Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-07-23/Paid editing

Discuss this story

This is a great interview - thanks for being so forthright Mike! Nick-D (talk) 10:41, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded! :) benzband (talk) 11:50, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Great work, as always, Mike. - Dank (push to talk) 13:32, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Orange Mike has the experience and wisdom to know that paid editing has the potential to be a significant issue to Wikipedia. As Wikipedia matures and becomes more influential, monied-interests will have a greater and greater temptation to adjust articles to their side of the story. This is generally not a problem when there are a lot of unpaid volunteers to keep an eye on things. But as editor loss becomes greater, the ability to keep an eye on these issues diminshes. I recently ran across CitiCorp executive William R. Rhodes and noticed that the article had been heavily edited by CitiCorp IPs. Nobody had noticed this issue for a number of years. So I'm concered that if we don't recruit more unpaid volunteer editors to help, we won't be able to fix the existing problems or keep up with new ones. So I would encourage everybody with similar concerns to welcome our new users and try to make Wikipedia a friendly environment because paid editors will be here regardless of how unfriendly things are. Kind regards 64.40.57.60 (talk) 11:45, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I looked up the survey result and Mike is correct in accusing Ocaasi of misstating the results.

When asked if there are currently factual errors on their company or client’s Wikipedia articles, 32% said that there were (n=406), 25% said that they don’t know (n=310), 22% said no (n=273), and 22% said that their company or client does not have a Wikipedia article (n=271). In other words, 60% of the Wikipedia articles for respondents who were familiar with their company or recent client’s article contained factual errors.

I don't know if Ocaasi would like to make a note about the actual survey result. It certainly would be a fair use quotation since it being commented on.--BirgitteSB 12:06, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear, I was merely repeating the PRSA's claimed conclusion of the study, not my own. I added 'publicized' to make that distinction more clear. I also added a link to the Investigative Report in the Signpost disputing that claim. Cheers, Ocaasi^{t | c} 13:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just my 2 penn'orth (unlike OrangeMike - I'm not an expert on the theories involved, but we are both very regular contributors to WP:EAR where we have to contend with many complaints from COI editors about their articles/edits being deleted). Wikipedia is suffering from a lack of experienced New Page Patrollers who can do the job accurately, which leaves a gaping gap in the capture of paid-for articles. The number of seriously inclined editors of non-contentious articles is apparently waning (whether or not this be due to fewer new editors, or editors leaving the project). The questions foremost in my mind are: Why should I edit Wikipedia as a volunteer when others get paid for it? which is a possible reason for the decline, and more importantly (as an admin): Why should I have to volunteer for free to clean up the COI mess? One possible solution is to provide a proper landing page for new registrations and article creation attempts, that clearly spells out what Wikipedia articles are supposed to be for, how they should be written, and that promoting a political candidate, a company, a product or service, an emerging garage band, or one's self, are not part of the philosophy that many (most?) of us joined the project for. I treat blatant COI editors with the same politeness and respect as I do anyone else, but it certainly stretches my patience to have to do so. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:21, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I want to extend and expand on the "economic" aspect of paid editing's effect on wikipedia's practices, that Orange Mike covers briefly twice, "Wikipedia does not exist as a convenience for them and their bosses." and "Only if I abandoned the pleasure and duty of being a legitimate Wikipedian; which means you'd have to pay me a damned good salary with a solid contract in order for me to make that heartbreaking choice." I already agree in full with Orange Mike's coverage of the effects on content on COI as "drinking from … the firehose of sewage." As Orange Mike notes, many Wikipedians edit because the "pleasure and duty" of the free work we do is radically different to being a clerical worker on lunch break. Wikipedia is a relief from the imposition of wage labour, and the control over the labour process exerted by machine design, process design and immediate supervision that exists in paid work. While wikipedia might have many faults as a work system, it is a work system where each editor has both an immmediate and a collective total freedom to attempt to redefine the work process. Moreover, we can work here knowing that the only motivation for work is the pleasure of the work itself, and the duty to the work itself. We can put being an encyclopaedist, the duty to the encyclopaedia and our readers, first in a way in which we can't when trying to feed ourselves from our labour. The problem is that there is a contradiction, an inherent opposition, between being a convenience for paid editors and their bosses; versus the duty and pleasure of encyclopaedism. To become a convenience, we lose encyclopaedism. This is true at the article level, where we are turned into process operating mechanical-turks, transcribing the demands of PR officials. This is true at the community level, where instead of being Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit; we become Britannica for free, now with improved access for PR wonks to fuck with the record. The choice is simple: if we wish to remain a free encyclopaedia, where duty and pleasure guides us to improve the encyclopaedia, we need to police paid editing as if (as they are) people who scab on our free work and try to enslave us. For example, the offer on a "professional services" site for an Administrator to keep content in articles clearly shows how the "wages" paid to one exist off the backs of every other wikipedian, and reduce their freedom to edit into an unpaid job. To the extent we accept paid editing, we betray the encyclopaedic project and our own freedom to edit. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:28, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think Orange Mike is terrific and I have a hunch that in about 3 hours drinking beer in a restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin, a reasonable advocate of the CREWE perspective and he could hammer out a deal to more or less settle the matter of COI editing. As he says (1) declarations of COI should be policy; and (2) input of those with COI towards NPOV and more accuracy should always be welcomed; and (3) reversion of real vandalism is never a problem. That doesn't leave a ton of area of disagreement, from my perspective. It comes down to a question of (A) is it okay for involved editors to make uncontroversial edits or not? and, if so, (B) in what manner can these edits be brought to scrutiny?; and further (C) what should be the mechanism for involved editors to move forward ideas about controversial edits? Three hours, ten beers, that could be solved. Getting such a deal through the dysfunctional labyrinth that is the WP decision-making process? Now that's another story... Carrite (talk) 01:04, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Taking the liberty to editorialize a bit outside of the interview, I agree that there's more room for agreement than it often appears. I'm very curious what you think of WP:COI+ which incorporates most of the recommendations you've made above. Cheers, Ocaasi^{t | c} 02:14, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It strikes me as very complicated, which will minimize participation levels. In my opinion we need to have a solid, iron-clad rule about mandatory COI declarations (with an associated proviso that there will be no arbitrary blocks or bannings of those making such a declaration on an existential basis) and then we need as a community to determine what sort of edits are kosher and which are forbidden by such editors. The line is somewhere between "no edits at all" and "anything goes." I honestly believe that, contrary to what some Wikipedians feel at a visceral level, MOST PR pros are not out to spam Wikipedia silly but just want some sort of honest and reliable mechanism to ensure that NPOV prevails for their clients. That can either be achieved by monitored direct editing or it can be achieved by some sort of new and substantial mechanism generating uninvolved editing by others. Given the thinness of the content-creation corps at WP, I think that monitored direct editing is probably the answer. Maybe COI certification helps get us there, but it needs to be a simple process that generates a universally-accepted credential, otherwise people would be taping a target to their back by becoming certified COI editors. So I don't know.

We all have our biases, every single one of us. To edit at WP one needs to be able to set them aside and really believe in and practice NPOV. That is a difficult standard and it will never be universal, sadly. There will always be problems. The best we can do is to attempt to educate newcomers to make them aware of this philosophy and its necessity in a massive collaborative project such as ours. I don't know if certification helps solve this or not. I suppose Orange Mike and others of his perspective are better people to ask... Carrite (talk) 02:30, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]