This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Commercial editing. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
It says "De minimis edits to correct obvious errors are usually not sanctioned either, though the editor...". The words "not sanctioned" can mean "not officially approved by us" or "not given punishments (sanctions) by us". Which does it mean? Lou Sander (talk) 13:53, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
I like this proposal better than the first draft, and "commercial editing" is a much clearer term. However, it leaves too many cases ambiguous, so further clarity is still needed.
Can an engineer who works for a software company (who isn't paid for their PR work) edit their employer's article? Assume they own minimal stock, and that nobody at the firm would know they made the edits.
Can a government employee edit an article about their agency? Does it matter if they're trying to get more helpful information out to the public, versus inflating their agency's successes?
Can somebody who is employed by a political action committee make subject-matter edits on topics addressed by that committee?
Presumably there should be some mention of nonprofits, unions, religious organizations, etc to clarify the extent of "commercial". The same concerns could apply to such organizations, even though they may not be commercial.
What about other relationships that are monetary but not owner/contractor? If I'm an ongoing customer of a company, can I edit their article? If I depend on a social welfare program, can I edit its article?
I think we should simplify things by saying any editing with the main purpose of generating profit is not allowed. Wikipedia is a non-commercial website. Let's keep it that way. JehochmanTalk12:41, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Although I strongly oppose this (outlawing commercial editing), just to keep the playing field level, I would add: Grant reciepients who are editing WP or directing the editing of WP as a result of the grant proposal. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:48, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
If the purpose of the grant is to promote scholarly work, that is not incompatible with Wikipedia's goals. We specifically allow that sort of editing. If the grant is to promote political activism, or commercial advantage, I think we would slam that very hard. JehochmanTalk12:56, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Here's the rub. A grant can be related to "scholarly work" but the resultant editing from that scholarly work can be very POV because of the nature of the grant proposal. And don't lose sight of the fact that universities are "commercial entities" with income statements and balance sheets. Grant $$$ are income for universities, professors and staff. As a result, they behave no different from the Pizza Chain owners trying to create the favorable image in WP that they want. --Mike Cline (talk) 13:05, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Some scholars do hit the PR circuits to tout their own works or programs (or those of their departments), and I would see using Wikipedia for that sort of promotionalism as also being unacceptable advocacy and a financial CoI. Not that scholars shouldn't contribute at all, even in their own fields, but they should recuse themselves from promoting their own work or departmental programs (or attacking opposing works or programs). • Astynaxtalk19:36, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Need to include attack editing for pay
The "Financial conflicts of interest" section, #2, describes a financial conflict of interest regarding editing an article relating to the company or subject that one has a COI with. It needs to mention that editing a business rival's page, etc., in such a case is also prohibited. It's yet another reason why "advocacy" should stay buried as a term in these proposals. First Light (talk) 14:10, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
In the section "Requesting help", the text says, "Subjects, including people, businesses and groups, have an interest to ensure that their articles are accurate and up to date." Should this not be "Subjects, including people, businesses and groups, have an interest to ensure that articles about them are accurate and up to date"? —Anne Delong (talk) 17:54, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
We are asked to consider "You have financialconflict of interest if…"; but with "financial" removed this becomes "You have a conflict of interest if…" which appears to be an attempt at rehashing WP:COI. Ideally tweak the wording of the existing policy (if required); otherwise this seems to be unnecessary duplication and WP:CREEP. The form of reward (in wikt:kudos or otherwise) is generally irrelevant when describing what a COI is. —Sladen (talk) 10:16, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Compromise/Consensus on paid advocacy
I've noticed in these discussions that there seems to be two very desperate camps (and a few more that could likely be identified) on this particular issue. One seems bound and determined to rid Wikipedia of the scourge that paid editors bring to Wikipedia, however they are paid, and the other is equally determined to ensure that "anybody can edit" includes those who might get paid too. I'm sure I can find other sub-camps and perhaps even drastically different viewpoints as well, but that seems to be the primary arguments being raised.
My question is thus: Is any sort of compromise even possible on this topic? Is there some common ground that can be generally agreed upon? I think it can be said that the vast majority of Wikipedia participants want to maintain NPOV standards, frown upon vandalism... in either blatant or subtle varieties, and generally want to see improvement in the quality of the articles being edited and created.
I will agree that it seems slimy to no end that a company openly brags about the fact they have a team of editors (and admins) who work for them as paid staff which will help to sanitize Wikipedia articles. It seems just wrong that Wikipedia as a community would not have a response with some teeth to stop idiots like this from persisting in their damage to Wikipedia. At the same time, what kind of proposal could be put forward that also wouldn't substantially change the nature of Wikipedia at the same time, where other time honored traditions of openness with whomever might be an editor would also be recognized? --Robert Horning (talk) 15:30, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
The paid editors are highly motivated to protect their income stream. No doubt many of them are opposing this. By the time we get to a community-wide RFC, they will be overruled by a healthy majority. JehochmanTalk16:02, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
e/c The Conflict of Interest guideline already has a long-standing compromise and consensus (arguably, since there have been about 50 edits there in the last two weeks, mostly changing the paid editing section). As so many editors have pointed out, our Conflict of Interest guideline and Neutral Point of View policy already address the main issues with paid editing.
Perhaps the main difference of opinion is whether paid editing is any more "slimy" than the COI and POV promoted by racial and religious believers or bigots, political fanatics, people motivated by hate towards another person or a company, etc.—all of whom are getting paid in the coin of their realm. There doesn't seem to be consensus to place different and arbitrary values on the motivations of different editors. Instead, we place value on good edits that follow our policies, as we've always done. First Light (talk) 16:21, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
A Wikiproject to oppose COI editing would be highly effective. It would adapt to the issues and existing policies better than this proposal. - Sidelight12Talk17:23, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm replying, in part, to Robert Horning's opening comment, and in part, to Jehochman's reply to it. Taking the latter first, I strongly opposed this draft, and ain't nobody paying me to do so; we'll just have to see if your hypothesis about the broader community will prove true. As to the former, I'm afraid that you are largely correct, but I can offer the possibility of a middle ground that may, indeed, prove to get broad consensus. I don't think we can get consensus to ban paid editing, full stop, because it does indeed go against the spirit of anybody-can-edit, and because there are plenty of ways in which paid editing can be non-disruptive. But I think that we may find consensus about prohibiting concealment of the kinds of paid editing that amount to advocacy. We have something pretty close to that in our existing policies, and I think that if those editors in the "ban it all the way" camp come to accept that a full prohibition will not get consensus, they might be persuaded not to oppose what is, to them, a too-mild approach – something that many of them have been opposing so far. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:57, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Robert Horning and Tryptofish, I don't think that a proposal that restricts paid editing undermines the openness of Wikipedia. Per WP:COI, editors are already prohibited from creating or editing an article about themselves. This proposal effectively extends that prohibition to bar an editor from creating or editing an article about a company or product from which they receive direct financial compensation. They can edit any other article, and there's over 4 million to choose from. Bluntly speaking, direct paid editing is very bad. No journalistic, accreditation, or reviewing organization permits it, and neither should we. That being said, I think that we need a policy that bars serious financial conflicts of interest without losing valuable subject matter expertise. Of the 4 proposals on paid editing, I think that this one comes closest to that goal. Can you give an example of a situation where you think that this proposal would cause a problem? DavidinNJ (talk) 22:29, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Tryptofish that there is the possibility of consensus here on concealed advocacy editing, and with DavidinNJ that this proposal is the best compromise of the four proposals. However, I also agree with Robert Horning's concerns that the current draft undermines "anybody can edit." I think this concern, as well as the "outing" concern, could be met by replacing the article-based prohibitions with content-based prohibitions.
For example, replace "editors with a financial conflict of interest must not edit affected articles directly," with "editors must not edit in order to advance their financial interests, or those of their associates." This prohibits the problematic behavior with fewer false positives, and without encouraging "gotcha" outing. In fact, it's arguably more effective at banning problematic editing since some commercial interests may not be closely associated with specific articles.
Similarly, #3 could be rephrased to "you are editing articles to gain an advantage against a business competitor or litigation adversary."
Overall, this accomplishes the goal of focusing on the edits, not the editors. I've made a similar point in the "Employment questions" section. Proxyma (talk) 00:36, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Per WP:COI, editors are already prohibited from creating or editing an article about themselves. This proposal effectively extends that prohibition to bar an editor from creating or editing an article about a company or product from which they receive direct financial compensation.
This is not true for articles about yourself, and the fact that this is not true is the main point I've been mentioning in paid editing arguments. WP:BIOSELF allows fixing errors in an article about yourself and WP:AUTO#IFEXIST allows you to "remove obviously mistaken facts about yourself, such as marital status, current employer, place of birth, and so on." So logically, we should allow similar sorts of editing by company employees on company articles. Ken Arromdee (talk) 02:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
What is the real issue at hand? It seems like the concern about paid editing isn't the fact that the editors are being compensated for their work while other editors are merely volunteers (although I'm sure that is some of the underlying complaint going on here... thinking it is a matter of fairness and sort of sour grapes they can't get work doing something they like such as editing Wikipedia), but rather that the edits being performed by these editors for hire are of inferior quality to that being made by otherwise non involved participants. It becomes a behavior issue when these Wikipedia participants routinely ignore pillar concepts like NPOV, consensus, or article ownership.
In trying to read between the lines here, and this is at least my take on what is being attempted here, there is what is seen as an attempt to try and stop a class of potential vandals from even being involved in the first place or at least trying to stop them and flag those editors in some way to paint them as potential vandals that need to be watched very carefully. I'm still not convinced that the end goal here, of basically putting a neon sign with a giant arrow pointing at this class of editors as potential vandals to anybody else editing articles they are involved with, will actually work in the first place.
Again I state here, as I've stated in previous discussions, the people we really don't need to worry about are those who voluntarily disclose potential conflicts of interest. Those are the "good guys" who are really trying to work within Wikipedia and to make life easier for everybody else involved. They may be new, naieve, or simply ignorant of the Wikipedia culture but they are definitely trying to work within the system and make Wikipedia better and are at least trying to stick with content policies. Those who are the largest danger, the ones that any sort of aggressive paid editing policy is really directed at, are those who want to hide in the shadows and refuse to disclose any conflicts of interest they may have precisely because such disclosure hangs such a negative view by any other editors involved. They are trolls and should be dealt with as such.
I simply state that I think this whole notion is wrong headed to begin with, but I'm willing to entertain the idea that some sort of genuine consensus could be had here. I'll look at proposals being made to try and rein in paid editing, but I think it is something we as a community will simply need to live with and cope with. The point of many of the tools we use on Wikipedia is that we want to make it harder for trolls to make changes than it is for the "good guys" to clean up after those messes. Certainly this proposal, as constituted as well as previous attempts, seems to be causing more harm to the "good guys" and does absolutely nothing to stop the "bad guys" from still doing damage on Wikipedia. At the very least, that is something I think needs to be addressed in any similar policy proposal in the future.
I am fine with an essay or even a general guideline (more likely an essay that contains "good advise" with broad consensus from many Wikipedia editors) which can be informative to those who may want to be involved with Wikipedia and still edit. It wouldn't have any teeth in terms of deciding individual ArbCom cases, but it might be useful in terms of helping to explain the Wikipedia culture to PR firms and employees of companies that may want to put some positive information about their respective companies into articles about those companies, products they manufacture, or services they provide. I also firmly believe that many of these participants are even needed on Wikipedia, assuming they can behave themselves and work within other long standing Wikipedia policies. --Robert Horning (talk) 18:19, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Employment questions
Here are two hypothetical examples. State whether they are permitted or prohibited by this proposal.
(1) A person is a newspaper writer. They write a story for their newspaper about a topic, and then they edit the Wikipedia article about that topic.
(2) A person is a professional movie reviewer. They write a movie review for money, and then they edit the Wikipedia article about that movie.
In both of these cases, the person is not editing their employer's Wikipedia page, but is editing something that they are financially connected to indirectly. DavidinNJ (talk) 04:47, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Those cases don't strike me as being prohibited under the spirit of this proposal, because while the reporter or reviewer was paid for the research, 1) they weren't being paid for their Wikipedia editing, they were paid for their content in the other outlet, and 2) most reporters/reviewers are free to draw their own conclusions, so there isn't (necessarily) the "opinion for pay" element. In particular it doesn't conflict with the spirit of the rule, which is editing *for the purpose of* gaining a commercial advantage.
That said, I think this highlights one area for improvement. The "non-commercial editing" section effectively described scholarly cases involving money which are nevertheless allowed. I think something similar is needed for private-sector professionals. It should be made clear that the mere act of receiving a salary in a field doesn't (necessarily, per se) prohibit edits in that field. Barring some explicit connection (competitor, litigation adversary, etc), the standard is whether the editing could create some advantage. This is something that can be left to interpretation and good faith. I think that's what the "subject matter experts" section describes, but it's a little unclear. Proxyma (talk) 08:30, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
The example of a reviewer, on the face of it, seems inconsistent with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. Could you expand upon your reasoning? isaacl (talk) 19:20, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
This goes to my problem with all of these proposals; they focus on the editor not the edit. In the case of a movie reviewer, editing a movie's article to promote their review or to amplify their criticism of a movie would be bad and clearly WP:COI and WP:NPOV. If they're adding in details about the cast, plot, box office takings, etc., in a neutral manner, why would that be a problem? Carter (talk) 19:49, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Jehochman, thanks! Addressing "editing at work" is a major improvement and I like how you have framed it overall. I think this moves the policy further towards viability.
That said, I am concerned by the breadth of the standard of "any article related to their employer or its competitors." Competitors don't compete on all products, an individual employee isn't involved in or even aware of all competition, and "related to" extends even further. Given the difficulty of a written standard for employee edits, perhaps it's best to leave the exact line unspecified and subject to common sense, good faith, self-policing, community interpretation, and ongoing debate.
One possibility: "Many people use Wikipedia as a reference while working. If a user notices an opportunity to improve an article, they are encouraged to do so, so long as they avoid edits which advance their or their employer's commercial interests. Edits should not be directed by, or for evaluation by, one's employer."
This is an equally-strong prohibition on employee edits for gain, employers "encouraging" employees to improve their articles, and PR staff being implicitly hired to do so. Even if it's not explicit, if it's "for evaluation" in one's job, it's prohibited. Meanwhile, it also avoids a blanket article-based ban which could be problematic. Under this language, an Apple employee who uses ASP.NET to develop iTunes for Windows would be allowed to make helpful edits to the ASP.NET page, but not to add a citation to the Surface page about poor sales (even if true), since this plausibly advances Apple's interests. Proxyma (talk) 21:53, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Under this language, an Apple employee who uses ASP.NET to develop iTunes for Windows would be allowed to make helpful edits to the ASP.NET page, but not to add a citation to the Surface page about poor sales (even if true), since this plausibly advances Apple's interests. - A perfect example of "COI will always trump NPOV. RS and Notability". This is dangerous ground. We might as well change "The Encyclopedia that any one can edit" to "The Encyclopedia Whose Editors Can Attack Anyone They Don't Like on the basis of COI" --Mike Cline (talk) 11:36, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
What if? Wikipedian's in Residence
This outlines the Wikipedian in Residence program fairly concisely. Under this proposal, what if General Electric, Apple or other major corporation like Southwest Airlines adopted the Wikipedian in Residence approach. What if they hired a Wiki PR or Wiki Experts to be their "Wikipedian in Residence" and allowed them to behave much like the outline in Outreach? Would that be allowable paid editing? Given this language "The Wikipedian in Residence model was first piloted by the GLAM initiative, but has since been adopted by other types of organizations.", it seems that adopting a Wikipedian in Residence moniker would be the solution to paid editing prohibitions by an interested corporation. Just a question! --Mike Cline (talk) 03:15, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
This isn't too hypothetical. Consumer Reports has had a WiR, which seemed to work out; though they also had a well-defined body of knowledge to share. I think this would be fine, given the highly public nature of being a WiR. Though any editor in residence at a major corporation would have their work closely observed. What problems do you foresee that are allowed by the WiR outline? It expressly prohibits editing areas with a conflict of interest. Are you concerned that anything that Apple has knowledge of that they could share would be somehow tied to their business and so necessarily promotional? – SJ +09:11, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
@SJ – Actually I am not concerned about this as I strongly oppose the proposed policy and trust it will never achieve consensus. What I was trying to point out was that under the current proposal wording any entity—commercial, non-profit, association, institutions, etc. could chose to designate some representative as a “Wikipedian in Residence”. Such a designation would presumably make the WiF exempt from this policy. The purpose of such designation would be in-fact to get access to the same type of expertise that “Wikipedians in Residence” are providing GLAM organizations today. The WiR could be insourced (an experienced employee) or outsourced (experienced WP consultant) and there clearly could be remuneration involved. If I were an otherwise notable entity (organization, company, etc.) and wanted create content for WP in my areas of expertise or about the entity but was concerned that such editing might fall afoul of this paid editing policy, I would immediately find a way to designate someone (insourced or outsourced) to supervise the content editing (through training, ghost writing, research, etc. etc.). As long as NPOV, RS and Notability norms are being followed, such editing should not be problematic. However, under this proposal as written, the entity would be moved into the “acceptable paid editing” category if they were doing so via a WiR. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:34, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Conflict of interest for employees
Regarding the two criteria for identifying a financial conflict of interest: though the first criterion is specifically targeted at those paid for editing Wikipedia, it's unclear if the second criterion is inclusive of all employees. Low-level employees are not typically considered to be significant stakeholders, but they do have a financial relationship with the article's subject. Either way, I think this point should be made clear. isaacl (talk) 16:59, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Agreed - this is important and hard because it can define the border between what is and what is not acceptable. If an employee edits Wikipedia 2 hours a year - is that a problem? If an employee is a regular Wikipedia editor and occasionally makes edits to the article(s) representing the employer - is that a problem? What if the employee includes negative information about the employee - not out of spite but in an attempt to provide balance - is that a problem? These issues will need to be resolved some day. -- kosboot (talk) 17:34, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
This is one of the reasons I suggested above that it might be more workable if, instead of banning paid editors (however they are compensated or employed) we substitute an automatic review process for contributions by paid editors in place of the requirement that they submit a request that another editor insert information or corrections. It allows a whole host of editors with possible CoIs to contribute, makes sure that they aren't advocating and actually gives the contributions from such self-declared editors more legitimacy (i.e., in that they will be automatically reviewed). • Astynaxtalk19:27, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
The paid editor will never suggest negative info about their employer. No matter how accurate and well-referenced their material, the presences of such editors introduces systematic bias. I think the simplest and easiest rule is to just exclude them. On the flipside, when we do that, we become obligated to process requests for repairs expediently. We cannot publish info about people without a process to ensure accuracy and speedy remedy of problems. JehochmanTalk19:35, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Maybe I don't see thinks so black-and-white. "Within the scope of your employment" - what does that mean? If you edit an entry related to your employer -- and WP activity is NOT considered part of your employment - is that ok? If you're a professor of Victorian literature, and you edit an entry dealing with Victorian literature, there is certainly a possibility of financial interest there - so why is that ok? -- kosboot (talk) 21:33, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
"Within the scope of employment" is a common legal term that roughly speaking means within one's job duties or expectations, typically for the benefit of the employer. If WP activity isn't considered part of your employment expectations then you have a "vanilla" COI that would fall under WP:COI but not under this proposed policy. As for the professor, professors generally aren't expected to edit Wikipedia and when they do, it's almost always anonymous, so there's no benefit to the university. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:46, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't agree. There are many cases where one can edit an article related to one's employer without any possibility of a tangible benefit to either the employer or the employee. As an example, an engineer for a major technology company wants to update List of displays by pixel density to include the latest generation of his company's products. The company is not going to derive any material benefit from this minor technical change. GabrielF (talk) 01:54, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
I agree with GabrielF here. What if one's editing activites are "outside the expectations" of one's job. Is that ok? And if it is, how do you define the border? (One problem with this discussion is that is stems from the Wiki-PR case so everyone is insuring that explicit for-profit editing is disallowed - but I think that's preventing what people should be thinking about which are the borders when something goes from unacceptable to acceptable. That would be more useful in clarifying the issue. -- kosboot (talk) 03:11, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
I do agree. If an employee of a company uses the requested edit process on the talk page, with a good source indicating the display's pixel density, someone else will add it for them without fuss. But they do have a COI, and that still should be reviewed by a third-party editor. I've always stayed away from editing pages on my employers or their products entirely, but if I thought something needed to be done, I would follow the COI procedure. SeraphimbladeTalk to me15:50, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
I think we also need to clarify whether we need lists of seniority to define "low level" employees or whether we are opening a whole can of worms with this idea and can just leave it up to individual cases to adjudicate on a case by case basis as to COI.
Perhaps a concrete example would illustrate the difficulty. Imagine the example of a serving New Zealand Police officer. Standing orders prohibit that NZP officer from making a public comment in the media, (and editing WP discussion pages would probably come under that category; copy-edits and sourced contributions to articles would probably not) where the identity of the officer is revealed and/or it might be construed that the individual officer is not contributing in a strictly personal capacity, without the NZP officer getting pre-clearance from his/her superior in the chain of command. If that officer gets such pre-clearance from his/her superior to edit WMF projects on the basis that such edits will be made anonymously, then does that anonymous WMF account then have to declare a COI when editing an article relating to motorcycle gangs or cannabis legalisation lobbying groups or even political parties advocating a sharp reduction in police budgets (since the officer might be construed as "... editing articles related to a... litigation adversary, or an interest group that advocates regulation of, or sanctions against, your business or industry"? Or could we limit disclosure where the officer is of rank lesser than superintendent? --118.93nzp (talk) 22:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
How to identify commercial editing
At times users have objected to this policy because they say it will be impossible to enforce with anonymous users. I disagree. Here's an example of a possible paid editing project I came across today, P.H. Yu. Notice how the article was created by a small number of users with no edits outside this topic, and how remarkably good at wikicode they are for having only a few dozen edits under their belts. Notice how the article is strictly positive, even glowing. As a test I added the fact that the gentleman's company Xinnet was the worlds largest registrar of spam domains as of 2009. We will see if single purpose accounts appear to edit war over the inclusion of that negative fact. JehochmanTalk12:41, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Well spotted, Jehochman. The duck test seems to have application outside of WP:SPI. I think the "difficulty of enforcement" argument is exceptionally weak and while it might provide a rationale for refraining from giving a "Support", I simply can't understand it as the basis for an "Oppose". My take on the enforceability aspect is that even if it were impossible to detect this behavior (and your post here puts that canard to rest) there is something to be gained simply by clearly setting out Wikipedia's official stance on the topic regardless. Let's imagine that vandalism was impossible to detect. Honestly this isn't far from the truth - subtle vandalism has persisted for years and is added to the encyclopedia daily. There is still a clear and tangible benefit to having WP:VAND listed as an official policy. -Thibbs (talk) 01:48, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
That is a good indicator of further investigation and the sign of somebody doing an excellent new page patrol review. Articles like you are suggesting here can be created by individuals who don't receive payment for their edits as well, so I fail to see how this example is a good test for paid editing? It doesn't matter if they are experienced at using Wikicode, they could still be new to Wikipedia. It should be pointed out that websites besides Wikipedia use the MediaWiki software (I've edited on many of them). It is possible to get experience using these tools outside of Wikipedia.
I agree that this kind of editing behavior is something that needs to be monitored. I fail to see how this particular draft of a proposed policy change is going to make much of a difference in preventing that kind of behavior. My other huge concern is the false positive problem where somebody who is otherwise completely innocent is being accused of being a paid advocate when in fact they most definitely are not. This policy proposal seems to suggest that such people get railroaded out of Wikipedia with trolls simply because they have the appearance of doing something wrong in the eyes of some. --Robert Horning (talk) 15:11, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't see it that way. Accusations always require evidence. At the Sockpuppet Investigation page we have daily accusations that editors are engaging in sockpuppetry (a blockable offense) and then on the casepage we see the submission of evidence by the charging editor, the disputation of evidence and offer of counter-evidence by the editor charged with the offense, and a final decision by an experienced and neutral admin using tools that would probably be considered outing if they were used by non-admins. This has been going on for years and years and I don't think it can fairly be said that it has provided a blueprint for outing/witch-hunts or that AGF/BITE is now defunct or even that it has resulted in an overly large number of convictions of innocent editors. In fact it's regarded as a necessary part of Wikipedia. Is it "workable"? Is it "enforceable"? Well has it stopped all sockpuppetry? Of course not. Has it driven sockpuppet behavior underground? Surely it has to an extent. But it's obviously wrong to think that the entire SPI program is a net negative for Wikipedia.
It's quite clearly a Good Thing™ that we have a clear-cut and categorical prohibition of negative behavior like sockpuppetry. Yes, some sockpuppets may help out on occasion, and so may some paid advocates. But the risks of them hindering are sufficiently great that a categorical treatment is warranted for both groups. Whatever tiny benefit we might see from them is far outweighted by the huge negatives they can and do produce. This has already been recognized by German Wikipedia where mandatory declaration of COI has been policy for over a year and they have notably not seen a huge swell of bad-faith, newcomer-biting, witch hunts. Simply requiring a declaration of COI (as is standard practice for all academic writing) is only onerous for those who are anxious to avoid scrutiny, but at a collaborative encyclopedia aren't transparency and scrutiny the fundamental underpinnings of our trustworthiness and reliability? Allowing this kind of editor to participate in any manner is far more liberal an approach than we see at any other encyclopedia that intends to be taken seriously. Mandatory declaration of COI would not prevent all damage but it would mitigate it. In an un-winnable scenario like this, pragmatism should be the order of the day. -Thibbs (talk) 17:01, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Re: Jehochman's We will see if single purpose accounts appear to edit war over the inclusion of that negative fact. That's a interesting approach. It's quite common to see desperate, repeated attempts by SPA editors to remove well-cited negative info from articles that look promotional. I've encountered it over the years at Miniclip (security problems reported by Homeland Security), Carnival Cruises (multiple ship fires, ships adrift), Michael Milken (rich convicted felon), Carhartt (popularity with drug dealers used promotionally), Skyy Vodka (it's redistilled industrial ethyl alcohol, deionized tap water, and flavoring, all done by an outsourced manufacturer), Moller M400 Skycar (over forty years of fund-raising and hype, still doesn't fly) and Magnetix (children dead, product recall). Something really bad has to be clearly on the record for this to work. It's not effective for the minor but overhyped company/product/person with little press coverage. John Nagle (talk) 18:54, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
One thing to watch out for is the posting of links. If someone posts a link-to a specific site-in the article, then he/she likely stands to benefit from people following that link. Perhaps, posting links in articles could be subject to special authorization-5 different editors, selected at random, must look over the entry to ensure that it is not promotional. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnDoe4000 (talk • contribs) 16:40, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Links are always of concern. I take especial notice of links when I look at articles, and I am sure I'm not the only one to do so. In addition, while there might be some benefit from readers directly clicking those links, because they're nofollow, they do not help the linked site's search engine standing.--~TPW22:54, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Administering the policy
This draft lacks clarity on how Wikipedia will administer this policy. Providing a policy on paid editing/COI is very important and I fully support it. But for this to be a useful tool for the community, the policy needs to clearly describe a) what an editor should do if he or she suspects another editor of violating the policy (currently the draft says only "Cases of suspected commercial editing may be reported at the Conflict of interest noticeboard" and b) how the community will handle any investigation once a suspicion is raised in the appropriate forum. It should also make clear to editors how not to handle suspicions of COI editing, and possibly provide sanctions for inappropriate expressions of such suspicions. (the prior version had a section on this, which is now gone) As many have pointed out here, we need to preserve and underline WP:AGF -- to do that and avoid witch hunts, and to ensure that investigations are fair and swift, we need to provide clear guidance about what to, and what not to do, when editors have concerns about other editors. This is important to me, as I have been the subject of attacks along these lines. I acknowledge that my perspective on this may be skewed by those experiences and may not be aligned with the consensus.
Concretely, I propose that the Investigations section be changed to the following:
If an editor has concerns that another editor may be violating this policy, the concerned editor should politely and without accusation, call attention to this policy at the subject editor's Talk page. If the behavior of the subject editor does not change, the only appropriate forum for raising concerns is the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard (COIN). The concerned editor must notify the subject editor of the posting at COIN and must present specific edits that raise the concern. Administrators at COIN shall a) use appropriate Wikipedia tools (checkuser, etc) to determine whether the subject editor may have a commercial motive; b) interact with the subject editor offline and confidentially in order to obtain disclosure of the subject editor's interest in the topic; c) review the subject editor's edits; and d) post a summary of findings at COIN and state relevant sanctions (as described below), if any.
Editors who have concerns that another editor may be violating this policy and do not follow the procedure above, may themselves become subject of sanctions. Civility, with its assumption of good faith, is a pillar of Wikipedia and this policy remains subject to that pillar. If an editor discloses a financial interest, it is expected that others will scrutinize the changes made by the editor while not commenting on the editor. Hounding of editors due to their actual or suspected financial interests is not allowed and hounding behavior is subject to sanctions. Furthermore, Wikipedia's "outing" policy expressly prohibits the disclosure of personal information of any editor, including editors who have disclosed a financial interest related to their participation in Wikipedia. It is not permissible to investigate editors for conflicts of interest using sources from outside of Wikipedia.
"It is not permissible to investigate editors for conflicts of interest using sources from outside of Wikipedia." Where is this coming from and why does anyone think such a broad statement has policy- or guideline-level support? --Ronz (talk) 21:59, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi User:Ronz. The bit that you picked out (indeed most of the 2nd paragraph) came directly from the first draft of this. I am fine with deleting that bit, and have struck it. What do you think of the rest? thanks! Jytdog (talk) 22:27, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. The four proposals seem to be converging, which is what we want if any are going to be accepted. --Ronz (talk) 23:40, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
It's an over generalization of WP:OUTING that conflicts with current consensus on sockpuppetry, vandalism, usernames, conflicts of interest, spamming, canvassing, and more I'm sure. We do look at outside sources. The restriction is on the identification and use of personal information, not on where information comes from that is used to determine if a conflict of interest exists.--Ronz (talk) 23:40, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Paid for teaching
Suppose a professor is paid by a university to teach a course. Instead of passing out class notes to students, the professor creates or modifies Wikipedia articles, then direct his/her students to read the articles. Is this paid editing? Wikfr (talk) 00:17, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
I have done essentially this (although it was mostly putting together collections of readings in the Book namespace, and cleaning up existing articles, with a smaller amount of article creation on topics I was confident in the notability of). So I am very interested in the answer, but I'm not sure you're asking quite the right question. It should be: Is this problematic paid editing? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:32, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
At work I occasionally have to write reports, and sometimes use Wikipedia as a reference to define technological terms (because it saves space to reference Wikipedia rather than to copy chunks of text from Wikipedia into my report). Am I in trouble for correcting errors or improving articles so that I can cite them? For instance, domain name. JehochmanTalk12:33, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Jehochman didn't you create this draft proposal? If even you're not sure about how to treat editing at work, then it looks like the draft has a big problem :). I just think it raises many more questions than it answers. I've proposed solutions to some of the ambiguity, but doing so would likely change the proposal significantly. Proxyma (talk) 22:49, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
That's a valid point, but I think misapplied here. These questions are being raised by the proposal itself. They weren't at issue, and now they are. To be viable, the proposal must either answer them or avoid raising them. Perhaps the proposal should be more narrowly tailored to address only the "most common, easiest questions" as you put it, which is firms explicitly contracting other firms for assistance, and avoid the harder question of employment status and personal investments. Proxyma (talk) 00:12, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Disclosure of COI is more important than the reason for it
Paid or not, a lot of editors have a conflict of interest on some articles. The main thing is that it shouldn't be hidden. If all editors, paid or not, were asked to declare a conflict of interest when editing any article, their edits could be judged accordingly. In this way the paid, or just closely connected, editors would feel welcome to add content, but others would be alerted to scrutinize these edits for bias. Of course, there would be some editors who would hide their COI, but the number of these would be less than it would be if they felt that their edits would be rejected automatically and not given a fair chance. If all COI editors were treated the same, that is, given respect as colleagues if they did their best to follow the policies, the problem of deciding the definition of "paid" is avoided. (For example, is a person who works in an art gallery and writes about artists whose work hangs in the gallery "paid"? Is a member of an orchestra who creates an article about the orchestra "paid"? How about a minister who writes about the bible?) —Anne Delong (talk) 04:16, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Remedies
Also, in the Remedies section, there is a sentence: "Articles tainted by commercial editing may be tagged with {{COI}} until they have been thoroughly reviewed and repaired by neutral editors. When an article is unequivocal advertising, it may be speedily deleted." This is too broad and liable to abuse, and should be changed to "Articles tainted by commercial editingwith content that violates NPOV or sourcing policies that was directly created or deleted by an editor with a declared COI or by an editor who is later identified via the process described above as having a COI, may be tagged with {{COI}} until they have been thoroughly reviewed and repaired by neutral editors. When an article is unequivocal advertising, it may be speedily deleted."Jytdog (talk) 14:30, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
I think we need concise wording to encourage understanding. How about "Articles that appear to have been written by editors with a close connection to the subject may be tagged..."? JehochmanTalk13:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for discussing! The original version was better than that, as the language was more closely tied to the subject of the policy with specific reference to "commercial editing"); your proposal above is more vague... I hear you on the importance of concision; the kind of precision I suggested is indeed too wordy. How about " "Articles with content directly created or deleted by a commercial editor may be tagged..."? I have been involved in article where editors slap the COI tag on too sloppily and more precision would be useful to avoid that. Thanks again! Jytdog (talk) 13:54, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
How about "Articles with content affected by commercial editing may be tagged...", which leaves open all the different possibilities for how a commercial editor could screw up a Wikipedia article? JehochmanTalk14:01, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
I've copied the latest draft to Wikipedia:Commercial editing and marked it as a guideline because I feel that there is substantial consensus within the community for these statements. A discussion may follow whether to upgrade this page to a full policy. Please continue editing or making comments on that version. I know we have a lot of versions floating around. This is not a problem. They can eventually be merged. JehochmanTalk13:48, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
So now there are five talk pages to try to track. This is getting ridiculous and impossible to follow. It seems that while there is a strong minority opinion in favor of some sort of paid/commercial editing policy, the majority of expressed opinions feel that WP:NPOV and WP:ADVOCACY policies, and keeping the focus on the content/edits not the editor, is the proper approach. I'd urge those who are in favor of some sort of policy to close four of the proposals, create a new unified proposal and then move forward. Otherwise end this based on WP:SNOW. Carter (talk) 14:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Agreed, this is an unproductive move. We need to consolidate, not fork yet further or we will never move forward. Jytdog (talk) 14:21, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't think moving forward is possible, except to ratify the status quo, but I agree that another proposal is not constructive. There is so much discussion underway that following all this is far too time-consuming. Coretheapple (talk) 15:23, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
In accordance with Wikipedia's policy on guidelines and proposals, the recommended practice is to have an Request for Comments to build consensus for guidelines. The discussion so far has been to refine the proposal to accommodate multiple viewpoints; I do not believe a consensus has been developed yet to label the proposal as a guideline. isaacl (talk) 15:39, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
Jehochman there are serious problems with your approach to this (your) proposal. Many reasonable points have been raised on this talk page, yet you haven't addressed many of them, including direct questions posed to you. Failing to do so while forking the proposal again does suggest forum shopping, and unilaterally upgrading it to a consensus guideline suggests that you're discounting our opinions. A third draft would only be appropriate if it incorporated our responses to the second, and ideally withdrew the other drafts.
Overall, I'd like to request that you engage in more good faith dialogue with critics of your proposal. Some of your comments suggest you believe that most opposition is due to paid editors protecting their income. Could that explain your apparent discounting of the opposition here, and declaring consensus when there is none? Not only is it a faulty assumption, it also undermines our chances for actual consensus.
I am unpaid... I'm debating this for free! Despite my misgivings, I've made suggestions to improve your proposal. It's frustrating that these have gone unaddressed. Proxyma (talk) 22:24, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
If I may suggest something here, I would encourage you, Jehochman, to expand WP:Paid Editing into a full blown essay (not even a guideline) that details concerns and questions about paid editing, written as an introduction to participants on Wikipedia who may receive payment, a salary, or some other form of compensation for their editorial activities. I know that doesn't have the bite you are hoping in terms of a policy or even guideline which prohibits paid editing, but detailing legitimate concerns which many other participants on Wikipedia have about paid editing should be made apparent to newcomers and those who legitimately want to clean up articles about their organization. I really think that an essay is the best way to go at the moment, considering the huge schism this is developing among Wikipedia editors. It can and should be a group essay (not just a single editor), but those can and do express strong viewpoints which not all editors necessarily must endorse either. --Robert Horning (talk) 00:57, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
PR Wikipedia firms and proposal Wikiproject
While I voted oppose, firms that specialize in PR (seeWiki-PR editing of Wikipedia) is a problem. PR editing as a problem has not rivaled other types of COI editing in the past, but this could change. PR companies that specialize in Wikipedia editing are a threat to neutrality and pose an unquestionable COI. I think most who participated here can agree that this is a problem, and this problem could get out of control. Solution, we need a Wikiproject to work together (whether we support or oppose this proposal) to uphold existing guidelines against this. Making a paid editing policy proposal is unenforceable, and it wouldn't stop outnumbering/persistence/puppetry by paid PR editors. What does anyone think? - Sidelight12Talk14:13, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
I think a group of concerned editors getting together in a Wikiproject whose goal is to control and contain PR firms who run roughshod over the community editing process (aka engage in blatant POV pushing, negative reference deletion, and other trollish behavior), as well as providing formal outreach to PR firms that want to engage with the community in a more positive light would be incredibly useful. One of the driving factors here is that a great many companies also want to combat a bunch of grumpy customers or even an aspy who is sitting in their mother's basement and does nothing but push negative information about a company onto Wikipedia. They are feeling helpless and really do think Wikipedia is tearing their reputation as a company into pieces. The whole John Seigenthaler controversy should show that similar things are happening to corporate articles as well, and one of the ways that companies know best on how to handle stuff like this is to go to a PR firm to clean things up. I really do think that positive outreach to groups who respect Wikipedia is the best way to go, and at least the big corporate clients will go to those companies who have a positive reputation as well and will drop the slimy companies in a New York minute. -- Robert Horning (talk) 16:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
Robert Horning, I think engagement is exactly the way to go on this. Wikipedia is a large and influential, which means that organisations can't ignore it: especially when the infobox contents is there on the side of the top Google result. My feeling is that for every individual/company to which we can provide an inviting avenue for getting involved and learning Wikipedia's processes that will be a dozen fewer hapless edits that we won't be running after to check and hoping to find. While I can't condone the singling out of those with Asperger syndrome, I would encourage the forming a Wikiproject group as you discuss. In the first instance people are simply often afraid to ask questions. —Sladen (talk) 17:42, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
User:Sidelight12, while I agree with you that engagement and vigilance is essential, there is a big hole where a COI policy should be. (I've written this elsewhere in this sprawling discussion, and will just copy it here, please forgive the copy/paste.) My answer to you is on three levels. One practical, the second business-oriented and also practical, and the third grounded in concepts of good governance (which of course has practical effects). 1) Practical. Paid advocates are different. They are, literally, paid to advocate. While volunteer editors hold down day jobs and edit in their free time, paid advocates edit on behalf of clients (or themselves) during their workday. Practically speaking, volunteers just cannot keep up on pages where paid advocates are active. Second, the business argument. Right now, organizations like WikiExperts and WikiPR can advertise to clients that their editing Wikipedia on behalf of clients does not violate any policies, and this is true. As a result we open ourselves up to their staff (employees or consultants) coming here and creating and editing articles that are not written with the goal of creating a great encyclopedia, but rather with the goal of making their clients look good (or at least giving them exposure on Wikipedia). If we made it clear in policy that paid advocates cannot create or directly edit articles, their business model is destroyed, as these companies could no longer represent that they can deliver what they promise; we get rid of the whole slew of problems and time-suck created by paid advocates. Finally, basic good governance. Governments, nonprofit companies, and most for-profit companies, have policies (not guidelines) about COI. This is basic good governance. Like all good governance, many good things follow. Such policies make it clear to employees and volunteers what is OK and what is not, with respect to using public or company resources for personal gain. Having such a policy ensures relevant stakeholders (the public, clients, volunteers, etc) that the organization is competent and is protecting everyone involved from corrupt activities. Having such a policy allows the organization to take decisive action when violations are found (which prevents confusion and inappropriate action). Wikipedia is important enough that we need a COI policy to provide clear guidance to editors about what behavior is OK, to ensure the public that we are on this so we can retain the trust that we have, and to allow editors and admins to take action when the policy is violated or suspected to be violated. I know it is hard work to get consensus around, but we need this. Jytdog (talk) 23:07, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Done Jehochman Talk 17:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)