Systematic bias can result from people being paid to edit wikipedia. We need to face the issues involved. WAS 4.250 21:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Autobiography says "You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved. This applies to articles about you, your achievements, your business, your publications, your website, your relatives, and any other possible conflict of interest." Paying others to do things they themseves are not allowed to do is not acceptable behavior. See this where a talk page is used to advertise for exactly that. WAS 4.250 21:42, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
The key policy at risk is WP:NPOV. WAS 4.250 21:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Robert Steele is an example of this. WAS 4.250 22:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
User talk:MyWikiBiz is an example of this. WAS 4.250 22:09, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, I kind of object to the 'close to your profession'. For example, it would require doctors to submit pages they created on illnesses.
Instead of requring vetting of new page creation, I'd rather that we just ask for an explicit declaration of a conflict of interests in some relevant place, since otherwise this is just another layer of beurocracy that we don't need.
But first we need to decide on what would be a conflict of intrests, and I really don't think that's as simple as 'professional connection'. -- Barberio 21:50, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
This needs some wikification, and working out where to link to and so on...
I think there are already relevent places to point people to for the third part interventions on creating and editing pages. -- Barberio 22:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
...is the Graal Online article, where the owners of the game tried to prevent criticism being added, as well as adding more positive-connoting words to the article in an attempt to create a subtle advertisment. Was deleted at AfD, then deletion endorsed at Deletion Review. I think that this is the perfect case of someone related to the subject of the article, being paid/recieving income from the subject of the article, making "problematic" edits. Daniel. Bryant 07:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
One of the arguments on the Wikipedia:Notability page is Non-notable topics do not attract editors. I think it is relevant here. If someone creates or edits an article on Microsoft, it is a notable topic, bound to attract a lot of eyes, and a lot of edits. It's difficult for POV content to be posted on such an article. If, on the other hand, an article for Fred's Laundromat is created by Fred, or someone working for him, odds are pretty slim that anyone who actually knows anything about it will review and update the article. What we end up with is a free Yellow Pages ad for Fred. We've certainly seen this pattern for smaller company articles obviously created by principals of the company. Paid article-writers would engender the same issue. Fan-1967 16:32, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
We already have WP:VANITY. What's new in this policy that's not in that one? Fagstein 17:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
If the founding author of an article is an experienced Wikipedian, it seems to me they should know whether it belongs on Wikipedia or not, and be able to stay out of edit wars with respect to it or else face the usual penalties. IMO, conflict of interest only becomes a particular issue if one is to become a steward, bureaucrat or member of the Board of Trustees or ArbCom, or be brought in as a mediator. Otherwise, conflicts of interest can be kept in check by other editors, as long as Wikipedia:Spam remains in force. Neon Merlin 20:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I oppose on two grounds:
- Jmabel | Talk 04:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Not only is the proposal poorly worded, it also completely destroys the idea that, after the Siegenthaler incident, users should be allowed to edit articles about themselves (and this should be prominently stated, so even new users will know it). Ken Arromdee 14:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
The object of this proposal is to deal with Conflicts of interest. To the extent that it does not, it needs to be fixed rather than otherwise dealt with. For example, not all paid editing necessarily involves a conflict of interest. I read that the US government thru some grant is or was expected to provided money for wikimedia to translate articles into languages that have too few articles in their wikpedia version (I read this months ago and am going on memory). Editorial control is not necessary for there to be undue influence, but a typical public university sponsored internship/assistantship arrangement would not involve a conflict of interest. Yet if the subject were of special interest to the funding agency such as an article on the university, or on intelligent design by a Christian fundamentalist university; a conflict of interest would exist. "Subject of the article is very close to your profession" definitly needs to be reworded. Paid editing will always exist underground. Limiting POV editing by dealing with conflict of interest editing by clear policies is useful. Editors editing their own bio is dealt with clearly by a relevant policy. We now need the same for the wider concept of conflict of editing, especially for paid editing. This article needs a lot of work, and if I could improve it I would. Maybe after a whole lot of talk, ideas for improving it will be become apparent. WAS 4.250 21:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I would oppose this policy. Conflicts of interest are not inherently, intrinsically and by their very nature bad. They're only bad things if they lead to bad editing. And we have all sorts of nifty policies like notability and verifiability and NPOV and NOR and this really neat wiki-process to fix up generally poor text for handling bad editing. If person is constantly POV-pushing, it doesn't matter whether it's because they are an asshole, a true believer, or are doing because it is in their interest - it is still POV-pushing and we don't need yet another redundant policy for that. -- Rhwawn ( talk to Rhwawn) 22:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Both organized (example paid) and systematic (example autobiography) conflict of interest that results in POV pushing is especially worrisome and should be dealt with. Autobiography already is. WAS 4.250 06:18, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Looking at this topic, I found I had a fair ammount to say. Rather than posting the entire lot in each associated debate, I created an essay in my userspace, paidediting. Please have a read, give feedback, and add to it if you wish. LinaMishima 15:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Paid-for editing will be allowed under these conditions:
I wish to say that the current definition of "conflict of interest" is too narrow. The definition that Barberio employs in his proposed text is much better. It is important to recognize that an appearnce of impropriety can occur when a close friend of relation of the subject creates an article, and this proposed policy should address such situations.-- danntm T C 16:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Numerous PR flacks around the world are already editing Wikipedia, and will be. I would suggest that instead of trying to ban the inevitable, a là "War on Drugs", we work on how best to manage the situation. I think we should start from something like Brian Wasson's, " The wide world of Wikipedia, and why PR practitioners should take note". It's clear that Wasson is trying to work out how to do this ethically; it is equally clear he hasn't quite got it right; we should make the appropriate adjustments and turn it into a guideline.
I also don't think that the matter is all that different from someone writing about their favorite band, or their favorite author, or a politician that they strongly support or oppose. Money is not a radically different motivator than other things. My biggest concern on the money front? That some big company or political pressure group might pay someone to put in the kind of time that it takes to "sit" on a page and effectively "own" it by wearing down other contributors. Clearly, behavior of that sort is a breach of ethics in any case, but would be far more so if it is being done for money: someone would basically be buying control of their (or their rival's) Wikipedia entry.
"Sunshine is the best disinfectant." A good disclosure policy would make conflicts of interest visible, and would make efforts to hide conflicts of interest a clear breach of the rules. But there are always going to be conflicts of interest, if only on the level of artistic tastes, political beliefs, and personal feelings about other editors, any of which can be in conflict with the effort to create a good encyclopedia. - Jmabel | Talk 17:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
You may be interested in an old proposal I promoted a year ago regarding similar concerns: Wikipedia:Conflict of interest--
Yannick
23:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
The proposal is potentially nice. It's potentially workable. The main problem I would see is that Jimbo Wales needs to personally approve of or endorse it, because I'm not willing to revamp MyWikiBiz.com's business model, only to have him personally block my account because it doesn't meet his personal approval. Honestly, I am 90% certain that I will go along with any solution that Jimbo Wales will endorse, as long as the "placement" of our GFDL content is somewhere within Wikipedia, and I don't necessarily mean in the mainspace. -- MyWikiBiz 02:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
A few points:
Regarding "clear understanding of where Jimbo Wales stands"; read Koan and this. Jimbo's stand concerning his stands is wise. WAS 4.250 23:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Do we want to force editors to go through the steps with articles that they have already created, as I am doing with User:Powerscore? Λυδ α cιτγ 17:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
You should instead write on your own website, and ask Wikipedians to look at your work. You may also feel free to engage in constructive dialog on the talk pages.
Why is a talk page this any different from creating an article? If we are to discourage constructive and well-written spam articles because of conflicts of interest, why should we encourage constructive dialogue from someone with the same conflicts?
I'm not sure what asking Wikipedians to look at your work refers to, and how this would not be external link spam. Λυδ α cιτγ 22:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Do we want to allow a single Wikipedian to vet an article, as is done at Wikipedia:Articles for creation? Should we restrict this vetting to admins? Or, should we establish a Wikipedia:Articles for deletion-like system where consensus is searched for? Or an Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee-type board with elected members?
The last seems rather inefficient to me, since we already have elected "officials" (admins). I would favor the second or third options. Λυδ α cιτγ 22:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
There should be talk about the proposed content by anyone who wishes to comment and the actual placing of content in main wikipedia space is done by someone (anyone??) who is willing to stand behind that content as if he wrote it himself (deleting or rewriting or putting instead into the talk space of the article anything they are not willing to stand behind 100%). WAS 4.250 23:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Whoever puts content in the main wikipedia space is responsible and acountable for that. Being an admin is no excuse for adding bad content and not being an admin is no barrier to adding content one believes is great encyclopedic content - whereever one finds it. WAS 4.250 01:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
By the way, Jimbo says this. WAS 4.250 23:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Would anyone object the archiving of discussions here that have gone quiet, moving rewrite versions off to sub-pages, and then a summary/refactor of the archived/moved content being left on the main talk page (ie, here)? I suspect some good points for elements we need to consider have been left behind, and the big discussions debating points detract from the ideas themselves being convayed within. With some more structure and emphasis on the key points of past debates, I hope to make this discussion more approachable and hence hopefully be able to draw more people into the process. Thoughts? LinaMishima 14:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Any refactoring would necessarily be based on the refactorers points of view and so I am very wary of any such attempt. Please feel free to add to the bottom to re-bring up stuff that needs to be brought up and seems left behind. And feel free to add a to-do list to the very top. Also sometimes rewording subsection headings makes navigation easier for new readers (maybe add a word or two in parenthesis?) - just be real careful about POV considerations. WAS 4.250 20:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
What follows is an account of the most recient discussion on wikien-l about paid article editing. Summaried here to try and move points from that discussion into this one:
In my opinion you seriously distort some of what they said. I highly recommend everyone read the archives for themselves if they intend to draw serious conclusions from the comments. WAS 4.250 20:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I organized and linked the summery; I also edited a little bit. Λυδ α cιτγ 02:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
The following is a comment by I solicited at User talk:Daniel Bush:
It's a good proposal, but for the corporations that I've noticed editing Wikipedia, such as Zango, in which it appeared the founder had edited, it would seem that this would be little motive to continue subverting Wikipedia for marketing practices. There needs to be mention in this policy of the punishment that may result in its violation in the most extreme cases.
If edits from Zango continue to be for nothing but the purpose of promoting its adware, and alleged spyware, through editing Wikipedia articles on itself, and linkspamming in unrelated articles? They have been blocked temporarily, but this has not worked, so should it be blocked permanently? It seems that the founder of Zango may have even edited Wikipedia under the username Dtodd.
Zango has been warned several times under various IP addresses not to promote itself on Wikipedia, but because administrators don't see each others' warnings, they often just place another warning sticker on the user message page. Sometimes warnings of the highest degree, saying you will be blocked if you repeat your actions again, only result in yet another warning, because the administrator supposes it has been a couple of months since the last action, when this is not true. I think this is unfortunate leniency on Wikipedia's part.
Additionally, should organizations like Zango that have their IP address blocks have their IP addresses blocked individually, or blocked as a single entity? The answer to this question could be applied to other things, like the offices of members of the U.S. Senate, in the extremely unlikely event such an "edit war" would arise. Aside from that, I have no suggestions. Daniel Bush 08:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC) (copied here by WAS 4.250 20:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC))
Which one do people like better?
This is a Wikipedia user page. IT IS NOT AN ARTICLE. |
![]() |
Either way, we should make an actual template out of it. Λυδ α cιτγ 02:20, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't care so that's one vote for yours and no votes for mine. So I'm replacing the template with yours. If no one else speaks up, feel free to "make an actual template out of it". WAS 4.250 05:57, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Often there is a coincidence of interest between an external independent entity and Wikipedia's goals. I feel that sometimes people confuse having a conflict of interest with having an interest.
The important factor here is to declare an interest so editors here can form their own view. In fact, it is often possible to increase the benefit to all sides with constructive engagement. This is true in the case of my own company, Forbidden Technologies plc, which shares a common goal with the WMF: having a resource of free video content. Stephen B Streater
Right now that is dealt with merely by linking to the wikipedia article Conflict of interest. Perhaps we need a well written subsection detailing the points you guys just raised. Any volunteers? WAS 4.250 23:02, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Draft (please edit in place and leave comments at the bottom). Stephen B Streater 11:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia has noble aims and it comes as no surprise that these benefit many people and organisations outside of Wikipedia itself. As well as finding the general resource of a great encyclopaedia handy, commercial organisations benefit particularly from the free licence conditions covering content here, which allow commercial re-use of information.
Situations can arise where a company has an interest in what happens here - not a conflict of interest but a coincidence of interest or common interest. The question this policy seeks to address is how to deal with this situation.
Practical guidelines:
In addition, there may be simple ways to align the interests of an outside organisation to that of Wikipedia. For Wikipedia to benefit, only one interest of an outside source needs to coincide with one interest of Wikipedia.
I don't see that as being a useful addition to the proposal. It seems to negate the existing content of the proposal. I think the problem is you are thinking of you and your desire to have free content distributed; whereas the problem this proposal is seeking to address is coordinated systematic unethical lying manipulative organized predatory behavior. What we don't want to get cause in the net is individuals acting without coordinatetion with an organization; or organizations that are acting in an ethical above board way in all their dealings (or close enough we don't need to worry about them) like the ACLU or your local church. We do want to, need to, tell PR firms simply don't edit or you will be embarrassed; in exactly the same way as police try to make it known don't steal or you will go to jail. WAS 4.250 14:32, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The Conflict of interest article refers to people in a special position of trust, or a "professional or official capacity". Wikipedia editors are not in such a position.
So how does one interpret the CoI term in this context?
I've seen people (in other contexts) go as far as saying "anything related to the same branch of industry you work in is CoI", and people say "as long as you can't know that money will enter your pocket, it's not CoI" - so the question is not academic to me. -- Alvestrand 08:32, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Far from it being obvious, I am totally unconvinced that it is inherently wrong to be paid to write Wikipedia articles. On the contrary, I see editors like MyWikiBiz having a very strong obligation to edit within our community standards -- not just to us, but to his own business. The "MyWikiBiz" fails if he misbehaves and gets banned; on the flip side, as long as he edits well and respects WP:NPOV, he is both adding quality content to our encyclopedia as well as satisfying that which his customers are paying him to do. I see his economic incentive to edit well as being much stronger than that of many Wikipedia editors whose editing strategy, so to speak, centers around heightening their community status or pushing their own personal viewpoints. It's completely silly to pretend like many if not most Wikipedia articles are started by people who are not deeply "interested" in the topic at hand, and thus conflicted to some degree, so making this particular subset of editors jump through additional hoops is a little unfair. Judge the EDITS, not the EDITOR. — GT 20:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Public relations people are going to write articles in Wikipedia whether we like it or not. I've offered my draft of how I think this should be approached. If you have comments, for now please use its talk page: I've deliberately left this in my own user space. - Jmabel | Talk 17:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
There's been some discussion that Wikipedia:Vanity guidelines have a prejudicial and not very descriptive title. What they're really addressing is a specific type of conflict of interest. Why not rename the Vanity guidelines as "Conflict of interest guidelines", and merge over from here whatever they're missing? - GTBacchus( talk) 22:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Just say no to PR firms rather than create a guideline or policy for them seems to be gaining in acceptance. WAS 4.250 07:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I think this policy has applicability beyond PR firms - editing funded by grants, editing funded by any employee, editing by employed experts where efforts on wikipedia considered part of job dutes, editing by academics where such editing is permitted by their employer, ...
Whether combined with the vanity guidelines or a seperate policy - how to deal with conflicts, whether such conflicts need to be openly acknowledged, rules for higher scrutiny in applying ownership, tenacious editing, etc, if they are even necessary, are all things that we as a community need to resolve and are resolving - through practice of the current admins and through pages like this. A bright line rule, while easier to implement, may not be the best standard. -- Trödel 13:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Whilst the bit about PR firms is worded against them, sadly I do believe that it has a very valid point. Even if we allow open PR editing, misuse will still happen, the bad firms in question will simply learn to do it in secret, PR firms work may well be decimated by a cautious editor base, and real lawyer wikilawyering becomes a possibility. In my opinion, the entire thing is mis-named, and sadly the author allowed their bias to dilute a key point:
"We accept neutral and factual edits from any person ... In fact, I'm arguing that our handling of editors works well enough
that we don't have to create a special "permission to promote" compromise in order to reduce the amount of secret editing that will
happen."
Once a PR firm has been educated in how to edit wiki ethically, our existing rules and policies should be enough to keep them in check, and we should not look to grant them any special authorisation. If they are required to abide like every other editor, niether side risks the dangers of authorised PR editing. We do perhaps need some changes to the vanity guidelines, so as to allow self-editing of a neutral and factual nature (ie, making vanity mean vanity), a proper document akin to User:Jmabel/PR, and a degree of ideological changes in some key players, however. LinaMishima 14:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I have received remarkably little feed back about User:Jmabel/PR. Is there perhaps a different way I should present my ideas? - Jmabel | Talk 18:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I've now received considerably more comments, for what it is worth. - Jmabel | Talk 19:20, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
As it happens, I only realised that I may be strongly discouraged from editting Wikipedia after I had contributed 500 edits. During that time, I think I have learned:
My own view (as you would expect) is that I have made a positive contribution (for example on hare coursing) and I suspect that other professionals in their field have too. But it seems strange to ask editors to drop out of active editting as soon as they start to learn the rules. Surely the danger is greatest when PR editors are new? Final thought: my experience is that some (specialist?) issues like fox hunting find few people who have all three of interest, expertise and a neutral point of view. (apologies if this sounds like an attempt at self-justification, it's genuinely my intention to use myself only to illustrate a point. MikeHobday 06:23, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Could I also raise some definitional issues, as a PR person?
My point is not to wikilawyer but to suggest that the proposed definitions need further clarification. MikeHobday 06:23, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
So, Radiant! has changed this page to be a "guideline". How do we all feel about the fact that Jimmy Wales said, in response to this aspect of WP:COI that it was "Absolutely unacceptable, sorry"? -- MyWikiBiz 22:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
MyWikiBiz, if you don't stop trolling, I am going to ban you myself, got it?-- Jimbo Wales 03:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I guess I am to interpret the opinions of Radiant!, Audacity, and Ytrottier as having more collective influence than Jimmy Wales' opinion? My e-mail to Wales said the following:
His response was, "Absolutely unacceptable, sorry." Very interesting. Is the community actually standing up in opposition to the God-king? I'll run it by him in another e-mail. Maybe the distinction that Wales was making with me was that mine would be a "paid" conflict of interest, while WP:COI seems to be addressing (more likely) a "self-interest" conflict of interest. (BTW, I'm not opposed to what's evolved here. It just seems like a dramatic step that was implemented "under the radar", by a user who had not once previously contributed to WP:COI or its related Discussion page. Just because conversation had died on the topic doesn't mean everyone had formed consensus.) -- MyWikiBiz 03:12, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
MyWikiBiz, please knock it off, ok? On August 17, I told you that the version of policy at that time was absolutely unacceptable. I proposed some changes on August 21. Since that time, people have incorporated my changes and a lot more. I still think this policy does not go far enough, and is not stated strongly enough, because the policy should allow anyone to block you on sight for what you have attempted to do. The policy should make much more clear that it is absolutely and totally unethical to propose to write articles on behalf of companies for money. Period. This needs to be stated forcefully and repeatedly. However, since the policy does now certainly provide us with a starting point for discouraging it, including the language that I proposed, I support it.
You trying to stir up sentiment against me based on false reporting of what the situation is... well, it just tells me exactly why we need this kind of policy.-- Jimbo Wales 03:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I strongly recommend you do a lot more than observe a moratorium on this topic now. I recommend that you change your entire business model. Do you want to write corporate full bios? Go ahead. Do you want to release them under the GNU FDL? Go ahead. Do you want to imply, on your website, that by paying you, companies can get a great article on Wikipedia. No. You may not, you must not, it is deeply inappropriate. You need to tell companies the truth, on your website: "Wikipedia strongly frowns on paid consultants on behalf of companies editing Wikipedia. If you are caught using my service, you run a serious risk of bad publicity."-- Jimbo Wales 04:50, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I do not like this new guideline because the hardline discourages voluntary disclosure of conflicts of interest, particularly in mild cases such as a non-PR employee editing a page about his industry or a politician editing a page about an issue she champions. Voluntary disclosure is often preferable to forcing people to contribute anonymously because it provides a better basis for open discussion and consensus building. I think many of the comments above lean to this opinion as well. Voluntary disclosures should be made on the edit summary or on the article's talk page, and I would expect this to motivate other editors to review the edits pretty much automatically. This is how all the codes of ethics that I am familiar with deal with CoI's.
At the same time, this guideline should also point out that bias can be introduced by things as subtle as adding more material on one subject than another, and that paid contributors can easily wear down our volunteers and subvert the system. Frequent introduction of bias like this is a flagrant violation of WP:NPOV and should be easily blockable, regardless of whether voluntary disclosure has been made or not. I do not see the talk-page pre-article as a complete solution to this problem, and I don't think it has received much support by others either.
I think this proposal was prematurely promoted to a guideline, and I hope that people will still consider large changes to it. I think it should be rewritten to encourage voluntary disclosure and strict adherence to WP:NPOV, WP:CORP, WP:AUTO, etc. as a first remedy, but warn that prolific users with a pattern of violations shall be blocked, regardless of disclosure.-- Yannick 05:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
On October 4, Radiant marked WP:COI as a guideline. The tone implies essentially "if you are paid to edit Wikipedia, don't. But you can write a GDFL potential article elsewhere and have it vetted by respected Wikipedians who will post it. Everything should be done in an aboveboard manner." The exchange on Oct 4 and Oct 5 on this discussion page, and the ongoing DRV of Arch Coal don't seem fully consistent with this philosophy; in particular Jimbo seems to be taking a harder line with MyWikiBiz. Now, all sorts of issues cloud the picture, in particular ongoing communication between Jimbo and MyWikiBiz which we are not privy to. But can someone clarify where we stand? I see a couple of possibilities, and maybe there are others:
Martinp 19:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I accept the guideline, although I suspect it will not be nearly enough to deal with the problem. MyWikiBiz is particularly problematic because of the way he promotes his service and the way he has behaved on-site.-- Jimbo Wales 16:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
"[...] I have dealt with Walmart, Coca Cola, and GM (among other firms) on the phone. I have spoken with Congressmen and Senators. I have spoken to their lawyers. I have spoken to their PR people. I have spoken to their VPs in charge of advertising. I did not give in to their cajoling, their threats, or their attempts at bribes. [...] The fact is, we are dealing with a problem here. We have companies galore trying to spam us. OTRS is just a small indicator of this. We have adverting executives calling to see if what they can do to move their company to a higher position on a list, or how much it costs to get them on the front page. We are prime advertising. We will soon be the tenth largest website in the world, and "anyone can edit." It is not only top notch internet advertising, but it is free too. You see, these people dont see the difference between us and MySpace. They know that we will push up their Google rankings. They know that everyone will look them up on Google and find the Wikipedia article. And I repeat, it is free. For the Americans among you, it is like getting a free commercial slot in the last two minutes of the Superbowl. And I repeat, it is free. And for this prime slot, they want to make sure they look as good as they can. This is not hypothesis. We are dealing with it every day, from people who threaten to sue us for violating their First Amendment rights to post about their company to clueless people who think that if we put up a banner to their online poker site we will all make money. We get it from the big Fortune 500 companies and we get it from the local car rental shop, from the sister of a guy who is opening up a new real estate business in Durham North Carolina (I am not kidding) to reps of Coca Cola ("The article is biased"). We get it from Washington thinktanks led by former cabinet members to Flickr-like rip off sites (they offered us $35 for every photographer we send to them). As a site where advertising is anathema, we have to make a choice. Do we allow this? Personally, I am opposed to paid advertising on Wikipedia, but I am even more opposed to free advertising which we cannot monetize. As editors, we end up having to make choices. With our goals in sight, How do we continue being an encyclopedia, and not some advertising forum or MySpace? What is the difference between an article about Budweiser (which I believe we should have even though their beer is foul) and articles on every micro-brewery in the state of Wisconsin? [...]"
from [29]
Copied here by WAS 4.250 05:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
(a) many conflicts that are properly disclosed can be adequately managed without detriment to the reputation, integrity or position of the institution and the individual;
(b) in most cases, problems associated with actual or perceived conflicts of interest or commitment do not arise from the conflicts per se, but rather are the result of a failure to openly acknowledge and actively manage them;
(c) it is important to outline the institutional process for identifying, assessing and managing these potential conflicts to assure that both the integrity of the University and the core activities of its faculty, staff and students are protected; [...]
The term "conflict of commitment" refers to situations in which outside relationships or activities (such as professional consulting for a fee) adversely affect, or have the appearance of adversely affecting, an employee's commitment to his/her University duties or responsibilities. Such activities are encouraged insofar as they are conducted in accordance with University policy (including the one-sixth rule), promote professional development of faculty, and student employees, and enrich their contributions to the institution, to their profession and to the community. Consulting relationships, for example, may serve to create conduits for the exchange of information and technologies that enhance the University environment and permit faculty to test the soundness of their ideas. [...]
The term "conflict of interest" refers to situations in which financial or other personal considerations may adversely affect, or have the appearance of adversely affecting, an employee’s professional judgment in exercising any University duty or responsibility in administration, management, instruction, research and other professional activities. The bias such conflicts could conceivably impart may inappropriately affect the goals of research, instructional, or administrative programs. The education of students, the methods of analysis and interpretation of research data, the hiring of staff, procurement of materials, and other administrative tasks at the University must be free of the undue influence of outside interests. The mere appearance of a conflict may be as serious and potentially damaging as an actual distortion of instructional, research, or administrative goals, processes, or outcomes. Reports of conflicts based on appearances can undermine public trust in ways that may not be adequately restored even when the mitigating facts of a situation are brought to light. Apparent conflicts, therefore, should be disclosed and evaluated with the same vigor as actual conflicts.
I'm greatly disappointed that commercial writing is discouraged. I see no problem if an editor is paid to writer an article on a company and get it to featured status. This is not mentioned anywhere on the page. I think we should be explicit that *as long* as the article conforms to all FA criteria (NPOV, referenced work, good writing, comprehensiveness), a user should not be discouraged from debarred from writing on/for his contracted company. If we could put up a clause that commercial writing is ok, but it should be made featured, it would greatly improve the quality of many articles on corporations. I know many people would disagree with commercial writing is ethically bad, but this is a good way to improve the quality of articles on wikipedia. I know of one featured article that the nominator stated his conflict of interest while nominating, and nobody objected based on those grounds. Biases are inherently present in all wikipedians. Putting that aside and writing neutral articles should be stressed. -- A wiki admin 01:35, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I quite agree. I think MyWikiBiz should be applauded for being honest and upfront about what he's doing. Come on people, get real, this site is infested with PR releases and promotional edits, but most of it is underhand. At least we can keep an eye on MyWikiBiz and any others like him who should appear. -- kingboyk 12:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that the most important thing is that any editor with a potential conflict fully disclose the conflict. This is routine in the news media.
One reason is that people are most likely to write about subjects in which they have expertise and for which they have passion. With passion is likely to come opinion. Many experts are also professionals. So experts in a subject -- especially if that subject is their profession -- are likely to have many potential conflicts. These people have a lot to offer Wikipedia. I submit that there are enough checks and balances within Wikipedia to ensure that non-neutral text will be corrected quickly. The primary focus of the conflict of interest guidelines should be that such conflicts are disclosed.
People who disclose such conflicts should be lauded, not vilified. It demonstrates an open, constructive approach on their part. It's quite easy for an editor to remain completely anonymous, and many do. Who can judge what their conflicts might be. I think people should work closely with editors where there is a perceived conflict of interest, to help them write neutral, well-cited articles about subjects they care about.
The additional focus that will surely accrue around such editors will only serve to guarantee excellent content -- unless such editors are working in bad faith or are disingenuous, which is not hard to determine. If they were truly disingenuous they would be unlikely to reveal the conflict in the first place. Dgray xplane 15:56, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I have taken down the notices about a proposed merge of this page and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest (used to be WP:VAIN). I think there is a clear case for keeping two separate guidelines. Charles Matthews 10:21, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I disagree--I think that people who finish reading one of these two articles will imagine that they have found all the relevant information. Having two separate articles expanding independently makes trouble for readers and editors. This is an important topic, and will be more so in the future. Example: PR firm Edelman has a podcast about how businesses can work to influence Wikipedia. betsythedevine 15:20, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
You mean they will have forgotten the clear messages in the first paragraphs by the time they get to the end?
I do think that having a very clear, separate article about commercial-type editing is a good idea.
Charles Matthews 15:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Favor merge - we should be trying to distill information into fewer pages, with explanations if needed on other pages. See Wikipedia:Attribution as a good example of this. -- Trödel 16:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I also favor a merge. I see no apparent benefit about keeping two guidelines about the same subject. If there is a need for a specific wording about commercial editing, it can be featured on its own section. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
That is your take on WP:COI. You have edited out a whole vocabulary in pursuit of that. I have made entirely clear in the appropriate places what I made of all that editing.
Now, this is not the place, is it? Can you absolutely not keep on topic in the existing arrangement of pages?
What will definitely not happen in the future to these guidelines is that they will get into the same kind of muddle. This is poisoning the wells, saying that well-chosen and representative examples would detract from WP:COI. Examples that were truly well-chosen and representative examples would have the opposite effect, wouldn't they? Talking about abstract dangers is alarmist, not to speak of muddle-headed.
Either you thread your discussions better, or I think someone should move them for you. I was talking about what the requirements for a merge were, in my view, since the other page is in a state of dynamic change. Charles Matthews 14:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Systematic bias can result from people being paid to edit wikipedia. We need to face the issues involved. WAS 4.250 21:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Autobiography says "You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved. This applies to articles about you, your achievements, your business, your publications, your website, your relatives, and any other possible conflict of interest." Paying others to do things they themseves are not allowed to do is not acceptable behavior. See this where a talk page is used to advertise for exactly that. WAS 4.250 21:42, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
The key policy at risk is WP:NPOV. WAS 4.250 21:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Robert Steele is an example of this. WAS 4.250 22:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
User talk:MyWikiBiz is an example of this. WAS 4.250 22:09, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, I kind of object to the 'close to your profession'. For example, it would require doctors to submit pages they created on illnesses.
Instead of requring vetting of new page creation, I'd rather that we just ask for an explicit declaration of a conflict of interests in some relevant place, since otherwise this is just another layer of beurocracy that we don't need.
But first we need to decide on what would be a conflict of intrests, and I really don't think that's as simple as 'professional connection'. -- Barberio 21:50, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
This needs some wikification, and working out where to link to and so on...
I think there are already relevent places to point people to for the third part interventions on creating and editing pages. -- Barberio 22:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
...is the Graal Online article, where the owners of the game tried to prevent criticism being added, as well as adding more positive-connoting words to the article in an attempt to create a subtle advertisment. Was deleted at AfD, then deletion endorsed at Deletion Review. I think that this is the perfect case of someone related to the subject of the article, being paid/recieving income from the subject of the article, making "problematic" edits. Daniel. Bryant 07:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
One of the arguments on the Wikipedia:Notability page is Non-notable topics do not attract editors. I think it is relevant here. If someone creates or edits an article on Microsoft, it is a notable topic, bound to attract a lot of eyes, and a lot of edits. It's difficult for POV content to be posted on such an article. If, on the other hand, an article for Fred's Laundromat is created by Fred, or someone working for him, odds are pretty slim that anyone who actually knows anything about it will review and update the article. What we end up with is a free Yellow Pages ad for Fred. We've certainly seen this pattern for smaller company articles obviously created by principals of the company. Paid article-writers would engender the same issue. Fan-1967 16:32, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
We already have WP:VANITY. What's new in this policy that's not in that one? Fagstein 17:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
If the founding author of an article is an experienced Wikipedian, it seems to me they should know whether it belongs on Wikipedia or not, and be able to stay out of edit wars with respect to it or else face the usual penalties. IMO, conflict of interest only becomes a particular issue if one is to become a steward, bureaucrat or member of the Board of Trustees or ArbCom, or be brought in as a mediator. Otherwise, conflicts of interest can be kept in check by other editors, as long as Wikipedia:Spam remains in force. Neon Merlin 20:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I oppose on two grounds:
- Jmabel | Talk 04:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Not only is the proposal poorly worded, it also completely destroys the idea that, after the Siegenthaler incident, users should be allowed to edit articles about themselves (and this should be prominently stated, so even new users will know it). Ken Arromdee 14:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
The object of this proposal is to deal with Conflicts of interest. To the extent that it does not, it needs to be fixed rather than otherwise dealt with. For example, not all paid editing necessarily involves a conflict of interest. I read that the US government thru some grant is or was expected to provided money for wikimedia to translate articles into languages that have too few articles in their wikpedia version (I read this months ago and am going on memory). Editorial control is not necessary for there to be undue influence, but a typical public university sponsored internship/assistantship arrangement would not involve a conflict of interest. Yet if the subject were of special interest to the funding agency such as an article on the university, or on intelligent design by a Christian fundamentalist university; a conflict of interest would exist. "Subject of the article is very close to your profession" definitly needs to be reworded. Paid editing will always exist underground. Limiting POV editing by dealing with conflict of interest editing by clear policies is useful. Editors editing their own bio is dealt with clearly by a relevant policy. We now need the same for the wider concept of conflict of editing, especially for paid editing. This article needs a lot of work, and if I could improve it I would. Maybe after a whole lot of talk, ideas for improving it will be become apparent. WAS 4.250 21:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I would oppose this policy. Conflicts of interest are not inherently, intrinsically and by their very nature bad. They're only bad things if they lead to bad editing. And we have all sorts of nifty policies like notability and verifiability and NPOV and NOR and this really neat wiki-process to fix up generally poor text for handling bad editing. If person is constantly POV-pushing, it doesn't matter whether it's because they are an asshole, a true believer, or are doing because it is in their interest - it is still POV-pushing and we don't need yet another redundant policy for that. -- Rhwawn ( talk to Rhwawn) 22:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Both organized (example paid) and systematic (example autobiography) conflict of interest that results in POV pushing is especially worrisome and should be dealt with. Autobiography already is. WAS 4.250 06:18, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Looking at this topic, I found I had a fair ammount to say. Rather than posting the entire lot in each associated debate, I created an essay in my userspace, paidediting. Please have a read, give feedback, and add to it if you wish. LinaMishima 15:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Paid-for editing will be allowed under these conditions:
I wish to say that the current definition of "conflict of interest" is too narrow. The definition that Barberio employs in his proposed text is much better. It is important to recognize that an appearnce of impropriety can occur when a close friend of relation of the subject creates an article, and this proposed policy should address such situations.-- danntm T C 16:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Numerous PR flacks around the world are already editing Wikipedia, and will be. I would suggest that instead of trying to ban the inevitable, a là "War on Drugs", we work on how best to manage the situation. I think we should start from something like Brian Wasson's, " The wide world of Wikipedia, and why PR practitioners should take note". It's clear that Wasson is trying to work out how to do this ethically; it is equally clear he hasn't quite got it right; we should make the appropriate adjustments and turn it into a guideline.
I also don't think that the matter is all that different from someone writing about their favorite band, or their favorite author, or a politician that they strongly support or oppose. Money is not a radically different motivator than other things. My biggest concern on the money front? That some big company or political pressure group might pay someone to put in the kind of time that it takes to "sit" on a page and effectively "own" it by wearing down other contributors. Clearly, behavior of that sort is a breach of ethics in any case, but would be far more so if it is being done for money: someone would basically be buying control of their (or their rival's) Wikipedia entry.
"Sunshine is the best disinfectant." A good disclosure policy would make conflicts of interest visible, and would make efforts to hide conflicts of interest a clear breach of the rules. But there are always going to be conflicts of interest, if only on the level of artistic tastes, political beliefs, and personal feelings about other editors, any of which can be in conflict with the effort to create a good encyclopedia. - Jmabel | Talk 17:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
You may be interested in an old proposal I promoted a year ago regarding similar concerns: Wikipedia:Conflict of interest--
Yannick
23:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
The proposal is potentially nice. It's potentially workable. The main problem I would see is that Jimbo Wales needs to personally approve of or endorse it, because I'm not willing to revamp MyWikiBiz.com's business model, only to have him personally block my account because it doesn't meet his personal approval. Honestly, I am 90% certain that I will go along with any solution that Jimbo Wales will endorse, as long as the "placement" of our GFDL content is somewhere within Wikipedia, and I don't necessarily mean in the mainspace. -- MyWikiBiz 02:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
A few points:
Regarding "clear understanding of where Jimbo Wales stands"; read Koan and this. Jimbo's stand concerning his stands is wise. WAS 4.250 23:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Do we want to force editors to go through the steps with articles that they have already created, as I am doing with User:Powerscore? Λυδ α cιτγ 17:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
You should instead write on your own website, and ask Wikipedians to look at your work. You may also feel free to engage in constructive dialog on the talk pages.
Why is a talk page this any different from creating an article? If we are to discourage constructive and well-written spam articles because of conflicts of interest, why should we encourage constructive dialogue from someone with the same conflicts?
I'm not sure what asking Wikipedians to look at your work refers to, and how this would not be external link spam. Λυδ α cιτγ 22:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Do we want to allow a single Wikipedian to vet an article, as is done at Wikipedia:Articles for creation? Should we restrict this vetting to admins? Or, should we establish a Wikipedia:Articles for deletion-like system where consensus is searched for? Or an Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee-type board with elected members?
The last seems rather inefficient to me, since we already have elected "officials" (admins). I would favor the second or third options. Λυδ α cιτγ 22:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
There should be talk about the proposed content by anyone who wishes to comment and the actual placing of content in main wikipedia space is done by someone (anyone??) who is willing to stand behind that content as if he wrote it himself (deleting or rewriting or putting instead into the talk space of the article anything they are not willing to stand behind 100%). WAS 4.250 23:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Whoever puts content in the main wikipedia space is responsible and acountable for that. Being an admin is no excuse for adding bad content and not being an admin is no barrier to adding content one believes is great encyclopedic content - whereever one finds it. WAS 4.250 01:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
By the way, Jimbo says this. WAS 4.250 23:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Would anyone object the archiving of discussions here that have gone quiet, moving rewrite versions off to sub-pages, and then a summary/refactor of the archived/moved content being left on the main talk page (ie, here)? I suspect some good points for elements we need to consider have been left behind, and the big discussions debating points detract from the ideas themselves being convayed within. With some more structure and emphasis on the key points of past debates, I hope to make this discussion more approachable and hence hopefully be able to draw more people into the process. Thoughts? LinaMishima 14:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Any refactoring would necessarily be based on the refactorers points of view and so I am very wary of any such attempt. Please feel free to add to the bottom to re-bring up stuff that needs to be brought up and seems left behind. And feel free to add a to-do list to the very top. Also sometimes rewording subsection headings makes navigation easier for new readers (maybe add a word or two in parenthesis?) - just be real careful about POV considerations. WAS 4.250 20:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
What follows is an account of the most recient discussion on wikien-l about paid article editing. Summaried here to try and move points from that discussion into this one:
In my opinion you seriously distort some of what they said. I highly recommend everyone read the archives for themselves if they intend to draw serious conclusions from the comments. WAS 4.250 20:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I organized and linked the summery; I also edited a little bit. Λυδ α cιτγ 02:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
The following is a comment by I solicited at User talk:Daniel Bush:
It's a good proposal, but for the corporations that I've noticed editing Wikipedia, such as Zango, in which it appeared the founder had edited, it would seem that this would be little motive to continue subverting Wikipedia for marketing practices. There needs to be mention in this policy of the punishment that may result in its violation in the most extreme cases.
If edits from Zango continue to be for nothing but the purpose of promoting its adware, and alleged spyware, through editing Wikipedia articles on itself, and linkspamming in unrelated articles? They have been blocked temporarily, but this has not worked, so should it be blocked permanently? It seems that the founder of Zango may have even edited Wikipedia under the username Dtodd.
Zango has been warned several times under various IP addresses not to promote itself on Wikipedia, but because administrators don't see each others' warnings, they often just place another warning sticker on the user message page. Sometimes warnings of the highest degree, saying you will be blocked if you repeat your actions again, only result in yet another warning, because the administrator supposes it has been a couple of months since the last action, when this is not true. I think this is unfortunate leniency on Wikipedia's part.
Additionally, should organizations like Zango that have their IP address blocks have their IP addresses blocked individually, or blocked as a single entity? The answer to this question could be applied to other things, like the offices of members of the U.S. Senate, in the extremely unlikely event such an "edit war" would arise. Aside from that, I have no suggestions. Daniel Bush 08:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC) (copied here by WAS 4.250 20:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC))
Which one do people like better?
This is a Wikipedia user page. IT IS NOT AN ARTICLE. |
![]() |
Either way, we should make an actual template out of it. Λυδ α cιτγ 02:20, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't care so that's one vote for yours and no votes for mine. So I'm replacing the template with yours. If no one else speaks up, feel free to "make an actual template out of it". WAS 4.250 05:57, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Often there is a coincidence of interest between an external independent entity and Wikipedia's goals. I feel that sometimes people confuse having a conflict of interest with having an interest.
The important factor here is to declare an interest so editors here can form their own view. In fact, it is often possible to increase the benefit to all sides with constructive engagement. This is true in the case of my own company, Forbidden Technologies plc, which shares a common goal with the WMF: having a resource of free video content. Stephen B Streater
Right now that is dealt with merely by linking to the wikipedia article Conflict of interest. Perhaps we need a well written subsection detailing the points you guys just raised. Any volunteers? WAS 4.250 23:02, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Draft (please edit in place and leave comments at the bottom). Stephen B Streater 11:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia has noble aims and it comes as no surprise that these benefit many people and organisations outside of Wikipedia itself. As well as finding the general resource of a great encyclopaedia handy, commercial organisations benefit particularly from the free licence conditions covering content here, which allow commercial re-use of information.
Situations can arise where a company has an interest in what happens here - not a conflict of interest but a coincidence of interest or common interest. The question this policy seeks to address is how to deal with this situation.
Practical guidelines:
In addition, there may be simple ways to align the interests of an outside organisation to that of Wikipedia. For Wikipedia to benefit, only one interest of an outside source needs to coincide with one interest of Wikipedia.
I don't see that as being a useful addition to the proposal. It seems to negate the existing content of the proposal. I think the problem is you are thinking of you and your desire to have free content distributed; whereas the problem this proposal is seeking to address is coordinated systematic unethical lying manipulative organized predatory behavior. What we don't want to get cause in the net is individuals acting without coordinatetion with an organization; or organizations that are acting in an ethical above board way in all their dealings (or close enough we don't need to worry about them) like the ACLU or your local church. We do want to, need to, tell PR firms simply don't edit or you will be embarrassed; in exactly the same way as police try to make it known don't steal or you will go to jail. WAS 4.250 14:32, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The Conflict of interest article refers to people in a special position of trust, or a "professional or official capacity". Wikipedia editors are not in such a position.
So how does one interpret the CoI term in this context?
I've seen people (in other contexts) go as far as saying "anything related to the same branch of industry you work in is CoI", and people say "as long as you can't know that money will enter your pocket, it's not CoI" - so the question is not academic to me. -- Alvestrand 08:32, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Far from it being obvious, I am totally unconvinced that it is inherently wrong to be paid to write Wikipedia articles. On the contrary, I see editors like MyWikiBiz having a very strong obligation to edit within our community standards -- not just to us, but to his own business. The "MyWikiBiz" fails if he misbehaves and gets banned; on the flip side, as long as he edits well and respects WP:NPOV, he is both adding quality content to our encyclopedia as well as satisfying that which his customers are paying him to do. I see his economic incentive to edit well as being much stronger than that of many Wikipedia editors whose editing strategy, so to speak, centers around heightening their community status or pushing their own personal viewpoints. It's completely silly to pretend like many if not most Wikipedia articles are started by people who are not deeply "interested" in the topic at hand, and thus conflicted to some degree, so making this particular subset of editors jump through additional hoops is a little unfair. Judge the EDITS, not the EDITOR. — GT 20:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Public relations people are going to write articles in Wikipedia whether we like it or not. I've offered my draft of how I think this should be approached. If you have comments, for now please use its talk page: I've deliberately left this in my own user space. - Jmabel | Talk 17:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
There's been some discussion that Wikipedia:Vanity guidelines have a prejudicial and not very descriptive title. What they're really addressing is a specific type of conflict of interest. Why not rename the Vanity guidelines as "Conflict of interest guidelines", and merge over from here whatever they're missing? - GTBacchus( talk) 22:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Just say no to PR firms rather than create a guideline or policy for them seems to be gaining in acceptance. WAS 4.250 07:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I think this policy has applicability beyond PR firms - editing funded by grants, editing funded by any employee, editing by employed experts where efforts on wikipedia considered part of job dutes, editing by academics where such editing is permitted by their employer, ...
Whether combined with the vanity guidelines or a seperate policy - how to deal with conflicts, whether such conflicts need to be openly acknowledged, rules for higher scrutiny in applying ownership, tenacious editing, etc, if they are even necessary, are all things that we as a community need to resolve and are resolving - through practice of the current admins and through pages like this. A bright line rule, while easier to implement, may not be the best standard. -- Trödel 13:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Whilst the bit about PR firms is worded against them, sadly I do believe that it has a very valid point. Even if we allow open PR editing, misuse will still happen, the bad firms in question will simply learn to do it in secret, PR firms work may well be decimated by a cautious editor base, and real lawyer wikilawyering becomes a possibility. In my opinion, the entire thing is mis-named, and sadly the author allowed their bias to dilute a key point:
"We accept neutral and factual edits from any person ... In fact, I'm arguing that our handling of editors works well enough
that we don't have to create a special "permission to promote" compromise in order to reduce the amount of secret editing that will
happen."
Once a PR firm has been educated in how to edit wiki ethically, our existing rules and policies should be enough to keep them in check, and we should not look to grant them any special authorisation. If they are required to abide like every other editor, niether side risks the dangers of authorised PR editing. We do perhaps need some changes to the vanity guidelines, so as to allow self-editing of a neutral and factual nature (ie, making vanity mean vanity), a proper document akin to User:Jmabel/PR, and a degree of ideological changes in some key players, however. LinaMishima 14:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I have received remarkably little feed back about User:Jmabel/PR. Is there perhaps a different way I should present my ideas? - Jmabel | Talk 18:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I've now received considerably more comments, for what it is worth. - Jmabel | Talk 19:20, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
As it happens, I only realised that I may be strongly discouraged from editting Wikipedia after I had contributed 500 edits. During that time, I think I have learned:
My own view (as you would expect) is that I have made a positive contribution (for example on hare coursing) and I suspect that other professionals in their field have too. But it seems strange to ask editors to drop out of active editting as soon as they start to learn the rules. Surely the danger is greatest when PR editors are new? Final thought: my experience is that some (specialist?) issues like fox hunting find few people who have all three of interest, expertise and a neutral point of view. (apologies if this sounds like an attempt at self-justification, it's genuinely my intention to use myself only to illustrate a point. MikeHobday 06:23, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Could I also raise some definitional issues, as a PR person?
My point is not to wikilawyer but to suggest that the proposed definitions need further clarification. MikeHobday 06:23, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
So, Radiant! has changed this page to be a "guideline". How do we all feel about the fact that Jimmy Wales said, in response to this aspect of WP:COI that it was "Absolutely unacceptable, sorry"? -- MyWikiBiz 22:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
MyWikiBiz, if you don't stop trolling, I am going to ban you myself, got it?-- Jimbo Wales 03:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I guess I am to interpret the opinions of Radiant!, Audacity, and Ytrottier as having more collective influence than Jimmy Wales' opinion? My e-mail to Wales said the following:
His response was, "Absolutely unacceptable, sorry." Very interesting. Is the community actually standing up in opposition to the God-king? I'll run it by him in another e-mail. Maybe the distinction that Wales was making with me was that mine would be a "paid" conflict of interest, while WP:COI seems to be addressing (more likely) a "self-interest" conflict of interest. (BTW, I'm not opposed to what's evolved here. It just seems like a dramatic step that was implemented "under the radar", by a user who had not once previously contributed to WP:COI or its related Discussion page. Just because conversation had died on the topic doesn't mean everyone had formed consensus.) -- MyWikiBiz 03:12, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
MyWikiBiz, please knock it off, ok? On August 17, I told you that the version of policy at that time was absolutely unacceptable. I proposed some changes on August 21. Since that time, people have incorporated my changes and a lot more. I still think this policy does not go far enough, and is not stated strongly enough, because the policy should allow anyone to block you on sight for what you have attempted to do. The policy should make much more clear that it is absolutely and totally unethical to propose to write articles on behalf of companies for money. Period. This needs to be stated forcefully and repeatedly. However, since the policy does now certainly provide us with a starting point for discouraging it, including the language that I proposed, I support it.
You trying to stir up sentiment against me based on false reporting of what the situation is... well, it just tells me exactly why we need this kind of policy.-- Jimbo Wales 03:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I strongly recommend you do a lot more than observe a moratorium on this topic now. I recommend that you change your entire business model. Do you want to write corporate full bios? Go ahead. Do you want to release them under the GNU FDL? Go ahead. Do you want to imply, on your website, that by paying you, companies can get a great article on Wikipedia. No. You may not, you must not, it is deeply inappropriate. You need to tell companies the truth, on your website: "Wikipedia strongly frowns on paid consultants on behalf of companies editing Wikipedia. If you are caught using my service, you run a serious risk of bad publicity."-- Jimbo Wales 04:50, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I do not like this new guideline because the hardline discourages voluntary disclosure of conflicts of interest, particularly in mild cases such as a non-PR employee editing a page about his industry or a politician editing a page about an issue she champions. Voluntary disclosure is often preferable to forcing people to contribute anonymously because it provides a better basis for open discussion and consensus building. I think many of the comments above lean to this opinion as well. Voluntary disclosures should be made on the edit summary or on the article's talk page, and I would expect this to motivate other editors to review the edits pretty much automatically. This is how all the codes of ethics that I am familiar with deal with CoI's.
At the same time, this guideline should also point out that bias can be introduced by things as subtle as adding more material on one subject than another, and that paid contributors can easily wear down our volunteers and subvert the system. Frequent introduction of bias like this is a flagrant violation of WP:NPOV and should be easily blockable, regardless of whether voluntary disclosure has been made or not. I do not see the talk-page pre-article as a complete solution to this problem, and I don't think it has received much support by others either.
I think this proposal was prematurely promoted to a guideline, and I hope that people will still consider large changes to it. I think it should be rewritten to encourage voluntary disclosure and strict adherence to WP:NPOV, WP:CORP, WP:AUTO, etc. as a first remedy, but warn that prolific users with a pattern of violations shall be blocked, regardless of disclosure.-- Yannick 05:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
On October 4, Radiant marked WP:COI as a guideline. The tone implies essentially "if you are paid to edit Wikipedia, don't. But you can write a GDFL potential article elsewhere and have it vetted by respected Wikipedians who will post it. Everything should be done in an aboveboard manner." The exchange on Oct 4 and Oct 5 on this discussion page, and the ongoing DRV of Arch Coal don't seem fully consistent with this philosophy; in particular Jimbo seems to be taking a harder line with MyWikiBiz. Now, all sorts of issues cloud the picture, in particular ongoing communication between Jimbo and MyWikiBiz which we are not privy to. But can someone clarify where we stand? I see a couple of possibilities, and maybe there are others:
Martinp 19:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I accept the guideline, although I suspect it will not be nearly enough to deal with the problem. MyWikiBiz is particularly problematic because of the way he promotes his service and the way he has behaved on-site.-- Jimbo Wales 16:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
"[...] I have dealt with Walmart, Coca Cola, and GM (among other firms) on the phone. I have spoken with Congressmen and Senators. I have spoken to their lawyers. I have spoken to their PR people. I have spoken to their VPs in charge of advertising. I did not give in to their cajoling, their threats, or their attempts at bribes. [...] The fact is, we are dealing with a problem here. We have companies galore trying to spam us. OTRS is just a small indicator of this. We have adverting executives calling to see if what they can do to move their company to a higher position on a list, or how much it costs to get them on the front page. We are prime advertising. We will soon be the tenth largest website in the world, and "anyone can edit." It is not only top notch internet advertising, but it is free too. You see, these people dont see the difference between us and MySpace. They know that we will push up their Google rankings. They know that everyone will look them up on Google and find the Wikipedia article. And I repeat, it is free. For the Americans among you, it is like getting a free commercial slot in the last two minutes of the Superbowl. And I repeat, it is free. And for this prime slot, they want to make sure they look as good as they can. This is not hypothesis. We are dealing with it every day, from people who threaten to sue us for violating their First Amendment rights to post about their company to clueless people who think that if we put up a banner to their online poker site we will all make money. We get it from the big Fortune 500 companies and we get it from the local car rental shop, from the sister of a guy who is opening up a new real estate business in Durham North Carolina (I am not kidding) to reps of Coca Cola ("The article is biased"). We get it from Washington thinktanks led by former cabinet members to Flickr-like rip off sites (they offered us $35 for every photographer we send to them). As a site where advertising is anathema, we have to make a choice. Do we allow this? Personally, I am opposed to paid advertising on Wikipedia, but I am even more opposed to free advertising which we cannot monetize. As editors, we end up having to make choices. With our goals in sight, How do we continue being an encyclopedia, and not some advertising forum or MySpace? What is the difference between an article about Budweiser (which I believe we should have even though their beer is foul) and articles on every micro-brewery in the state of Wisconsin? [...]"
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Copied here by WAS 4.250 05:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
(a) many conflicts that are properly disclosed can be adequately managed without detriment to the reputation, integrity or position of the institution and the individual;
(b) in most cases, problems associated with actual or perceived conflicts of interest or commitment do not arise from the conflicts per se, but rather are the result of a failure to openly acknowledge and actively manage them;
(c) it is important to outline the institutional process for identifying, assessing and managing these potential conflicts to assure that both the integrity of the University and the core activities of its faculty, staff and students are protected; [...]
The term "conflict of commitment" refers to situations in which outside relationships or activities (such as professional consulting for a fee) adversely affect, or have the appearance of adversely affecting, an employee's commitment to his/her University duties or responsibilities. Such activities are encouraged insofar as they are conducted in accordance with University policy (including the one-sixth rule), promote professional development of faculty, and student employees, and enrich their contributions to the institution, to their profession and to the community. Consulting relationships, for example, may serve to create conduits for the exchange of information and technologies that enhance the University environment and permit faculty to test the soundness of their ideas. [...]
The term "conflict of interest" refers to situations in which financial or other personal considerations may adversely affect, or have the appearance of adversely affecting, an employee’s professional judgment in exercising any University duty or responsibility in administration, management, instruction, research and other professional activities. The bias such conflicts could conceivably impart may inappropriately affect the goals of research, instructional, or administrative programs. The education of students, the methods of analysis and interpretation of research data, the hiring of staff, procurement of materials, and other administrative tasks at the University must be free of the undue influence of outside interests. The mere appearance of a conflict may be as serious and potentially damaging as an actual distortion of instructional, research, or administrative goals, processes, or outcomes. Reports of conflicts based on appearances can undermine public trust in ways that may not be adequately restored even when the mitigating facts of a situation are brought to light. Apparent conflicts, therefore, should be disclosed and evaluated with the same vigor as actual conflicts.
I'm greatly disappointed that commercial writing is discouraged. I see no problem if an editor is paid to writer an article on a company and get it to featured status. This is not mentioned anywhere on the page. I think we should be explicit that *as long* as the article conforms to all FA criteria (NPOV, referenced work, good writing, comprehensiveness), a user should not be discouraged from debarred from writing on/for his contracted company. If we could put up a clause that commercial writing is ok, but it should be made featured, it would greatly improve the quality of many articles on corporations. I know many people would disagree with commercial writing is ethically bad, but this is a good way to improve the quality of articles on wikipedia. I know of one featured article that the nominator stated his conflict of interest while nominating, and nobody objected based on those grounds. Biases are inherently present in all wikipedians. Putting that aside and writing neutral articles should be stressed. -- A wiki admin 01:35, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I quite agree. I think MyWikiBiz should be applauded for being honest and upfront about what he's doing. Come on people, get real, this site is infested with PR releases and promotional edits, but most of it is underhand. At least we can keep an eye on MyWikiBiz and any others like him who should appear. -- kingboyk 12:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that the most important thing is that any editor with a potential conflict fully disclose the conflict. This is routine in the news media.
One reason is that people are most likely to write about subjects in which they have expertise and for which they have passion. With passion is likely to come opinion. Many experts are also professionals. So experts in a subject -- especially if that subject is their profession -- are likely to have many potential conflicts. These people have a lot to offer Wikipedia. I submit that there are enough checks and balances within Wikipedia to ensure that non-neutral text will be corrected quickly. The primary focus of the conflict of interest guidelines should be that such conflicts are disclosed.
People who disclose such conflicts should be lauded, not vilified. It demonstrates an open, constructive approach on their part. It's quite easy for an editor to remain completely anonymous, and many do. Who can judge what their conflicts might be. I think people should work closely with editors where there is a perceived conflict of interest, to help them write neutral, well-cited articles about subjects they care about.
The additional focus that will surely accrue around such editors will only serve to guarantee excellent content -- unless such editors are working in bad faith or are disingenuous, which is not hard to determine. If they were truly disingenuous they would be unlikely to reveal the conflict in the first place. Dgray xplane 15:56, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I have taken down the notices about a proposed merge of this page and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest (used to be WP:VAIN). I think there is a clear case for keeping two separate guidelines. Charles Matthews 10:21, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I disagree--I think that people who finish reading one of these two articles will imagine that they have found all the relevant information. Having two separate articles expanding independently makes trouble for readers and editors. This is an important topic, and will be more so in the future. Example: PR firm Edelman has a podcast about how businesses can work to influence Wikipedia. betsythedevine 15:20, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
You mean they will have forgotten the clear messages in the first paragraphs by the time they get to the end?
I do think that having a very clear, separate article about commercial-type editing is a good idea.
Charles Matthews 15:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Favor merge - we should be trying to distill information into fewer pages, with explanations if needed on other pages. See Wikipedia:Attribution as a good example of this. -- Trödel 16:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I also favor a merge. I see no apparent benefit about keeping two guidelines about the same subject. If there is a need for a specific wording about commercial editing, it can be featured on its own section. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
That is your take on WP:COI. You have edited out a whole vocabulary in pursuit of that. I have made entirely clear in the appropriate places what I made of all that editing.
Now, this is not the place, is it? Can you absolutely not keep on topic in the existing arrangement of pages?
What will definitely not happen in the future to these guidelines is that they will get into the same kind of muddle. This is poisoning the wells, saying that well-chosen and representative examples would detract from WP:COI. Examples that were truly well-chosen and representative examples would have the opposite effect, wouldn't they? Talking about abstract dangers is alarmist, not to speak of muddle-headed.
Either you thread your discussions better, or I think someone should move them for you. I was talking about what the requirements for a merge were, in my view, since the other page is in a state of dynamic change. Charles Matthews 14:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)