Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:25, 10 August 2021

To discuss conflict of interest or paid editing disclosure problems with specific editors and articles, please go to Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard.

The project page associated with this talk page is an official policy on Misplaced Pages. Because part of it reflects the position of the Wikimedia Foundation, it may be changed only in accordance with the section Changing this policy.

Editors discussing proposed changes to this policy or related pages must disclose during those discussions whether they have been paid to edit Misplaced Pages.

Archives

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This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 8 sections are present.

I won't argue for fun,
I won't argue for free,
with someone who's paid
to argue with me.

–Levivich

I'll argue all day,
I'll fight 'til I'm tired.
At least if I lose
I won't get fired.

–Bradv

RfC on new disclosure requirements for freelance paid editors

An RfC proposing an amendment to this policy is live at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy) § RfC on new disclosure requirements for freelance paid editors. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 20:03, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Note: Having been passed by consensus, the archived discussion can be found here. Nick Moyes (talk) 23:00, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Specific disclosure of paid edits

Hello - general question. If a paid editor makes a general declaration that he/she edits for pay on behalf of a media company that contracts with other clients, does that editor need to specify who those clients are (i.e., which specific people/organizations are asking for this media company to make paid Misplaced Pages contributions)? It's not clear to me from this guideline whether "client", in this case, merely means the company that employs you to make paid edits, rather than the subjects of that editing that are doing the actual paying to the company that you work for. So, does the declaration have to be, "I am paid by Foo Company to make edits on Misplaced Pages", or "Foo Company pays me to make edits on behalf of the following people: A, B, and C."? Chubbles (talk) 16:39, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

The purpose is transparency. If it doesn't mean "I'm writing about X on behalf of A, Y on behalf of B, and Z on behalf of C", it should. If that means having an RFC to make this clear, then have an RFC.

The unfortunate reality is that some paid editors may not know who the actual upstream client may be. You may have Joe who works for Jim's PR Emporium, who takes money from Alice, Bob, and Charlie. Jim's PR Emporium doesn't know that Charlie is a front company for another PR firm that doesn't want to have their name associated with "paid editing on Misplaced Pages." Do we sanction Joe, the man behind the paid-editing keyboard, who had every reason to think Charlie was the "actual client" and said so? Do we allow ourselves to be hoodwinked by Joe's co-worker Sam who is "in the know" and is fully aware that Charlie is a front, but who lied and said Charlie was the actual client?

What about independent editors who THINK they are being asked by Charlie to edit, but in reality Charlie is a middleman? What about independent editors who know or who turn a blind eye to the obvious and say their client is Charlie when they know or should know he's just a middleman? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:26, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

As described in the meta:Terms of use/FAQ on paid contributions without disclosure: If you are editing an article on Misplaced Pages on behalf of your employer, for example, you must disclose your employer's details. If you have been hired by a public relations firm to edit Misplaced Pages, you must disclose both the firm and the firm's client. As further detailed on this paid-contribution disclosure page: Client: the person or organization on whose behalf the edits are made; the client is often the subject of the article. isaacl (talk) 01:25, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Standard of evidence needed to tag article for suspected UPE

The template documentation at Template:Undisclosed_paid says go ahead and tag the article as UPE if it appears the article may have been the subject of undisclosed paid editing. If we set the burden of evidence too high, it will just foster an environment favorable to covert public relations and professional editing. I tagged the article Luke Hughes (furniture designer) but an IP contributor out of nowhere started removing the tag. After reviewing edit pattern of article and that of several accounts used, based on my experience, there's a reasonable suspicion of UPE, such as edits by several single purpose accounts and an account that adds a lot of very similar pattern resume like edits. Graywalls (talk) 12:36, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

@Graywalls: I am not going to comment on this specific situation, but in general in a case like this, WP:BRD applies along with WP:AGF until it's evident that the other editor is not editing in good faith. The polite thing to do would be to open a discussion, present your case for keeping the tag, then if there was no justification for removing it after at least 24 hours, restore it. If there is reasonable discussion, then keep discussing, and try to see things from the other person's point of view. If it is reverted again without any discussion or the only discussion is unconstructive, then consider asking for a WP:THIRD opinion or a dispute resolution forum. If the editor himself is not willing to engage or the only engagement is clearly non-constructive, then WP:AN/I or a similar noticeboard may be in order. The key thing to keep in mind is: "I might be wrong." A little humility throughout will go a long way if this winds up at WP:AN/I or any other forum where WP:BOOMERANG is a possibility. By the way, I had a recent experience with a pair of disclosed-PAID editors on another article. That slow-motion edit war went on for months before both editors were eventually blocked when it became abundantly clear they were WP:NOTHERE. Had I reacted more strongly initially, I might have been facing sanctions myself for uncivil behavior. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:27, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

@Davidwr: Thank you for your reasonable and rational input here. As a bit of a Misplaced Pages amateur, it is greatly appreciated. I seem to have been bombarded and hounded recently by this editor and one of his kronies for daring to stick up for my edits. Yes, I have made honest mistakes in the past but I feel like this person is going out of their way to destroy anything that I have ever created. Always happy and willing to have a fair and honest discussion, but I shouldn't have to answer to constant and unfounded accusations. I'd genuinely appreciate any help or input from editors like yourself who are clearly just trying to do a good job. This character is deleting pretty much all of my profiles and engaging other Misplaced Pages bullies to do so. Bamberini8/(talk) 23:15, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

@Bamberini8: Please stop using undefined nebulous accusations like "...other Misplaced Pages bullies...". If you have specific accusations to make about specific users, make them that way. You are labelling everyone who has ever edited any article you have worked on as a bully. If you have specific bullying claims, report them and they will be dealt with, but don't throw all encompassing, general accusations around. - X201 (talk) 08:56, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

There's no public criteria documented for WP:BEANS reasons. Any objective criteria will be gamed by spammers. MER-C 12:43, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

@MER-C:, I think some sort of guidance that provides recommended practices would be useful though to reduce suppositions of over zealous tagging. this one here got a bit hairy. The creator acknowledged that they were an employee, and also that they were employed by the article subject at the time it was created, but that "they were not being paid to edit Misplaced Pages" and disputed the "connected contributor (paid)" and UPE tag. Basically, we don't want to tag article UPE for someone who actually weren't editing it to advance public relations and advertising interest, but we also don't want to let board members get out of UPE tag by claiming "I'm a VOLUNTEER board member...." and like. Graywalls (talk) 23:24, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

User:MER-C, I think there is a method, which need not be a secret, for allowing to a suspected UPE to prove that they are not a serial UPE using throwaway accounts. Ask them questions, and encourage them to talk. Encourage them to talk by asking more questions until you understand how they came to be interested in the articles they are writing. Ask any questions, ask about their day, or the weather. Be sure to do this on a persisting page, such as their User_talk, not a talk page that is likely to be deleted under G8. I suggest that you should NOT be quick to block as you did with Bamberini8 (talk · contribs), but to instead let them keep talking. Let the guilty dig their hole deep, providing more and more evidence for detecting the same style in the next throwaway account. It is very hard to maintain different sockpuppets in mutual secrecy if they each engage in personable conversation.

If an account continues to behave like a UPE, continues to edit, but fails to answer user_talk questions, then block, but leave user_talk access. Maybe they are just shy, but probably UPE, because innocent people tend to answer even if shy.

I think mere COI should not be lumped in with UPE. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:16, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I suggest you read Bamberini's denial of COI and Possibly's question on the COIN thread again. The most probable answers to it (by a long way, they cover >99% of the instances where this has happened) imply that the editor lied at some point. MER-C 18:01, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

You mean User_talk:Bamberini8#February_2021_2 and Misplaced Pages:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Luke_Hughes_and_Company_Limited? I don’t dispute that you are correct on reading that Bamberini has a COI and is lying. I think that you are missing my point, that by being quick to block you have caused him to abandon this account before we have leant much of his conversation style. You have taught him a number of definite things that he can do differently to not be caught so easily next time. I suggest pretending to believe his story, and pretending to be personable, and asking him on his usertalk page questions that are easily answered. Some of what he said I believe, he hadn’t been paid, (yet), and maybe he has never been paid as this was his first clumsy attempt. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:03, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

If anything, it clarified that simply claiming "I'm not getting paid" is not an affirmative defense. @SmokeyJoe:, something you will see if you look at the article in question on that particular COI/N entry is that the article was stuffed with false citations that do not support the claims made which I think is enough to revoke assumption of good faith. Graywalls (talk) 22:23, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

That’s not my point. My point is that heavy handed response to poorly concealed COI editing is not long term effective, and that a soft response will make it harder for long term serial UPEs. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:16, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

We're discussing burden of evidence. Feel free to start your own discussion at Village Pump if you think you have a better approach. Graywalls (talk) 02:54, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

“Standard of evidence needed to tag article for suspected UPE”. Quite right. I agree the evidence was easily sufficient to tag the article, and then to block the user for removing the tag. I don’t agree that it is OK to block the editor for lying about COI, but that the conversation should have continued on his talk page, following a block for edit warring on the tag. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:34, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Contradictory advice

The PAID editing policy gives contradictory advice:

Under the heading "Promotion and advertising by paid editors", it says "Paid editors may not advertise or promote their services on Misplaced Pages. The disclosures required by the terms of use and this policy are not regarded as advertisements or promotion."

Under "How to Disclose", it says "Paid editors must also provide links on their Misplaced Pages user page to all active accounts at websites where they advertise, solicit or obtain paid Misplaced Pages-editing services."

Providing a link to their services is advertising, more or less.--- Possibly (talk) 18:38, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

It’s a permissible use per the second sentence of your first quote. –xeno 19:06, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Receiving payment by means of being a business owner

I have long felt this page fails to offer any effective guidance to those editors who own or run their own businesses, and who write about topics relating to their work. They don't get 'paid' by someone else, and yet they benefit financially. But they aren't mentioned here. So, I propose that we simply copy/paste the sentence shown in italics below from WP:COI into the start of this section, and insert the word business, too.

An editor has a financial conflict of interest when they write about a topic with which they have a close financial relationship. This includes being an owner, employee, contractor, investor or other stakeholder. This would make the section read as follows:

Meaning of "employer, client, and affiliation"

Further reading: Terms of use/FAQ on paid contributions without disclosure

An editor has a financial conflict of interest when they write about a topic with which they have a close financial relationship. This includes being an owner, employee, contractor, investor or other stakeholder.

Editors must disclose their business, employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any paid contribution to Misplaced Pages.

• Employer: the person or organization that pays, either directly or through intermediaries, a user to contribute to Misplaced Pages. This includes cases where the employer has hired the user as an employee, has engaged the user under a freelance contract, is compensating the user without a contract, or is compensating the user through the user's employment by another organization.

As this change doesn't alter the policy, it doesn't seem to merit an RfC, though it seemed appropriate to post here first so as to seek other opinions before making the above changes. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:27, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

The current wording is based on the linked FAQ. For better or worse, it is focused specifically on payment, presumably because it provides a clear-cut delineation. I think it would be better to update the conflict of interest guidance to strengthen its guidance on disclosure for owners, rather than introduce changes here that diverge from the terms of use. isaacl (talk) 13:21, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Also note that adding "business" would essentially require paid independent contractors to identify themselves on Misplaced Pages. Although I believe there are some editors who would support this, it's not clear to me that it's a consensus view. (The requirement to disclose one's user account in communications to the client and external web sites, of course, does hamper the ability for an independent contractor to remain anonymous on Misplaced Pages.) isaacl (talk) 13:50, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

I could also see such an argument requiring editors to disclose their investment portfolio holdings. –xeno 13:58, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure which argument you're referring to? I don't feel that the proposed addition of "business" would require editors to disclose their personal investment holdings. (I agree that arguments for strengthening disclosure requirements for editors with conflicts of interest could lead to this.) isaacl (talk) 14:10, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Indirect payments

Let's say there is a Research Assistant for a Professor who has a point of view. That RA could be pushing that POV on Misplaced Pages, even though they are not directly paid for Misplaced Pages editing but paid for their research work. Does the policy take into account such scenarios? Puck42 (talk) 09:01, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

It is more likely to be a conflict of interest. Paid editing is a type of conflict of interest, but COIs can exist without payment. - Bilby (talk) 09:43, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

WP:COI and WP:PAID both deal with relationships, i.e. if your hypothetical RA was writing about the professor (their boss). There's a broad consensus that editing about your professional field of interest isn't in itself a conflict of interest, and there's a long-standing exception to COI that allows subject-matter experts to cite their own published work, within reason. That's not to say that such edits can't be problematic in other ways, but usually content policies like WP:NPOV, WP:RS and WP:FRINGE are more relevant than COI/PAID. – Joe (talk) 10:06, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Likely many editors taking paid that not disclose it

On linkedIn one can find many profiles from people and even companies that say they create new pages on wikipedia, that they make and edit pages for prominent people etc. Misplaced Pages has a policy that one must disclose if one are a paid editor, but as editors can have anonymous profiles how is this monitored? On wikipedia one can be anonymous so is it not naive to think that many of these indeed not declare they are paid, that even make them more valuable for many clients that wants to promote ideas, or attack their critics on wikipedia. Have wikipedia done any attempt to look into the loads of linkedin profiles telling they are making pages, editing pages etc for pay ? One possibility would be that to wikipedia, not to the public wikipedia, editors had to register with name etc. Then wikipedia could monitor more easily if these paid editors have disclosed it. Sure there are always ways around, but to advertise ones firm and people as wikipedia editors for pay on linkedin for example could be monitored to see if the same names disclosed their for pay editing. ChrisCalif (talk) 11:12, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

@ChrisCalif: You're absolutely right. Many (maybe most) paid editors do not disclose it, although probably a large proportion of the profiles on external websites you have seen are either lying, scammers and/or already banned from Misplaced Pages. As with everything on Misplaced Pages, investigation of undisclosed paid editing and covert advertising is done by volunteers, often coordinated at the conflict of interest noticeboard. – Joe (talk) 11:18, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Alternative paid contribution disclosure policy for English Misplaced Pages

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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages:Non-free content) seems like a smart way forward. Could also hold an RfC (à la "Should Misplaced Pages:Paid-contribution disclosure be considered an English Misplaced Pages 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 "Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages'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 Misplaced Pages community has not held a discussion such as the one on Commons where Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages - 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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages 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)Template:Z181 00:49, 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)Template:Z181 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)