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Consequences of paid editing disclosure

I would like to suggest that this page contain some information about the structural consequences for disclosing engaging in paid editing, and the limits that are likely to be placed on an account which has made a paid editing disclosure. I think it is appropriate that editors understand that making a paid editing disclosure will have far-reaching effects on their account, and that they may be asked to surrender existing user rights such as WP:NPP,WP:AUTOPATROLLED, and WP:OTRS, and that they may expect to have requests to be granted such rights/ memberships declined. It might also be worth mentioning that having these rights while disclosing engaging in paid editing is likely to be viewed by other editors as deceptive, and that having advanced user rights is largely incompatible with disclosing having engaged in paid editing of any scale. The fact that a paid editing disclosure is a point-of-no-return for an editor is not at all clear, and warrants pointing out. Thanks. KDS4444 (talk) [Note: This user has admitted participating in paid editing,— trust but verify.] 05:59, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

That is an... odd way to say it. The issue is what happens if you engage in paid editing.
It is an activity that is not loved by anyone and not something an editor in good standing should do lightly.
If you are going to do it, you can do it "black hat" or "white hat".
Going black hat, you are constantly at risk for getting caught which will lead to an indef. Not a nice way to be present here.
Going white hat, you are going to catch flak, and yes, you should be ready for that. But one can be a member of the community, in good faith, and in alignment with the mission, going white hat. But you have to really know what you are doing.
But the fork in the road, is the decision to start editing for pay.
To be honest your post above still kind of feels like you are looking for somebody else to blame for the boat you are in now. It takes about five seconds of googling to see that it is a controversial thing to do.
That said, it might be useful to improve the essay Wikipedia:Paid editing (essay) and link it here (btw, see the first sentence in the "Why you shouldn't do it" section. Jytdog (talk) 06:57, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
While I oppose paid editing I don't think that attitude is helpful at all Jytdog. Since we do allow it we can't go around saying that all paid editing is bad — else we will drive people into the shadows. As long as we allow it at all we won't be able to "convince" all editors that it is bad, and thereby keep them from doing it. That would require an outright ban.
What I think KDS4444 is getting at is: there needs to be some incentive to disclose. If we're only saying "it's bad whether you disclose or not, and these are all the negative effects of disclosing" — then disclosure will only invite more scrutiny, and arguably no benefit. Hence, paid editors will not disclose.
I prefer the method of deleting all edits that are performed under non-disclosure, no matter their "quality" (an objective measure anyway). In fact I think we're going to come to a point where this is the only solution — just that there are too many who haven't realized that yet... So I do think KDS4444 brings up a very valid point in that we should provide examples of why disclosure is necessary, or even beneficial.
I would also like to ask where/why these rights have been revoked? This seems to be very counterproductive, because it serves to de-incentivize disclosure. Is removal of these rights policy-supported? If not they should be restored immediately with the proviso that they can never be used to promote paid edits. Carl Fredrik talk 07:42, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
For the record: no rights were "revoked", it was suggested they be surrendered. KDS4444 (talk) [Note: This user has admitted participating in paid editing,— trust but verify.] 04:59, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
CFF you are parachuting into a situation and inventing facts, which is unhelpful. Please read Wikipedia_talk:New_pages_patrol/Reviewers#Conflict_of_Interest_-_of_a_different_kind. Then you can read KDS' talk page. There is other stuff but those are the two places to start.
And no rights were "revoked". I suggested that KDS should resign the advanced permissions, and they did. Nothing was taken from them.
COI is an emotional issue but rushing to judgment before you understand everything is just.. unhelpful. I won't respond on the rest of what you wrote until you are able to circle back here, and you may want to strike some of it anyway. Jytdog (talk) 08:34, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
I don't know the history of the particular editor posting here, and I do not want to wade into any dispute. But as a general comment about "black" and "white hats", I remember having pointed out somewhere or other that there can indeed be a very much "white hat" form of disclosed paid editing (albeit sadly uncommon, especially when new content is being created). If we already have a page about a legitimately notable subject, that subject can hire an editor who carefully complies with our policies and who mainly watches out for vandalism or BLP violations, but otherwise only edits the article talk page, and does so with clear disclosure. I think that that kind of "white hat" editing is actually very welcome here at Wikipedia, and not something that attracts flak. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:25, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
The question that was raised at WT:NPR was about advanced permissions. The rough consensus was that at the very least those user rights involving new content are generally not appropriate for editors who have been paid to edit: i.e. autopatrolled and NPR. I won't get into the discussion of white hat vs black hat, but I think recognizing that the community expects users to resign the technical means of avoiding review (autopatrolled) when engaging in paid editing is something we can view as a reasonable expectation, even for white hat editors. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:01, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
That's a very good point. In fact, what I was calling "white hat" is about editing that does not involve new content. But when, for example, there is a new page that might be started, there are many pitfalls with respect to paid editing, and the community has a clear consensus about minimizing the damage to content. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:05, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I've worked with one or two paid/COI editors on existing articles. Mainly involving the donation of copyrighted materials that had the possibility of helping the Wikimedia movement. In general, if paid editing is to exist, I think it is best kept as far away from new content as possible. It should also be made clear to those editing within the terms of use that the community expects that any new content by a paid editor will be subject to review by a non-connected entity before it is indexed by Google (which really is all the patrolled flag does.) TonyBallioni (talk) 20:19, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Also Jytdog, I've added a section to the essay you mentioned that I think reflects the past week or so of discussions. Anyone is free to edit or revert. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:34, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

  • KDS4444, I don't know what happened in your case, but I saw Jytdog tell you (diff) that we have a paid-editing policy that says you can't edit (or publish) articles directly. That isn't correct. We have no paid-editing policy, because the community can't reach consensus on the issues. We have this paid-editing disclosure policy in virtue of the WMF terms of use, but it says only that there has to be disclosure, on the user page, article talk page, or in edit summaries.
Beyond that, we have the COI guideline, which "very strongly discourages" direct article editing by paid editors (see WP:NOPAY). Nowhere does it say that paid editors can't hold certain user rights. There was a recent RfC asking whether paid editors should not become or remain admins, but the proposal was rejected (writing from memory). SarahSV (talk) 06:20, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
Noting that I've now seen the article in question and agree that it should not have been posted. SarahSV (talk) 06:47, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
That is a good correct, SV, thanks. This policy does refer to the WP:COI guideline, and says "This advises those with a conflict of interest, including paid editors, not to edit affected articles directly." It is odd that the should not directly in the COI guideline is watered down here. But the notion that paid editors and people with a COI should not directly edit, is widely held, as far as I know. I haven't seen anybody argue against that in a very long time. Jytdog (talk) 07:12, 30 August 2017 (UTC) (overreach Jytdog (talk) 17:08, 30 August 2017 (UTC))
There is no policy on user rights (the de-bundled ones we might be able to come to a consensus on. Adminship we won't be able to). The note I added to the essay simply says that there is no consensus on this matter, but that it is controversial, which I think is fair. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:17, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
I agree, that is a reasonable summary. Jytdog (talk) 17:08, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
Responding to this a bit more. In that diff - I never said "can't". Jytdog (talk) 17:08, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

should not directly edit affected articles vs. very strongly discouraged from editing affected articles

On August 30, Jytdog made this edit changing the meaning of this policy and misrepresenting the contents of WP:COI, which the section summarizes. WP:COI only says that paid-editors are "very strongly discouraged from editing affected articles."

I am a paid editor. —አቤል ዳዊት?(Janweh64) (talk) 21:18, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Please revert this change. —አቤል ዳዊት?(Janweh64) (talk) 00:45, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
I made it match the COI guideline. It is a distinction without a difference, but technically yes it should match. And neither of you should directly edit where you are paid, and as far as I know both of you are following that. Which is good for everybody. Jytdog (talk) 03:40, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

and or or

It shouldn't take too long to come up with an RfC wording that will satisfy almost everybody who wants to make a change.

The basic idea is to change "They must do this on their main user page, or on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or in edit summaries."

to: "They must do this on their main user page, or on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or and in edit summaries.

For the RfC we should present our reason for the change, something like "This change is proposed so that we can track the scope of paid editing". That is the reason for having this section and the ToU in the first place and is included in the last sentence of the section. so there's no reason for including that sentence in the actual text.

The only real question I see is if we want to prescribe the templates that have to be used to disclose. Since these are described in the next paragraph by reference to WP:COI, we might also state "These declarations must be made using the templates recommended at WP:COI." Or we could just copy the text directly from WP:COI.

If everybody uses the same templates, Jytdog's hope that we could get pages listing paid editors and articles with paid edits could probably be handled with a bot editing those pages.

Any other suggestions?

Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:39, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Actually, on reviewing the template, there are a couple of problems.
  • The description of the template says it should be included on the article talk page, but doesn't say anything about the user page.
  • The brief usage statement doesn't include a non-linked place for affiliations
"You should post the disclosure at the top of talk pages as follows:
{{Connected contributor (paid)|User1=InsertName|U1-employer=InsertName|U1-client=InsertName|U1-otherlinks=Insert relevant links, such as relevant affiliations, disclosures, article drafts written by paid editors, or diffs showing paid contributions being added to articles.}}.
  • To make the bot's job easier compiling the paid edited articles and the paid editors user pages, perhaps 2 different templates might make sense e,g, {{Template:Paid editing - talk page}} and {{Template:Page editing - user page}}"
I'll suggest redoing the templates and just putting those 2 templates into the policy, e.g. "Use template 1 for the article talk page, and use template 2 on your user page."
Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:01, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) While I agree that only including such information on one of these three is insufficient — all three is similarly overkill. Talk-page mentions are in my book pointless and will likely only clutter pages.
If it is perceived to be too difficult we'll end up having no disclosures at all — or that disclosing will make things more difficult than just shutting up.
So even if you absolutely detest paid editing, this seems over the top. It would rather support an outright ban than requiring disclosure on three different pages. Carl Fredrik talk 18:09, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
Well, it's disclosure on 2 pages and in an edit summary (which is not a page). It can be convenient to see which edits were paid via the edit-summary, but I'm not totally against removing the requirement for edit summaries.
Perhaps easier - keep the requirement for the edit summary, and the user page and article talk page disclosures each need only be made once - not tracking individual edits. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:23, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
I'm not yet sure what I think, but CFCF makes a good point. I'd also have a concern about a paid editor who makes most of the required disclosures, but misses one, and I see that as a problem with framing it in terms of "must". I really could not support blocking someone who is in fact making the disclosures in good faith, but makes a mistake on a technicality. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:31, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
How about "They must do this once on their main user page, and once on the article talk page for any paid contribution involving a new employer, client, or article" using template 1 for the user page and template 2 for the article talk page. "These templates must be kept in place while the editor works for the same employer or client and for at least one year afterward." That's only two disclosures for each employer-client-article. I think any looser and we'd be violating the ToU and have to put this forward as an alternative paid-editing policy, which I am not prepared to do. It would let bots compile most of the pages Jytdog is interested in @Doc James, Slim Virgin, and Jytdog:.
BTW, I interpret the ToU as saying that each paid edit must be disclosed. Others have mentioned that this is quite burdensome, and I'm inclined to agree that it's ok to modify this as long as we get essentially the same info. The above suggestion is not burdensome at all, and I don't think that anybody would block somebody for this if there was a good-faith effort made. We'd know, or be able to look up easily enough every edit the paid-editor made to a paid-for page. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:50, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
Disclose should remain on their user page and the talk page of the article in question forever. Unless the article in question is deleted and than it should just remain on their user page. Should each edit also contain disclosure? I do not think that is unreasonable. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:55, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
I agree that disclosures shouldn't go away.
In a framework where COI is managed through a "disclose and edit directly" scenario, disclosing in each edit note makes a lot of sense.
But in practice we try to use a "disclose + prior-peer-review" framework (no direct editing) - and I am pretty sure that this approach has pretty broad consensus -- and in that framework disclosing in each edit note is kind of overkill. Jytdog (talk) 21:16, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
I agree with all of the above about lasting disclosures on the user page and the article talk page. As for edit summaries, I see it as "best practice", but I think it would be overkill to take the position that any page edit that lacks a disclosure in the edit summary amounts to a violation. But the point about prior peer review gives me an idea: we could specify that the edit summary should include disclosure for any non-minor edit that has not had prior talk page review. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:28, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused by the comments. Taken together they strike me as asking for both tighter and looser requirements. My tendency then will be to simplify, or to ask somebody else to give it a try! My try follows.

Under How to disclose

Editors who are compensated for their contributions must disclose their employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any paid contributions. They must do this on their main user page, on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, and in edit summaries.

They must do this once on their main user page, and once on the article talk page for any paid contribution involving a new employer, client, affiliation or article using template 1 for the user page and template 2 for the article talk page. These templates should not be removed.

Each paid edit should include an edit summary beginning with the word "PAID". Further disclosure in edit summaries is not required when template 1 and template 2 have already been placed as required. Paid editors who have discussed the edit on the article talk page may wish to include the edit summary "PAID per talk".

The bolding is just for this discussion, letting you know the main changes. The italics is to show that we actually need new, simple templates and names for them. "Should" in the last sentence is a bit softer than "must". The user and the article talk page disclosures are about the minimum consistent with the ToU. Adding PAID to each edit summary doesn't sound very burdensome either. Looking forward to somebody else's attempt! Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:15, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

@Doc James, Slim Virgin, Jytdog, Tryptofish, and CFCF: I added just a bit more. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:04, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

  • Responding to Tryptofish above, and to this. Please imagine reading this policy from the perspective of a newbie paid editor who is trying to understand what they must do, and what they should and should not do... I would like for them to walk away understanding that they need to disclose and they should not edit articles directly - that they think of direct editing of articles as taboo - as something they should not do. This should also be clear to more experienced users (and of course be grounded n the details and technicalities) but the high level message shouldn't get obscured.
I think we should be careful with the words "contribution", "edit" and their verbal forms. These words mean any change to Wikipedia, anywhere, but I think most people take "edit" to mean "changing the article". We don't say that anywhere. I think some of the proposal confuses that issue further...
I would favor an RfC to replace the "how to" aspect called for in the ToU with our own, and to specify article talk page and Userpage.
btw Smallbones the markup doesn't show what is new (the whole paragraph with "Each paid edit should include an edit summary...." is new.) I don't want to change your proposal but would you please fix it? Jytdog (talk) 19:59, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
I think Jytdog makes a very good point about not doing direct editing. As I think about the issue of the edit summaries, I'd prefer to put the emphasis on "don't do it at all" instead of on "use the right kind of edit summary when you do it."
Here is how I would like to go, working from Smallbones' version. I'll try to make it clearer what would be a change from what is on the page now:
Editors who are compensated for their contributions must disclose their employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any paid contributions. They must do this on their main user page, or and on the talk pages accompanying of articles where any paid contributions , or in edit summaries are proposed.
2nd paragraph as per Smallbones, pending the templates
new 3rd paragraph: Normally, paid editors should propose changes to articles on the article talk page, rather than editing the article itself, leaving it to other editors to make any changes. If, however, an article is edited directly, the words "PAID EDIT" must (should?) be included in the edit summary.
--Tryptofish (talk) 21:19, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
I like User:Tryptofish wording. I have just had a paid editor claim that they ONLY needed to disclose articles they created from scratch not those they simply made changes to. So yes paid editors will try to disclose as little as possible. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:40, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Note as per previous discussions, changes to all pages are covered by the need to disclose, not just articles, hence the current wording of talk pages accompanying the paid contributions. Of particular interest are pages in the Wikipedia namespace, and talk pages themselves, where disclosure is made directly on the same page. Since there is typically a lot of back-and-forth discussion on a talk page, the disclosure mechanism should not be overly onerous for this scenario, either for the paid editor or anyone reading the talk page. isaacl (talk) 03:55, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
Yes that is dead on. They need to disclose where ever they are writing in WP as a paid editor, and they should not edit articles directly as a paid editor. We have to keep the message clean and simple. Jytdog (talk) 04:18, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
OK, that's fine with me. (By the way, the reason I kept using the word "article" was because of the way that I had understood what you said about making things clear, about "they should not edit articles directly", and "most people take 'edit' to mean 'changing the article'". I took the latter to mean that newbies might not understand that "contributions" and "edits" refer to article space, but I realize now that you meant the opposite: that they should not be misled into thinking that the rules apply only in article space.)
Consequently, I'm fine with changing "of articles where" to "of pages where" in the first paragraph of my proposed wording above.
Question: In my proposed third paragraph, the word "article(s)" appears 4 times, and there are a couple of possible ways to change it. I'm not sure which is best, so I'm asking. We could change "should propose changes to articles on the article talk page, rather than editing the article itself" to "should propose changes to pages on the talk page, rather than editing the page itself". I think that's clear to experienced editors, but is it confusing to new editors that "talk pages" are "pages" themselves (so they can directly edit one kind of page to make proposals but not another kind of page)? And if we were to change "If, however, an article is edited directly" to "If, however, a page is edited directly", that gets even more confusing, so maybe we should leave that sentence with "an article"? I'm not sure.
Second question: Do I understand correctly that, in the last sentence of the 3rd paragraph, "must be included in the edit summary" is what has consensus, and not "should be included in the edit summary"?
--Tryptofish (talk) 18:45, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

(All of this makes it more complicated for editors wanting to follow the rules about paid editing, and makes it easier for them to get their accounts blocked for failure to disclose on a technical point, which is going to drive such editing further underground and will do little or nothing to advance the project. If you want editors to disclose paid edits, you can't make it complicated or full of punishments. Declared paid editors need to feel that their effort to disclose has been met somewhere— it is the rest of us who want to see them do it in three places or be blocked indefinitely, and that's not really in anyone's interests. KDS4444 (talk) [Note: This user has admitted participating in paid editing,— trust but verify.] 06:13, 28 August 2017 (UTC))

Please see meta:Requests_for_comment/Interlinking_of_accounts_involved_with_paid_editing_to_decrease_impersonation. I am sure this has been raised somewhere on en.wiki before and rejected but can't find the discussion. I may be wrong... SmartSE (talk) 16:15, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Change in Undisclosed paid editing tag color?

This is probably a trivial subject, but why was the color of the standard UDP tag changed from red to orange? I always liked how a red tag stood out as opposed to the orange color seen on the majority of other templates.--SamHolt6 (talk) 18:18, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

SamHolt6, it was changed here, apparently because red is associated with deletion. You can ask about it on that talk page, Template talk:Undisclosed paid. SarahSV (talk) 19:17, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
Have restored red. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:38, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
Thank you both for your responses. I feel that Wikipedia's use of red on our UDP template is a stark warning for those who engage in undisclosed paid editing, as I doubt a company wants a red-rimmed tag on their page. I see no reason to change the color from red.--SamHolt6 (talk) 21:00, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Changing this policy

@Slim Virgin and Doc James: I hadn't seen this edit before from about 2 weeks ago. It was not discussed here and was summarized as "ce (more accurate)". I don't think it clarifies anything and is less accurate about how we can change this policy.

The main problem with it is that it ignores the two level nature of the policy:

  • the role of the Terms of Use - which must be followed and can only be changed in a specific manner, and
  • the role of consensus on Wikipedia reflected by normal editing of the policy. We should try to reflect the current consensus of the community (excluding undisclosed paid editors, who are of course prohibited from editing until they make a full disclosure). I see the consensus to limit paid editing getting stronger every day, so normal, usually small, edits can be made which strengthen this policy.

Just to be clear what happened:

A. This version (which had been essentially unchanged for 3 years)

This policy may be changed in two ways:
  • An alternative policy can revoke the disclosure provision of the terms of use as it applies to the English Wikipedia and replace it with a new policy, which may be stronger or weaker. A proposed alternative policy must be clearly identified in a Request for Comment (RfC) as revoking the WMF policy. Upon approval, the new policy must be listed on the alternative-disclosure policy page. The RfC must be conducted in a manner consistent with the standard consensus-based process for establishing core policies.
  • Other changes to this policy that do not seek to revoke or weaken the terms of use are permitted, consistent with community practice for adding such material.
When discussing changes to the policy, disclose whether you have been paid to edit Wikipedia.

Was changed to

B. This version

An alternative policy can strengthen or weaken this policy, including by revoking the disclosure provision of the terms of use as it applies to the English Wikipedia. A proposed alternative policy must be clearly identified in a Request for Comment (RfC) as revoking the WMF policy. Upon approval, the new policy must be listed on the alternative-disclosure policy page. The RfC must be conducted in a manner consistent with the standard consensus-based process for establishing core policies.
When discussing changes to the policy, disclose whether you have been paid to edit Wikipedia.

which ignores the fact that this policy can be changed like any other policy on Wikipedia (as well as the more drastic "alternative policy" type of change.

I've temporarily added an introductory paragraph to B. which should clear things up, but I think I still like A. best.

C.

This policy may be changed in the same manner that other policies are changed on Wikipedia. These changes may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure, or, in some cases relax the limits on paid contributors. But if this policy's limits and requirements are less strict than those in the Terms of Use, the limits and requirements of the Terms of Use will still apply.
The Terms of Use as it applies to English Wikipedia can be changed by adopting an alternative policy.
An alternative policy can strengthen or weaken this policy, including by revoking the disclosure provision of the terms of use as it applies to the English Wikipedia. A proposed alternative policy must be clearly identified in a Request for Comment (RfC) as revoking the WMF policy. Upon approval, the new policy must be listed on the alternative-disclosure policy page. The RfC must be conducted in a manner consistent with the standard consensus-based process for establishing core policies.
When discussing changes to the policy, disclose whether you have been paid to edit Wikipedia.

If we are going to change this part of policy we need to, of course, do it consistently with the section on "Changing this policy."

In the discussion below, please indicate whether you want A. changed, and if so, whether you prefer the change to B. or C.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:58, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

The confusing part is that technically speaking, only the portion under the section "Wikimedia Foundation terms of use" is policy, and as I recall, this page was originally created to have a copy of this within English Wikipedia. Since then, the page has been expanded to add clarification of how the policy is applied, and to repeat guidance from other pages. This page itself has never gone through the RFC process to gain general consensus as a guideline or policy, so its status is entirely dependent on the status of the other pages from which it copies. (Which is part of why I previously argued that duplication of guidance isn't a great thing, but that's in the past now.)
So the paragraph discussing on how the policy can be modified is just a repetition of the last quoted section from the Terms of Use. Since it is redundant, the whole section can just be deleted. If it were to be kept, I think it should be substantially the same as in the Terms of Use, with perhaps a brief clarifying statement saying it is only referring to the policy as described in the Terms of Use. isaacl (talk) 18:57, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, but this page is a policy on En Wikipedia and has been for over three years. We can change it in the normal way just like any other policy - and we always could. There is consensus for it in the community now and there was when it was started more than 3 years ago. This has never been seriously challenged. You ask about the RfC - it was the largest RfC in history, was passed with 80% support, and approved by the WMF Board. But "technically speaking" it was conducted on Meta and approved as the Terms of Use, isn't that right? Actually "technically speaking" our policies don't rely on technicalities or fancy processes. They only depend on consensus. The consensus was clear when the policy was established, I think it's even clearer now. If you want to change the fundamental policy - or say that it isn't a policy anymore - the policy itself tells you how it can be changed - pass an alternative policy. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:11, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
Yes, the RfC approved the change to the Terms of Use, and as I said, that part is policy. The rest of this page has some explanations of the policy based on the FAQ, and material taken from other guidance pages. Thus the rest can change if the other guidance pages change, to keep it in synch. isaacl (talk) 00:40, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Smallbones, this isn't correct: "Other changes to this policy that do not seek to revoke or weaken the terms of use are permitted, consistent with community practice for adding such material."

We don't have a paid-editing policy, because there's never been consensus for one. We have this paid-editing disclosure policy, courtesy of the WMF. The only part of the page that is policy is the grey block quote. The process for changing this is expained at the FAQ and at m:Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies, where you've been explaining it to others on the talk page. To change the policy we have to hold an RfC to install an alternative disclosure policy, which can be stronger or weaker, including "we have no disclosure policy", as Commons has done. [1] Then we list it on that page. SarahSV (talk) 21:03, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

The disputed sentence ("Other changes to this policy ...") was added here in September 2015. We should go back to the earliest version:
"The Wikimedia Foundation allows projects to adopt alternative policies governing the disclosure of paid contributions. An alternative policy supersedes the requirements of the terms of use only if it is approved by the community and listed as an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy."
SarahSV (talk) 21:15, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
That's a good point, about the earliest version, so I just changed it back to that, for the time being. In my opinion, that earliest version is actually better than any of the subsequent versions, concise and to the point. If we blue-link "approved by the community" to WP:PGCHANGE, WP:PROPOSAL or WP:RFC, and maybe add a few words about clearly identifying that such an RfC alters how we treat the ToU, I think that would be all we need. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:30, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I would support that. SarahSV (talk) 21:37, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
I agree with SlimVirgin's description of what this policy is and is not, and with going back to the earlier version as well. Jytdog (talk) 21:43, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
Question: Wont it be better just stop hard blocking editors who are paid to help us to improve our project? Like, there were some cases when editors were blocked simply by being a part of an organization (a church for example). They didn't do anything promotional but their user names were in conflict with our policies just because they don't represent Wikipedia in name (but I do believe that they do represent it in heart).--Biografer (talk) 21:46, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
violations of USERNAME are entirely different from violations of this policy. The rest of what you wrote begs the question. Jytdog (talk) 21:49, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
@Jytdog: Hmm, I would understand if a username contains something offensive, but if it contains something promotional (and it is here to help us) shouldn't that be OK? What do you mean by the rest of what you wrote begs the question?
PS: Sorry if my question above was a little bit irrelevant (maybe).--Biografer (talk) 22:17, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
Personally, as I mentioned above, I think it's redundant to virtually repeat what's already quoted from the Terms of Use. isaacl (talk) 00:50, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Break

One correction - above I said that the version of "Changing this policy" that I put in on Sept. 1, 2015 was 3 years ago. Obviously it was 2 years ago. It was the 4th edit to the policy page (excluding a vandal's edit and quick revert). At that date I explained on the talk page why this was the policy given in the ToU, and that section stayed on this talk page without comment until it was archived a month later. That section of the policy stayed the same until August 30, 2017 when it was removed without discussion. AFAIK it had never even been questioned over those 2 years.

6 days after my edit Sarah included the following text box at the top of this talk page [2]

The project page associated with this talk page is an official policy on Wikipedia. Because part of it reflects the position of the Wikimedia Foundation, it may be changed only in accordance with the section Changing this policy.

It's still there and AFAIK it never left. IMHO it indicates full agreement by Sarah with my understanding now and back then of the policy page being a policy and how it can be changed.

A quick run down on why this policy is an En:Wikipedia policy. The ToU specifically allow further limits on paid editing without giving any limits on how the community can do this "community ... policies ... may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure." So obviously it can be done by the usual methods, which are described by us at WP:PGCHANGE

But was this a policy when 1st posted in late August 2015? WP:PROPOSAL gives the procedure for establishing new policies. The only requirement is "Proposals for new guidelines and policies require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy." With the largest RfC in history giving 80% support to the ToU change. this requirement was clearly met. If it's not met in this case, it was never met in any case.

The "alternative policy" paragraph does not refer to the normal type of change described above. It was added at the last minute of the RfC and I made sure that it was not intended to change the meaning of the existing wording. It gives a means to completely replace the ToU changes as it applies to en:Wiki and other projects. Completely replacing the policy is a great deal different than making normal changes, so stronger standards have to be met.

The net result is that the ToU gives a floor for paid disclosure policy, unless an alternative policy goes through WP:Proposal. Additional limitations on paid editing may be added in the usual manner. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:38, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

I reverted Sarah's new attempt to say that this is not policy. It clearly is.
Then I reverted back to the version on August 30, 2017 just before Sarah changed the "Changing this policy" section without discussion. If you want to change that section, you'll have to go through the "Alternative Policies" procedure. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:12, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Smallbones, when you made that edit in September 2015 I didn't realize the significance of it. It wasn't until you started talking about adding provisions this year that I realized that paragraph was perhaps causing confusion, so I removed it. SarahSV (talk) 17:15, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
  • I added headings ("Policy" and "Explanatory notes") to differentiate the part of the page that is policy from the rest. Smallbones has removed the headings and, as he said above, reverted to 30 August. There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about what this page is. It's not a policy that we can just keep on building. Several Arbs don't even recognize the blockquote part of it as policy. This is the WMF default disclosure policy, which applies because the English Wikipedia doesn't have its own policy. SarahSV (talk) 17:20, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
(EC)I've added links to WP:PGCHANGE and WP:Proposal to the section on "Changing" to clarify, consistent with comments above.
The Sept 1, 2015 version is exactly what is in the ToU. You'd need to go through the alternative policies procedure to change it. That might not be a bad idea to do that, we can add other material at that time too, but we'd need to discuss how to best present an alternative policy. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:25, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
The Sept 1 2015 version is not what is in the Terms of Use. There is conceptual confusion here, and I don't know how to make it clearer. The WMF handed down its own policy. It said that every project must have a disclosure policy. Communities can create their own (and the WMF explained what procedure it expects to see). Communities that don't want to create their own must use the WMF's.
The English Wikipedia has so far decided not to create its own disclosure policy. Therefore, the WMF policy applies. This page is just a courtesy page designed to make the WMF policy easy to find, and to explain some terms that might not be clear. It has no other status or function. Its status as policy derives entirely from the Terms of Use. SarahSV (talk) 17:37, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
Nope. You yourself have written that the policy page is an official policy of Wikipedia and that only part of it is the WMF's ToU (see banner at the top of this page). It's totally clear that "community ... policies ... may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure" and that the community can change any policy in the usual way, except where specifically limited such as in replacing this policy wholesale. Please go ahead suggesting an "alternative policy" it may clarify the situation to everybody. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:46, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
  • It would have been better to create this page in 2015 as an information page or "explanatory supplement", along with the headings I added recently: "Policy" and "Explanatory notes". Perhaps we should consider adding an information tag now, then moving the "legal policy" template to the policy section (we would have to create our own template). It wouldn't change the policy status of the blockquote portion, but it would stop people thinking that the whole page is a community policy. SarahSV (talk) 18:15, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
  • It's deja vu all over again: the same people discussed all this nearly two years ago, with same positions... The various sections on this page come from the following sources:
    • Wikimedia Foundation terms of use: direct quote of Terms of Use; official policy on the basis of being handed down by the WMF.
    • Conflict of interest guideline: taken from Wikipedia:Conflict of interest (guideline) and the Terms of Use FAQ.
    • How to disclose: taken from Wikipedia:Conflict of interest (guideline)
    • Meaning of "employer, client, and affiliation": taken from the Terms of Use FAQ
    • Wikipedians in residence: taken from the Terms of Use FAQ
    • Promotion and advertising by paid editors: taken from Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (policy)
    • Changing this policy (before all of the recent churn): taken from the Terms of Use, and the one original sentence on this page: "When discussing changes to the policy, disclose whether you have been paid to edit Wikipedia."
  • Other than the one sentence, everything else is covered by consensus agreements on other pages. If the other pages were all policies, then this page could be considered to be an umbrella policy page over all of them, though in that case, it would be desirable to restructure all the pages to reflect this nature. But we don't have to get hung up on the descriptor: this page can still be considered an umbrella guidance page, pointing to a combination of guidelines and policies for more information, subject to the usual consensus process to reach agreement on changes. Can we just delete the section "Changing this policy" to avoid ambiguity regarding what "policy" is being referred to and move on? isaacl (talk) 20:03, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
  • I've read all of the latest talk comments carefully, and I am still finding it difficult to make sense of all the edits that are being made. Even after setting aside the policy-or-not question, many other things are getting changed back and forth, and it is unclear what the rational for each individual change really is. For example, the nutshell was reverted, and the order of the sections keeps getting changed – and I'm sure that there are other changes as well. And it looks to me like the "changing this policy" language was partially rolled forward (although I see merit in Isaacl's argument for deleting that section entirely). It would be helpful if editors would discuss each distinct change in individual discussion threads, instead if changing numerous things in a single edit, and leaving so much unexplained. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:51, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
The only 3 things I've done is
Perhaps that's all that you intended to do, but there were other effects as well. Here is the combined diff: [3]. At a minimum, you also removed the nutshell and the further reading. And, given the discussion just a little way above, what was your rationale for that version of the "Changing this policy" section, as opposed to the even earlier version that multiple editors had endorsed just hours earlier? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:15, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

The version that was in the text from Sept 1, 2015 until it was removed without discussion on Aug 30, 2017 is the only version presented here that is consistent with the terms of use. If you want to change it you have to propose and pass an alternative policy. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:14, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I see where unintended changes were made. I have changed the text to the last Trypofish edit + a return to the sept 1, 2015 "Changing this policy" section (diff from last Tryptofish). Sorry, but that correction was not possible last night. I would appreciate it if nobody changed the "Changing this policy" section again without extensive discussion and ultimately passing an alternative policy. Anything less would be totally disrespectful of the 1103 users who supported the ToU change. Smallbones(smalltalk) 09:08, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the corrections, much appreciated. When you refer to those 1103 users, was that a discussion about the language in this section of this page, or (at meta) about the Terms of Use themselves? I'm guessing it's the latter (but maybe I'm wrong). I don't think that anyone here wants to change the actual ToU. But I cannot see how the version you restored in the combined diff is more consistent with the ToU than the version that you changed it from. As far as I can tell, they are both in conformance with the ToU, just differing in how many words they devote to how-to aspects. If I misunderstand, which is entirely possible, please explain. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:43, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
You misunderstood - the two versions are completely different. The version I put in on Sept 1, 2015 has 2 parts about changing our policy on paid editing disclosure consistent with the ToU
  • Community policy (among other things) can further limit paid editing and disclosure above the ToU. Community policy can, of course, be changed in the usual way, and
  • A project can go thru making a completely new core policy (a different procedure for most projects) and come up with a completely new policy to replace or revoke the ToU changes as it applies to their project.
Sarah's replacement on the section on this Aug. 30 completely leaves out the first method of changing the policy. It in effect says "you're stuck with exactly the ToU unless you go with the 2nd method, the "alternative policy." It's just wrong - we can't leave out the 1st method of change. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:42, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that I do understand (and see also the history just below). Those 1103 users were not being consulted on what it says at this page, but what it says in the ToU at meta. And your assertions about what does or does not conform to the ToU are your opinions. You are confounding two different revisions. The August 30 edit to which you refer was this: [4]. My edit that you reverted was this: [5]. Look closely: they are not the same thing. That latter language, which predates your preferred version, makes it perfectly clear that the adoption of an alternative (completely new) policy is just as you described it here, and does so concisely without excess verbiage (and it does not contain the error of an alternative that can "either strengthen or weaken"). As for changing community policy in the usual way, just so long as it does not weaken the ToU requirements – well of course that can be done in the usual way, and it's just WP:CREEP to spell it out as if it were something brand new here. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:03, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Some history

Background

Further information: m:Terms of use/Paid contributions amendment and m:Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies

In February 2014 WMF lawyers proposed the words now in Section 4 of the Terms of Use ("you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation ..."), then held a 30-day consultation (not an RfC) on Meta, as required by Section 16 of the Terms of Use. It's worth noting that the words were the same after the consultation as before it.

One thing that did emerge from the consultation was a request from the community that there be some way for individual projects to change the disclosure requirement as it applied to them. With that in mind, the lawyers added these words:

A Wikimedia Project community may adopt an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy. If a Project adopts an alternative disclosure policy, you may comply with that policy instead of the requirements in this section when contributing to that Project. An alternative paid contribution policy will only supersede these requirements if it is approved by the relevant Project community and listed in the alternative disclosure policy page.

To date, six projects—Commons, Wikispecies, MediaWiki, French Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia, and Russian Wikibooks—have approved their own community paid-editing policies, which include or consist of their "alternative paid-contribution disclosure policy". The Commons community policy is simply: "The Wikimedia Commons community does not require any disclosure of paid contributions from its contributors." The French and Italian Wikipedias list several pages. The French list their Terms of Use disclosure page as a help page: fr:Aide:Contributions rémunérées.

This page, Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure, is not a community policy. The English Wikipedia has chosen not to create a paid-editing community policy. This page is intended to inform people that Section 4 of the WMF Terms of Use is policy on the English Wikipedia unless and until we create our own "alternative paid-contribution disclosure policy". The top of the page has the same status as Wikipedia:Non-discrimination policy. The rest of it has no policy status.

Suggestions

  • The current section "how to change this policy" is misleading. I suggest that we restore the first version of that paragraph in the earliest (20 August 2015) version: "The Wikimedia Foundation allows projects to adopt ...", or words to that effect. If there's no consensus to do this, we should follow Isaacl's suggestion and delete that section, and rely on the WMF's words in the grey blockquote in the first section.
  • Add two headings: "Policy" and "Explanatory notes". That would make clear that everything outside the part repeating Section 4 of the Terms of Use is not part of a "paid-editing policy". SarahSV (talk) 16:09, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Content about the need to set up an alternative disclosure policy if a project rejects the WMF ToU, has been in this document since its creation by SlimVirgin, here.
in about the 5h diff to this page, Smallbones added The above text is part of the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use and is the policy of both the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) and of the English-language Wikipedia. and a more fleshed out :how to change this" set of content
The "how to change this policy" section header was added by SlimVirgin in this diff series in September 2015.
In that same series, SlimVirgin added The above is the policy of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) and of the English-language Wikipedia
After that, there was some fussing but this pretty much stabilized by December and looked like this.
The current version is not that different, and I don't see any reason to change it.
And I disagree that this is not policy. The obligation to disclose is widely seen as, cited as, as is used as, community policy. I have said a few times that we should perhaps have an RfC to formally ratify that this has become policy in the life of the community, and folks have said this is not necessary. The last time I brought that up was June 2016, here, and User:Bilby and a few others said there is no need. I remain of the view that ratifying it via an RfC would be useful but I hear folks that it is not really needed, and there is some risk in such an RfC -- RfCs about COI tend to derail in all kinds of strange ways. Jytdog (talk) 05:10, 21 September 2017 (UTC) ( some corrections to the diff history - my bad. Jytdog (talk) 16:50, 21 September 2017 (UTC))
Sorry, but I have to be very short here.
I agree that this is community policy. It's been listed as a policy for over two years now and if people object to having this listed as a policy they've had plenty of time to come here (or anywhere else) and try to get rid of it. The policy in that time has been modified a dozen times or more, without anybody saying "this is only advisory."
Sarah's position as I understand it is that the 3rd paragraph contradicts the second. That having a way to opt-out or completely recreate a disclosure policy vetos the possibility of "further limit(ing) paid contributions" by community policy. I just can't see that in here at all.
Sarah can certainly put her position forward in an RfC if she'd like, but it would have to be one for an "alternative policy" since it contradicts the plain meaning of the ToU. But she couldn't have something like "Only the terms of use are policy" and not have the possibility of changing that since all community policies can be changed. And the ToU say that it can be changed to "further limit". (more later) Smallbones(smalltalk) 11:32, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
I'd like to see what Sarah's proposal for an alternative policy is before commenting further. It just doesn't make sense to me what she is trying to do. If it is:
  • Totally revoke the ToU disclosure section - well I don't see any chance of it gaining consensus, and even if it did, we could change that later by consensus. Or if she wants:
  • Only the ToU box is policy, the rest is advisory - that would be a community policy that could be changed. We just don't have non-changeable policies on Wikipedia.
The thing that we just can't have is a policy that is locked in and unchangeable (or only changeable in one narrowly defined way), which is what Sarah seems to be proposing. And it is not written that way in the ToU.
Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:19, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
There are so many misunderstandings here that I don't know how to disentangle them or whether it matters. (And Jytdog's diffs are wrong.) This really is just a matter of carefully reading what the lawyers wrote. They wrote with precision.
Here is my first sentence on this talk page: "I've added this as a legal policy, following Roger's example of Wikipedia:Non discrimination policy." I see now that that was a mistake. I should have added it as a Help page as the French Wikipedia did, but I didn't think of it. I assumed we all agreed about the status of Wikipedia:Non discrimination policy and the Terms of Use change.
But clearly we didn't agree, and Smallbones signalled that straightaway on talk with: "It is also the policy of Wikipedia and may be enforced by Wikipedians, including any additional rules or interpretations added by consensus below." I either missed that post or I didn't notice the implication of the final clause.
Smallbones, you say: "if people object to having this listed as a policy they've had plenty of time to come here". We have an ArbCom that won't enforce it! I agree that, as time goes on, it's becoming more accepted, but there is still a sense that there are a "small group of extremists" who oppose paid editing and can be safely ignored.
The Terms of Use change served to legitimize paid editing, which is now truly ubiquitous, accompanied by ads on user pages and lists of paid articles, which attract more offers of work; I've always been puzzled by your support of it for that reason. Look at BP (before the ToU change): fully disclosed, very polite, no direct article editing, yet they managed to rewrite their own environmental record, stopped only by the hundreds of hours of work put in by three or four volunteers who were never thanked for their efforts. It was the disclosure that made that input seem helpful and professional. The thinking was "BP is doing everything right. Therefore, we owe them some assistance."
Anyway, every time I comment on paid editing nowadays, I tell myself this is the last time, so I'll leave it there. SarahSV (talk) 14:24, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
Sorry you feel that way. As you've noted above I've been very direct in putting my views on this forward from the very beginning. There's been nothing secret here. I did not support major changes to this policy - only incremental changes - while waiting for consensus to develop. But the community view has changed, and policy changes with it. BTW Roger (then an Arb) noted at Wikipedia talk:Non discrimination policy that that policy could be changed as well (in the box at the top).
I'll end with what the lawyers wrote in the FAQs very precisely.

Does this provision mean that Wikimedia projects must change their policies?
Wikimedia projects may change their policies to reference this requirement, to require stricter requirements for paid contributions, or to provide alternative rules.[6](My emphasis)

Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:18, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
Yes, but so what? That doesn't support what you're saying. They laid out a procedure for projects to create a disclosure policy that differed from theirs. If you want to do that, you should follow that procedure. That's all I'm saying. Or you could IAR and develop this page. But then we'd have a "community policy" that almost no one from the community had been involved in. I would (and will) resist that. I'm sorry. SarahSV (talk) 15:31, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
We did discuss the policy status of this page at its genesis; I said any new guidance raised on this page, in addition to the Terms of Use and any guidance that had been agreed upon on other pages, should go through an RfC process before being marked as a guideline or policy. (Everyone is in full agreement that the precise text from the Terms of Use is policy.) And we had this same discussion two years ago, but when it's only four people involved, it's hard to reach a consensus view. In the end, everyone picks their battles; it wasn't worth it for me to clarify the point further when there is just one original sentence on this page that might be affected. I agree with Sarah that this page has such a small audience that a consensus reached solely on this talk page isn't very meaningful. Accordingly, changes to the rest of the content remain beholden to discussions on the talk pages for the other cited guidance pages. (Other than the one original sentence, this page is redundant and could be eliminated, with the one sentence placed somewhere else.) And in the end, I don't think anyone who is fully engaged in this issue is actually confused in practice that this page can change following the usual English Wikipedia conventions, but the specific policy mandated by the Terms of Use cannot be replaced without following the procedure specified in the Terms of Use. isaacl (talk) 16:36, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

I think some folks above are just reading the ToU in a completely mistaken way. I don't know anything else to do now than ask WMF legal @Slaporte (WMF): If you think I'm asking him the wrong question, please just state a similarly concise question, and I'm sure we can clear this up very quickly.

The question has to do with these 2 paragraphs in the ToU section 4 on paid editing disclosure, which I'll call A & B.

A. 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.

B. A Wikimedia Project community may adopt an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy. If a Project adopts an alternative disclosure policy, you may comply with that policy instead of the requirements in this section when contributing to that Project. An alternative paid contribution policy will only supersede these requirements if it is approved by the relevant Project community and listed in the alternative disclosure policy page.

Question (1): Does B. invalidate A.? In other words, is B's "alternative policy" the only way that A's "community ... policies ... may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure."?

Equivalent (IMHO) question (1a): Does the ToU FAQ " Wikimedia projects may change their policies to reference this requirement, to require stricter requirements for paid contributions, or to provide alternative rules."[7] mean that stricter requirements may only be made through the "alternative rules" procedure? Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:06, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Editors are discussing specific language for this page, so I would like to add a more specific question. Does:
The Wikimedia Foundation allows projects to adopt alternative policies governing the disclosure of paid contributions. An alternative policy supersedes the requirements of the Terms of Use only if it is approved by the community and listed as an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy.
under the heading Changing this policy, correctly represent the Terms of Use? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:13, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
But are you asking "is this the only way?" - it's misleading if you don't include that in the question. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:48, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
Discussion not directed to WMF, but they are free to read it
No, I am not asking that. I'm asking about the language that was supported by every editor in this discussion except you, and I want to know if you are correct that it must be replaced with your preferred version because your preferred version is supposedly the only ToU-compliant one. That is what you have been arguing. And your question is actually rather leading, which is why I felt an additional question would be useful. Your question presents a complex set of constructions set up to get a response that it's OK to use the two-part approach used in your preferred version. You intend to go from that, to claiming that your preferred version is the only way to comply with the ToU. If your complaint to me reveals that there could, in fact, be more than one way, then we can discuss which of the acceptable ways is better. That would be a more productive discussion than having to deal with your stonewalling over your claim that unless we do it your way we are disrespecting thousand of users who commented on the ToU. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:33, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
I believe the answer to "How can a project change the policy on paid-editing and disclosure" is given very clearly in the ToU. The project may do either.
A. Just change the relevant policies according to the usual methods, but this will only work if the change "further limit(s) paid contributions or require(s) more detailed disclosure" above the ToU. Weakening the ToU is not allowed under this method.
B. Pass an "alternative policy" by going through the procedure of forming a new core policy. (This option will be rather difficult for paid editors and their supporters to put into effect.)
Now what I see above is people trying to say that the only way to make a change to policy on paid editing and disclosure is B. That is "Only B, never A" - that's just wrong. So if you're asking "is B correct?" it looks like you are fishing for a quick and sloppy "yes", when the real answer should be "A or B". If you would like to recognize that A is allowed, indeed the most likely method for changing the policy, then please just state that, "allow" it to stay in the "Changing this policy" section, and then we have no argument at all. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:38, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
No, nobody is saying that B is the only way. The point is that A is so self-evident that it gets silly to spell it out. Only B is something that is so specific to this particular page that we need to spell it out at this page. And the question therefore becomes, not whether B is correct, but whether B is sufficient. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:47, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
  • smallbones I cannot figure what is at stake for you in this discussion. Would you please explain, why does this matter to you? Jytdog (talk) 21:16, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
    • It's real simple - I've worked to help regulate paid editing for a long time and spent much time helping to get the ToU change through. I've seen paid editors or their supporters twist the meaning of many of our policies so the meaning is almost opposite (to them at least) to the plain and simple reading of the policy, e.g. we have a policy WP:NOT that prohibits advertising, marketing, PR text, promotion, advocacy, and propaganda, but some editors will argue for weeks on end that an obvious advert is "not too promotional" - essentially that we can't delete or remove it unless it reaches Super Bowl ad proportions. I'm not going to let that type of thing happen here. Having the policy on the ToU as well as on en:Wikipedia provides a lot of protection against that nonsense.
Some folks may say that the ToU is very weak on paid editing. On the surface it is - all paid editors have to do is declare their paid status. There is apparently no enforcement mechanism built in and very, very few paid editors actually follow it and declare. Laughably weak, some may say.
Not exactly. The two paragraphs we are discussing here provide a mechanism to increase the regulation of (all) paid editing. We can simply change our policies to increase that regulation - in the same way we can change any policy. But is is asymmetric - weakening the ToU is quite difficult (via the "alternative policy" paragraph) and I don't think paid editors and their supporters will ever be able to remove that floor on their regulation. There's just not enough editors who want to give paid editors a completely free hand.
So we've got a policy that says A) we can increase regulation on paid editing in the usual way that we can make any policy, but B) if we want to decrease regulation below the ToU, we have to do it in a particular way. That in itself is a very powerful tool to regulate paid editing.
Now, it looks like people are saying here that the ToU says "We can't do A, we can only do B" in effect turning the ToU on its head. If there is anything that I can do to prevent that type of nonsense (within our rules), I will. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:58, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for answering. Either A or B is going to take a major RfC. I don't see a meaningful distinction. And there is no proposal along the lines of A or B on the horizon so whatever distinction there is, is entirely theoretical. Jytdog (talk) 15:40, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Smallbones, this dispute is based on a category mistake in which you're confusing two different categories of policy. Our "paid-contribution disclosure policy" has the same status as that of, say, the Portuguese Wikipedia. The difference is that the Portuguese Wikipedia doesn't have a page devoted to their policy. Similarly, we could delete our page tomorrow and the status of the policy wouldn't change.
If the Portuguese or English Wikipedia want to create their own "paid-contribution disclosure policy"—a community policy like any other that they can change however they see fit (including changing the name)—they have to follow the procedure laid down by the WMF. That procedure is to create an "alternative paid-contribution disclosure policy", hold an RfC, then list it on m:Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies. It can be stronger, weaker, or exactly the same. But it will then be detached from the Mothership and can be developed as the community sees fit. SarahSV (talk) 15:41, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
I think we have nailed down the question exactly. Does the ToU currently say that we can change policy by either method A or method B? Or does it say that we can change policy only by method B? I think the plain reading of the ToU is obvious. All we have to do is wait for WMF legal to say who has the correct reading. What the ToU actually says isn't a question that debate here can solve apparently. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:30, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
We can change this policy only by creating an alternative policy, because this policy is a Mothership policy. But we might have other policies and guidelines that affect paid editing, and of course those still apply and "may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure". The editing of those policies and guidelines remains unaffected by the Terms of Use. SarahSV (talk) 17:59, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
(EC)Now you're changing a very clear question into something that might confuse people. "Is this page an en:Wikipedia policy?" I certainly think so. It says so right on the page. It's been listed at the list of policies for 2 years, ditto for the legal policies template. Nobody AFAIK has objected on this page that this is not a policy. People follow these rules, quote them, debate them. They are standard practice. The ToU are policy and have been since at least June 2009. Everybody agrees to follow the ToU every time they edit the page and the ToU says that we can further limit paid editing via policies. (Trypotofish has just commented above that that last statement is so obvious is shouldn't be repeated). So you got a long row to hoe to say that this page is not policy. And I'll just remind you that you put the box at the top of this talk page that says the page is policy and that only part of it is from the WMF. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:18, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
The following makes no difference to us, but the WMF has arguably contradicted itself over the issue of existing policy. The ToU says: "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." This gives the impression that, if a community already had a disclosure policy that required more detailed disclosure, it would apply. However, the FAQ page says: "To adopt a pre-existing policy as an alternative disclosure policy, a project community must gain consensus specifically to replace the paid editing disclosure requirements in the Terms of Use with the policy of the project." Then add it to the "alternative policies" page.
Smallbones, back to the issue of A or B, in practice we may be discussing a distinction without a difference, because it's unlikely that the community would support more extensive restrictions at this point, whether here or as part of a new "alternative policy". SarahSV (talk) 19:03, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
It can make a huge difference - retaining the "floor" of the ToU and making policy changes is quite different from revoking the "floor" and then making policy changes. BTW, I disagree that policy revisions would be rejected by the community. The only question is how strict they should be. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:24, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
There is no real world difference. Changing this at all would require a strong RfC outcome. You keep making these theoretical distinctions but nothing real world. There is nothing at stake here. I'm not going to comment further. Jytdog (talk) 19:29, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
Because I was quoted, please let me make it clear that what I said was not an opinion about policies, but about procedures. I said that the fact that the community can strengthen the disclosure requirements via the normal RfC process is self-evident, whereas the special procedures needed to weaken or replace the disclosure requirements are not self-evident and probably should be spelled out somewhere here. And broadly about this discussion, I ask Smallbones to recognize that all of the editors here are listening to his arguments but not buying them. At this point, no one has been persuaded. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

I think everybody now, at least grudgingly, accepts that the ToU says that there are 2 ways to change the policy (called A and B above). Two people seem to think that it is not relevant - but what could be more relevant in explaining the policy than how it can be changed? Another says that A is too obvious to include. Another says that this page is not policy so it can't be changed except by method B.

I think we can all also agree that 4 people can't change what the ToU says.

I am puzzled by by the claim that this is not policy, even though its been labeled and accepted as policy for over 2 years. Apparently a special type of RfC is claimed to be required, held in a specific place perhaps. Could somebody show me an actual example of such an RfC? I'm having trouble finding one. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:43, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

I haven't accepted that there are two ways to change it, except in the obvious sense that the community can do whatever it wants (including ignoring the Terms of Use change, which is what some or all Arbs may be doing). And I haven't seen anyone say it isn't policy. Could you say what you want to achieve? It might be better to come at things from that direction. SarahSV (talk) 04:20, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
I suppose that anybody can ignore this in the sense that people can WP:Ignore all rules, but not otherwise. It is policy.
BTW can you show me an example of how a properly conducted RfC resulted in a new policy as I asked above. If we are going to change this policy, we need to see how policy is changed in practice. Smallbones(smalltalk) 12:02, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
As you are aware, a page doesn't become policy by being labelled as such or being included in a list of policies. When someone challenges if a given page describes a policy (or guideline), they ask to see the consensus discussion that enacted the guidance in question, or, in the case of the Terms of Use, the original policy text as dictated by the WMF. As no consensus discussion has been held regarding this specific page, we must point to the consensus discussions for Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, the two sources from which the content on this page (other than the Terms of Use) derive. So all the parts on this page (other than the one original sentence) are either covered by the Terms of Use, its FAQ, the conflict of interest guideline page, or the What Wikipedia is not policy page. The part described by the Terms of Use can be replaced following the procedure as described in the Terms of Use; the rest can be modified following usual English Wikipedia procedure, but it cannot conflict with other guidance, which at present includes the disclosure policy in the Terms of Use.
I believe the only disagreement is what is covered by the term "policy" when used on this page. Technically, if pages A and B are policy pages, and I write page C that takes some excerpts from A and B, I could call page C a policy, but it's somewhat unusual to do so. More typically, I would seek approval to restructure pages A and B to be subsets of an overall policy described on page C. In this particular case, because page A is a guideline page, it is inapt to call page C a policy without establishing that the guidance taken from page A has consensus support to be enacted as a policy.
All this being said, the top four editors of this page are all participating in this discussion. Is everyone planning to follow the replacement procedure described in the Terms of Use if they plan to propose a replacement for the policy described in the Terms of Use? Is everyone planning to follow English Wikipedia's consensus approach when changing any other portion of this page? If so, then there isn't much need to discuss this further; let the "Changing this policy" section be. isaacl (talk) 05:13, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
Can you show me an example of how a properly conducted RfC resulted in a new policy as I asked above. Smallbones(smalltalk) 12:02, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
The usual way for pages to become policy is that they begin as proposals, are promoted to guideline, then after some time, if fully accepted as policy, gain the policy tag after a brief discussion. That's how it was done with BLP, for example, where there was widespread acceptance onwiki and on the mailing lists before the policy tag was added. Some pages don't bother with that process. MEDRS, for example, is policy, but is tagged as a guideline.
Anything related to paid editing or COI, however, has been unable to gain that consensus, including in RfCs. That's why the WMF acted as it did, requiring an RfC if a new disclosure policy were to be proposed. Doing things that way utilized the split within the community; so long as that spit continues, the existing disclosure poicy is the default. But anything outside the grey box is not part of a paid-editing policy, and I'm pretty sure the same lack of consensus for such a thing will continue to apply. I do notice a change in the direction of opposition to paid editing (I think the Orangemoody case had an effect), but it wouldn't be enough to swing an RfC in favour of anything more stringent, in my view. SarahSV (talk) 15:53, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
I hear the distinction you are making between "community policy" and "policy". This policy did originate differently from say BLP, but the obligation to disclose has become accepted as community policy - the community has lived its way into it. So for PAID at this point in time, this is a distinction without a difference. (In my view the notion that paid editors "should not not edit directly" is very near policy in terms of being something that has broad consensus) I remain open to posing an RfC to formally ratify PAID as policy. I too was frustrated to see some Arbs say "the terms of use for some website" with regard to this, and the ratification would put an end to that nonsense which in my view is very out of step with where the community is. Jytdog (talk) 22:42, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It occurs to me that, much as with the word "notability", some words used on-wiki have Wikipedia-specific meanings that are non-identical to their common English language meanings. It seems to me that parts of this discussion hinge on whether we define "policy" as "something that has been adopted as an official policy by the Wikipedia community" or as "something that the Wikipedia community expects everyone to do". This page may not be the former, but it certainly is the latter. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:43, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
I'm not sure that it is a distinction without a difference. If we hold an RfC to say "please ratify PAID as policy", we are creating an alternative-disclosure policy within the meaning of the WMF ToU. By "alternative", the WMF simply means "one that is your own local policy, which you may develop in the normal way". We could then list it on their alternative-policy page, and that would be it; we would be divorced from the WMF version (even if ours were identical). That seems to have been been what the French WP did. They have posted their Help page, which describes the Terms of Use, as their "alternative policy". I tentatively interpret that to mean "now leave us alone" (we should check with someone there). The danger of holding an RfC, of course, is that someone will propose a weaker thing. SarahSV (talk) 22:58, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
Getting down to brass tacks

I don't think that the WP:BLP example is really a good one to show that this policy is not policy. Is there another one?

BLP was adopted as a policy in an RfC of sorts at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons/Archive_2#Proposal_to_upgrade_this_guideline_to_policy. 13 people !voted unanimously, which pales in comparison to the 1103 people who !voted for the ToU change. I don't have access to the IRC records, but I'd guess there was no real RfC there. It's true that BLP was a guideline before becoming a policy, but the adoption process was even more informal [8]. Nobody actually !voted for it, except perhaps the proposer. There had been discussions going back about 6 months. But I have to say, that if you look at the BLP process vs. the ToU change process, the ToU change process looks much more like a community consensus than the BLP process.

I have been looking around for other examples of a policy being adopted. Undoubtably there are some with more formal RfC's but they are very difficult to find. Many old, important policies seem to have been adopted very informally. Several important policies seem to have been adopted with impetus from the WMF.

I don't agree with Sarah that the community is so split on this. Remember the 80% support on the ToU RfC? There is lots of noise that probably comes from paid editors, but that is to be expected. So can somebody give me an example that shows why the ToU RfC is insufficient? Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:21, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

The BLP policy was strongly supported. There had been discussions on many pages and on the mailing lists. The Terms of Use consultation (not an RfC) involved lots of editors who had barely or never edited. I don't know how they were alerted to it. Go to the supports and randomly click through to their global contributions. (I accept that maybe I just happened to click on the ones with few edits.) Anyway, back to the point: what is it that you want to achieve, Smallbones? SarahSV (talk) 04:17, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
I'd like to get rid of the ideas that
  • the terms of use require that we revoke the ToU change in order to make any changes to this policy. It's just not in there.
  • this is not a real policy that we can't change it in whatever ways we want (with consensus of course)
  • that the approval of the ToU change was somehow tainted because it occurred on Meta
  • that the approval by 1103 users of the ToU change is somehow inferior to other policies (e.g. BLP which was approved by 13 users).
Once we've debunked these distractions, we won't be bothered by them when we are ready to make changes to this policy. So, e.g., if we wanted to add the "bright line rule" to this policy (note that this is already part of a well-accepted guideline), nobody could start a serious distraction to the RfC by saying that we first have to revoke the ToU change, or this is not a real policy, or whatever. So we could have a real discussion on the merits of the proposed change. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:10, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Size of problem

It would be good to generate estimates of the size of this issue. Some areas that this affects include:

  • Number of articles that have been created for pay
    • Some estimates in the 100,000s
  • NPP (percentage of articles created for pay)
  • AfD processes
  • WP:COIN
  • OTRS (percentage of tickets related to paid editing)
  • SPI (percentage of cases) -> have heard estimates of more than half

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:32, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't see how we could estimate the percentage of articles created for pay. And if we were to add expanded for pay, and created/expanded because of financial COI, it would be enormous. SarahSV (talk) 16:15, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
We'd need some better tools to get better estimates, but no estimate will ever be precise. The educated guesses that I've collected from other people are really just for articles on businesses and products. Educated guesses here means just asking people who should know better than just about anybody else and having them give their best guess. Off the top of my head these estimates were about 20,000-50,000-100,000 articles total, maybe 20-50 new ones each day (before deletions). The numbers are pretty large considering that we only cover 50,000-100,000 businesses. I think the 100,000 was somebody who misunderstood my question, or I misunderstood their answer.
If we get into Business BLP's I have a short answer. Well over 90% of them. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:41, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
I did an intensive one-month study of cases at the Conflict of interest noticeboard (COIN). The results are User:Bri/COIN workload analysis. Bottom line is there were 57 new cases and 188 reported COI editors. So we can extrapolate to ~2,250 editors per annum assuming October 2015 was representative. This was a look at all COI matters, whether or not paid, but I'd estimate 85 to 95% are direct paid editing issues involving enterprises' contractors or employees anyway. Factor in the rate at which we actually notice these editors versus how many remain underwater and you're looking at tens of thousands of COI accounts per year, minimum.
Another takeaway from that analysis was that one editor (me) was introducing about 90% of the new cases. It's smoothed out a little lately, but it's apparent that with the loss of one or two volunteers in this area, the whole process would go of the rails. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:08, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
I agree that the problem is very large in numbers. And we can be pretty sure that it will get larger in the future, and more skillful at evading detection. About loss of volunteers, I was active at COIN very briefly earlier this year, and then took it off my watchlist because I was finding it too depressing. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:23, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
What is equally depressing is trying to follow the rules with regard to disclosure and then feeling like other editors are dogpiling on you for the edits you make afterwards. So long as there are only large and easily anticipated costs associated with disclosure, the incentive for editors to do it shrinks rapidly. Punishing those trying to follow the rules is always going to make the problem of failing to disclose worse. I would be surprised if others disagreed with that assessment, especially those who have made such disclosures. KDS4444 (talk) 02:05, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
This is also my view. We are making it progressively harder for editors to disclose, and more rewarding for them not to. This doesn't reduce the paid editing that is being done, but does serve to make it harder to manage. - Bilby (talk) 04:18, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
I think that the issue of unintended discouraging of disclosure is a very concerning one, and one that we really do need to address. To what extent does the problem arise from policies etc. as they are written, and to what extent is it the result of the behavioral style of the community? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:05, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
Mostly behavioural, at least from what I see. I fully support the disclosure requirements - they are a bit onerous, but not unreasonable. It would be nice if we could clearly specify what is expected and have a consistent message, but that is manageable. It will get worse with the new proposal by Doc Smith, as that will require paid editors to link to their profiles off-wiki as well, but as I'm expecting that to be largely the end of open paid editing, there's no point debating it here.
However, behavioural is the current issue on two fronts. First, existing paid editors are placing a target on their edits. That's what disclosure is supposed to do, but if that turns into hounding, it doesn't help make being open seem like a viable option. The second is that editors who don't understand the disclosure requirements should be given an opportunity to try and abide by them. Instead the current trend is to indef block with - at best - a single warning and often no discussion. I don't know of a case where an editor has seen that response and started editing with full disclosure, although I guess it may have happened. I certainly know of cases where they just left, or where they changed to socking and ignoring the ToU. - Bilby (talk) 11:22, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I suspected that it would be behavioral, but I wanted to make sure first that there were not policy page issues that might need to be corrected (setting aside the discussion now at meta). I think that you make a valid point about overly harsh enforcement, and that it can be counterproductive. There's a difficult line between conscientious watching over potentially disruptive edits, and hounding. I agree with you that there should be an opportunity for a user to find out that they did something unapproved and to fix the problem before the block-hammer comes down, albeit not an open-ended one. I do believe that we have to treat undisclosed paid editing as the very serious problem that it is, but if we do things in a manner that discourages proper disclosure, we are just shooting ourselves in the foot, and there's no point in that. I would be glad to see more discussion about this aspect of the problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:23, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
  • We are also leaving out a very real problem in this discussion, and the one that I frankly find the most disturbing: negative undeclared paid editing. One example of this is the BurritoSlater family of socks. It would publish negative BLPs, including some with terrorism charges, masked within promotion, seek to delete some articles, both to white wash and to get rid of competition. I doubt BS is the only paid editing family that engages is smearing the competition for pay. Unfortunately, these negative articles are the most likely to make it past NPP. We're good at screening out promotion, but less good at dealing with coatracks. That takes a lot of experience with BLP policy to spot if done well, and most of our NPR people are generalists. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:13, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
  • It is difficult to get any accurate statistics. However, the most ads we see on Upwork per day is about 10 - the last 24 hours saw figures in that range, although the previous day it was only about 2. Hiring rate is difficult to track, but based on the sample I have, about 40% hire someone, and half of them are not completed. Giving us a 20% success rate. That I expect to be on the low side. However, if we assume 6 ads per day, and a 30% success rate, Upwork sees about 840 jobs where someone is hired each year. Not all of those jobs are for new articles, but about 2/3 probably are - the rest are updates, removal of tags, adding images, and inserting links. Freelancer, Fiverr and Guru seem to have less work, but I don't have figures on them - let's assume 1500 jobs a year over all of the main freelancer sites. Thus the 100,000 seems on the high side - I'd lean towards 1/10 of that as a maximum, including non-freelancer jobs, and expect it to be lower. As to numbers involved, on Upwork there have been about 100-150 accounts hired over the last two years, (I have records for 108, and I'm assuming I miss about a thrid). Most accounts are one-off jobs, rather than anything bigger. There's about a dozen highly active accounts on Upwork at any given time, although I can get more precise numbers if needed. They'll average between 1 and 5 jobs a month. However, this is becoming harder to follow, as recent activity here has resulted in more of the accounts going private. - Bilby (talk) 03:03, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
This is interesting Bilby, that with inside-out and outside-in methodology, you and I got to the same order of magnitude value of 10,000 articles and 10,000 editors per year. Which implies a nearly 1:1 editors to jobs ratio obviously, in other words mostly throwaway accounts. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:51, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
I think we differ - I don't see it as 10,000 articles per year, but 1,500 per year, which will give you (allowing for non-freelancer work) 10,000 over five years. As to the editor ratio, it is likely to be closer to 1:1, but only partially because of throwaways. New Upwork accounts, who don't know WP but take a single job, have a tendency to get burnt after their first job and not continue. People who try to use a single account for many articles get caught, and they move to socks they've after they've created 5-10 articles. - Bilby (talk) 10:16, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

New AfC wizard

which has a nice disclosure step in it. See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC:_Article_Wizard_Redesign Jytdog (talk) 22:41, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Heads of marketing

Learned today that heads of marketing of companies when they add content to WP do not consider themselves paid editors. Do we need to spell this out? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:26, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

I guess it depends on how widespread the problem is (and whether it is specifically a problem with division heads, or with all marketing employees). But if someone's paid job is to add content on behalf of their company, this gets into "duh" territory. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:42, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
We do need to spell this out: that anyone paid by the subject, who does the editing in course of his employment is a paid editor. (in copyright there is a distinction between such a person and an outside contractor-- the contractor owns the copyright to the work they do for the company, but the copyright on the employee's work belongs to the company. This is the cause of the confusion). DGG ( talk ) 04:29, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
It appears to be common. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:31, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
There is the standard distinction between an employee of a company and the marketing/comms/PR department. I wouldn't consider the guy who works at an Apple Store as a summer job as a paid editor on Apple Inc., but someone in their marketing department, typically, yes, they would fall under paid editing. I typically explain it by saying "If you are compensated for your edits to Wikipedia, either directly or indirectly, you must declare it." People seem to understand that employment counts as indirect compensation for edits. If part of their job is marketing, and their editing Wikipedia to promote their company, it is paid editing. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:54, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
Heads of marketing departments do not appear to understand this. I have had half a dozen deny that they are paid to write the article about their company on Wikipedia even though they are the head of the marketing department of said company. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:43, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, see the above conversation to explain the addition of "or employer" to the lead: many people do distinguish between clients and employers (I know I certainly do personally in my professional life), and making this clearer in the first paragraph on this page would be important. If you have better wording to make this clear, I'm certainly open to it, but I disagree with your edit summary reverting it. There is a meaningful distinction for many people. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:54, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Tony, our summary of the ToU language in the lead explains that paid editors need to disclose three things: (1) who is paying them (the WMF calls this "thie employer"); (2) who the client is (that's usually the subject of the article); and (3) any other relevant role or relationship (the WMF calls this "affiliation"). The lead is intended only as a brief summary. See the section "Meaning of "employer, client, and affiliation" for more. SarahSV (talk) 06:00, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
Given what Doc James is reporting above, I think it's unlikely most people are reading past the lead. Making it clear that it is not just paid contractors who must declare in the lead is important and can be done in a very succinct manner. I don't see a reason not to do so. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:16, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
I've added "who is paying you ("your employer")". Unfortunately, this causes confusion too. Someone employed by a university, who does some freelance editing for a PR firm, wonders why he has to tell us who his employer is. Anyway, that's the word the ToU uses, so we can't do anything about it. SarahSV (talk) 06:28, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
someone employed by a university who also does paid editing for an unrelated pr firm is just the same as anyone else who does editing for a Pr firm. that he is employed by the university is in one sense irrelevant to his PR work, but it also gives a reason for doubt about the degree to which his editing for the university is NPOV. Full disclosure of all connections is the only possible solution. When I was employed by a university I did occasional editing for pay (unrelated to WP), and I declared he connection in full detail. Anything else would have been dishonest. , DGG ( talk ) 09:28, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
I've just noticed this. That wasn't the point I was making. Someone who is working as a staffer for X (a university or whatever) wonders why they have to mention their "employer" when it comes to their weekend hobby of a bit of paid freelancing on WP. Of course, as Bilby says below, they don't have to mention X unless it's in some way directly relevant, but the word "employer" causes confusion. SarahSV (talk) 02:38, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
I think we're looking for problems at that point. If I'm employed by a university, and I do not engage in any editing for them, then I don't need to disclose that relationship even if I'm separately employed by a PR firm. I do need to disclose my relationship to the PR firm if I ever edit Wikipedia on their behalf. We don't need people to disclose every connection they have - only the ones relevant to their editing. - Bilby (talk) 09:39, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
LEt's pull this out of unhelpful hypothethicals. The problem of people writing about their actual employer (not contractor) is problematic; people do refuse to acknowledge this makes them a paid editor. The examples in the OP are an especially acute example of this. This person was obviously here to promote Fisher Wallace and obviously worked for that company in particular but they refused to disclose their employer and denied they were "paid to edit". This happens a lot. Jytdog (talk) 15:23, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the hypotheticals are about. This doesn't seem overly complex to me. If you are hired to edit on behalf of an organisation or person, or specifically employed to promote that entity, it is paid COI editing. If you are not being paid to edit on their behalf, but are otherwise employed by them, then it is COI editing. The first you must disclose, the second you should disclose. Marketing heads are paid to promote the organisation, and thus editing Wikipedia is enough of a problem that they should be seen as in the first group, even if they are not specifically instructed to edit WP.
Your example admits to being a COI editor, unless by "customer service" they mean marketing, I'd regard them as a COI editor only, based on what they've said. Which is still a problem. - Bilby (talk) 13:20, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
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