 | This is an
essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: If you are a PR or marketing professional, you should probably just accept that Wikipedia is not the place for you to write about your clients and move on to something more productive before you embarrass yourself |
If you are a marketing or public relations professional who has been directed to this essay, please realize, the intent is just to help you understand the reality of the situation. And that reality is that you are in the wrong place. You won't succeed at doing your job here, and trying to do it is going to annoy the unpaid volunteers who maintain the encyclopedia, and will probably backfire on you and your client anyway, so it would be best for you, your clients, and Wikipedia if you just accept that and do your job elsewhere.
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Yes, it sure is, but it explicitly is not a place where people or brands should be going to control their messaging. This is an encyclopedia, and nothing else. Everything here is based on what has already been reported in reliable sources. If you don't like what the reliable sources are writing about your client, take it up with them, not with Wikipedia. If they issue corrections, Wikipedia will correct its content as well. If they aren't writing about your client at all, they are probably not notable enough for a Wikipedia article. Either way, it's not Wikipedia's problem and you shouldn't be trying to solve it by writing about them here.
No it isn't. You weren't hired to write an encyclopedia. That's all that is going on here, if you are trying to do anything else, this isn't the place for it.
Yeah, it's easy to understand why someone paid to say only good things about a person would feel that way, but frankly, that's just too bad. It doesn't work like that. Let it go.
You can try (if you are comfortable with abusing a volunteer-run website that is just trying to present free knowledge to the world) but people in your profession tend to have a hard time maintaining the neutral tone expected of an encyclopedia; it's basically the opposite of what is normally expected of you, so you'll probably get caught, and then we'll have to block your new account, your original account and probably tag the article on your client as having been edited by an undisclosed paid editor, which will make them look bad, which is of course the opposite of what they are paying you for, and makes you look bad as well. So you see, it's better for everyone if you don't. Wikipedia is there for you to read, always, but you should probably leave writing it to the people actually committed to this project, not to your client.
There is a right way to go about this, if you really, really want to, but to be honest, most Wikipedians would still rather you didn't.
- Create an account. Be sure the account name you choose does not violate the username policy. You can use the format "<your real name> at <your company>" but not just the name of the company.
- Post a Paid-contribution disclosure on your user page.
- Do not edit the article on your client directly. Use the requested edit process each time.
Seems kinda laborious, doesn't it? Guess what? It is that way because marketing and PR people have been a constant, day-in-day-out problem since practically the moment this project was founded. And yes, "problem" is the right word. Your goals are a problem; your goals are not compatible with the goals of this project. We're doing one thing, and you are trying to make it into something else that it isn't. That's why Wikipedians tend to be so defensive about it, you are not the first, or even the five thousandth person to think about trying to edit content about your client.
- Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations
- Wikipedia:FAQ/Article subjects
- Wikipedia: Why was the page I created deleted? (essay)
- Wikipedia: Best practices for editors with conflicts of interest (essay)
- Conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia (article generally for readers of Wikipedia)
- Wikipedia:PR Professionals & Editing
See all that stuff? This didn't happen overnight, and that's not even close to all of it. This is why it might be better if you just didn't. Wikipedians have been thinking about this for more than twenty years. Think about that before you decide you know better.
| This is an
essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
| This page in a nutshell: If you are a PR or marketing professional, you should probably just accept that Wikipedia is not the place for you to write about your clients and move on to something more productive before you embarrass yourself |
If you are a marketing or public relations professional who has been directed to this essay, please realize, the intent is just to help you understand the reality of the situation. And that reality is that you are in the wrong place. You won't succeed at doing your job here, and trying to do it is going to annoy the unpaid volunteers who maintain the encyclopedia, and will probably backfire on you and your client anyway, so it would be best for you, your clients, and Wikipedia if you just accept that and do your job elsewhere.
Yes, it sure is, but it explicitly is not a place where people or brands should be going to control their messaging. This is an encyclopedia, and nothing else. Everything here is based on what has already been reported in reliable sources. If you don't like what the reliable sources are writing about your client, take it up with them, not with Wikipedia. If they issue corrections, Wikipedia will correct its content as well. If they aren't writing about your client at all, they are probably not notable enough for a Wikipedia article. Either way, it's not Wikipedia's problem and you shouldn't be trying to solve it by writing about them here.
No it isn't. You weren't hired to write an encyclopedia. That's all that is going on here, if you are trying to do anything else, this isn't the place for it.
Yeah, it's easy to understand why someone paid to say only good things about a person would feel that way, but frankly, that's just too bad. It doesn't work like that. Let it go.
You can try (if you are comfortable with abusing a volunteer-run website that is just trying to present free knowledge to the world) but people in your profession tend to have a hard time maintaining the neutral tone expected of an encyclopedia; it's basically the opposite of what is normally expected of you, so you'll probably get caught, and then we'll have to block your new account, your original account and probably tag the article on your client as having been edited by an undisclosed paid editor, which will make them look bad, which is of course the opposite of what they are paying you for, and makes you look bad as well. So you see, it's better for everyone if you don't. Wikipedia is there for you to read, always, but you should probably leave writing it to the people actually committed to this project, not to your client.
There is a right way to go about this, if you really, really want to, but to be honest, most Wikipedians would still rather you didn't.
- Create an account. Be sure the account name you choose does not violate the username policy. You can use the format "<your real name> at <your company>" but not just the name of the company.
- Post a Paid-contribution disclosure on your user page.
- Do not edit the article on your client directly. Use the requested edit process each time.
Seems kinda laborious, doesn't it? Guess what? It is that way because marketing and PR people have been a constant, day-in-day-out problem since practically the moment this project was founded. And yes, "problem" is the right word. Your goals are a problem; your goals are not compatible with the goals of this project. We're doing one thing, and you are trying to make it into something else that it isn't. That's why Wikipedians tend to be so defensive about it, you are not the first, or even the five thousandth person to think about trying to edit content about your client.
- Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations
- Wikipedia:FAQ/Article subjects
- Wikipedia: Why was the page I created deleted? (essay)
- Wikipedia: Best practices for editors with conflicts of interest (essay)
- Conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia (article generally for readers of Wikipedia)
- Wikipedia:PR Professionals & Editing
See all that stuff? This didn't happen overnight, and that's not even close to all of it. This is why it might be better if you just didn't. Wikipedians have been thinking about this for more than twenty years. Think about that before you decide you know better.