This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 20 | ← | Archive 23 | Archive 24 | Archive 25 | Archive 26 | Archive 27 | → | Archive 30 |
What should be done when a known COI editor is directly editing the article? This page does not make it clear what should be done if anything. Are COI editors allowed to directly edit an article but are only strongly discouraged from directly an article? QuackGuru ( talk) 23:12, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
One area in which I actually would concur with some of the previous comments, concerning excessively harsh tone, relates to a narrow but important issue. At COI/N there was recently a posting complaining that an SPA, apparently aided by socks, was making vandalism-type edits removing sourced info from a BLP. This was obviously the subject. As I examined the edits in question, I found that actually the SPA and his socks were right. The article had serious BLP issues. I certainly would have no objection to adding a few sentences to address this particular situation and show greater sympathy to subjects who are getting slammed. The subject in question had obviously not a clue as to how to deal with such a situation. The current wording is correct, and helpful, but I think it can be tweaked.
However, I do believe that this is not a common situation, in fact the first that I have ever encountered. Far more frequently what you see are subjects writing autobiographies, not defending themselves. Coretheapple ( talk) 15:31, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
I added a couple of sentences to make the section a bit more sympathetic and informative, but I don't feel that strongly about it, so feel free to revert. Coretheapple ( talk) 15:39, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
In December 2015, following discussion at the Talk page here about concern over the ownership of content posted anywhere in WP by paid editors, the following content change was made in this dif and then subsequently edited:
The existing language at that time:
Copyright, licensing Editors are reminded that any new text they contribute to Wikipedia is irrevocably licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 license and the GNU Free Documentation License. Any new writing, including article drafts and talk-page comments, can be freely copied, modified, deleted, reproduced, altered and quoted by third parties for commercial and non-commercial use, with the sole requirement that the work be attributed to Wikipedia contributors.
Was initially changed and then changed further, and and is currently):
Copyright of paid contributions
Editors are reminded that any text they contribute to Wikipedia, assuming they own the copyright, is irrevocably licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike license and the GNU Free Documentation License. Content on Wikipedia, including article drafts and talk-page comments, can be freely copied and modified by third parties for commercial and non-commercial use, with the sole requirement that it be attributed to Wikipedia contributors.
Paid editors must ensure that they own the copyright of text they have been paid to add to Wikipedia. If the text is a work for hire, the copyright resides with the person or organization that paid for it ("the employer"). Otherwise the text's author is assumed to be the copyright holder. It is important not to assume that the paid editor is the author, because companies may provide paid editors with approved texts.
Paid editors, the employer, or the author should forward a release to the Wikimedia Foundation (
permissions@wikimedia.org
). The release must include the name(s) of the author and copyright holder, and that the copyright holder has released the text under a free licence. See WP:PERMISSION for how to do this.
The notion in the 3rd paragraph that paid editors should always -- whether they own the copyright in the proposed content or not -- forward a release to the Wikimedia Foundation, was discussed at the talk page of the Copyright policy, also in December 2015 starting the same day the content was initially added. That discussion is here.
I have proposed to combine and change the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs to read as follows:
If the copyright for a text that a paid editor wishes to add to Wikipedia is owned by someone else (such as the paid editor's employer), the paid editor is responsible for ensuring that they have the right to grant the required license for the content, or that the copyright owner has granted permission for the content to be used in Wikipedia. See WP:PERMISSION for instructions.
That version does not include the general obligation but makes it clear that paid editors, like everyone, are responsible for getting clearance to add content to WP that they don't own.
The question: Should paid editors always be obligated to have copyright permission sent to WMF for content they wish to add to WP, whether they own it or not? Jytdog ( talk) 20:51, 15 December 2016 (UTC) (fixed some errors Jytdog ( talk) 22:00, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
The current language makes no demands on anyone. This is a guideline, setting best practices. It says so at the very top of the page. So the way this RfC is drafted, in this section header and in other ways, is just flat-out misleading. The "new" text that he talks about was established by consensus in 2015. Apparently Jytdog just got wind of it. Coretheapple ( talk) 20:56, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
permissions@wikimedia.org
). The release should include the name(s) of the author and copyright holder, and that the copyright holder has released the text under a free licence. See
WP:PERMISSION for how to do this." (boldface added) This removes all the "obligated"-type language. OK? Can we stop this ridiculous waste of time?
Coretheapple (
talk) 21:44, 15 December 2016 (UTC)IMHO folks are misinterpreting the current wording
Just to be clear The Terms of Use (Section 4) state that the following is prohibited: "Committing Infringement
If you post copyrighted material without a release you are committing infringement.
Also
7. Licensing of Content requires attribution under both b. Attribution and c. Importing text
Smallbones( smalltalk) 22:00, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
The paragraph being reverted was discussed here. SarahSV (talk) 16:16, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
permissions@wikimedia.org
). The release must include the name(s) of the author and copyright holder, and that the copyright holder has released the text under a free licence. See
WP:PERMISSION for how to do this.The section addresses two issues:
We should probably draft a question about this for the legal department. SarahSV (talk) 16:58, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
I've clarified the text here, and as there was an objection to "should", I've changed it to: "Where there is doubt that the paid editor owns the copyright, they (or the employer or author) are advised to forward a release from the copyright holder to the Wikimedia Foundation ..." The section now says:
Editors are reminded that any text they contribute to Wikipedia, assuming they own the copyright, is irrevocably licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike license and the GNU Free Documentation License. Content on Wikipedia, including article drafts and talk-page comments, can be freely copied and modified by third parties for commercial and non-commercial use, with the sole requirement that it be attributed to Wikipedia contributors.
Paid editors must ensure that they own the copyright of text they have been paid to add to Wikipedia; otherwise they are unable to release it. A text's author is normally assumed to be the copyright holder. Companies sometimes provide paid editors with text written by someone else. Or a paid editor might write text for Wikipedia within the scope of their employment (a " work for hire"), in which case copyright resides with the employer.
Where there is doubt that the paid editor owns the copyright, they (or the employer or author) are advised to forward a release from the copyright holder to the Wikimedia Foundation (
permissions@wikimedia.org
). See WP:PERMISSION for how to do this and Wikipedia:Declaration of consent for all enquiries for a sample letter.
SarahSV (talk) 22:13, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
In December 2015, following discussion at the Talk page here about concern over the ownership of content posted anywhere in WP by paid editors, the following content change was made in this dif:
Copyright, licensing Editors are reminded that any new text they contribute to Wikipedia is irrevocably licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 license and the GNU Free Documentation License. Any new writing, including article drafts and talk-page comments, can be freely copied, modified, deleted, reproduced, altered and quoted by third parties for commercial and non-commercial use, with the sole requirement that the work be attributed to Wikipedia contributors.
Was changed to:
Copyright of paid contributions
Editors are reminded that any text they contribute to Wikipedia, if they own the copyright, is irrevocably licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 license and the GNU Free Documentation License. Any new writing, including article drafts and talk-page comments, can be freely copied, modified, deleted, reproduced, altered and quoted by third parties for commercial and non-commercial use, with the sole requirement that the work be attributed to Wikipedia contributors.
Paid editors must ensure that they own the copyright of text they have been paid to write. If the text is a "work for hire," the copyright resides with the person or organization that paid for it ("the employer"). Paid editors or the employer should forward a release to the Wikimedia Foundation (
permissions@wikimedia.org
). The release must state who the author is, that the author is the copyright holder, and that the copyright holder has released the text under a free licence. Similarly, if paid editors use text supplied by the employer, the author or someone acting on the author's behalf must forward a release to the Wikimedia Foundation.
The notion in the new 2nd paragraph that paid editors should always -- whether they own the copyright in the proposed content or not -- forward a release to the Wikimedia Foundation, was discussed at the talk page of the Copyright policy, also in December 2015 starting the same day the content was added. That discussion is here.
I have proposed to change the new 2nd paragraph to read as follows:
If the copyright for a text that a paid editor wishes to add to Wikipedia is owned by someone else (such as the paid editor's employer), the paid editor is responsible for ensuring that they have the right to grant the required license for the content, or that the copyright owner has granted permission for the content to be used in Wikipedia. See WP:PERMISSION for instructions.
That version does not include the general obligation.
The question: Should paid editors always be obligated to have copyright permission sent to WMF for content they wish to add to WP?
There you go. a draft. Jytdog ( talk) 20:39, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
I have come across an odd situation. An editor has prepared a series of articles, declaring clearly on the talk page of each that there is a COI situation in each of them because of his connection with the organization featured in the articles, but giving detailed reasons why (in his opinion) his articles do not breach the COI standards. He does not state the nature of his COI - it is in fact that his paid job is to publicize the organization to which the articles refer. In my view it could be argued that the articles do not pass standards for WP:NOTABILITY, and are extensively packed with WP:UNDUE material, but that is not my main issue here. One by one this editor has been putting up these articles for WP:GA and WP:FA. They have been passed by editors who stick to the letter of the rules for promoting and have not bothered to consider whether or not the articles meet notability standards; nor have they considered any COI issues. My point is this: is not the seeking of promotion of these articles to FA and GA status a form of unacceptable WP:PROMO? - and should not the editor's acknowledged COI be a bar to seeking to advance these articles to FA and GA status, thereby reflecting some sort of glory on the organization he is paid to promote? I would welcome views on this, and also advice on what (if anything) should be done about it.-- Smerus ( talk) 18:51, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
The guideline, it is now reliably sourced, is "clear". [4] Well, done. :) Alanscottwalker ( talk) 13:56, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Editors are failing to see the forest for the trees. No one gets paid for protecting NPOV or enforcing COI or the like, per se – there isn't much financial gain to be had for editing in good faith. The problem resides in (paid) editing in bad faith. It's an uneven battle: between unpaid volunteers trying to maintain our standards, and paid operatives trying to subvert them." That bears repeating. It's like relatively unpaid candidates-for-the-people trying to win elections against obscenely-paid candidates-for-the-special-interests. Who's winning that battle? wbm1058 ( talk) 21:27, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
An editor's contributions should be judged solely on their merit." The premise implies that "paid editing" ≡ "COI editing". As you point out, that's a bad assumption. I would support paying editors to "judge the merit of certain contributions" (the criteria for this needs better definition, though) and paying editors to investigate copyright issues, as the volunteer crew is falling short in these efforts. The work (edits) of such paid editors would periodically be reviewed (perhaps an RfA-style review) to determine whether their "contract" to work for pay should be renewed. Just brainstorming here. I would not support hiring editors to be private investigators of people (paid or not). The focus should be on the encyclopedic content. wbm1058 ( talk) 14:32, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
I'd just like to note that WP:PAID and WP:Harassment are both policies, and both are heavily affected by many of the proposals here. Per WP:PGCHANGE, the threshold for these passing is "widespread consensus", a bar which is quite different than most discussions. Ideally, we should have an uninvolved and experienced panel of closers close this. ~ Rob13 Talk 13:26, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
Concentrating on the practical question: how should these proposals be closed? The various milieux are so vague and sometimes self-contradictory that I don't think that they can be closed, or were even meant to be something to be put into a policy or guideline. Casliber, please correct me if I'm wrong on this. Among the concrete proposals, concrete proposal 2, might gain enough support, but I suspect there is too little total input so far. Only Concrete proposal 1 seems to have enough !votes to pass right now 22 supports, 6 oppose, equalling 78.6% supports. I think the closer(s) would have only 2 options here, close it as passed, or request more input. I think if more input is requested the margin in favor will only grow, so I've requested that other people request the input (to avoid an accusation of canvassing). Whether there are 3 closers or only 1, those are the only 2 choices. Smallbones( smalltalk) 16:17, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
I've noticed that there seem to be a large number of editors with COIs who come to this page and quickly become lost because of its length and (to them) complexity, and end up continuing to edit covertly and hoping they just won't be discovered. I don't think the following will necessarily change that, but I think it might help:
I'd like to propose that we add a link to a page that gives an example of an editor who has a COI and what that person does when he/ she wants to make a COI edit. The page might read something like this:
Worked example of an editor with a COI:
Let's say there is a user named Steven Washington who has a user account under the name "SteveWa". Steven notices one day that someone has written a Wikipedia article on the company he works for named "Maker of Good Stuff" (of course, Steven should never start off by writing that article, as that would almost certainly be a policy violation). Steven also notices that the article has several errors in it, and he wishes to see them corrected so that the article is up to date. Steven has a COI with regard to this article, and the changes he wishes to see are more than simply grammar and spelling. The first thing Steven does is go to his own userpage and edit it. Then, somewhere near the top of the page, he places the Userbox-coi template like this:{{Userbox-coi|1=Maker of Good Stuff}}
. Then he saves the page. His user page now has a proper declaration on it. Next, Steven visits the article talk page. Here he writes the following:
==Proposed changes== {{request edit}} I am requesting the following series of edits to this article, with which I have a conflict of interest. Please contact me if you have any questions. Thanks! 1. The company was founded in 1965, not 1966 2. The company's best selling product is actually the Nordbrekker tabletop, not the Salvbreker chair and side table 3. The company's current environmental record should be included under the "Environment" section, and it should read like this: "Maker of Good Stuff instituted a stringent environmental program in 2004 that carefully monitors and channels all of its own waste products. They have won a number of awards for this program, including the [[Happy to Save the Earth]] award and the [[Waste Not]] award, both given annually by the government of Denmark." I have a reference to support these claims, which should read like this: <ref>{{cite newspaper|newspaper=Danish Times|date=3 March 2005|Author=Miles Frugal|title=Makes Good Stuff does it again!"|url=http://danishtimes.com/2005/3March/Frugal}}</ref> Thank you for considering my edit request. [[User:Lowercase sigmabot III|Lowercase sigmabot III]] ([[User talk:Lowercase sigmabot III|talk]]) 01:24, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
(Since Steven has never edited this article before, he does not need to place the {{ connected contributor}} template here).
Steven clicks on "Save." His proposed edits now appear on the talk page.
Now Steven simply waits. Another editor with the username "SusanK" then comes along, has a look over Steve's proposed edits, decides that none are controversial or unsupported, changes the article page to match the request, and comes back to the talk page and modifies Steve's message by putting a |A
into his "request edit" template, like so:
{{request edit|A}}
She saves the talk page, and the entire edit has now been properly disclosed and implemented.
....Thoughts...? The page could also have more complex and controversial examples on it for those editors who want to know what happens when you walk outside the lines. I don't think it should go on this page because this page is already too long. KDS4444 ( talk) 23:22, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 20 | ← | Archive 23 | Archive 24 | Archive 25 | Archive 26 | Archive 27 | → | Archive 30 |
What should be done when a known COI editor is directly editing the article? This page does not make it clear what should be done if anything. Are COI editors allowed to directly edit an article but are only strongly discouraged from directly an article? QuackGuru ( talk) 23:12, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
One area in which I actually would concur with some of the previous comments, concerning excessively harsh tone, relates to a narrow but important issue. At COI/N there was recently a posting complaining that an SPA, apparently aided by socks, was making vandalism-type edits removing sourced info from a BLP. This was obviously the subject. As I examined the edits in question, I found that actually the SPA and his socks were right. The article had serious BLP issues. I certainly would have no objection to adding a few sentences to address this particular situation and show greater sympathy to subjects who are getting slammed. The subject in question had obviously not a clue as to how to deal with such a situation. The current wording is correct, and helpful, but I think it can be tweaked.
However, I do believe that this is not a common situation, in fact the first that I have ever encountered. Far more frequently what you see are subjects writing autobiographies, not defending themselves. Coretheapple ( talk) 15:31, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
I added a couple of sentences to make the section a bit more sympathetic and informative, but I don't feel that strongly about it, so feel free to revert. Coretheapple ( talk) 15:39, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
In December 2015, following discussion at the Talk page here about concern over the ownership of content posted anywhere in WP by paid editors, the following content change was made in this dif and then subsequently edited:
The existing language at that time:
Copyright, licensing Editors are reminded that any new text they contribute to Wikipedia is irrevocably licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 license and the GNU Free Documentation License. Any new writing, including article drafts and talk-page comments, can be freely copied, modified, deleted, reproduced, altered and quoted by third parties for commercial and non-commercial use, with the sole requirement that the work be attributed to Wikipedia contributors.
Was initially changed and then changed further, and and is currently):
Copyright of paid contributions
Editors are reminded that any text they contribute to Wikipedia, assuming they own the copyright, is irrevocably licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike license and the GNU Free Documentation License. Content on Wikipedia, including article drafts and talk-page comments, can be freely copied and modified by third parties for commercial and non-commercial use, with the sole requirement that it be attributed to Wikipedia contributors.
Paid editors must ensure that they own the copyright of text they have been paid to add to Wikipedia. If the text is a work for hire, the copyright resides with the person or organization that paid for it ("the employer"). Otherwise the text's author is assumed to be the copyright holder. It is important not to assume that the paid editor is the author, because companies may provide paid editors with approved texts.
Paid editors, the employer, or the author should forward a release to the Wikimedia Foundation (
permissions@wikimedia.org
). The release must include the name(s) of the author and copyright holder, and that the copyright holder has released the text under a free licence. See WP:PERMISSION for how to do this.
The notion in the 3rd paragraph that paid editors should always -- whether they own the copyright in the proposed content or not -- forward a release to the Wikimedia Foundation, was discussed at the talk page of the Copyright policy, also in December 2015 starting the same day the content was initially added. That discussion is here.
I have proposed to combine and change the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs to read as follows:
If the copyright for a text that a paid editor wishes to add to Wikipedia is owned by someone else (such as the paid editor's employer), the paid editor is responsible for ensuring that they have the right to grant the required license for the content, or that the copyright owner has granted permission for the content to be used in Wikipedia. See WP:PERMISSION for instructions.
That version does not include the general obligation but makes it clear that paid editors, like everyone, are responsible for getting clearance to add content to WP that they don't own.
The question: Should paid editors always be obligated to have copyright permission sent to WMF for content they wish to add to WP, whether they own it or not? Jytdog ( talk) 20:51, 15 December 2016 (UTC) (fixed some errors Jytdog ( talk) 22:00, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
The current language makes no demands on anyone. This is a guideline, setting best practices. It says so at the very top of the page. So the way this RfC is drafted, in this section header and in other ways, is just flat-out misleading. The "new" text that he talks about was established by consensus in 2015. Apparently Jytdog just got wind of it. Coretheapple ( talk) 20:56, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
permissions@wikimedia.org
). The release should include the name(s) of the author and copyright holder, and that the copyright holder has released the text under a free licence. See
WP:PERMISSION for how to do this." (boldface added) This removes all the "obligated"-type language. OK? Can we stop this ridiculous waste of time?
Coretheapple (
talk) 21:44, 15 December 2016 (UTC)IMHO folks are misinterpreting the current wording
Just to be clear The Terms of Use (Section 4) state that the following is prohibited: "Committing Infringement
If you post copyrighted material without a release you are committing infringement.
Also
7. Licensing of Content requires attribution under both b. Attribution and c. Importing text
Smallbones( smalltalk) 22:00, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
The paragraph being reverted was discussed here. SarahSV (talk) 16:16, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
permissions@wikimedia.org
). The release must include the name(s) of the author and copyright holder, and that the copyright holder has released the text under a free licence. See
WP:PERMISSION for how to do this.The section addresses two issues:
We should probably draft a question about this for the legal department. SarahSV (talk) 16:58, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
I've clarified the text here, and as there was an objection to "should", I've changed it to: "Where there is doubt that the paid editor owns the copyright, they (or the employer or author) are advised to forward a release from the copyright holder to the Wikimedia Foundation ..." The section now says:
Editors are reminded that any text they contribute to Wikipedia, assuming they own the copyright, is irrevocably licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike license and the GNU Free Documentation License. Content on Wikipedia, including article drafts and talk-page comments, can be freely copied and modified by third parties for commercial and non-commercial use, with the sole requirement that it be attributed to Wikipedia contributors.
Paid editors must ensure that they own the copyright of text they have been paid to add to Wikipedia; otherwise they are unable to release it. A text's author is normally assumed to be the copyright holder. Companies sometimes provide paid editors with text written by someone else. Or a paid editor might write text for Wikipedia within the scope of their employment (a " work for hire"), in which case copyright resides with the employer.
Where there is doubt that the paid editor owns the copyright, they (or the employer or author) are advised to forward a release from the copyright holder to the Wikimedia Foundation (
permissions@wikimedia.org
). See WP:PERMISSION for how to do this and Wikipedia:Declaration of consent for all enquiries for a sample letter.
SarahSV (talk) 22:13, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
In December 2015, following discussion at the Talk page here about concern over the ownership of content posted anywhere in WP by paid editors, the following content change was made in this dif:
Copyright, licensing Editors are reminded that any new text they contribute to Wikipedia is irrevocably licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 license and the GNU Free Documentation License. Any new writing, including article drafts and talk-page comments, can be freely copied, modified, deleted, reproduced, altered and quoted by third parties for commercial and non-commercial use, with the sole requirement that the work be attributed to Wikipedia contributors.
Was changed to:
Copyright of paid contributions
Editors are reminded that any text they contribute to Wikipedia, if they own the copyright, is irrevocably licensed under the terms of a Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 license and the GNU Free Documentation License. Any new writing, including article drafts and talk-page comments, can be freely copied, modified, deleted, reproduced, altered and quoted by third parties for commercial and non-commercial use, with the sole requirement that the work be attributed to Wikipedia contributors.
Paid editors must ensure that they own the copyright of text they have been paid to write. If the text is a "work for hire," the copyright resides with the person or organization that paid for it ("the employer"). Paid editors or the employer should forward a release to the Wikimedia Foundation (
permissions@wikimedia.org
). The release must state who the author is, that the author is the copyright holder, and that the copyright holder has released the text under a free licence. Similarly, if paid editors use text supplied by the employer, the author or someone acting on the author's behalf must forward a release to the Wikimedia Foundation.
The notion in the new 2nd paragraph that paid editors should always -- whether they own the copyright in the proposed content or not -- forward a release to the Wikimedia Foundation, was discussed at the talk page of the Copyright policy, also in December 2015 starting the same day the content was added. That discussion is here.
I have proposed to change the new 2nd paragraph to read as follows:
If the copyright for a text that a paid editor wishes to add to Wikipedia is owned by someone else (such as the paid editor's employer), the paid editor is responsible for ensuring that they have the right to grant the required license for the content, or that the copyright owner has granted permission for the content to be used in Wikipedia. See WP:PERMISSION for instructions.
That version does not include the general obligation.
The question: Should paid editors always be obligated to have copyright permission sent to WMF for content they wish to add to WP?
There you go. a draft. Jytdog ( talk) 20:39, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
I have come across an odd situation. An editor has prepared a series of articles, declaring clearly on the talk page of each that there is a COI situation in each of them because of his connection with the organization featured in the articles, but giving detailed reasons why (in his opinion) his articles do not breach the COI standards. He does not state the nature of his COI - it is in fact that his paid job is to publicize the organization to which the articles refer. In my view it could be argued that the articles do not pass standards for WP:NOTABILITY, and are extensively packed with WP:UNDUE material, but that is not my main issue here. One by one this editor has been putting up these articles for WP:GA and WP:FA. They have been passed by editors who stick to the letter of the rules for promoting and have not bothered to consider whether or not the articles meet notability standards; nor have they considered any COI issues. My point is this: is not the seeking of promotion of these articles to FA and GA status a form of unacceptable WP:PROMO? - and should not the editor's acknowledged COI be a bar to seeking to advance these articles to FA and GA status, thereby reflecting some sort of glory on the organization he is paid to promote? I would welcome views on this, and also advice on what (if anything) should be done about it.-- Smerus ( talk) 18:51, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
The guideline, it is now reliably sourced, is "clear". [4] Well, done. :) Alanscottwalker ( talk) 13:56, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Editors are failing to see the forest for the trees. No one gets paid for protecting NPOV or enforcing COI or the like, per se – there isn't much financial gain to be had for editing in good faith. The problem resides in (paid) editing in bad faith. It's an uneven battle: between unpaid volunteers trying to maintain our standards, and paid operatives trying to subvert them." That bears repeating. It's like relatively unpaid candidates-for-the-people trying to win elections against obscenely-paid candidates-for-the-special-interests. Who's winning that battle? wbm1058 ( talk) 21:27, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
An editor's contributions should be judged solely on their merit." The premise implies that "paid editing" ≡ "COI editing". As you point out, that's a bad assumption. I would support paying editors to "judge the merit of certain contributions" (the criteria for this needs better definition, though) and paying editors to investigate copyright issues, as the volunteer crew is falling short in these efforts. The work (edits) of such paid editors would periodically be reviewed (perhaps an RfA-style review) to determine whether their "contract" to work for pay should be renewed. Just brainstorming here. I would not support hiring editors to be private investigators of people (paid or not). The focus should be on the encyclopedic content. wbm1058 ( talk) 14:32, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
I'd just like to note that WP:PAID and WP:Harassment are both policies, and both are heavily affected by many of the proposals here. Per WP:PGCHANGE, the threshold for these passing is "widespread consensus", a bar which is quite different than most discussions. Ideally, we should have an uninvolved and experienced panel of closers close this. ~ Rob13 Talk 13:26, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
Concentrating on the practical question: how should these proposals be closed? The various milieux are so vague and sometimes self-contradictory that I don't think that they can be closed, or were even meant to be something to be put into a policy or guideline. Casliber, please correct me if I'm wrong on this. Among the concrete proposals, concrete proposal 2, might gain enough support, but I suspect there is too little total input so far. Only Concrete proposal 1 seems to have enough !votes to pass right now 22 supports, 6 oppose, equalling 78.6% supports. I think the closer(s) would have only 2 options here, close it as passed, or request more input. I think if more input is requested the margin in favor will only grow, so I've requested that other people request the input (to avoid an accusation of canvassing). Whether there are 3 closers or only 1, those are the only 2 choices. Smallbones( smalltalk) 16:17, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
I've noticed that there seem to be a large number of editors with COIs who come to this page and quickly become lost because of its length and (to them) complexity, and end up continuing to edit covertly and hoping they just won't be discovered. I don't think the following will necessarily change that, but I think it might help:
I'd like to propose that we add a link to a page that gives an example of an editor who has a COI and what that person does when he/ she wants to make a COI edit. The page might read something like this:
Worked example of an editor with a COI:
Let's say there is a user named Steven Washington who has a user account under the name "SteveWa". Steven notices one day that someone has written a Wikipedia article on the company he works for named "Maker of Good Stuff" (of course, Steven should never start off by writing that article, as that would almost certainly be a policy violation). Steven also notices that the article has several errors in it, and he wishes to see them corrected so that the article is up to date. Steven has a COI with regard to this article, and the changes he wishes to see are more than simply grammar and spelling. The first thing Steven does is go to his own userpage and edit it. Then, somewhere near the top of the page, he places the Userbox-coi template like this:{{Userbox-coi|1=Maker of Good Stuff}}
. Then he saves the page. His user page now has a proper declaration on it. Next, Steven visits the article talk page. Here he writes the following:
==Proposed changes== {{request edit}} I am requesting the following series of edits to this article, with which I have a conflict of interest. Please contact me if you have any questions. Thanks! 1. The company was founded in 1965, not 1966 2. The company's best selling product is actually the Nordbrekker tabletop, not the Salvbreker chair and side table 3. The company's current environmental record should be included under the "Environment" section, and it should read like this: "Maker of Good Stuff instituted a stringent environmental program in 2004 that carefully monitors and channels all of its own waste products. They have won a number of awards for this program, including the [[Happy to Save the Earth]] award and the [[Waste Not]] award, both given annually by the government of Denmark." I have a reference to support these claims, which should read like this: <ref>{{cite newspaper|newspaper=Danish Times|date=3 March 2005|Author=Miles Frugal|title=Makes Good Stuff does it again!"|url=http://danishtimes.com/2005/3March/Frugal}}</ref> Thank you for considering my edit request. [[User:Lowercase sigmabot III|Lowercase sigmabot III]] ([[User talk:Lowercase sigmabot III|talk]]) 01:24, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
(Since Steven has never edited this article before, he does not need to place the {{ connected contributor}} template here).
Steven clicks on "Save." His proposed edits now appear on the talk page.
Now Steven simply waits. Another editor with the username "SusanK" then comes along, has a look over Steve's proposed edits, decides that none are controversial or unsupported, changes the article page to match the request, and comes back to the talk page and modifies Steve's message by putting a |A
into his "request edit" template, like so:
{{request edit|A}}
She saves the talk page, and the entire edit has now been properly disclosed and implemented.
....Thoughts...? The page could also have more complex and controversial examples on it for those editors who want to know what happens when you walk outside the lines. I don't think it should go on this page because this page is already too long. KDS4444 ( talk) 23:22, 2 April 2017 (UTC)