Editing is certainly up across the board, and not just general edits; to give two anecdotes, the featured list project has abruptly reversed two years of decline, with successful nominations cresting 20 per month for both April and May (see Wikipedia:Featured list statistics, to be updated with May numbers tomorrow), and outstanding nominations the highest they've been in years; on an entirely different side of the wiki, the video game project has seen the number of good article promotions jump from the 5-7 per month range in January/February to 15 just in May- and 3 FAs besides. Silver lining to all clouds, I suppose. --PresN02:38, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
French Wikipedia catches undisclosed paid editing firms by posing as customers: so, good news and better news. first we are able to identify and took action in time. now better news: perhaps its time to discuss and brain storm various other or new strategies to minimise impact of rouge behavior.Vishnuvardhan leela (talk) 02:51, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Posing as customers is also occasionally considered here. I suspect we'd want a degree of community backing before we sent any admins down that route, probably with BCCs to a dedicated arb email (who'd also have a link between any pseudonyms and usernames used), to provide at least a minimum oversight in what could be inflammatory in event of certain mistakes (I should note, community agreement would be wise, if not critical, before going down that road in any organised fashion). Nosebagbear (talk)
It was great that Merc suggested the cross-wiki anti PAIDCOI setup - I realise I couldn't really be involved in helping it, but I was thinking the same thing as I read it, so it'd be great to see. A meta paid-editing discussion, to get some more ideas cross-wiki is probably due, given the time since the last one. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:13, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm more worried about rogue behaviour than rouge behaviour, and this looks like a classic example of WP:Rouge Admins catching rogues. I suspect one problem will come if we catch otherwise legit members of the community. I remember with WP:NEWT, some members of the community strongly believed that "mystery shopping" is unethical. I'm not sure why, perhaps there are parts of the world where it is deprecated. However I would caution against using your real life employer as the shopper. apparently one of the French admins did that, and hopefully they got their employer's agreement to do so. Most of the places where I have worked in my life would take a very dim view of one of their employees using the company name in that way. That said there is a great role here for chapters, shell companies are cheap. ϢereSpielChequers11:00, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We should definitely have a discussion about "posing" here. My first reaction to hearing about this story was "of course they caught real paid editors - this is such an obvious way of doing it - but the (the admins) would have been punished on enWiki for about 5 violations." None of what I say below is criticizm of the French admins - I see no evidence that they violated frWiki rules. The moral case for the use of "posing" by the frWiki admins is clear: there were people systematically violating Wiki rules by lying and other deception to mislead readers, essentially stealing adverts from a non-profit.
If doing this on enWiki the rules likely to be interpreted as being violated might be included under WP:Harassment, "outing" for when they posted the results, "investigating fellow wikipedians " (yes that in there), not assuming good faith, deceiving fellow Wikipedians (battleground behavior). None of these make any sense to me under these conditions, but I'd expect some of this would come up here.
I wouldn't recommend getting these "posing parties" pre-approved by any official groups - they'd likely be afraid of being banned themselves and would never approve. We can compare similar cases in the real world where the technique is used. In law enforcement undercover operation are used, but in most cases I believe they preapproved by courts - something like a warrant to prevent abuses. Under US "Cannons of Journalism" undercover reporting is allowed but only as a last resort - if there is an important story that can't be otherwise covered. Strict editorial supervision is required. There are other cases like the NAACP sending around people posing as renters - a black couple, and a white couple - to see if there is discrimination. There's no law against such "deception" as far as I know. I'll leave it there for now, but would love to hear reactions. Smallbones(smalltalk)13:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The rules there are all pretty big ones. I don't think arbs would be concerned about being blocked if en-wiki said "yes, you can do this for a duration of one year, all with prior arbcom authorisation and oversight, with reporting to take y form, with duty to ensure local legal compliance left to the users (as always)". Whether the community were willing to agree to that, I don't know, but I know some people who really, REALLY, would like to see more action taken against paidcois and this is a viable route. I suppose there's the tough bit where you have to let (non-egregious) damage sit on some pages for some considerable amount of time to avoid giving the game away too early. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:12, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This might work against some of the small-fry paid editing firms on enWiki, but if we had to run an RfC, everybody would be warned against it. Getting Arbs to secretly say they preapprove this - well I just can't imagine that happening. If any admins want to do it as a story for The Signpost, please submit a proposal - and if I approve it - you'll definitely get strong editorial supervision - but please be aware that there's a chance that everybody involved, including me, would get a lot of grief and might even be banned. I'd need a strong moral case, and a clear understanding of why the admins think it's not against enWiki rules. Smallbones(smalltalk)17:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Woah, how did I never notice before that it's spelled "rouge"; that's amazing haha!
On a more serious note, everyone in this thread needs to go read Wikipedia:The one question (or WP:IAR, if you prefer) — the rules exist for a variety of reasons, but themselves is not one of them. There are potential downsides, absolutely, but those should be discussed on their own merits. And in light of the urgent problem this innovative tactic could help address, I think there would be significant support for it if done cautiously. Even if the company catches on, it would still have the effect of deterring them from sending examples of past work to clients, and if that in turn deters real customers, that's a plus for us. And if they don't catch on, it could yield not just sockpuppets, but evidence that a civil court might admit if the WMF ever files against them for breaching Wikipedia's Terms of Use. {{u|Sdkb}}talk18:03, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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