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Policy

I've added this as a legal policy, following Roger's example of Wikipedia:Non discrimination policy. Pinging some of the people who have regularly discussed this: Smallbones, Coretheapple, Doc James, Jytdog, MastCell, JzG.

Having it here should avoid arguments about it in future and will make it easier to find. Sarah (talk) 23:51, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't know that I would call this a legal policy, but it is binding on the English Wikipedia unless and until we adopt an alternative. It is different from WP:COI in that it is more of a hard rule than the guidelines recommended on that page, so having a separate page to call it out makes sense. Harej (talk) 00:03, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Harej. I've added it to the category of conduct policies too. It seems to straddle both. Sarah (talk) 00:07, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
@SlimVirgin: FYI your ping didn't work, at least for me! Maybe it was added after the original message. Glad to see this policy page, which I just stumbled upon. You may want to manually notify the other people you were trying to ping. Coretheapple (talk) 17:07, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Looks ok to me. Perhaps we should add that this policy is *not* an alternative policy, and does not weaken the ToU. That seems quite clear now, but what if people start making changes here? Smallbones(smalltalk) 12:23, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, good point. Perhaps we can think of a sentence at the end to make that clear. Sarah (talk) 17:32, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps we should just have the bit of text in a box, as is currently the case at WP:COI. The text does differ slightly now.
Below that and outside of the box we might state that "This is a policy of the WMF and may not be changed by Wikipedia editors except in the prescribed manor. The policy may be interpreted and enforced by WMF, as they best see fit. It is also the policy of Wikipedia and may be enforced by Wikipedians, including any additional rules or interpretations added by consensus below. These additions do not constitute an alternative policy and thus do not weaken the Terms of Use." Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:56, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

The last link is not working right, somehow it needs to be fixed (I could not figure it out) Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:27, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Boxed text and how to change

I just placed the text from the ToU in a box, to make sure that people realize that they cannot (directly) change this text. I also added a paragraph or 2 on how to change the policy. The essence is that

  • an alternative policy revokes the ToU section on Wikipedia and must be approved by an RfC of similar seriousness as we would use to revoke any policy, i.e. no drive-by alternative policies.
  • "normal policy changes" - these are also pretty serious, but clearly the normal changes in policy don't require a month-long process as would be likely in revoking a policy, e.g. if we wanted to require that a disclosure on a user page must be visible for at least a year, then I think that kind of change must be possible in a couple of weeks, or even a week if we are lucky. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:15, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Commercial editing disclosure (proposed)

Commercial editors, those editors who are paid as part of a business transaction, must disclose

  • each paid edit in the edit summary. The edit summary must be of the form "paid edit, client John Doe" or "paid edit, employer XYZ, Inc."
  • their status as a commercial editor on their user page, including the client, employer, and affiliations for each paid assignment, from the time of the agreement being made until six months after the final edit.

Any paid editors who do not consider themselves commercial editors must still closely follow the terms of use and WP:Conflict of interest.

(perhaps even leave out "those editors who are paid as part of a business transaction")

pinging @Slim Virgin and Jytdog:

Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:14, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, commercial editors should not edit articles directly, and we can generally get them to refrain from direct editing (if they are following COI at all and not hiding/lying). How about we direct them to do what they should (as opposed to encouraging direct editing, as I think the above does....)

Editors who receive consideration for editing Wikipedia must disclose

  • Employer, client, and affiliation in the header of the article Talk page using the {{tl:paid}} template
  • Their status as a paid editor on their user page, including the client, employer, and affiliations for each paid assignment.

Per the COI guideline, paid editors should not directly edit articles in Wikipedia. Instead they should submit contributions for peer review: new articles (with disclosure on the Talk page as described above) should be submitted through the articles for creation process, and edits to existing articles should be proposed on the article Talk page, using the {{request edit}} template.

Thoughts? Jytdog (talk) 17:42, 6 September 2015 (UTC) (struck addition about how paid editors should edit Jytdog (talk) 19:37, 6 September 2015 (UTC))
I'd like to underline what Sarah said, I don't think we're actually disagreeing on where we want to go for the actual policy, we're just disagreeing on how to get there. I'd like to use the term "commercial editor" just so I can finally stop having the same discussion all the time about what "paid editing" actually includes, see e.g. WT:Administrators. "Commercial editors" would include everything I believe is included in the ToU as "paid editors", perhaps a bit more. I think we all agree in general who is included as a paid editor, but I think Wikipedians want a place where they can discuss the fine points, i.e. "make it our own."
I'd think that the title of the policy might be changed to "Paid contributions and disclosure" if we put Jimbo's bright line rule in here, as it is not strictly about disclosure. The bright-line rule is more-or-less included at WP:COI, but the line is not so bright over there. Can we keep that clear and simple if we put it in here?
I will have some distractions over the next 30-45 minutes, but let's see if I can put it all together now. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:04, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Smallbones, I would urge caution about taking this policy further than the Wikimedia Foundation terms of use. The bright line is widely respected, but it has been rejected many times as policy. If that issue is pushed and confused with the disclosure requirement, you will risk a backlash against both. I would suggest not extending this policy until it has been integrated into our procedures. Then we can judge the mood of the community re: bright line and any other issue. Sarah (talk) 19:14, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Ah, I didn't catch that this is a policy page. I agree that the content I proposed about what paid editors should do in terms of actually editing, would complicate things, and this should remain focused only on the disclosure aspect of COI management. Sorry.

(EC twice)

Commercial editing (verison 2)

Commercial editors, those editors who are paid as part of a business transaction, must disclose

  • each paid edit in the edit summary. The edit summary must be of the form "paid edit, client John Doe" or "paid edit, employer XYZ, Inc."
  • each article edited including employer, client, and affiliation in the header of the talk page using the {{tl:paid}} template
  • their status as a commercial editor on their user page, including the client, employer, and affiliations for each paid assignment, from the time of the agreement being made until six months after the final edit.
  • Commercial editors should not sign non-disclosure agreements with their employers. If they cannot legally disclose the information required here, they may not edit Wikipedia

Any paid editors who do not consider themselves commercial editors must still closely follow the terms of use and WP:Conflict of interest.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:41, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Defining commercial editing

I propose the following for the definition of commercial editing for use on Wikipedia. I believe this is totally consistent with the ToU and its FAQs, as well as current practice at WP:COI. It does allow us to redefine "paid editing" to make it "our own", but if it doesn't include all paid editors, as defined by the ToU, then those editors still have to follow the ToU.

Commercial editing

Commercial editing is the practice of editing Wikipedia for payment, or as part of a business or commercial transaction, or soliciting payment for such editing.

Commercial editors include:

  • Any organization involved in these practices, as well as their officers, employees, and contractors if they write or edit text on Wikipedia, solicit payment, or help organize such activity.
  • Employees and contractors of any organization if they write or edit text on Wikipedia about that organization as part of their employment.
  • Any editor or registered user who pays for such editing.

Non-commercial editors include:

  • Galleries, libraries, archives, museum and similar cultural institutions who are actively cooperating with WikiProject GLAM
  • Wikipedians-in-Residence who work with WikiProject GLAM
  • University professors or researchers at non-profit research centers who are paid for teaching or research, rather than for editing Wikipedia
  • Editors who work for the the WMF or Wikimedia chapters when performing their duties for these organizations.

The above non-commercial editors should declare a potential conflict of interest on their user pages and follow the conflict of interest guideline closely.

above added by — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smallbones (talk • contribs) 21:33, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

That is pretty good. I think that should be worked on at WT:COI and added here after it is accepted there Jytdog (talk) 23:29, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if we could ask someone to fix the {{paid}} template so that there's space for employer and client. Thank you to Josve05a above for drawing attention to it. Sarah (talk) 19:34, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Sarah, I'm not really sure what you mean - there are company and user parameters which are for the employer and client, respectively. There's also a page1 parameter to say which page is being edited. I never got around to putting in a page2 because it seemed unlikely it would be necessary. Primefac (talk) 19:58, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
Hi Primefac, I couldn't see how someone could clarify who the client is and who is paying for the contributions – for example when a paid editor works on an article or talk page about Company X (which is the client), and is being paid to do that by PR company Y (which is the editor's employer with respect to this article). Sarah (talk) 20:13, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
Your example would be {{paid|employer=Company Y|client=Company X}}, which would show as:
Incorrect template usage. Please use {{connected contributor (paid)}} instead.
I agree that the wording in the "Arguments" section could probably be improved. I will get working on this for clarity. I'll start working on adding multiple page# parameters. Primefac (talk) 20:18, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
That template does need to be fixed - it should follow the Terms of Use and the parameters should be "employer", "client", and "affiliation", and also "article". There should be one for each article they work on, again per the Terms of Use. 20:55, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
I have updated the terminology, both on the template page and also where it is transcluded. Primefac (talk) 21:35, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

(EC) "Affiliation" is also needed, let me see if I can give an example

$ This user, in accordance with the terms of use, discloses that they are

  • paid by Big PR Firm, PLC to edit Wikipedia as part of their work.
  • clients worked for include MNO Corp. PQR Inc. and John D. Doe
  • affiliations include Little Internet PR, PLC and Text Riters, Inc.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:02, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Smallbones that does not comply with the ToU. it says "employer/client/affiliation" for each edit. The point of having all three is that we have a clear trail back to whoever paid for the editing with no way to wiggle out of it. The way you have the disclosure set up there, obscures the chain. I hope you aren't advising to disclose that way. Jytdog (talk) 21:10, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
Well, I was, but you are correct. If it were limited to one client (a separate template for each individual client) it would almost be in compliance. The question of each edit is a more difficult one (btw I see "any contribution" which seems to be the same meaning). I'd think the only way to get compliance with that would be in the edit summary, perhaps in the form "paid by BIG PR Firm, PLC". I'll make extensive suggestions below. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:11, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
What I am OK with, is a single disclosure. If editor X is employed by Y for client Z with no additional affiliation, that should be disclosed on their Userpage and in the header of the relevant article Talk page, and referenced in each edit request. There should be no edits to articles by paid editors. Just edit requests or AfCs. Jytdog (talk) 17:25, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Primefac, thanks for updating it. Could it be placed inside a box, as with {{connected contributor}}? Perhaps something like this would work for article talk:
The following users have been paid for their contributions to this page:
  • [User:A] paid by [employer or unknown], on behalf of [client or unknown]. Other affiliation: [other names(s)]. Declared, according to the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use: [yes or no].
Sarah (talk) 17:34, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
Hmmm, could definitely look into that. I also like the idea (based on "connected contributor") of adding them to some sort of Category:Paid contributors. Primefac (talk) 17:39, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
That would be very helpful. The problem with using the "connected contributor" template for paid editors is that "connected" can mean anything: it can mean that an editor is a friend of the subject of the bio, for example. So it doesn't allow us to track who is being paid and which articles they're working on, which is the kind of COI the community cares about most. Sarah (talk) 17:46, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
I have always been a bit unclear on the inclusion of "affiliation" but I have actually had several editors say things to me like "my friend's boss told her to edit this article and I am helping her". "Affiliation" covers that sort of thing. I think it also covers "other" as you say there, but I think its primary purpose is to prevent wiggling out of disclosure. Jytdog (talk) 21:12, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
The official WMF documentation doesn't even define "affiliation," so for the moment I'm more concerned with the other two declarations. Primefac (talk) 21:17, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Just as a note, I'm working on completely restructuring the template, both for ease of use and to increase its functionality. Should be done by the end of the day; there will be a userbox, the normal text method demonstrated above, and a talk page version that is similar to {{connected contributor}}. Primefac (talk) 21:14, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

That's great, Primefac, thank you. Sarah (talk) 21:20, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Just as a final update to this, I'm pretty sure I've got things squared away, and all users using {{paid}} have been added to Category:Paid contributors. I might create a cat for "Pages being worked on by paid editors" but I haven't come up with a succinct name yet and thus have not implemented it for the Talk page version of the template. Primefac (talk) 16:51, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • This is a big improvement, Primefac, thank you. I was wondering whether we should follow the style of {{connected contributor}}, because there may be multiple paid editors on one page over time. Also, we should avoid the present tense because we want the tag to remain when the contract period is over. I was thinking of something like:
The following users have been paid for their contributions to this topic:
  • User:X paid by Acme PR Ltd, on behalf of (name of client) [if the employer is also the client, repeat the name in both parameters]. Other relevant affiliation (if appropriate). All disclosed, per Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use: yes/no/partial declaration.
Sarah (talk) 18:08, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Primefac, this still isn't working. If I write:
{{paid|user=X|talk=yes|employer=John Smith PR|client=Acme Ltd}}
I get:

Incorrect template usage. Please use {{connected contributor (paid)}} instead.

I tried editing the template myself but I'm worried about breaking it. Sarah (talk) 18:20, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Sarah, when talk=yes there is no client listed because "this page" and the "client" should be the same. If user X is editing page Y, then they wouldn't be putting their paid notice on the talk page of page Z. Make sense? Primefac (talk) 18:32, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Can we instead always have employer and client filled in?
  • {{paid|user=X|talk=yes|employer=Acme Ltd|client=Acme Ltd}}
Also we need to remove the present tense and "to edit this page". Can you write this?
  • "In accordance with the WMF's terms of use, User: X has disclosed that they have been paid by A [name of employer], on behalf of B [name of client], for their contributions to this topic." Sarah (talk) 18:41, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • would be great if the edit would fail to save, or would produce an error, if data were not entered into all the possible fields. That way editors would not get to pick and choose what they disclosed. Possible? Jytdog (talk) 19:21, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Jytdog, the talk page version ({{paid/Talk}} does that already, so that it must have a username. I have not added the error function to any of the other parameters yet because I did not realise it was absolutely vital to have them. Primefac (talk) 19:24, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
I don't think that's a good idea. Some info is better than none, and people may not at first realize they need to fill everything in or how to fill it in, so edits could fail simply because of confusion. Also, no one really understands what affiliation means, except in very obvious cases. Sarah (talk) 19:28, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Yes, failure to properly fill in the fields should be allowed -- even 'username' should be optional, for *very* beginning editors that don't necessarily know their wikipedia username, and put in "Bob Smith" which is their microsoft-windows-username at work, whereas on-wiki they are known as User_talk:11.22.33.44 or somesuch. Strongly suggest that the template be made as bitey-free as possible: if you don't edit the username field, the template will automagically fill it in with your currently-logged-in-data. If you don't edit the 'employer' field, or the 'client' field, the template will permit you to save, but will then have a big user-visible error-message. This is already the way e.g. the {{cite_web}} functionality works. If you specify |archive-url= withough specifying |url= for instance, you are permitted to save, but you get a big red errmsg. Visible warnings (with links to helpdocs and explicit instructions to 'ask at WP:TEAHOUSE if you have trouble filling this in' will probably be the best way to ensure that people, especially COI-encumbered beginners unfamiliar with the template-syntax, do their good-faith best to fill in the required fields. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 04:06, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

language about NDAs

About this:

Commercial editors should not sign non-disclosure agreements with their employers or clients. If they cannot legally disclose the information required here, they may not edit Wikipedia for pay.

If the goal here is to be minimal and stick very closely to the ToU, I think it is unwise to include this. This is also somewhat ... unclear. People are always free to breach contracts and risk a civil suit, or to amend existing contracts. The "cannot legally disclose" bit is not real-world. Jytdog (talk) 20:07, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I've certainly seen folks claim that they cannot disclose the information require because of non-disclosure agreements. I think this phrase does fit in closely with the topic of disclosure. Perhaps if the word "legally" is removed it would clarify things. There is something similar in the ToU FAQs, I'll try to find it. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:35, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Not exactly the same, but similar "Where legally-required disclosures cannot be made in a way that complies with community rules, the community rules take precedence. For example, if local laws require disclosure of sponsorship of an edit in the article text itself, and putting such a message in the article text violated community rules (as it likely does in most projects), then such edits would be prohibited." Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:40, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
How about the text "Commercial editors may wish to avoid signing non-disclosure agreements with their employers. If they cannot disclose the information required here, they may not make commercial edits." Maybe even shorter if folks know what we talking about. "If for any reason commercial editors cannot disclose the information required here, they may not make commercial edits." Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:44, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Thinking about it some more, per Jytdog, it's up to the individuals what they sign and whether they honour it. All we can say is that they must disclose. Sarah (talk) 21:10, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Isn't that what "If for any reason commercial editors cannot disclose the information required here, they may not make commercial edits" says. Well perhaps that's already implied in the policy and everybody already understands that. If you think I'm just beating a dead horse, please just remove the bullet point. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:27, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
How about this: "Every editor's privileges to be part of the Wikipedia community are dependent on his or her compliance with the Terms of Use; editors who do not comply may be blocked or banned. Compliance with The Terms of Use is not subject to any contracts (including confidentiality agreements) that editors may have with third parties."
I originally said "every editor's privileges to edit Wikipedia are..." but I changed that; we don't want to paid editors to directly edit. They can be part of the community however. Jytdog (talk) 23:26, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
With some rare exceptions, I think we DO want paid editors to directly edit wikipedia. I'm using the royal we here, as in, we the overall majority of wikipedians. Consider the case of PollyPaidEditor, who works as a copywriter at BigPrAgency. As part of her job, she basically memorizes WP:RS, WP:NPOV, WP:NICE, WP:COPYVIO, and completely masters the wiki-syntax for cites, file-uploads, and complex talkpage templates. She goes home, kicks back to utilize (insert favorite media) published by (insert some wiki-reliable publisher). She notices $factoid. Do we want her on-the-job training, to be verboten, in her hobby hours? We have tons of articles on films, musicians, sports, politics, science, and other interesting stuff, which has nothing to do with her BigPrAgency contracts updating product-related-articles for fortune 500 companies, 99% of the time. I very much think we *want* to have PollyPaidEditor that wears her User:PollyPaidEditor_of_BigPrAgency persona during the 9-to-5 workday, to feel free to register a second linked account User:PollyLovesSoccerAndMovies for 'fun' editing as a hobby. In a nutshell, wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, period. The cases where, due to inherent structural bias, we make an exception and tell people NOT to directly edit mainspace, should be the exception, never the rule. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 04:34, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

How to deal with (suspected) paid editors?

Ping: Mdennis (WMF), Slaporte (WMF).

As of writing this there are no policies or guidelines on how we as editors are supposed to handle or deal with (suspected) paid editors.

Relating to the latest "paid editing scandal" that has developed, we helpers on IRC who meet multiple paid editors on a daily basis asking for help are wondering what the best practises are. Since the IRC logs in the help channel are forbidden to be logged and therefore can not be used to prove or disprove if someone is a paid editor, nor be used by us to prove that a user has disclosed off-wiki on their user page.

If we question a user, or believe that they are a paid editor (which happens a few times a day) but refuses to disclose such on his or her user page, what can or should we do? The user may or may not have disclosed that they are paid in the IRC-channel, which means that we may have serious beliefs that they are being paid, but we can not use such information to prove it, nor force them to disclose either.

When helping users on IRC, multiple users tend to be hired to edit a page, but have not disclosed such fact on their user page. Almost all helpees, as they are called, have a COI when writing, but not everybody is a paid editor or let this on in the IRC-channel. So, to differentiate between a "normal" COI-editor and a paid editor is really hard. However, if the user discloses sush information in the IRC-channel, it is pertinent that we ask the user to do so. If said user refuses to respond to these requests, then the problem gets … problematic.

What should a user (helper as they are called on IRC) do? Should s/he report the user to the CA-team at the WMF for violating the ToU, to the ArbCom to get them involved some how? Is there a warning/notification template to issue (suspected) paid editors to get them to disclose?


There are a lot of questions, and not a lot of answers.

What is most needed are some guidelines. Some best practises which users can follow. Such as:

  1. If found eveidence, or suspicion without a doubt, that they are a paid editor, notify the user on their user talk page that they need to disclose such information before editing, with e.g. {{Paid}}.
  2. If the user does not disclose such information, within one week, or has made more than five edits within since the message was left on the user's talkpage, send an email with your evidence and/or why you believe the user is a paid editor to the ArbCom.

These are just ideas to get the ball rolling, these are not what I suggest or anything, but something is needed, that much is sure. That's why I am starting this RfC to get your input on how to deal with these situations. I hope everybody can understand what I'm trying to ask about here. If not, feel free to ask.

(t) Josve05a (c) 16:39, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Please withdraw this. This has been discussed extensively and in many places, through many, MANY RfCs that tend to generate tons of emotion - lots of fire and smoke and little light. Please familiarize yourself with the background before launching an RfC on this, especially one as poorly focused on this. Please. I can show you where to go to start reading. You can start at WP:COI and its talk page, btw. Jytdog (talk) 19:23, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • We still need guidelines on how to act regarding to this, which we do not have. I contacted the WMF prior to starting this RfC and an RfC of this kind seemed to be both wanted and needed. But if more people agree this has been discussed to death, we can keep ignoring the problems. (t) Josve05a (c) 19:36, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
I agree that guidance on this is needed. If we had a solid procedure, it would make encounters less personal. Sarah (talk) 19:39, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
It is not a matter of ignoring the problems. The fact that you have been ignoring it in the past doesn't mean that others have -- a lot of people have and do put a boatload of effort into this that you are clearly ignorant of, and the community has been literally convulsed (millions of bytes of discussion following the Wiki-PR/Banc de binary scandals - millions) by these issues not too long ago. The way forward is not a sloppy, unfocused RfC, launched out of dialogue with the discussions we have in the past. Ignorance is not a bad thing (everybody is ignorant of some things) but this is like a baby crawling into a minefield next to an ammunition factory in the middle of a city. Please withdraw the RfC so a more focused and potentially productive one can be framed. Jytdog (talk) 20:02, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
I agree with Jytdog that this could be more focused. There is a brainstorming session going on at User:Doc James/Paid editing and please look especially closely at User:Doc_James/Paid_editing#4._Create_a_new_group_of_functionaries. @Josve05a: It might only take a bit more work to add your thoughts and tighten up the proposal to bring it back here. I'm not even suggesting taking down the RFC template, but I think that the RFC will be refined and added back soon.
I thought I saw an e-mail adress for a place to report scamming in the Orangemoony case. Presumably this should go to WMF legal and should be made permanent and apply to all paid/scamming behavior. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:41, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
Unfortunately it is just to OTRS. We could try to change this. "OTRS info queue, info-orangemoody@wikipedia.org" Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:38, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment. I suggest that the originator of this RfC narrow down and focus the scope of his question. For instance, perhaps what he wants to know is "How do I handle external evidence?" Paid editing mills advertise online, and there should be guidelines as to how to deal with such situations to prevent abuse. Coretheapple (talk) 18:36, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Text providers

I've removed this from affiliation because I'm not sure what it means:

  • Providers of text to be included in an article, even if the text provider does not edit the article.

That could include Wikipedians, which would confuse the issue. Who else might it refer to (other than employer or client)? Sarah (talk) 17:13, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

How about
  • Paid providers of text, which is included in an article, even if the text provideer does not edit the article.
See this piece of wikilawyering for paid text provision and also NDAs. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:10, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
I believe the passage that SlimVirgin is referring to relates to the situation in BP, in which the BP public relations department drafted great swaths of text. SmallBones' tweak is correct. Coretheapple (talk) 17:14, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Core, the BP situation is covered by employer/client. The BP person had been hired by BP to make contributions about Wikipedia. I can't think of a situation where there would be a third party (not hired by an employer or client) who would provide text, in the sense of someone who needed to be highlighted separately. Sarah (talk) 17:50, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
No, I can't either, but doesn't this explicitly deal with BP-type situations? Coretheapple (talk) 18:08, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
This policy is about those situations, yes. Who is paying you for these contributions to Wikipedia? BP. Who is the client? BP.
Text provision isn't a separate affiliation. Sarah (talk) 18:24, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Well that's certainly true. Perhaps what's needed is to define "contribution" so as to close loopholes and be more explicit to indicate that by "contributions" we refer to non-mainspace drafts, and that we refer to any situation in which an editor is paid for the purpose of text being added to Wikipedia. For instance, here's another situation that has actually happened in the past. I am User A. I am paid by Person X to contribute to Person X. I ask User B to add text that I draft to Person X. User A has to make a relevant disclosure, but I don't believe that scenario is covered by this policy. This is an actual scenario, and User A has denied that he is a paid editor or subject to disclosure. Coretheapple (talk) 18:28, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Okay, I see. A ghostwriter who is paid for contributions, but doesn't make the contributions directly, either to articles, talk pages, sandboxes, etc, and doesn't help to defend them, comment on them, and so on. That isn't covered by the terms of use or FAQ that I can see.
Personally I have never found that to be a problem, because the responsibility always lies with the people active on Wikipedia. If someone says (say, by email, in exchange for money): "here is a complete draft in wikitext; do what you want with it," I would not see that as paid editing that requires disclosure. But I see your point too. It just feels like a step too far for this policy. Sarah (talk) 18:40, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Well I certainly have. I've added some text to deal with the foregoing. Just a sentence or two, but I think we need to close that door. What we've learned in the past is that if there is a loophole, it will be used. Coretheapple (talk) 18:47, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
I've kept the first sentence you added (this was never about direct article-editing for me, because COI cautions against that), but removed the second sentence. We can't name people who haven't added text about that topic anywhere on WP. That would be an overreach. I would say it might be none of our business who has written a text. What matters is whether it ends up on WP and how it ends up here. Sarah (talk) 18:53, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
But what if I'm paid by John Nobody to flesh out the article and I write you and say, "Sarah, can you please add the following text to John Nobody?" And it is added. It's happened. Coretheapple (talk) 18:58, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

I've added "This includes material added to articles at the behest of paid editors." I think it flies, as the TOU explicitly prohibits deceptive conduct, and in this case we're referring to conduct aimed at circumventing the TOU. Coretheapple (talk) 19:04, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Will respond later, but it's worth noting that this is a policy, not a guideline, so we can't add anything here that moves us significantly away from the terms of use. Sarah (talk) 19:13, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Oh I hear you. I think that attempts to circumvent the TOU in a deceptive fashion, such as by using a "cut-out" to do one's dirty work, definitely falls within the scope of the TOU, even if it didn't prohibit deceptive conduct. Coretheapple (talk) 19:33, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

FYI

Folks interested in this topic may be interested in User:Doc_James/Paid_editing Jytdog (talk) 22:13, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Clarifying "Affiliation" multiple edits, who is covered

Several topics here that are bouncing around inside my head.

  • What does "affiliation" mean?
    • Employer and client are pretty clear and I don't think we help anything by trying to further clarify. Sometimes the more you write the less clear it becomes.
    • But "affiliation" could include many things and paid editors might have to include many affiliations, including:
      • A secondary PR firm, perhaps one that specializes in social media, that the pdeditor works with.
      • A related contractor who writes the text that is to be included. Don't laugh - there is one woeful website that advertises this service, but they don't promise to insert the text themselves.
      • An informal ring of editors who work together on multiple projects and split the proceeds.
      • The agent or lawyer of the client who directs the work - even if the PR firm handles the basics.
      • A publishing company directing the work for an author. So you might have the author as client, who tells her agent to find a PR firm, who contacts the publishing company who actually directs the work through its usual PR firm, who hires the editor and is advised by a social media PR firm.
    • We'd be very lucky to get all of those in the above example included as affiliates, and perhaps we don't even want some of them, e.g. the agent, but I think that we can include these as examples and ask the pdeditor to include the most important ones.
      • I'd like to include the adverting website that helped the pdeditor on the employer get together as an affiliate. They are probably the key link and could make a lot of money off of this.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:36, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Something to bear in mind re: affiliation is that we'd be providing advertising for (say) Elance by adding that the writers were hired there. Sarah (talk) 02:18, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
That's something to think about. Frankly, I'd think that most pdeditors wouldn't want to include it, but the occasional inclusion would give us lots of information.Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:57, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • "Every edit" or "any contribution"

As noted by Jytdog above, the ToU requires that employer/client/affiliation be included for every edit. I'd like to see the basic e/c/a info on the user page, but doubt that anybody would put each individual edit on the user page. About the only way that we are going to get this would be to require it in the edit summary, e.g. as "paid - client Bob's Coffee Shop", which could refer to the full e/c/e info on the user page.

Which brings up making changes to this page. Does everybody agree that we should include the requirements for affiliations (once we get a handle on it) and "each edit" on the policy page?

If we did that, I'd like to include a basic description of who is covered and who is excluded. There'd be nothing especially new here - the basics are described by the ToU FAQs and WP:COI, but I just get tired of repeating them every time the topic of paid editing comes up. We can't change the wording on the ToU, but we can interpret it and adjust our wording as new situations come up. I'd call this group "Commercial editors" and refer anybody else who might be considered by some to be a "paid editor" to just follow the WP:COI rules. It's just the old story of whether GLAMS and university professors are covered. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:57, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Using the term commercial editors is a good idea, and I agree about including the requirements for affiliation and each edit. Making clear who is paying in the edit summary helps readers work out which versions to trust, if they know to look at the history. Sarah (talk) 03:15, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
The terms of use are policy. We don't get to pick and choose among employer, client, and affiliation - the ToU requires all three. In my view the "pick and choose" reasoning you are engaging in here is corrosive and could be used by paid editors to argue against disclosing employer or client. In my view the only way WP can not require all three is a community-wide RfC.. Until then, we need to keep all three. Jytdog (talk) 16:16, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Jytdog, to whom was "the 'pick and choose' reasoning you are engaging in here is corrosive" directed? Sarah (talk) 17:10, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
I was reacting to the "occasional" thing above. In my view, we need to pursue disclosure of all three parameters, consistently. Jytdog (talk) 17:22, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
The only time I used the word "occasional" was for disclosing the adverting websites they use as an affiliation. Sarah suggested that this would in effect give the editor (or elance) an advertising spot on their user page. That's likely true, but I'd still like to see the advertising site declared as an affiliation. Perhaps the best spot to declare it would be at WP:COIN? We'd still get to see it and almost nobody would just stumble across it by accident.
As far as declaring "all three" I'd like to see it if we can define each part consistently, so that all three are defined in each case. Here's onee case where they don't seem to be all defined.
  • Madame X hires User:Pdeditor to write an article about her. In this case there's only an employer, or we might define it so that Madame X would be listed as both the employer and client. As I've written the example, I don't see an affiliate in sight.
The problem with affiliate is that we haven't defined it, it can be viewed as just a catch-all category that may exist. So let's require "all three, when each exists." Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:51, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Okay, but people are allowed to disagree without their views being called "corrosive," and I'm not sure anyone is disagreeing anyway. The meaning of affiliation has never been clear. Often it serves only to confuse what is otherwise a clear request to disclose employer and client. At times it might provide free advertising to the editor's company or certain freelance sites. So although we do want to follow the terms of use, it seems obvious that "and affiliation" was added simply to reduce wriggle room. Where no wriggle room appears to exist, and employer/client does the job, there won't be a need to insist on anything else. Sarah (talk) 17:49, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
I hear you that affiliate is somewhat unclear. However to the extent that we or you or anybody wants to treat the ToU as a contractual obligation - as very clear policy - it is something we can't blow off. The answer to the three-prong question may well be: "I am self employed and obtained CompanyX as a client through both our affilations with Elance" or "I work for CompanyX. my boss asked me to do this, so CompanyX is the client, and my affiliation is employee." There are all kinds of ways the three can work together, but we cannot edit the ToU Jytdog (talk) 19:29, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

You're confusing this yourself. The employer is the entity that pays for the content; perhaps we should use the term payer. The client is the entity on behalf of which the payment is made. Affiliation doesn't mean employee; it can be ignored most of the time. This has to be kept simple or it won't work. Sarah (talk) 19:36, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I am not confused. In a situation where a boss asks her secretary to edit WP (I get that all the time about doctors) that is exactly the relationship. Although in that case it could be: "Employer=HospitalX; client=DoctorX; affiliation=secretary to DrX" On the freelancer/elance thing, nobody actually works for Elance - they are a broker and they get paid by taking a cut of the payment to the freelancer. That is where affilation is really important, I think. So for a freelancer it really is: Employer=self; Client=CompanyX; Affiliation= via Elance. Jytdog (talk) 23:35, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
You're mistaking what is meant by employer. The Foundation doesn't care what your day job is. Employer in this context is who has paid you to edit Wikipedia. The client is on whose behalf the edits were made. It would have been better had the WMF not used the term employer, but it's nevertheless clear what they mean by it. Affiliation is anyone's guess, there to mop up relevant leftovers, usually not needed but there just in case. Sarah (talk) 00:01, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Jytdog, once again (re: the edits of yours that I removed), the employer is the entity paying for the contributions. If you are a freelancer, and most paid editors probably are, the company or person paying you is the employer in this context. Users should not be advised to add "self-employed" as the employer. Sarah (talk) 17:16, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Slimvirgin. The client of a freelancer pays them under a contract relationship, not an employer-employee relationship. This is employment law 101 stuff, and basic dictionary English. I am a blown away that you remove advice for where people need to disclose their connection to Elance and the like. We absolutely need people to disclose that. Who do you think we can consult here, to get the correct answers? Jytdog (talk) 17:47, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Freelancers have to say who is paying them, as do non-freelancers. The Foundation has used the word employer to cover the payer-payee relationship. If you think this is wrong, please ask them to clarify, but don't add contradictions to the policy. This is similar to your insistence that "financial COI" was the same as "paid editing". It wastes time. Please ask the Foundation to clarify instead. Sarah (talk) 17:53, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Did you not read the Atlantic piece about Medtronic employees? The ToU were written in a robust way to cover relevant financially-driven COI situations and use language in a natural way. Please see this FAQ I will take this to WT:COI. See you around. Jytdog (talk) 17:58, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
I have been a freelance audio engineer for 21 years. In that time I have had a great many employers, but I have never been on salary, and have never been a full-time employee. There is no confusion about the term employer; it simply means a company who is paying a person. Binksternet (talk) 19:38, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
And during your years of contracting, did you ever use a headhunter, or a jobs-board, or a cousin who knew an insider? If so, and you were getting money for editing wikipedia articles about audio-engineering-products, as part of your audio-engineering-contract, how would you fill in the fields? Note: I realize that you are, in real life, being paid to run the sound-board and such, and not to edit the wikipedia article about the human up on stage. But for the sake of discussion, if you are running the sound board, and getting paid to do so at $X/hour, and the speaker pulls you aside after the show, and says, hey nice work running the audio and by the way will you edit my wikipedia BLP-article? (Could happen! Or maybe not....) They just extend your contract, and continue to pay you $X/hour. |client=NameOfPublicSpeaker |employer=??? |affiliation=??? How do you fill in the fields? What if, instead of buttonholing you face-to-face, you are moonlighting from audio-engineering-work on eLance as a wikipedia-consultant, must you disclose that NameOfPublicSpeaker contacted you thataway, and if so, in what template-field? Must you give the full URL of your job-posting? If you got the work via private email, after posting your resume onto Monster.com, would you feel obligated to disclose that middleman? If so to what degree, giving the domain-name, giving the URL of your resume, posting the contents of the private-email-chain? If you got the wikipedia-editing-job, because your cousin knew somebody inside the client, would you disclose your cousin in the template-fields? If so which field, and would you say 'my cousin' or would you give their full legal name 'my cousin Johnny von Johnson' or would you upload an MP3 of the recorded phone call when your cousin passed along the job-tip? The disclosure mandate IS NOT CLEAR, and is already causing confusion and problems. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 04:22, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Here is the ToU: "...misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation." Basically, if you are making money by editing wikipedia -- either in a direct contractual relationship pay-me-$X-to-edit-your-article, or in an indirect fashion such as my-boss-told-me-to-edit-this-article-on-the-clock, you have to disclose. You must disclose 'your employer' aka the ultimate source of your cheque. You must disclose '[your] client' aka the ultimate beneficiary of the edits. Finally, you must disclose '[your] affiliation' which is seemingly more confusing.

wall about the meanings of the terms

  To me, the language seems pretty straightforward, at first: 99% of the time, the 'employer' and the 'client' are the same person, because 99% of the time, the financial WP:COI stems from somebody making edits about their employer, their products, or themselves. In the case of a person editing their own BLP-article, the *editor* is also the 'employer' with respect to that editing of the article; it doesn't matter if the person has a day-job at Walmart nowaday, *unless* Walmart is the one paying them to edit the BLP-article of which they are the subject, in my hypothetical scenario. Thus, the fundamental problem, causing confusion, is that in SOME scenarios the 'employer' field makes sense... and is the expected thing... such as when EmployeeErwin is ordered by ManagerMarcy to fix up the article ProductMadeByErwinAndMarcyEmployerCorporation. In such a scenario, the 'employer' is obviously EmployerCorporation, and also the 'client' is once again EmployerCorporation. There is no need for User:ErwinTheMagnificent to give their full legal name, nor to give the name of Marcy their boss. All that User:ErwinTheMagnificent must disclose, is employer=client=EmployerCorp, and that affiliation="I am an employee at EmployerCorp doing edits on-the-clock about EmployerCorp products".

  But other times, it might not make as much sense. Consider, in a different scenario, the case where Wendell is a Walmart employee during the day, and moonlights for a small PR agency called LittleMoonlightersPrAgency, and through that firm gets a paid-editing-contract to update the BLP-article of MinorBritishCeleb, suddenly the meaning of the fields in the template change: there is no need for Wendell to disclose employer=Walmart, that is useless and pointless info. The client=MinorBritishCeleb, obviously. To my mind, the correct info for the employer-field in Wendell's case could plausibly be employer=self, since Wendell is doing work on their own, as a moonlighter from their Walmart day-job, or perhaps even MinorBritishCeleb, depending on how Wendell was being paid. What is the 'affiliation' betwixt Wendell and the MinorBritishCeleb? Again, it depends on the details; if Wendell has listed employer=LittleMoonlightersPrAgency, then the affiliation would be something brief like "celeb hired PR firm who contracted with me to do the editing-work". On the other hand, if Wendell were instead to write employer=self (or the uselessly-irrelevant employer=Walmart specifying his day-job which has zero relation to the paid editing work), *then* the affiliation field would need something complex like "celeb hired LittleMoonlightersPrAgency.com who contracted me to do the editing-work". I personally don't think we care, whether Wendell-the-moonlighter was working for LittleMoonlightersPrAgency.com, or directly for the celeb. (The WMF disagrees.) I also personally don't think we care, whether Wendell-the-moonlighter *got* this particular LittleMoonlightersPrAgency contract via eLance or Monster.com or some other jobs-board or even an offline venue, to me that factoid is irrelevant. (Jytdog disagrees.)

  Fundamentally, though, the problem is that the "employer" terminology only makes sense, if we make some assumptions going in. I personally like Sarah aka SlimVirgin's idea of saying "payer" or similar, not "employer", though I would prefer saying "ultimate source of the funds". In parallel, I would like to see "ultimate beneficiary of the edits" rather than 'client' ... since in some cases, the ultimate beneficiary might not be described as a 'client' in everyday language... for a hypothetical, consider the case where a political campaign hires a paid staffer to help copyedit the wikipedia article about an NGO with which the politician agrees on diplomatic policy ... although the NGO is the ultimate beneficiary of the edits being made, they are not the 'client' since they are not paying anybody! In most cases, the ultimate source of the funds and the ultimate beneficiary of the edits would be identical. There would be little need to disclose the name of the PR agency (if any), the name of the jobs-board (if any), the name of the bank(s) that processed the cheques (if any), and other types of financial middleman roles. But the WMF is insistent that disclosure of the name of the PR firm is required, and many editors want even more disclosure than that, such as the jobs-board.

  Solving the confusion-problem begins, methinks, by clearly defining our terms, but even THAT is difficult, because the WMF has set the terminology with their ToU, and if we diverge strongly from their terminology, more confusion not less confusion will be the result. Wish I had more of silver bullet to offer; in a nutshell, what I'm saying here is that the ToU are not using well-defined terms... unless we restrict ourselves to only imagining specific situations where there is a clear employer, and a clear client, and the two are distinct. Most of the time, in real COI-encumbered-editor situations really encountered on-wiki, there will NOT be a clear employer, or the employer will be irrelevant (e.g. Wendell's day-job at Walmart). Anyways, I think this sentence in mainspace is vastly wrong and/or incomplete: "Affiliation refers to other connections that might be relevant, such as relationships with paid-editing brokers." Whether it can be fixed, is another issue. I'll see if I can come up with something better, but as long as there is disagreement about what 'employer' means, I don't think much progress on what 'affiliation' means can result. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 05:13, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Definitions of employer, client, and affiliation for freelancers and others

continued from Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure#Clarifying "Affiliation" multiple edits, who is covered
Conversation copied here from WT:COI to keep thread together. See History at WT:COI for details Jytdog (talk) 21:57, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

here is the FAQ on what the phrase means: I am copying it here:

This means the person or organization that is paying you compensation – money, goods, or services – with respect to any contribution to a Wikimedia project. This could be a business, a charity, an educational institution, a government department or another individual, for example. The disclosure requirement is simple, and requires you to provide this information in one of the three ways described above. If you are editing an article on Wikipedia on behalf of your employer, for example, you must disclose your employer's details. If you have been hired by a public relations firm to edit Wikipedia, you must disclose both the firm and the firm's client. If you are a compensated Wikimedian in residence, for example, you must note what GLAM organisation is paying you.

The FAQ does not explicitly cover freelancers who take on work through Elance, Upwork, etc. So let's say FreelancerA contracts with CompanyB through BrokerC. In my view, the three disclosures in such a situation would be:

  • Employer - self-employed
  • Client - CompanyB
  • Affiliation - Connected with client through BrokerC

In my view, defining "affiliation" in this way for freelancers is really important - we want to know who is getting jobs where. Please note that there is no natural-language sense in which Elance would be the employer or client of a freelancer.

This contrasts with someone who say works for Medtronic and edits Wikipedia on behalf of Medtronic, in which case the disclosures would be:

  • Employer - Medtronic
  • Client - Medtronic
  • Affiliation - Employee

And say the SecretaryA of DrB, who both work for HospitalC, where DrB asks SecretaryA to buff up DrB's article in Wikipedia:

  • Employer - HospitalX
  • Client - DrB
  • Affiliation - Employee of HospitalX who works for DrB.

Does this make sense to folks? Also pinging Jalexander-WMF to get WMF's take on this. Jytdog (talk) 18:14, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't know why Jytdog has brought this discussion here, given that it is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure. The issue is that he is trying to argue that freelancers who edit WP for pay need not disclose who is paying them (need not disclose the "employer"), but need only add "self-employed." Sarah (talk) 18:18, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Pinging Smallbones, who is part of the discussion on the other page. Sarah (talk) 18:19, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
That is a complete misrepresentation of what I write above, and of what I wrote there, which is the exact same thing I wrote above - CompanyA is paying the freelancer, which is consistent with bold edit I made to the policy in development. I have no idea how SlimVirgin has so wildly misconstrued what I wrote. The disclosure we are discussing is for paid editors. There is no question of whether the edit is being paid for or not. The only thing I am working on, is how we instruct paid editors to disclose "employer, client, and affilation" that is as intuitive as possible for them, and provides information that benefits the community the most. Jytdog (talk) 18:33, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
This is what you wrote, and that is what I'm objecting to, as you know. Sarah (talk) 18:49, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Yeah that is the same dif I linked to above. It is exactly the same as what I wrote above in the original post. As you wrote on at the other talk page, I understand that in your mind, the "one paying" must be listed as the "employer" - what I am trying to tell you is that this stance flies in the face of the common sense meaning of "employer" as well as any legal sense of the term. Freelancers are not employees of their clients; clients are not employers of freelancers. It is a contractual relationship, not an employer-employee relationship. We are only disagreeing about definitions here, not the intent of the disclosure overall, which is that anyone editing for consideration must disclose that they are editing for pay, and must disclose that in a way that makes the whole chain very clear. What is killing me is that you are not engaging with what I am saying at all. No freelancer is going to consider the paying client as their "employer" and your approach is going to lead to confusion and lack of compliance. Good policy and good tools are natural to use as much as possible. Jytdog (talk) 19:21, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
I see no need for freelancers to describe themselves as "self-employed" when the key point is to name the company who is paying them. The bit about "self-employed" should not be inserted. Binksternet (talk) 19:31, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Binksternet we are working on policy Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure and a {{paid}} template that any editor with a financial COI should use. (the current version is not good as it only has some of the 3 fields that the ToU requires; it is good in that the one paying the editor is very clearly disclosed) The parameters need to be described in a way such that all editors with a financial COI always provide all three fields. It needs to be robust. What should a freelancer say in the "employer" field? Jytdog (talk) 19:39, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
In the employer field, the freelancer should say who is paying him/her. And if the client is a separate entity, name the client too. As the FAQ says: "[i]f you have been hired by a public relations firm to edit Wikipedia, you must disclose both the firm and the firm's client." Whether the PR firms hires you as a freelancer or staff makes no difference – you must say who is paying you to make those edits. Sarah (talk) 19:48, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the phrase "self-employed" should be used in the disclosure. It simply adds no information. If somebody pays you to write an article, he or she should be identified as the employer, whether or not you call yourself a freelancer, a PR company, or the Big Kahuna. The case of the doctor telling his secretary working at the hospital to update his article is more interesting. I believe most doctors in the US who work in an office are part of a partnership (PLC?) or work for themselves. Hospitals are not the secretary's usual employer. In that case I'd put the name of the partnership as the secretary's employer, or the name of the doctor if he employs him/her directly, and only the hospital if the hospital pays him/her directly. The doctor would be the client in any case. If the doctor paid the secretary something extra for the article, he'd be the employer as well. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:13, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

If the secretary isn't paid to edit WP, he has a COI, but isn't a paid editor. If the doctor pays him for those edits, the doctor is the employer with respect to those edits. If editing WP is part of the secretary's job description, explicitly or otherwise, then whoever the secretary works for is the employer with respect to those edits too. But we could invent all kinds of complex scenarios. I don't see the point of doing that in advance of encountering them. The point here is that "self-employed" offers no information, so it could not be added in place of employer (i.e. whoever is paying for the edits). Sarah (talk) 20:23, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
Smallbones, This happens all the time, especially with academic doctors. See [[1]] and User_talk:Battistin72#Disclosure_of_Paid_Contributions_.26_Shared_IP_Address and the long list of COI editors here Talk:David_B._Samadi and there are so many more. Lackeys of academic doctors edit their WP articles all the time. Jytdog (talk)
SV If your boss at your job tells you to do X, you are editing WP with a financial COi and your edits are going to be as biased as a contract editor. If you work for Medtronic and are trying to pump up Medtronic's products as part of your work, you have a financial COI and your edits are going to be biased. These are all forms of "paid editing" that create problems with WP content. I don't see the point of the distinction you are making. If you go back above and read the FAQ I quoted from the WMF, they don't even discuss freelancers (I wish they would have, but they don't) But the WMF very clearly intended the disclosure requirement to apply to people with day jobs, not just to freelancers. Jytdog (talk) 20:30, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  • 1st let's agree that "self-employed" is meaningless in this context
  • 2nd let's agree that a person's day job should be included under "employer" if indeed the editor is editing (implicitly or explicitly) as part of that day job. There may be something problematic about a dean ordering his secretary to edit if that is his personal work, but it's not our major concern. Let's take the case of a doctor at a VA hospital ordering a staff secretary to update "his" Wikipedia article. The VA has more pressing problems, but having a government employed staff member do personal work for the doctor is at least an ethical violation. In any case the actual employer (the VA) should be able to read about it on Wikipedia if it happens.
  • There's not much point in arguing fine points and odd cases here. We can give pretty good instructions on "employer" and "client", and in a few cases on "affiliations." Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Jytdog, you're doing what you did when you insisted that financial COI = paid editing, when it clearly doesn't, but you forced multiple people to explain it multiple times.
There was no need for the WMF to mention freelancers, because whether you are staff or otherwise, the point is to name the entity that pays you for the contributions to WP, as well as that entity's client if there is a separate client. (For example, User:X paid by Smith PR, on behalf of client Acme Ltd, the subject of the article.) There is no need to worry about what kind of contract the paid editor has. Sarah (talk) 21:08, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
I agree that the point is to name the entity that is paying, and as I wrote above, I do understand your point. I wish you could at least acknowledge mine. There would be no ambiguity if a freelancer provided a disclosure in the way I recommend that, the "client" is paying for the editing service. The only thing we are disagreeing about, is what to do with the "employer" and "client" field for freelancers. Like I said I do understand that you want there to be a special Wikipedia meaning of the term "employer". That could work (of course) but we would need to explain that we use the term "employer" oddly. And as I said I think that will confuse freelancers and we want to make things simple and intuitive, not with special strange meanings. Let's let other people weigh in, and see where things go. There is no rush. Jytdog (talk) 21:56, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
But it's not a special or strange meaning of the term. An employer is someone who has agreed to pay you for the performance of a service. I agree that it would have been better had the WMF worded it differently, but I think everyone will understand if the template says that the "employer" is whoever compensates you for the contributions. And there will be cases where people edit as part of their job but the job description doesn't say "edit WP," so they will argue that they're not really paid editors, but we've been dealing with those situations case by case for many years. Sarah (talk) 22:49, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
anybody with a job has "other duties as assigned". OK i'm willing to let go of the "self-employed" thing for employer. where do we get people to disclose that they got work through eLance or the like? That is going to be incredibly valuable information, both to help us get a sense of the extent of editing through sites like that, but even more importantly to help us be able to to link to it postings there more freely. Once somebody acknowledges editing through elance we have the right under OUTING to look harder at that. One of our bottlenecks in dealing with freelancers has been the danger of violating OUTING by citing activity there - getting them to disclose that (as they must, in my view, under the ToU) is super important specifically for that. Jytdog (talk) 05:39, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
SlimVirgin and Smallbones can you please respond, as to where freelancers who get work through Elance etc should be made to disclose that? Thx Jytdog (talk) 15:06, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Well, I'm willing to weigh in. Neither one of you is making sense to me.  :-)    Speak to me like I'm a five-year-old, please. DO NOT, pretty please, assume I know what the "terms" mean, or believe they mean the same things that you believe they mean, skip terminology and just be concrete. Here is (concrete) example situation one, aka sit#1: human#1 gets a paid-editing-contract via eLance with firm#1 to work on product#1-article. Jytdog is saying that WP:TOS mandates disclosure (or ought to so mandate) of 'eLance.com' as part of the affiliation-field, since eLance is obviously just a broker, not an employer, and asserts We Must Know Such Things, for reasons that are unclear to me. Presumably, if the middleman were Monster.com or Dice.com or some other jobs-board, Jytdog would feel the same way.
    Question#1A: why do we care what job-board? The affiliation is being-paid-to-edit-the-product#1-article, and who cares that said paid-editing-affiliation came via eLance, or any jobs-board, as opposed to human#1 approaching firm#1 via telephone solitication, or firm#1 posting a job-offer on their own website, or human#1 getting a tip from a cousin that works at firm#1, or whatever? Obviously, when firm#1 writes a cheque to human#1, *that* act of money changing hands is what matters; we don't care which bank that cheque is drawn on, and we don't care what bank that cheque is deposited into, despite the "financial middleman" role of the bank(s) in the transaction. Why do we care about the job-board? Question#1B: if human#1 was an employee of Walmart as their day-job, must this fact be disclosed in the appropriate employer-field? If not, why not? If so, why? Question#1C: if human#1 was an employee of prAgency#1, must this fact be disclosed in the appropriate employer-field? If so, why? If not, why not? Does your answer change, if firm#1 hired human#1 as a moon-lighter, and prAgency#1 was uninvolved in the transaction? Sarah, on the other hand, seems to be saying something different: that employer is the group who compensates you, and the middleman doesn't matter. But then, she also says (contradiction?) that although there is no need to worry about what kind of contract the paid editor has, disclosure of the PR firm is mandatory... in the specific situation where humanX is paid by AcmeLtd via the middleman SmithPrAgency. Same questions for both of you, with regard to concrete situation#1, please. Maybe you will understand each other better, and certainly *I* will better make that 'might' understand better. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 03:54, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Elance is a noticeboard. It does not pay for content on Wikipedia. It makes no sense to include noticeboards, just as it makes no sense to include in a citation the name of the library you borrowed a book from. What matters is who is paying for content, so we require the names of the employer of the user (the person/company who has paid that user to edit Wikipedia) and on whose behalf the payment was made (who paid the payer, if there is more than one payer involved).
That will almost always translate as: subject of article pays user directly; or PR company pays user, and subject of article pays PR company. That's all we need, per terms of use and per common sense. Sarah (talk) 16:46, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Elance (now part of Upwork) is not a "noticeboard" it is a company. It makes money by bringing together people who want stuff written, with freelancers. It gets paid a percentage of what clients pay freelancers. It is part of the ecosystem of paid editing - providing the marketplace for buyers/sellers to meet. Not dealing with them is missing a huge piece of the puzzle - they part of the chain connecting the editing to the payor.
The community needs this information and most importantly needs paid editors to disclose it. Brianhe and Doc James and Smartse and others are constantly citing paid editing jobs posted there and tracking them to WP. We absolutely need the broker to be disclosed to better to deal with OUTING. Jytdog (talk) 19:06, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Do you have a source for Elance getting a percentage of what the employer pays the freelance? Sarah (talk) 19:18, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
. This article discusses the business models of the various freelance brokering companies. It is a big business. Jytdog (talk) 19:25, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

That source says:

There are two distinct revenue models freelance labor marketplaces follow: transaction fee marketplaces, like oDesk, act as intermediaries between buyer and contractor – the buyer effectively contracts directly with the laborer and can use the oDesk platform to pay and work with the freelancer. oDesk’s take is 10 percent of the total contracted time, and that’s what they report as top line revenue. ... On the other hand, marketplaces like Fiverr, Scripted, Washio, Exec, and countless others simply charge a flat rate on a per-project basis and the work gets done. If you, as a buyer, are unhappy with the work, you don’t end up paying for the product (typically). ...

Sarah (talk) 19:34, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Elance/Upwork/Odesk take a percentage of what client pays editor; the others take a flat fee. That is how brokers get paid in many industries - they get some part of what the buyer pays the seller. Jytdog (talk) 20:06, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Why do we want to know what paid-editing service is used by each particular editor? Unless he also discloses his Elance etc. handle it seems to be of limited usefulness and is almost an advertisement for the paid-editing service. I'm not necessarily adverse to such disclosure but I am uncertain about it. However, the ultimate client definitely needs to be disclosed. I don't understand why we are engaged in this discussion here, as this is a guideline and there is a specific policy page dealing with this. Coretheapple (talk) 20:12, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
For reasons I don't understand, Jytdog continued this discussion here, although it started on the policy page. When writing policy, as opposed to a guideline, we have to be more descriptive than prescriptive: what is best practice, what is required, what does the community expect? That paid editors should add Elance under "affiliation" isn't part of the terms of use or any discussion I've seen about it, stated or implied. For the brokers who take a percentage, they are acting as more than noticeboards, but I'm still not convinced that the terms of use imply that they (Elance, etc) have to be included under "affiliation," because they're not paying for content on WP, and that is the focus of the terms of use. Sarah (talk) 20:19, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
"Why here?" is my primary concern. This is a voluntary guideline and there is a policy page, recently created, which explicitly deals with how we're going to carry out the TOU. Perhaps Jytdog is right about affiliation, and I'm all in favor of construing words broadly. But I think that our objective should be to prevent people from circumventing the policy to the extent that we can. Disclosing the broker, agency or service that serves as a middleman strikes me as providing, first and foremost, an advertisement for that middleman. What other value does such disclosure provide? Why do we need to know that? Coretheapple (talk) 20:27, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
That was my first thought. If paid editors are required to add the broker in the {{paid}} template at the top of talk pages, we would be creating a forest of free advertising for Elance. Should we move this discussion to the policy page? Sarah (talk) 20:33, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
No. I want to see what kind of disclosure editors who are actually dealing with COI on the ground would find useful. I'll drop a note there. Jytdog (talk) 20:40, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
But that begs not one but two questions: 1. Why are we discussing this here and not on the policy page? 2. Why did you suggest we disclose the middlemen? Coretheapple (talk) 20:50, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
To answer the "why" question, I have already said this a few times but will repeat and add more.
1) To deal with OUTING. Having the paid editor disclose would be a huge leg up for us. This is the biggest reason by a mile. A mountain.
2) The spirit and letter of the ToU, the reason for the complicated three part disclosure, is to capture the whole chain that is exploiting Wikipedia for money. Why anybody would want to obscure information about that ecosystem is really beyond me.
3) Data. How many times have people said "how big of a problem is this?" We can never say because we have no data. Templates provide a way to post data in a structured way that can be gathered.
4) One of the big brokers has agreed that if WP bans freelacing, they will not allow WP jobs to be posted on their site. It would be useful to be able to audit that.
5) I hear your concern about advertising but find it be self-contradictory and self-defeating. So somebody works for a PR agency. Isn't the disclosure just advertising for the PR agency. So really, makes no sense. Jytdog (talk) 21:15, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
discussion about where we are discussing Jytdog (talk) 22:04, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Again, why are we having the discussion here? Sarah (talk) 21:18, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Why do you care? Please respond to the issues. And I do look forward to hearing from more of the 572 watchers of this page. Jytdog (talk) 21:31, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
I care because we were discussing policy on a policy page, and you've moved it to a page where it isn't directly relevant. This guideline will mirror whatever the policy says re: terms of use, not the other way round. Sarah (talk) 21:35, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
I agree. These are valid issues to raise, but discussing them here makes no sense now that we have a policy addressing the issue. It sort of gums up the works and unnecessarily complicates matters. Sort of falls in the category of "waste of time." Coretheapple (talk) 21:42, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Such a ridiculous power play. Fine I will move this back there and leave a link. Petty nonsense. Jytdog (talk) 21:55, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Thank you, but I can't see why you would call it a "power play." The aim is to avoid a forest-fire of pointless discussion. Sarah (talk) 21:57, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
OK, that should end the drama. Please respond to the points above. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 21:57, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Break

So to continue the discussion:

When asked why you wanted Elance (etc) to be named as an "affiliation," you wrote: "To deal with OUTING. Having the paid editor disclose would be a huge leg up for us. This is the biggest reason by a mile. A mountain."

Can you explain? Sarah (talk) 22:13, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

OUTING presents a huge risk in working on any COI issue. It is especially agonizing with freelancers because we can watch jobs being awarded at Elance and we can watch WP articles being created, but we cannot link the two. Not without disclosure from the paid editor. We cannot.
More agonizing, is that it is obvious that Elance freelancers keep steady profiles there on Elance, but come here to WP under many socks. One identity there, many here. We have had no way to fight that. They actually know that we cannot link to their Elance profiles here.
Changing OUTING to allow linking to elance etc without the editor first disclosing it here, has been discussed a lot. There was an RfC on it here; it is item #5 in Doc James's proposals for reducing paid editing, and it comes up all the time at COIN.
None of those discussions assume that paid editor has disclosed that he/she is getting work at a broker. The situation completely changes, once we have disclosure in WP from the editor. This policy can say that the ToU requires paid editors to disclose their broker in Wikipedia. OUTING goes away.
Really importantly, having the paid editor disclose that they got the job at Elance, will allow us to tie a job back to their original profile at Elance. And then to watch it. And keep watching it. No more single-identity at Elance but many socks here. We can start to tie things together much more easily.
We want maximum disclosure from paid editors. The more they disclose, the more things from outside WP we can cite and work with. Our hands become less tied by OUTING. Also if it is really obvious that a job came from Elance, and the WP editor hasn't disclosed the Elance connection and will not, (they maybe want to preserve the Elance editor's firewall from WP), that becomes another reason to block them for violating the ToU. The omission of the disclosure becomes useful as well. Jytdog (talk) 22:47, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
You wrote: "It is especially agonizing with freelancers because we can watch jobs being awarded at Elance and we can watch WP articles being created, but we cannot link the two."
What can't we link the two? OUTING says: "Posting links to other accounts on other websites is allowable on a case-by-case basis." Sarah (talk) 22:52, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
I would add that by knowing the broker, and as a part of this disclosure they should be saying what their account at the broker is, we have some leverage against bad actors because we can work to close their account at the freelance sites. They do not care about their Wiki-reputation but their reputation on the broker site is what lets them make money. By being able to go after that we actually have some leverage against those who use one Wikipedia account per contract. We would also be able to trace those commercial editors through multiple jobs. The only way to get a handle on commercial editors is to link their performance here to their ability to earn money otherwise there is no incentive to follow ourrules. JbhTalk 23:04, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
I agree with that 100% Jbh and that was my next proposal along these lines - affiliation really should be broker and account at broker. yes. But I am just trying to get the broker in right now. Jytdog (talk) 23:35, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
OK. I will not muddy the waters by adding it in here now. Please ping me when the issue comes up, I feel strongly we need a way to tie commercial editors' ability to earn to following our rules. (Since we must put up with them) I, of course, support adding the freelance site/broker the contract went through no matter what and think it would be foolish not to have that information. JbhTalk 23:56, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
SV, there are many - including admins and Arbs - who would consider that a clear violation of OUTING unless there was an on-Wiki disclosure from the paid editor. OUTING gives clear license to link to extra-WP material once some disclosure has been made in WP. Not before. I encourage you to read the RfC I linked to where that is discussed in depth. I also encourage you to start spending more time at COIN and actually working on these issues in the current milieu. I think a bunch of what I am saying, will start to make more sense to you. (and more hands are needed there) Jytdog (talk) 23:35, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Jytdog, you're teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. But I'm puzzled by this. You argue that it would be outing, yet you want us to add it. It's not in the terms of use, and it isn't implied by the terms of use, and if you further believe it would violate OUTING, that's that: we can't add it. Sarah (talk) 23:44, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
@SlimVirgin:, I think that what he is saying is that unless the linking of off-site identity is first done by the commercial editor then we are prevented from presenting outside information about their work because that would violate OUTING. If they are required to disclose the information themselves, which based on the discussions I have read the ToU requires, then we can use off-site information like what we can find on Elance and tie it to specific editors and what they are doing here without violating OUTING. @Jytdog: is this a fair summary? JbhTalk 00:03, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) SV I know you have been here a lot longer than me; I don't understand your confusion on some of these things, nor how you it is that you have not thought some of this through already. I am doing my best to work with you.
  • a) You would violate OUTING if you posted a link to elance and wrote :"This is user:JoePaid." That is classic OUTING. (you can try it if you want, but I would advise you not to) (again, please read the RfC I linked to)
  • b) Requiring JoePaid to self-disclose that he gets jobs at Elance is 100% solid under the ToU - in my view that is what "affiliate" means for a freelancer. And it is important.
  • c) Requiring JoePaid to self-disclose his Elance profile is arguably also valid under the "Affiliate" umbrella. (I would argue to those who would might say this is too close to violating privacy, that if JoePaid chooses to set up his elance profile to connect to his RW identity, that is his problem, not ours. We want the Elance profile, not JoePaid's RW identity)
  • again, in a) you violate OUTING because you linked a WP editor to outside matter that wasn't already disclosed by the editor in WP. In b) and c), there is no OUTING because JoePaid would post the links and would self-disclose. Not you. Once JoePaid has done that, you are free to use it. That is where the door opens. Jytdog (talk) 00:15, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Jbhunley, there is nothing in the terms of use requiring editors to say where they saw a job advertised. The terms of use require that editors say who paid them to work on WP. If, in addition, there is an argument that to connect a specific editor and article to Elance would be, in effect, to out them, then we obviously can't add it to a policy. Or we have to change OUTING. But we can't deliberately introduce a contradiction between policies. Sarah (talk) 00:35, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
The way that I understand Elance works is that they are more than just a 'Want Ad'. They provide several services and have a contractual relationship with the freelancers who use their site and provide payment, escrow and other services far beyond simply 'advertising'. See [Upwork Contractor Policies]. I think the relationship defined in that agreement without question makes a freelancer or agency (Seems to be a group of freelancers that work through Upwork/Elance) 'affiliated' with Elance within the meaning and intention of that term in our ToU. Maybe WFM legal would have an opinion. I am not a lawyer so my opinion is based only on a quick read of their Contractor Policies and a plain reading of the term 'affiliation'. JbhTalk 01:01, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Jytdog, your argument fails (that the editor volunteered the information, so it's not outing), because we would have compelled her to "volunteer" it. The bottom line is that the terms of use don't require this, and this policy is supposed to reflect the terms of use. That's why it's a policy. If you extend it, it won't be a policy. Sarah (talk) 00:39, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
Maybe we need an RfC on this. In my view, the "affiliation" for a freelancer is the broker where they got the job. I ~think~ we could also extend that to include the profile at the broker. I acknowledge that the second is more debatable. I don't which of those two you are disagreeing with. And you continue to make these statements and judgements without understanding how these broker sites work. They are not any kind of "job boards" as we have already said to you. They are companies. Both buyers and sellers make agreements with the broker when each buyer and seller creates an account on the site (similar to our Terms of Use); those terms are how the broker ensures that it gets paid. It is not a bulletin board or Craig's list ad. I am sorry but you keep making these strong assertions without understanding what you are talking about. I don't want to be in this kind of conversation and I don't know why you are doing this. Jytdog (talk) 01:20, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
Sarah, there was a recent ANI where an editor claimed that fulfilling the ToU would OUT them. That editor's argument was rejected. Jytdog (talk) 01:47, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
There's no question that requiring the paid editor to disclose his profile or link to his profile would be a great thing. But I also think that requiring it would create such a firestorm, considering how sensitive people are about "outing," that it would endanger this policy and might provoke a backlash against the TOU's enforcement on Wikipedia. There is a considerable libertarian-leaning contingent on Wikipedia that is opposed to any restraints on paid editing, or views it as secondary to the massive corrupt conspiracy taking place throughout the project. The purpose of the TOU was to provide disclosure to readers and nonpaid editors, not to provide an investigatory mechanism, however desirable, for paid-editing sleuths. Therefore I suggest that we let this one go. Coretheapple (talk) 13:38, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
Coretheapple, I agree that it would create a backlash. The point of the TOU provision is to find out who is paying for content, not to out people. If it becomes about outing, that provision will be rejected. Sarah (talk) 17:00, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
Requiring people to disclose their middleman would do nothing more, as far as I can determine, but to advertise the middleman. I really don't see what possible value that information would have even for the sleuths, except to reveal (and advertise) new middlemen. It would seem alost ridiculously easy to determine which middlemen exist. Just use google. That information is valueless without knowing the user ID on the external website, and I just can't see the people around here going for it. Besides, what good does that do for the average editor working on an article? All he or she needs to know is that this is a paid editor, working on behalf of the subject. Whether the employment contract is through a middleman, or signed in blood, or whatever, is of really no importance. Coretheapple (talk) 17:20, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
Coretheapple about your "advertising" argument. How is that any different from any paid disclosure. EditorX from PRfirmY who works on many articles for various clients and discloses they work for PRfirmY each time. How is that not an "adverisement" for PRfirmY in just the same way you mean? In any case it seems that we are dug in here. What dispute resolution would you like to pursue? Shall I draft an RfC? . Jytdog (talk) 13:07, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
There's no question that disclosure can fill a double role as advertising. As a matter of fact, there was one paid editor who explicitly advertised by a so-called disclosure template, though I see that's been taken down. So yes, there is that element in all disclosure. But it is offset by the fact that we are imparting useful information to other editors, who often run into to extremely stubborn editors and might be wondering "why are these chaps so stubborn?" Well the reason is that they are doing their job; their employed by XYZ Public Relations to influence the Wikipedia article on ABC Corporation. I don't see the same benefit to adding another layer of disclosure by saying "employed by XYZ Public Relations to influence the article on ABC Corporation, and got the job through RMY Services [a middleman]." The PR firm and the client are enough. The middleman strikes me as surplusage. Would I like to know it? Of course. But it strikes me as a bridge too far into disclosure that could be viewed as overreaching by the large number of Wiki editors who hate the very idea of COI disclosure, have no problem with paid editing, and/or go into hives on anything resembling outing. Lastly, you don't have to ask my permission to engage in an RfC or any other time-wasting mechanism that you may wish to pursue, of which there are many. Coretheapple (talk) 13:42, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
Late to the party but I wanted to put my 2¢ as a COIN volunteer. Totally agree with Jytdog's analysis of why we need disclosures as a wedge to start bringing in evidence from job boards, or some ruleset that would allow COIN cases to bring in, for example, Elance links without explicit prior approval. We do go around and around with the same editors under sock accounts. This Elance advert, for instance, for long-term SEO jobs, was answered almost exclusively by individuals who have been previously blocked on WP: "We are an SEO firm looking for someone who can publish Wikipedia entries". Details of how we know this are at this COIN thread. I'm not here to restart this discussion, but a centrally brokered, uniform way to register the paid ed's, or to force them to register once they've been discovered, is badly needed. Ideally I'd like this done with a few additional features that I haven't seen discussed here. One, a way to monitor former usernames. Two, a way to include in the registry known socks of the paid ed. Three, a way to link back to noticeboard cases, especially COIN and SPI. This would be an invaluable element in a COIN investigator's toolkit and probably useful for SPI as well. — Brianhe (talk) 18:28, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

thanks Brianhe that was exactly the view from the trenches that I was hoping would get articulated here. What is narrowly under discussion here, is setting up the templates for paid editors (there is one for the Userpage, and a separate one for article talk pages), with an "affiliates" parameter and instructions for freelancers to list the broker through which they got the job in that field. Pushing it, to also instruct paid editors to link to their account at the broker there. (in a really dreamy world, there would be actual parameters in the template for both) But please do confirm - getting paid editors to self-disclose the broker and their account would be super helpful at COIN, right? Jytdog (talk) 18:36, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely yes, I'd like them to mention broker/account so we can start backtracking. This is another element that should be discussed; we have good reasons to think that a lot of the actual paid WP editors are puppets for a controller, either a PR firm or a nefarious master, perhaps one of the LTA actors. I've seen lots of ads that go like "we give you a list of references and you build an article around it" or even "we give you a finished article and you post it". Getting at the payor and cross-referencing other jobs is just as important as "legally outing" the specific paid WP editor disclosing. It also gives us some idea of who to complain to if there is a (rare) case of a compliant PR firm with a rogue employee, as appears to have happened with Ogilvy here. — Brianhe (talk) 18:45, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
Brianhe, how would it help to know which broker? For example, if an account posts on Talk:Religion X: "User:A has been paid by Smith PR, on behalf of the Church of X, for her contributions to Religion X," how does her adding "affiliation = Elance" help? The people who ask for writers on Elance don't say which article they want help with, so you won't be able to link a disclosure to a particular ad. And it is only the honest ones who will offer the disclosure anyway. Sarah (talk) 18:57, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
Sarah, I don't think we should abandon processes that help identify bad actors, with the circular reasoning that bad actors won't follow the processes. Why do we require locksmiths to be licensed? So we can tell when somebody is breaking into a car and not just doing his job. This is the same thing. WP is allowing editors to participate on its own terms and, as stated at WP:Orangemoody, "to make it clear that the Wikipedia community, and not a small group of paid editor accounts, controls the content of this project". To answer the hypothetical you posed, I'd like to know to go look at Elance for Smith PR; and sometimes it really is that easy, and sometimes they do say what article they want twiddled. There's a list at User:Brianhe/sandbox#Actual paid operatives and here's an example from the list. Global Travel International asked for "reputation management" here. This COIN case also stemmed from a self-identifying Elance posting (I've shared confidential details with Smartse). So, having these links at the outset does help, rather than retroactively trying to correlate existing bad content to the ad. — Brianhe (talk) 19:15, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
Ok, then why don't we simply require that editors, if they are editing in response to commercial advertising or with the assistance of middlemen, make a full disclosure of their middleman, the service they use, and the user ID, in addition to any PR firm and of course the ultimate client? In for a penny, in for a pound. As I said above, I have no objection to such disclousre, I would like to see it, but it is strikes me as of limited value wtihout full disclosure. Also I'm worried about a backlash, but so far there is no evidence of any, probably because this policy is not widely known. So what's wrong with full disclosure? We can go beyond the TOU if we wish. The TOU does not prevent a stronger policy. Coretheapple (talk) 20:59, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

If anyone can help to fix the paid template, that would be appreciated. It currently doesn't seem to allow employer and client when posted on talk pages. I've asked for help at Template talk:Paid. Sarah (talk) 22:46, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

 Done Simply posting on the template talk is sufficient. Primefac (talk) 00:24, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

The discussion has moved to Template talk:Paid-talk. If anyone is willing to help with the template or get involved in the discussion, that would be appreciated. Sarah (talk) 18:58, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

How to disclose

Thanks to Jytdog for adding this section. It's an area that has needed clarification for a long. Personally I think that the ToU are too weak by only requiring a disclosure in one place which could just be the edit summary. Presumably this edit was been made in the belief that it satisfies the ToU but it is obviously not enough. I noticed some discussion above about disclosures in edit summaries as well as on user pages and talk pages and it is difficult to know how to simplify the process for the discloser but also make the edits visible to reviewers. {{paid}} is a good idea as it is consistent and traceable. We may also want to include that the disclosure doesn't mean that they can edit how they please. I've come across several paid editors recently who seem to think that because they have made a disclosure they can remove {{coi}} from articles they've written. More generally, from my reading of the policy atm it's not clear which parts are things that have to be followed and which parts should be followed. Are legal policies something that has to be followed and therefore our interpretation of the ToU through this policy is also a requirement? SmartSE (talk) 22:31, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

The only part that suggests something not in the terms of use (that I can see) is the disclosure part. I'm not sure we can insist on that, so while I agree with it, it should probably be worded differently or moved to the guideline. Sarah (talk) 22:50, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Ideally, we should modify the terms of use to require disclosure on all possible places--the user page, the user talk p, the edit summary, the article or draft talk p., and the article itself. We explicitly have the right to do this. I'm not however sure we need to , and it may be much simpler,at least as an initial step, for us to make our own supplemental rule in WP:COI to require it, and then make all the notices in the various places conform. DGG ( talk ) 03:41, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

"Affiliation" - where are we?

Continuing the discussion above, which has petered out...

Currently the policy explanation says, "Affiliation refers to other connections that might be relevant."

In my view this should say "Affiliation refers to other connections that might be relevant, including any broker through which the paid editor contracted with his or her client, and the paid editor's account name at the broker."

Thoughts? If there are still disagreements, I intend to launch an RfC asking two questions. The first would be about adding "including any broker through which the paid editor contracted with his or her client"; the second would be about adding "and the paid editor's account name at the broker" but I would like to assess where we stand first. Jytdog (talk) 12:22, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Terms of Use - how to disclose broker (Elance etc)

The Terms of Use require people who receive/expect to receive consideration for editing, to disclose their "employer, client, and affiliation".

Currently the policy explanation says:

  • Employer: the person or organization that pays a user to contribute to Wikipedia, whether that user has a freelance contract with the payer, has no contract, is a salaried employee of the payer, or is a salaried employee of another organization.
  • Client: the person or organization on whose behalf the edits are made; the client is often the subject of the article.
  • Affiliation: other connections that might be relevant.

Say that FreelancerA gets a job writing an article for ClientB through BrokerC (Elance, Upwork etc are brokers).

In my view the policy explanation above should have two additions "Affiliation refers to other connections that might be relevant, including any broker through which a paid editor contracted with his or her client and the paid editor's account name at the broker."

Two questions:

  1. Should the explanation of "affiliation" include "including any broker (such as Elance or Upworks) through which a paid editor contracted with his or her client
  2. Should the explanation of "affiliation" also include "and the paid editor's account name at the broker"

-- Jytdog (talk) 20:19, 15 September 2015 (UTC) (add examples of brokers Jytdog (talk) 15:20, 17 September 2015 (UTC))

  • Question - if A is being paid by C, even though they don't work for C, isn't C essentially the "employer" in this instance? I don't think anyone denies that B is the client, but "A is employed by A" seems like a silly statement to make. Primefac (talk) 20:38, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I think the ToU are badly phrased; and the word should be (and is probably intended to be ) "or" not "and". As someone who as (currently) part-time freelance and part-time salaried, I have clients in the former part of my life and an employer in the latter, but there is no overlap. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:43, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Andy, it doesn't matter if you think the ToU are badly phrased. They explicitly state that they "require all editors to disclose their employer, client, and affiliation." If you would like to change that you have to propose an alternative policy - and that is a long row to hoe that you're setting yourself to do. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:47, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
The focus of this RFC has nothing to do with "employer" but rather with "affiliation" and disclosure of the broker' which is neither employer nor client. I would like us to clarify that the ToU require a) disclosure of the broker (e.g. Elance) and I would like us to interpret the ToU to also require: b) disclosure of account at broker (pages like this or this). This self-disclosure by freelancers would be enormously helpful at COIN. Jytdog (talk) 09:40, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
If the "middle-man" is actually being paid by the editor in question, who cares? As a slightly hyperbolic example, if someone posts a wanted ad in a newspaper and a client says "I saw your add in the New York Times offering up your Wikipedia services," would the paid editor have to list NYT as an "affiliation"? While this situation is extremely unlikely, it is very similar to the brokers you speak of. It seems to me that places like Elance are nothing more than job posting boards, a facilitator if you will for people to find each other. Primefac (talk) 14:18, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
Andy's interpretation sounds right to me. Can you link anything that demonstrates that the foundation explicitly intends "affiliation" to mean things like elance et al? That's not at all a natural reading of the word, even with the "other connections" clarification. As Primefac says, as you've written this it sounds like "affiliation" should mean not only elance but also things like craigslist, classified ads, flyers left on office billboards, the neighborhood coffee shop where our enterprising freelancer traded a Wikipedia page for a free latte, etc. etc. etc. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:34, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
  • We don't need to "demonstrate that the foundation explicitly intends "affiliation" to mean things like elance" The ToU states "Applicable law, or community and Foundation policies and guidelines, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure." So if we'd like, the community may require more detailed disclosure.
  • Please don't criticize us for trying to force disclosure of classified ads - we simply aren't doing that. If you get confused by the wording, please suggest different wording. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:47, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment I think that affiliation should include broker, or Elance-type online whatever-it-is, but only if user account is provided. Otherwise I don't see the benefit, though I have an open mind on the subject and am open to persuasion. Coretheapple (talk) 16:27, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment The issue is that sites like Upworks have a contractual relationship with both the 'client' and the 'editor' they provide several services and gain a profit from providing those services. This is very different from 'answering a want ad'. By having this information, particularly the account name, we have same way to enforce out Terms of Use. If a Wikipedia editor is caught violating the ToU then they get blocked, the paid editors care very little about this. If, on the other hand, we can tell a site like Upworks one of their users are violating out ToS the account may be terminated. Paid editors care about their reputations on the job sites, most do not care about their reputation on Wikipedia. This is why we need the information. JbhTalk 17:22, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment we can ignore the New York Times classified ad section as being an affiliation - the NYT just doesn't get that much revenue from advertising Wikipedia editing jobs. OTOH, I believe elance and others do make quite a bit from this, in fact more than the freelancers do in some cases. Therefore they should be disclosed, they are definitely part of the system. Getting paid editors to disclose their accounts is another question. If we are asking them to out themselves as a condition of editing Wikipedia, then there will be too much blowback to get this passed. If we are saying - disclose your account, but don't put information in the account that will disclose your identity, then I'll support this and think others will as well. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:28, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment: This reminds me of an employee one hires through a temp agency, they work for one person, who pays the temp agency, who then pays the employee, except the boss who hires the temp has hiring and firing authority over the temp... so is the "employer" technically - the boss or the temp agency? (and it kind of depends on the "offense" - for taxes and non-payment of wages, it's probably the temp agency, for unlawful discrimination it is probably the boss...) So, similarly, this proposal, while laudable in its goals, perhaps needs rethinking and targeting more precisely to the problem areas; firms like Elance. Maybe even naming "such firms who are compensated for acting as a broker for paid wikipedia editing including but not limited to Elance, ...yada, yada, yada... Montanabw(talk) 17:38, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Perhaps. I'm not bubbling over with enthusiasm for either this RfC or the one beneath, even though I support them, because I think neither is likely to get a consensus. But it may happen, or it may turn out to be an immense waste of time. Coretheapple (talk) 14:41, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Propose inserting under affiliation "including any broker (such as Elance or Upworks) through which a paid editor contracted with their client" I see enough support for that here if we separate it out. I'm not completely against adding the second part about disclosing their account name at Elance, but think that will make adding the 1st part more complicated. Let's consider the 2nd part later.

absolutely!! i appreciate your trying to get this done. Jytdog (talk) 15:22, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Support Would also support requirement to disclose account name at broker as well. In fact that is my first choice. I also feel that that the phrasing of the ToU covers this as it stands and that this change is a clarification of the requirement rather than an expansion or new requirement. JbhTalk 17:26, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Edits by Interns

I have several times recently encountered edits by people who were (or who said that they were) working as unpaind interns for Literary/artistic agencies or the like, and editing Wikipedia as part of such internships. They said that the agencies were attempting to create articles about clients that the agencies represented, but that the agency was not specifically paid for such actions, and the interns were not paid at all, by anyone. Therefore they were surprised to be told that their edits were considered paid editing. I would therefore like to clarify two points which seem obvious to me, but which I would like included in a policy or guideline page so that I could point to them in future:

  1. Where an agency or anyone representing a client on a commission or other paid basis creates or edits a Wikipedia article or draft on behalf of the client, with the apparent aim of promoting the client or making the client more marketable, even if no specific payment for The Wikipedia edits is made, this constitutes paid editing and requires a proper disclosure.
  2. Where an unpaid intern of an agency, PR firm, or other business paid by a client, who might reasonably expect aid in his or her future employment or career from the internship, is assigned or expected or encouraged to edit Wikipedia by the firm with which he or she interns, such edits are considered paid edits, and the intern a paid editor, and proper disclosures must be made, just as if the intern was receiving a salary and was assigned to edit as part of the job.

Do we need a formal RfC to add these or similar language to this page or some related page? DES (talk) 16:53, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

An internship can be considered "compensation" in and of itself and interns are, to the best of my knowledge, considered representatives of their employer. That said I see no real issue to simply boldly adding "intern" to the policy text and the explanatory text in the paid disclosure template. JbhTalk 14:10, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
I'm in further agreement that if the agency or company is receiving financial compensation and they delegate that task to one of their employees or interns, regardless of their pay or claims it was done "off the clock", it should be considered paid editing because of the conflict of interest. I do not believe that there could be a reasonable argument in pointing out technicalities to separate the issue and unburden the agency/company from the TOU. Mkdwtalk 13:35, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Welcome template for paid editors?

What is the best way to notify a new paid contributor about this policy? Currently, Sofia Mikhaylova (talk · contribs · count) has re-created Gazprom International. According to her LinkedIn account, she works at the internet projects department of Gazprom EP International, which qualifies as paid editing. Maybe we need a special welcome template for paid editors like we have {{welcome-COI}}? Beagel (talk) 21:18, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Maybe the template Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Question is of help? – Brianhe (talk) 04:17, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
@Beagel: If you are pretty sure there is a paid-COI use the warnings in the series strting with {{uw-paid1}}. Paid1 is pretty mild but they all say 'stop editing until you answer/disclose' so my assumption/hope is continuing to edit without replying to the inquiry will lead to a quick indef. I do not thing suspected paid-COI really needs its own welcome template, if you suspect undisclosed paid-COI go straight to {{uw-paid1}} JbhTalk 13:32, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
I think some sort of not-too-bitey template for "first offenders" is helpful; not all COI editors know they are violating WP policies (most probably do, but [2] this example seems to be someone who did not). AGF for the first time they do it, but then become firmer. Montanabw(talk) 15:25, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
{{uw-paid1}} is pretty mild. I think if someone is being paid we can assume they did their due-diligence and know what the ToU states assuming otherwise goes beyond AGF to assuming professional incompetence. Professionals should be handled as such so as to set proper expectations early on in the interaction. If you are unsure, or want to give the benefit of the doubt, I would suggest addressing them using "normal" COI welcome, and maybe draw special attention to paid editing policies, to avoid the 'stop editing until you reply' that paid1 invokes but, personally, I think that would be an error for obvious accounts like the one you mentioned above. Setting expectations early and stopping the edits is important.

I see a lot more 'one and done' article creations. None of the templates or our policies/procedures handle those. For that we need something like a modification to {{db-g11}} that allows deletion of articles created by suspected undisclosed paid editors. That, however, is a wish less likely than world peace. :) JbhTalk 16:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, that makes sense. COI is often more the problem with the non-profits-editing-their-own-stuff problems I see. Montanabw(talk) 17:14, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Rfc: Require details of compensation for Paid-contribution disclosure

Closing per a WP:ANRFC request.
There is a clear consensus against this proposal. Armbrust The Homunculus 00:54, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use do not require paid editors to disclose compensation details[3].

The English Wikipedia should add a stricter requirement.

The Paid-contribution disclosure policy should be strengthened to include a requirement to disclose details of compensation.

Suggested wording: "You must disclose the amount and type of compensation you are receiving for editing."

-- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 08:54, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Comment Yes, I think this is a desirable requirement, and that the proposed language is good. Coretheapple (talk) 16:29, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Not yet, I'll say let this go for now, it might complicate things in the short term. In a few months or a year, say next time a paid editing scandal occurs, we may be better able to explain exactly what we need and why. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:00, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose: There are often legal confidentiality agreements involving people's compensation. In some cases, there could even be statutory restrictions on disclosing compensation. Also, in situations where a salaried person, say a University professor who might edit wikipedia within his or her area of expertise (perhaps, for example, in Renaissance literature), particularly when they are not paid to edit a specific article or for a specific amount of time, there is really no way to break down the amount of compensation from the general salary. I understand - and sympathize with - the need to put the thumbscrews to the Wiki PR-types of editors, but I fear this particular provision is unworkable and doesn't solve the real problem, which (IMHO) is undisclosed editing. This will only hurt the sincere professionals and experts who edit within their field of expertise, and Wikipedia generally benefits from that sort of contribution. Montanabw(talk) 17:12, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose We do not need that information to enforce the ToS. Recommend SNOW close of this. It simply will not happen and it distracts from the other disclosure discussions we need to be having. JbhTalk 17:25, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment: Strengthening a "paid-contribution disclosure policy" means acceptance of /agreement with the concept of paid contributors. --Wuerzele (talk) 02:37, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
It's part of the Terms of Use, you accept these terms, which include the concept of "paid contributors", every time you edit. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:51, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
It would be preferable to ban paid editing but short of that, yes I'd go along with requiring a stronger disclosure policy. If a person chooses to engage in a business that exploits Wikipedia for personal profit, that's reasonable. Coretheapple (talk) 14:36, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
  • oppose. I don't see that we need dollar amounts to see that there is a possible bias. In partidcualr with saleried people who are assigned, or take initiative, to edit as a small part of a larger job (say a non-profit's "Communications director" and I have seen a number of these) asking for the overall salary is unreasonable and will merely drive such editors into non-compliance, and asking for some sort of allocation of salary is probably unfeasible, and would provide no helpful data in any case. Even in the case of a straight fee-for-article arrangement, the amount of compensation (once it is beyond trivial anyway) is not really meaningful. Some people might be willing to bend rules and accept bias more for $100 than others would for $10,000. There is no legitimate reason for making this demand, it only serves as a back-door method to try to ban paid editing altogether, which i think would be very por policy, evn if doen openly. DES (talk) 17:03, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose(Responding to automated request to comment.) Information is personal and not needed to enforce anything. If demanding such information is intimidating which I think it could be then we are crossing a line on WP and what we think our rights are in terms of editors. Paid or not WP editors have the right to keep personal information private.(Littleolive oil (talk) 00:17, 27 September 2015 (UTC))
  • Oppose as per above comments, that the details of compensation are not important to identify compensated (and therefore suspect) contributors. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:41, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I don't think this information is required. Also, as DESiegel said, this would probably force people into going underground, which is counterproductive. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:15, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose I fear this would actually benefit paid editors, as disclosure of compensation amounts would drive the market. John from Idegon (talk) 00:29, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose This will either encourage other editors to pursue it or drive paid editors into hiding and not disclose their paid editing practices despite the TOU. Investigating TOU infringements is nearly impossible unless the employer or employee provides evidence. Mkdwtalk 11:37, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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