Discuss this story
- So... some PR agencies "have declared their intention to follow 'ethical engagement practices' in Wikipedia editing". Take it from someone like me, who is older and wiser, and who has been associated with the field of advertising for over 25 years: this is the foxes declaring they can be trusted to guard the chickens! I am asking the community not to be naive about this, and not to take steps that we will look back on and regret. Invertzoo ( talk) 12:57, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- Ethics from a PR firm? That's rich. I'll AGF it for now, but I gotta feeling that this is is gonna end up producing some outrageously crazy AN/I and Arbcom cases. TomStar81 ( Talk) 17:24, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- So PR firms agree among themselves not to violate Wikipedia rules - I think that is wonderful as far as it goes. But of course we should not assume that all problems with PR and other paid editing will magically disappear. "Trust, but verify" - we should give them a bit of trust and they should WP:Verify their edits on the talk pages. As far as the ethics of PR firms, they do have professional ethical and legal responsibilities - not to Wikipedia, but to their employers. They cannot write an NPOV article, if it goes against the interests of their employers. Legally, this is called the duty of loyalty, which is automatically part of any employment contract under common law. You must put your employer's interests above your own or anybody else's in the scope of your employment. Smallbones( smalltalk) 18:32, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- Except we're talking about paid editors here. And even in regards to direct PR firm employees, they can still follow the rules and just not make a change if it is one that will not be neutral. Seriously, what is this "duty of loyalty" nonsense? The PR rules and regulations go far and above that and violating those ethical codes is much more severe and can lead to being disbarred by the other groups. Silver seren C 19:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- See Duty of loyalty - though this focuses on fiduciaries
- See What is an employee's duty of loyalty? or any of the many sources you can google for "Duty of loyalty" - they make clear that the duty applies to all employees in the US and that they "have an obligation not to work against their employer’s interests."
- See the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Member Code of Ethics
- Rule 1 "ADVOCACY- We serve the public interest by acting as responsible advocates for those we represent...."
- Rule 5 "LOYALTY - We are faithful to those we represent, while honoring our obligation to serve the public interest."
- So in short PR folks are ethically and legally required to put their employer's interests first, above anything to do with NPOV. As far as the silly claim that they can just refuse to edit if their employer's interests don't align with ours: they'll always add complimentary information about their employers when it is true, and always leave out uncomplimentary information, which will not lead to an NPOV presentation. Rather it will put a systematic bias in all our articles written with PR "help". Smallbones( smalltalk) 21:56, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- In general, people are going to be more likely to add positive or neutral information about a topic than negative information. Since a direct focus on negative information would be a concern about the editor having a personal negative COI regarding the subject. Also, one of the examples given in the PRSA Code of Ethics is this:
- "Examples of Improper Conduct Under this Provision:
- A member representing a ski manufacturer gives a pair of expensive racing skis to a sports magazine columnist, to influence the columnist to write favorable articles about the product."
- So I don't think acting irresponsibly and non-neutrally is in line with the Code of Ethics. It's quite clear that doing as such, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, would be a violation of it. Silver seren C 00:02, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
- Also, this following example seems to directly deal with your last concern there:
- Examples of Improper Conduct Under This Provision:
- A PRSA member declares publicly that a product the client sells is safe, without disclosing evidence to the contrary."
- Does that help? Making edits to Wikipedia that doesn't disclose the negative evidence would be a violation. Silver seren C 00:06, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
- And even more than that, making this kind of public statement means throwing down a gauntlet. We've seen the media attention that organisations being caught editing under the table gets; can you imagine how fun journalists will find "Caught editing under the table, after explicitly saying they wouldn't"? Particularly for firms that specialise in public relations. I'm actually pretty confident in the willingness of companies who have signed this to follow it - not necessarily because I think they're all wonderful lovely people who give the projects' needs and desires primacy (at the end of the day, someone is giving them money to prioritise their needs and desires), but because not being able to control your own PR is a great way of making that stream of money dry up. Selfishness is a great motivator. Ironholds ( talk) 19:12, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- There's a lot of truth in this, but it only goes so far. Your argument is that when it serves their interest, PR folks will help us. But of course there are times when it won't serve their interest to help us, in which case I'd expect them to hurt the encyclopedia. Smallbones( smalltalk) 21:56, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- Absolutely; isn't that the entire problem with paid editing? ;). My argument is not "we're out of the woods now that they've made this statement", it's that the amount of incentive required to hurt us is now greater because the consequences of being caught doing so are so much greater. For that reason alone, this is a good thing to've happened - it doesn't solve the problem, but it does increase the barrier to it happening. I'm probably just an optimist, though. Ironholds ( talk) 21:42, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
- We agree 100% on this. Smallbones( smalltalk) 21:59, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
So all these PR agencies are going to stop doing PR? That's good news, and better for them than following Bill Hicks' advice. -- Jeandré, 2014-06-17 t11:24z
Discuss this story
- So... some PR agencies "have declared their intention to follow 'ethical engagement practices' in Wikipedia editing". Take it from someone like me, who is older and wiser, and who has been associated with the field of advertising for over 25 years: this is the foxes declaring they can be trusted to guard the chickens! I am asking the community not to be naive about this, and not to take steps that we will look back on and regret. Invertzoo ( talk) 12:57, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- Ethics from a PR firm? That's rich. I'll AGF it for now, but I gotta feeling that this is is gonna end up producing some outrageously crazy AN/I and Arbcom cases. TomStar81 ( Talk) 17:24, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- So PR firms agree among themselves not to violate Wikipedia rules - I think that is wonderful as far as it goes. But of course we should not assume that all problems with PR and other paid editing will magically disappear. "Trust, but verify" - we should give them a bit of trust and they should WP:Verify their edits on the talk pages. As far as the ethics of PR firms, they do have professional ethical and legal responsibilities - not to Wikipedia, but to their employers. They cannot write an NPOV article, if it goes against the interests of their employers. Legally, this is called the duty of loyalty, which is automatically part of any employment contract under common law. You must put your employer's interests above your own or anybody else's in the scope of your employment. Smallbones( smalltalk) 18:32, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- Except we're talking about paid editors here. And even in regards to direct PR firm employees, they can still follow the rules and just not make a change if it is one that will not be neutral. Seriously, what is this "duty of loyalty" nonsense? The PR rules and regulations go far and above that and violating those ethical codes is much more severe and can lead to being disbarred by the other groups. Silver seren C 19:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- See Duty of loyalty - though this focuses on fiduciaries
- See What is an employee's duty of loyalty? or any of the many sources you can google for "Duty of loyalty" - they make clear that the duty applies to all employees in the US and that they "have an obligation not to work against their employer’s interests."
- See the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Member Code of Ethics
- Rule 1 "ADVOCACY- We serve the public interest by acting as responsible advocates for those we represent...."
- Rule 5 "LOYALTY - We are faithful to those we represent, while honoring our obligation to serve the public interest."
- So in short PR folks are ethically and legally required to put their employer's interests first, above anything to do with NPOV. As far as the silly claim that they can just refuse to edit if their employer's interests don't align with ours: they'll always add complimentary information about their employers when it is true, and always leave out uncomplimentary information, which will not lead to an NPOV presentation. Rather it will put a systematic bias in all our articles written with PR "help". Smallbones( smalltalk) 21:56, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- In general, people are going to be more likely to add positive or neutral information about a topic than negative information. Since a direct focus on negative information would be a concern about the editor having a personal negative COI regarding the subject. Also, one of the examples given in the PRSA Code of Ethics is this:
- "Examples of Improper Conduct Under this Provision:
- A member representing a ski manufacturer gives a pair of expensive racing skis to a sports magazine columnist, to influence the columnist to write favorable articles about the product."
- So I don't think acting irresponsibly and non-neutrally is in line with the Code of Ethics. It's quite clear that doing as such, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, would be a violation of it. Silver seren C 00:02, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
- Also, this following example seems to directly deal with your last concern there:
- Examples of Improper Conduct Under This Provision:
- A PRSA member declares publicly that a product the client sells is safe, without disclosing evidence to the contrary."
- Does that help? Making edits to Wikipedia that doesn't disclose the negative evidence would be a violation. Silver seren C 00:06, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
- And even more than that, making this kind of public statement means throwing down a gauntlet. We've seen the media attention that organisations being caught editing under the table gets; can you imagine how fun journalists will find "Caught editing under the table, after explicitly saying they wouldn't"? Particularly for firms that specialise in public relations. I'm actually pretty confident in the willingness of companies who have signed this to follow it - not necessarily because I think they're all wonderful lovely people who give the projects' needs and desires primacy (at the end of the day, someone is giving them money to prioritise their needs and desires), but because not being able to control your own PR is a great way of making that stream of money dry up. Selfishness is a great motivator. Ironholds ( talk) 19:12, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- There's a lot of truth in this, but it only goes so far. Your argument is that when it serves their interest, PR folks will help us. But of course there are times when it won't serve their interest to help us, in which case I'd expect them to hurt the encyclopedia. Smallbones( smalltalk) 21:56, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
- Absolutely; isn't that the entire problem with paid editing? ;). My argument is not "we're out of the woods now that they've made this statement", it's that the amount of incentive required to hurt us is now greater because the consequences of being caught doing so are so much greater. For that reason alone, this is a good thing to've happened - it doesn't solve the problem, but it does increase the barrier to it happening. I'm probably just an optimist, though. Ironholds ( talk) 21:42, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
- We agree 100% on this. Smallbones( smalltalk) 21:59, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
So all these PR agencies are going to stop doing PR? That's good news, and better for them than following Bill Hicks' advice. -- Jeandré, 2014-06-17 t11:24z