Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 05:28, 20 November 2013

Jimbo welcomes your comments and updates – he has an open door policy. He holds the founder's seat on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. The three trustees elected as community representatives until July 2015 are SJ, Phoebe, and Raystorm. The Wikimedia Foundation Senior Community Liaison is Maggie Dennis.

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Internet versus vaccines

Jimbo, do you truly believe that giving the free Internet access to the poor countries is more important than providing them with vaccines and clean water? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.41.73 (talk) 16:28, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Good job, IP. Keep Der Jimbo on the edge of his seat. Sooner or later he needs to take control of Misplaced Pages to institute a governance system, and on a broader level needs to make the compromises that will allow this encyclopedia—and free knowledge as a whole—to prosper. Wer900 • talk 16:35, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Two editors who are not here to build the encyclopedia. The first one is a troll asking a trick question, to which Jimbo gave a wise answer. The second is pushing an almost incomprehensible governance agenda by means of false statements, and thinks that his governance agenda is so brilliant and memorable that he expects readers of his page to have memorized it. Thank you for giving a wise answer to a trick question, Jimbo. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:30, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

No, I do not think that giving free Internet access to poor countries is more important than providing them with vaccines and clean water. I think precisely the opposite and have said so publicly many times. I am a great admirer of Bill Gates' work particularly on the development of vaccines, but also the work of the Gates Foundation more generally to take a reasoned and well-financed approach to a great many global problems. Bill Gates is a very smart man and almost never wrong about these matters.

At the same time, I think it wrong to think of these things as being "either/or" - the solution to the problems of the very poor is multi-faceted, and people who are interested to help should feel free to do so in whatever way best suits their own talents, abilities, and expertise. Giving people free access to the Internet (or to Misplaced Pages) will not solve their problems with lack of water and vaccines - but solving their problems with lack of water and vaccines won't automatically give them the tools they need to overcome the tyrannies that have plagued them. Misplaced Pages volunteers should not drop their work on the grounds that the poorest of the poor need vaccines more - most of us can't meaningfully contribute to that problem. Mobile carriers shouldn't refuse to take positive steps to offer educational/health resources for free in these areas on the grounds that they need vaccines even more.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:47, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, emergency assistance is needed in many areas, and there are a lot of organizations working on that. They do good work and should be commended for that. But over the longer term, education may allow these areas to develop the infrastructure and educated population that will render such assistance unnecessary. The Internet is a powerful tool to provide that, and so getting that to underserved populations is an important goal as well. Seraphimblade 17:06, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

It should be pointed out that the Gates Foundation has a bad record in U.S. education; some of their more drastic experiments in tinkering with the structure of schools and schooling have destroyed schools and deprived students of their chances, to an extent that the students and schools involved may never entirely recover from (ask anybody involved in the "break up North Division High" fiasco here in Milwaukee). --02:31, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Precisely. "Give a man a fish and feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime." A great old saying, but it does not imply that a starving man should not be given a fish today (to eat while learning to fish!).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:25, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

It is worth noting, as Jimbo implied, that the world economy and people of good will are capable of working on providing clean water, vaccines and improved internet access simultaneously. And several other good things as well. Cullen Let's discuss it 05:40, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Developing a modern electronic infrastructure in a developing country will allow such a country to build up their infrastructure in cheaper and more effective way. E.g. in Afghanistan it may be more practical to build mobile networks and then set up virtual government offices, virtual police stations etc. etc. That has the advantage that people from remote locations don't need to travel over poor roads. This then allows the government to have a presence also in remote locations, the lack of this presence is allowing insurgents to have more influence. A physical police station in some remote location is also an easy target for insurgents. Also, if there is a local police station in a remote location, you can't go there and report some crime without the whole village finding out about that. You can even imagine a virtual parliament were politicians can meet that is far less costly than a real physical parliament building which would require a lot of security. Count Iblis (talk) 14:35, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• Nice response but as one of your user correctly pointed out first a man should get a fishing rod and then thought how to fish. There's something the WMF could do to help. Every year the WMF collects in donations much more money that is needed to run Misplaced Pages. Why don't donate a part of it to the Red Cross or a similar organization? 69.181.41.73 (talk) 17:07, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Um, is that true? Could User:Wnt or someone else knowledgeable please let us know if the WMF really collects a considerable amount of extra money.Camelbinky (talk) 17:39, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

This wasn't my thread, but I can know as much as anyone who reads this. If I read it, that is! :) For example, I see it says that the Wikimedia Shop we were talking below processed a whole 2000 orders in 2012-13! :) Wnt (talk) 19:04, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Camelbinky, no, it isn't true. It is true that the WMF has been modestly increasing reserves each year in line with the overall growth of revenue/budget/projects, but that growth has been squarely in line with recommended best practices for nonprofit organizations. If we spent every penny which came in, without building a reserve, people would be rightly critical of us for doing that. If we grew a reserve endlessly and out of line with best governance norms, people would be rightly critical of that. There can and should be some debate about what the appropriate level of reserves is, and some debate about whether we should be pursuing an endowment strategy (i.e. trying to get enough money now such that Misplaced Pages could survive and thrive from interest earnings alone, or some other similar target). But the ip's allegation is just not very helpful nor particularly reasonable.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:58, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Camelbinky, Jimbo has just proved the point I made: Misplaced Pages collects much more money that are needed to run the site, as a matter of fact it collects so much more that they hope that one day "Misplaced Pages could survive and thrive from interest earnings alone".

Jimbo, saving is a good strategy for most people and organizations, but hardly for Misplaced Pages. As long as Misplaced Pages is as popular as it is now, there always will be enough money donated every year for it not only to survive, but to thrive. On the other hand if for one reason or another Misplaced Pages stops being popular, no interest income would make it to thrive or even to survive. The bottom line is: the WMF collects much more money that are need to run the site, and the WMF would have looked much better, if it donated a part of it to the Red Cross or a similar organization. 69.181.41.73 (talk) 17:50, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Jimbo, building a reserve to create an endowment sounds like a sound investment of money. Any non-profit would work with that goal in mind, in fact any for-profit company would want a stockpile for a rainy day (or acquisitions), and not have to worry about posting profits every quarter (even governments try to do the same, and most US states require municipalities to have "rainy day funds" of a certain percentage of their annual budget or they can "chastised" or worse during an audit). I believe Jimbo has mentioned before that we probably don't want just one big giant Sam Walton/Bill Gates-sized donation to create such an endowment that would solve our problems because it could look like undue influence, but that we will probably need some medium-large donations to supplement the many small donations. While it is healthy for there to be watchdogs making sure that the WMF is acting in the best interest of Misplaced Pages, this IP certainly is not "helpful nor particularly reasonable" as Jimbo pointed out.Camelbinky (talk) 18:26, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Of course you are, and you could be absolutely sure the WMF is spending the donations in the best interest of Misplaced Pages, like hiring an employee described in this thread or writing the visual editor that doesn't work. 69.181.41.73 (talk) 22:43, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

WMF should have enough reserves to generously compensate anyone harmed due to false information in our medical articles or defamed in our BLPs, but an endowment? We could certainly raise enough to support the WMF off the interest forever - our goodwill is higher than just about any other internet service or nonprofit, today. But I think the WMF should fold if the day ever comes when our readership won't ante up the necessaries to keep the servers running.

The idea of the WMF being able to rumble on, regardless of how crap a job it is doing, or how crap Misplaced Pages has become, disgusts me. Really, the WMF does not have a privileged place in the hearts of our readers - Misplaced Pages does, today. The WMF does not deserve corporate immortality, it needs to be scarily, terminally and perpetually answerable to Misplaced Pages's readers. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:20, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

"...and the WMF would have looked much better, if it donated a part of it to the Red Cross or a similar organization." Well no, it wouldn't have. Money donated to the WMF was intended to support WMF initiatives, not anything else. To transfer that money to another charity supporting totally unrelated programs, however worthy, would open a can of worms. --NeilN 18:33, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Strange discussion. This all seems so removed from fiduciary duties of non-profits and what they can and cannot do with the money, as to be nonsensical. A nonprofit can collect money to sustain itself and accept bequests to sustain itself (yes indefinately) but it cannot itself generally make donations to "other worthy causes" with that money. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:35, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Nonprofits can and do give money to other nonprofits, but if they stray from their tax-exempt purpose they risk their tax exemption. Giving money to fund vaccines (if I understand what's being suggested here) would probably stray far from Wikimedia's tax exempt purpose. So yes, it's a strange discussion. They can't give money to the Red Cross (unless it was starting a Wiki I guess), but they can give money to Foundations dealing with the Internet probably. Coretheapple (talk) 23:40, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• @NeilN, the current donation banner states:

• There are a few lies in this banner:
  1. " We have only 175 staff but serve 500 million users". Thousands upon thousands of volunteers aren't mentioned.
  2. "To protect our independence, we'll never run ads". The donation banners are adds.
  3. " We take no government funds. We survive on donations averaging about $30." That one is a half-truth, and a lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies: Lastly, in August 2009, the Omidyar Network issued a potential $2M in "grant" funding to Wikimedia.... In 2010, Google donated $2M to the Wikimedia Foundation...In 2012, the Foundation was awarded a grant of $1.25M from Lisbet Rausing and so on and so on. Also that "we survive". Really poor you only menage to survive?
  4. " If everyone reading this gave $3, our fundraiser would be done within an hour." This one is probably a lie. No matter how much is donated their fundraising will never stop.
• Now how about changing the banner to something like this:

69.181.41.73 (talk) 23:26, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not my field, but I think that they have to get a certain degree of public support in addition to grants etc., to preserve their tax exempt status. Tax-exempts are highly regulated. Coretheapple (talk) 23:42, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think they have to get a certain degree of public support" but if somebody could prove otherwise please do. 69.181.41.73 (talk) 00:22, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Here's something I picked off Google, with the caveat that I'm far from an expert in this. Coretheapple (talk) 00:48, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

No idea why this was addressed to me but I'll bite since your assertions of lying are stupidly easy to disprove:

1. Not a lie. They assert two facts, neither of which you call into question.
2. Depends on your definitions of "ads". Our public radio runs promos for upcoming shows and concerts they're hosting. No one calls them liars for saying they're ad-free.
3. Again, two assertions that you don't disprove. What governments has WMF taken money from?
4. Why do you call an assumption on your part a lie on their part?

There are many things you can bash WMF for but hyperbolically accusing them of lying doesn't really help whatever case you're trying to make. --NeilN 23:50, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

As I said above a lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies, and I hope you will not argue that the banner is full of half-truths. 69.181.41.73 (talk) 03:06, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't see the "half-truths" you're referring to. Every non-profit on Earth distinguishes between staff and volunteers, for obvious reasons (staff need to be paid, for example, and thus they're more relevant to fundraising appeals). Likewise, all user-supported media hold intermittent pledge drives (cf. PBS, NPR, listener-supported radio stations); these are generally distinct from third-party advertising. (In fact, the pledge drives are a necessary alternative to third-party ads).

To your third point, it is entirely possible that the average donation is $30 despite the receipt of several massive gifts. Your complaint suggests that you're unfamiliar with the numerical concept of an average. In your last point, you (willfully?) elide the difference between one specific fund-raising drive and fundraising operations in general. I agree with you about half-truths, which is why it's disappointing to find that your criticism is based on what could charitably be called half-truths. MastCell  18:03, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, I disagree. Let's for example take this statement: "We survive on donations averaging about $30". If it read "our donations are averaging about $30", this would have been correct, but to say "We survive on donations averaging about $30" is a half-truth because it fails to mention millions the WMF receives in grants.69.181.41.73 (talk) 19:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

If you feel that way, why don't you find out how much of the Foundation's fundraising comes from small donations vs. major (>$1 million) grants? I suspect that the majority of Misplaced Pages's money comes from small donors, entirely consistent with the statement that Misplaced Pages depends on these small donors to survive. (Incidentally, many non-profits try to cultivate a many-small-donors model, because it's less dependent on the whims of one or two big contributors and thus more dependable and consistent). I'm happy to change my view should you find that the Foundation is in fact built on a handful of mega-grants. But you seem very intent on framing everything you find in the worst possible light, without having bothered to do much fact-checking (neither about the Foundation specifically nor about how non-profits in general operate). MastCell  19:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, even if it's correct, the word "survive" is not the right one to use. The WMF is thriving, not surviving. They have so much money rolling in, that the only way they know how to get rid of it is to stuff about 30% of it in savings accounts and Treasury bonds, then stuff another 30% of it into needless staffing expansions. The remaining 35% is actually what's needed to keep essential staff on board and to pay for servers and bandwidth. If someone wanted to only to keep Misplaced Pages running (without the ridiculous "global chapters", the "VisualEditor", the San Francisco real estate, etc.), it could be done with about $5 million per year -- about an eighth of their revenue intake. Even Jimbo says that the WMF plans to save so much that eventually it would be able to thrive "from interest earnings alone." So no matter how you look at it, but to say "We survive on donations averaging about $30" is a half-truth. 69.181.41.73 (talk) 23:29, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The similarity between a resume′ writer and a paid to edit editor

Jimbo. Let's assume I wanted to hire someone to write a resume′. I would want someone who is an experienced wordsmith, adept at the subtleties of manipulating words. Someone who is able to hide the truthful embarrassing facts of my frailties and flaws. Someone who can make the sun shine during a rainstorm. I would want my resume′ to highlight only the good points of my life and to barely, if at all, mention the low points. If my terrible grades as a freshman are mentioned, they might be explained as Freshman Adjustment. The sordid event and arrest resulting from the Sorority Incident could be easily passed off as a "childish prank". Since my lawyer promised that the record was expunged, there is no real need to even mention the event. The fact that I attended maybe 10% of my classes is slander and anyway, how is that pertinent, and who is gonna prove it!. I got my degree did I not. What I want, what I am paying the resume′ writer to do, is to make me look like a $10000 tuxedo. The fact that I usually run around in sandals and shorts is unimportant. He gets paid to make me look good, even if I'm a shlub. He is paid to hide my blemishes, my warts, my scars. His job is to get me THE job. Not to worry about following the Rules. And, I'm certainly not paying him to worry about the reader of the resume′. The reader is completely unimportant except for how the reader can be manipulated by my resume′ writer. ```Buster Seven Talk 07:43, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Precisely.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:11, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

That's one of the best descriptions of paid editing I've ever seen. Coretheapple (talk) 14:48, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

It also sounds a lot like WP:BLP... Wnt (talk) 14:58, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

It was also written by someone reprimanded today for a blatant copyright violation, who issued a flippant response when asked to remove the copyvio. Not exactly someone to be lecturing us on ethics. Little surprise that he takes such a dim view of the ethical accountability of someone who would like a resume written, and of the ethics of someone paid to do so. Little surprise that Wales would instantly agree with such a dim and unfair viewpoint. - 2001:558:1400:10:C4BC:BB5A:F1CC:8EDE (talk) 15:36, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

1) It wasn't blatant. It was innocent.

2) I wasn't asked to remove it. It was more a "remove it or else" demand.

3) I answered in the manner that the "reprimand" was given. A more collaborative request would have achieved a more collaborative response. ```Buster Seven Talk 17:27, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

You know, I really don't understand why the paid editing peanut gallery, both the long-established apologists for the practice and their non-logged-in clones - both of whom resort to remarkably similar personal attacks and fallacious arguments - have their knickers in a twist over this discussion. It's plain that they're going to win. It's plain that nothing is going to be done. But when you're making bucks off Misplaced Pages, cynically exploiting the vulnerabilities of this website and its porous rules and joke-like COI policy, any threat to the gravy train seems to be met with shrill hostility. Coretheapple (talk) 15:46, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

No, Coretheapple, they've already lost, they just don't realize it yet.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:52, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

No kidding? Well, they're not the only ones. Coretheapple (talk) 17:01, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Paid advocates have already lost, and everyone realises it. That behaviour has been banned for a decade. They realise it, which is why they operate in secret, as does everybody else, which is why they end up getting banned when they're discovered. But this is old news. Paid editors are probably not in any trouble, given the general opposition to cracking down on academics, librarians, and other non-advocate paid editors. (Or perhaps I just don't realise that my ban is coming for being paid to do public outreach?) WilyD 09:00, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Advocacy of all kinds is prohibited. We're talking about paid editing - taking cash for edits, whether they seem neutral or not. As you correctly point out, they are probably not in any trouble. This is why I don't understand Jimbo Wales' comment that "they have already lost." Perhaps he would be kind enough to elaborate. Coretheapple (talk) 14:20, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

The example that started this thread was of a paid advocate, of course, not a generic paid editor. Replace the example with a math professor trying to make Hermite polynomials more accessible to the layperson, and see how much support there really is for banning paid editors who aren't advocates. It's much smaller. WilyD 16:20, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

And a math prof who is editing Misplaced Pages isn't an advocate (for more accessible math)? I think the wikitalibans who advocate in this area all day long have formed their own jargon and don't even recognize anymore that their narrow use of words isn't what most other editors find reprehensible, which usually is PR for companies, but sometimes for individuals as well. Someone not using his real name (talk) 17:29, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I think most people are capable of understanding the difference between a math professor and a corporate PR department. I think we could learn a lot from the ways in which reputable publishers have addressed conflicts of interest and handled such distinctions. It's like we're trying to reinvent the wheel here. MastCell  17:36, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Understand the difference? Yes. Agree on the significance? Maybe. Discuss things on Misplaced Pages in a way that makes the difference clear? Not at all. A lot of the dispute seems to arise from the fact that people aren't drawing a distinction in what they say/write, and assuming everyone understands/means what they mean, when that's not the case. But paid advocates are already banned when they're discovered. Who is Coretheapple et al. looking to ban, if not math professors et al.? WilyD 17:53, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh come on now. Please don't put words in my mouth. I have yet to encounter a "math professor" innocently editing an article and hounded to suicide. But I have seen dozens of PR men and corporate reps (400 counted in that off-wiki website), and specifically was alerted to this argument by PR staffers dominating two articles on multinational companies. This "math profs" thing is just a ridiculous straw man. Coretheapple (talk) 18:52, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @WilyD: I don't think paid advocates are banned. User:Arturo at BP isn't banned; quite the opposite, people have gone out of their way to shower him with barnstars of integrity. Few or none of the accounts affiliated with the Transcendental Meditation movement are banned. There's some pretty low-hanging fruit we can talk about before we get into the math professors. MastCell  18:53, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Paid advocates have "already lost, they just don't realize it yet." I believe you Jimmy, please let all of us non-paid editors know what we can do to support this outcome. How long do you think it is going to take? All the best, Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:01, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

The reason he isn't banned is because he follows the behaviour standard Jimbo has advocated: . Basically - he ain't an editor. Which makes it impossible for him to be a paid editor. Which brings us back to the same point: Wiki-PR, et al. got banned because they were editing articles as paid advocates. They did so in secret because they knew the practice was already banned. So who else is Coretheapple et al. looking to ban? He denies that it's math professors, librarians, and so on, but can't give any examples of who it is. I can only conclude that it is math profs et al., based on what's being written (here, and at the multitude of proposed policies). WilyD 09:00, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to echo that. Those of us, the distinct minority of people in this discussion, who are opposed to paid editing are of course encouraged by the support of the founder, but more concrete action would of course be welcome. Coretheapple (talk) 21:08, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I fear I may sound rude here, Coretheapple, but do you do a lot of editing of the encyclopedia? Which parts of your editing of the encyclopedia (which I'm very pleased you do for free, just like I do) are you most proud of? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:25, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Not at all. I'm proudest of my effort to fight the scourge of paid editing. Coretheapple (talk) 22:34, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Right, let me put that more gently. Which encyclopedia article have you improved the most? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:54, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Coretheapple (talk · contribs), I would encourage you not to answer that, and Demiurge1000 (talk · contribs) I would encourage you retract your question. No good can come from such contests of "who is more valuable" among volunteers (see also WP:CHOICE). I think the best thing we can all do is focus on the issue at hand. --TeaDrinker (talk) 16:33, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree, and I think that in general this conversation has deteriorated, and has disconnected from reality, to the point that it has become pointless. This is Jimbo's page. Unless there are some other points that he thinks need to be covered that haven't already, I'd suggest that he put a moratorium on further discussion of this subject. If the Foundation wants to act, if paid editors have "already lost," then let's see that happen. Otherwise let's move on. Clearly a consensus to derail the gravy train is structurally impossible, as there are already a multitude of paid editors out there who will oppose any restrictions on paid editing. Misplaced Pages is so permeated with paid editors, paid editing is such a part of the culture of Misplaced Pages that either it is accepted, with all that flows from it in terms of demoralization and undermining of Misplaced Pages's integrity and reputation, or the Foundation has to ban it. Coretheapple (talk) 16:42, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Breathlessly awaiting more details.... petrarchan47tc 21:56, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

To those of us who are concerned by paid editing and conflicts of interest, recent history here is extremely depressing. To take two high-profile examples, our coverage of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was substantially drafted by BP's public-relations department. And our coverage of the purported medical benefits of Transcendental Meditation is dominated by employees and affiliates of the TM movement. Neither of those scenarios developed stealthily—the former was ratified by the community, and the latter by ArbCom. We seem to feel no obligation to disclose these massive conflicts of interest to the unsuspecting reader, nor do we have any mechanism of disclosure even if we had the will. I can understand the sense of incredulity expressed above in response to the idea that paid editing has "lost", because all of the evidence to which I have access suggests the opposite. MastCell  22:20, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Tiny point: it was actually the entire BP article that was substantially drafted by the BP PR department (40%).petrarchan47tc 03:52, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

"On that note, Coretheapple made substantial contributions to the Deepwater section, bringing it to the neutral, informative state we have presently. Core hasn't popped up from nowhere simply to bitch at everyone." Most of you probably know Core from these talk pages, but I know Core from the BP article. After working at the page for a good ten months, Coretheapple showed up and pretty much saved the day. Core's use of bold edits and good arguments turned the anemic coverage of the BP oil spill into a fully flushed-out, healthy section (here) that stood the test of 3 RfCs meant to either delete or reduce it to 2-3 paragraphs (like this). petrarchan47tc 20:29, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

But one of the happiest side effects of participating in the discussion of the subject is all the flattering attention my editing record has received, all the scrutiny, all the helpful advice (such as "shut up") that I've received from the Paid Editing Lobby, both the experienced editors and the ones that say they are experienced but won't log on (but say that if they did log on we'd be blown away by their contributions). Just to be 1000% clear, I was not referring to Demiurge1000's question aboveCoretheapple (talk) 22:38, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Late to the party, but the copyright violation, mentioned way up above, contains a revealing section (quoted here, ahem, in part, as per fair use under the copyright act): "Of course, we all know what this means -- the anonymous competitors and critics of a company are free to edit in defamatory content about their target, all to their heart's content. However, the subject of the article is forbidden to engage directly and have the right of response within the content battle." Compelling argument for a anti 'Puff & Snark' policy that focuses on (edit, revert & delete of) content not (block and ban) of users (and which could still, quite reasonably, restrict the directly concerned from, well, direct edits). AnonNep (talk) 16:45, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

That is almost as absurd a straw man as "persecuted math profs" straw man. The reality is puff and text with negative inferences omitted, not defamation-hungry anti-corporate zealots running amok while harassisng decent PR people. In the BP article that several people have mentioned (I haven't, you'll notice), a PR person dominated the talk page and was repeatedly given back-slaps for his courtesy and good manners, while persons seeking to clean up after him were greeted with open hostility. That only petered out after the page received widespread publicity. Coretheapple (talk) 18:52, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

The PR person not only dominated the BP talk page but was a frequent visitor to the talk pages of BP-supportive editors with suggested changes. These changes would then almost immediately attempted (within 5 minutes) to be implemented. Had concerned editors, such as Coretheapple, not been safeguarding the BP article these change would have been in place without any concern for consensus or vetting of the information or discussion by fellow collaborators. and our reader would never have known that BP was editing the article. ```Buster Seven Talk 19:43, 15 November 2013 (UTC).

Sorry. Dare not reply. Just got bitch-slapped in the edit summary of a section removal by the talk page user. 'Rules' are really odd here, and I deal with enough abuse offline not to need it. Back to content editing. AnonNep (talk) 20:29, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Edits by Vice-Chairman of Wikimedia Norway

[Note: Because the anonymous ip seems constitutionally incapable of asking questions in a civil manner (having tried twice and failed miserably) I am going to write the legitimate questions and answers myself, as an illustration of how to do it.)

Hi Jimbo! In my ongoing exploration of the question of conflict of interest edits in Misplaced Pages, I found some that I thought worthy of calling to your attention, given your strong position on the issue.

What do you think of these edits to the article about Telenor, from June 2013? Of course we know that not every employee of every corporation is going to be familiar with your "Bright Line Rule" that forbids paid advocates from ever directly modifying a Misplaced Pages article about their own employer or client. However, shouldn't we expect someone who self-identifies as vice chairman of Wikimedia Norway and as Vice President of Telenor Group to be a little more knowledgeable about best practices at Misplaced Pages? He also created the Misplaced Pages article Uninor, which is an India-based joint venture of Telenor Group. It seems particularly problematic and potentially embarrassing since the Wikimedia Foundation has formed an alliance with Telenor to bring Misplaced Pages free to people in the developing world? This edit also strikes me as problematic since it is an article about a competitor of his employer, in a section about a "dispute" between his company and the competitor. I'd love to hear your comments on this matter. - An anonymous user, you can call me "Greg" if you want a nickname for me.

Thanks for calling this to my attention. The creation of the Uninor article seems to have happened in 2009, well before my formulation and promotion of the best practice of "bright line rule", so I think we can forgive that. But the other more recent edits are indeed highly problematic from the perspective of avoiding even the appearance of impropriety. I will immediately send an email expressing my concerns and inviting him to come here and explain, and I will urge him to pledge not to do anything like this again.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:26, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

It is well known that Erlend Bjørtvedt works for Telenor and he has also been a very active contributor to Misplaced Pages for some years. If there is a problem regarding the above article and business articles in general, it is that they are not well covered. Seems much more attractive to write about movie stars, soccer teams & players than issues that actually are central to our lives. If more contributors did so, then there simply would be less need for contributions from people that work at such companies. I have done so myself from my own workplace, and probably hundreds of others only within the Misplaced Pages version in Bokmål/Riksmål. If we had not made the contributions, useful articles would in most cases be lacking. Ulflarsen (talk) 21:23, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I have noted the comments and questions here about editing an article over a company for which I am employed. The Uninor article was created way back before these questions really came to the table for discussion. As for the editing on Telenor, from what I can see in the links above, these have been about correcting purely factual things like financial numbers or ownership in companies. I am serious about following community rules and also golden rules, but I must admit I have difficulties in seeing it as problematic that a Telenor employee corrects a purely factual ownership figure, in this instance when a company moves from for example 43% to 51% ownership in a subsidy, or when a company's gross revenue increases from 10 bn dollars to 11 billion dollars, etc. I am aware of this more recent bright line rule, but I will need someone to inform and explain to me if it is not proper to any of our employees to do such purely factual corrections. I am not a frequent contributor to English Misplaced Pages, and we practice more liberal rules at our smaller language versions where it is rather the rule than the exception that one can edit facts about your own organization, institution or company. But still, if I as an employee of a company is not allowed to do even the most factual and neutral corrections, like fixing an errenous financial number, than please inform me of what applies and where to find those rules. Kind regards, Bjoertvedt (talk) 22:57, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Best practice is to suggest edits on the talk page with full disclosure of your conflict of interest, and then to escalate if you don't get a response. The main problem with even very neutral and boring factual edits is that they can give rise to an appearance of conflict of interest, and of course bad actors will always claim that their edits are simply neutral and boring factual edits. It's best to avoid the question altogether, particularly when in a position of some responsibility at a chapter!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:05, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Ok! Best regards, Bjoertvedt (talk) 23:09, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Mr. Bjørtvedt says that the Uninor article was created "way back before these questions really came to the table for discussion". I beg to differ. The Uninor article was created in November 2009. In June 2009, Jimmy Wales was quoted in the media as saying, "the idea that we should ever accept paid advocates directly editing Misplaced Pages is not ever going to be ok. Consider this to be policy as of right now." How much more on the table for discussion could it be than that? Regardless of that timeline, surely since Bjørtvedt became a director of Wikimedia Norway in 2010, he should have been exposed to the extensive media coverage of the Bell Pottinger incidents of 2011, along with the UK Parliament and Gibraltarpedia scandals of 2012. Yet still, Bjørtvedt went ahead and continued to edit Misplaced Pages where he had a conflict of interest, deep into 2013, and even plugging in an external link (in 2012) to his company's website on an article about (frankly) a very non-notable Telenor Culture Award of which you can barely find three mentions (that aren't press releases) in all of Google News archives. Regardless of when it was authored, the real problem is Bjørtvedt's content. He describes it as "factual and neutral corrections"; but, if that is the case, why do we get results like this from Bjørtvedt's keyboard:

• The operational model is low-cost with a gradual network-build up, infrastructure sharing, GSM equipment at competitive cost, full-scale IT-outsourcing and a long term cost and capex efficiency.

That's not encyclopedia content, it's a corporate investor relations statement to shareholders. And he didn't even attempt to source it. There have been numerous advocates on this page over the past week or so (yes, I have been reading) who cry out in anguish about paid advocacy editing on Misplaced Pages. Well, now that a Wikimedia chapter insider is caught clearly having done it, where is the wailing and gnashing of teeth? Other than Jimbo's short reprimand, nobody else seems to care that Bjørtvedt has shaped his company's image on Misplaced Pages and turned a blind eye to his fellow (obvious) corporate editors like User:Telenor Info, User:Uninor (yes, same user name as the company itself), or single-purpose IPs owned by Telenor, such as User:88.89.28.34. With such a brazen disregard for years-old guidelines against COI editing, why am I not surprised that Bjørtvedt would take such a dismissive tone when called on the mat about it. This cheapens Misplaced Pages's reputation, and if we're going to ever get a handle on paid advocacy editors, we should be starting with those who are also trustees of Wikimedia charities that are taking money from the unsuspecting public who have no idea that those very trustees on Misplaced Pages are padding the image of the company at the top of their paychecks. -- Stylecustom (talk) 00:53, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with every single thing that you have said here except that "nobody else seems to care". I think a great many people care a great deal.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:34, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the evident facts matter much here, the spin is far more important. Eric Corbett 01:04, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

He did a foolish thing. Hopefully he has learned. Note that working for a company and admiring it, is not the same as being paid to do PR for that company, though. I'm very passionate about the firm I work for - actually I typically go nowhere near any content related to it, but I did correct some errors in the articles on my previous firm. Best practice: if you're going to edit articles where you have a potential conflict of interest, be open about it, even if you edit the article directly you should drop a note on the talk page saying why you made that edit rather than leaving it to someone else (for example, uncontroversial facts, citing the latest annual returns or whatever). Wikipedians are only human, after all. Most important thing: if you do make an edit that in hindsight you probably should not have made, nobody died, put your hands up and accept the judgment of the community. That way lies respect and transparency. Digging in causes drama and never makes anyone look good. Guy (Help!) 12:28, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

An anonymous user who apparently goes by "Greg" from time to time asked me to ask you to breakfast (with him) on Tuesday, since you'll be in town. --SB_Johnny | ✌ 00:05, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Let him know that if I see him, I'll call the police. But thanks for the heads up - I'll print out a variety of his past messages so that the police will understand the gravity of the situation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:11, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

 Done --SB_Johnny | ✌ 14:31, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, could you please post here a variety of his past messages so that the community will understand the gravity of the situation? 69.181.41.73 (talk) 16:07, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

A few weeks ago a helpful admin pointed me to WP:EMAILPOST, which implies that he shouldn't. But you know that already. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, I think that every decent person understands that not only publishing private emails, but sharing them with other people and even reading private emails that aren't addressed to him is as dirty as it gets, but looks that you required "a helpful admin" to point it out to you. Oh well... In this particular situation I don't think that under "past messages" Jimbo meant private emails. 69.181.41.73 (talk) 18:48, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

At Greggs? ;-) 88.104.4.74 (talk) 10:38, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

There are levels and levels of "working for" a company. Some employees - it should be all! - have the right to go out on Twitter and say their work sucks, even under their own name. Some would be afraid to make even a slightly critical comment anywhere that could be traced back to them. A few luckless slaves would face sanction if they failed to hawk their wares to friends and family. Among these rankings, my suspicion is that a Vice President has more freedom than some, but less than others. Similarly, a union employee may feel assured of an equal income despite small changes in a company's sales, an owner would feel every rise and dip in proportion, but someone paid in stock options or relying on bonuses might stand to make or lose a fortune. (I have no information on that) Wnt (talk) 20:59, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

A user brought this to my attention, and asked for my input. My input is in the form of a question: what policy change, if any, would the person who raised this issue like to institute? Is he or she in favor of restricting paid editing? Or does he or she have another objective in raising this issue? I ask because this does not appear to be one of the situations that I feel are problematic and widespread: editors hired by companies to edit articles, or employees of companies assigned to edit or create articles. I may be mistaken. But whether or not I am, I'm curious to know what the point is of raising this, and what solution is being advocated here. Coretheapple (talk) 21:39, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I think it's safe to say that the user in question is not opposed to paid editing. His point is just to somehow try to make me look bad or inconsistent - it's a meme he's been pushing with zero success for quite a long time. The idea is that I'm a hypocrite - I am opposed to paid advocacy editing unless it's done by my friends or similar. This is wrong: I condemn it everywhere and in all cases, uniformly. Erlend should not have done this - it is embarrassing and wrong and a real shame. Again, to be clear, the only purpose for this banned users continued harassment and intimidation of me and others is NOT to opposed paid advocacy editing. It's a smear campaign, and not only does he know it, everyone who knows about him knows it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:10, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

No surprise. Coretheapple (talk) 23:17, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

The question you consistently fail to address though is the distinction between paid advocacy and paid editing. The former is clearly unacceptable, but the latter maybe not. Is your jumbling of the terms simply an error? Eric Corbett 22:15, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I think I've been very consistent about the difference. It is paid advocacy that is the problem. When I said "the user in question is not opposed to paid editing" I was directly answering the question I was asked - with precision. I don't see how you can possibly say that I "consistently fail to address" the question when I've been perhaps the leading advocate for making the distinction loud and clear. One of the biggest problems we have in getting people who are new to the debate to understand the issue is that advocates turn up to confuse and muddy the waters by pretending that the two are the same thing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:19, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

So what's the difference between paid advocacy and unpaid advocacy? Aren't the two equally abhorrent? Eric Corbett 22:36, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Of course it is. But if I hate sunlamps, and make a pest of myself in Sunlamps, I'll soon be known as the Guy Who Hates Sunlamps and I can and should and probably will be curbed. But if the Acme Sunlamp Company hires me to write an article on that company, or edit Sunlamps so that I use every excuse in the book to remove stuff on the dangers of skin cancer or whatever from that and other related articles, I'm a considerably more pernicious danger to the project for a number of reasons. One of them is that I can be replaced, if I get "hot," and another and possibly more experienced editor retained to push the Acme and Sunlamp cause. Coretheapple (talk) 23:17, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

The difference is that one is paid, and one is not. And "degree of abhorrence" is not the correct question to ask when we ask whether we can alter policy to deal with a problem. Unpaid advocacy is a problem, a serious one, and one which will require different solutions, although of course solutions that help with paid advocacy should be considered if they can in part help deal with unpaid advocacy. One key difference is that unpaid advocacy involves people who have a particular set of core beliefs or a world view that makes it hard for them to accept the notion of neutrality. Paid advocacy involves people who have a job to do, a job which need not be inherently unethical, and a job which requires them not to embarrass their clients/employers. I think that we can prevent most undisclosed paid advocacy editing by making clear that there is a better way - open, honest discussion with the community. And we can raise the price of paid advocacy editing by clarifying what is wrong with it and that we forbid it. Paid advocacy editing is amenable to incentives in a way that passionate ideology may not be.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:23, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

The profit motive isn't necessarily worse or better than other motives people might bring to their contributions. Ideally, the crowdsourcing effect would even things out: the POV of the supporters of an entity or person (paid or otherwise) would be counterbalanced by the POV of the critics. Personally I think a lot of the problem stems from the bar of notability being set a bit too low, so that relatively obscure topics (such as small private schools, romote villages, etc.) tend to get articles written about them by people who are motivated to do so because of a beef or a desire to plug.

The trouble is that there's not always someone on the other side to create balance, and there simply isn't the volunteer manpower to cover the 3 million plus articles. Worse: with every story in the press about a company's representatives editing their own Misplaced Pages articles, the more people will start to say "so what? don't they all do that?" Equally, as stories come out about grudge editors, negative information becomes suspect as well. --SB_Johnny | ✌ 14:31, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Re crowdsourcing: that's an interesting point. Yes, ordinarily over time you will get a kind of equlibrium through the crowdsourcing process. But paid advocates can skew the crowdsourcing equation by literally "buying" advocates. That is especially dangerous for fringe areas in which the editor pool is lacking in terms of interest. Also, there is a tendency to look at paid editing (and I've been guilty of this) as being payment for positive information. But our current lack-of-policies in this area makes paid editing against particular products, brands, organizations and people just as likely. This is a particular danger in controversial areas and in political controversies in which money flows in both directions. Editors here are constantly complaining about unpaid zealots. Do we really need paid zealots on one or another or both sides of an issue/company/brand/person? Coretheapple (talk) 17:41, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

In fact, come to think of it, negative input from paid advocates was an issue in the BP article. A few months ago, the BP publicist stationed on the talk page took exception to the way a particular analyst critical of the company was utilized as a source in the article.. Inter alia, he pointed out as follows: "I was curious and looked at Misplaced Pages article, as it seems the description came from there, then I noticed that she seems to have added this description herself. I am aware there is no rule specifically against editing articles where you have a COI (it is my preference not to do so here) but it does seem that there is a neutrality issue here of using a description word-for-word in this article that wrote in her own article. Would someone be able to update the 'Alternative energy' section to provide a clearer, more NPOV description of ?" His request was not granted, but as a result of this BP input there substantial edits to the article on the analyst. I for one am not comfortable with corporations sharing their "opposition research" with Misplaced Pages editors, as a way of skewing and spinning articles about themselves and their real or perceived critics, and others not towing the corporate line. The analyst herself did not reciprocate, to her credit, and may not have been aware of the entire controversy. If this had leaked out tot he press, there might have been yet another black eye for Misplaced Pages, as well as a "battleground" type situation if the analyst had fought fire-with-fire. This exemplifies one of the dangers of paid advocates aggressively pushing their POV on talk pages. Coretheapple (talk) 17:55, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Consider: Person A is paid by a company to edit Misplaced Pages, with a brief to make their article look good. Person B is given time by an employer t edit Misplaced Pages with no formal brief. The user alluded to above, does A and tries to assert that because B is superficially similar in some regards, and is tolerated and even potentially endorsed, then there is an inconsistency. There isn't. If you are given money, by anybody, to edit Misplaced Pages with a brief, even a vague one, to promote the interests of the person paying the bill, then you are in trouble. Everyone knows hwo he is, frankly, he's not here to help and never was. His agenda is personal benefit, financial or reputational.

If you edit an article whose context has a direct bearing on your income, you have a problem.

If you are n Israeli editing about Palestine, you have no problem other than achieving consensus for you edits.

If you work as a marketing manager for Ford, you should not edit the article on either Ford or GM. This is not hard to understand unless you are determined to engage in rules-lawyering. In which case, ping me a message and I will block you to save everyone's time :-) Guy (Help!) 00:44, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

As the user under scrutiny by this discussion thread, this discussion has been both useful and illuminating. I fully understand that editing on my employer's articles has raised concern and I will fully adhere to the golden rule of rather proposing change at the talk pages. Around 2009, when I was still a freshman editor without any affiliation with Misplaced Pages Norway or the Misplaced Pages movement, I was indeed caught by that enthusiasm which user Guy describes, I was highly passionate about editing the Misplaced Pages and determined to contribute every way I could. Since I could, as a Telenor employee, easily see many errors in several relevant articles concerning the company, I eagerly fixed and added both facts and more thorough descriptions. In 2010, I joined the Wikimedia movement and became board member that year, vice chairman the next. The debates which I gradually became a part of at Wikimedia mailing lists, made me realize that there were limits to engagement and potential COI situations, so I continued by mainly editing things that were purely trivial facts (correcting numbers, etc).

The user Stylecustom writes about my editing, that especially after 2010 he should have been exposed to the extensive media coverage of the Bell Pottinger incidents of 2011, along with the UK Parliament and Gibraltarpedia scandals of 2012. I am sorry, but the answer is "no". I have never heard of Bell Pottinger, I am unsure as to which parliament scandal he refers, and I have just briefly noted that there has been something on Gibraltarpedia but not seen details. I once took part in a Wikimedia Foundation e-mail discussion thread on editing among politicians and political employees, referring to the scandinavian setting. The british debate, however, I must admit is of no concern to me. These issues have never been in the media, up here. I also doubt that my Colleague (?) Uninor has noted those scandals in The Hindu or in the Deccan News. Guidelines must be communicated through the Misplaced Pages, not through medias that 4% of the world population read.

I am not a frequent contributor to the English Misplaced Pages, when I edit here it is almost always translations of what I have done at one of the Scandinavian language versions. My context is Scandinavia, and I contribute to both Norsk I and II, Saami, and Danish, when time allows. The COI guidelines of these language versions are very easy to sum up: they don't have any COI guildelines. If you look for the COI guidelines for any of the Norwegian Misplaced Pages versions or the Danish, you will search in vain. Only the Swedish Misplaced Pages has one, it says that you should consider COI, you should make your affiliation known, and: There are, however, no absolute prohibition against writing about the topics in which one has a personal interest, as long as one has good intentions and one demonstrates that one can keep neutral in the topic. As apart from other editors, those who choose to write with a conflict of interest are advised not to be bold, but rather to be careful. Corrections of typos, addition of trustworthy sources, non-controversial corrections of facts, and uploading of free images are such things that are generally encourages even if one has conflict of interest. . The reason why we Scandinavians have been so clearly liberal on this, I believe is threefold: 1) There is a high general level of trust in society. 2) We are so few that we would not have had a local Misplaced Pages if we enforced more strict rules. 3) Experience with substantial COI editing is probably fairly good all over, maybe based on some unconscious cost-benefit reasoning among admins. From my own experience, I have some dispute with communications officers who have edited "their" topics, but all over the judgment is astonishingly good. Very few people have bad intentions, as far as we can see in the scandinavian setting.

This is not to excuse, only to explain how it occured that I committed the failure to bring these more liberal rules with me to the English Misplaced Pages. I should have understood that editing here follows by the rules here. In the local Norwegian setting, I have supported the broadly accepted, more liberal stance. We allow employers to write about their university, museum, or company, as long as they have good intensions, stick to the five pillars, and make known their affiliation in the article or on their user page (Swedish Misplaced Pages specifically names user page for that). Altogether, I have probably done more than 90.000 edits, of which I estimate that less than 0,2% of these edits are on issues related to my employer. When user Stylecustom cited some of my earlier wordings in articles, they now appear as "embarrassing", to cite this talk page's owner. I had forgotten them, and it was useful to be reminded. To make the picture more complete, I have also uploaded 13.300 photos to Commons, of which probably 2.000 have been taken while on paid service for my employer. Some of my colleagues have also donated photos. Some photos exhibit equipment or installations of my employer, without anyone questioning that. No one have asked me to shoot photos or write on my employer's topics, I don't work for marketing or communication, and I don't know or control what my other 35.000 colleagues do. Most probably, many of them write for Misplaced Pages if they're geeks like me. We have seen above that some user named Uninor has edited the topic Uninor - that might well be a colleague in India. I don't think they've followed detailed media discussions about Wiki PR, so they probably just stick to the five pillars and the user guidelines that are visible in here. In one's local setting, one might not find a COI guideline at all, as we have seen.

I look forward to keep supporting even the English version of Misplaced Pages, with the best of intensions. Best regards, Bjoertvedt (talk) 22:59, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Mainland Europe differs from English-speaking countries in the choice of a decimal mark. Hence, your "0,2" corresponds to "0.2", whereas "90.000" and "2.000" and "13.300" correspond to "90,000" and "2,000" and "13,300".

—Wavelength (talk) 23:30, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate User:Bjoertvedt's explanation. You know, back in mid-2006 on English Misplaced Pages, it could be pretty much described as having "no absolute prohibition against writing about the topics in which one has a personal interest, as long as one has good intentions and one demonstrates that one can keep neutral in the topic". Then a new paid editing (not paid advocacy editing, but paid editing) firm called MyWikiBiz launched onto the scene. Jimmy Wales had something of a fit about it, and (in my opinion) the English Misplaced Pages's approach to paid editing has ever since been a mess of contradiction and hypocrisy. More than two years later, Wales would apologize for how he handled MyWikiBiz. But we seem to have a relapse now, as I understand (if we're to conclude that "Greg" mentioned on this page is the founder of MyWikiBiz) that Mr. Wales will "call the police" if the founder of MyWikiBiz should ever come within eyesight of Wales, even in Greg's own city when Wales is there as a visitor. I think the Scandinavian way of trusting people who want to do well by doing good, would have worked out much more peacefully and productively on the English Misplaced Pages. Too late for that, though. Wales seems dug in now more than ever. He says that he can't find a case of a conflicted editor who didn't get satisfaction from engaging exclusively on Talk pages and other noticeboards, but what about this matter that didn't seem to resolve in the conflicted editor's favor? -- Stylecustom (talk) 00:37, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Well that's interesting. Thanks for the background. I went over to MyWikiBiz and found an article in the Chronicle for Higher Education, which concludes as follows: "If the encyclopedia is serious about gaining acceptance from academe, surely it has a vested interest in dissuading companies from paying to improve their presence on the site." I'd really like to put the past behind us for a moment and focus on the issue that we've been discussing. Stylecustom, you're a new editor like me, though I may be a bit less new than you, and I'm really interested in hearing your opinion in answer to the question that I posed below: What is the downside of a ban on paid advocacy editing? Coretheapple (talk) 00:57, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

How have commercial editors "already lost"?

User:Coretheapple wrote above that commercial editors and their entourage are winning. User:Jimbo Wales replied that they have already lost. Coretheapple, Jimbo, and I are all in agreement that paid advocacy editing (which should perhaps more concisely be called commercial editing) should not be tolerated, and is a threat to Misplaced Pages. However, I have to ask how the commercial editors are losing or have lost. Several proposals for new policies or guidelines have failed to gain consensus for various reasons. Is the Wikimedia Foundation prepared to act due to the inability of the English Misplaced Pages community to act, or is Jimbo merely making a statement, when Coretheapple appears to be seeing the same situation as I am seeing (inability to obtain community consensus)? How have the commercial editors lost? Is there good news for opponents of commercial editing in the near future? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:00, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I took it as whistling in the dark and made a mental note never to take gambling advice from Jimmy Wales. We'll see, won't we? Carrite (talk) 03:28, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

We'll see. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:27, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll take WilyD's correction and expand it:

• paid advocates have lost,
• paid editors have not lost,
• paid editors who strictly follow wikipedia content guidelines and add strictly encyclopedic content and never write apologetic marketing-speak filler have not lost and they are not really supposed to lose.

--Enric Naval (talk) 11:09, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

What Enric said. Consensus right now, as I read it, is that if you declare any commercial interest and play a straight bat, you'll probably be OK. And if you don't, you risk a major shitstorm which will make your company look bad. Advertising to write articles for pay is generally accepted as wrong and inconsistent with the goals of the project. Those who advocate unfettered paid editing lost the argument, it's entirely about how we manage the inevitable fact of people with a vested financial or emotional interest in the content. Which is, actually, how it has always been, as any follower of articles on pseudoscience or creationism will be able to attest. Guy (Help!) 12:23, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't see the point of this discussion. If Jimbo wants to clarify his comment, he is free to do so. Coretheapple (talk) 14:50, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree. I was asking Jimbo. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:15, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

The board is preparing a statement. The numbers are weak for commercial editors, and the arguments they have made are not carrying the day with the community. There has been a need for refined understanding, and that refined understanding is now spread through the community quite widely. No one supports paid advocacy editing other than a tiny and noisy minority. The writing is on the wall.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:13, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, I'm sure you've stated before what you mean by "commercial editors", but if you could indulge me and state a precise definition I, and I'm sure others, would appreciate it.Camelbinky (talk) 20:53, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

"Commercial editing" is a relatively new term someone introduced last week. I tend to continue to use "paid advocacy editing". This is editing of article space (proposing things or discussing with us on the talk page is not the issue) by someone who is paid to advocate for a person or organization. It does not matter if the actual edit in question is allegedly "merely factual" because doing that invites a huge and messy complicated argument about what's merely factual. If someone is paid to edit in their area of expertise (the canonical example is a university professor who is encouraged to edit by a university as a part of public service) that's not paid advocacy editing but it is paid editing of an unproblematic kind. Whether you call it "commercial editing" or "paid advocacy editing" it is relatively easy to identify and define, with relatively minor edge cases, and that's why it makes for a good line to draw for policy purposes. And to round out this quick summary: advocacy editing which is unpaid is also a problem - and some would argue it is a worse problem, but it is a different problem for which different solutions are needed.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:26, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Sure, of course I do. Attacking the paid editors who directly edit articles would go a long way toward putting the cottage industry out of business. It would convert that entire field of endeavor into a black-hat practice, and I think it would wither away. But when I talk about article talk space, I'm referring to a narrow situation, which is agents and employees of corporations drafting text for articles, usually in the talk pages or subpages, and then getting a pal to put it in the article. Or employees/p.r. people effectively dominating article talk pages through sheer volume of "corrections." I'm also concerned about use of the articles for creation process. What I'm saying is that there are ways of evading the restrictions that apparently you're putting into place. However, even so, if you guys do enact a significant change like that, turning something you don't like into something that isn't allowed, and if you then give it the kind of publicity that it deserves, as well as an appropriate notice on the main page, you've gone a long way toward getting the problem licked. Coretheapple (talk) 22:43, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

See the note at the top. Guy (Help!) 22:20, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Two cents: I hope the issue of CREWE (more) will be addressed as well, as it goes hand-in-hand with paid editing. And more importantly, (User:Ocaasi might want to chime in here) the OTRS ticket system has been used to help commercial and special interests, like governments, shape articles without alerting the editors working on the page and without alerting the reader. There are no rules as yet about declaring the source of OTRS requests. I hope it's obvious that this needs to change immediately. Further, admins who take these requests sometimes hand the work over to editors who then go unsupervised and who do not always uphold NPOV. In the two cases I'm aware of, these editors engaged in whitewashing (at NDAA 2012) and greenwashing (at BP) articles, and in the case of User:Rangoon11, sockpuppetry and other nasty games. petrarchan47tc 00:21, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

		<font=3> Defender of the Wiki Barnstar For leadership in keeping Misplaced Pages free from commercial dominance Thank you, Jimbo Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:57, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll endorse that. Coretheapple (talk) 23:11, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Me too. ```Buster Seven Talk 21:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

As an OTRS volunteer: rubbish. The principal job of OTRS is to help people who have a problem. The majority of all inquiries are referred back to Misplaced Pages with advice on how to ask for help on Misplaced Pages itself. The only significant exception is defamatory content, which tends to be removed. Any company that comes along with a "we demand you include XYZ" response gets a polite brush-off. That is what OTRS does. I cannot speak for every volunteer, but that is what I and the friends I have on OTRS, do. And in return we get sniped at by opinionated people with newspaper columns. There are multiple discussion forums, OTRS volunteer confer on any difficult cases, and we make sure (or at least we should) that we draw a distinction between a response to a credible threat, and a response based on just being nice to someone who is impacted by Misplaced Pages content.

Please do not assume you have any idea what OTRS volunteers do. It is pretty plain you don't know, and that's fine, but don't substitute your imagination for facts, please. Guy (Help!) 00:33, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I know for a fact, and have confirmed with Ocaasi, that the US government and BP used the OTRS system to influence their articles. In the case of the USG, talking points were suggested for inclusion in an article about an extremely controversial piece of legislation, NDAA 2012. When those points were added to the talk page, the admin referred to the source as "The Readers". At a certain point, it was revealed that the source was USG, but that declaration exists only on one talk page in the archives. As for BP, I am not sure what their request was, but the result was a very promotional (and greenwashed) section in the lede and Rangoon11 was asked to help. I pinged Ocaasi in my note above because we have already discussed all of this, and the majority of what I'm relaying comes from him (would you like to see the talk page archives?). Nothing I am saying here was refuted. Ocaasi also said at the time that we should indeed have rules for disclosure, but none have been drafted. I am hoping that we can take care of that now, and hope I don't upset anyone else by asking for it (certainly not my intention). petrarchan47tc 00:57, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Relevant talk archives here and here (not an exhaustive list). petrarchan47tc 01:47, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I think we need a "deep dive" into what the US government has been using OTRS for. Misplaced Pages is not here to be manipulated by the US government, and they need to learn that. I do wonder what the OTRS agents in question thought they were doing... --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:02, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

If emailing the Foundation couldn't influence content, we'd be wasting our time even having an email system, That's not the point. Emailing the foundaiton is what hurt and angry people do, often after they have tried to fix some offensive and erroneous content and been reverted by someone.

OTRS volunteers edit Misplaced Pages on their own behalf. If some OTRS volunteers post content without checking it's compliant, then they are doing a bad job, but I have yet to see anyone on OTRS who is anything other than careful. Thats not to say people can't be manipulated, because of course they can, but privileged edits are used only when there is a big huge problem, and most of us don't have anything like the time to go in fixing stuff in any other type of case. We have templates telling people how to fix it or engage the community.

Frankly, if you want to make Misplaced Pages more supportive of your cause, against NPOV, then only an idiot would email the Foundation. And yes we do get a lot of idiots emailing. Guy (Help!) 00:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

As an OTRS volunteer, my reaction was similar to Guy's. I think the problem User:Petrarchan47 is that you used a broad brush when stating the OTRS ticket system has been used to help commercial and special interests, like governments, shape articles without alerting the editors working on the page and without alerting the reader I am aware of issues with the BP article, while not familiar with the specifics of the incidents you allege, so am not expressing anything about those specific incidents. However, the phrasing implies this practice is pervasive. I don't believe it is. I know I have fielded many similar requests. In some case, I point them to the talk page and urge them to make their request at that page, on occasion, I'll make the request on their behalf while noting that it came through OTRS. If I do edit the article, it is usually something straightforward like a birth year. The incident you describe sounds like a problem requiring a response, but your message was diluted with the broad brush approach.--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:43, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't see how "has been used" could be interpreted as a broad or narrow brush. It is the case that it has been used in a way that should have editors alarmed. To what degree the program has been used to help special interests is not something I can comment on. I stumbled on to two cases and these are the only OTRS requests I know of. But the issue I raised originally is that there exist no rules requiring the source of these requests be revealed, and I am asking that rules be drafted. Even these two cases are enough to warrant my request and my concern. I am delighted to hear that as far as you know, this is not a widespread problem. I am sure you'll agree adding some rules to help make sure it's not a problem in the future can only be a good thing. petrarchan47tc 10:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Later: Ah yes, I do see how my wording could be interpreted as a wide sweep. However, it does not make sense to me that the larger point should be disregarded on this basis. If the WMF is preparing a statement on the issue of COI, this is a perfect time to bring up the missing rules regarding full disclosure/transparency for OTRS requests. It doesn't matter that not everyone is misbehaving, or that few are aware any wrongdoing exists. The example of the NDAA 2012 should be enough to garner wide support for transparency. This was an exceedingly controversial piece of legislation, and the Obama Administration was taken to court over its unconstitutionality. In short, the NDAA allows for US citizens to be indefinitely detained without charges or trial on American soil for reasons so loosely worded that they can, and do, include journalists like Chris Hedges who've simply interviewed members of terrorist orgs. So the US government had a massive COI with regard to this article, and was defending itself in court at the same time they were secretly being represented here on Wiki by an admin via OTRS, all according to, or at least not in violation of, policy. This is enough reason to begin this moment drafting rules to prevent this from ever happening again. petrarchan47tc 21:54, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Re:"The Board is preparing a statement." — And that relates to WP policy and guidelines, how exactly? The hardline "Ban 'Em All And Let God Sort 'Em Out" minority has the win-loss record of the Jacksonville Jaguars trying to force their perspective into organizational law. They've been rebuffed again and again and again and again and again. So WMF is going to issue "a statement" that Jacksonville has the coolest helmets and they're now planning a Superbowl victory party? Hmmm. That will make for interesting theater... Eventually, there will be a reasonable compromise — but not until after the Jags go 1-15, it would seem... Carrite (talk) 01:06, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

The Terms of Use forbid : "Using the services in a manner that is inconsistent with applicable law." The FTC offered new guidance in 2009 in order to clarify the law as it applies to social media , which was only to say that the rules for disclosures of financial conflicts of interest still apply to social media. And that is, the disclosures must be "clear and conspicuous" . What we have seen is that editors have received, or had expected to receive, money from certain people or corporations and then wrote about the products and services sold by those people and corporations, without anything even approximating a clear or conspicuous disclosure. There have been many proposals to prevent this practice, but none have passed into policy. I don't think the fact that the Foundation is concerned with enforcing their own TOS and complying with US law should seem strange at all, but I could be wrong. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 01:37, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

The FTC rules are quite the red herring. They apply to the "use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising". Most Misplaced Pages content, even that written by paid advocacy editors, would never be interpreted by the FTC as "advertising". When writing an encyclopedia article about a person or a company, the intent is to blandly convey factual information, not to motivate a reader to purchase something. So, no matter how many times we see this "watch out for the FTC, you naughty paid editors" schtick, trust me, it doesn't apply here. I have a friend who works at the FTC in Consumer Protection, and we've discussed this at length. -- Stylecustom (talk) 04:23, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

What about § 255.5 Example 7 in the 2009 Guide: ? If a seller of a product pays money to a blogger to write about the product and the blogger does not disclose this, she may be fined. The fact that the person is posting it on Misplaced Pages would only seem to make it more deceptive: Very few people would expect that the writer of material in an encyclopedia has a connection to the seller of the product, at least less than if the material was on a blog. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 05:02, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

§ 255.5 Example 8 and § 255.0 Example 8 are also good examples. It's clear that the FTC interprets the word "advertising" very broadly. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:36, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

In response to the above two comments about § 255.0 and § 255.5, the reader can easily note that the examples refer to "a blogger". Misplaced Pages is not a blog. Bloggers typically write about their opinions, and they typically use their real name to certify their personal connection to their opinion. Misplaced Pages writers, even the paid ones (if not especially the paid ones), do not produce opinion content. And very often (indeed, perhaps "most often"), Misplaced Pages editors do not use their real names to certify any personal connection to their content. They gather and represent other secondary resources that describe facts and opinions held by others. That is, on Misplaced Pages, we do not see "Acme Protein Mix is my favorite health supplement because it makes me feel more vigorous during my daily workouts". We might see "Acme Protein Mix was rated by Men's Health magazine as having the highest concentration of enzymes that may contribute to more vigorous workouts." (And a reference link to Men's Health magazine is provided.) No matter how badly you want to imagine that the latter example is an "advertisement" or an "endorsement", it is not. It is an encyclopedic restatement of an observable fact. Men's Health magazine can be verified by others, as it applies to Acme Protein Mix, and whether money was paid for that fact to enter Misplaced Pages or not, the content never becomes an "advertisement" or an "endorsement". § 255.0/5 cover endorsements. What you see in Misplaced Pages can rarely be counted as an endorsement of a product or a company, and so (as I said above) these claims that FTC rules restrict paid editors on Misplaced Pages are red herring arguments. Only a very inept paid editor would find him or herself on the receiving end of an FTC fine, because they would be editing Misplaced Pages in such a fashion so alien to Misplaced Pages's house style, their content would be deleted within minutes, anyway. For an example of an inept employer-based edit, let me offer:

• "With the experience and knowledge we have gained over the years, we have developed state of the art expertise within planning, building and operation of broadcasting networks. Norkring has entered a period characterised by new demands, new markets of concentration, and new projects. After years of improving our products, services and knowledge, the focus has been enlarged and aimed towards a different market. We have seen an international market that can benefit from our know-how, and the time is right to pursue it. Norkring is taking a step closer to accomplishment of our growth strategy."

That endorsement was offered by (probably) someone working at the Norkring company (User:Norkring), with Norkring being a subsidiary of the Telenor company where the vice chairman of Wikimedia Norway serves as a vice president. The Wikimedia Foundation, represented by Jimmy Wales' signature, just renewed an expanded partnership agreement with Telenor. The FTC would not likely be able to pursue Norkring, though, because they don't have jurisdiction in Norway (correct?), and "Norkring" didn't try to hide the fact that it is a paid endorser (one can assume that the reader would assume that "User:Norkring" is a paid endorser of "Norkring" company). -- Stylecustom (talk) 14:04, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Re the remark above When writing an encyclopedia article about a person or a company, the intent is to blandly convey factual information, not to motivate a reader to purchase something. That is precisely the point and that is why Misplaced Pages content is, if anything more deceptive when it purports to be the work of independent editors without a COI, when in fact content is written by the subject of the article. Google yields several articles on the FTC's concern about advertorials, among them this from a major law firm's consumer protection group, describing how the FTC has cracked down on "advertorials" that purport to be editorial content when in fact they are not. It reports that the FTC "alleges that these websites mislead consumers by posing as objective news outlets and failing to disclose the site’s financial connections with the sellers of the products featured in their 'reports.'" Such content "is permissible if the financial incentives for the report are disclosed to consumers in a clear and conspicuous manner. But, the FTC alleges that these websites went too far and misled consumers by posing as objective, independent news outlets. In many instances the connection to the sellers were not disclosed, and when there were disclosures, the FTC alleges that the disclosures were inadequate."

So to return to the point of this discussion: yes, the Foundation has a positive responsibility to prevent its property from being utilized in this manner. Even if the FTC didn't feel as strongly as it does, it would have a responsibility and could not simply delegate such things to its volunteers. It would be the same thing if a "consensus" or poll of Misplaced Pages volunteers favored reproduction of child pornography. If you examine the Terms of Use, child pornography is expressly prohibited. Coretheapple (talk) 14:46, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I just have more questions. So § 255.5 example 7 uses a blogger as an example, so that is why FTC rules do not apply to Misplaced Pages, because Misplaced Pages users are not bloggers? What about the very next example, § 255.5 Example 8, which is about a user on an online forum: Would anyone who would officially judge such a matter really distinguish a Wiki user from a online forum user? I mean, what you're saying makes some sense to me, but the impression I get from the guide is that the rules are for all people who take money from a seller of a product and then go and write about the product. For example, the newest DotCom disclosures text from the FTC says "The FTC Act’s prohibition on “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” broadly covers advertising claims, marketing and promotional activities, and sales practices in general. The Act is not limited to any particular medium." And their press release for the 2009 guide says : "The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement." This communicates to me that an endorsement can be just any positive thing publicly written about a product when the person doing the writing is being paid to write about that product. I value your connection with someone in the FTC, but can you point to any literature from the FTC which makes the distinctions for Wiki-writers versus bloggers, objective writing versus opinion writing, and so forth, that you've pointed out? --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:31, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Keep in mind too that Misplaced Pages is not even remotely comparable to a blog. Most blogs get limited readership and have even less credibility. Misplaced Pages calls itself an "encyclopedia" and trumpets its "neutral point of view," which even newspapers and other mainstream journalism does not boast about anymore. It is at the top of all Google searches. Coretheapple (talk) 21:38, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Atethnekos, I don't know why this is so puzzling to you, but I will try to respond with crystal clarity. Blogs transmit opinions of the blog owner and could be used to personally "endorse" a product or a company. Online forums transmit the opinions of the users and could be used to personally "endorse" a product or a company. Misplaced Pages is a tertiary reference that transmits reliably-sourced secondary information. It is very difficult (and stupid) to use Misplaced Pages to transmit the opinions of the users and can hardly be used to personally "endorse" a product or a company. I cannot point to any literature from the FTC which makes the distinctions for Wiki writers vs. bloggers, etc., just as I cannot point to any literature from the FTC which makes distinctions between automobiles and trampolines as modes of transportation. There is no reason for the FTC to address endorsements or advertising on Misplaced Pages, because Misplaced Pages generally is not used as a medium to transmit endorsements or advertising. It is a crowd-sourced encyclopedia, with a Disclaimer linked to from EVERY PAGE that says, "Misplaced Pages cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here." The FTC has no more jurisdiction over paid Misplaced Pages editors who abide by WP:NPOV, WP:RS, and WP:V than it would have over a funeral home that decided to sell refreshments during viewings. -- Stylecustom (talk) 22:57, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. So for example, take this edit from 2005 which added: "One of the most revolutionary products to come out on the market was the company's "Pampers", first test-marketed in 1961. Prior to this point, there were no disposable diapers. Babies always wore cloth diapers, which were leaky and labor intensive to wash. Pampers simplified the diapering process." This text has remained in the Procter & Gamble article pretty much unchanged right up to today, with no reference to any reliable source. So if the user, Inhighspeed, was later found out to have been paid by Procter & Gamble to write that Pampers are revolutionary and that they simplify the diapering process, the FTC rules would not apply to this paid, positive spin on their product, because Misplaced Pages is supposed to be a tertiary reference source?

I am sorry it is puzzling to me, despite the crystal clarity. What is the relevance of a disclaimer being linked on every page, as you say? For example the DotCom disclosures text just referenced says: "Necessary disclosures should not be relegated to “terms of use” and similar contractual agreements." --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 23:19, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

No need to apologize, Atethnekos; I think this is a truly fascinating and thoughtful discussion. I think your example of a 2005 edit that basically vomited a ton of unsourced claims onto Misplaced Pages would, indeed, be highly problematic if it were found that User:Inhighspeed was paid by Procter & Gamble to edit Misplaced Pages about P&G. First, P&G would probably insist on getting their money back, because that was an awful attempt at creating earnestly encyclopedic content about P&G. Second, sure, I suppose that the FTC would maybe have a claim against User:Inhighspeed if they bothered to subpoena the WMF for his IP address, then subpoena the ISP to determine which customer was assigned that IP at the time of the edit (if those records were kept for that long -- I think some ISPs allow customer-to-IP records to lapse every 12 months, if even that long). So, good luck with that, FTC! Anyway, I would like to make what I think is an important point here; something that just occurred to me. We (you) should be careful pressing this line of reasoning that the FTC will be the silver bullet for the WMF in its attempt to stamp out paid commercial editing, or paid advocacy editing. Remember, the FTC is largely responsible for investigating cases of false advertising. If they start looking too closely at Misplaced Pages, some civil servant there is bound to come to the same conclusion that most of us already did long ago: that Misplaced Pages isn't really an "encyclopedia" at all, what with all the reputation-damaging falsehoods that have been irresponsibly preserved in it over the years. The WMF could end up on the receiving end of some hefty fines, for it having insufficiently disclaimed representations of being an encyclopedia or, indeed, "the sum of human knowledge". (In other words, be careful what you wish for, you might not like the consequences of your wish being granted.) -- Stylecustom (talk) 00:00, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, can you explain to me what you feel is the downside of a ban on paid advocacy editing? Coretheapple (talk) 00:15, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

It's been covered so many times, I thought it would be obvious by now. If "paid advocacy editing" is banned, there are dozens of zealous Wikipedians who will then stretch that ban as a weapon to attack "paid non-advocacy editing". This will have the unintended effect of driving even NPOV paid non-advocacy editors underground. They won't want to disclose their paid conflict, because they'll find every edit of theirs will be mercilessly scrutinized, and editors against paid editing will attack content that is, in the eyes of most people, actually quite beneficial to the Misplaced Pages project. If Misplaced Pages policy could promise that paid editors who disclose themselves will be treated with utmost respect and consideration, and that their editing in article space will be equally evaluated against other editing, then a sweeping policy that clearly distinguishes between advocacy and non-advocacy editing would be workable. But, Misplaced Pages's culture has proven time and time again that no such respect or consideration will ever be broadly extended to paid editors, given that some anonymous, presumably non-paid, non-biased editors here (many who don't really even create articles) equate them with syphilis. (You do remember that, don't you, Coretheapple?) A community that lacks the maturity to intelligently cooperate even with paid non-advocacy editors can't be trusted to fairly adjudicate a ban on paid advocacy editing. -- Stylecustom (talk) 01:05, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

When you say "paid non-advocacy editing," what are you referring to, how does it differ from "paid advocacy editing," and how would a ban on the"bad" paid advocacy editing lead to a ban on the "good" paid editing? Coretheapple (talk) 01:16, 18 November 2013 (UTC) Perhaps you can also clear this up. You say A community that lacks the maturity to intelligently cooperate even with paid non-advocacy editors can't be trusted to fairly adjudicate a ban on paid advocacy editing. I honestly don't know what you are talking about. How has this lack of cooperation manifested itself? Are you talking about the MyWikiBiz case or something more recent that irks you too? Coretheapple (talk) 01:19, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

(ec) The Wikimedia Foundation owns Misplaced Pages in a physical sense. Lately there's been some troubles with the servers, and you may have noticed that you get an error message saying "Wikimedia Foundation error." That's because this website is the property of the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia board of directors owns the project, and it can do what it wishes with it. I have no idea what it is going to do, but if it decides to do something on all of its projects or just this one, it has ever right to do so, and as a matter of institutional self-preservation it arguably has a responsibility to limit the extent to which third-party commercial interests exploit its servers and other facilities. If I were a major donor, I would not look with favor on my money going to subsidize private public relations campaigns. Coretheapple (talk) 01:37, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

And that, Jimbo, is the bottom line. Coretheapple's above comment distills the dilemma we face as a community editing a wiki. Our community is demonstrably infiltrated by various paid COI editors, here to make a buck and push a view. The WMF has the power and the duty to take action to ensure Misplaced Pages's credibility and retain editor participation, as well as recruit new editing talent. I continue to feel encouraged by your recent statements Jimbo, and hope that the WMF statement will come soon, and be one with sufficient teeth to make an effective policy that will enforce compliance. One final thought: in my view any admin accepting cash to push a POV should be banned as a serious violation of community trust. Jusdafax 06:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support. petrarchan47tc 21:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support ```Buster Seven Talk 21:45, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I just wanted to mention that the cease and desist letter today from the Foundation's lawyer (see section below), when read in conjunction with Sue Gardner's Oct. 21 statement, indicates that the Foundation, owner of Misplaced Pages, already views paid advocacy editing as a "black hat," prohibited practice. I never read the Oct. 21 statement, my bad. If you read the letter, and the Oct. 21 statement, together, you can see that the Misplaced Pages community does not have the authority to condone paid advocacy editing. It is already prohibited by Misplaced Pages's owners. They have said so. Their word is law. This is their website. Misplaced Pages's owners have already made their views clear. That being the case, and given the gridlock currently afflicting Misplaced Pages volunteers on this subject, it's plain that the Foundation needs to follow up as necessary. If there is any confusion between Misplaced Pages practices and the Foundation's clear desires in this matter, the onus is on the Foundation to clear it up. Coretheapple (talk) 21:59, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Inappropriate user names

Where does one report what may be an inappropriate or offensive user name?Camelbinky (talk) 21:15, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

See WP:BADNAME. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:17, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually WP:UAA is the place to report, but only for blatant violations which merit blocks without warning. For others, simply leave the appropriate templated warning or an untemplated note on the user talk page. Please do NOT do both, as the warning invites discussion and change of username, and the report is a request for a block which would prevent this. Do read the advice linked above before taking any action. DES 21:22, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you both. I did leave a template warning and will see how it goes from there.Camelbinky (talk) 21:30, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

DESiegel, would you be able to update WP:BADNAME to make the options (and things to avoid) clearer? It would be nice to be able to link to things quickly and easily, without possible confusions like the one you mention. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:36, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Just curious - why did you ask this one user, out of the 20 million that are on Misplaced Pages?

Next time, you might wanna use {{helpme}} or something instead. 88.104.4.74 (talk) 21:37, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Just curious - why do you object? It's a perfectly fine place to ask.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:05, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I will look at it. Demiurge1000, was there any particular part you found hard to understand or confusing? DES 22:11, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! No, actually your initial comment "Actually WP:UAA is the place to report" made me think you were implying that WP:BADNAME was not the right answer. If WP:BADNAME is already perfect, that's fine. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:45, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:BADNAME describes several options on handling a dubious username. It includes a link to WP:UAA. But it wasn't strictly speaking the answer to your question "where do I report...?" I have modified WP:BADNAME slightly to mention that a user should not both discuss with the user whose name seems inappropriate, and report, mirroring the instructions at WP:UAA (which I patrol sometimes) where such dual reports are sometimes a problem. DES 14:56, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

J, I didn't object, I just wondered why they'd asked here. 88.104.4.74 (talk) 00:46, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I asked here because of the high number of very intelligent and wiki-policy knowledgeable editors who watch this page and I knew I'd get the best answer here, and quickly. Frankly I believe this page does, and should, act as a help desk, as long as Jimbo is ok with it of course; with no offence to the many good contributors who work hard over there at the real help desk answering questions and getting things done for people.Camelbinky (talk) 13:30, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

For people interested the results of my template asking User:Corpse-ManoftheObamaclypse can be found on my talk page. I for one don't want further arguing with another Misplaced Pages editor with a battleground mentality, it is getting old; I had hoped using the template would get the point across that he/she should use some personal reflection, but that didn't work. If others could comment, I don't mind my talk page being used to discuss this issue. An admin User:Drmies has already pointed out that the name is indeed combative/disruptive; other opinions of any persuasion are welcome. If someone wants to set up an RfC, that would be even better and get this resolved quickly. I on the other hand am tired of the arguing, and that user has made it clear it will be a drawn out battle with "snarky" comments; I for one don't want to be insulted anymore.Camelbinky (talk) 13:30, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, I regret that issues regarding my username are taking up space on your talk page. However, some comments have been made here that I wish to clear up. Camelbinky, your comment that you "don't want to be insulted anymore" necessarily implies that I have insulted you. What are you talking about? I do not believe that I have done that. I have simply expressed disagreement with you about this issue. You also indicated that you are "tired of the arguing." I have posted a total of two (2) comments about this issue on your user page--one in response to your template message, and one in response to comments from another user. That's not much of an argument. I would remind you that I was happily editing on Misplaced Pages in peace for several months before you began making an issue of my username, and that I am not the one who started this argument in the first place. Corpse-ManoftheObamaclypse (talk) 20:45, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps "Corpse-ManoftheObamaclypse" is a rearrangement of the letters in the name of a flower, however there is the unfortunate reality that the vast majority of editors would interpret "Corpse" as referring to a dead person, and "Obamaclypse" as a strong political statement, namely that Obama's Presidency is a disaster. WP:IU covers the situation—avoid names that are "likely to offend other contributors" or "seem intended to provoke emotional reaction", although Misplaced Pages is not bound by a set of rules, and no regulation is needed to point out that it would be unhelpful for some editors to use "Obamaclypse" in their name, while others have a slogan deriding Republicans. Please ask for your user name to be changed to something neutral (see WP:CHU) so we can avoid wasting time to debating the obvious. Johnuniq (talk) 22:47, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I think en.wikipedia outsmarts itself trying to ban these names. We're better off letting people wear their hearts on their sleeves so that when problem editing happens their bias is obvious, than making them take on bland names and prepare Wikilawyering smokescreens for their POV. Wnt (talk) 08:56, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. I probably would not have blocked this editor for their username alone, but when combined with problematic editing, as was the case here (see diffs on their talk page, and their contribution list that is not long), I decided to block them indefinitely until there is a discussion with them about how to properly edit Misplaced Pages and an agreement to choose a username that is not threatening, baiting or offending anybody. Corpse + Some Identifiable Living Person is a really bad idea for a username. Jehochman 13:15, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I am going to review those diffs, but my initial inclination is to oppose this block. DES 15:44, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Do you have admin access? One of the diffs is a pretty bad BLP violation. I'm considering whether to rev delete it or get it oversighted. Jehochman 17:49, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

First to Corpse- Wasn't talking about the arguing or insults with you. Lots of those who read this page know I have been in some bitter discussions in the past and it has burned me out and I am not looking forward to another one, because you have stated that any discussion about your name would result in "snarky" comments being thrown back and forth, your battleground mentality has made me not want to engage you further, when you read and realize our policies on how to discuss, I'll be happy to discuss with you. But when you think discussions are going to devolve into name-calling there is no reason for me to engage you, it is futile.

To everyone else- I believe a legitimate argument can be made that the name itself is a BLP violation incorporating a living person's name (that is not your own) into the word apocalypse and the entire name implies that a "corpse" is a "man of the" Obama Apocalypse... that death and dead people are the result of President Obama's actions/policies which result in an apocalypse. User names that imply such about a living person, politician or not, are a BLP violation.

As per the editor's contributions, some are very useful and good, he/she has contributed a bit on articles I created from scratch or largely re-wrote, and that is how I stumbled upon the name. I encourage the user to get a new user name, and join the NYCD wikiproject as well. I do hope an admin checks to make sure this user is not a banned user under a new name, the sophistication of the edits are quite above brand new editor. A person with conservative or Republican leanings can easily get in POV-pushing trouble in an with so many Democrats elected today and in history (and vice versa a Democrat-leaning editor on conservative articles! I'm living in Missouri now and I stay well away from the Republican politicians articles of this area on Misplaced Pages because as a NY Democrat I can not be impartial) so I do encourage the editor to be as impartial and always double check with either another editor or with the wording of NPOV and RS before editing politically based articles. A tendency some new editors fall into as a trap is a want to "neutralize" an article they believe is too "liberal" (or "conservative") and that it needs to be "balanced". A lot of times this results in POV-pushing, though unintended. Do I think this user is a "bad" editor? No. But the name has to be changed, it will bring undue scrutiny to the editor and a lack of AGF when editing certain topics. As Wnt points out, certain names bring attention to those who have a POV or will be a disruption; though this particular editor may not have the intention of disruption or POV-pushing, the name will bring attention and possible conflicts or offense to other editors. Imagine if Corpse were in a discussion about whether xy info should be on a liberal politician's article... a closing admin in an RfC might not take Corpse's legitimate points and views in to as high a consideration as they should otherwise have been taken because of a perceived bias or take the name as that of someone who has a POV-pushing agenda and is there to disrupt, and an RfC might swing one way or the other based on that admin's view of Corpse's name without even being consciously aware of it.Camelbinky (talk) 16:25, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Please be advised that Corpse was previously identified as the editor who created User:Barack Obama DA PREZ and check out that editor's response on the talk page with statements such as "I will be back" and "I will plague you forever". User:I am One of Many put this together back in July. I am sad no one did anything about Corpse after that information was revealed.Camelbinky (talk) 21:48, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Data on paid advocacy editing?

Hi, Jimbo and watchers. Is anybody here aware of any data on the extent of paid advocacy editing in Misplaced Pages? I'm asking because there are lots of hand-wavy arguments on both sides of the COI debate ("it's not really a problem" vs "it is huge and extensive problem") and there is nothing like data to help ground discussions in reality. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jytdog (talk • contribs) 16:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that paid advocacy editing is rarely flaunted, so data is not easy to come by. Can you suggest an experimental design that would give useful information? Looie496 (talk) 16:43, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea; I am not a data scientist and don't know what datamining tools exist nor how they could be used. Looie496, apparently you are not aware of any such data; thanks for letting me know. Am just looking for a "yes, you can find it at X" or "I don't know" or "it doesn't exist". Anybody else? thanks in advance!Jytdog (talk) 16:55, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Not to be too obvious, but there's some (incomplete) date here: Conflict-of-interest editing on Misplaced Pages. WilyD 17:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that is a good collection of anecdotes. Not data... what would be really compelling would be something like; "Y% of edits in a given day are tendentious, and X% of the tendentious edits made on a given day are made by paid advocates" with a brief description of how those numbers were reached. Knowing that Bell Pottinger accounts made ~1000 edits is pretty meaningless without having a sense of how extensive those edits were (adding a comma or deleting an article section?), what percentage of all edits that is over the time those edits were made, how long they persisted before they were corrected, etc. We have no COI policy and there are lots of people opposed to any new COI policy; If we want to get consensus to build something it would be very helpful to be able to bring credible evidence that paid advocacy is a significant problem, worth our time and worth compromising the fundamental principle of open-ness (which I think is what troubles most opponents of having a policy). It data doesn't exist, so be it. Jytdog (talk) 17:49, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

There was a study conducted between September 2012 and April 2013 that analyzed 100 randomly-selected Misplaced Pages articles about businesses. The research sought to determine if the creator of the article had a conflict of interest, and whether the article's heaviest contributor had a conflict of interest. (In many cases, the article creator was also its heaviest contributor.) I am sure that this study would be of great use to the Misplaced Pages community for review and critique purposes; however, the study was organized by a community-banned editor of English Misplaced Pages. Also, the highly granular results of the analysis did in fact "out" the real-life identities of many editors who did not publicly disclose themselves on Misplaced Pages. Therefore, how could this data possibly be shared on Misplaced Pages, when doing so would violate at least two policies (WP:BAN and WP:OUTING)? Which is more important to the Misplaced Pages community? Factual information, or adherence to rules that protect the Misplaced Pages groupthink? - 2001:558:1400:10:4024:ACA8:5451:B4BC (talk) 18:17, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe the banned-editor could get the article published somewhere respectable and without outing anybody, so that the research could be of use to the community. Although, since the author got banned it is less likely that the analysis will be widely believed. Of course we need usable data - my question is very practical. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 18:34, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

There is a two-page PowerPoint topline summary of the results of the research located on MyWikiBiz, which is respectable enough that it has its own Misplaced Pages article. The topline summary contains no information that outs editors. The author is a rather respected researcher -- he is a director of research at a Fortune 50 corporation. Whether Wikipedians can "widely believe" the objective analysis is really their problem, not his. - 2001:558:1400:10:4024:ACA8:5451:B4BC (talk) 18:43, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! That is interesting. Not strong (pretty small N and not published in a reliable source) but more than anybody has brought so far. Thank you. Anybody else?? Jytdog (talk) 18:53, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

(EC) I don't think we have good data on anything involving paid editing or conflicts on Misplaced Pages, our data gathering systems have just not been set up for that. Paid editors don't volunteer this information and remain in the shadows, not because they've been forced there, but because they know it is wrong to put adverts into an encyclopedia that doesn't accept adverts. We've got a similar lack of data on many potential problems.

I'll suggest looking in certain categories, e.g. Category:Foreign exchange companies, where it looks to me like about half of the articles are poorly sourced and on subjects that are at best of marginal notability. While the writing style usually does not scream out "This is an advert" it also is not our usual encyclopedic style, and there is seldom any less-than-complimentary info included. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:04, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I once asked if there was a list of paid editors, and I was referred to the Wikipediocracy website and a list of over 400 paid editors. I was immediately advised that the linking to the list was not favored because of supposed outing concerns. As I've previously opined when this quantification subject has been raised elsewhere, I do not think that such data is available for the reasons Smallbones explains above. Coretheapple (talk) 19:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The data is available. It's just that with Misplaced Pages's strict rules that protect anonymous, unpaid POV zealots as equally as inadvertent, paid POV editors, the research and discussion has to be done "off site". And even then, I suspect many Wikipedians would open the database only with their hands covering their eyes, except for just a thin slice of light between two fingers, repeatedly uttering Psalm 23 (or maybe the Creative Commons Notice) to protect their souls from what they are about to do -- GASP! -- expose themselves to publicly-available information about other human beings! The HORROR! - 2001:558:1400:10:4024:ACA8:5451:B4BC (talk) 19:21, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, still just looking for "yes, here"; "no"; "i don't know" as to whether there is data. "i've looked hard and found nothing" is a great answer too. if there is really no data and nobody has any idea how big or small of a problem this is, then we all should make our arguments a bit more carefully, and should respect those who say things like "there is no evidence that this is worth my time". i currently have no answer for that, which is a bummer. Still very interested in hearing what folks know! Jytdog (talk) 19:40, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Not having structured data on a question is far from "nobody has any idea" on the extent of the problem. I'll give another example, Category:Investment management companies of the United States, this one looks better than the FX category I noted above, but it looks like about 30% of the articles in the category are for pretty questionable companies with very little real info given on them beyond hand-waving and feel-good statements. So if somebody wants to check info on an investment manager (perhaps to deal with their life savings), the info they get here is likely to be positively dangerous. Do we want that?

The argument about "is this worth our time?" works better in the other direction. It may not be worth any editor's time, as an individual to seek out good information on these hidden advertisers, so the best use of our time collectively is to just say something like "We can't properly check information on small investment managers and non-listed companies, so we just won't have articles on them anymore. No big loss to anybody." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:01, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

More anecdotes. Everybody can bring anecdotes and everybody can make handwavy arguments. Not helpful, unless you are singing to the choir. If you want to gain consensus (which is necessary to make a change; no consensus to change means the status quo stays), then you have to sing to the congregation. No, you need to try to really speak with folks on the other side of the issue. And you cannot bring handwavy bullshit to that conversation. You can argue from facts, and you can argue from principles. Bullshit (speech intended to persuade, without regard for truth) gets you nowhere with folks who think differently, other than into a stupid screaming match. Hence my request for data. For information, reliably sourced. You know what I mean. My sense is that there is no data. I have looked, and found none, by the way. Thanks everybody who replied! 21:35, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

That's a somewhat nasty way of responding. Look, you asked for data, there plainly is no data, and then you get huffy when people point that out and try in good faith to respond to your question best they can. Not helpful, not at all, not constructive, not in the slightest. There was nothing in Smallbones' response (or anybody's response) that was "bullshit" or "handwavy,' whatever that means. Totally unecessary to use that kind of language. Coretheapple (talk) 21:42, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I am ignorant. I asked for information. I got bullshit. Said thanks anyway, and meant it, as it was a well-intentioned offering of bullshit. I am sorry you cannot recognize it; the road to hell is paved with that stuff.Jytdog (talk) 22:01, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

And I'll add one more time that there is data. When it was offered directly to Jytdog, his response was "I'm not a data guy". Please stop saying there is no data, when you haven't even looked at the data offered. - 2001:558:1400:10:4024:ACA8:5451:B4BC (talk) 22:02, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Dear unhappy numerical editor. I want something we all can rely on in this discussion about paid advocacy. Something usable. So the data (and analysis) needs to be published in a reliable source. I also noted that this data set is not published and the N is pretty small. It is weak. I wouldn't use it to source content in Misplaced Pages and I sure as hell will not rely on it much in a discussion about \ changing policy, in which we all want to be certain we are looking at reality as best we can, as we talk. I did thank you and noted this is the best thing yet.Jytdog (talk) 23:17, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Uh no. I don't think you are ignorant, and I don't see how you can be even the slightest bit surprised by the kind of responses that you received. Using inflammatory words like "bullshit" and other derogatory expressions in such a situation strikes me as needlessly, even deliberately inflammatory. As a matter of fact, you invited me into this conversation, even though I had previously told you in another discussion that there was no data and that no such data was possible. Did you think that I had pulled some data out of my hat in the five days since I had previously addressed this topic? Coretheapple (talk) 22:19, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

"Ignorant" is not a curse word - it just means you don't know stuff. Everybody is ignorant about some things; there is no end to learning. I am waaaaaaaaaay ignorant on data analysis in Misplaced Pages which is why I came here and opened a thread, which I have never done before. On the other thing: "bullshit", Core, is "speech intended to persuade, without regard for truth" It's an important category. Why can people just not say "I don't know" when that is the truth, and why instead do they try to fill the void with handwavy bullshit? I don't know, that is for sure.Jytdog (talk) 22:45, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Just really inappropriate and disruptive to use that kind of language with people who have grappled with a very real issue. Saying that they are spewing "bullshit" because they don't have "data" to back them up is indeed an incredibly ignorant statement, so I'll agree with you to that extent. Coretheapple (talk) 22:55, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

@Jytdog. In RL, if you and I were talking and you started to call my participation in the discussion "hand-wavy bullshit" and "ignorant" we would have a problem. Most likely, I would turn away and not have any further discussion with you. Not now...on this subject...and not later on any other subject. Ive seen this happen to you before where your intentions are good and forwarding but your language choices suck. I don't expect to persuade you nor do I want to discuss this further. I'm only trying to inform you of how it appears. ```Buster Seven Talk 23:21, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

On the one hand that is very kind of you to give me advice. Thank you; I can be too harsh. On the other hand, there is way too much bullshit flying around here. And finally, the only person i called "ignorant" was me. Thank you again for your kind advice. I do need to be sweeter! Jytdog (talk) 23:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I've been collecting data on the actions of paid advocates, but extent is a different issue. As a general rule, you can't tell if an editor is paid or not - there are giveaways in some cases, but if you pick 100 random editors there is no means of telling with confidence which of those editors are not paid advocates. So any study looking at quantity or extent is going to be impossible.

What you can do is work in the other direction - identify job ads, and then follow the edits made by paid advocates. This I've done. The problem is that it limits the research to a subset of paid advocates - those who are hired through the online freelancer sites. Full-time PR professionals fall outside of the scope, because they won't be answering the job ads. It does, however, provide reasonable data on types of articles, edits, and what happens to the edits over time. - Bilby (talk) 22:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh! Thanks!! This is very interesting. What are you going to do (or what have you done?) with this data?? Please say you are going to publish it somewhere so it can be used as a reliable source!Jytdog (talk) 22:45, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I've delayed writing it up, as I only ran a pilot. I have to get back to this - now that the teaching year is (finally) over I might be able to do something on-wiki, at least. Otherwise, what I should probably do is run a full study. - Bilby (talk) 23:04, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

This would be useful information, but more for enforcement and oversight purposes than ascertaining the extent of paid editing. It will not help in filling in the blanks of what you say at the top: "Y% of edits in a given day are tendentious, and X% of the tendentious edits made on a given day are made by paid advocates". That information is simply not available, as this is a nondisclosed practice. Coretheapple (talk) 22:51, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

The most we can do is say that of X articles created over a period, Y% have been identified as being by paid advocates. This isn't completely useless, but the figures will be substantially lower than the actual numbers. From my end, what it did was provide a model for tracking paid advocates, which, as you say, is best for enforcement, but it can give meaningful quantifiable data on types of edits and editing practices. - Bilby (talk) 23:04, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

You might want to check with the developers of WP:STiki, which is an online tool that does a very good job of rooting out COI edits. However, what that tool locates are "apparent" COI edits, based on the language they use in creating the articles. Very few editors openly identify themselves as having a COI in creating articles. That can be surmised sometimes by the identity of the user creating the article. For instance User:AcmeFinanceCompany creating Acme Finance Company. I guess that would fall under the category of "paid editor" in a broad sense. But doing so as a proxy for paid editing is going to result in a substantial underestimate. We've seen situations in which experienced editors are paid to edit or create articles, and they do not disclose it. And no, pointing this out is not "bullshit," it is the reality of paid editing and is the problem that the Foundation will be addressing, according to Jimbo's recent post. Coretheapple (talk) 23:28, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Just saw this. VERY helpful to point out STiki; thank you. asking them now. Jytdog (talk) 23:35, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I asked at STiki and they basically said, "go away". bummer. Jytdog (talk) 14:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

STiki just referred me to the COIbot, where I have also posted an inquiry. Jytdog (talk) 16:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I was actually addressing that comment to Bilby, as I think that if he contacts the developer of STiki it might help him in his research. Perhaps, if they work together, and if that interests them, they can come up with a tool or a methodology to detect paid editing. But the purpose would be just to pluck the low-hanging fruit. Current policy permits nondisclosed paid editing, which is inherently undetectable. Coretheapple (talk) 18:05, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, I think everybody should calm down, but it is very clear that Jtydog is not a "data guy" because he is asking for data that is very unlikely to exist in solid form and then trying to draw conclusions from that. Simply not possible to draw any conclusions here from or about non-existent data. Consider data on "unreported rapes." You can actually get estimates on this and probably have been able to get these estimates for the last 40 or 50 years, but you have to understand that they are just people's best guesses. If you want a national report of documented cases of unreported rape, you're just not asking the right questions. Similarly, you might be concerned about the importance of the Higgs Boson because there has only been one probable sighting of one (and it was really tiny!). Well it's obvious that statistics don't mean very much on this - theory and first principles matter here.

The lack of data on important questions is nothing new - it happens all the time. The first things to do are to 1) figure out why the data would be important; 2) come up with some rough estimates to enable you to consider whether the problem is important; 3) come up with some theory or model that would allow you to collect relevant data and test some hypothesis (we've probably not gotten this far); and finally 4) collect the data and test the hypothesis. This isn't always easy, and just as you can't always make decisions based on hard facts, you can't always decide questions based on good statistics. Sometimes you have to go with first principles, sometimes you have to go with rough estimates. I've given you first principles - advertising in Misplaced Pages is lying to our readers and stealing from the Foundation. I've given you some rough estimates - about 50% of our articles on FX companies are advertising and about 30% or our articles on Investment management companies are advertising. Now please tell me what kind of data do you need to make a decision, how we can gather it, and how long you want to wait before making a decision. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:53, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Bilby please do let us know what you plan to do with the data. Thanks! Smallbones, you misunderstand me. As I started out saying, some say "this is a huge problem - paid advocacy is rampant and everywhere" and others say "this is not a widespread problem" and this all reeks of bullshit and so I came here asking about facts; does anybody know the extent? I have learned one thing. Nobody who has commented yet is aware of any data on the extent or impact of paid advocacy that we (the community) can use; that is published in a reliable source. That is it. It seems reasonable that it doesn't exist due to the difficulty of getting data, as you all have said. It seems most likely that everybody who talks about the extent or lack thereof are bullshitting. You in particular Smallbones have said you have no data. Your "rough estimates" have no value in any discussion; they are bullshit. Nobody has a reason to believe they are in ballpark of the right answer, or are on the moon. Yes of course, lacking data we argue from principle, as I mentioned away above. Now, for what it is worth, I wish you, Smallbones, and Core, would pipe down and let other people answer who may have new information. Neither of you have said anything except "I don't know", using far too many words, and I at least heard you the first time. Where is Bilby already? Jytdog (talk) 23:14, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Nobody is impinging on your effort to obtain the unobtainable, and obviously there isn't a force on this planet that is going to prevent you from calling other people's posts "bullshit" since you seem enamored of the term. But let's be clear on something. The extensiveness or non-extensiveness of paid editing has not been a factor in the discussion of paid editing. Indeed, both sides say that it is widespread. Supporters say "it is widespread so it has to be accepted." Opponent say "it is widespread so it has to be wiped out." This is a red herring, really tangential to this issue. Coretheapple (talk) 23:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Some possible sources worth examining and/or contacting their authors to find out if more data (or access to data) could illuminate this discussion:

• Perceptions of Misplaced Pages by Public Relations Professionals, by Marcia W. DiStaso, Ph.D.
• Real-time monitoring of sentiment in business related Misplaced Pages articles, by Nielsen, Etter, and Hansen. (Note section with, "edit-time-of-day could possibly be useful as a feature if paid editing mostly occurs during normal working hours. A small examination of a set of 3 likely COI edits showed that these edits were performed Monday early afternoon, Tuesday morning and Thursday early afternoon.")

I've had a look at the public database that was mentioned above by User:2001:558:1400:10:4024:ACA8:5451:B4BC. It is excellent in its detailed investigative process that (in many cases, easily) uncloaked editors with a self-benefiting conflict-of-interest. It would appear that upwards of 25% or 30% of Misplaced Pages articles about businesses either had a creator or top contributor with a conflict of interest. N=100 may not be enough data to assert a definitive incidence, but it's certainly enough to say with confidence that the problem affects somewhere between 18% and 33% of Misplaced Pages articles about businesses, for example. I encourage everyone to explore the database, which was easily found two links deep from this wiki page. - Stylecustom (talk) 23:54, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

thanks for the published articles! No thanks to your OR, however. That database is poison til somebody publishes a paper on it.Jytdog (talk) 23:58, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Why is that? We can do in house studies for our own purposes, we just can't write articles based on that. But if we need to find out if welcoming users benefits the project, we can do it, and we can make recommendations based on it. Nothing wrong with studying our problems on the project. original research policy only prohibits inclusion of original research in articles. --TeaDrinker (talk) 00:10, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate the posting of those studies, but in perusing the first one I found a serious inaccuracy. It says "Dating back to at least 2006, Misplaced Pages has had a policy against editing Misplaced Pages when there is a conflict of interest (COI) such as working in public relations. 'COI editing is strongly discouraged. It risks causing public embarrassment to the individuals and groups being promoted' (Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest,2013,para 2)." The author of this article conflates a Misplaced Pages "policy" with a "guideline." That's an important distinction, one that I would expect to be understood by someone carrying out a study on the subject. This error undermines the entire study. Coretheapple (talk) 00:38, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi User:TeaDrinker. Interesting point but a) the database is poisoned fruit of a poisoned tree (creating editor was banned for doing it); b) i would guess that projects such as those you discuss are created as part of the Bigger Work of WIkipedia, and the data collection and analysis is gathered by amicable parties working toward some shared goal. on the contrary, the debate over whether to have a paid advocacy policy is heated and there is a lot of smoke getting blown around. I started this thread hoping to obtain some facts, supported by reliable sources, to help ground the debate (at least about extent of the problem). I would reach only for the most reliable, trustworthy-by-all-sides sources to do that - sources everybody could agree reflected reality and were reliable. I don't think this would fly. If somebody else wanted to try, however, more power to them! Jytdog (talk)

There's really no way to come up with solid data on this without knowing (a) who is at the keyboard making x edits to N articles (with N presumably being a number much bigger than 100, since that seems too low for you), and (b) knowing the motivations of those people at the keyboards. With that in mind, perhaps you would be better off directing your inquiry to the NSA, which might perhaps be more likely to know about (a) and (b) than are the casual readers of this page. --SB_Johnny | ✌ 01:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

just looking for information, User:SB_Johnny. Jytdog (talk) 01:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Stylecustom the PR agency survey article is super helpful, thank you thank you! just finished reading it. while i hear Core that there are some boners, overall it is a boatload of data. Great big picture data that both sides can find support in. (reality, as usual, is messy) (for example, PR professionals find Misplaced Pages's guidance on clear, unclearon how they should behave. part of that is that all we have is a "guideline"; on the other anti-side; PR professionals find it hard to get articles created and found that big factual errors can remain for a long time). Super interesting. Likewise the article from the danish group is cool but not so helpful. But COOL. Especially their website with the database of their results. Core, check out this page on BP! The best thing is the intro section of the article, which cites several reviews that look very helpful. There is stuff here to work with. Most helpful post so far! Need to think about the useful way to use these. Some kind of discussion aiming at understanding what these articles can teach us, and then possibly moving toward what is the most appropriate policy response. Not sure how to do that. But am happy. Jytdog (talk) 01:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC) (fixed typo Jytdog (talk) 02:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC))

I'm just off to a meeting, but quickly - the DiStaso paper was interesting, but suffered from significant problems with the methodology. I found it good as an overview of some of the issues, but the statistical results can't be taken to be particularly meaningful. - Bilby (talk) 02:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Do come back and say what you are doing with your research! Jytdog (talk) 02:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

As a quick summary, I ran an 5 month ethnography collecting job advertisements on the major freelancer websites for Misplaced Pages editing. Each job was separated into those for which I could identify the target article/s without knowing the account of the editor contracted and by relying only on publicly accessible data, (to avoid biasing the data to contractors who are bad at hiding their identity), and those I could not. I then followed the progress of the advertisements in the first group, noted the person hired (if someone was), and then tracked what happened to the articles. I recorded types of jobs (article creation, addition of links, votes at AfD, etc), status of the article before the job was placed (previously deleted, new article, etc), amount paid, success rate, if the edits were identified as problematic, what happened to the articles after editing, if the editor was identified as a paid editor, and general information about the editor (established or not, auto-confirmed, etc). Then I categorised and evaluated the edits. I ended up with 130 job ads over the five months that fitted the criteria, and about 60 paid editors. Note that the sample is necessarily a very small subset, as the methodology was intended to reduce the impact of selection bias, so the numbers are much lower than what I would have got if I used a more open methodology.

The sample period was intended to be six months, but as it was an ethnography I defined early exit conditions where the interests of WP would outweigh the value of collecting data, and one of those was met a month early. I can't go into the nature of the issue, but it was sent to ArbCom at the time.

I started writing this up, but as this was a pilot to be used to look at a full study, I haven't completed it. A full study would be more exhaustive in identifying advertisements and would use a longer sample period. What I did do was use this to write trial software to assist with tracking paid editing, which I use, but as it has an extremely high risk of outing I'm unable to allow anyone else to access it - I use it to identify the worst problems and address them, but I can't risk the software being used to contravene any of WP's policies. I can speak to the data from the new software, if it has anything useful, but noting that it is a tool for identification of problems rather than a tool to collect research data. - Bilby (talk) 04:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

This is quite mysterious. You've written third-party software that has a high risk of outing WP editors? Are you saying you've found some kind of security hole in the site? It seems to me that your code of ethics has the primary effect of setting yourself up as a permanently indispensable expert, which I suppose puts it squarely in line with what we expect from other such codes as in medicine. Wnt (talk) 07:43, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The outing comes from cross-referencing. If you identify accounts on the freelance sites, and then connect those accounts to editors on Misplaced Pages, (based on publicly available data - you don't need to use anything that is not provided by the sites and Misplaced Pages), the inherent problem is that you will, by default, also connect editors with personal information about their real-life identities. So because the software cross references clients, jobs, contractors, articles and editors, it allows for the outing of editors. Even without the db and software, though, those who follow the job ads will be making the same connections - I presume that the other editors who follow them also make the same connections, and similarly don't release the information here. My concern has been that we can't risk outing editors, as the harassment policy takes precedence over the COI guideline. - Bilby (talk) 10:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much Bilby! Is this part of some larger project, that you are working within? Is there someplace in Misplaced Pages where you can post data and analysis and are you discussing this elsewhere? Thank you for this valuable work and for discussing it here! Jytdog (talk) 13:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Alas, what is being asked for here is data about two groups combined together. The first group follows the rules and is happy to self-identify. The second group breaks the rules and does everything they can to stay hidden. Every estimate of the size of the latter group only identifies those who are bad at hiding. Nobody has come up with a methodology for estimating how many are good at hiding. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in! Just trying to find out what we know and what we don't, to try to cut through all the BS about "extent of the problem" that both sides throw around.Jytdog (talk)

Well, you have a variety of data now. Bilby had no problem finding a fairly large sample of paid editors to study. Marcia W. DiStaso, despite her obvious biases, working with CREWE and the PR industry and surveying PR professionals who are highly likely to want to make the PR business look good, gives several revealing numbers:

• "I feel that it’s common public relations/communications practice to edit a company or client’s Misplaced Pages articles." 61.1% of her biased sample agree or strongly agree with this statement, vs. only 15.1% who disagree or strongly disagree. While it is only an opinion survey, I think we can conclude that PR people commonly edit a company's article.
• 28% of respondents say that their company's or client's articles were started by the company (or hired hands), and 2% went through articles for creation. 71% didn't know. The 28% looks like a very solid minimum number - why would anybody say that they started an article on their company, when they didn't or didn't know? It also doesn't consider how manye PR folks edit after the articles are created.
• "during a crisis 45% of respondents indicated they monitored Misplaced Pages daily (n=194) and 23% monitored it hourly (n=97)." That is, when bad news hits the company (a crisis) 68% of PR professionals are watching their Misplaced Pages article at least daily. They are highly unlikely to be exaggerating this behavior, because it suggests that they might be changing the article, or hectoring on the talk page, or other ownership-type behavior.

You've got my estimates on the number of ads in 2 categories (30-50%) - which you so rudely dismissed as bullshit.

There are other important numbers you should consider as well:

• 1 - the number of administrators who proudly proclaimed on this page last week that they don't see any problem with being a paid editor at the same time they are Misplaced Pages administrators
• 2 - the number of Misplaced Pages-PR firms (Wiki-PR and WikiExperts) who have been community banned recently, who are still advertising that they can place articles into Misplaced Pages while still following all of our rules. (Bizarre, but true)
• Every 3-6 months, how often a major scandal appears in the newspapers on another company breaking our COI rules.

Given these numbers, and just a touch of judgement on your part, there is no way that you can conclude that commercial/PR/COI editing is not a serious problem. Ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of, but intentional ignorance is. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:01, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Smallbones, Thank you for gathering the results so far. That is very useful. Why are those actual numbers not part of the conversation (I note that your category "the number of administrators who proudly proclaimed..." is lacking an actual number - there are 1,424 admins (from Misplaced Pages:Statistics) - what percentage is that?) (also for the category, number of WIkipedia-PR firms.. do you happen to know how many there are that have not gotten into trouble (yet)?)

I am sorry you were offended by my describing your number of ads in 2 categories (30-50%) as bullshit. Let me spell it out more... You have been very active in trying to get a COI policy in place (for which efforts I am grateful). Your description of your methodology - saying you looked at some articles and judged them as advertisements - makes it look pretty subjective. That, on top of your advocacy on this subject, makes it appear to me that anybody on the "oppose" side is not going to find your numbers very compelling. I want a COI policy, and I don't find it compelling. (by the way, it would have more productive of me to ask you more about your methods and the actual numbers; I will do so below so you have space to lay it out, if you like.)

If we want to make arguments that COI editing is indeed widespread and having a serious impact on WIkipedia, we need strong data. Data that even opponents find compelling. Can you not see that your values are coloring your descriptions? Above you write 'Bilby had no problem finding a fairly large sample of paid editors to study." "fairly large"? He found 60. Is that "large" or "small"? There are 126,744 active, registered users (from Misplaced Pages:Statistics). 60 is .05% of active, registered users. I didn't know this before this morning. But this is the kind of data i came here looking for. Now one can argue that .05% is still way too extensive, but do you see how the argument changes now?

• Number of articles: 4,380,499 ((from Misplaced Pages:Statistics).
• Number of edits: 665,471,349 (NB: whole project, not just content pages) (from Misplaced Pages:Statistics).
• Number of active registered users: 126,744 (from Misplaced Pages:Statistics).
• (NB lacking: amount of content)

What percentage of the articles, edits, users, and content, is created by paid advocates? What percentage is created by tendentious editors, and what percentage of tendentious edits are by paid advocates? Another important set of numbers -- what is the perception of Misplaced Pages's reliability in the public and among those who fund us? How are those perceptions changed by breaking stories of paid advocacy? How enduring are those changes?

I still think these are the key statistics that anybody would find useful for understanding the extent of the problem. Lacking such numbers, perception of extent is the product of values and ideology. People who believe paid advocating is a bad bad thing see it is pervasive and important; people who do believe it is not a bad bad thing see it is not so pervasive - they see other problems (the ones they value) as being much more pervasive. But as far as I can see - even after inquiring here - strong statements about extent are bullshit - speech intended to persuade without regard for truth -- driven first by values and ideology - not by a solid grasp of reality. To be super clear, a philosopher named Harry Frankfurt wrote a great little book called "On Bullshit" that defines bullshit as I used it above; he had noted that our society is awash in it, and made an inquiry into what it is and how it functions. He then wrote a companion book called "On Truth". His bottom line -- if you want to make the world a better place, see it clearly first. Describe it clearly. Then decide what is needed to fix it. Then do it. I have written many times in the discussions on policy proposals and on my userpage that we need a COI policy and it is crazy that we don't have one. My reasoning for that is based on principles; I have never made arguments based on "extent" and I have been troubled by the arguments about extent on both sides. What I self-stated I am ignorant about, is quantitative information about extent and impact. I have said "thank you" several times on this page to all those who have posted here. I am still trying to get my head around "extent". I still think it is mostly true that nobody knows the extent of the problem. I think therefore that arguments for and against having a COI policy based on extent are - please hear me now - very unproductive at this time with respect to the goal of getting a COI policy in place. As I wrote above, I am thinking of starting a project of editors for and against a COI policy to study what literature there is, to try to understand together what we can about extent-of-the-problem, and produce some high-level numbers that can be relied on in a conversation about what policy we need. Thanks again, everybody. Jytdog (talk) 13:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Smallbones, can you please lay out more information on your claim that "about 50% of our articles on FX companies are advertising and about 30% or our articles on Investment management companies are advertising"? Can you please make it as quantitative as possible? Thank you. I am sorry I didn't ask for more detail earlier. Jytdog (talk) 13:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I posted my initial question in response to a question from someone who opposes putting a COI policy in place. The question was basically (I am paraphrasing): "A COI policy that bans paid advocates from directly editing articles runs counter to our fundamental values of allowing anyone to edit, and focusing on content, not contributor. Please show me that the problem of paid advocacy is important enough - pervasive enough - to justify putting a policy in place that is counter to those two fundamental values. Is it is a real problem, or is it a problem only in the minds of the policy's proponents?" This was posed to me as a real question and I believe it is asked, and importantly can be asked, from a good faith, principled stance. I think this is really the core, gut stance of good faith opponents. I don't have a good answer. I wish I did. I can argue and am arguing based on principle, but that doesn't actually answer the question. Jytdog (talk) 14:41, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

You are really getting tiresome on this nonsense. Your original post seemed to be aiming at making the completely fallacious argument that we don't have perfect data from paid editors on their paid editing, so we can't make a rational decision. If it will take a census of undeclared paid editors to convince you that there is a problem with PR/paid editors here then you are just asking us to wait forever to take any action. Pure sophistry - or to put it in your terms, bullshit. At best, you appear not to know anything about the use of data and statistics. I'll just end by repeating 2 numbers from above that should convince anybody that there is a problem:

• 28% of DiStaso's PR industry respondents say that their company's or client's articles were started by the company (or hired hands), and 2% went through articles for creation. 71% didn't know. The 28% looks like a very solid minimum number - why would anybody say that they started an article on their company, when they didn't or didn't know? It also doesn't consider how many PR folks edit after the articles are created.
• Every 3-6 months a major scandal appears in the newspapers on another company breaking our COI rules.

I'm sure you've heard the definition "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." If we don't change what we do regarding PR/commercial/paid editors, we're going to get the same results. That's a problem. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I am 100% with you there. We have also failed (apparently for 8 years now, despite repeated attempts) to get a COI policy in place. Which suggests that we need to think about new ways to try to reach consensus.Jytdog (talk) 20:28, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Give us a break

I will be taking it easy for a few days

Yesterday I fainted at a conference in Miami and I was rushed to the hospital. After extensive (extensive!) tests it was decided that the problem was dehydration. My heart is fine, my brain is fine. (A brain scan revealed nothing except that I was an idiot for not drinking water.) I'm being released now, and I'm going to take it easy for a few days. I should be fully functional next Monday but I'll also be around a bit of course.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:59, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Take good care, Jimmy. You have a lot of support and many of us are feeling grateful to you for your help here recently. Thank you for everything, especially for allowing us to hash things out here (it must wear on a person though, after a while?). petrarchan47tc 20:10, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Try Gatorade for dehydration. I always take that when I have the flu. Take care. Coretheapple (talk) 20:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to hear of your fainting. Yes, please do take care of yourself, and please just do the obvious - drink plenty of water, the healthiest beverage around. Maybe we should get User:Doc James to comment, but I'm sure you've recently been reminded of all the basics, e.g. plenty of rest and avoid alcohol and caffeine. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:22, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Take care Jimbo. BTW, I suggest a re-write for A brain scan revealed nothing.... ```Buster Seven Talk 21:50, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Ah, but I did qualify it! Nothing except that I'm an idiot. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:10, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Best wishes for a speedy recovery! --TeaDrinker (talk) 22:29, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Speaking as a guy in the same general age range as you who works outdoors, I can relate. You're not stupid, you're just a guy of a "certain age" ;-). I'm sure the women and girls in your life will give you lots of loving dope-slaps, which is a wonderful way to be reminded of why guys need to slow down and have a glass of water once in a while (especially in Florida)! --SB_Johnny | ✌ 23:40, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Glad to hear you are feeling better. Do you use an activity tracker at all? I ask, because you seem like the perfect candidate. Although there are many different kinds, Fitbit allows you to customize your trackers but also comes with a built-in water tracker in their well-designed smartphone app. It's pretty cool, and has allowed me to self-monitor my consumption of water. I highly recommend it because it has helped me. I don't know if this is true (I would be interested in finding out if it is), but I've heard that another good way to tell if you are drinking enough water is to monitor the color of your urine. If it is fairly clear, that is a good sign you are on the right track. Of course, certain foods, medications, and liquids could alter this rule of thumb. Viriditas (talk) 02:51, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

WMF cease and desist letter

I just noticed on one of the many paid editing discussion pages that the Foundation's lawyer today wrote a strong letter, with sweeping language, to Wiki-PR. See

A couple of things are worth noting. First is that, on the last page, the letter keeps the door open to further action by the Foundation. The practice of paid advocacy editing is described in this letter as already prohibited by Misplaced Pages and Foundation practices, which are enumerated. Those sections should be read closely. Second, and little mention has been made of this (I didn't notice it), reference to made is an Oct. 21 statement by Sue Gardner in which she explicitly says that paid editing is already prohibited: "Unlike a university professor editing Misplaced Pages articles in their area of expertise, paid editing for promotional purposes, or paid advocacy editing as we call it, is extremely problematic. We consider it a 'black hat' practice. Paid advocacy editing violates the core principles that have made Misplaced Pages so valuable for so many people."

There is at present considerable daylight between the Foundation and Misplaced Pages editors on the subject of paid advocacy editing. The Foundation is opposed; Misplaced Pages has yet to make up its mind. Speaking personally, I have other things to do, other commitments. I am running out of time that I can devote to this, and patience. I think that the Foundation needs to step up to the plate and do what it has to do. It already has taken some serious steps, in terms of its statement and letter, but needs to take the initiative because it is plain that, left to its own devices, the community will debate endlessly and do nothing. Coretheapple (talk) 21:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

There are a handful of noisy people who always insist that it isn't against the rules. They may be safely ignored. The only real question is how do we precisely formulate the policy that already exists.

Remember the interesting and unusual way that Misplaced Pages's written policies are usually formed. They are a description of extant practice, rather than handed down dictats. The community without any trouble whatsoever banned Wiki-pr from editing Misplaced Pages without any hesitation. The philosophical dithering that goes on is generally driven by people who I'd prefer to see leave Misplaced Pages because they are the problem, or by people who have been drawn into thinking that this is a complex issue worthy of lots of hand-wringing. As I have said, the supporters of paid advocacy editing have already lost. They just don't realize it yet.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:06, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Jimmy, the policy really needs to be formulated and approved before sending that kind of letter, otherwise it's basically SLAPP.

Frankly, the WP community would be a lot better off negotiating terms with a firm like "Wiki-PR" than trying to hunt down all the low-on-the-totem-pole people in individual corporate PR departments. --SB_Johnny | ✌ 23:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure everything will be fine if PR firms can simply limit themselves to making only edits that are "very factual" and "perfectly justifiable", as was the case with Freud Communications. This removes the taint of "advocacy" editing. Paid editors just need to stick to the guideline expressed by Oliver Wheeler. I hope that we all agree with Freud Communications, right? I mean, Jimbo is married to one of their directors. - Stylecustom (talk) 03:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Whatever. Until the points that Alanyst raised below are clarified - that is, are paid edits OK as long as there is disclosure to other Misplaced Pages editors? Is that acceptable to the Foundation and to Jimbo? - I'm not really clear what more there is to say or do. After all, one can't be more Catholic than the Pope. If Misplaced Pages's owners are willing to accept paid editing with disclosure, as has been widely discussed in various forums (though not acceptable to hard-line advocates of paid editing, who call such disclosure a "scarlet letter"), I'm not sure what else there is to say. Coretheapple (talk) 03:47, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, efforts to prohibit paid advocacy editing, by an explicit rule, have failed. Coretheapple (talk) 22:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The ban on Wiki-PR seems to be explained here, as follows: "Wiki-PR are already de-facto community banned where discovered through the Morning277 SPI case. I would like to formalize this ban to make it clear that we do not as a community condone the mass sockpuppetry, meatpupppetry, block evasion, subversion of neutrality, spamming, and other consensus damaging practices that Wiki-PR has engaged in. Please note that this proposed formal ban is *not* intrinsically related to paid editing, and should not be taken as an attempt to ban other forms of paid editing." I'm not up to speed on this, but I take this to mean that Wiki-PR was banned because of its sockpuppeting and not because of its paid editing practices. Coretheapple (talk) 22:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

"Subversion of neutrality" equates to advocacy, no? I believe there's general agreement that advocacy in general is forbidden (and has been for a long time); and paid advocacy editing is a strict subset of that. The philosophical debate seems to me to have been focused on the question of whether beneficial forms of (non-advocacy) editing for pay exist, and if so, how those can be differentiated from the bad forms of paid editing and properly regulated to prevent abuses. There has also been discussion of other aspects of conflict-of-interest editing, not strictly limited to financial conflicts. I hope that the (correct) condemnation of paid advocacy editing is not mistaken as disposing of these related but distinct questions. alanyst 22:38, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Well you see, that's been the problem. Advocates of paid editing say that it is possible for subjects of articles to introduce "beneficial," "neutral" text into articles, or even to create neutral articles about themselves or the people who pay them. The discussions have become gridlocked over that very point. Moreover, these positions have been taken by experienced editors with considerably more mileage on Misplaced Pages than me (as they've not been shy about pointing out on this very page in past discussions). Coretheapple (talk) 22:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Part of the confusion is that when one person starts talking about one thing (say, paid advocacy editing), you start talking about something that overlaps but is not strictly equivalent (say, article subjects editing on their own behalf) as if it were the same thing. A person can be a stalwart opponent of paid advocacy editing of the kind Wiki-PR et al. have engaged in, and yet can conditionally regard some other kinds of conflict-of-interest involvement in articles as permissible (predicated perhaps on meeting requirements for disclosure, limiting contributions to talk pages, etc.). It's not always clear that you recognize or accept that there's a distinction, and you unfortunately tend to equate those who express more moderate views than your own with "defenders" of the worst practices. alanyst 23:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm against allowing corporations to draft large quantities of text, putting them on article talk pages, and editors then placing them within articles. That's what's happened and it has created a mess in two articles on large petrochemical companies that has received substantial publicity. However, there is a substantial body of opinion on Misplaced Pages which not only finds that to be OK, but is happy with corporations and paid editors directly editing their articles. It's not as if there is a lot of sentiment for the Foundation's position. It is voted down every step of the way. Let's not kid ourselves about this. Right on this page, an administrator who has done paid editing argued strenuously in favor of the practice. So have experienced editors, on separate occasions. Coretheapple (talk) 23:26, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I should add: yes, it's correct that some editors are saying that it's OK for paid editors to put text directly in articles if there is "disclosure" - to other editors. Yes, I have a serious problem with that, no question at all. That's the kind of thing that has definitely been discussed, for sure. I'm glad you raised that point because it shows how various ways have been suggested for paid editors to continue there work. It is not as black and white as Jimbo sometimes makes it seem. In fact, come to think of it, I'd like to hear his view on the subject of "paid editing is OK if disclosed to editors." If that's OK with Jimbo and the Foundation youy can rest assured that I will immediately absent myself from this discussion for all eternity, as there is clearly a great deal of sentiment for it and I have better things to do than to engage in futile disputes with large majorities. Coretheapple (talk) 23:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The letter references a violation of Misplaced Pages's Terms of Use. Oddly, the Terms of Use document does not appear to contain any of the following words or phrases: "Paid", "Advocacy", "Sockpuppet", or "Multiple Account(s)". Perhaps that document needs to be modified for clarity. Can anybody point out where that document actually prohibits the offensive activity? I agree the activity is prohibited by our unwritten rules, but it could be very tricky to enforce unwritten rules in a court of law. Jehochman 22:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The letter is lawyerly and needs to be read carefully. Coretheapple (talk) 22:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The letter highlights a key passage from Section 4. isaacl (talk) 23:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

On second thought, it's not our job to interpret lawyer letters. We're not trained to do that. As for Sue Gardner's October 21 statement, while it does appear to be a strongly worded statement against paid editing, Alanyst has a point: paid editing with disclosure may cure the entire situation. I think it's ridiculous, but that's not my call. Coretheapple (talk) 04:28, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not too lawyerly. "Meatpuppetry", are you kidding me? You're going to go into a courtroom and try to get a judgment about "meatpuppetry"? I'm not saying the argument isn't valid (I actually made it myself at Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry/Employees, though many disagreed), but it should be up to the lawyers to convert our wacky Misplaced Pages jargon (including "sockpuppetry" itself) into a clear exposition in terms of standard English and/or legalese. Wnt (talk) 04:40, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Why is the Arbitration Committee undeleting libel instead of oversighting it?

Alexis Reich (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I noticed a few months ago that the above article had serious libel about the living person; in particular, asserting that she had been convicted of child pornography charges when no source had been given. This situation had persisted between June 2012 and September 2013.

I contacted Oversight about this on September 17th. The oversight team sat on this request for a full week until Nick (talk · contribs) deleted it, at my request, on September 24th, at which point LFaraone (talk · contribs) closed the request as moot. (Ticket #2013091710015448) At this point, I was rather annoyed it took so long, but was willing to let it go.

Thirty-six hours later, Billinghurst (talk · contribs) undeleted the article with the rationale "ArbCom says the article is fine and there's nothing wrong with it". Those libellous diffs remain in the page history.

What the hell is ArbCom smoking? And how does this, along with the massive clusterfuck of cases that were Sexology and Manning, make Misplaced Pages a welcoming environment for transgender editors? Sceptre 23:28, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

This is the first that I've heard about it. Is it your contention that these specific revisions are libel? If so, then I think a reasonable course of action for any admin is to at least temporarily rev-delete them until a full discussion on the talk page determines what to be done about it. BLP demands that we proceed with extreme caution in cases like this.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

My contention that every revision between June 2012 and September 2013 is libellous, due to including, without sources, that a living person engaged in, and was convicted of, child pornography offenses. Saying that someone committed a crime without proof is pretty much the dictionary definition of libel, of child pornography offenses doubly so. Sceptre 23:43, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

As this seems to be an emergency situation, I quickly reviewed both my email archives and the arbcom wiki. I see no evidence at all of a collective decision by ArbCom that "the article is fine". If Billinghurst is still online, you'd best notify him right away of this discussion. And in the meantime, anyone who is good with revision deleting should do it right away. I'll try myself. There's no urgency to restoration if you are wrong, but there is extreme urgency if you are right.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:50, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, the undeletion was a technical action undertaken by me was at the request of a representative of the ArbCom. Due to the number of edits that needed to be undeleted it needed the elevated rights of a steward, and could not be undertaken by a standard admin, or by any standard means. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:18, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Addendum quick question: those revisions did not have a source, but did it turn out to be true? That is, are there sources for these claims now?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

A search at the time on Google found no source for any conviction; the only thing I could find was that she had been charged with those offenses, and those charges were later dropped. Sceptre 23:54, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

My main concern when I deleted it (and still is, since the content is still there in the history) is that we had the purported names of the subjects children there, prominently, in the infobox and in the article. We also had, at one point, their ages too, which would have relatively easily allowed their identification and potential location. They're not responsible for their parent's criminal or social behaviour and shouldn't be left open in the way they are because of our article.

There are many other issues with the article, poorly sourced content, discussion way beyond that which is necessary of relationships and other private material (and I note more has been added recently).

I have an e-mail from ArbCom confirming that the content was fine and to undelete it. A steward carried out the undeletion on my behalf because of technical limitations relating to number of diffs. I'm fairly certain the article has had material oversighted between the undeletion and today, but can't tell what was removed or when. Nick (talk) 23:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I was just about to delete it before seeing this comment about the undeletion problem. It should be deleted anyway, but I don't want to make a mess for the oversighters. --SB_Johnny | ✌ 00:00, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Ok, that sounds like a different issue. Perhaps the ArbCom only meant that your concern (names of children) wasn't sufficient for a speedy deletion, as opposed to saying that the content is ok. For now I've just deleted the revisions per Sceptre's request, on the theory that virtually no harm comes from having this stuff gone for a few days while we explore the right answer, but serious harm results from publishing false claims that someone has been convicted of child pornography charges. There need be no real drama here, and I'd recommend to Sceptre to lower the temperature of the discussion a bit. ArbCom, or some member of ArbCom, or some subject of Arbcom may have made an error - that's human. No need to ponder if they've been smoking something. :-) There is no real chance that ArbCom is saying we should undelete libelous revisions. If they are saying that (they aren't) I would dismiss them and call early elections.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:03, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Addendum Nick can you let me know who on ArbCom said it was fine to delete? If you'd prefer you could just forward me the email. I'd like to get to the bottom of this before we get too excited. I've had enough excitement this week.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:04, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

On it's way to you now. Nick (talk) 00:15, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. It seems to me that ArbCom was suggesting that the article itself could be undeleted (meaning the most recent version at the time of deletion) and that they were not fully aware of the issues deep in the history log. In particular, I don't see that they were ever notified that the past logs claimed conviction falsely. This seems to be a screw-up rather than insanity - so we can all be happy about that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:33, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the problem is that a single arbitrator responded to the email that was sent, and when asked to reword it so that it was clear he was voicing his own opinion, did not do so. And none of the arbitrators was specifically aware of the suppression request; most of the committee rarely looks at the OTRS suppression request list (although some of us will respond to direct requests). My own personal take is that this article shouldn't exist, and that it should be merged as a brief paragraph in the Murder of JonBenét Ramsey article; the majority of the article is about non-notable events that, while unfortunate, are surprisingly and sadly commonplace. Risker (talk) 02:28, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Assessment of the material itself

I've got about an hour and so I wanted to start assessing the material itself. It is still viewable by admins, so any admins who can help me - this will be appreciated. At the moment I want to focus very narrowly on Sceptre's concern - that we claim, without sources, a conviction, when in fact the charges were dropped. I'm looking first through past revisions to determine what we actually say.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:09, 20 November 2013 (UTC) Addendum I can confirm that at least most of the revisions that Sceptre raised the alarm about do claim a conviction for child pornography. I have just unhidden a few toward the end of September where that claim was finally dropped. Now I'm going to review the beginning to see if I got that point exactly right. If someone can show that the conviction claim is true, then arguably all of this could be undeleted. But if not, then it's very problematic.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC) Addendum 2 And I've just restored a few at the beginning of June 2012 that do not claim conviction. I think I got all the ones that do.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:21, 20 November 2013 (UTC) Conclusion (for now) I think Sceptre was substantially right. Unless someone comes up with proof of a conviction, I don't see how we can do anything other than suppress these revisions. For now I'm leaving them admin-visible, to allow proper review of my actions, but that should be amended soon enough so that no one can see these.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Probably not a bad idea to look at the contribs of the person who added it, on the off chance that this is another Qworty scenario. --SB_Johnny | ✌ 00:46, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

That's a very good idea but I'm out of time tonight. We should check this: contrib history.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:49, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I made a recent, rather large change to the article, completely coincidental to the deletions just made. As far as the child porn arrest/charges, I believe Scepter is correct that they are 100% unsourced. I think there were some allegations, but nothing approaching what was reported in the article.Two kinds of pork (talk) 01:27, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I've noted my opinion above: the article itself shouldn't exist and only a brief paragraph in the Murder of JonBenét Ramsey article, directly relating to the confession and release, is appropriate. The vast majority of individuals identified in the current article are non-notable and are probably being adversely affected by this article - whether we like it or not, for many of them this article is one of their top g-hits. Risker (talk) 02:41, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Review of deleted revisions: It appears that the false statement of a conviction was added to the infobox by an IP editor. It was not long after removed by an established editor, who immediately self-reverted. At that time the text of the article made it clear that no conviction had occurred. After this, through many edits by both IPs and established editors, the list of "convictions" in the info box was not changed, nor was any mention of a conviction added to the article text as far as I can see. it seems that many editors, while making various changes to the article, never noticed (or at least never acted on) the contradiction between the infobox and the text of the article. In December 2012 an editor removed the infobox content with the summary "Major BLP Violation - Unreferenced claim of conviction, referenced text of the article says otherwise". The infobox content was restored by an IP editor in March 2013, in an edit tagged as "possible BLP violation". The false (or at least unsourced and contradictory to the article) statement remained in the infobox during prolonged editwarring over the gender of pronouns to be used in describing the subject, and through other edits, until it was finally removed in September 2013. DES 03:09, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The subject is covered in multiple RS and easily passes GNG, so I'm not sure why Risker is proposing to merge; yes the subject has done some unsavory things, but so what? We removed the names of the subject's children, but, again, we regularly list names/ages/etc of children of random BLPs, and don't get so trigger happy about rev-delling those - the names of Karr's children (and young wives) were widely reported, but I do agree they don't need to be in the article (I generally think names/ages/dobs of most children shouldn't be here). I don't believe there was ever a conviction, so any claim of a conviction is a violation and should be hidden; there was an arrest, but the charges were dropped when the cops lost the evidence.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:07, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Because the only notable thing he has done is confess to a murder he did not commit, Obiwankenobi. Nothing else he has done is notable. Just because it's in the newspaper doesn't mean it's notable. Heck, newspapers report when women "proudly show their bump" and "hide their bump" (sometimes referring to the same woman both ways in the same edition), but we're not going to put that in articles either. Nothing except the JonBenet confession is notable. The rest is just prurience. Risker (talk) 05:28, 20 November 2013 (UTC)