Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure/Archive 5

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Statement from a paid editor

I need to say something: for the record, personally, I have never felt so humiliated or harassed as I have since disclosing that I have performed a handful of paid edits, and that I have come to regret nothing on Wikipedia so much as following the policy rules in this regard. The attention I have received as a result has been inordinate, my requests to other editors have been qualified and then dismissed as having "come from a paid editor", and I have come to understand that this is the consequence of making my disclosure. If there are any doubts that encouraging editors to disclose this way will not drive paid editing underground, let me tell you that you are probably wrong. Maybe other paid editors have had no problem— good for them. But after eight years and 20,000 edits of my own, I now feel like closing my current account and opening up a new one. Is that against policy? In several ways. And I am not actually planning on doing it... But I would be lying if I said I still felt respect for the copious UN-paid work I have done here so far, or at all optimistic about wanting to continue to try to do more of it. I've been called a shill, the worst kind of Orangemoody editor, etc.; my complaints about this are treated as whining; I have voluntarily surrendered my autopatrolled right and my new page patrol right at another editor's request, and this has earned me nothing in return. Having disclosed feels like it has been a huge mistake. Thanks for the gumball. Live and learn. KDS4444 ^(talk) 01:15, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

@KDS4444:, it's odd that you mention paid editing and clean starts, because I've been wondering whether we ought to address what to do when paid/COI editors organize a clean start. As for your own situation, you can have a clean start, of course, but I hope you don't feel you have to. I haven't followed your case so I don't know what has been happening. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:33, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

If you are making a clean start to avoid disclosing that you are editing for pay, that is not OK on multiple levels (it is not what clean starts are for, and it would be violating PAID). If you do a clean start and stop editing for pay, then there would be no problem with that. Jytdog (talk) 01:48, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog. Please consider removing yourself from this situation as this editor requested [1]. Being an editor who has disclosed that they are paid is not license for assumptions of bad faith or making another editor's experience here intolerable. Disclosing paid editing was never meant to open the door for harassment, instead guidance in how to manage a few paid edits would be more helpful.(Littleolive oil (talk) 02:26, 17 October 2017 (UTC))

I suggest you considering not interfering with things you don't understand. Jytdog (talk) 02:39, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

This has been the problem that we've been creating for ourselves. We cannot effectively police undisclosed paid editing, and we make disclosure a massive detriment to editors who choose to take that path. The result is a system that encourages paid editing conducted against the rules, while punishing paid editing conducted within policy. As we place greater burdens on disclosed paid editors, we make the situation worse. However, that's the path we keep taking. - Bilby (talk) 02:33, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps its time to change. Not sure how but I am saddened at the editors I see who are driven away from Wikipedia.(Littleolive oil (talk) 02:37, 17 October 2017 (UTC))

If you want to start an RfC to create a PAID policy for en-WP different than what the WMF requires, it will be a complete waste of time, but please knock yourself out. Jytdog (talk) 02:41, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

No such ridiculous suggestion was made, Jytdog. Instead, I suggested guidance rather than harassment. Wikipedia, that encyclopedia that anyone can edit is not a place where we should be commenting on another editor's competence given we are all incompetent in many ways for a very long time. I doubt we should be using marginal competence to discredit a editor with 17,000 edits but actually anyone in this environment where anyone can edit. Paid editing is not license to treat other human beings with less than respect. Civility does not distinguish between those we like and those we don't.(Littleolive oil (talk) 02:52, 17 October 2017 (UTC))

If people are not going to be obligated to disclose, then we need a different PAID policy. If you want to fall in line with misguided claims of harassment there is nothing I can do about that - but I will say that you are making the problem in this specific case worse, not better. The paradigm for paid editors is not complicated and lots of people follow it with zero drama nor begging for praise for doing what they are obligated to do, nor to having their edits reviewed before going live. Jytdog (talk) 02:57, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Once again not what I said. Jytdog, this editor asked you to remove yourself and have someone else handle this situation yet, here you are. The standard for treating paid editors is civility and not treating them like criminals. What always complicates issues on Wikipedia is how people are treated; this is a two part project and one critical part is collaboration with all that word implies.(Littleolive oil (talk) 03:14, 17 October 2017 (UTC))

I don't treat paid editors like criminals. You are again feeding the misunderstandings of the OP. Jytdog (talk) 03:50, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Bilby, what you wrote here, is what you write often. You should spend time to look over what has transpired in this case, before using this particular complaint as a platform to say it again. This situation is very specific. The OP is marginally competent in many ways and has been complaining with increasing pitch since they first disclosed that they were editing for pay. The only untoward thing here is their drama-making. Jytdog (talk) 02:39, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

I say it very often because it matters. I've watched, over and over again, the treatment given to editors that try to disclose. We need disclosure. We also need to work out a way to make disclosure something other than a punishment. - Bilby (talk) 11:10, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

User:Bilby yes we do need to communicate with and educate paid editors and not punish them. That is what I try to do here every day. Like at User talk:Hila.Peleg for example. That is a completely standard interaction for me. But there are people like the OP who will not learn and insist that they are being martyred. You have experienced people like this yourself, I know and you have seen more ANI threads boomerang than I have, I am sure. Sounding the horn of your general concernhere, is just unhelpful for the OP. Jytdog (talk) 13:55, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

I have a lot of respect for how you handle paid editing. The issue is that you and I can try to educate, and you and I may only block as a last resort, but we respond as individuals and others don't respond as we do. For example, I recently saw a new editor make four edits, two of which were relatively minor changes and two of which were attempts to disclose that they were paid. Yet they were indef blocked without warning or any attempt to educate them as an undisclosed paid editor. Another was unaware of policy, was blocked, insisted that they would never edit any article where they had a COI again, and were driven off because of an insistence that they had to meet the full disclosure requirements for their small number of paid edits, even though that would require outing. I'm watching as people get indef blocked for nondisclosure of COI edits, not paid edits, and the demands on paid editors increase constantly. Even if they don't get jumped on as a paid editor, almost every edit they make is going to be questioned, and anything which might not quite be notable is going to end up an AfD.

The reason we can't find a moderate response is that people who try to be measured in their responses get overridden by other, more extreme, views. As a result, I see editors whom I've convinced to disclose driven off the site by the treatment they receive from others. - Bilby (talk) 21:37, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

If we have inconsistent practices about blocking, that's something that administrators need to be addressing. I'm going to put a note at WP:AN, inviting more eyes here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:42, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

We have a small group of editors who support / want to allow undisclosed paid editing. This is not the position of the majority of the community. The community encourages some types of disclosed paid editing (ie WiRs) and tolerates, but just barely, other types of paid editing (disclosed promotional nonpromotional paid editing). User:Littleolive oil it is not appropriate to ask Jytdog to remove himself from this discussion just because he holds a different point of view. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:29, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Once again not what I said. I did not ask Jytdog to remove himself because he had a different point of view and at no time did I say I support paid editing. The editor under discussion disclosed his paid edits and he is the one who asked that someone else handle this besides Jytdog and given Jytdog's tone I can understand that. As Bilby said editors who try to disclose are treated badly and I'd add treated like criminals which is not the position we should have in a collaborative community. If we want people to disclose then we have to treat them fairly and with respect and in fact at no place on Wikipedia does it say we can treat anyone with less than respect. If a child or even adult lies to me I have to create a situation where that person will feel they can tell me the truth - where it is safe to be truthful. It is not safe on Wikipedia to disclose paid editing. I'll repeat that because its important. It is not safe!. And the position of the community is, if you are paid, and that part of our policy guideline implies paid editing will happen, then that editor should disclose. Jytdog could be frustrated but he must take the high road as a long-time editor and behave with decorum. Since he finds he can't, and we all get frustrated, it was suggested he have someone else deal with this. Like Bilby I have seen good editors chased away not because they were paid but because of how they were treated. That has to change; we can't afford to lose editors.(Littleolive oil (talk) 13:43, 17 October 2017 (UTC))

Can you provide some examples of good editors chased away because they disclosed their paid status? Rentier (talk) 13:54, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

IMO we have a responsibility as a top internet resource to provide accurate information to our readers. If an editor, paid or not, is interfering with that obligation than we need to do something about it. Being a paid editor is not a defense for adding promotional material. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:07, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Editors don't leave a notice on the top of their pages saying I've disclosed now leaving. The path to leaving is usually more gradual than that a generaL wearing down. I have seen multiple situations with editors in this kind of situation, and no I don't keep the diffs or care to. Instead, and to my concerns here, what generally happens is that an editor discloses and is met as this editor has with responses that would test even the most secure of us, get frustrated, could respond as a frustrated editor, is then met with frustration from the other side and so on until the whole thing escalates and is out of control. Is there a deliberate attempt to escalate, I'll assume good faith and hope not. So, first responders need to be best responders. (Littleolive oil (talk) 17:36, 17 October 2017 (UTC))

There is no comment of mine that suggests that being paid is defense for adding promotional material. However, promotional material can a subjective measure. I'm not sure the line between what is positive to a subject and should be included per weight and what is promotional is always easy to read or is clear. I realize there can be huge problems with editors using WP to advertise and promote and I realize some are on a mission to prevent that. This is commendable. The fight is for well written neutral articles and we need good editors to write those articles. Its easy to get carried away and extend zeal beyond the boundaries of what is sensible. And remember, Jimbo Wales must have an encyclopedia that is volunteer, otherwise his brand falls apart. So there is more than one reason to have a ToU. Zeal should be for the encyclopedia and not for a kind of inquisition. I'm not saying this is happening here but I've seen lots of it, and I believe things have gotten out of hand in how we treat other people as soon as the word "paid" appears.(Littleolive oil (talk) 17:36, 17 October 2017 (UTC))

There's so much to say here and it is so difficult to prevent the result of more hurt feelings. I'll limit myself to three brief things. One, many questions have been asked regarding what paid, yet nonpromotional editing would even look like. Two, I'm trying my best to be cordial to the declared paid editors here, especially the ones that are conspicuously operating above-board, and I hope I haven't stepped on any toes myself. Third, in more ways than not, the WP community – and certainly the open knowledge phenomenon generally – exists independent of any one institution or founder, so I'm not sure your comment on anyone's "brand" will lead to constructive dialog. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:02, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Regarding the first question, if you're asking for actual examples, I can't help. If you're just generally wondering what could this entail, I've often thought a group such as Historica Canada (*) could choose to further its mission by funding historians to improve Wikipedia articles on history. (*) Though probably not Historica Canada itself, since it has its own online encyclopedia. isaacl (talk)

This sounds similar to what Wikipedians in Residence do and is far removed from the insidious paid advocacy cases seen daily at WP:COIN and WP:SPI. It is not useful to conflate these two types of paid editing. Rentier (talk) 23:54, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Because I didn't see any context within this section, I assumed question one was referring to discussions elsewhere about which I was unaware. Since it was explicitly asking for examples of paid non-advocacy situations, I hope no one will conflate my example with paid advocacy. (My understanding of Wikipedians in residence is that they did not do any editing themselves, but facilitated editing by the associated organization. So I suppose it is similar to the organization doing the editing, rather than the Wikipedians in residence.) isaacl (talk) 00:53, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

• I'd like to make a couple of comments. The first one is: Facepalm. It's dismaying how rapidly a wall-of-text emerged about who should or should not be participating in the wall-of-text. Second, I followed the link to User talk:Hila.Peleg. Unless I'm missing something, that looks to me like the right way to approach editors about this issue, sans WP:BITE. I haven't followed what has gone on with the OP, but I'm open to the possibility that the user might have handled things in a way that brought some of the difficulties on themselves. But here's what seems to me to be most important: it's possible that two things can both be true at the same time – that the OP is in part blaming others for things that they brought on themselves, and the OP is also identifying some genuine problems where we need to learn from past mistakes, and do better in the future.

  Like Bilby, I am concerned that the community reacts to declared paid editors in a manner that accomplishes the exact opposite of what we want and need to accomplish: encouraging declaration and discouraging undeclared edits. The OP names multiple specific events that the OP believes were abusive. I cannot tell what specifically happened in each of those events, one by one. But I would like to know. I'd like to see a list of links, with context. And I believe that that would be worth examining. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:42, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

• I think the KDS4444 situation could have been handled more delicately. I think something here that caused blowback was that when he declared his paid editing he was both autopatrolled and a new page reviewer. There is no formal consensus as to whether or not these rights should be held by paid editors, but I think its troublesome at best, and not in a way to bully them, but because they make it so that it would be possible for the editor to exempt themselves from the reviewing process. I believe Primefac recently denied access to the AfC Helper Script for the same reasons.
  I also think there is a distinction to be made as an editor who joins this community as a paid contributor and one who has been a member of it and starts editing for pay. The former, to be honest, is likely to have an easier time of it: they won't have any advanced permissions people will scream over, and while their articles will likely get deleted at first per NOTSPAM if the don't work witht the community. On the other hand, if they take the time to work through the AfC process and work with the community, it is possible for a non-combative relationship to exist.
  Members of the community who start as volunteers and then begin editing for pay are likely to face more of a backlash. To many, rightly or wrong, it will seem like a betrayal, as Jytdog has pointed out in the past, at best the community tolerates paid-editing if it is declared. There is also a substantial group that includes influential administrators and I would even suspect one or two ArbCom members who think that the WMF TOU are too light on paid editing and want to ban it all together. Switching from a volunteer to a paid editor in these circumstances is going to cause backlash, even if it isn't deserved. What the community should do is put together a list of best practices to establish trust when someone makes the decision to edit for pay, that includes guidelines as to things such as user rights. This would make it more clear and feel less harsh if someone does make this choice. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:08, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I am in fact one of the people who consider all paid editing a contradiction to the spirit of the project, and an insult to the volunteers. The only reason I do not propose banning it entirely is that we have no way of actually doing that without compromising other key values, such as anonymous editing. If anyone could devise a way, I think the community at enWP would support an outright ban. The justification for permitting it is to provide some legitimate method, in the hope that at least the best-intentioned people who wish to do paid editing will have a legitimate way of doing so honestly. But since all paid editing does compromise NPOV, it is reasonable that we be relatively restrictive about it. That of course does not mean we should be impolite. We should for a declared editor AGF that they intend to follow the rules, because, if they did not, it would have been irrational of them to declare. That said, different people are suited for different roles here. Someone who is excellent at detecting paid editing may not necessarily do equally well at communicating with the editor. DGG ( talk ) 09:25, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@DGG: I'm not sure I follow the logic here. We ban all sorts of other things that we can't perfectly enforce without compromising key values such as anonymous editing - sock-puppetry leaps to mind. It doesn't stop us banning it and enforcing that ban where violations are detected (or, in the case of sock-puppetry, strongly suspected). GoldenRing (talk) 16:23, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

GoldenRing/ More exactly, the reason for not changing the rule to prohibit it entirely, is the fear of making the situation even worse than it is now. If you really think that would not happen, and if you think that the argument over whether to ban it completely would not cause even more divisiveness than we have now, your could start a RfC to ban it--the WMF policy allows us to make additional restrictions. But even if you think that, this might not be a good time to introduce an RfC, because if it fails, the failure might hamper efforts to permit but more strictly regulate it. The consensus to more strictly regulate Undeclared paid editing has developed only slowly, and I think it would be unwise to take the chance of disrupting it. DGG ( talk ) 20:15, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Sequence of events

I do not have much experience on this matter, so I am just going by the written policy. I have looked over the talk page discussion at Talk:Tom Paradise. Here is what happened:

• Doc James added a "COI" tag to the main page on 25 September. The template page clearly states: if you place this tag, you should promptly start a discussion on the article's talk page to explain what is non-neutral about the article. If you do not start this discussion, then any editor is justified in removing the tag without warning. This crucial step was not carried out. It was KDS4444 who actually took the initiative to start a talk page discussion. It was not until three days later that Doc James first gave an explicit reason for the COI template.
• Jytdog restored the paid disclosure tag on the talk page of the article. According to WP:PAID, this step is not required, since the editor has self-disclosed on their userpage. The policy page merely ...advises editors to place the connected contributor template on the talk page. Thus, for Jytdog to insist on adding the template is wrong. Per WP:ONUS, the burden for getting consensus is on the person who wants the template, not the person who removes it. If people here want the ToU to mandate disclosures at both venues, perhaps they can start an RfC for it.

Now, as far as I can see, KDS4444 was right on both of these points. I do not like how the talk page interaction went at all. I am not surprised at all that they had this reaction on being treated like this.

I realize that reviewing paid editing is essential work, and I am glad that people do it, but one should keep in mind the other side as well. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 00:24, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

The talk-page template, {{Connected contributor (paid)}}, is there to inform future readers and editors. That's a separate issue from the terms of use requirement that the paid editor must disclose in one venue. Other editors remain free to add the talk-page template. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:49, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Ok, let's look at the second point in more detail. The template, which was restored on the talk page, states: The Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use require that editors disclose their "employer, client, and affiliation" with respect to any paid contribution.... This is a red herring because self-disclosure had already already carried out (on the userpage). Therefore, adding the template to the talk page is, at best, misleading. If the template only exists to inform readers and other editors, it should have no reference to the ToU, which is a mandatory rule which all people must follow. It seems to me that this argument tries to have it both ways: to sound like an "official requirement" and to be "just FYI" simultaneously. And to repeat one crucial point made above: the WP:ONUS for adding the template lies on the person who wishes to add it, not the person who removes it.

None of the issues mentioned above were insurmountable; what they needed was more discussion and less rule-mongering. When someone follows the rules and still gets treated like this, cynicism about the rules follows. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 01:40, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Kingindian the story goes back much further than that. KDS444 was already well full of martyrdom by the time the Tom Paradise stuff happened and indeed those past events drove their desire for no tag on the talk page.

And while you are correct that PAID says disclosure is obligatory in one of the three places, which was already done and complied with, the tag on the talk page is entirely normal and even expected (not by written policy stemming from the ToU but in practice, where consensus-driven policy actually lives. If KDDS had chosen to take their insistence on no-tag to ANI their position would have gone down in flames and the waste of the community's time would probably have led to an indefinite block. Jytdog (talk) 02:07, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Kingsindian, the talk-page template was created in 2015 to inform readers and editors about the Terms of Use requirement, and that someone has disclosed in relation to the pertinent article. There's a space on the template for a link to the disclosure, assuming the template isn't the first instance of it. There's no inconsistency or trying to have something both ways. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:23, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Also, I don't think I've ever seen WP:ONUS applied to talk page templates before. WP:V is a content policy that applies to the mainspace. The closest we have for talk pages is WP:TPG. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:27, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I want to thank Kingsindian for tracking down what happened at the Tom Paradise page. It looks to me like we are discussing two different templates here. As Kingsindian correctly points out, the Template:COI template was the one put on the page itself, and there was no valid reason to keep it there once the content issues had been corrected. The template documentation is very clear about how the template is to be used only to identify content issues until they have been addressed, and that the issues must be explained on the talk page when the template is placed. Doc James was in the wrong for not going to talk with that, and this strikes me as a legitimate example of what can drive a good-faith declared editor underground. But there are also Template:Connected contributor and Template:Connected contributor (paid). Those are templates for the talk page, not the article itself, and those are the templates that should be kept long-term to inform those who come along later. So these are two different things.

KDS says above that he has also been called a shill, the worst kind of Orangemoody editor, etc.; my complaints about this are treated as whining, which I don't see at the Tom Paradise talk page. So I would like to know what the circumstances were for the use of the word "shill", the comparison to Orangemoody, and the accusation of "whining". Are these legitimate complaints, or what Jytdog describes as "full of martyrdom"? --Tryptofish (talk) 02:28, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@Tryptofish:--That probably has got something to do with Template talk:Uw-paid1.And, this has been one amongst his numerous proposed changes to our guidelines/templates/workflow etc. related to the topic at different venues.Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 06:24, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Re-pinging @Tryptofish:.Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 06:29, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for that. (By the way, I got both pings, but had been logged out for the night.) Yes, that's where the Orangemoody comment came from, and it looks to me like reasonable exasperation on the part of the editor who said it, and a pattern of deflecting blame when KDS did not get his way on something. I haven't yet seen the "shill" and "whining" events, but there is something of a pattern emerging here. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:01, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

The guideline is that disclosure MUST be at one of the places. If others wish to add disclosure to more places that is also perfectly fine. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:15, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@Doc James: I think that more or less everyone agrees with that. But I feel very strongly that I would like to hear your perspective on why, when you put Template:COI on the Tom Paradise page, you never really identified what about the page needed to be changed, either in your edit summary or on the talk page. I can get it, that one can reach a point of exasperation with an editor who IDHTs, but communication is still important. It seems to me that this template requires talk, per its documentation as well as per general norms about proper versus drive-by tagging, and that KDS had a reasonable complaint that he could not know what you wanted, even though he asked. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:14, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

The template was there as a request for independent review of content generated by a paid editor. User:Jytdog provided that remove and removed the tag. The tag thus worked as it was supposed to. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:33, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@Doc James: Thanks. (I'm continuing to ping you because I am making somewhat critical comments to you; I hope that the pinging is not annoying.) I went back and re-read it with that in mind. What I'm seeing is this: Technically, I guess the template can be used as such a request for independent review, but there is also a case to be made that its placement indicates that a problem has already been identified, before review. When KDS made a request for clarification on the talk page, this was your response: [2]. In context, that seems to me to have been a dismissive reply, one that did not address the questions that had just been asked. One could even argue that you did a bit of WP:IDHT. I don't think that the questions KDS addressed to you justify the way you replied to him. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:50, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

And what about this reply that came before it "is a paid editor and this article needs to be checked for neutrality" or this reply that came after "This is not in the ref "distinguished professor". This is also unreffed "Paradise was one of the lead researchers for the The PBS special presentation PETRA: Lost City of Stone."The second ref does not work. And his age is unreffed." Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:54, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Those were good replies – but they came well after, not before. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:35, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

This one did did come before "is a paid editor and this article needs to be checked for neutrality" User:Tryptofish Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:30, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I should have been more specific. The "is a paid editor and this article needs to be checked for neutrality" comment was not a good reply, for the reasons that I already explained. Although true, it was unresponsive. The ones that came later were good replies, because they actually addressed the kinds of content issues that were being asked. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:35, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I think thee is some confusion hee. The WMF TOU do indeed d\state that any of the places if sufficient. But the enWP policy ,WP:COI. makes additional requirements, and they require additionally that " you should make the disclosure on your user page, on affected talk pages, and whenever you discuss the topic". I think we do need to indicate on the article, and a suitable tag is necessary. That information is important for the reader that the article is paid, and they cannot be expected to check the edit history and examine the talk p. of every editor. It might be arguable whether it should go on the particle page or the article talk p; I can see merit in either position. . DGG ( talk ) 09:43, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

The way that I see it, the templates for article talk pages make very good sense. As for templates for the actual article pages, I think that it's important to alert readers when content problems remain, but counterproductive to leave the tag there once the page has been fixed. And that is what the documentation for Template:COI currently says, so it's the approach I prefer unless a new consensus is found – and I think that the existing COI template is sufficient, without needing a new template. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:07, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, as far as I can see, Doc James remains confused on this point. He added a COI template to the article page, and this is the template which KDS4444 was talking about. But in the talk page discussion, Doc James started discussing the template on the talk page. See this diff, for example. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:07, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

The actual sequence of events

• The level of sloppiness in this discussion is killing me. Too much handwaving and not enough diffs. This is probably going to end up at ANI if KDS444 keeps complaining and people keep egging them on instead of trying to help them understand, so I guess the hour or so it has taken me to do this might be worth something more than bringing the actual story to this small discussion, but here is the bigger story.

• KDS444's edit count is here. They made their first edit 2008-08-08. They have 16,269 live edits.

Around half their articles are in mainspace. With rounding, overall:

1,500 by the end of 2011.

1,000 in 2012

2000 in 2013

2000 in 2014

3,500 in 2015

3,000 in 2016

3,000 this year so far

Their user rights log is here (links in the log converted to diff hyperlinks):

14:46, 31 August 2017 Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk | contribs) changed group membership for KDS4444 from autopatrolled, extended confirmed user and pending changes reviewer to extended confirmed user and pending changes reviewer (Per self-request on Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Autopatrolled; is concerned about being a paid editor and thus wants removal of the right)

03:45, 27 August 2017 Drmies (talk | contribs) changed group membership for KDS4444 from autopatrolled, extended confirmed user, new page reviewer and pending changes reviewer to autopatrolled, extended confirmed user and pending changes reviewer (per user request)

13:52, 15 November 2016 Shyamal (talk | contribs) changed group membership for KDS4444 from autopatrolled, extended confirmed user and pending changes reviewer to autopatrolled, extended confirmed user, pending changes reviewer and new page reviewer (Per request)

01:11, 9 April 2016 KDS4444 (talk | contribs) was automatically updated from autopatrolled and pending changes reviewer to autopatrolled, pending changes reviewer and extended confirmed user

18:14, 24 June 2015 Nakon (talk | contribs) changed group membership for KDS4444 from pending changes reviewer to pending changes reviewer and autopatrolled (diff)

19:34, 22 June 2015 Nakon (talk | contribs) changed group membership for KDS4444 from (none) to pending changes reviewer (diff)

• As for their paid editing their user page currently discloses Burt Prelutsky, Tom Paradise, Stewart Levenson, and Tritech Research

Disclosure for Burt Prelutsky added to their userpage here on June 7 2017

Disclosure for Paradise added to their userpage here on 9 August 2017

general disclosure of editing for pay sometimes added here on 9 August 2017 - included If you are considering hiring me to create a Wikipedia article on your behalf, please click HERE. Was amended away here on 15 August 2017

Disclosure for Levenson added to their userpage here on 13 August 2017

Disclosure for Tritech Research added to their userpage here on 15 August 2017

pointy paid disclosure for Louis IV added here on 8 September 2017

pointy paid disclosure for Romanovs added here on 8 September 2017

pointy paid disclosures removed here after I left this note at their TP.

As for the actual paid editing...

• They created Tritech Research on 10 July 2013‎ in their userspace and they moved it to mainspace the next day.

• They created Burt Prelutsky 31 May 2017. They moved it to mainspace 11 July 2013 and a few minutes later, marked it with the {{New unreviewed article}} templace with an... interesting edit note: "adding new unreviewed article template. I am a paid contributor; this edit is not likely to be controversial"

• They created the stub of Tom Paradise in mainspace on 10:55, 9 August 2017. At the same time they created the Talk page with "connected conributor (paid)" tag.

Then they shifted to their userspace and created a full draft there at 15:01, 9 August 2017. On 16 August 2017 they moved it to mainsspace with edit note Ready for full article status. (They removed the "connected contributor (paid}" tag on August 20, as noted below)

• I don't know when the Stewart Levenson article was created but on 16 August 2017 , KDS444 left a note at the NPP page, writing Hi, my new article creations are normally exempt from showing up on this list. However, my most recent article, Stewart Levenson, warrants being reviewed by another editor and flagged for cleanup or marked for deletion, as appropriate. Please note that I was a paid contributor to this article, and have declred this on my userpage and on the article talk page. How can I make sure this new article goes through the New Page Patrol process?.

What happened as the community became aware of the paid editing...

User:Innisfree987 gave a notice (actually, the a bot gave the notice) to KDS444 that Innisfree had unreviewed the Stewart Levenson article, which KDS444 had marked as reviewed, then followed up that auto-message with a personal note, here thanking KDS444 for the note at NPP talk page and saying that they responded at the NPP page. The rest of the discussion in that thread at NPP is worth reading, all quite nice, here.

12 hours later Innisfree (via the reviewing bot) left another note on KDS444's talk page, similar to the first, now noting that Innisfree had marked as unreviewed the Tom Paradise article, which KDS444 had marked as reviewed.

The next day on 17 August 2017, the Stewart Levenson article was nominated for deletion by User:DGG and I ask everyone here to read the nomination and the whole thread, as this is where KDS444 melted down.

Especially please read KDS444's post in response here, which I will actually copy here in case anyone is too lazy to actually click and read it. This is important and was cited several times subsequently:

As the editor who created the article, I have already made an as-yet unfulfilled edit request to replace the current version of this article (which I agree is offensively promotional) with the one I wrote here. I would have performed the replacement myself two days ago, but as a paid editor, I only submitted it as an edit request. I believe that version of this article is phrased with the correct neutrality. I had submitted that version to the client, and he decided I should submit a new version which he wrote himself. I warned him that this would inevitably create problems for him, as the version he wrote was not neutral and would likely be marked for deletion. He insisted, "My version has the facts", and told me he wanted it published. With great reluctance, I did as he asked. No surprise to me, it has indeed been marked for deletion. Honestly, I must thank you, DGG, because I hated this version as much as you do and my client wanted to hear nothing I told him about why it would get deleted. In light of that, I ask that you please consider the earlier version, the version that I actually wrote, and consider whether or not that version might stand in place of the current one (the irony here is that the version the client insisted I publish is the one he should get his money back for when it gets deleted. Absolutely!).

as well as this subsequent post, where you see the martyrdom come in: No, it isn't. But that isn't really the point— the point is that I have been completely transparent with regard to my paid editing here, and have followed all of the policy requirements with regard to disclosure for this article. If it is deleted because I was paid, then you have removed every incentive I ever had to disclose my role, and will have punished me for my honesty. If Wikipedia wants its paid editors to be honest about their roles in article creation, it cannot then punish them for following the rules. If you feel the subject is not notable, then please argue deletion on those grounds

I also call your attention to this comment by User:Kudpung: For a 'professional' editor with autpatrolled and reviewer rights, and an OTRS agent to boot, I would have thought it would easily have made sense to you. I suppose these user rights are compatible with your exploitation of our unpaid volunteer work to enrich yourself and your clients, so I think we can dispense with the disingenuous innocence now.

*Delete per BLP1E and NOTSPAM. Any 'Get me on Wikipedia and I'll pay for it' vanity page is blatant promotion however neutrally written and irrespective of the number of sources. Sources do not legitimise other breaches of policy.

That discussion ended 19:32, 24 August 2017 when the article was deleted.

• Elsewhere.. and some while that discussion was going on

• On August 15, KDS444 directly edited the instructions at Template:Paid/doc in this diff which was reverted here by User:Primefac.
• On August 15, KDS444 opened a discussion that is all here at Template talk:Paid about those changes, and that continued as the deletion discussion above evolved
• On August 19, KDS444 created a new template Template:UserboxCOIpaid, which was redirected to the main one the nnext day by Primefac.

• On 16 August they opened this thread about using the "COI" tag on articles athe talk page of that template. (nobody replied)

• DGG had given notice of the deletion discussion to KDS444 at their talk page on August 17 and had followed it up the same day with this comment noting KDS444's partial disclosure on their userpage and reasoning given for it, and DGG said that this was not adequate. That led to a brief discussion, all of which is here

• On 18 August KDS444 made this set of edits to the essay WP:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions under the header "Someone got paid/ COI edit" which was immediately reverted.

on 18 August, KDS444 also created two redirects (which are still there) at WP:GOTPAID and WP:COIDELETE, pointing to that section.

on 19 August KDS444 started an Rfc on the talk page about the now-deleted section, which failed and which is here.

• on 20 August is when KDS444 removed the "connected contributor (paid)" tag from the Talk page of Tom Paradise in this diff with edit note adding BLP banner and wikiprojects; removing COI disclosure as I have already made one on my user page and WP:PAID does not require one here (KDS444 had placed the cc tag themselves, in this diff on 9 August.)

• On 20 August is when I first became aware of all this, and I started two Talk sections on KDS444's talk page, where i wrote: Hey KDS4444, as someone who does paid editing, you should not be directly editing policies, guidelines, and templates related to paid editing, or for that matter you should be extremely cautious about directly editing any policy, guideline, or widely cited essay. The last paid editor who started doing this sort of thing was indefinitely blocked by the community.

  You are welcome to give input on talk pages, of course, but you should make sure that people with whom you are speaking are aware that you do paid editing.

  I hope that makes sense. Happy to discuss if it doesn't

  , and I also wrote in a separate section:As someone who does paid editing, it is very unwise for you to participate in NPP. Would you please withdraw from that project? If this request doesn't make sense to you, I would be happy to discuss.

• also on August 20, Kudpung opened a thread at NPP, which is now archived here, and is very long, about NPP and autopatrolled rights for people who edit for pay.

I am sorry for folks who want to follow the discussion from this point, as it starts to get cross-reference-y between that discussion, the thread I opened about directly editing templates (here) and a few other threads at KDS444's talk page, especially this one. There is also a brief discussion at Kudpung's talk page here. As well as this discussion at Tony Ballioni's userpage about surrendering rights per the request I made.

• On August 28, after the AfD on Levenson closed, KDS444 contested the deletion at the closer's talk page (which shows further layers of COI that help make sense out of the level of involvement/emotion with this article in particular - the subject is also a friend of KDS444's father). And a bit later, a notice of DELREV, and that discussion is here. Snow endorse.

• On August 28, KDS444 created a draft of what is now the Manchester VA Medical Center article I urge folks to look at the history of that. This is the hospital where Stewart Levenson worked and it is completely Levenson-centric and remained they way for quite a while. KDS444 kind of interestingly placed a plain old (not paid) COI tag on the Talk page, which led to some discussion between him and I there. I was urging him to disclose the actual COI there (which is of course why the article was Levenson-centric and what any reviewer should be aware of, as they review. KDS444 put it through AfC (good on him) and a reviewer passed it, as it was (oy) - I moved it back to draft with the reviewer's permission and then it was worked over and is now is pretty decent and was moved back to mainspace. It was so so obviously the product of COI editing the first go round. But this kind of "very related" editing is typical of paid editors, and KDS444 seems to have no understanding of this.

• KDS444 is even now doing the same thing, having directly created] Bob (image) with the... interesting.... edit note Creating initial draft of article on this image. In accordance with the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use, I hereby disclose that although I was not paid by Bill Fink to create this article, I nevertheless created it in association with his article), a work by an artist he is being paid to create an article for, which is currently at User:KDS4444/Timeandmatter Photography.

• The discussion at Talk:Tom Paradise that was "analyzed" above happened after almost all of that. That discussion started on Sept 26 when KDS444 was already melted down.

• On 11 September 2017 directly edited] the Template talk:Uw-paid1, reverted here), then opened discussion at Template talk:Uw-paid1. It is in that discussion that they were compared to orangemoody, (diff), and the comment is worth writing in full: I actually feel nausea now that I've realized I spent my time carefully composing the above post to you, and you're a true, Orangemoody type, paid editor. I need to take a shower. On Oct 9 they further directly edited the template. (minor, but still...)

And in all of that, I did not find KDS444 compared to Orangemoody. There is reference to "shill" in the DELREV discussion... clearly someone exasperated. But that is still not good. Jytdog (talk) 05:11, 18 October 2017 (UTC) (amended to add discussion below Jytdog (talk) 05:24, 18 October 2017 (UTC)) (some changes, shown via markup Jytdog (talk) 18:14, 18 October 2017 (UTC))

Jytdog: Drmies removed the NPR user group after KDS requested that I remove them. Not being an admin, I pinged Drmies to see if he would do it since he looked to be online. The conversation surrounding that can be found at User_talk:TonyBallioni/Archive_6#Membership_surrender. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:18, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, i missed that. Sprawling. added above. Jytdog (talk) 05:24, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

small break

I've been going over this, and I'm seeing some mistakes (especially agreeing to post an obviously poor version of an article for a client, and not going through AfC with new paid articles), a lot of genuine attempts to try and work in the best way they could (with assorted failures on the way), some moments of frustration, and a lot of insults made to KDS444. - Bilby (talk) 08:05, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Yep. Where everything went sideways was in the Afd and it stayed that way. The thing is that if you are going to do paid editing in WP and you want to remain in good standing, you a) need to understand that most of the community views the activity with queasiness at best (nobody is going to love you for it, or for doing what you are supposed to do when you do it -- and some people will be just plain mean to you.); b) you need to disclose and really should put things through prior review (and if you don't do either, you will end up getting looked at harder); and c) don't make drama. You are making money off everybody else here and nobody on the "getting exploited" end of that stick is delighted, and there is not a lot of patience for drama. So all the whining and especially the "why is nobody praising me for doing the right thing, kind of?" attitude is just... inappropriate is the best thing I can say about it. I tried pretty hard to explain what they were doing wrong and what kind of "head" you need to keep on your shoulders as a paid editor, and instead of listening and learning they have been IDHT and have just doubled down in their sense of martyrdom. And they keep posting begging-for-a-boomerang stuff like the OP.

I think they ~could~ be an an OK contributor which is why i have tried to communicate with them. And I don't like seeing people make themselves suffer because they are walking around with a screwed up view of things. They started out in the semi-right (albeit somewhat confused) direction. The last thing they need (in my view) is people telling them they are correct to be aggrieved. High maintenance paid editors don't last long here. Nobody with a thin skin does. Jytdog (talk) 08:56, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

That AFD was anything but civil - it started with insults from the nom (DGG, in this case), and continued with snide attacks from other commentators. That's why it went sideways. I suspect that if the personal attacks had been left out it would have been much easier, and KDS444 handled themselves as well as could be expected. Meanwhile there was the problem on the talk page of the article, where KDS444 was told (incorrectly) that requests for changes to the article (which KDS444 incorrectly believed could be enough to change the AfD outcome) couldn't be made during the discussion because of the COI.

There might be a sense of martydom, but I'm not comfortable with a situation where any editor is expected to put up with abuse because, as a paid editor or otherwise, they should just accept that this is how things are. - Bilby (talk) 09:29, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Bilby, I'm one of perhaps few who knows DGG really well and personally. He is the very last person who would make personal attacks or insult anyone. Your comment above is insulting - I think any further arguments you make from now on on this topic are going to be taken with less support. Rules about civility should apply to everyone, including you. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:47, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm basing this on what he wrote. Specifically: ""I think the subject is due a refund", which was unnecessary and came across as insulting. If you don't see it the same way, that's fine, but it certainly read poorly to me. - Bilby (talk) 11:54, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

@Bilby::--If, someone (even with a great reluctance), in lieu of payments, seek to dump all our policies into the sewer, by publishing preferred version(s) of clients, one can't expect a treatment more fair.He was basically abusing his editing privilege and the user rights that he held.Period.And how did DGG as the nom even tangentially insult him?Assuming, you meant Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stewart Levenson in your previous post.I don't have any sort of an agenda against Disclosed-PAID-editors but I think it's reasonable to demand that they, at a minimum, maintain their integrity.Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 09:48, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I hear you. But.

Paid editors need to understand that they are exploiting WP in a bunch of ways - that they are exploiting other people. That is what it is, structurally. Some people are going to be mean to someone who is exploiting other people. Paid editors will always be marginal and marginalized.

You have to be self-aware and have self-control to pull off a reasonably happy and drama-free existence as a paid editor. That is what I try to teach new paid editors.

You can think of paid editors as ugly americans; paid editors have to be aware of how they are seen and keep their own shit together and avoid doing the stuff that sparks others reacting negatively to them. WP is not a "safe place" for paid editing. Because exploitation. And marginalization in response to that.

This is how KDS444 should be thinking; they should not be thinking "i am so mistreated" when fundamentally they are exploiting other people (and Wikipedia). They need to get their head on straight about what is going on here.

But nobody should be mean to anybody and everybody should be civil. Of course. WP is best when people do as they should. Jytdog (talk) 09:54, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

If paid editors were not adding promotional material / ads they would never be detected. The fact is paid editors do not edit neutrally 99% of the time. In fact, they are being paid not to edit neutrally.

Wikipedia has rules against us hosting advertisements, and these editors are trying to get around those rules and add advertisements to Wikipedia anyway.

We have seen real life harm to our readers from paid editing. We have this Newsweek article from 2012 and we have an industry that is trying to mislead / defraud people using Wikipedia.[3] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:04, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I am not trying to say paid editing is a good thing. I am trying to say that managing paid editing requires that we make disclosure a better option than non-disclosure. Our treatment of paid editors - right down to this argument that they need to get used to being insulted and grow a thicker skin, because that's the way things are - is making it so that non-disclosure is becoming the better option.

In this AfD things could have been worded neutrally - "the subject does not meet the notability requirements and the sources are insufficient" - or as a backhanded insult to the editor - "I think the subject is due a refund". The objections could have been neutral - "Fails GNG" - or insulting - "Delete with extreme prejudice because Wikipedia is not here to make you or your client rich and famous". Unfortunately, some editors chose the latter. This was not a good choice. - Bilby (talk) 11:29, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

When we have some trying to protect undisclosed paid editors or prevent anything from being down about undisclosed paid editing, yes it becomes hard to make disclosure better than non disclosure. Doc James (talk · contribs · 11:51, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

It might be hard, but it is even more important. - Bilby (talk) 12:02, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

• As I was pinged a half-dozen times above, I suppose I should give my thoughts. First, AFC - I honestly think that KDS would be a good AFC reviewer, but since their request came after the huge thread at NPP (which, incidentally, started off as a somewhat-hypothetical let's-not-name-the-individual thread) I felt that it would be an OTHERPARENT situation to let them through. Based on their history I have no doubt that they would not review their own articles (or ones they were paid to accept), but it also feels like giving the keys of the castle to your brother-in-law who comes from the other side of the tracks.

Second, the template. We already have {{paid}}, with sixteen layers of bells and whistles. Though I will admit I was genuinely confused by much of what KDS requested on the template talk, I felt that their creation of a (nearly) identical template was a bit unnecessary, since all I needed to do was modify the existing template to accommodate the proposed change. In that situation it was definitely me that was on the "awkward" side of things, because I was definitely misinterpreting the proposals made by KDS. Also, as a note, the diffs immediately after the "reverted KDS" diff is me implementing some of the changes they proposed. It was an awkward talk page conversation, but on the whole I think KDS had some good ideas.

I personally don't think the original NPP thread went all that well, since the original intention seemed written to avoid casting the spotlight specifically on KDS. However, it raised some valid points and the main takeaway is that we simply don't have a policy for someone who occasionally takes a paid gig. As far as disclosure, KDS has done a fairly good job (with the occasional misstep). I honestly don't know what we should do in these edge cases, but we definitely should not continue haranguing KDS as has been done in the past. Whatever one's personal thoughts about paid editing may be, we (especially the administrators) need to remember that the Policies trump those thoughts; if an editor is abiding by the rules, we need to respect that and not make them feel ostracised (e.g. "I know the rules exist, but I think you're scum"). Discussions along the lines of "should an occasionally-paid editor be allowed to review drafts" should be general/hypothetical, and not focus on the conduct of an individual. Rights and PERMs can be revoked, but losing editors or losing the trust of those editors is a hell of a lot harder to gain back. Primefac (talk) 11:55, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

• I think the occasional-ness of this is an important point. For some editors, it seems that once KDS makes a paid-editing disclosure with regard to one article, then they are a "paid editor" and all of their contributions become tainted somehow, even if the edits they were actually paid for were half a dozen out of tens of thousands. No-one's quite said that outright that I can see, but the tone verges on it and it certainly seems to be how the OP perceives the reaction to their disclosure. This to me verges on an NPA violation by focusing on the editor and not the edits. An AfD !vote quoted above tends in the same direction, to my mind, as though the decision whether to delete something can hinge solely on whether the person writing it was paid to do so; identical text from a non-paid editor should not be deleted. This type of attitude is not one enshrined in policy; what NOT actually says about promotional content is that information about companies and products must be written in an objective and unbiased style, free of puffery - ie it focuses on the edits and not the editor. For an editor whose record makes it clear they are WP:HERE, it must be very frustrating that a few isolated areas where they have accepted pay to edit are being used to call into question their entire record and I can understand considering a clean start to try to put it all behind them. I'm not saying that KDS has followed the paid-disclosure process perfectly - clearly they haven't - but I think AGF towards such a person should extend a good deal further than it seems to have. GoldenRing (talk) 17:08, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@GoldenRing: not also says those promoting causes or events, or issuing public service announcements, even if noncommercial, should use a forum other than Wikipedia to do so, and WP:N and WP:DEL14 both make failure of NOT a valid reason for deletion. Obviously no one is arguing for deleting articles like The Coca-Cola Company, but yes, the origin of the article is one factor that can be taken into account in determining whether or not an article qualifies as promotion. It helps to inform and read the content, which is useful because the way the marketing profession has changed their use of language means that the vast majority of spam is exempted from G11. I've argued and will maintain that any reasonable definition of promotion includes uploading of articles written to make the subject look good onto the 5th most popular website in the world. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:18, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Of course it's one factor but the !vote I was thinking of explicitly says to delete it "however neutrally written and irrespective of the number of sources." I don't see how we should delete perfectly good articles solely because they were written by someone paid to do so. Even those who argue that paid editors are inherently evil and should be banned outright if only we could find a way of enforcing it would have to admit that deleting a good article because it was written by someone exploiting the work of others for pay only makes more work for those others for no gain. GoldenRing (talk) 17:24, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I think GoldenRing makes an important point about "focusing on the editor and not the edits". I'm seeing that, too. Tony is of course correct about what is right and wrong about content, but as a matter of human interaction, I'm thinking increasingly that the natural inclination to put declared paid editors "in their place" accomplishes the opposite of what we want it to do. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:31, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Tryptofish: yes. I think you'll find that while I am pretty firm when explaining my views on policy and content in these cases, I always do my best to be civil and kind, and I think that we should behave that towards all editors.

GoldenRing, of course, but the thing that almost always gets missed in these conversations is that in 9/10 cases of commissioned articles we are not dealing with subjects that are prima facie notable. Otherwise they wouldn't have had to commission an article.

Most of these subjects fail other inclusion criteria, and at best you'll have a few borderline notability cases that could go either way in an AfD. I've said it many times here, but no one wants to delete The Coca-Cola Company, but that isn't what we're talking about here. We're talking about articles like Jared Sawyer Jr. that was deleted multiple times in different AfDs and was able to skip G4 because it was created under a different title name, and when brought to AfD people found local car crash articles. IMO, paid editing is something that should be taken into account in cases like Sawyer. These cases are of course all undeclared, but in terms of actual content, the questions presented remain largely the same. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:41, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

• I agree with much of what you are saying.I'd add.
  • Asking that people be treated with respect does not equal support of paid editors. It does not equal trying to support hiding of paid edits or editors. it does not equal enabling anyone. Its equals civility and being mature and fair. Civility is a core policy a pillar of this community. No one gets to be "mean" because they don't like what someone else is doing. We are charged with being professional, we are charged with civility.That's all. Just do it.
  • Paid editors are not editing on the back of anyone else. Those of us not paid choose that way to edit. I could as easily feel hard done by because some one has a job which allows them to edit when my life doesn't allow for that. I could go on but I'm angry and that happens seldom.
  • This is my concern. I have seen talk page deteriorate into the foulest situations imaginable and no one said anything because I guess they didn't like the topic. That's immature and unprofessional and in the past a good admin would have removed much of the garbage and warned the editors spewing out that stuff. But no one did. Now we have an article that reads like it came our of the National Enquirer. Fine. But when it comes to hurting other people its just sickening. This cannot become the standard for editing here.

And by the way I'm tired of being misrepresented too.

Not directed at you Bilby.(Littleolive oil (talk) 15:46, 18 October 2017 (UTC))

Actually, you are editing on the back of us.Maybe KDS, being quite good at article-creation etc. does not fall in the exact category (there will be outliers and exceptions and even in his case, I don't have any rational explanation from him about his publishing such un-encyclopedic preferred versions) but I have seen several articles clearly written by paid editors which, though notable, dropped in horrible un-encyclopaedic form(s) of CSD-evadable promo-talk, survived calls of TNT in AfD and finally has to be rescued by a volunteer.I bet that the paid editor did not transfer the amount to the one who actually wrote the article!Regards:)Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 16:50, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

No I am not since what I wrote applies to paid editors. Please read what I wrote and do not mischaracterize my post.(Littleolive oil (talk) 17:18, 18 October 2017 (UTC))

• After blocking many hundreds of people for socking while paid editing, then seeing our TOS get changed, and literally having a front row seat on the whole paid editing issue, I concluded that the current system is designed to force paid editors to go underground, so they can be blocked for not complying with rules that make it impossible to comply with. I'm not a huge fan of paid editing, but the Foundation and the Community have not prevented paid editing, and instead, have formulated a system that punishes the most honest among them. Currently, it is much more profitable and much easier to be a non-disclosed paid editor than a disclosed one. If I were a paid editor (and I am not), I would have to be a fool to disclose under the current system, which is little more than a weak and dishonest attempt to ban paid editing. Of course, banning paid editing would be equally laughable as there is no way to enforce it either. As an admin (and someone who is an actual businessman in the real world, so has a clue on these issues), I have no desire to enforce this foolish set of policies, as they are unworkable. For every admitted paid editor we point fingers at, 1000 more undisclosed continue on their merry way, unharassed, unmolested. This "wall" we have built has not stopped the flood, nor can it. But by all means, carry on. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:13, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

User:Dennis Brown you have also used this particular thread to grind your particular ax on the issue, which is what it is, but is not helpful to the OP in my view, nor to the community in dealing with this particular editor and their complaints. I remain interested in any thoughts you have about how the editing community could better manage the COI of contributors. Disclosure and prior review is the entirely standard method of doing so in publishing. But if you have a better way, I am all ears. Ideally somewhere else, other than here. Please ping me if you do post. thx Jytdog (talk) 18:49, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm using this thread to provide information from someone who is extremely experienced in this matter, rather than someone who causally has brushed up against the topic. The point being that the current policy and enforcement is pointless. There is nothing to argue about regarding my comments. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:36, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog, thank you for the detailed information. I hear you on how it was a lot to assemble, but I also think that we really needed that. It really wasn't a case of "sloppiness", but the rest of us cannot know what happened unless we, well, know. So, I have very carefully gone through everything that you posted, and tried to evaluate what happened.

You are right that these "disclosures" were pointy and, in my own opinion, obnoxious and unprovoked: [4], [5], and those things happened after Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stewart Levenson, which you identified as a turning point. I agree with you that KDS was treated very civilly prior to that AfD. I would not say that he "melted down" in that AfD, but the revelation that he posted a version of the page that was written for him by the page subject smells pretty bad. On the other hand, he revealed it rather forthrightly, and did not seem to be acting deceptively. The responses that he got were kind of ABF-y, and I can see how, from KDS' point of view, he felt bitten. So that may very well be the time point in all of this where the community reacted in a way that had a counterproductive effect. Similarly, I do indeed find the "shill" event at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2017 September 1, where an otherwise uninvolved editor tossed it out almost casually, kind of understandable in context, but counterproductive (compare how obnoxious "shill" accusations have been when directed at editors who supposedly have made pro-industry edits!). (The Orangemoody event was found above in the discussion here.) I think a case can be made that even when a user has edited in a very COI way, "putting them in their place" can have the unintended effect of driving them underground, which may be a takeaway lesson for the community. I think that your own initial interactions with him on August 20, [6] and [7], were very good and AGF, so it wasn't you who created the problems, and I want that to be clear to editors who have criticized you here. From August 15 onward, pretty much everything I'm seeing from KDS was disruptive and unjustified.

So my bottom line is: this was an editor who was going to run into problems of his own creation, regardless. But nonetheless, I do think that, we are seeing how, when the first appearance of declared paid editing happens, the community needs to be careful about not insulting the user making the declaration, despite the dislike of paid editing, because that is likely to set bad things in motion, instead of encouraging declaration. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:23, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

• It is really time to wrap this up. KDS444 is a very poor choice as a test case for people wanting to have a serious discussion about paid editing and civility. I mentioned this above, but if they were to bring a case at ANI it is most likely they would end up with a boomerang because

a) they made some blunders, like moving their own paid drafts to mainspace -- while these were probably done in ignorance (hence "blunder") they still harmed WP and led to volunteers needing to clean them up through AfD and editing

b) they did so using advanced permissions for new articles, with which they were entrusted on the basis that they know what they are doing with regard to what acceptable content is

c) when the problems were brought to their attention, while they did sort of do the right thing, they have complained relentlessly

d) they have directly edited templates and essays related to paid editing. some of it in a very WP:POINTY way

e) wasted a ton of time and made drama over whether the paid editing template should appear at Talk:Tom Paradise arguing completely selfishly and frankly cluelessly about the purpose of the tag for the editing community. How somebody who wants to patrol new articles could fight so hard for a general principle that a paid editor should be able to remove the paid tag at the article, shows how unaware they are of how confused and conflicted they have become. (this post is especially terrible - wikilawyering about template instructions, which they have been directly editing...)

f) They have continued absorbing inordinate amounts of community time discussing their behavior and behavior of others in response to them - which at base is still all about them making money. The OP is one of several "climb the Reichstag" bitter complaints. Along with the OP, there is this from Oct 9, this from Oct 3, and many others in the diffs above.

And I repeat - if anybody here gives cares about KDS444 as a person --this person who has their head in the wrong place about their paid editing activity and paid editing in general -- which is causing them a bunch of angst, I say again that what most folks are doing here, is reinforcing their false sense of aggrievedness and confusion.

If anybody is not aware, they are:

currently working on an essay called "navel-gazing" after having made this poor taste comment at Talk:James Heilman;

They have continued doing spammy stuff like this (grrr - they are being paid by the subject of the link)

They have continued arguing for the notability of Stewart Levenson at Draft talk:Stewart Levenson when the community has asid through an AfD and a DELREV that the subject is not notable now. (pure time suck driven by their dual COI on the topic - no CLUE about what they are doing there. None)

On Oct 2, applied to participate as an AfC reviewer. Even after everything above.

really folks. Too much of the thread above is pushing KDS444 down the road they are on, which is leading toward an indefinite block for being a drama-generating time suck. (not there yet, but definitely on the road). The question here should be - how do we help KDS4444 get their head on straight? Jytdog (talk) 18:42, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

And to lay it out, the key behaviors and ideas KDS4444 is not understanding if he wants to be a paid editor in good standing, are:

a) A big part of being a member of this community is understanding the values, norms, and consensus on things (see WP:CLUE). Volunteerism -- that all this is freely done and freely available -- is very deep in the guts of this place and one of the main things that drives contributions. People want to be part of something that deeply good. You need to understand that many people hate the activity you are engaged in. It is marginal activity in WP - not loved, but rather tolerated. Don't expect cookies and sunshine for doing it or disclosing it. At all. Expect some elbows. It is not nice, but neither is exploiting people so you can make money. Don't do things that exacerbate the underlying tension there.

b) keep in mind that it is entirely your choice that you are engaging in this marginal activity.

Concretely:

a) disclose clearly at your user page and at the relevant article talk page at the start of the editing. When the specific conflicted editing is starting. Not after.

b) do not edit directly where you have a COI or are paid - do not directly create articles, and do not directly edit articles (the Bob (image) article should not have been directly created)

c) stop directly editing template instructions, essays, etc related to paid editing and COI, and at the talk pages of such pages, disclose to others your paid status (you got the "orangemoody" crack from someone who felt you had taken up their volunteer time so you could make it easier to make money here - that happened because you didn't make it clear enough that you edit for pay. That person felt used by you. )

d) accept feedback on conflicted or paid proposals with grace and with self-awareness that you actually have a COI and are very unlikely to have an unbiased view on the content or your editing of it.

You need to decide if you are "in" or "out". If you want to be part of the community, then you need to get your head on straight and understand the values, norms, etc of this place. If you want to ignore those values and norms so you can make money without being "hassled" with all this disclosure and subsequent review under your enduring "KDS4444" identity here, the "black hat" road of socking and undisclosed paid editing is well travelled. And completely outside community norms. But enough of this confused drama already. It isn't good for you or for the editing community. -- Jytdog (talk) 19:16, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

At this point, I think that the broader issue of how the community can best communicate with declared paid editors remains very much worth discussing further. Not about that one editor, but in general. I'm not interested here in evaluating that one editor, so much as in using whatever happened as a case study in which we can see what worked and what proved counterproductive. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:29, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

That would be fine and entirely appropriate in some thread that is about that. Posts here supporting KDS444's confused aggrievedness are unhelpful to him and to the community to the extent that it leads to continuing drama around him. Jytdog (talk) 19:52, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Do you understand that the reason we initially respond with care in an instance like the one here is that if you do not, if you respond with sarcasm and name calling you set in motion just what we are seeing here. Editors who feel they have no recourse who have initially operated to the best of their abilities but are slammed will resort to other means of voicing their hurt. We have pushed them that way. That's not specifically your fault, but the lack of understanding of your own part in this is. Like many before him this editor is riding towards a sanction and there he will probably have almost little or no experience and maybe recourse, will meet with editors who are experts in this forums, and he will be lost to us. He's not wasting community time, that's always a absurd argument. If the community doesn't want to spend the time then they can go away. Part of being a member of the community is dealing with relationships, of teaching and guiding. This was completely predictable and was what I warned against. And by the way Dennis Brown has a much right here as anyone. We all have an axe to grind you as well as anyone so please...(Littleolive oil (talk) 19:58, 18 October 2017 (UTC))

You cannot teach someone who will not learn. If he continues down the IDHT, drama-making, time-sucking road, he will up indefinitely blocked. It is his choice. Jytdog (talk) 20:32, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

multiple (edit conflict) Well then, Jytdog, you've got it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:34, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Learning is the responsibility of both the "teacher" and the "student".(Littleolive oil (talk) 20:36, 18 October 2017 (UTC))

No, teachers are responsible to teach. It is on the student to heed the teaching or not. KDS444 has chosen to ignore the people trying to teach him and to focus on the insults. That is his choice. Jytdog (talk) 21:11, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

No Jytdog. Teachers must facilitate situations where students can learn which includes how the teacher presents himself and the material he is trying to teach. This isn't arguable but standard teaching knowledge. If you want to teach you can't start off with abuse.(Littleolive oil (talk) 21:55, 18 October 2017 (UTC))

This isn't the place to correct your understanding of English. Jytdog (talk) 22:33, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

As someone who has had a lot of experience teaching students, I think that both of you are arguing like little children. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:39, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

When we say that paid editors need to accept that people will be mean to them, and blame the paid editor for responding to people's attacks, we are giving up on one of the core pillars of Wikipedia: ""Wikipedia's editors should treat each other with respect and civility". That doesn't stop applying when someone engages in disclosed paid editing under policy. You've acknowledged that KDS444 was not treated well in that AfD, or in subsequent discussions - we should not be accepting that, and blaming KDS444 for being upset or for responding. We need to strive to treat all editors with respect - disclosed paid editors are not special cases that need extra civility, but they also are not special cases that should receive less. KDS444 has raised genuine concerns about how disclosed paid editors are treated, and we can see from the timeline that those concerns have some justification. We can't just wave them off by expecting that paid editors should roll over and accept that "people will be mean to you sometimes". That is not the pillar that we built Wikipedia on. - Bilby (talk) 23:00, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Trytofish. I began this discussion because I know that there is point when a situation can move in one of two directions. Unless one takes responsibility for affecting that movement the same darn thing will happen again and again. We have lost editors in the past and will do so again. For certain what happened in this situation was likely to end up in a sanction; I can't tell you how often this almost exact same situation has played out and the end is sad. It only takes one small gesture to change a direction from trouble to improvement and Jtydog had that power. I am not arguing with Jytdog for the sake of winning an argument; I am hoping he will see his way to supplementing his many skills in this area with the step that will save editors not lose them. And yes, I have been teaching at all levels for a long time. Sometimes you walk away. Sometimes for the future you try to hammer in the point no matter how it ruins your day. Best(Littleolive oil (talk) 23:02, 18 October 2017 (UTC))

Bilby, i agree that we should encourage everyone to follow CIVIL and i am not condoning anybody being mean. But in the real world, the occasional elbows that paid editors are going to be given, are not going to be actionable.

People who do paid editing somewhat cluelessly - who allow their COI and desire to serve their client and get paid - often end up pushing volunteers to the point where others are going to lash out. Paid editors need to understand that. In the stuff I write to paid editors, I try hard to explain to them what kind of content is OK and how to behave, so they don't provoke these kind of exasperated reactions.

Again, the "orangemoody" comparison came out in a post where an editor who was dealing with KDS444 like he was just anybody, suddenly realized that KDS444 edits for pay and was wrangling for language better for that work -- and felt used and lashed out. The "shill" comment came out deep in a DELREV that was SNOW, and after a SNOW delete. This also is why people reacted like they did at the Levenson AfD itself. In other words, they were all reactions to KDS444 pushing in his own interest. That is going to happen, and none of that is actionable.

None of this is helpful to KDS444. Jytdog (talk) 23:52, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

What would be most helpful to KDS444 is a comment along the lines that insults and personal attacks are not acceptable, whether or not they are also a paid editor. I'm seeing some excellent advice, but very little along the lines of "incivility is wrong" without the additional "but you're bringing it on yourself". We don't accept incivility, and we shouldn't just be advising people to accept that it is part of editing. - Bilby (talk) 00:37, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

We'll just disagree I guess. In my view, validating KDS444's wrong-headed aggrievedness is very harmful to him and to the community. If he were showing a glimmer of clue ... well, this thread wouldn't be here at all. As it is, he can't even see that he is heading for an indefinite block. Jytdog (talk) 00:41, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I just want to make one (longish) comment. First, one thing I see, over and over again, is that your response to paid editors is very good and extremely well handled. If there is an exemplar approach, I honestly think it should be in how you manage the issue, and that should be the basis of the approach all admins should be applying. But I have two concerns with the issues discussed here, one specific to KDS444 and one more general. The specific one is that I come from an environment where we do not accept any form of bullying or abuse to others, and part of that is never saying that it should be an accepted part of the experience. I understand that not everywhere works like that, and sometimes part of me wants to just say that we need to accept it, but I've been taught through experience that it leads to the wrong path and potentially to waving off real problems instead of addressing them. The second issue, which is much more general - and I think you would agree with this stance - is that we can't stop paid editing, so our only real choice is to manage it. Blanket prohibition is almost never successful, so we need to allow paid editing in a way that we can manage, and prevent it from occurring in ways that we can't. Currently we're failing on both counts, and attempts to prohibit the paid editing we can't manage are only prohibiting the paid editing that we can. - Bilby (talk) 00:59, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I hear you. But too often discussions of harassment focus on the outburst and not on the context. If we want to fully surface "abuse" here, the exploitative nature of KDS4444's paid editing (and all paid editing) needs to be surfaced and established as the context. The editor who said "orangemoody" felt used by KDS4444. That is important. Jytdog (talk) 01:44, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

It is not a strong argument - all the content we contribute is released under a CC-by-SA licence specifically so that it can be reused commercially. If we want to argue that we are being "exploited", it is by the organisations and individuals who make money off the content we provide. A paid editor who is adding new content is not in the same territory, as at least they are potentially contributing to the project. A paid editor who has made 17,000 good volunteer edits, and at worst a couple of hundred paid ones, is certainly not in the same territory.

That said, I'm not saying that people shouldn't be upset. That's how they feel. I'm saying that you can be upset, but that doesn't excuse bad behaviour. (And I'm not at all concerned with the Orangemoody reference - I'm more concerned with comments in the AfD and the accusation of being akin to a thief). - Bilby (talk) 03:41, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

The exploitation isn't feeling; it is reality. It has nothing to do with the licensing and everything about the interaction and what people are actually doing. Please see User:Jytdog#Paid_editing_in_particular. Jytdog (talk) 05:16, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

It's ok - I don't think you'll see what I'm trying to say. I'll let it be. - Bilby (talk) 05:22, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Let me try to put it this way. I'll start by saying what I said earlier, which is that Jytdog's initial interactions with KDS were spot-on, and should be emulated. Second, I want the rest of what I'm going to say here to be understood as not intended by me to be about KDS, but rather intended as a general statement. Yes, indeed, undisclosed paid editing is very exploitative, and paid editing that is disclosed but uncooperative is exploitative too. It's perfectly natural, human nature, for good-faith editors to reach a point of being very annoyed with such editing. And I do not think that speaking harshly to a paid editor should be regarded as something sanctionable. But I do think that it should be regarded as suboptimal practice. And I'm trying very hard throughout this discussion to make the point that it really is the case that when other paid editors see a declared paid editor getting treated harshly, they are going to think to themselves that it's smarter not to disclose. And that's exactly the opposite of what we should want. It looks to me like some good-faith editors think that speaking harshly to disclosed paid editors sends a good message: that anyone considering paid editing had better shape up. That may feel satisfying, but it is seriously incorrect. It has the opposite effect on other potential paid editors who are watching. Some age-old (in Wiki-years!) sage advice is that every comment in a discussion should really be written for an audience of other editors who are watching, rather than to change the mind of the one editor to whom one is replying. I am convinced that optimal practice when addressing a disclosed paid editor is to consider what effect one's comment is going to have on other paid editors who are watching. If the effect is to drive those other editors underground, that's a bad thing that will ultimately have an effect that is the opposite of what you want. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:24, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

In my view. There are black hat paid editors who serially sock who might see this stuff, but my sense is they don't care about the integrity of WP and they don't disclose because they don't want to have their edits peer reviewed - they want to dump their stuff in and go get paid. (There is no "driving underground" - they are underground and want to stay that way.) Jytdog (talk) 04:31, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

There's a pattern that I see with many of the paid editors who do more than just one job.

1. They take a few jobs through Upwork or similar, don't disclose, and start making the occasional paid article interspersed with non-paid edits.
2. We warn them that their edits look like they are being paid, but they insist this isn't the case.
3. It ends up at COIN.
4. They start disclosing, but get frustrated and end up using socks to get their articles through without disclosure
5. The main account is indeff'ed
6. They continue to edit by evading their block with socks, a new one for each paid job. At which point we identify maybe 1 out of 3 paid articles, and generally only after they've been paid for the work, until we run an SPI and pick up the old accounts.

Sometimes the pattern is a bit different - they start disclosing at step 2, or they get blocked as soon as it is at COIN, but the pattern is consistent. Very few paid editors doing any volume appear to have started by socking, although I think there have been some, and most start with a single account.

The other problem is that this process ends up making the "black hat" paid editors more attractive from a business perspective, as they are more likely to get the articles accepted without review. The clients don't realize that the articles will be deleted automatically when we do find them, and they leave their reviews almost as soon as the articles go live - before they get deleted. Thus they are ripping off their clients as well as damaging this project - Bilby (talk) 05:14, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

We are saying the same thing. Looked at from the perspective of the paid editor trying to run a business, "disclosing + peer review" is a terrible business model - slow and more than anything, unpredictable.

The question for an individual paid editor becomes one of values -- what is more important to them -- the mission of this project and the strategies/norms through which we realize the mission, or their short term business?

For people whose primary value is the latter, they stop disclosing and start socking. They never were HERE.

There are paid editors who put the mission of WP first and do consistently follow PAID/COI. Most of these manage the business problems by a) explaining to their clients how WP actually works, and not taking business from clients who won't accept that; b) having enough business from other matters, or here, so that no individual set of edits are "live or die"; and c) engaging with the policies and guidelines so their edits can be implemented without too much fussing. They also understand that building a reputation as a good-citizen paid editor helps them get things done more efficiently and actually improves paid editing as a business model.

We can't build policy or practice around paid editing to accommodate people who are NOTHERE. That is the incoherent-ness at the bottom of the "driving underground" claim. The policies and practices around paid editing and COI are meant to give people who want to be HERE and edit for pay, a way forward. Jytdog (talk) 19:39, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

We're not saying the same thing at all. What I see repeatedly is people who start by being ignorant of policy, who then try to meet policy, and who then find it too difficult and end up using socks which we can no longer manage. Their experiences of editing under policy result in their giving up. Equally, for many clients, the editors who ignore policy are more likely to get their articles online than those who don't.

We create an underground market by a) making it easier and more rewarding for paid editors to ignore policy than to follow it; and b) making it appear more effective for clients to hire editors who ignore policy than those follow it. If we wish to change the situation we need to swap that around. That there is a subset of paid editors who continue to try to work within policy, and a subset who never tried, doesn't change the model we've created. - Bilby (talk) 20:20, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't want to accommodate people who are NOTHERE. But the talk about black hats and white hats oversimplifies the fact that real people, in the real world, can take off one hat and put on another. Generally speaking, hats are not permanently attached to heads. So what I've been concerned about here is how a white hat paid editor might waver over whether or not to change into a black hat. And the editors who insist on getting all hot and bothered about how evil paid editors are, have a bad habit of treating white hats as if they are black hats, which ends up making them decide to be black hats, which probably makes the hot-and-bothered editors feel like their expectation has been proven correct. And this cycle is making our problem worse and worse. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:23, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

i emphasized where people are coming from. Why they are here. Whether they are interested in trying to understand the mission and how we realize it, or are really just here to promote somebody and make money. It is a choice people make. I try to teach people, in order to lower the bar to understanding and getting oriented so that they can be good citizens and do their jobs, but some people really don't really want to. Look at this talk page, User_talk:Laurenruthfish, to see what i mean. I was actually pretty hopeful of coaxing a biotech PR firm into the Statement community, and they turned around and submitted this piece of PR shit, Draft:Kura Oncology, after we went through the orientation thing. She was just "yes-ing" me. Nothing we can do for people who choose that. Now maybe that failure will make them think again about how they are approaching WP. Maybe not. But it will be her choice. All i can do is show her the door and be ready to help teach her. Jytdog (talk) 22:53, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that's why I don't want to accommodate people who are NOTHERE. Hey, is that someone with "fish" in their username? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:59, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Wait, did you just add "show her the door and be ready to help teach her"? Doesn't the "help teach" occur first, and the "door-showing" only after the teaching fails? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:02, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

the door leading in. the way. The Doors of Perception. Jytdog (talk) 23:17, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't feel that Laurenruthfish is the example you are looking for - she did end up creating an article with insufficient sources, but at each step on the way she did what you asked. She seemed very willing to follow each instruction, to disclose, to go through AfC, and to request changes rather than making them directly. There are people who do what you describe, though, so I certainly agree that there are people who ignore what we need them to do. - 23:33, 21 October 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bilby (talk • contribs) 23:33, October 21, 2017 (UTC)

No, she is exactly the example I wanted. At this point, she has not engaged yet beyond the surface interaction; she is a busy PR person and wants to be nice in the social interaction. She is happy to jump through whatever explicit hoops there are but she has not engaged with what we are doing here. If she had, there is no way she would have posted that PR fluff thing that sorta resembles a WP article but is not. I am curious to see what she will do next, as i mentioned above. But right now she is not here to build an encyclopedia. Jytdog (talk) 03:31, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

To date, everything that you have asked her to do, she has done. I'm not seeing a major problem. I'm more concerned about people who lie about their relationship with clients, refuse to do as we ask, or just jump between accounts. - Bilby (talk) 04:03, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

It is a sad thing that we are not having the same conversation. I don't know how to fix that. Jytdog (talk) 04:15, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from. It's just that I disagree that it is the real issue. We'll see how she proceeds. - Bilby (talk) 04:21, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm hopeful. We'll see what she chooses and i will keep trying to help her engage. Jytdog (talk) 04:23, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Broader lessons learned

Completely separately from the issues of the one editor who opened this, I'd like to discuss what might be the broader lessons learned about dealing with declared paid editors. In my opinion, the overriding issue is that we want paid editors to actually adhere to the ToU about disclosure – so let's identify any ways where we can do better in terms of not incentivising undisclosed editing. I think that something that is coming out of this discussion is that, even though the community sees paid editing as something that we dislike, when a paid editor at least makes a good-faith effort to disclose properly, the natural tendency to want to find fault with them actually works against us. Do too much in the way of finding fault with them after they disclose, and they come away with the message that it's better to go underground – the exact opposite of what we intend. Once such an editor has become uncooperative, then I think it's reasonable to criticize them. But in their first edits after disclosing, we need to follow a very strict practice of avoiding WP:BITE. We should go out of our way to communicate with them civilly and patiently, and not be the ones to "go first" in treating the situation as an adversarial one. I think that we have a problem with members of the community unloading on declared paid editors right after they declare. And that's just cutting off our own nose to spite our face. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:34, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

This is still way too much about KDS444. In my view the "threats" of going underground are purely confused/adolescent threats to metaphorically run away from home. He has played around the margins of being "bad" like the POINTY disclosures of editing for the Romanovs as well.

At some point this becomes a grownup matter. He either gets "grounded" in the values of the community and flies straight, or he gets "grounded" with an indefinite block. This is getting too far into WP:NOTTHERAPY.

On the more general matter, there are people who understand the values of the community and are actually aiming at some level at the mission to provide knowledge for free, and there are people who come here with purely commercial intent to promote things - check out User_talk:Ramcoimbatore#Paid_editing and that person's contribs. Perfectly nice but no interest in the mission and committed to using WP to promote their client. People like that will do the "black hat" thing regardless of how nicely they are treated and we have no way of stopping them. They are like cockroaches. Part of life and we just have to deal with each infestation as it happens.

Where things get messy, is where people get confused and this is more on a person-by-person basis.

If someone won't learn their way out of confusion, they won't learn, and this is when we get into drama. KDS444 has taken this to some personalized level of "humiliation" per their OP - locking onto the few very harsh comments they have received and ignoring all the efforts to help them. Instead of learning, he is allowing himself to stay stuck in that mode. This happens. WP is not therapy and at some point people who remain stuck in that mode just start sucking up too much time. My hope is that KDS444 gets grounded in the good way, of course.

I am firmly rejecting the proposition that the community is responsible for KDS444's behavior. He owns that and will own that if he goes black hat out of some adolescent bitterness. Jytdog (talk) 21:03, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

And I am firmly rejecting the stubborn way that you keep getting in the way of broadening this discussion beyond KDS. I'm not disagreeing with you about what should happen when "someone won't learn their way out of confusion". I'm talking about what should happen at the beginning of that learning process. In fact, above, I said that your initial comments to KDS were very good and editors should not be criticizing you over it, but if you won't take "yes" for an answer, that's your problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:48, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Being a disclosed paid editors does not than give one the right to fill Wikipedia full of promotional material. What we need to do to make disclose paid editing more appealing, is actually enforce the rules against undisclosed paid editing.

And than we have the socks were some are disclosed and others are not disclosed so that they can than get the best of both worlds. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:33, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I think that you are confusing the carrot with the stick. I fully agree that we need to "actually enforce the rules against undisclosed paid editing." But as long as we have editors and administrators who do not see the need for starting from a friendly and patient position when first encountering those who do disclose, then we will continue to incentivize non-disclosure. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:48, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I am more of the position that as long as we have editors trying to prevent anything being done about those carrying out undisclosed paid editing businesses on a massive scale there will be little incentive for people to take up disclose paid editing. We have already had volunteers involved with enforcing the rules against UDPing move onto other stuff due to the harassment they receive. We have a small number of good faith disclosed paid editors who do not face a degree of hardship different than that of a non-paid editor. Part of this requires not writing in a promotional manner. And bringing this back to KDS that is the greater issue here, what they write is promotional and poorly referenced. Trying to turn this into a hardship because they are a disclosed paid editor IMO is not accurate. They would have gotten a hard time anyway. Also if they were not disclosed they would be blocked right now (their editing is that obviously paid). Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:55, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree that users who try to prevent the enforcement of paid editing policies (often on the basis of clinging too tightly to the outing policy) are really doing us all a lot of harm, because paid editing is becoming a massive threat to our project. And I started by saying at the top of this thread that I do not want to bring this back to KDS, so I'm speaking in general here. It's a mistake (however understandable) to turn one's righteous indignation over paid editing into a posture of communicating harshly or dismissively with declared paid editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:35, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I have several comments:

• First, COI templates should not be used on articles minus a discussion on the talk page. Since I raised this in my first comment, and nobody has said otherwise, I assume everyone agrees with this. Besides, this is written policy.
• There was no consensus to a discussion about whether "paid editors" are the same as "editors who sometimes do paid work", and in any case, there is no consensus on how to deal with them. KDS4444 should not have been pressured to give up their New Page Reviewer user right. If people want to make this policy, open a clearly stated RfC.
• Several of the comments about paid editing deal with undisclosed paid editing; for instance Doc James' comment about the story in Newsweek and the Signpost op-ed. This phenomenon should not be conflated with disclosed paid editing. Indeed, it is counterproductive to conflate them, because if they are all tarred with the same brush, then paid editors on the margin are going to decide that they might as well be undisclosed.
• Paid editors are not universally loved on Wikipedia, but they should be treated civilly like all others. Stuff like "shill" or "this article is so bad that the client should get a refund", are not helpful. The AfD in question was going to be closed as "Delete" in any case, so there is no need to pile on.
• WP:COI should be clarified. If it is stricter than WP:PAID, it should explicitly say so. By the way, who decided that WP:COI should be stricter than WP:PAID? Does the disclosure have to be done only in one venue, or should it be done in multiple venues? Even the policy page for WP:COI, as written, is ambiguous. For instance, the section Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Paid_editing says you should make the disclosure on your user page, on affected talk pages, and whenever you discuss the topic. However, the section Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Paid_editors uses the language from WP:PAID: You may do this on your user page, on the talk page of affected articles, or in your edit summaries.

Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:23, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

• Largely agree except that the requirement (for a corresponding message on t/p) may be waved off in cases, where there is no chance that a volunteer neutral editor will dis-agree or when the tag-applier has made drastic edits for the cause.
• As to the point of whether--"paid editors" are the same as "editors who sometimes do paid work", the latter shall be treated as the former in the narrow zone of the articles where they were paid (PAID) and any connected topic(COI).That, they are otherwise good volunteer contributors does not mean we shall wave off their bindings to not directly edit the article, utilize AFC for submissions et al.And, I don't find any reason either to treat them as paid editors in completely disconnected topic(s), sans any clinching evidence.
• Largely agree.Though, I do hate the idea of any paid editing, there obviously needs to be benefits for disclosure.Otherwise, it's not quite the bargain.
• The nom's(DGG's) statement was superbly put.Have you seen the exact condition of the article at the time of nomination i.e. prior to KDS's theory of preferred version(s)?And, one ought to be thick-skinned when you are embracing something utterly disliked by the community, proposing continuous changes regarding the work-flow that are getting outright rejected.That being said, some more civility ought to be better.
• Can't comment without investigating the underlying basis of the point.Failed to spot any discussion among the rivalry of the two policies:)If the point is about the insertion of t/p template, that I re-instated, fully echo Jytdog.Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 06:38, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

As for templates, the direct use of the talk page templates is appropriate. But I agree that the use of the COI template on an article itself is, in effect, a content dispute (although also an alert to readers). As such, it should not be applied as a drive-by tag, and the serious harm done by paid editing does not change that fact. So I agree also that it requires talk page discussion. We would regard it as unhelpful if a user put a POV tag at the top of a page without explanation, even though POV editing is a bad thing. Same thing here. And I also agree that there has been too much conflation here between disclosed and undisclosed paid editing. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:42, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

COI is not "stricter" than PAID. The two complement each other. PAID is policy and is where disclosure at one of three places is required. COI is a guideline (a widely respected one but not policy). Disclosing at the userpage and the article talk page is entirely normal and expected under COI; the disclosures serve different purposes (the userpage so that people can see the overall scope of the paid editing; at the article for people working at the article). The "should not edit directly" aspect of COI is also widely respected. I've been considering an RfC to formally aid the latter to PAID so it is elevated to policy.

The notion that a paid editor should have the power to decide if a disclosure is made at the talk page or not with "connected contributor (paid)" template is ludicrous. I say again that if that if KDS4444 had brought that to ANI he would have been boomeranged right off WP - I am totally confident of that. Jytdog (talk) 06:52, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Taking a step back from the details of KDS4444, there is a persistent theme in this discussion that paid editors should be held to a different standard than the rest of the community, because their COI+money makes them less trustworthy. Seems like a scapegoating because the community is full of harmful conflicting interests - religion, politics, gender, nationalism and all those who are just right about everything imaginable. We don't function by trusting each others intentions, we revert each other. The paid editors are not the problem, it's that the community is trying to have control over them, and failing. Lets all drop the stick with paid editors, if there is something wrong with the content, revert it and if you're tempted to pass moral judgements about the editor, just log out. Dougmcdonell (talk) 11:54, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Nope. COI (and paid editing is just one form of it) tends to lead to advocacy - violations of PROMO, NPOV, and V/RS/MEDRS in particular. Yes advocacy is a general problem, of the kinds you name, and is a kind of unique problem to Wikipedia, due to our open nature.

But COI is widely recognized -- throughout the world - as something that should be managed. You don't want a judge working on a case where he or she has a direct financial interest in the outcome, do you? Nope. So there are processes in place to manage that. People expect that.

If you like have a look at User:Jytdog#NPOV_part_2:_COI_and_advocacy_in_Wikipedia Jytdog (talk) 19:38, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to keep saying this, because I think it's important. I'm fine with the idea that, for paid editors, there should be a high standard in terms of investigating and keeping an eye on them, because it really is a serious problem. However, when we talk about high standards, that also comes across as meaning that it should be expected that other editors can be extra picky in communicating with them, making a big deal and expressing it antagonistically when something happens that would largely be overlooked if any other editor did it, and also expecting the paid editors to tolerate harsher language than what we expect of other editors. Again, it may feel good to do that, but it's a mistake. If a declared paid editor starts acting like a jerk, then it's certainly OK to address them like they are a jerk. But to jump on them unprovoked out of the expectation that something bad will otherwise be just around the corner, or just out of holier-than-thou righteous indignation, that's going to be counterproductive and a net negative. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:10, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't know what you are responding to. Jytdog (talk) 04:59, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Then I will explain. What I said follows from Dougmcdonell's observation about "a different standard". I'm expanding on that by supporting a different standard with respect to investigating and keeping an eye on them, and opposing a different standard when communicating with them. You sure seem hell-bent on disagreeing with me about the communicating part. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:16, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

In my view Doug's post was the old "why think about COI when advocacy is such a big problem" saw and that is what i responded to.

To deal with your issue -- you are hell-bent on re-stating the obvious. Of course people should be decent to other in WP, and of course disclosing paid editing is not a license for everyone else to tee off on someone. Of course. The horse is oh-my-gosh-look-at-that-all-that-mess D-E-A-D dead. The problem you are ignoring is that there is no way to stop people like Kudpung and DGG from teeing off on paid editors from time to time especially when they do things as obnoxious as the OP has done. Jytdog (talk) 22:46, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Yippee! You just acknowledged that it is "obvious" that "disclosing paid editing is not a license for everyone else to tee off on someone." Even if I had to get you to tee off on me to get you to say that! Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:51, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Facepalm Jytdog (talk) 23:16, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I totally agree with Dennis Brown's view when he says "the current system is designed to force paid editors to go underground, so they can be blocked for not complying with rules that make it impossible to comply with". The comments directly above where paid editing "should be managed" and "investigating and keeping an eye on them" are popular motives behind our current mis-management of these editors. Let's drop the fiction where the undisclosed editors reading this page are about to come forward and instead address the new reality, the majority of paid editors are bright enough not to disclose in this environment. I get that I have a minority view, lacking concern about paid editors being some kind of danger, they've always been here, however I expect overwhelming support for working relationships within our community! Will we have witch hunts followed by blocks? Will all editors working on public figures and company pages be suspects? Will investigations leading to outing become necessary? How far are we willing to go in our treatment of each other and this new group of second class editors? Dougmcdonell (talk) 06:56, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

No, we won't have witch hunts and OUTING is strictly enforced. Jytdog (talk) 19:29, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Concern

What concerns me is that KDS4444 began with a few paid edits and an honest disclosure and now the narrative is being set for an indefinite sanction. The path is the same and anyone watching this kind of situation play out in the past could have predicted with certainty that this would be the narrative. Sadly. Perhaps KDS4444 reacted badly to the less than civil reaction to his efforts. Still. Indefinite. My area of teaching has to do with how we perceive, how the brain functions in creative situations, and I can tell you that, the at first tiny suggestion for an indefinite sanction will build psychologically and will impact even the smartest arb or admin.

And as side notes. First, The idea that all paid editing is non- neutral by definition seems far fetched. I would wonder if the best paid editors are also the ones who have Wikipedia's policies and guidelines at their fingertips. These editors are useless if they edit content that will be removed immediately so they might do best to write articles that fall in line with WP policies and guidelines. Second, there is a mistaken idea that what is not negative is promotional. In fact, especially with academics their lives while notable in terms of their work may contain nothing pejorative and the article may therefore have zero criticism. Third, I want to repeat with emphasis @Doc James:. Suggesting that this situation might have been handled better is not an implied support of anything snd especially not of paid editing. This is a false equivalency. This is not an, "either yur fur us or agin us" situation.(Littleolive oil (talk) 19:22, 19 October 2017 (UTC))

I've said this in other discussions, but I'd like to say it again here. Contrary to a lot of the discussion here, there really is such a thing as very good paid editing (although it's sadly rare). Most of the bad paid editing is associated with the creation of new pages. But if there is an existing page about a person or organization that is unquestionably notable, and if that person or organization hires a paid editor, here is a way that I think no one could reasonably fault. If the paid editor is meticulous about following the disclosure requirement and about using the talk page instead of editing directly, and if they only edit directly in order to revert vandalism or BLP violations, how can that be anything other than a good thing? We want vandalism and BLP violations to be fixed promptly, and there is nothing wrong with an editor who watches out for that. I think that there is no valid argument that such editing would be anything other than a net positive. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:49, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Why is this type of paid advertising / editing virtually negligible? Contrary to what some think, it's not due to persecution of disclosed paid editors, but because the scrutiny the articles would receive would negatively impact the client's bottom line. It's just more profitable to have a heavily promotional article run initially than to create a neutral version (with much lower conversion rate) and go through the AfC process and risk rejection. The worst that can happen is that the article gets tagged with the COI tag, at which point you can simply remove it and caution the editor of their obligation to start a talk page discussion. Rentier (talk) 11:37, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, most companies are not interesting in having fair articles about themselves, but favorable ones. There have been very few examples of a company or an individual being willing to commission an article about themselves to say the same thing that a NPOV editor would say, any more than there are examples of compnies that write NPOV web pages about themselves. We can judge their approach ot giving information from the web sites: they use them to attract customers, and to boast, and they do not see our site as being different. DGG ( talk ) 22:18, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Paid notice - how long must they persist?

IANAL but there is a saying "Hard cases make bad law". Despite that I have to on due to a recent observation.

There's a lot of discussion in threads above about how and where to comply with the policy requirement "you must disclose who is paying you to edit…" Much of that discussion revolves around where — on the editor's user page, on the article, on the article talk page or some combination.

I'd like to discuss "when".

I don't think there's such question that the disclosure ought to be made promptly, ideally before any article is published, but our policy is silent about how long that notice must last.

My question is motivated by the observation that the notices on KDS's page have been removed. I might be inclined to support that removal if they were a clear notice on the article talk page, but I'm troubled that the notice exist nowhere except in page history at the moment.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:20, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia's Terms of Usage do not specify a time limit, the disclosure, made by one of the three proscribed methods, should persist indefinitely. In theory that means as long as one of the methods remain in place any others do not (so if it's disclosed in the edit summary, technically parallel disclosures by one of the other methods could be removed). I think the most practical answer would be to keep a disclosure on the talk page of the affected page, as it's where the most interested persons would be likely to find it. Wikipedia:WikiProject Integrity/Editor Registry can be used to track the editor. isaacl (talk) 14:56, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I think this sounds like good advice. Given the existence of a COI, I think an editor working on an article may wish to be aware that at least some of the contributions may have been made by a paid editor. It seems likely that an editor, doing more than gnomish edits, is likely to visit the article talk page, but it is quite unreasonable to expect such an editor to visit the user page of each and every editor contributing to the article.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:55, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

They need to persist in one of the three places required in PAID. They should be persisting at the Userpage and at the article talk page. KDS444 is the first disclosing paid editor who has made drama over this. I don't plan to perpetuate that, with regard to their userpage. There are bigger issues with him. Jytdog (talk) 15:30, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Maintaining an independent registry of paid editors is probably more reliable anyway. Someone sufficiently interested can create some kind of gadget to pop up a message when visiting the user page of one of the editors in the registry (or perhaps even while looking at one of their diffs?). isaacl (talk) 17:08, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

WRT KDS444 might be time to consider a block with all the disruption they create. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:20, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Is there ongoing disruption? (Which I believe is required to justify a block for disruption). Yes, I realize I just link to an edit which concerns me, my concern isn't disruption but a possible shortcoming in our policy guidance. While I understand that a requirement to disclose item why that such disclosure can never, ever be removed, I think we need some community discussion of that before we treat such removal as a violation of policy. Or perhaps you are referring to different edits? I did a very cursory scan of some recent edits and do not see what I would characterize as disruption.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:46, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Posting bitter notes all over the place, and especially article talk pages, is disruptive and is all about their personal drama, and not about building an enyclopedia. His edit to WP:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions was POINTY and disruptive, as have been others. He is heading toward an indef, driven by his bitterness which is turn driven by his confusion. Jytdog (talk) 19:42, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm starting to feel like every talk thread that opens here gets quickly turned back to KDS, and that keeps getting in the way of addressing broader issues. If there are reasons for sanctions, then by all means propose sanctions, but we have gotten far past the sell-by date for discussing that here. ANI is that-a-way. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:17, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

This is a new thread that was sparked by something that KDS444 did, just today. What they did was rare - I have not seen paid editors mucking around with disclosure tags this way before. Jytdog (talk) 04:24, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I think we all feel that, Tryptofish, but unfortunately it's necessary. There are several distinct types of paid editing and they need to be addressed separately and in depth; it's not something that's going to be resolved by by series of ad hoc convoluted RfC or arbitrarily handing out blocks and bans.

What we are discussing here mainly is the paid editor type represented by KDS4444. The crux of the matter is that nobody forced him into the world of paid editing, which being abhorred by the majority of the community whether declared or not, is always going to be stigmatised. The majority of volunteers do not appreciate their unpaid work building and policing this encylopdia being used for gain in any shape or form (and that is where I disagree with Littleolive oil suggesting otherwise).

KDS' mistake was not, as he claims, in declaring his paid work - it would have been 'tolerated' under the current ruling if he hadn't recklessly tried to publish pages that would not survive NPP and AfD - the '...price [he] pays for disclosing [his] paid edits' , is the price of having to refund his customers. But then he got noticed for even holding advanced rights that are almost certainly not compatible with money-making on the back of our volunteer work; we do see the ads at Upwork for example where editors actually claim to hold advanced rights and even to be admins. If it were not KDS, another declared editor would sooner or later have made the same errors, but KDS drew the short straw and has become the example of this editor type. His real mistake is in persisting to claim he feels helpless and passive in the face of misfortune where he is really a victim of his own device, and desperately attempting to salvage one particular article by any means. KDS's new articles, if he writes any more, will continue to attract high scrutiny - there's nothing any of us can do about that.

IHMO, the declared paid editing is such a tiny fraction of what goes on, that driving it underground would not make our work detecting it much more difficult. Since ACTRIAL went into motion our experienced New Page Reviewers are finding that such articles now stand out much more clearly in the triage queue, and we may be on track for making examples of other types of paid editors. Under the new requirements for creating articles in mainspace, nearly all new pages that are a user's first contribution after making the required 10 edits carry all the hallmarks of commissioned work. We need move forward and discuss ways of characterising the different paid editor types and developing ideas to address them. That would be in line with what Tryptofish is urging us to do. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:55, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, that's true. We do need to move forward, and maybe that will even happen in my lifetime. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:10, 21 October 2017 (UTC)