all unpaid editors have to do, where needed, is put in the parts to balance it out, rather than do all of it.

Enough with the hand wringing. It's pointless, distracting, and ultimately harmful to WP. Let's focus on content, not on the editor (WP:NPA). It's about the WHAT, not the WHO or WHY. --B2C 21:08, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I couldn't disagree more about Atethnekos' posting, as it would be considered self-evident and "stating the obvious" anywhere but in a discussion of paid editing on Wikipedia. That is not a reflection on the logic and good sense of his position, but on the blind spot that Wikipedia editors have on this very issue. I certainly agree that the point of view that you express is very much the general position taken by Wikipedia editors on this issue, which is precisely why the Foundation needs to deal with it as a matter of self-preservation. Coretheapple (talk) 21:24, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
No. It's not true that, "every WP article is written by a disorganized and usually unidentified panoply of mostly anonymous editors." Some have one, or a specific few who make any substantive edit. Moreover, editors are asked regularly to disclose why they want an edit. Many honestly say so. More editors do so in their edit summaries. So, it is untrue that we never care about why. In addition, it is common legal and ethical practice to disclose financial COI on and off the pedia for written work already. That is one reason why there are already examples of financial COI disclosure among Wikipedians. Wikipedians are honest people (I think) and asked to be honest with one another with respect to matters of content for our readers, and honest to our readers, to the best of their ability, and they are expected to be generally competent in that respect. It is generally helpful, as many of our policies do, to make expectations of how much information is enough and right, explicit, in a given situation.Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:46, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Your proposal reminds me rather of the claim that academic writers don't need to worry about conflicts of interest because the papers are peer reviewed. Authors with financial conflicts of interest (which they are required to declare, but sometimes don't) are shown, over and over, to reach conclusions which are favorable to their financial backer. This is not a small effect, meta-analyses have found the probability of a favorable finding is 3.5-4 times higher when the authors are being paid (Okike et al 2008. "Industry sponsored research" Injury 39:666-80). This is after editors check over the paper and after peers review the paper, this strong bias remains. Editors and academics who do peer review read papers thoroughly, are experts in the field, and still do not spot what might be going wrong. Pretending that we can spot bad research every time and weed it out, so the author's biases don't matter, is demonstrably contrary to reality.
The problem on Wikipedia is compounded in that we don't have a large bank of experts eager to check over the work of others. We do not submit each article for peer review by three experts before it goes live. In the case of peer review, each of those experts also can recommend against publication, which the editor usually accepts. With those already-inadequate safeguards missing on Wikipedia, we can expect paid advocacy to bring an even heavier swing in the direction of the financiers. This is not theoretical, this is evidence. We know that allowing paid editing on Wikipedia will bring a NPOV in favor of the paid interests.
We can talk about the likely effects of paid editing--disheartening the volunteer editors who are now asked to proofread, copyedit, and research to improve articles that people are being paid to maintain, for example--but your suggestion that NPOV can be spotted and easily removed is simply and demonstrably false. --TeaDrinker (talk) 22:13, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
I can't imagine a worse proposal than B2C's. Turn the encyclopedia over to corporations (but volunteers will still be allowed to edit) and everything will turn out ok. Pure and utter nonsense. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:59, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
What is nonsense is the claim that my proposal will "turn the encyclopedia over to corporations". It's delusional to believe that rules governing COI in general or paid advocacy editing in particular can make any kind of significant difference. Therefore the influence of corporations is going to be about the same with or without those rules.

What my proposal will do is put the focus of the community where it should be, directed at encyclopedia content, instead of on pointless handwringing about turning over the encyclopedia to corporations and futile efforts to try to regulate that directly. In fact, I submit that corporate influence will be curbed much more effectively with my proposal, because we will have more time and resources available to enforcing and verifying important content-related policies like NPOV, Notability, Reliable Sources, BLP, etc., which is just as effective at curbing paid advocacy editing as editing under any other bias. --B2C 06:06, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Born2cycle (talk · contribs), lets imagine that any edit made is thoroughly checked by no fewer than four independent editors, all of whom spend hours checking the material, and all of whom have a strong background in the content. Only when they reach consensus that the edit should go live does it actually go live. And if the final decision is to not allow the edit, it does not see the light of day. No appeals, it is done. While I don't propose such a system (Wiki means quick), it would certainly address concerns people have about editors being paid, right?
This is the system that we have in academia, the system of peer review. Yet with all of these checks and all of this oversight, substantial bias still makes it in. Why is that? The editorial process is not one of cut and dry, obvious facts. It is full of careful examination, judgement calls, and fine balances. When someone is paid, their judgement on these matters is, consciously or unconsciously, flawed. We all do it, and anyone can objectively find these effects.
On Wikipedia, we do not operate with anything close to the safeguards found in peer review. We operate with non-experts, who may or may not check someone's work (and almost always after it has gone live). Even the minimal safeguards proposed--disclosure of COI, require the work be checked by at least one editor before the edit goes live--are still likely to allow money to dictate content on Wikipedia, it just limits the effect to cut out the most egregious examples. This is the experience of academic research: When people are paid, their editorial judgement is compromised, and with a monumental effort to minimize that bias, what slips through is still substantial.
Your solution, it seems to me, is to suggest that with more discussion, we can in fact have greater monitoring and safeguarding than academia. This is demonstrably not the case. We do not have enough volunteers to ask them to debate endlessly with people who are paid to not change their minds. Editors are the most important resource Wikipedia has, and it is foolish to ask them to pursue fruitless tasks, nor can we retain editors if we willingly and intentionally send them on snipe hunts.
I started by reply with a discussion of what Wikipedia can learn from the Academic experience of people with conflicts of interest. Let me close with a parallel system which operates like you suggest. In court, there are teams of advocates who argue and debate as you suggest. They are all paid, of course, so we don't have the worry that prosecutors are paid while defense counsel is unpaid. However there is another feature in which Wikipedia differs from a courtroom--Wikipedia does not have a judge or jury. If your vision of Wikipedia were taken to a courtroom, cases would only end when one lawyer convinced opposing counsel that their position was correct. This vision, I am sure you can well imagine, would make discussions endless if the counselors take their roles as advocates seriously. The only way for such a judgeless system to work is if both lawyers refuse to become advocates for their positions and hold the interest of justice to be paramount. That is how Wikipedia operates: we demand that everyone put writing the encyclopedia first, not their job, their political beliefs, their religion, or anything else. People do this very imperfectly, but we must hold it as an ideal. We can not operate as advocates because our system does not allow for such intransigence. We must all put the encyclopedia first, or the system stops working, we stop writing an encyclopedia, and we become a debating society. --TeaDrinker (talk) 13:06, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
In Wikipedia, the reader is often an afterthought, and that is exemplified by the fact that there is no disclosure of article contributors' COI to readers. One has to hunt through talk pages, or talk page archives, or sometimes even user pages, sometimes finding admissions of COI and sometimes not. Article subjeccts can even create articles through the Articles for Creation process. Imagine DuPont hiring "objective" researchers for an academic paper, supplying the text and the sources, one of its contractors writing and submitting the article, and that fact not being reflected in the published paper. That is accepted practice at Wikipedia, and suggestions that the COI be disclosed to readers is invariably greeted with gasps of horror and expressions of derision by established editors. Coretheapple (talk) 14:16, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
"[S]uggestions that the COI be disclosed to readers is invariably greeted with gasps of horror and expressions of derision by established editors." On Mr. Wales's page in early 2012, anti-disclosure users expressed unwillingness to discuss the suggestion in the context of articles about political campaigning, and Mr. Wales offered no response..[14] Good to see Wales and others engaging now. We surely have a duty of disclosure to readers. Writegeist (talk) 16:07, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
The idea of encouraging paid advocacy editing in order to improve the quality of Wikipedia is a genuinely terrible idea. Responsible volunteer editors who value the quality of Wikipedia have a very hard job to do as it is, to deal not only with vandalism (often obvious) but also, more insidiously, with unpaid POV-pushing. Do we really think that we can also burden them with identifying and correcting for paid POV-pushing, and expect them to take up that burden? The idea that a core of volunteer editors will willingly correct not only for unpaid POV-pushing but for paid POV-pushing is absurdly idealistic and unrealistic. I understand that its proponent means well, because he probably thinks that he and others could deal with that burden. We have enough of an issue of editor retention without expecting a small core of volunteer editors to correct for a well-financed group of paid POV-pushers. Just because the proponent means well doesn't mean that the idea will work well. It is a terrible idea. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:35, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
And "Paid advocacy editing is GOOD for Wikipedia" is at best a spectacularly naive comment. Writegeist (talk) 18:52, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
What he or she meant, which, as you say, is spectacularly naive, is apparently that Wikipedia is largely edited by fools, and that welcoming paid advocacy editing would bring in a new class of educated, well-informed editors. He or she apparently thinks that the work required to correct for deliberate bias is less than the work required to compensate for unpaid POV pushing and for ignorance. That is a noble idealistic viewpoint that has extreme faith in the ability of a small core of volunteer editors to correct for deliberate as well as unintended bias. Sometimes it isn't enough to be noble and idealistic, when the effect of imposing that nobility and idealism on our volunteer editors would be to burn them out correcting deliberate bias. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:43, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Robert McClenon (talk · contribs), don't forget that the paid advocates some wish to discourage from editing are part of the correction process. Not every edit they make will be problematic due to their bias - the vast majority is likely not to be. Further, as any other editors, they will also be reading and correcting errors made by others. I believe, perhaps idealistically as you surmise, that the net contribution from each such paid advocate is likely to be positive, and probably by a substantial margin. In other words, we're much better off with paid advocacy editors than without them, just as we are much better off with editors who are biased in other ways than we are without them. --B2C 21:30, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Every edit from a paid advocacy editor will fall into one of two classes, those that come from declared paid advocacy editors, and those that come from undeclared paid advocacy editors. Those that come from declared paid advocacy editors are known to be problematic. That does not mean that they are known to be biased, but that they are known to be problematic. They therefore create additional work for the volunteer editors. Those that come from undeclared paid advocacy editors are not known to be questionable, and thus are more subtly corrupting. They may go unrecognized for months. Volunteer editors don't have the time and resources that paid advocacy editors do. Volunteer editors will be overwhelmed with work of undoing biased edits. Will volunteer editors really be willing to spend 40 hours a week undoing intentionally biased edits? Why shouldn't corporations have their paid advocacy editors spend 40 hours a week introducing bias? I am not sure that I agree that we are better off with unpaid POV-pushing editors. Those editors require a disproportionate amount of attention at the noticeboards, at the ArbCom, and at Arbitration Enforcement. I certainly do not think that we are better off with paid POV-pushing editors. Do you really think that volunteer editors will spring up out of nowhere to take up the additional work caused by removing bias that editors are paid to introduce? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:07, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Robert McClenon (talk · contribs), I suggest you underestimate the amount of bias with which ALL editors edit.

I see no reason to believe that the bias and problems in a given amount of Wikipedia article editing by paid advocacy editors should create more work for other editors (those other editors also being paid as well as volunteer) than does the bias and problems in a comparable amount of typical Wikipedia article editing by volunteer editors. At least no reason for this has been presented here or in other discussions on this topic in which I've participated.

TeaDrinker (talk · contribs), I think the courtroom analogy you drew above is quite apt. You say the difference is that we do not have a judge/jury, but we actually do have something comparable. It's called other editors, and the various conflict resolution mechanisms we have.

Wikipedia will always be an imperfect work in progress. That is its nature. And part of that is because many edits are made unreviewed and unnoticed. But not every edit needs to be reviewed. Sooner or later the whole article is read and reviewed, and problems are caught or resolved. But yes, sometimes they aren't, and problematic content can remain, sometimes for years. This isn't the end of the world, as some seem to think. Most people know this, or should know this, about Wikipedia. This is why we require citations - so statements and claims can be easily verified, and dubious material without citation is subject to removal, immediately.

Wikipedia is not perfect, but we have many mechanisms that allow it to maintain a certain reasonable standard of reliability and balance, and there is no reason these mechanisms should be any less effective with content created by paid advocacy editing than any other content.

I'm so passionate about this issue because a lack of faith in our ability to reasonably manage paid advocacy editing with our existing content integrity maintenance mechanisms indicates a general lack of faith in those mechanisms. To see experienced editors express this lack of faith in something that reflects the very essence of Wikipedia is quite disappointing, to say the least. --B2C 22:56, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

In the view of this "other editor" you have lost in your attempt to make Wikipedia a battleground. I'm calling it. It is over. It is done. You have lost. Do you accept my judgement? Of course, if I were really a judge, you would have to. On Wikipedia, you don't. You're welcome to continue discussing. No matter who comes along and tells you you're done, you can continue discussing.

That said, some things you say are rather disturbing. You assert as fact that Wikipedia already operates as a battleground, as a courtroom, not that you're asserting it should. What should be the case is. of course, your opinion. It is, however, the fact that it currently does not. It would be wise to remember that Wikipedia policy currently prohibits what you are proposing. --TeaDrinker (talk) 00:53, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

B2C says to me and to the other editors who strongly oppose permitting paid advocacy editors that we are showing a lack of faith in our existing content integrity maintenance mechanisms. I don't have "faith" in those mechanisms. I rely on what I see. What I see is that those mechanisms usually but not always work, and that they are often pushed to the limits of their ability to work. B2C appears to be asking us to have "faith" that those mechanisms can continue to work when further pushed beyond what some of us think are their limits. It is true that editors do have biases, but some editors, the best ones that we have, actually try to compensate for or minimize those biases. Even as it is, Wikipedia doesn't handle dispute resolution as well as we would like it to, and volunteer editors spend a lot of time and energy dealing with biases.

You say that there is no reason to think that paid advocacy editors will create more work for volunteer editors than typical volunteer editors by biased editors does, and that at least no reason has been presented to that effect. Here is a reason. The typical volunteer editor doesn't volunteer 40 hours a week to Wikipedia, and the typical volunteer editor who tries to maintain neutrality against unpaid POV-pushers isn't trying to deal with editors who spend 40 hours a week introducing POV and bias. Allowing professional paid POV-pushers would increase the amount of work for the volunteers beyond the burnout point. You may have "faith" that the "mechanisms", really, work by volunteers, can deal with full-time paid bias. I, indeed, don't have "faith" that those mechanisms will expand to take up the load imposed by paid advocacy editors. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:10, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

It is impossible to make lemonade from rotten lemons - no amount of added sugar can fix it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:43, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
I agree. There is a label on products, such as anti-freeze, that contain methanol (wood alcohol). It says, among other things, "Cannot be made non-poisonous", to dispute myths that there are ways to make it into ethanol (grain alcohol). The warning says: "Cannot be made non-poisonous." Can deliberately biased editing be made non-corrupting? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:10, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Dodger67 (talk · contribs) and Robert McClenon (talk · contribs), the notion that the bias likely to be expressed in the contributions of a paid advocacy editors is "rotten" in a way that the bias likely to be expressed in the contributions of volunteer editors is not suggests a failure to realize the extent to which all people (and thus all editors) are subject to bias. There is simply no reason to believe that the bias of an editor paid to advocate for a given interest is likely to be more problematic than the bias of a partisan editing a political article, the bias of a theist or an atheist editing an article on the subject of religion, a resident of either of two countries that tend to have significantly different views on a topic editing an article about that topic, a fan of a sports team editing an article about that team, or one about its rival, a male or female, homosexual or heterosexual, editing an article that involves sexuality, etc., etc. Assuming people tend to follow their personal (and inherently biased) views and interests to decide what to edit, I'd venture to say that vast majority of edits on Wikipedia are made by people who are biased about that content to a degree comparable of that in a paid advocacy editor. If paid advocacy editing was anywhere near as a big a problem as the hand-wringers suggest, Wikipedia would be an utter failure. --B2C 23:10, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
I think the most useful way to address your argument is to put it in a real-world perspective. Wikipedia does not operate in isolation; it is part of the a vast network of information-dispensing operations, ranging from medical journals to the New York Times. It may not be the most prestigious information-dispensing mechanism but it is certainly the one with the highest visibility, in the sense that Wikipedia articles automatically rise to the top or near top of Google results. Viewed from that perspective, what you are saying is completely nonsensical. Of course having a financial conflict of interest is inherently problematic. Of course it has to be disclosed to readers. Of course it has to be curbed or prohibited. It cannot be overemphasized or repeated too often that Wikipedia is the only information outlet of any significance on the Internet that openly sanctions, and even welcomes, contributors with conflicts of interest and does not disclose those conflicts to readers. Coretheapple (talk) 23:54, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
I'd even go so far as to make this analogy: I think that paid editing is a cancer, a malignancy that has the potential to destroy Wikipedia's credibility. All that Wikipedia or any publishing outlet has is its credibility. If readers come to believe that Wikipedia articles are frequently sponsored or drafted by the subjects of those articles, its credibility will be destroyed. The reason is that the ethos that you are reflecting in your proposal is a unique one, certainly common here, very "Wikipedia-ish," but totally an outlier from a real-world perspective. The ethos that paid editing is to be welcomed, that conflicts of interest are minor and manageable, that corporate p.r. representatives and corporate officials are valued contributors whose work needs to be judged without regard to who they are-- that attitude would not pass the laugh test anywhere but on this website. Coretheapple (talk) 00:05, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
"Faith in Mechanisms" Comment

I will reply to B2C's criticism stating that those of us who oppose paid advocacy editing show a disappointing lack of faith in the integrity maintenance mechanisms of Wikipedia. I am not aware of a Wikipedia policy that states that we should have faith in those mechanisms. What we should do is to assume good faith on the part of other editors, in particular, to assume that other editors are here to build an encyclopedia by a collaborative editing process. When we conclude that editors are not here to build an encyclopedia that satisfies the neutral point of view, those editors are blocked or banned. The assumption of good faith is rebuttable, disprovable. Experience has shown that some editors do not contribute positively to the collaborative building of the encyclopedia, and in dealing with them, the integrity maintenance mechanisms include blocks and bans, so as not to burn out the volunteer editors who try to maintain quality. We know in advance that paid advocacy editors, while here to build an encyclopedia, are not here to build the encyclopedia that Wikipedia mostly is, and that we want it to be. Faith in the integrity maintenance mechanisms is based, to a very large part, on the assumption that our editors are acting in the good faith that we assume that they are. Indeed, I do not have faith that our volunteer editors have the time and commitment to clean up bias introduced by paid advocacy editors. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:19, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Question About Topic Bans

I have a question for B2C. B2C says that paid advocacy editing is actually good for Wikipedia because it is knowledgeable editing and its errors can be corrected. I have already disagreed. However, I have a question to put the issue in perspective. Editors who are chronic POV-pushers or otherwise complicate editing in a particular area are often topic-banned from the area, either by the ArbCom or by "community consensus" at the noticeboards. Do you think that the practice of topic-banning POV-pushers is counter-productive, and that these editors are also good for Wikipedia because their edits can be corrected? Alternatively, is there a special reason why volunteer POV-pushers on hobbyhorses are bad for Wikipedia but paid POV-pushers will be good for Wikipedia? I am prepared to reply, but I first would like to know whether you think that volunteer POV-pushers are also good for Wikipedia and are underappreciated, or whether there is something special about the benefit of paid POV-pushers. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:55, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

You are purposefully misrepresenting B2C's position. The whole point of what they stated is that we have those banning processes in place where necessary. However, we only do the bans when the editor's editing is directly shown to be problematic. I see numerous claims that paid editors editing will always be non-neutral in content, yet I have yet to ever see that be substantiated. In fact, all I see is that the main editors involved in being against paid editors are themselves extremely biased anti-company editors that negatively slant our articles about companies. They do far more damage to our articles than open paid editors ever have or likely ever will. (And that is one point I disagree with B2C on. I think declarations of COI are appropriate. That at least allows paid editors to be far more truthful than any other editor, because they acknowledge their COIs, while almost all editors do not. It makes the open paid editors far better editors and, in my opinion, people than everyone else on here). SilverserenC 03:35, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
I am sure that B2C will be along shortly to clarify his point of view, so it seems unnecessary to debate what he does and does not believe. However I will note that there is good evidence that being paid alters judgement. The evidence I presented above, in a metastudy of studies on the effect of declared COI on academic publication, found the probability of coming to a conclusion in favor of the funding agency went up by a factor of 3.5-4 when a conflict of interest was present and declared. That is with an extensive peer review process, and that is with a journal editor who can rule decisively if he or she thinks the paper is flawed, and that is with the work being focused on an objective, factual question. On Wikipedia, we deal in editorial judgement calls, we have no ultimate authority, most of us volunteers are not experts in the subjects we review, and most edits are very minimally checked. All of this leads to the inevitable conclusion that paid advocates will introduce a slant in favor of those who pay. It is demonstrated. --TeaDrinker (talk) 04:51, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Yes, being paid alters judgement. So does joining Scientology, believing in Astrology, being against gun control, being for gun control, or any number of other reasons for advocacy editing. I could make a case for Wikipedia being harmed more by religious or political advocacy editing than by paid advocacy editing (but see below for why I think this might change).
There are however, a couple of things that are special about paid advocacy editing which IMO require extra care.
First, Scientology cannot do anything to suddenly have ten times more followers. They are already doing the best they can and the pool of potential converts is resistant.
Paid advocacy editing, on the other hand, can easily gain as many paid advocacy editors as desired by simply paying more. Think of the difference between getting emails advocating politics or religion vs. emails about online pharmacies. The first is annoying, but self limiting; the second gets bigger and bigger as long as it remains profitable. Our article on Email spam gives numbers like 200 billion spam messages sent per day and 97% of all emails being unwanted. I think Jimbo is right to be especially concerned over something that could grow exponentially.
Second, we really cannot do anything to convince most religion or politics advocates to change their ways other than blocking or banning them, but we can make big changes in how paid advocacy editors operate. If it becomes well known that the advocacy editors who don't edit articles directly but instead make talk page requests get better results and that the sneaky kind of paid advocacy editor usually gets reverted, the customers will naturally go with the service that gets the best results. We can make that happen, but again it takes special care. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:17, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
That's what i've been working on for more than a year now. And it gets rather difficult to show that being open and discussing things is the better way to go when you get people being rude and nasty to them because of it. I mean, if you look at some of the now archived discussions heres, you can see things being said that, in any other situation, would be something brought to the incident board because of a violation of civility. Not that the community ever does anything about that anymore as it is anyways. SilverserenC 08:29, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Did any of these cases involve a paid advocate who doesn't create or edit articles? If a paid advocate follows Wikipedia:Best practices for editors with close associations (which as far as I can tell lines up nicely with Jimbo's position) and someone is abusive towards him, we can and should defend the paid advocate, just as we should with anyone who stays within the rules. (note that I used the term "paid advocate", not "paid advocacy editor. The difference is important. See the link to Jimbo's position above). --Guy Macon (talk) 15:44, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
An example of a responsible paid advocate is User:Arturo at BP, for instance, who posts to talk pages, and does result in improvement of the encyclopedia. I have not known editors to be abusive to him. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:03, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
All the editors I deal with don't edit articles. Some of them may do minor edit changes here and there, but I try to get them to stay away from even that. SilverserenC 19:19, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Follow-Up to Question

I asked about topic-banning of POV pushers because I wanted to know whether B2C, who thinks that paid advocacy editing is good for Wikipedia, also thinks that unpaid biased editing is good for Wikipedia. If he or she thinks that both are good for Wikipedia, because both are subject to the correction process in which we should have so much "faith", that is consistent, and can then say that POV-pushers should not be topic-banned. If B2C thinks that unpaid POV pushers should continue to be topic-banned, but that paid advocacy editors should be encouraged, then I would like to know what the difference is. That is why I asked the question. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:08, 4 November 2013 (UTC) I object strongly to the allegation of bad faith, in being accused of deliberately misrepresenting another editor's position. I am waiting for an apology for the allegation. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:08, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Isn't the assumption that a paid editor wants to bias an article, rather than make it neutral and properly represent the company or organization in question, an allegation of bad faith? SilverserenC 06:39, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Indeed it is. The whole negative 'tude towards paid advocacy editors is contrary to the very essence of what makes WP successful. --B2C 22:50, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Robert McClenon (talk · contribs), I don't think any kind of biased editing is good in and of itself for WP, including paid advocacy editing. But I do believe discouraging biased editors, including paid advocacy editors, is bad for WP. BIG DIFFERENCE.

My assumption is that the vast majority of just about any editor's edits improve WP. In fact, a good paid advocacy editor will make sure this is true, to establish credibility.

I don't think it's a good idea to identify bias, paid or not. Journalists are biased by their political and religious affiliations, etc., but they typically don't reveal these biases. It would be unprofessional. We should not require anyone to reveal their bias. Instead, we should emphasize the need for everyone to edit from an NPOV perspective.

The analogy with academic work fails per WP:NOR. Academic papers are by definition original research. Any biases are important and useful to declare. But WP editors, like journalists, are not creating new material. We are simply assembling information that is already out there, in reliable sources, properly cited, presented in a balanced fashion from an NPOV.

Can a paid advocacy editor get away with inserting or deleting something inappropriately once in a while? Sure, anyone can. But the vast majority of their edits must be consistent with our content-specific policies and guidelines, or they will be discovered. Therefore, by definition, either they will be caught, like a vandal, or their contributions will be a net positive for WP, by definition. It's all good. So why the hand-wringing? --B2C 22:48, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Review articles in academia (which attempt to summarize existing literature, not expand it) still have to include conflicts of interest. In fact, they are even more important because review articles involve more judgement calls about characterizing the existing research and contextualizing it, with various emphasis. That is rather like Wikipedia, in that it is full of editorial judgement calls. --TeaDrinker (talk) 23:29, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
I abhor pre-emptive punishment. As such, I oppose requiring paid advocacy editors, who have not demonstrated any problematic behavior, to "out" themselves, as a kind of Yellow badge. It creates a situation where that person's edits and comments will not be judged objectively, but as the contributions of a biased person, even when that's not warranted. When the same edit or comment is put under a different light because of WHO made the edit or comment, that's neither fair nor good for WP, especially when there is no reason for this. Paid advocacy editors are under the same pressure as any other biased editors to contribute in accordance with NPOV, Notability, WP:IRS, etc. In 99% of the cases, that should be good enough.

Just treat paid advocacy editors like everyone else. If their edits are problematic, revert and bring attention them. If a pattern of problematic behavior develops, we have mechanisms for that. Other than that, let's focus on improving the encyclopedia, with the help of paid advocacy editors... --B2C 01:12, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

An interesting blog

There's an interesting blog on the subject of payed editing. Jimbo, could you please respond to that blog and comment on the ultimate fate of Wikipedia in regards to payed (or commercial) editing? Thanks. 24.4.37.209 (talk) 19:10, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Ah, look, a comment by a banned editor. I've taken the liberty of striking out your comment. SilverserenC 19:13, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
If one of Wikipediocracy's meatpuppet editors that aren't banned want to post a link here, then that would be fine. But you should know better than letting one of the banned people do it. SilverserenC 19:15, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't see the value in encouraging their spam, myself. Resolute 19:20, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia would be much better off, if Wikipedians stop seeing in each and every IP a banned editor, and an enemy of the state. Also remember your famous "Comment on the contributions, not the contributor"?
Spam? it's not a spam at all. That blog is read no matter what, and my post provides Jimbo with an opportunity to respond to it.
I guess Jimbo could menage his talk himself. Thanks.24.4.37.209 (talk) 19:27, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Indian and Pakistani village cleanup

Anybody reading this might be interested in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:19, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

  • Some background about Indo-Pak cleanup: For years, the general cleanup of Indo-Pak articles has been a major effort, but soon afterward, numerous various editors have been blogging in the village/town articles, to list trivia or promoting the local pharmacy, stores, or townspeople. At times, it seems only a matter of mere weeks before a major article goes from near "good article" level to become, yet again, a blog page full of trivia or repeated details, written in Awkward, MixED-Case repeated TEXT repeated with "some,unusual.punctuation" in sections. Consequently, there have been serious proposals to limit coverage of small villages as members of a list-page, either in a table, or list of small paragraphs, where the whole page is limited to control or deter the typical blogging. See recent proposals:
An example of a blogged-style village article:
Instead of blog-prone targets, the page "Naya Lahore" would be merged/redirected into a list-style page, to clamp down on blog-style updates. Anyone who says Wikipedia is full of only techno-speak articles, films or TV shows, is completely out-of-touch with the thousands of village or local townspeople pages. Any questions? -Wikid77 (talk) 14:41, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
I'd hate to see articles, that otherwise could stand on their own, being lumped as lists or thrown away for the fact of what is happening. Treat this as it is- vandalism. Punish the editor, not the article. Zero tolerance for this type of abuse of wp:NOT. We're not a blog, not a advertisement for local businesses, not a travel guide. An editor, whether autoconfirmed or IP or admin, you block them for this spamming and you clean up the vandalism. Give me a list of every single article you're worried about and an admin who will block anyone I report for these violations and I'll watch list them all and report every single violation to that admin. Find me that admin whose willing to do it, and I'll make sure these articles are safe.Camelbinky (talk) 17:45, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
@Camelbinky, if you want to submit an RfA, perhaps we could get a group to support your nomination, beginning early on a Monday of your choice when more people are active. (Plus also get several admins to work with you.) There are thousands of these IndoPak articles, and cleanup of the large pages often needs 500-800 changes of phrases, spelling, format, or removal of duplicate text. I rewrote "Gurdwara" one time, but it drifted again. Is wp:PC Pending Changes ready (or capable) of detering the blog-style updates to so many pages? I wrote Template:Fixcaps to re-typeset whole paragraphs into lowercase text, but unless the blogging is reduced, I suspect many of the cleanup editors think it is a lost cause. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:04, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Punishing an editor for adding content which he thought he was adding in good faith (even if diabolical) isn't going to change the fact that similar other native people of these countries are going to come along and readd unsourced crap to the articles. The sheer number of articles on Indian villages which are not being monitored or cared for makes it a massive magnet for rubbish which will mostly be off the radar. There are millions of people with Internet access who having thousands upon thousands of empty/unsourced articles who will continue to add things, i know this having cleaned up a lot of the Karnataka towns and villages and unless I really monitor changes a lot of them have since badly degraded again with long lists of schools and businesses and frequent use of "famous", glorifying the locals and local landmarks and often writing in capital letters and leaving email address/contacts. We have thousands of articles like Naya Lahore which instantly need blasting free and are damaging to the encyclopedia. Redirecting to sourced lists would help monitor the situation and put off ips from adding long lists and I think it is the best solution until somebody can come along and write a proper sourced article. Most other countries don't have this problem because they edit their own language wikipedias or have low Internet access but Indian and Pakistan, and to a lesser extent Bangladesh and Sri Lanka really form the bulk of the problem on here and the articles are generally the worst on wikipedia. Leaving the sort of content that Naha had in thousands of articles is lazy and naive that anything is going to change. Nobody is going to edit thousands of articles and fully expand and source however notable. The sensible thing is to blast away the garbage, redirect to lists by district which have a column for a summary of villages until a fluent well-meaning editor can come along and write a proper article and put it on their watchlist. No encyclopedia which states that it is trying to be of the highest quality would accept thousands of entries like ...Naya_Lahore&oldid=577023362 this. We need to take more responsibility for this area of the project which is by far the worst I've seen across the website.♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:16, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

So a long blathery rambling article in broken English was replaced by a one sentence stub, with no mention of schools, industry, demographics or climate. I doubt that would have happened had it been a crummy article about a town of 15,000 in the US or the UK. Even the long list of local schools, based on someone's original research and local knowledge (most with no articles and with common names) would be hard to research and reference, especially with non-English sources and transliteration. Ideally the millions of English-speaking bilingual natives of the countries would join a project to improve the articles, since they could access and comprehend local government databases and news sources. Merging articles to lists when there is a possibility of improving them seems harsh, since some good info is lost along with the blather, chit-chat, signed statements and fractured English. If a great many articles created by good-faith editors with limited English and little concern for referencing were reduced to entries in a list, awaiting capable writers with good English skills, there is no assurance that the writers who re-created the article would be any better than the original article creators and expanders. Would we have different standards for articles about entities in different parts of the world? But neither notability nor basic verification is satisfied by stubs such as Chak 356 which just states that some numbered and apparently unnamed sub-village populated place is in some geographic district. The block I live on might be more deserving of a stand-alone article. Dr. Blofeld's proposal has some appeal. Edison (talk) 23:12, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
That's a good example of how patchy village article coverage is. The village's name is partially explained in Chak 128 NB (tagged unsourced for five years), but other "Chak *" articles don't mention it either. Folding articles like these into lists would allow contextual information of this kind to be entered only once yet apply to numerous places. — Scott • talk 21:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Get numerous editors to help cleanup: (edit conflict) Perhaps if we make a plan, with wp:RS reliable sources to expand stubs, then more editors might help. For "Naya Lahore" then I have found sources for "Nawan Lahore" but are they considered reliable(?):
  • NewsTrackIndia.com: [15] has Latitude: 31.3167, Longitude: 72.7333
  • CARE.edu.pk: [16] Child Care School (CCS) has history from early 20th century
Part of the problem, for this specific town is the name "Lahore" being the big capital city of Punjab, Pakistan, so even with 15,000 population, Nawan Lahore gets confused in search-engine or data-scraping results. Perhaps other towns, with more-unique names, would be easier to find sources. Anyway, the idea is to find some typical sources, for these Pakistan towns, then get more people to help, and they could deter blogging of the local pharmacy, various hardware shops, and list of "famous" uncles in town. Otherwise, "Naya Lahore" was trimmed last year, 27 November 2012, but a one-edit registered user restored the blog text on 1 March 2013 (dif451, only edit of User:Shan668, contribs), and so the lists of schools, stores, and famous uncles had survived for most of the year. Overall, we might use a hybrid plan, to redirect villages of 500 people into a list, but watchlist the larger town pages to deter blogging. Let's find some good Pakistan sources. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:11/23:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

@Edison. The idea isn't to redirect articles which have meaningful sourced content which can't fit in a list, but the redirect all of the junk articles and one liners until somebody can write a decent article. For articles on the more notable towns and cities if they're really bad I'd suggest incubating or trying to clean them up as they are and introduce new sources. Having worked on pretty much every country in the world on here, India and Pakistan are definitely a unique case given the number than [who] stray into English wikipedia with access to the Internet and a poor command of English and what sort of content is appropriate. I suggest some sort of controlled growth for it in which lists can be monitored and until a fluent speaker capable of writing a decent article with sources can branch out again and write something and monitor it, then it seems the most sensible thing to do whilst drastically reducing the target for vandalism and good faith incoherent nonsense. The problem is only going to get worse in the next decade as Internet access increases in many developing world countries and it's a problem which needs to start being discussed and worked towards addressing now. Before long the sheer number with access in developing world countries who have very basic English skills will continue to add to the problem and it'll grow more and more out of control across all developing world articles, not such settlements, and not just Pakistan and India. Bangladesh is already showing an increased problem I'm finding. I wonder if Jimbo has thought about that, and that while wikipedia becomes increasingly globalized, sometimes this might be a bad thing for quality of content being added. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Dr B., the general issues have been discussed before but I'm not hunting for the threads. I think that the most recent substantial discussion was around the time that WMF were on a mission to spread the Wikipedia gospel in India, so I guess that is 18 - 24 months ago. Jimbo opened a Wikiconference there (Mumbai?) around the same time. Nothing has changed in the interim (except for the anticipated increase in poor content). - Sitush (talk) 14:20, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to try to make a model list for one district at List of populated places in Adilabad district. May take a week or two to complete but I want to demonstrate how much better it is to reduce the redundancies and shoddy articles in favour of something like this. Somebody feel free to continue to add the coordinates for Madaram onwards♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:25, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

  • Focus on verifiability then sources: As typical with other articles, the blog-style text tends to be over 95% accurate about Pakistan villages, once the related sources can be found to verify the claims. Removal of wp:PEACOCK promotional text can be kept limited, without gutting the pages. We need more sources, and more editors, such as wp:GOCE, to help reduce the tangent text. I see now how FallingRain.com is used as a wp:RS reliable source for Pakistan town names, coordinates, and elevation ft/m, but the Pakistan government websites might be offline, when trying to check the population or district/tehsil sections. There are 2 opposing, severe problems: the lists of town shops and people are excessive, but blanking of text has removed tehsil names, road connections, nearby towns, local industry, and notable residents which sources could confirm. We just need more editors (some blocked now) to help recover from the lack of cleanup during the past year. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Most articles are redundant though in that they contain either nothing or just the standard temples/school lists and something about a river. They;re better put in a list with a summary until somebody can write a fuller sourced article with some actual interesting info about the places.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:54, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

  • Beware issues of discrimination: Several people have commented, during prior months, about how funneling the current articles into lists could be seen as discriminatory, rather than a practical reduction in blogging which is typically reduced, in other pages, by warnings or blocks. The reasoning is very clear: if we want to reduce text about schools or temples, then remember that College Station, Texas, was just a railroad stop for a school, which became Texas A&M University, and Cambridge, Massachusetts (at Boston) covers a smaller area than many towns, but Cambridge became the site of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Radcliff College. Likewise, a person could create a list of 109 small churches in Venice, Italy. I do not want to deter people from writing, "Mahatma Gandhi stopped at this town and gave an early speech about..." any more than rejecting, "Guiseppe Verdi was inspired in this small Italian town to write the opera music for...". Remember Jhang (in central Pakistan) is larger than New Orleans, Tampa, Redondo Beach, CA, Salisbury (England), or Nice (France). What is lacking is a collection of sources which can support claims of when a school is in session, to verify the population of the town triples or such. However, a small town which has a technical college serving an area of 60,000 people will likely have sources to confirm, so we need to beware deleting too much text about schools, or churches, or temples. Having the extra town-list pages is a great addition to Wikipedia, but gutting of the current articles seems too severe. -Wikid77 00:01/15:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
  • So we include something because it might be truly notable one day? When something is notable it can be written up and presumably there will be sources to do so. Are you aware of just how much misrepresentation happens on Indo-Pak articles even when sources do exist? Given that, no source certainly should mean no mention. - Sitush (talk) 00:21, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Those towns and their templates, or churches, are notable, if can just find the sources (some in Urdu or Punjabi language?). Due to the British Raj, there should be many early sources in English as well. -Wikid77 15:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Per the fact that Wikipedia IS a gazeteer, yes ALL villages, towns, cities are by default notable. Some commenting here need to realize that. There is however a difference between being notable for inclusion and having sources available to create an article. Just because something meets notability guidelines does not mean it can be written from a technical aspect of having sources so there is something to write. A village or city does not need something notable about it to have an article, but it does need sources. As long as a source can be found that shows- that the place exists (most important), the population and location (next important), then a stub is warrented if it is assumed more sources are LIKELY. If other sources are less likely a list is acceptable along with other "villages in..." whatever the next higher geographic/political designation is.Camelbinky (talk) 01:04, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
No-one is saying that we should delete everything related to village X or Y. The point is that if all we know is that it exists then that is all we will say; and that the easiest way to maintain such articles - limiting the likelihood of puffery etc - is to contain them in a list that cites the official document verifying existence. There are real issues with variant names due to transliteration from the > 20 official languages and also official inconsistencies, and there can be even bigger problems with finding non-user generated location information beyond a generic area (tehsil or district). Worse, I've seen "villages" of India on Wikipedia that appear to have no official record even in the census or district-level documentation: they would appear to be "folk areas" akin to Ahirwal (although Ahirwal actually is verifiable as such and isn't a village). Over a thousand of these were deleted by PMDrive1061 (talk · contribs) some time ago and it was around that time that I got heartily fed up of the whole thing. If experienced members of the India project - many of whom are from India - are aware of the problems then surely it behoves us to listen to them?

You are the second person I've seen who has claimed that Wikipedia is a gazetteer but I'm struggling to find evidence that it is intended to be so in a manner that requires an article for each place. My struggle may be a case of familiarity with policies etc breeding a sort of contempt or it may be that the gazetteer claim is self-reinforcing. I have vaguely mused whether Wikivoyage has some role to play in this nowadays. - Sitush (talk) 06:01, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

We can start by expanding the lists of villages, but also look for sources in other languages about the history of each larger town. -Wikid77 15:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
The proposal does indeed concern villages, not towns. Although in India it can be the case that a village exists inside a town or, at least, locals call it a village. We should welcome correctly paraphrased reliable sources for anything in any language, obviously, but no-one has suggested otherwise. The problem is that this stuff is not sources and that there are not a tremendous number of such sources knocking around in the case of India, where plagiarism, copyright violation and poor fact-checking seem almost to be a way of life among print media and most British Raj sources - including the Imperial Gazetteers - often weren't worth the paper they were printed on. Don't forget that, even now, the culture of India and Pakistan owes much to the oral tradition and literacy rates are not great. The big systemic problem Wikipedia faces here is not related to English-language vs. foreign-language sources but rather oral vs. written sources. I don't think we're going to be able to overturn any time soon the consensus that is currently opposed to accepting "what my father told me is true" as a source. - Sitush (talk) 15:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
In the past I've suggested we need to integrate a system of "verified interviews with biographic subjects" to allow BLPs to more readily correct misinformation. The same approach would help here - we should make it possible for locals in the towns to self-publish statements to our archives (presently they could write them down on a piece of paper, take a photo and post it to Wikimedia Commons; but let's clear a path for plaintext). Such statements are of course poor sources, not citable for BLPs, but perfectly OK for explaining how a town got its name, how many people live there, etc. It also invites a depth of data to accumulate in case people disagree somewhat on the particulars, and we have no other way to find them out. That said, I expect that as the Internet becomes more accessible, more written sources will turn up than we can possibly imagine. Wnt (talk) 17:35, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Some combination of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia Is and User:Rambot make is pretty clear that the early intentions were along the lines of an article for every town. See, e.g.,St. Rosa, Minnesota, which was written almost entirely by bots. WilyD 17:51, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Slander and personal attacks by Wer900 on this page

I've taken the liberty of removing a thread,[17] because 8 hours after my initial objection, my name and the associated slanders (without any factual basis) had still not been removed from the discussion, and Wer900 had in fact repeated the canard a second time.[18] If somebody would like to refactor the thread to remove any mention of me (and my objections), please feel free to do so. The thread was described as gibberish [19], so perhaps it is better left deleted, but that's for you to decide. On all pages, even this one, Wikipedia editors are not allowed to make personal attacks or slanderous remarks without verifiable sources in the form of references, diffs or links.

I've never had any memorable interactions with Wer900. Why did Wer900 start complaints about me on this page instead of visiting my talk page first? Why didn't Wer900 notify me? That's a bizarre way to handle a concern. Given the rudeness of Wer900's original post,[20], and their prior history of slandering other users,[21] posting long screeds,[22] and making unfounded accusations,[23][24] it appears that Wer900 may be a disruptive editor. On balance I think such editors cause more damage to the community, by way of driving off productive contributors, than any value of their content contributions.

Jimmy is probably offline because he didn't comment on this yet, but I am sure this placeholder will lead him to review this permanent section link. Jehochman Talk 10:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the removal of the thread, which was unproductive, condescending, and insulting.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:29, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm a little bummed that the rest of the thread, where there was a discussion of governance, was deleted as well. But I completely understand your objections, Jehochman. The larger conversation about Wikipedia, without Wer900's proposal, will continue. Liz Read! Talk! 21:08, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
I didn't "slander" you, Jonathan E. Hochman. I stated the facts: you are a paid editor and an administrator, and then I stated my opinion: there is a fundamental incompatibility between these two positions as they stand right now in Wikipedia. To Mark Miller and Robert McClenon, I apologized for making a problem out of circumstances that had been resolved. Rather than using your administrative powers to delete the thread and stop discussion entirely, you should let the discussion continue; I already made apologies where they were due, and this was not mentioned at all. Your removal of the comment is the very epitome of what many people call "admin abuse".

Jimmy Wales: this is exactly what I am talking about. Your yes-men want to execute a palace coup and consolidate even more power, whereas I have stated several proposals whereby a proper constitution is issued and you thereafter resume a largely honorary role. I implore you to make the necessary reforms, rather than merely sitting on this talk page and riding the speaking circuit as an absentee ruler.

Of course, Jehochman can continue to perform search engine optimization as a "declared" COI editor. Resolute can continue to flatly state that my proposals are insane. But whenever I or any other common editor has to say something against the elevated and enlightened administrator, this is exactly what happens. Wer900 • talk 23:29, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

And again, two incorrect statements. No "administrative powers" were used to remove the thread so no "admin abuse" occurred. BTW, I've come up against admins before, sometimes in heated discussions, and nothing like "admin abuse" or any threat of using admin powers untowardly has ever happened. You need to tone down the rhetoric. --NeilN talk to me 03:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
No administrative powers of the software were specifically used, but Jehochman still used his authority—the very fact that he was an administrator—to remove an entire thread from discussion that he felt objectionable because it mentioned his paid editing. That is what I meant by admin abuse—shutting down debate by the moral authority of an admin. Wer900 • talk 03:12, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Search engine optimization entails fixing technical flaws in websites (speed, sloppiness, bugs), improving content, and sometimes helping a client figure out their unique value proposition. It has almost nothing to do with Wikipedia, other than that I sometimes point to Wikipedia articles as examples of really good content that consequently ranks well in search engines. And yes, I benefited from Wikipedia. Being a Wikipedia editor has improved my writing skills quite a bit. (Though they are still nothing special.) With the advent of Google Panda, Penguin and now Hummingbird, all the old SEO tricks and shortcuts that you may have heard about (and that I never wasted time with) don't work nearly as well as high quality content. Jehochman Talk 03:15, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
@NeilN. When an Administrator (dubiously) cites BLP as a reason for removing a thread and then adds "Do not restore. Talk to me." to the edit summary, I believe a reasonable person may conclude that the administrative blocking button is being wielded menacingly. (I have no opinion about the deleted material beyond that observation.) Carrite (talk) 16:11, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
What a bad-faith assuming comment. Carrite, just because somebody is a Wikipedia editor, let alone a Wikipedia administrator, does not mean that their name is freely available for slander. We have a rule here that slander can be removed by anybody, including the target of the attack. Unlike others, I edit under my real world identity because I feel that transparency is worth the risk of being harassed or slandered, as happens occasionally. It would be nice if other editors, such as yourself, would take a balanced view of the situation, rather than enabling slander and harassment with poorly thought out comments. Jehochman Talk 16:16, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
What is your (Jehochman's) point? You say that, unlike others, you edit under your real world name. What point are you making to Carrite (Tim Davenport)? Are you saying that there is a difference between using your real name and having your real name be associated with your pseudonym? I don't understand your point there. Anyway, were you slandered? Either the claims made by Wer900 were true, or they were false, and you know whether they were true or false. If the claims were true, it wasn't slander, only a series of personal attacks (on multiple editors including myself). If the claim made about you was false, then you could have requested an uninvolved admin to redact the slander or an oversighter to suppress the slander. I agree that the deleted passage contained multiple personal attacks, but you haven't made the slander case. Not every personal attack is a slander. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:22, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Active guidance from Jimbo: @Wer900, I know some people are frustrated that Jimbo does not always intervene to solve all problems pronto, but he is definitely not an "absentee ruler" as he talks with other people offline or posts advice at other WP discussions. I have already noted his pivotal influence in making major WP articles to edit-preview, or reformat, 3x-4x faster by refering to a faster fork template of the wp:CS1 cite templates as a "harmless experiment" rather than the emergency fix in the few cases as intended. Because Jimbo gave repeated advice about that fast template, I began thinking in terms of other "experimental" templates, which gained enough power to handle most CS1 cite formats 5x faster, while other editors, having read/mentioned Jimbo's prior comments, stopped the TfD deletion of the fast cite templates, and as a result, the huge broken article "Barack Obama" was able to use a fast-cite template to format correctly (and quickly) weeks before the 2012 Presidential Election. From that knowledge, I was able to rewrite the Lua-based CS1 cite templates, when Uncle_G left for 3-month wikibreaks, and completed the Lua transition of those complex, 178-parameter cite templates in March 2013 (based on "experimental" knowledge), to reformat most major articles 2x-3x faster, and explain to MediaWiki developers how Lua was too slow (compared to templates 500/second) to hit the Lua 10-second timeout limit, and some developers quickened the Lua Scribunto interface, within 3 weeks, to run almost 2x faster. When Template:Infobox joined the wp:CS1 cites as Lua, then we got 3x-4x faster edit-previews. Likewise, Jimbo advised the VisualEditor (VE) crew to accept square brackets "[[...]]" as an alternate VE wikilink form, but the advice was rejected due to other concerns; however, Jimbo was not merely "sitting on a talk-page" but rather actively offering keen advice to reduce thousands of "[<nowiki>]" tags entered by confused users. Those are some complex cases of Jimbo actively guiding WP in massively important ways, while also performing other duties for the Foundation. Plus, his shepherding of this talk-page (for years) has provided thousands of users (see: pageview stats) with a rational, alternative discussion (solution) venue, while getting the related advice from Jimbo when he has time, without the uncontrolled insults seen in other discussion pages. Thinking objectively, the use of this talk-page as an wp:ATTACK-page is typically "unproductive" because the insults drive away helpful users and descend into tangents consumed with disparaging remarks. Per wp:FOC: "Focus on content" not the contributors. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:15, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
As Jimbo Wales said, the thread was insulting and unproductive, and its removal was appropriate, but it raises competency issues as to its author, who made serious charges against other editors that he later (in a deleted apology) admitted were incorrect. (He didn't explain what the mistake was, and it is not clear that it can be explained other than as a competency issue.) He apparently also expected that other editors would have the details of his "reform" plan memorized. I will note that it was an opponent, not the proponent, who provided the link to his "reform" plan. I will offer a suggestion. If he actually wants to offer to promote discussion of his plan, he should copy it to a user subpage and provide links to his user subpage, rather than thinking that his plan is so brilliant that every well-informed editor will have memorized it. I don't expect him to do that, because that would require that he have a constructive attitude. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:02, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
A valid argument can be made that the thread should not have been deleted. If the original poster actually wants discussion, he can put the plan on a subpage, and post a link, with any further comments, and resume the discussion, if he doesn't contaminate the new thread with personal attacks. He did apologize for the completely incorrect statements that he made about me, but he didn't provide an explanation, which still leaves me with real doubts about whether a reopened thread will be useful. His governance reform proposal is, in my opinion, very wide of the mark of anything that Wikipedia needs. It is very long on how to deal with content issues, where consensus works reasonably well unless there are also conduct issues, and very short on how to deal with conduct issues that interfere with resolving content issues, the area where, in my opinion, Wikipedia needs improvement. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:11, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
From my own experience on the front lines of content creation, I do not think this is the case. For one, there is a severe shortage of featured-article reviewers in the sciences, so it is very hard for in-depth scientific topics to be covered. In addition, ArbCom cases (think Muhammad) do nothing to resolve underlying content issues, which may fester for years after the decision. My proposal, of creating editorial boards and staff, is designed to handle the large disputes that make it to ArbCom, as well as dealing with smaller sub-disputes and the more quotidian task of assessing articles. Many people also assume that Wikipedia has some sort of editorial board—making that indeed the case, and giving the editorial board the powers I described in my previous proposal here, would help to improve the encyclopedia's reputation. In addition, festering conduct issues would no longer have to be resolved by admins swooping down upon editors, threatening immediate doom, with a trip to AN/I that is more a trip to a lynch mob than a court. Instead, magistrates' courts could be created with the described process; administrators could block users of their own accord, but only as permitted by policy, by ArbCom in specific cases, or to stop immediate disruption pending trial.

Although all of this seems overly bureaucratic, it would pare down the number of administrators from 1,400 to about 600-700 and would give all editors better means of resolving disputes (as an add-in, anyone not part of the formal governance structure would be stripped of administrative powers). For the admins' part, they would only be removable following a judicial proceeding. Wer900 • talk 02:47, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I support the idea of magistrates' courts to deal with conduct disputes, but I read Wer900's proposal with disappointment because it did not (at least on my reading, which may have been biased because the OP made a blatantly false allegation against me) say what to do about conduct disputes. My reading was that it went into bizarre length about how to deal with content, about which we already deal well until conduct gets in the way, and said far too little about conduct. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Nobody is interested. It isn't going to happen. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:17, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
I partly agree and partly disagree that "nobody is interested". I am not interested if the Original Poster expects us to have memorized the complex details of his plan from a previous page. I am willing to consider it, and criticize it, if he will put in on a user subpage and discuss its merits without confabulation. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Did you know that I participated in writing a hard science featured article, Gamma ray burst? I'm one of those rare editors you might want to recruit. Jehochman Talk 03:22, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Please do discuss your plan. Just don't mention me (or anybody else) if you are going to portray me (or them) in a false light. Launching a attack on my reputation distracted from whatever point you wanted to make, and it didn't help me either. Jehochman Talk 03:18, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
If you (Wer900) choose to make statements about editors, be absolutely certain that they are correct. The fact that you apologized does not mean that you have earned my respect for your ability to check your facts and to distinguish them from fiction. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
In fact, the growing number of occasions where Wer900 has falsely accused another editor of some nefarious act should pretty much lead one to believe anything he says is false until proven otherwise. AGF goes only so far, and Wer900 left it far behind. Resolute 00:26, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
"You, the omnipotent god-king of the encyclopedia, have been surrounded all of this time not by wise and trustworthy advisors but by worthless yes-men" -- ROTFL! I'd like to hear somebody name one person of Jimbo's standing who puts up with a more consistent stream of complaints and vituperations from anyone but a wife. :) Wnt (talk) 16:33, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Are you accusing Jimbo of polygamy? That's slander, slander I say! Jehochman Talk 16:40, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
I think of it more as a child entering the teen years. "Dad, you aren't the boss of me!" :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:50, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
But the teenager still wants Dad to provide gas and car insurance, just as some editors want to taunt Jimbo while using Jimbo's servers. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:32, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
You're wrong. Editors aren't using Jimbo's servers. Editors are writing encyclopedia, and are being used by the WMF that is using editors addition to Wikipedia to get tens of millions of dollars in donations, and to keep its status as one of the most powerful organizations in the world. 24.4.37.209 (talk) 15:08, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
I and others might rudely interrupt their ability to do so... and hope dad doesn't mind! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:53, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Oh sure, you do know how to deal with naughty boys, don't you, Demiurge1000? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.37.209 (talk) 15:15, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

what does "employs Admins" actually mean

Let's imagine. In 2011, some guy employs an admin, for US$50, to remove a mean thing about some guy.

In 2012, some guy employs an admin, for US$150, to add a positive thing about some guy.

In 2013, some guy has not yet employed an admin, but assumes that he could still employ one, based on his previous experience.

That would be consistent with "we employ..."

PR guy exaggerates. That's what PR guys do.

Can you all think of reasons why they might do so? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:52, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I cannot think of all of the reasons why PR people would exaggerate, or lie. I can think of a reason why PR people like to claim that they employ admins. They say that in order to appeal to people who think that Wikipedia has an editorial board, and so think that admins are members of an editorial board. The fact that they are using that argument, which isn't based on fact, is further evidence that advertising by PR firms who edit Wikipedia is corrupting, and the corruption will, if not stopped, spread to Wikipedia. They are making the claim, true or false, to hire admins, because some of their customers have an different concept of what admins do than what they really do. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:09, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Can they employ admins now, today? Can they say who those admins are? Or do they admit that any such admits would be blackhat, dishonest people, who would be banned? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:17, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
I think it is just part of the sales pitch to clients. They have to convey they have influence and can get the job done. Clients don't know what Admins really do. It sounds like they have high profile contractors, ready to carry out actions for their clients. For all we know, they (meaning 2 or more) could be former Admins or even blocked users. The important point is that the people they are pitching to don't really understand the structure of Wikipedia or how it operates.
But I am less fearful of a few paid editors than having a witchhunt to find them. I mean, it's not the Editors who declare their COI that Wikipedia needs to worry about...it's the ones that don't. Liz Read! Talk! 03:09, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
So the argument starts "We can't find the paid editors, or do anything about them," but then when we catch a few to "it's a witchhunt!" Can't argue against logic like that. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:51, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Well, that is sort of what we're doing. We should pat ourselves on the back when we find firms like Wiki-PR, who blatantly flout our policies, but we also shouldn't be getting uppity on ones like Wikiexperts.us who try to follow our policies. Each of these should be handled on a case by case basis, like every other issue on Wikipedia.--v/r - TP 04:54, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi

Hi. I would like to edit from this account in a constructive manner. How can I find out if my account has any restrictions that new users do not have. (I am not a new user, and I do not have any new messages according to the message counter that is displayed, when I log in.) If there are any restrictions, or other replies, I would prefer that those find their way to my user page. --Sju Hav (talk) 10:25, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

  • Hello Sju Hav. Your restrictions are listed at your original account. You were first indefinitely blocked in 2008 and the block was reconfirmed in 2013 after a long period with sockpuppetry. In practice you are banned from the community This means that you are not allowed to edit here with any account. This restriction will have to lifted either at AN or by BASC.
  • Like I have told you before I would actually recommend that you get a new chance to edit seriously and constructively here as the ban is obviously not working. Despite your ban, you are in fact one of the most active users on Norway-related article. But as I have also told you, you need to take the policy regarding Biographies on Living People seriously. The policy means that an article has to be fair to the subject at all times. There must not be an undue weight to negative or controversial material. Such material should normally just make up a minor part of an article unless we are talking about people mainly known for crime etc. There shouldn’t be undue weight to negative material in other articles either, although the rules are slightly less restrictive here.
  • Since you have a negative record regarding BLPs, I would recommend that you instead of the current full ban get a topic ban on articles related to BLPs until you have demonstrated over time that you will and are able to respect basic Wikipedia policies. You would also initially need to have a “parole officer” so to speak - adopter is a nicer word - who can look after your edits and see that they are within policies.
  • Regards, Iselilja (talk) 11:34, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
I am editing from account Sju Hav, without any sort of hacking. Is there a problem with autoblock? I have reason to believe that autoblock has performed adequately in the past, so therefore I was not sure what to make of the (to me) suprising ability today, to edit articles. My edits today were good faith edits, since I did not know why Sju Hav has been functioning for the last few hours. Some societies commute prison sentences during the march of time. Sometimes this happens because mitigating circumstances come to the attention, to administrators of a society.
Now I have heard some of Iselilja's ideas, and she can probably find support for her ideas with people on her mailing list—or with other third parties. Her last edit remarks in the the article about a Scandinavian convict and her culling of the the entire section about the conflict-of-interest parliamentary hearing in 2012 of a Scandinavian politician, I find somewhat dubious. The level of trust in each other's edits, seems to be at a mutual low level, for her and I.
I am not sure there is much more to be said for now. --Sju Hav (talk) 17:52, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
You are currently editing from an account with a capital H in hav, which is a different account than Sju hav. Sju Hav has not (yet) been blocked. Regards, Iselilja (talk) 18:06, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Please move discussion to User talk:Sju hav. Sju Hav (talk) 18:18, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Websites blacklisted by Google

"If Google detects persistent malware on a site, it will block the website, potentially freezing traffic until the problem is fixed."

—Wavelength (talk) 16:46, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Interesting read. I designed a solution for that problem based on my experience at Wikipedia.[25] It's a watchlist and undo feature for any website. Jehochman Talk 18:22, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Nice hot-linked advertisement of your for-profit product, Jonathan! - 2001:558:1400:10:D193:379E:43D1:2BD (talk) 19:17, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you very much. The incremental sales from that link will be approximately $0. Why don't you login? Be loud and proud of your comments! This is an example of why our rules on paid editing are such a mess. As you can see, as soon as an editor discloses some sort of business connection, there's a troll ready to jump on it. Jehochman Talk 19:35, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
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