Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Integrity/Archive 1
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I posted here about WP:COI+ once before, but there's been a lot of development over the past months to make it a more streamlined proposal. I'd love you to take a look and leave feedback.
I intend for COI+ to seek a middle ground between the current ambiguity of WP:COI and the severity of Bright Line prohibitions on any direct editing. This is particularly important because the community has identified that there is some problem with WP:COI but also found no consensus to outright ban paid editing.
- The 2009 RfC to ban paid editing closed with no consensus.
- The 2012 RfC on COI closed with no consensus as well.
- For as many people who have supported a prohibition on direct editing there is another editor who calls COI a distraction and cites WP:NPOV as the only relevant policy.
For those reasons, I simply don't believe that Bright Line will ever gain consensus. I also happen to think it's not ideal, as it could drive paid advocates under ground, it has no requirement for disclosure, and it offers no reasonable assurance to paid advocates of a timely response to their suggested changes.
COI+ is designed to address each of those concerns:
- COI+ would appeal to paid advocates by welcoming them to the community, educating them about our mission and policies, and guiding them towards constructive interaction;
- COI+ would require disclosure--in triplicate--on user pages, relevant article talk pages, and with links to COI declarations in comment signatures
- COI+ would set a 1 month time limit on edit requests: if no editor even responded to a paid advocate's suggestions or proposed changes within a month--after going through talk pages, help boards, noticeboards, and OTRS--then a paid advocate could make a change directly, if they left clear notice on the article talk page and at the COI noticeboard.
I am drafting a Signpost op-ed introducing COI+ to run in the next month or two, with an RfC to follow. At first COI+ would merely be an aspirational, voluntary agreement. It could, however, be a bridge forward towards a more comprehensive, instructive, and hopefully effective guideline for COI editors and particularly paid advocates. I'd love to hear any thoughts you have about it. Ocaasi t | c 17:11, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
- Er, well, you're probably not going to win over too many hearts and minds here by talking about "the severity of Bright Line prohibitions on any direct editing". Bright Line is an extremely liberal and lax policy, which allows the Wikipedia to be gamed shamelessly. A more reasonable policy would be "If you are being paid to engage in reputation management for a client, you should instead go away now. Go corrupt Yelp or somebody else".
- Framing the issue in this way reminds me a bit of the Sunday morning talk shows -- you know, "Today we have a conservative who maintains that poor people should be shot like dogs, and a liberal who holds that they should only be imprisoned at hard labor". This is not a useful discussion to have, I don't think.
- Of course you are correct that this can't be stopped. After all, it's a wiki. Anyone can write whatever they want for any reason they want. (There are some exceptions, but even these are not absolute.) However, rather than just throwing up our hands, we should fight, I would say. "Driv[ing] paid advocates underground", if it were possible, would certainly be a good start and a far sight better than allowing them into the clubhouse, for instance.
- I mean, I'll look at it, but if you're looking for ways to "appeal to paid advocates by welcoming them to the community" and offer "reasonable assurance to paid advocates of a timely response" (sorry, Mr Peabody sir, we'll clean up your article right away) and so on, I think you're more likely to get a positive response at the Cooperation project.
- Sorry to be discouraging, but my experience is that "disclosure" has essentially zero value here. If this was a newspaper or magazine or other entity with an editorial staff, then "Full disclosure: I was paid big bucks by the subject to write the following material" would be grounds for instant rejection. However, it's different here. For one thing, the biggest contingent of editors here are Americans, and as the saying goes "the business of American is business"; private entities are especially valorized here. Beyond that, we have, even more than America in general, a large contingent of people who are eager to carry water for private entities -- whether they are libertarians, babbits manque, kids who are naive and/or just flattered by the opportunity, or whatever. Disclosing that one is a paid agent is not going to get the response "Hmmm, I wonder what this person is leaving out or spinning" from a lot of people; they'll take the material at face value even so. So speaking just for myself, no, I don't think disclosure is particularly helpful, although a number of people do hold that it's helpful, so I could be wrong about that. Herostratus (talk) 03:01, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
- I understand your position. I still hold that disclosure is better than the alternative and we will especially attract constructive corporate/for-profit editors with that stance. In fact, several COI editors I talk tell me that their job/company/ethics board/membership organization formally requires disclosure. I don't see why we wouldn't want to take advantage of that. As for Bright Line being too 'lax', well the community has never found consensus for even that, so what's the chance they'll find consensus for something even more stand-offish? COI+ has a chance of actually being supported by the community. What matters to me is that it's a significant improvement over the current state of affairs--which is admittedly vague and toothless--not that it's perfect. I still want you to comment at the proposal talk page, and ultimately in the RfC. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 05:29, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- Guess we'll have to agree to disagree on whether disclosure is better than the alternative, then. I don't agree that there's no consensus for Bright Line and don't think you should say that. Let me ask you instead: show me where the community has, at any time or in any place shown consensus -- that is, general agreement, or at any rate a clear and large supermajority -- for the idea that paid agents should edit articles directly specifically for the purpose of enhancing their clients reputation. You can't. The community has expressed no such consensus. Framing the issue in ways that conceal this is not helpful, and you should probably stop doing that, I'd say.
- It is true that some -- many, probably -- members and associates of this WikiProject do support the idea that paid agents should be allowed here, but if and only if they go disclose their position, in one way or another. However, you shouldn't misunderstand this; it's only a tactical position. It's not as if these people aren't hated and feared; they are. The only disagreement is over the best way, tactically, to control them. Herostratus (talk) 07:10, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- I'm content with agreeably disagreeing, but I do think we're somewhat closer than it appears. Bright line prohibitions on any direct editing failed to gain consensus in both the 2009 RfC and the 2012 RfC. That's just a fact, albeit an unfortunate one from your perspective. As for consensus that paid agents should edit articles to enhance their clients reputation, that's not even wrong, because it's obviously banned by WP:NPOV and WP:NOT. The question is, are 'paid agents' prohibited from making a neutral, well-sourced contribution? The answer WP:COI provides is "No. But they are 'very' strongly discouraged from doing any editing." That is why I believe COI+ is arguably more strict than WP:COI. I understand the tactical position and I have no qualms with being pragmatic. I also want to avoid harm to Wikipedia, I just have a different idea about how to accomplish that. I also think it's harmful when public relations professionals say, I tried to Wikipedia to fix an error and I was banned/reverted/ignored. I think we can make some improvements to turn those conflicts into opportunities. Thanks for voicing your disagreement so conscientiously. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 07:27, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- I think you're misapprehending a key fact: It's generally impossible to get consensus on anything here. One definition of "consensus" is "unanimity". We don't use that strict a definition, but we do use something akin to "general agreement". That can be taken to mean more or less "most everyone, not counting a few bitter-enders, trolls, people who just don't get it, and maybe a very small scattering of others". Well good luck getting that for a major policy proposal. In the early days it was different, but the last really major proposal I remember going through was WP:BLP, and that was -- what, six? -- years ago, and it was heavily pushed by the foundation and addressed a problem that was both clearly bad and possibly existential, plus SlimVirigin is very good at politics I guess. Now, this does not apply to minor policy points, or to points that might seem minor (such as someone slipping a word into a policy that substantially changes the meaning), or low-attendance forums such as policies on how Mongolian is to be transliterated. None of these apply to COI+, though.
- To drill down more specifically, in order to get COI+ accepted as a policy, you will need to meet one of these four criteria:
- Consensus, which is (to simplify) basically everyone agreeing. Well that is not going to happen.
- Or a supermajority agreeing. This is iffy because of the possibility of sockpupppets, outside interests (single-purpose accounts), general confusion, and other things. The definition of a "supermajority" varies (I think there's some material on this somewhere) but I think it's around 67% to 75% depending on the case. The more important the case the higher a supermajority required, I believe. Well you're not going to get 75% of Wikipedians to agree on anything, so that's out.
- Or a clear preponderance of argument such that most any reasonable and informed person would agree that one side has the superior argument. That's not going to happen here.
- Or an out-of-process action such as person closing the proposal with a decision even though none of the above is met. This can and does happen with minor issues but cannot happen with a major and well-attended and fraught issue like COI+.
- So none of this is going to happen, I would bet. However, discussing it is good and useful. It's good to raise the point and this fine work, and I'm not denying that.
- Here's something else: given the above, I could if I wished propose a policy along the lines of "Paid advocacy editing, including direct editing of articles, shall be allowed. Certain restrictions will presumably apply, and we will propose those later, but we want to establish this basic point first".
- Well of course that would fail, and I could then say "Well, look, the community very clearly declined to accept the proposition that paid advocacy editing of articles should be allowed under any conditions". Probably I should do this, just to stop you from saying the converse ("the community very clearly declined to accept the proposition that paid advocacy editing of articles should not be allowed").
- You see what I'm saying? You see what I did there? Now up to this point I'm willing to grant that you just didn't realize this point and were not intentionally gaming the issue for polemical purposes. However, now that I've pointed this, you don't have this excuse anymore, so you can stop doing that now.
- If you don't, then I will have to drop other tasks and go ahead and advance a proposal along the lines of "Paid advocacy editing, including direct editing of articles, shall be allowed. Certain restrictions will presumably apply, and we will propose those later, but we want to establish this basic point first", and then after it fails maybe you (and others) will stop doing that. Hopefully I won't have to go through this pointless and time-consuming exercise. Herostratus (talk) 16:16, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- I'm far, far too politically naive to have anticipated that tactic. And if I appeared to do so it would be out of obtuseness not intent. I actually like, believe, support, and understand COI+. I haven't thought past the RfC except to think that if it gets rejected for conflicting with WP:COI than I'd have to propose it in a different RfC altogether which seeks to clarify the policy and resolve the discrepancy. Really, I'm a bit nauseated by those kinds of tactics and I don't plan to engage in them. I will continue advocating for what I think is the best policy but not with tricks. I believe that COI+ has a chance because the alternative is infinite conflict. The camps are entrenched, the on-the-ground problem grows, and nothing is changing. COI+ is a voluntary protocol to try out a way out of that mess. If it works, great, maybe it could influence policy. If it fails, that's fine, maybe I can influence policy. In any case, I actually like your hypothetical RfC proposal and it's basically exactly what I would seek should COI+ fail on policy grounds. I agree that consensus is hard especially for controversial subjects but I crafted COI+ to be at least tolerable by all sides. So that they can say at least,"Well, I don't like it, but I prefer it to the impassable status quo." I'm a pragmatist, and I think this is something we can do better without harming our core principles. Just my approach, others will try theirs, I just think mine could actually work and gain 'consensus'. Ocaasi t | c 18:31, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- OK, I see where you are coming from, in one sense: you are genuinely trying to craft a proposal that will achieve consensus and be adopted. This is admirable, and a lot better than sniping from the sidelines or just proposing vague ideas without doing the hard of work of crafting an actual reasonable proposal, which is what a lot editors do. So so far so good, and congratulations and a hat tip for that. Speaking just for myself, I think your prospects for success are dim, per the four numbered points I outlined above. I could be wrong about that, though.
- Beyond that, I myself don't support COI+. But then I am pretty far left on this matter, and other good-faith watchers of this page might think it's the best compromise that can be achieved. I wish you good luck on a personal level as a hard-working, thoughtful, well-spoken, and apparently nice editor (more of which we can always use). I can't wish you good luck on actually shepherding the proposal through to adoption, though, as I oppose it on the merits.
- As far as my other, smaller point above (the the failure of the community to accept Bright Line as a policy doesn't really mean anything), I (think I) understand where you are coming from: the community has declined to support Bright Line, so you are like "OK that's a dead letter, so let's see what we can do that we can get adopted". That's a reasonable response. I'm just saying that if the sequence of events had played out such that it been proposed (and rejected, as I think likely) that paid-agent direct editing of articles was to be permitted at all, ever, then we'd be in a different place. I suppose then you might be like "OK direct editing is a dead letter, so let's see if we can maybe craft a Bright-Line-type solution that can be adopted". You'd do this, I guess, if your main motivation was to construct whatever solution is adoptable and thus end the uncertainty and bickering.
- If this does describe you, you probably have a technocratic bent ("Let's just solve the problem"), which I personally find admirable generally. Most people aren't that way, so I dunno how far you're going to get with this, though. Herostratus (talk) 02:43, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
- I'm far, far too politically naive to have anticipated that tactic. And if I appeared to do so it would be out of obtuseness not intent. I actually like, believe, support, and understand COI+. I haven't thought past the RfC except to think that if it gets rejected for conflicting with WP:COI than I'd have to propose it in a different RfC altogether which seeks to clarify the policy and resolve the discrepancy. Really, I'm a bit nauseated by those kinds of tactics and I don't plan to engage in them. I will continue advocating for what I think is the best policy but not with tricks. I believe that COI+ has a chance because the alternative is infinite conflict. The camps are entrenched, the on-the-ground problem grows, and nothing is changing. COI+ is a voluntary protocol to try out a way out of that mess. If it works, great, maybe it could influence policy. If it fails, that's fine, maybe I can influence policy. In any case, I actually like your hypothetical RfC proposal and it's basically exactly what I would seek should COI+ fail on policy grounds. I agree that consensus is hard especially for controversial subjects but I crafted COI+ to be at least tolerable by all sides. So that they can say at least,"Well, I don't like it, but I prefer it to the impassable status quo." I'm a pragmatist, and I think this is something we can do better without harming our core principles. Just my approach, others will try theirs, I just think mine could actually work and gain 'consensus'. Ocaasi t | c 18:31, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- I'm content with agreeably disagreeing, but I do think we're somewhat closer than it appears. Bright line prohibitions on any direct editing failed to gain consensus in both the 2009 RfC and the 2012 RfC. That's just a fact, albeit an unfortunate one from your perspective. As for consensus that paid agents should edit articles to enhance their clients reputation, that's not even wrong, because it's obviously banned by WP:NPOV and WP:NOT. The question is, are 'paid agents' prohibited from making a neutral, well-sourced contribution? The answer WP:COI provides is "No. But they are 'very' strongly discouraged from doing any editing." That is why I believe COI+ is arguably more strict than WP:COI. I understand the tactical position and I have no qualms with being pragmatic. I also want to avoid harm to Wikipedia, I just have a different idea about how to accomplish that. I also think it's harmful when public relations professionals say, I tried to Wikipedia to fix an error and I was banned/reverted/ignored. I think we can make some improvements to turn those conflicts into opportunities. Thanks for voicing your disagreement so conscientiously. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 07:27, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
- I understand your position. I still hold that disclosure is better than the alternative and we will especially attract constructive corporate/for-profit editors with that stance. In fact, several COI editors I talk tell me that their job/company/ethics board/membership organization formally requires disclosure. I don't see why we wouldn't want to take advantage of that. As for Bright Line being too 'lax', well the community has never found consensus for even that, so what's the chance they'll find consensus for something even more stand-offish? COI+ has a chance of actually being supported by the community. What matters to me is that it's a significant improvement over the current state of affairs--which is admittedly vague and toothless--not that it's perfect. I still want you to comment at the proposal talk page, and ultimately in the RfC. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 05:29, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Herostratus. There is rarely consensus for anything - COI least of all - and it is not a tactic, but a good point that there is no consensus for or against the Bright Line. In my view, it is much more productive to give editors "advice" based on real-world legal precedence than for Wikipedia to seek to "regulate" or "enforce" itself. We can hardly enforce our own policies anywhere that is not closely watched, neither alone enforce standards in the real-world.
Ocaasi's efforts like COI+ are extremely sympathetic, while Herostratus is aggressive. Hero's tactics would not only drive paid editing underground, but essentially stand by articles that are shameless attack pages and tell those the articles represent they have no recourse.
Consensus is impossible. What is needed is compromise between editors like Ocaasi and Hero, so we can figure out what is most practical in most cases. CorporateM (Talk) 15:04, 20 January 2013 (UTC) (Frequent COI contributor)
Yelp!
I'll have more to say about this presently. Herostratus (talk) 05:02, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
The more I have to say is this: this inspired me to create {{Corrupt (organization)}}, which we probably ought to deploy.
If it was up to just me, I'd love to add something along the lines of "Some Wikipedians abhor this situation and feel that actions such as boycotting the offending organizations are in order", but I suppose that, though the statement is certainly true, this might be a bridge too far. Maybe not though. Herostratus (talk) 05:10, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
- Boycotting? That sounds rather excessive to me.
- I tried tweaking the wording slightly; often the most problematic promotional editing is by the subject of an article rather than somebody they explicitly hired to promote them. There's not much point having a template with dire warnings of the problems of promotion, if it's not applicable to some of the worst self-promoting articles. (And having two very similar templates would create new problems needlessly). Does the new wording look OK? bobrayner (talk) 12:46, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Tone down the goals?
Can we make the goals and principles a little tamer? I hesitated to put my name on here because I don't really agree with a lot of that stuff, even though I support collaboration in investigating and remediating secretive paid advocacy. Gigs (talk) 19:50, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
- Tone down? I think not. I think this: if an editor is paid to do so, they should be proud and declare it, in each and every edit summary {"$e" or "Paid edit"), or get out (btw, don't edit articles not paid for - pro is pro, after all). I'm so far right on this, I think this project is weak, and COI+ is even weaker, and everyone at CU who professes "we don't fish" and elects not to root out paid and COI editors and socks should be replaced, because they are, each and every one of them, betraying and undermining Wikipedia's independence and credibility. Tone down nothing. --Lexein (talk) 12:46, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
- Cannot tell if Poe's Law....but whatever the case, disallowing someone from working on most articles because they happened to be a so-called 'paid editor' is 100% contrary to the entire point of Wikipedia. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:35, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
- Lexein, I think this wikiproject could be a valuable way to collaborate in investigation and monitoring of covert paid editing. As you said, SPI/CU often won't do it, as they don't consider it within their scope. COIN fills part of that role, but I think there are other ways we can improve on that. But having such extremist stated goals undermines that I think. People aren't going to want to be associated with this and its extremist platform, which isn't even entirely self-coherent (is the problem overt editing or covert?). I know I was very reluctant to even get involved here because of it. Gigs (talk) 14:20, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
- Well, if a wide range of opinions isn't allowed, why ask questions? I think Wikipedia has the right to strongly defend itself against opportunist manipulation, overt or covert. Two recent events inform my opinion, I can write about them publicly or privately. --Lexein (talk) 15:58, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
- Sure it's allowed, but that kind of stuff is better in an essay than as the goals of a Wikiproject. I think focusing on extremism here is going to damage the credibility of the Wikiproject and its real potential as a tool to coordinate investigations and remediation of covert and abusive biased editing. A lot of editors interested in this topic area are going to wind up "working both sides of the fence" in the future as we have more promotional editors disclosing and wanting to do the right thing. I'm a prime example of this. I'm one of the primary drafters of the latest proposal on paid advocacy, yet I'm working with some declared COI editors as we speak. Gigs (talk) 16:37, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
- Well Gigs you have a point in that the pages need to be updated and some material clarified so forth (I hope to do some work on that presently). To answer your specific question ("is the problem overt editing or covert?"), I can't speak for anyone else, but I'd say both. (For an analogy, imagine that some people in your state are giving bribes to judges under the table, while others are giving bribes openly (imagine for this thought experiment that they can do this). Would it be helpful to frame the situation as "Well, is the problem the covert bribery, or the open bribery? After all, it can't be both". I wouldn't find that a helpful way to frame the situation.)
- Now, what we do have here are, to borrow from Margaret Thatcher, "wets" and "drys". "Drys" believe that paid reputation-management editing should be excoriated, its practitioners shamed and driven from the Wikipedia in disgrace (while recognizing that this not possible and the net effect will be just to drive it underground, but for various reasons believing that this is still the best course.)
- "Wets" also believe that in an ideal world we would drive aid reputation-management editing from the Wikipeia, but since it's not possible, it's better to encourage paid reputation-management editors to self-declare (and offer some incentives for this), so that at least they can be monitored. So in that sense Wets are in favor of allowing overt editing, but only for tactical reasons as the lesser of two evils. But wets and drys both disdain paid reputation-management editors, I'd think it safe to say.
- I see where you're coming from, though. If I'm guessing correctly, you see open and declared paid reputation-management editing as nothing to much worry about (or maybe even a positive good), but covert paid reputation-management editing as a problem, a problem worth tracking. Hmmm. You're wetter than wet, but the help and support of people like you would be valuable, yes. I'll consider how to address your point of view in the coming days.
- One problem is that we're not really set up here to deal with covert paid reputation-management editing, here on the Wikipedia. There are plenty of editors who are pretty obviously corrupt, but its not something that you can say out loud, so I dunno. One can't say, "look at X, Y, and Z, it's stone-cold obvious that User:CorruptHack is corrupt". We are enjoined to assume good faith, and if the user proclaims innocence, there's no where much to go with that information. (We could follow him around and clean up after him, is all). There's not even really a place to go and say "it defies credibility that person is not corrupt, ban him" because there isn't really any rule against being corrupt. There should be, but probably never will be, so I don't know... I've suggested before that this sort of thing needs to be done off-wiki, maybe...
- I'm looking at the SlimVirgin thing, and one thing I have a big problem with is "Paid advocates may suggest changes on article talk pages". In practice, this devolves to "Paid advocates may post a completely new, entirely re-written version of their client's article, which presents their client in an entirely favorable light, on the articles talk page. Paid advocates may include in this new version such GA-worthy enticements as plenty of properly formatted refs, lots of attractive pictures, proper sectioning and formatting and professional-level prose and so forth. Paid advocates may then be assured that some other editor will happily post the new version (perhaps with unimportant changes) over the existing article, and Bob's your uncle. Paid advocate need not concern himself over the second editors motivation -- whether he valorizes private entities generally, or is naive and credible, or just likes to please, or was seduced by the all the GA-level goodies, or whatever -- but is free to enjoy his well-earned steak dinner in good conscience." Herostratus (talk) 02:22, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
- That's a reasonable summary. If I'm wetter than wet though, the community at large must be "fully immersed", since a lot of people consider even my positions radical. Meanwhile the goal statements on this project are so far dry that they would even ban things like the reward board if taken literally. Gigs (talk) 18:20, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
- OK, I'll take a look at that presently. Herostratus (talk) 06:17, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
- That's a reasonable summary. If I'm wetter than wet though, the community at large must be "fully immersed", since a lot of people consider even my positions radical. Meanwhile the goal statements on this project are so far dry that they would even ban things like the reward board if taken literally. Gigs (talk) 18:20, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
- Sure it's allowed, but that kind of stuff is better in an essay than as the goals of a Wikiproject. I think focusing on extremism here is going to damage the credibility of the Wikiproject and its real potential as a tool to coordinate investigations and remediation of covert and abusive biased editing. A lot of editors interested in this topic area are going to wind up "working both sides of the fence" in the future as we have more promotional editors disclosing and wanting to do the right thing. I'm a prime example of this. I'm one of the primary drafters of the latest proposal on paid advocacy, yet I'm working with some declared COI editors as we speak. Gigs (talk) 16:37, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
- Well, if a wide range of opinions isn't allowed, why ask questions? I think Wikipedia has the right to strongly defend itself against opportunist manipulation, overt or covert. Two recent events inform my opinion, I can write about them publicly or privately. --Lexein (talk) 15:58, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
- Lexein, I think this wikiproject could be a valuable way to collaborate in investigation and monitoring of covert paid editing. As you said, SPI/CU often won't do it, as they don't consider it within their scope. COIN fills part of that role, but I think there are other ways we can improve on that. But having such extremist stated goals undermines that I think. People aren't going to want to be associated with this and its extremist platform, which isn't even entirely self-coherent (is the problem overt editing or covert?). I know I was very reluctant to even get involved here because of it. Gigs (talk) 14:20, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
- Cannot tell if Poe's Law....but whatever the case, disallowing someone from working on most articles because they happened to be a so-called 'paid editor' is 100% contrary to the entire point of Wikipedia. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:35, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Though perhaps not with his tone specifically, I agree with Hero on a second count to an extent. I think there is honorable work to do here and the "steak dinner" comment is not representative of the size of corporate Wikipedia budgets (I'll give you a hint, zero companies have a dedicated budget for Wikipedia). Wikipedians frequently say companies have "millions of dollars to throw at the problem" when in actuality the worst behavior comes from people that are paid $20.
A company could have a generally negative reputation and through cherry-picking, etc. write what appears to be a neutral article, but is in actuality quite bias. For example, I came across the Lifelock article a while back. I could see how - if the article didn't exist - it could be written in a much more favorable light and the editor reviewing it at AfC would be none the wiser. Disclosure is a step in the right direction, but it's not a fix-all.
The re-writes are done by someone like WWBTOO or myself, but the majority of PR participation is not done this way and I don't think it's representative to focus on editors like us, which are a small minority.
I agree with Hero that editors are not customer service for PR and making promises on timeline is not appropriate, unless of course it is an issue of defamation or clear factual errors, where we should feel a greater responsibility to make sure Wikipedia is accurate and fair.
I think there is a sense that Wikipedia's neutrality is so holy, that even the slightest skew from neutral is an offense, but in practice articles on companies is a junk-yard and editors themselves have bias that often exceeds that of a paid editor. A GA article may still have very minor issues of bias, but its neutrality would still far exceed that of most company articles. CorporateM (Talk) 15:32, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
- I think CorporateM has made a really good point here. The worst behaviour that I've seen emerge from COI editing has been from the kind of editor you can hire for $5 on certain websites where "freelancers" tout their IT skills - I've seen copyvio, drastic distortion of what sources say, &c. However, this has been on articles about relatively obscure topics. When RandomMegacorp decides to ask somebody to spend a week improving their article, that person is much more likely to follow en.wikipedia's rules. bobrayner (talk) 15:55, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
- Well, you're right. I think that far and away the most slanting in Wikipedia is probably by unpaid folks who just have a person point of view. Several areas where people feel strongly -- religious, political, ethnic, etc. are prone to this. Of course, that's entirely out of the purview of this page, and I don't have much to say about that. (Although I'd be very surprised if there was no significant money in play on Israeli-Palestinian issues.)
- And then, there are people who have a grudge against a particular company. (I've suggested a sort of BLP for companies to address this (here: User:Herostratus/Articles about extant organizations), but I've not really pushed it and it hasn't gained any traction yet. Anybody who wants to is invited to popularize it.) That's a problem I suppose, but is outside the scope of this page, although it is involved in the discussion, since this is used as a reason for the needed presence of paid editors. This is a reasonable point (one that I don't buy, but reasonable). But not our concern here, directly. (There are also people who are not paid but are just very enthusiastic and supportive of a particular company, or private companies as a class; again, out of our direct scope, I guess.)
- And finally, there are plenty of editors who are obviously working as paid reputation-management editors, who don't declare themselves as such. This is a problem, and we are kind of limited to what we can do with those editors. But we can deal with their edits, and I think in some cases we can cite reasonable cause to believe that they're flacking, and move against them. Much more importantly, we can move against their clients, against the corrupting as well as the corrupt... by opening the possibility that we will make them famous. (Not all of them, but one of them. We don't know -- and more importantly, they can't know -- which one, but someday a notable entity may well engage in egregious, toxic, covert, and yet incontrovertibly obvious behavior such that this might come into play. We'll see. But any covert contractor who doesn't discuss this downside possibility with their client is engaging in misfeasance (or malfeasance) so egregious as to constitute a glaring tort, I would think. Something for people to think about, maybe.
- Anyway, getting off topic, but as to following Wikipedia's rules when engaging in corrupt behavior is not really a plus in my book. I'd much rather see obvious slanting, misciting of sources, overly promotional tone, and other bush-league tricks. Much more likely to be found and corrected, and better than the subtle slantings of the real pro.
- Oh well, the world is changing. Check this out: [1]. If this is the future, though, I'd much rather see us follow The Atlantic and directly sell space (and articles) to corporations directly, and pocket the funds ourselves. There's no gain for use when the funds flow to third parties. Herostratus (talk) 22:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
- Rather than labeling the skew as more offensive, because it is mild, I would call it tolerable, when it is in fact within tolerable limits. Even FAs may have some bias and there is no article anywhere, nor any editor that is purely neutral, because neutrality is an impossible ideal we merely strive for.
- However, to what extent such bias is in fact "tolerable" is something that varies widely depending on who you ask. I think you are correct to point out the difference, because intentional bias for money is more offensive than personal bias, and whether such bias is in fact "intentional" is difficult to measure. CorporateM (Talk) 20:13, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
images
Just made these for useboxes etc. Herostratus (talk) 02:01, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Template
Made a new template. Haven't deployed it yet, and welcoming discussion and improvements from any quarter. It is called {{Corrupt (organization)}} and looks like this: {{Corrupt (organization)}} It's currently up for deletion, here, in case anyone's interested. (I don't know if this notice constitutes canvassing, but I'm crossposting over atWP:COOPERATION also so I think that's OK). Herostratus (talk) 16:58, 13 November 2012 (UTC)