I don't think it's very precise to say several arbitrators "expanded" on the statement. How others may have intended their individual statements is something they will need to clarify themselves, I at least intended my statement as a dissent, not an expansion. While I take the problems with harassment very seriously, I consider the danger of paid editing also of great importance. Any solution must acknowledge both, to a greater extent than recognized by the majority statement. We need to protect individual WPedians, and we also need to protect the encyclopedia. . Smallbones has cited one extraordinary example of the danger; there have been others similar. But it is equally the cumulative effect of the many ordinary promotional efforts that make our articles on commercial and noncommercial organizations and their affiliated people no more reliable than the press releases most of them are based on. Deliberate bad faith editors should not be protected, and have no right to anonymity. The main difficulty--and it is one I do not minimize--is detecting them without harming the good faith editors who imitate them under the impression that promotional editing is our accepted norm. It's concern for those unfortunately misled editors which prevents us from acting in the drastic ways that might otherwise be desirable. DGG ( talk ) 21:04, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand the position of the ArbCom statement. The legal team's advice specifically deals with publication of the company name only in relevant instances where that has not been shared in violation of terms of service. The legal statement excludes sharing of information other than the relevant company as well as publication of company name in a circumstance that does not involve an admin or is not related to investigation into undisclosed paid editing. How anyone translates this to an "almost unbounded exemption", I have no idea. SFB13:52, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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