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Archive 5Archive 6Archive 7Archive 8

Alternative paid contribution disclosure policy for English Wikipedia

In December 2020, a link to this page was added to meta:Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies. This page has not been approved by the community as an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy, though, and has only had a handful of editors discussing it on this talk page. I believe the page's status was last discussed at Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure/Archive 4 § Changing this policy, where only one editor supported the entire page being a policy, as opposed to the portion taken from the terms of use, and no one felt that an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy had been enacted. Accordingly, I do not believe this page should be listed as an alternative policy at meta. What does everyone think? isaacl (talk) 13:49, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

That discussion preceded the RfC that set new paid editing requirements. The distinction, if any (and at this point I'm convinced there isn't really any) between the two options is minimal. Legal has expressed no issue either way. Since the whole point of this RfC was to help legal enforce the paid editing policy, taking actions (such as removing it from the meta list linked to from the TOU) to make it possibly have less legal standing doesn't really make sense. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:35, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
As discussed on this page, enacting an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy is not needed to add additional requirements. It doesn't make sense for portions of the conflict of interest guideline, which has failed to gain consensus multiple times to be adopted as a policy, to now become policy based on adding a requirement on paid editors to make disclosures in off-wiki communications. As per the terms of use, the community should clearly approve a superseding alternative policy if that's what it wants to do. isaacl (talk) 20:15, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
I dunno about the historical events you're referring to, but when I added it it was because the meta page says: After creating such a policy, projects must include their policy here. This list will help editors and sister projects to quickly discover what the local project policy for paid editing is, or if the default applies. De facto it's an aid for editors and the other communities, perhaps those looking to draft their own. As for whether the page represents consensus / is really a policy, if you're right then perhaps someone should propose removing the policy tag at the top. Until then, it can't simultaneously be a policy and not be a policy. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:09, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
The problem is that this page doesn't have enough people watching it to establish a consensus. I raised it when the tag was added, and it was discussed once again in the discussion I linked to. You can read it and verify what was said regarding the policy status of the page, including that no one believes this page to be an alternative paid disclosure policy (no RfC was held and no one added it to the page on meta; everyone involved was aware that explicit community approval was required). isaacl (talk) 14:23, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
SarahSV's suggestion and corresponding edit (along with moving around the policy banners, like with Wikipedia:Non-free content) seems like a smart way forward. Could also hold an RfC (à la "Should Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure be considered an English Wikipedia policy?") and figure out what the broad community thinks about this being a policy, which would fix your consensus concern. As for the extensive contradictory legal interpretations made in that discussion, the best way to solve this seems to be to email legal@wikimedia.org and ask them to comment.
But I don't think the way forward is a Schrödinger's cat-like state where the page is a policy in minds of some, not in the minds of others, and enforced as a "Wikipedia policy with legal considerations" regardless due to the banner at the top. It's either a policy or it isn't. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:50, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
This comes back to the onus question on the policy talk page, and the difficulty in establishing consensus when there are only a handful of commenters. I feel it should be the responsibility of the person who wants to label a page as policy (or add additional non-policy content to a page labeled policy) to initiate an RfC, but the editor felt the support on meta for the terms of use was sufficient. Once a discussion has started, generally I don't like editing a disputed section until a consensus is reached, particularly when some participants vehemently disagree. So it wasn't worth it for me when operationally it had no practical effect.
A couple of background points: at the time, the community had gone through many discussions on paid editing, including a period when multiple proposals were running in parallel. Having the WMF impose some rules cut through the Gordian knot of requiring English Wikipedia community consensus, and so a reluctance to hold yet another policy ratification discussion was understandable. (Plus the portions taken from the conflict of interest guideline were unlikely to be approved to remain, given that it had already failed to be promoted to a policy. There was only one original sentence on this page during its formative period, requiring paid contributors to disclose their status when participating in policy discussions related to paid editing.) When the revised terms of use were released, there were other editors who wanted to start an RfC on having an alternative policy, but they couldn't agree on an approach. I tried to broker a compromise, but failed. isaacl (talk) 20:20, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
More background: when the paid contribution disclosure requirement was added to the terms of use, in a discussion on whether or not English Wikipedia's conflict of interest guideline was an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy, Stephen LaPorte from WMF Legal wrote, "...no, this guideline is not an alternative disclosure policy contemplated under the Terms of Use. To adopt this as an alternative policy, there would need to be consensus to change the disclosure requirements in the Terms of Use. More detail is available in this FAQ. ... the consensus should refer to the Terms of Use to set an alternative. For example, see this proposal pending on commons." The English Wikipedia community has not held a discussion such as the one on Commons where Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure was approved as an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy. isaacl (talk) 00:13, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I'll try to keep this short, which means relying on my memory. I may have been mentioned above indirectly. When the Terms of Use change was passed 7 years ago, I was quite surprised to see a great deal of opposition to the idea, that it was not policy here, that it needed to be passed on enWiki before it was policy, etc. I thought and still think that was pure bull. 1000's of editors had !voted on Meta, at about 80% - 20% in favor. The Board of Trustees had approved the change. It is policy here.

Also according to the ToU change itself it can be strengthened in the usual way - all we need is a consensus to strengthen it. But what is a consensus? Like anything, that can be debated endlessly on Wikipedia - and decided by consensus!! Given the confusion on the policy question I've been very hesitant to "push this" as 100% policy - but I don't oppose anybody else considering it policy.

There are clearly 2 different ways to amend the policy given in the ToU change. Normal policy changes reflecting consensus, which are done all the time on other policies and we should be able to do here (most of the time). The exception is that if we want to reject or weaken the policy we have to go through the "alternate policy" route, which requires an RfC equivalent to those used to establish core policies on enWiki. The alternative policy route *could be* used for other purposes, such as strengthening the policy, while eliminating the requirement for a special RfC to weaken it, but I don't see why anybody would purposely do that. What does it take to establish a core policy on enWiki? I haven't seen any strict rule on that (maybe a few hints), but clearly a month long, well-advertised RfC with at least a 100 editors participating should be a minimum requirement. I'd personally say the maximum requirement wouldn't be too much more than that - say 200 editors. Also, it should clearly be stated that the *new core policy* is *not* meant to replace the *old core policy* i.e. the ToU change.

I suppose that after 7 years, we should clear up all the confusion about this. I'd support an extensive RfC to firmly confirm that this is a policy on enWiki. But if the RfC didn't pass, I don't think that we could say that it isn't a policy! I'd insist that we state beforehand that this is not intended as an "alternative policy" - that we retain the requirement of a very serious "core policy RfC" before weakening this policy below the requirements of the ToU change. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:17, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Again, everyone agreed the terms of use define a policy that applies to English Wikipedia. The dispute was regarding information copied from the conflict of interest guidance page, which has further procedures not covered by the terms of use. Placing them on this page and calling all of it a policy bypassed the multiple failures to promote the conflict of interest guideline to a policy. Now honestly I don't think it matters much in practice with what happens day-to-day, because admins continue to treat the procedures in the conflict of interest guideline the same way as before. But as a matter of principle, it seems odd that this page is now listed as an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy, when it's never gone through an approval process as laid out in the terms of use, and no one has ever considered it (or wanted it) to be an alternative policy before, given that the community has agreed it can layer on additional requirements without enacting an alternative policy. isaacl (talk) 19:58, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
I agree 100% that this is *not* an alternative policy. On a quick reading, I don't see anything in your comment immediately above that I disagree with. There are some sections in the policy that clarify or make more specific the ToU change - and I think they are needed as part of the policy. I think we could move the "How to change this policy" up two sections and then write: "The following are from a guideline related to this policy and should not be strictly considered part of this policy." Perhaps 2 or 3 paragraphs could be moved down below the "guideline divide", but I don't think the part on which template to use to declare, needs to be - that is just filling in a detail where it was needed.
Then perhaps we could take it to Village Pump (policy), require 100 positive votes, and make clear that this *is policy* but not *an alternative policy*. Thanks Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:39, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
As both ProcratinatingReader and you are amenable to altering the layout/format to clarify a separating between terms of use policy and other guidance, I can work on a draft along those lines. From an English Wikipedia perspective, as there's been no disagreement with the applicability of the terms of use, and the most significant addition, regarding disclosure in off-wiki communications, was approved by RfC, I don't feel it's a high priority to ratify a restructured page. From a meta perspective, I have no idea; an admin reinstated ProcrastinatingReader's edit after I reverted it, and protected the page. I think it's kind of a waste of time to hold an RfC to aver that the page did not go through the explicit procedure described by WMF Legal. isaacl (talk) 14:37, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
@Isaacl: For what it's worth, the protection wasn't because of your changes. I requested protection of the alternative disclosure policies page (meta:Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat/Archives/2021-08#Protection of Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies) given that it's mentioned in the terms of use as the central repository of the alternative paid contribution disclosure policies. More specifically, the TOU says that An alternative paid contribution policy will only supersede these requirements if it is approved by the relevant Project community and listed in the alternative disclosure policy page. This is why I requested protection and why it was applied, since anyone could basically go on there and potentially fuck with the way the terms of use are applied. This is also why in my mind it's such a high priority that we have an RfC. Right now it's unclear as to whether this disclosure is an "alternative disclosure policy" as deemed by the terms of use. Because if we want it to be, we need to fully protect ASAP given the legal implications of editing the page. If it isn't, then we need to have an RfC so the listing at meta gets changed. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 00:49, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

non-random convenience break

As I mentioned previously, there's never been an RfC to adopt this page as an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy, as required by the terms of use, and no one involved on this talk page has ever wanted to hold an RfC on adopting it. Listing the page on meta is only supposed to happen after community approval, so why do we need to have an RfC to remove it? isaacl (talk) 02:40, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
@Isaacl: Well, the only alternatives are a) do nothing or b) go over and have a discussion at meta on whether to remove the enwiki Paid Contribution Disclosure from the list. That discussion will essentially be about whether or not there was enough of a consensus here to keep the policy on the list. Regardless of whatever that consensus is, there's probably going to be people pissed off about the result and want to either repeal this as the alternative disclosure policy or definitively adopt it as the alternative disclosure policy.
If we just have the RfC on whether to adopt this as the alternative disclosure policy then we can avoid these issues entirely. I do agree with you that the paid contribution disclosure should not have been added without clearer consensus, but that's a fait accompli now and the fastest way to resolve this is just to have a 30 day RfC posted at centralized discussion so we can establish consensus on whether the above policy is an alternative disclosure policy. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:03, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
Why is it a fait accompli? Since the precondition was never met, it should be removable from the list of alternative policies (it was only added in December 2020). I've been involved in this page since its genesis and have followed conversations at the conflict of interest page as well as others, and I know of no one who wants to approve this page as an alternative policy, as no one (setting aside paid editors concerned about outing themselves) wants to weaken the conditions in the terms of use. isaacl (talk) 04:11, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
It's a fait accompli because it's already happened and the page has been fully protected. We're going to need some kind of consensus to remove it now. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 14:04, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
It's of course literally a done task, but the connotation of "fait accompli" is that it's not reversible. It's also literally a done task that no approving RfC was ever held. isaacl (talk) 14:19, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
@Smallbones: What we really need is an RfC on the very specific point on whether WP:PAID is intended to be an "alternative policy" as defined by the terms of use. Because right now it is considered one over at meta, being listed at meta:Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies which is explicitly mentioned in the TOU as the listing of alternative policies. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 00:41, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
It's just not an "alternative policy" and can't be changed by a simple local consensus. It would need to be changed by using the 2nd method listed in the policy (and in the ToU) which would need to include using "the project's standard consensus-based process for establishing core policies." FAQ. So you might as well go the "alternative policy" route directly - i.e. use the standard process for establishing core policies. There just no easier way to overturn the ToU. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:25, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
@Smallbones: See, you keep talking like this isn't an "alternative policy" yet. The fact is that this is listed, right now, at meta:Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies because ProcrastinatingReader decided to add it. [1] So this might already be an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy and may effectively become one if we don't do anything about it. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:15, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
As I said four years ago, guidance doesn't become policy because someone adds it to a list somewhere, or puts a label on it. A community consensus must be established to approve policy. And the terms of use and WMF Legal were explicit about requiring community approval (it's in the passage you quoted from the terms of use). isaacl (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
@Isaacl: It actually can, the ToS requires community consensus AND the addition to that specific list. I raised that concern (which is why the page was protected) as hypothetically I could've just gone over there and vandalized the Commons alternative disclosure policy out of the page and therefore reimplementing paid editing disclosure requirements on Wikimedia Commons for a period of time.
Also, given that addition to the list is predicated on there being community consensus, what we're effectively telling people is that there is community consensus for WP:PAID to be an alternative disclosure policy and that WP:PAID supersedes the Terms, despite the lack of community consensus. This is an issue because it's not true; we haven't had that consensus. That's why we need to clear this up ASAP. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:53, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
You said it yourself: both of those things must be true. Thus adding a page to a list somewhere doesn't by itself turn it into a policy. Note there's no need to ping me in conversations in which I'm actively participating.isaacl (talk) 05:29, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

@Isaacl: asked for a clarification on where the 2 methods of changing the policy come from. They are just the last 2 paragraphs of the ToU change:

"Applicable law, or community and Foundation policies and guidelines, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure."

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

The first method is just our usual method for changing policies (from the top paragraph above) "community ... policies ... may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure." Since community policies can be changed any time consensus changes, we can change this policy (or a related one) any time as long as it "further limit(s) paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure" than the ToU. What can't be done this way is to remove or revoke or weaken the ToU.

The other method is to make an "alternative policy" which does revoke the ToU, at least to the extent that it becomes a purely local policy and then doesn't need the extra steps ("The RfC must be conducted in a manner consistent with the standard consensus-based process for establishing core policies.") to change. It was never intended to make this an easy method. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:42, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I don't consider the first quoted paragraph to be a method to change the policy as laid out in the terms of use. It's, as you allude to, just acknowledging that other community guidance can also apply. isaacl (talk) 03:49, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
I think it's pretty much a semantic difference berween our interpretations now. The practical meaning is essentially identical now.
I will say that the last 2 paragraphs in the ToU change speak for themselves, and make up a slight majority of the words in the ToU change 91/174 = 52%, so it's not a meaningless part of the whole.
I participated in the discussion that let in the last paragraph and remember it very well. It turns out that this discussion came *after the BoT approved the change and told WMF legal to figure out how to properly implement it* (I'm not accusing anybody of trickery here). The approx 80% support votes were already in without the "alternative policy" paragraph in place. I made sure nobody was trying to change anything in the rest of the ToU change. The part that says "community ... policies ... may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure," is definitely part of the ToU change. The final paragraph was definitely not meant to be used casually. and requires a formal procedure. I don't think there's anything else for me to say here. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:04, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I'll comment here because my action on Meta-Wiki seems to have been a topic of discussion. When I was initially made aware of the dispute, it seemed least risky to leave the link to the English Wikipedia there during the discussion about whether it met the criteria to be an alternative paid contribution policy. This was an incorrect judgement of mine, and I apologize. The discussion there, having gone on for a little over a week now, seems to be at a general consensus that the English Wikipedia's paid editing policy does not meet the criteria for an alternative paid contribution policy, and the evidence in favor of that side is clear. The discussion here is in the same direction (and involving the same editors), and I have since removed the link. And Chess, for the future, it's often better to have a discussion or send an email than to assume the result. The fact that it is not an alternative paid contribution policy, as defined by the ToU, is clear and not requiring any sort of significant community discussion. My initial call was incorrect, and by no means was it intentional or irreversible. Best regards, and thank you all for your effort in reaching a resolution for this, Vermont (talk) 22:23, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

@Vermont: Thank you for the reality check. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 23:18, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks very much for your collaboration! isaacl (talk) 03:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Draft version identifying sections based on policy

I have created a draft at Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure/sandbox that has some rearrangement of text and labels specific sections as based on policy, using the {{Policy section}} template, as suggested by ProcrastinatingReader. Here is the diff between the two (if you haven't enabled the visual diff beta feature, here's a link to the visual diff for convenience). (A bot removed the page protection template from the sandbox page; it would of course would be preserved on the actual page.) Feedback is welcome. isaacl (talk) 04:38, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Mind if I make some edits directly? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be good to discuss approach first? For the most part, I kept all the text as it is, and only sought to rearrange the organization to separate out content under specific policies (terms of use, What Wikipedia is not, Administrators) and guidelines (conflict of interest). isaacl (talk) 23:51, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
The first policy tag at the top should be removed, since it generally indicates the whole page is policy. The second section should be changed to a BOT policy tag, like at m:UCOC. I would put the rest under an explanatory notes sub-section; the notes aren't policy themselves. Remove the {{main}} tags in the sections after. Delete the "Changing this page" section as SarahSV suggested originally. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:00, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I disagree with removing the {{main}} templates, as they indicate the underlying governing policies. I'm not strongly opinionated about creating an explanatory notes sub-section, but didn't really want to add a single second-level heading and all the other headings nested under it. I did not remove the "Changing this page" section (which incidentally I suggested originally), because Smallbones felt strongly about preserving it back then. By BOT policy tag, I guess you mean having a similar infobox as in the link you provided, stating that the policy was approved by the Board of Trustees? isaacl (talk) 00:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
But the policies are linked in the text?
The explanatory notes don't seem to be a policy of either the board or enwiki, so probably shouldn't be jumbled into the policy section IMO. And re the BOT tag, yes, because "This section documents an English Wikipedia policy" seems to not be true. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:12, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Separately, a structure like Wikipedia:Office actions when describing an external WMF policy might be better, since apparently only one subsection is enwiki policy, and the rest is a summation of other policies (ie, an info page). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:23, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
It does document an English Wikipedia policy by inheritance, just not a locally-defined English Wikipedia policy. But I have no objection to creating a custom infobox (I suppose with yet another attribution headache). I like pointing to the main pages to make it clear that the text derives from content on another page, and is not an independent policy paragraph. "Meaning of 'employer, client, and affiliation'" is largely taken from the terms of use FAQ, which is also policy. There are some small additional interpretations. I thought it would be awkward to place them into a separate section but we could try it. The first paragraph of "How to disclose" is taken from policy; the rest is additional explanation. "Disclosing accounts on Wikipedia and to clients" is part global policy from meta:Linking to external advertising accounts (which really should have triggered a change to the terms of use), and part local policy from the RfC on disclosing Wikipedia accounts to clients. isaacl (talk) 00:25, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Are there any other pages that describe a policy as "an English Wikipedia policy" when it hasn't went through WP:PROPOSAL and is actually a WMF policy? AFAIK all those are either redirects to meta, or info pages stating it's describing a WMF policy on meta. I mean there's stuff like Wikipedia:Copyrights but those are actually community-written policies I believe, just with "legal considerations" (presumably meaning that there are issues with writing things like "All text on Wikipedia is in the public domain.").
I still think the state of this page is weird. If it's not a community policy but a board one, then this is just regurgitating what the Board wrote and the WMF's application notes, and should be described as such. If however we can edit it, then it should be described as an English Wikipedia policy. Right now, it seems to me that it's a WP:INFOPAGE, just like WP:OFFICE, with only one subsection that's actually enwiki policy (Kevin's RfC on freelancer disclosures). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:34, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
This seems to be the same idea Sarah, who initially added the policy tag, had. [2] I think that's the best strategy here. The only other reasonable option seems to be to adopt this entire page as enwiki policy. All other options seem like a mess. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:40, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure/sandbox2 is my above thought in words, and seems to be what this page's actual status is at the moment? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:52, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I put different infoboxes at the start of the two sections that are documenting policy from the WMF/meta, and further separated out the content that are interpretations or has been approved by RfC on English Wikipedia. For better or worse, I'm constrained by knowing the past history and thus am trying to find a real-world consensus version (one that people can live with). isaacl (talk) 01:12, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Your current sandbox has at least my support to replace this page. There are details there I don't like but can live with. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:15, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks! For reference, here is the diff between the two sandboxes as of the current versions (visual diff). isaacl (talk) 01:26, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I also previously suggested returning to the original intent of this page and having one page to simply to hold the relevant passage from the terms of use and the rest of the content on another page. However there were editors who felt there should be more related information on one page, even if it resulted in copying info from other pages (which I disliked). For this initial reformatting, I haven't chosen to be that adventurous. isaacl (talk) 00:32, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Any other comments? For reference, here is the diff between the latest version of this page and the sandbox (visual diff). (These links don't point to a specific revision and so will always show the diff between the latest versions.) isaacl (talk) 14:22, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

If there are no further comments, then I will proceed to make the changes from the sandbox. isaacl (talk) 15:39, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I have merged the changes from the sandbox. isaacl (talk) 14:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Policy

If there are individual sections marked as policy, then what is the rest of the page? – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 08:18, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

@AssumeGoodWraith a slow response I'm afraid, but the remaining sections to me are either:
1) Brief summaries with links to actual policies. The text is too simplistic to be the policy of themselves, but they're pointers and guides.
2) Terms of Service aspects. This is, for example, the case for the amendment process. The TOS restricts paid editing, but specifically specifies that the local communities can amend it. This means it supercedes the usual rules on how we would amend PAGs. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:04, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Scientists as editors

Hypothetica question: Some scientists know everything about a certain subject and where content is concerned they are best placed to write about this subject on Wikipedia, references and all. Would it be a problem if they are in a job for the same expertise? Even if they work on Wikipedia in their own time?--Judithcomm (talk) 12:28, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

@Judithcomm: If they are working on Wikipedia in their own time, then there is definitely no problem and nothing needs to be disclosed. Things get trickier if they cite their own research - WP:SELFCITE or are writing about topics where they are at the cutting edge of knowledge as writing can tend towards original research. WP:EXPERT and Help:Wikipedia_editing_for_researchers,_scholars,_and_academics provide some advice. SmartSE (talk) 13:20, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
@Smartse: Thanks for the response and the link. I hadn't managed to find it on my own.--Judithcomm (talk) 13:33, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
This is the gap between science and copiers: a Nobel laureate can't remember who was the guy who copied part of his work in 1960. Now Wikipedia doesn't appreciate the first source and the second source has died. Jari Rauma (talk) 21:31, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
Some professors have educating the public as part of their job role, and so for them, the paid-contribution disclosure policy may be applicable. isaacl (talk) 16:30, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
  • It's not so hypothetical. Many Wikipedians are scientists or other experts that edit in their area of expertise. I think most would agree that this is a good thing, but we've also long recognised that it can lead to problems – see WP:EXPERT. But I don't think that WP:COI is the best way to approach the problem. If a subject-matter expert starts editing articles about their employer, themself, or their colleagues, that's a COI. If they're just generally editing subjects they know about, it isn't: although they might have an "interest" in educating the public about their subject, it is not a conflict of interest because that is also Wikipedia's mission. It starts us down the slippery slope to rendering COI meaningless: does a fan of heavy metal have an interest in promoting that genre? Do American editors have an interest in promoting the United States? And so on.
Personally I've thought about this a lot because I mainly edit topics related to my own field. I'm careful about touching on things I directly work on or citing my own publications (though I think WP:SELFCITE should be defended as a long-standing and justified exception to COI), partly out of an abundance of caution as someone with a reputation for being strict about COI with others, but mostly for practical reasons. If you're an expert in a narrow subject, it's hard to write about that subject in an encyclopaedic way: hard to put aside your knowledge of the details and write for a general audience, hard to stick to the "established" view when you might know it is outdated or wrong, hard to ignore things you know from upcoming literature or the grapevine that are not yet verifiable in the Wikipedia sense. Over time I've found that the most comfortable area is topics adjacent to, but not in, my own area of expertise: close enough that I can use my background knowledge of the field, but with enough distance that I can write about it like a Wikipedian and not a scientist. It's also why I think the best editors from academia are students, not established researchers or professors, because the more you develop expertise the more that comfort zone narrows. – Joe (talk) 07:09, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
Some scientists know everything about, then they have abandoned science.
they are best placed to write about this subject on Wikipedia. No, re-check WP:NOR. Instead: They are the best authors of sources to cite.
Would it be a problem if they are in a job for the same expertise?. Yes, it could be a problem. An “expert” is narrowly defined, and they probable obsess on their expertise, they could have NPOV issues, and they are probably too close to the best sources to make objective editorial decisions.
—- SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:11, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Do we have an example of a paid editor making general interest edits?

Does anyone know of an example of a paid editor who made Wikipedia editors unrelated to marketing, branding, or the promotion of a person or product?

Like for example, has a company like Starbucks ever funded a coffee expert to develop Wikipedia articles on coffee using academic research that no one would ever tie to the company, were it not for a paid editing disclosure?

I am a Wikimedian in Residence and I participate in meta:Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network. I also am at a university and participate in instances of the Wikipedia:Education program, which typically includes editing at the direction of professors. It has been a while since I checked in here at this paid editing board, and I wanted to ask if anyone has yet observed paid editing unrelated to marketing and instead for the benefit of sharing info that Wikipedia editors desire. Can anyone either point to an example, or just say that they have seen this if they do not want to point to the case? Thanks. Bluerasberry (talk) 18:23, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: The only case that comes to my mind is Lucas559's work for Doc James a few years ago. -- Dolotta (talk) 23:21, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
Thanks - that person was paid to post volunteer-created translations of Wikipedia's medical articles from Translators Without Borders. Bluerasberry (talk) 11:59, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
Lucas's work was more as a paid Wikipedian in Residence. We have lots of examples of such work. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:38, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Linking to external account

This policy requires paid editors to link to websites where they advertise/offer their services. Must the page they link to be publicly accessible(i.e. not require an account to view) if possible? 331dot (talk) 14:06, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

I think that this is an example of a really bad idea to begin with. However, given that most freelancer sites will require an account to view the pages, limiting it to publicly accessible pages only kills the (mistaken) intent of the policy. Creating an account to view the pages is generally free. - Bilby (talk)

Stock

The unblock request of Mnachtrab made me want to ask- Is owning stock in a company considered to be paid editing? (more so if you know you do) I guess technically a shareholder is not being paid to edit, but they do have a financial interest in the performance of the company in which they own stock. There's a reason that some want to ban members of the US Congress from holding stock. 331dot (talk) 09:34, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Financial conflict of interest is distinct from being paid to edit. Investing your own money in a company's stock doesn't make you a paid editor. isaacl (talk) 10:37, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

We make it really hard for paid editors to understand the rules

WP:PAID is the primary place we link paid editors, and we often ask them to summarise the key rules to us, or block them for violating them. One of the big ones is that (unless they're removing vandalism or similar) they should request the edit on the talk page (etc etc).

It obviously wouldn't be "loosening the TOS", so doesn't require a full-throttle RfC, but I did want to see if there was an issue with me adding a clear section on "what we expect from paid editors". Yes, it's not strictly part of disclosure but in terms of net-gain to the community it feels like it would be substantive #NOTBUREAU. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:47, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

The guidance on making a request is present in Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure § Conflict of interest guideline. The main tricky aspect on maintaining this page is that its contents are largely taken from other pages, and so the content has been separated accordingly to make it clear what comes from where (and the related status of the guidance). Nonetheless, I feel the sections do go over expectations: who is expected to disclose, how they should disclose, what things they are expected to disclose, editors shouldn't advertise their services, and editors with conflicts of interest should make edit requests. Perhaps you could provide an overview of any content you think should be added or expanded upon? isaacl (talk) 04:24, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
@Isaacl sorry, I'd missed you'd responded. Ultimately the lead is the section that is most ripe for improvement, I believe - it should be summarising what is most key to comply. In practical terms, that's a short paragraph on disclosure and a short paragraph on not making direct edits to live articles. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:49, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
I worry that we risk 'burying the lead' with sections like this. The nutshell of WP:COI is "do not edit Wikipedia in your own interests, nor in the interests of your external relationships". All the rest of that guideline and this one are about what we want COI editors do if they insist on ignoring that one overriding expectation: to not edit at all. But we already see that most motivated COI editors conveniently overlook the headline, and interpret the guidelines as saying "COI edits are fine as long as you stick to these rules". – Joe (talk) 10:06, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
Well, the lead says you must disclose, and the table of contents has a section "How to disclose", so I think that's helpful regarding disclosure. The guidance on not making direct edits is part of the conflict of interest guideline, which has a broader scope that encompasses paid editing. Perhaps we should be pointing paid editors to Wikipedia:Conflict of interest § Paid editing, which has a summary list of items to follow. isaacl (talk) 16:18, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Proposed changes to the Terms of Use

The Wikimedia Foundation is proposing changes to the Terms of Use (see meta:Wikimedia Foundation Legal department/2023 ToU updates). Most notably with respect to paid editing, the proposed changes include a new section on marketing company mediation. Any dispute regarding undisclosed paid editing is subject to binding mediation, at the Foundation's discretion. Please see the proposed changes for more details. isaacl (talk) 17:01, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Further note that meta:Wikimedia Foundation Legal department/2023 ToU updates/About provides an overview of the changes and some discussion of the motivation. I'm glad to see they took my suggestion (OK, I know they were likely completely unaware of it :-) to incorporate the requirement for a paid editor to disclose their Wikipedia accounts (that is, they incorporated Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure § Disclosures to clients into the proposed changes). isaacl (talk) 17:14, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

It is the usual legal rubbish from the WMF. Sounds cool and scary, but the reality is that they won't act to enforce it, so things will continue on as they do now. Change won't come from messing about with the paid editing parts of the ToU - it will come from changing what we do here. - Bilby (talk) 10:49, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
meta:Talk:Terms of use#Marketing Company Mediation has discussion of how mediation would be more cost-effective and thus more feasible to pursue. Of course we'll have to wait to see what happens. isaacl (talk) 16:04, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
Ok, so a paid editor has refused to disclose in spite of the ToU, and legal have sent them a letter telling them they have to. They know that there is only one possible outcome of mediation - that they will be told to disclose or to stop editing WP. So, if they ignored the ToU to engage in paid editing, why would they follow the ToU to take part in mediation? It is a stupid idea. If they are willing to ignore the ToU to make a profit on one thing, they are willing to ignore the ToU on another. - Bilby (talk) 21:04, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
From the discussion: "We would attempt to get a court order in the company's jurisdiction, asking the court to compel the entity to show up to video-conference mediation (in any country of their choosing). This is a standard practice to enforce, so although we cannot predict it would be 100% effective in every circumstance in every jurisdiction, it's an effective practice with lots of precedents in international contract law. And even a failed court order would be magnitudes cheaper than litigation." (I know you've opened a discussion on the Terms of Use talk page already, so discussion can proceed directly with WMF Legal there.) isaacl (talk) 21:22, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
But they have already said that they are unwilling to take paid editors to court as it costs too much. So they'll take them to court in order to force them to mediation, pay for the court order, presumably pay for the mediation, and then presumably pay to enforce it, and this will be cheaper than just taking them to court in the first place?
Relaistically, this is going to be like every other time the WMF talk about acting on paid editors. They propose something, say that it will make it easier, and then never act on it because it is too expensive to do this across multiple jurisdictions. Especially when you consider how many paid editors are not based in the US. I'm not opposed to doing something, but what we do needs to accept that we won't go chasing people around the world in courts. - Bilby (talk) 22:54, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I believe them when they say it will be cheaper. Will it be cheap enough? I agree that remains to be seen. Nonetheless, these questions are better posed in your other thread (and responded to by the legal team). isaacl (talk) 23:05, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
There won't really be an answer. When we added the requirement that paid editors disclose accounts on pages where they advertise, the WMF explained how that would help them catch paid editors and pursue them. Yet they are unwilling to say even how many paid editors they have tried to contact over this. These's no wish for transperancy, so even if this passes - and it will - we will never be given an idea if it worked or not. Given that, they'll handwave at it and say that it will be cheaper and this time they will be able to enforce it, and meanwhile we still won't be making any real changes to address paid editing. But yes, I'll wait for the non-answers there. - Bilby (talk) 23:33, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
Well, the community is free to come to agreement on other changes independently. (The hard part is that English Wikipedia's consensus-based decision-making traditions stalemate major process changes, but it's an entirely internal issue.) isaacl (talk) 00:52, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
Perhaps, but it will be much harder to make a case for change here if it appears that the WMF are doing something, especially if there is no means of knowing if what the WMF are doing is effective or not. - Bilby (talk) 05:07, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
I've not heard objections to changes based on relying on the WMF's actions (though I have heard editors express their desire for the WMF to do something), but of course our experiences are different. isaacl (talk) 05:16, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

How to measure paid editing

I'm been thing about one of the issues with tackling undisclosed paid editing, in that we don't really have a picture of how much paid editing is going on (beyond "a lot"), so therefore we can't tell if paid editing is increasing, decreasing, or neither.

I did think at counting job ads and acceptances on sites such as Upwork, but sampling that is difficult, and that measures at most demand and not how much then occurs. So my first thought is to write code to identify articles created almost complete in one edit by new editors with under 20 previous edits behind them. But that picks up the more experienced paid editors, and it won't pick up the newer ones, so you would only be counting the impact on a particular subset. That might be enough, but are there any other behaviours which would tend it indicate "paid" and which could be picked up programatically? - Bilby (talk) 05:14, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

@Bilby: I wrote Wikipedia:Measuring conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia a few years ago for one approach.
Also I organized meta:Research:Automatic Detection of Online Abuse, which could be a model for detecting any class of users like the paid editors you describe. If you want to talk it through then say more. Bluerasberry (talk) 19:53, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

I asked a paid editor to contribute their org's media and expertise

If anyone cares to comment then please do.

I am not aware of other precedents in which Wiki editors have asked paid editors to give content in their field of expertise. Thoughts from anyone? Bluerasberry (talk) 19:57, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

As I noted at the policy Village Pump, there is a potential conflict of interest for paid editors in editing articles in a field of expertise related to the employer's business. Wikipedia:Conflict of interest § External roles and relationships has a bit of discussion. The example I gave at the Village Pump is if the Animation article had a disclaimer that it was edited by the communications department of the Walt Disney Company, it might raise some doubts in the minds of readers regarding the article's neutrality. isaacl (talk) 22:21, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

How to disclose

Regarding this edit: if it could be clarified which details are being referred to in the edit summary, then the concern can be addressed. If it's a question of the parameters to the templates, details can be added. For example: Editors who are or expect to be compensated for their contributions must disclose their employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any paid contributions. They must do this on their main user page, or on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or in edit summaries. Disclosure on user pages may be done using the {{paid}} template as follows: {{paid|employer=name of employer|client=name of client}}. The conflict of interest guideline further advises editors to supply a clearly visible list of their paid contributions on their main user page (see the {{paid}} template documentation for instructions). Disclosures on the talk page for the page in question may be done using the {{connected contributor (paid)}} template (see its documentation for instructions). isaacl (talk) 17:34, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

If anyone has feedback on the sample text, it would be appreciated. Note all of the content is drawn from the conflict of interest guideline, as referenced in the "Further information" note at the start of the section. isaacl (talk) 21:54, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

I propose changing the text as described in the sample text. isaacl (talk) 21:15, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Note I plan to implement this proposal. isaacl (talk) 16:18, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
I have implemented the proposal. isaacl (talk) 22:27, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Suggested addition

I want to suggest linking from this page to:

I got this idea from the recent drama over Jimmy Wales being fooled by someone who had been scammed by such a website into thinking that a respected editor here was an undisclosed paid editor. That made me think that it would be useful to make more users aware of the issue of such scams. This could be in the form of "see also" or "further information" at the top of a section. I'm open to discussion as to which section. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:57, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good fit for this page, other than possibly in a "See also" section at the bottom. It's targeted at paid editors and is an elaboration of the relevant section in the terms of use. Although I don't know how to get the target audience of business owners or other self-promoting people to read it, I think a page whose message is specifically focused on them is a better choice. isaacl (talk) 22:09, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm OK with a see also section for them. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:12, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
I've just added them, as a See also section. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:31, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I want to ensure that I'm fully disclosing my paid contributor status. (apologies if this is a duplicate topic)

It is a bit confusing, and I believe that I've correctly added my paid contributor status on my User page, but I want to ensure that I do everything properly & in accordance with Wikipedia Paid-contribution disclosure processes. At this time, the main focus of my contributions will to make substantial updates to our GunBroker.com page that has outdated information and is lacking several key details. I will ensure that, wherever possible, external citations such as SEC filings & other reputable sources are used. Can anyone help fill me in if I need to follow more steps? Also, how do I ensure that my source edits are properly attributed as paid-disclosed? Thank you in advance. LoVeloDogs (talk) 20:53, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for being conscientious in making this disclosure! What you should do, going forward, is to not edit GunBroker.com directly. Instead, make postings at Talk:GunBroker.com, where you should say explicitly that you are a paid editor, and describe exactly what edits you would like to make. Then, other editors can make the actual edits for you. If your proposed edits are factual and well-sourced, there should be no problem. If other editors have any issues about your sourcing or anything else, they will tell you, and you can discuss it with them. (Maybe I'm leaving something out, and others watching here will add to what I've said.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:27, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for your timely & concise reply! This information is exactly what I was looking for. LoVeloDogs (talk) 22:41, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
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