This project is to discuss, raise awareness of, and hopefully address issues regarding paid advocacy editing on Wikipedia, in which people are compensated to create and edit Wikipedia articles.
Editors who are troubled to some degree by the presence of paid advocates on the Wikipedia.
Some of us are opposed to paid advocates editing the Wikipedia at all, recognizing that this occurs anyway and that prohibiting would only drive it completely underground, but that this is either a net positive or worth the cost, overall.
Some of us are concerned about paid advocates editing the Wikipedia (at least in some cases), but feel that banning it completely would only drive it underground, and this is not an improvement. Instead, paid agents should self-identify, follow Bright Line, be watched closely, and perhaps be subject to other controls.
Others of us have other or more nuanced views. Editors who believe that paid advocates are an overall net positive to the Wikipedia might take more of a welcoming-and-helping stance toward paid agents.
Editors who are 1) editing the Wikipedia for pay (on a contract or as part of their salaried duties) and 2) editing the Wikipedia at the behest of someone else (a boss or client). To this may be added 3) to promote a particular point of view (however subtly), but generally we are to assume that persons who meet criteria #1 and #2 generally must meet #3, absent proof to the contrary.
In a nutshell, we are most often talking about either public relations (PR) agents or else employees of a corporation acting under orders.
The following cases are not considered paid advocates, and not considered problematical, for the purposes of this project:
Anyone writing on their own initiative, with no direct material compensation or expectation of personal gain, even if they are technically "on the clock" somewhere. In particular, academics writing in their field of expertise (or any field), even if they are technically doing this during normal work hours and using university equipment most always qualify for this exemption.
Participants in the Wikipedia:GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) initiative, even if paid for editing the Wikipedia. And in most (but not necessarily all) cases, editors being paid by academic grants to contribute to the Wikipedia.
Editing by employees of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Anyone else who is editing the Wikipedia for pay, and editing at the behest of another person, is possibly or at least potentially a problematic paid advocate (even if working for a non-profit entity).
(We're not dogmatic about this. If, for instance, ExxonMobil was (for some reason) to hire a person to edit Byzantine Empire under the Heraclian dynasty, it's quite possible that there'd be no problem there. However, this isn't really the core of the problem we're dealing with here, and exceptions like this, as well as classes of exceptions, can be discussed and handled using reason and common sense.)
Collect material regarding paid advocacy editing on Wikipedia. A lot is written on this subject and we need to keep some of it as an easily available collective memory. Editors are encouraged to contribute links to outside articles, internal discussions and pages, and other material in the appropriate sections at the bottom of this page.
Develop strategies for better control of paid advocacy on Wikipedia. And/or, develop strategies for the elimination or banning of paid advocacy on Wikipedia.
Advocate for the better control of paid advocacy on Wikipedia. And/or, advocate for the elimination or banning of paid advocacy on Wikipedia.
Identify, watch, publicize, and, as needed, correct articles for which third parties are known to have engaged persons to edit in return for compensation.
WESSA - The article sounds like an advertisement for WESSA, and has had some advertising added on by the WESSA za user. The WESSA za user has not edited any other article. now OK, but needs watching DGG ( talk ) 22:04, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Blackboard Inc. - several paid editors working together have created a one-sided article where the "most hated company in education" had almost no negative information about the company. Paid editor wants to move the criticism section. Paid editors arrived on this article after the article was mentioned in BusinessWeek
The Art Institutes - EDMC employee is restructuring the article and selecting which legal issues are presented with another "Barnstar" editor. Negative information is being deleted.
Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement — created by member of the group Ocaasi, then largely edited thereon after by, with other members Silver seren and Fred Bauder; also participating heavily in the deletion discussion
Hydraulic fracturing - this is a hot topic because of the lucrative nature of the business and the yet unknown environmental consequences. There has been paid advocacy on this page previously and there is the potential for it to occur again.
Websense now redirected to its current name Forcepoint. still contains extensive promotional content, DGG ( talk ) 01:51, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Zappos - My company was contacted by a guy who offered to rewrite my companys Wikipedia article. He said he had been paid to rewrite the Zappos article. SPU whistelblower (talk) 12:45, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Asure Software - Has twice had the original content replaced by a bland corporate bio. First time by a username which is identical to the name of Asure's VP of marketing, and the second time from an IP address that appears to be registered to the company.
continued editing, thus time under company name; I blocked, and removed the advertising. Needs further watching. DGG ( talk ) 05:29, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Investor State Dispute Settlement -editors adding multiple unreferenced claims supporting the concept which allows large corporations to sue governments where profits are impededNimbusWeb (talk) 00:43, 11 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sustainocene concept of a post-corporate world powered by artificial photosynthesis as a distributed fuel and food source disrupted by editor deleting published materialNimbusWeb (talk) 00:43, 11 April 2014 (UTC) HELP. This editor is now deleting referenced material from other articles such as Rights of Nature. See discussion here: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentsNimbusWeb (talk) 04:09, 11 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
HUNDREDS of sentences where specific text differs from its reference to such an extent as to prove editor conflict of interest. I don't think tracking being "paid" covers most of the grossly biased content problem. Please direct me elsewhere if there is a Wiki page where I can present these abuses.32cllou (talk) 18:18, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Paid editor hired on Elance for entrepreneur/author Tim Levy. Listing states the he wants "Wikipedia entries about me, my books and various cool projects.
This guy on Elance specializes in paid advocacy, so it would be helpful if his username could be found. This user was formerly User:WizardlyWho, as well as sockpuppeting under other accounts. See: Administrators' noticeboard discussion and Check User results.
Apparently Mercy Ministries is alleged supposedly be a PR agent client. It says so at this blog, which then points to this person at Elance, and there certainly is a lot of Wikipedia stuff there, but the support is this edit by, of all people, über-toxic editor Qworty. Well, the whole thread is here.
User:BoomerFoundation (now blocked) created an article Jerry Cahill (now prodded) apparently in response to this Elance posting. The Elance user account also responded to an ad requesting an administrator, and has a fair number of other Wikipedia jobs. Clearly using socks for this editing, so perhaps a checkuser investigation is warranted. On further investigation, the user is probably the client, not the elance user. Best bet is that the elance user is writing the articles for the client to upload.
User:IJSRD Editor a single purpose account here to promote the journal they edits. Warned about paid editing and disclosure and has failed to respond to the warning. FiddleFaddle 09:34, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Has anyone seen this: [3] ? One editor is taking credit for having manipulated Wikipedia such that 20% of GA articles on companies were created by this company which apparently maps to User:CorporateM. That seems fundamentally broken to me. The Dissident Aggressor 06:43, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@DissidentAggressor:CorporateM, from statements I have seen, tends to take his paid articles to GA which, on the whole, is good because of the added scrutiny of the review process. I am amazed he has done 20% of the company GA's though! I would love to see paid editing prohibited but a requirement for paid articles to be GA before going live would be a great second choice and CorporateM already does that.
Your edit summaries like this are not helpful. There is already a {{Connected contributor (paid)}} disclosure by CorporateM on the talk page. If you find any of his articles that do not have the disclosure bring it up on his talk page. As long as paid editors stay within the terms of use they must be tolerated, or even supported. The ones that do not must be directed to our policies, {{uw-paid1}} is a good thing to use if you suspect an undisclosed paid editor. If they do not comply they can be blocked. If you want to change this please participate in the various discussions about paid editing that pop up every couple weeks or do some work at WP:COIN. Cheers. JbhTalk 13:38, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We're in the process of investigating the phenomena of paid advocacy generally, so the list links to helpful internal or external material and so forth continues to be built.
Check articles on the Alerts list, and either remove them (if they're OK) or adopt them.
Additions to the Registry are welcome and needed. Editors are invited to add themselves if they qualify.
Carrite (talk) 17:14, 12 March 2012 (UTC) - I favor requirements for formal declaration of paid editors and coordinated supervision and inspection of their work. Your goals may differ.[reply]
I'd be interested if this stopped sitting in userspace. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þContrib. 18:08, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Gigs (talk) 16:23, 31 October 2012 (UTC) With the caveat that I do not agree with the goals as currently described above.[reply]
Andrew327 06:06, 25 March 2013 (UTC) This will be an increasingly important topic for Wikipedia to address as it continues to mature and stabilize with age.[reply]
--Olag (talk) 01:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC) More of an observer from the German-language Wikipedia, where integrity seems to be somewhat neglected (the majority seems to be fine with paid editing as long as it is done in a way, which is ~transparent for other users).[reply]
The following Wikipedia contributor may be personally or professionally connected to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view.
Pertaining specifically to paid editing of Wikipedia[edit]
Not sure about this. On the one hand, some of these links provides a kind of one-stop shop for people looking for ways to influence Wikipedia or sign on with entities that are. On the other hand, forewarned is forearmed. It's no good to blunder about in ignorance. It makes sense to us to have materials collected that would be helpful to Wikipedians wishing to consider and discuss this phenomenon.
Edelman, a PR firm. According to their Wikipedia article they're world's largest independently owned public relations firm. They apparently consult with clients on their Wikipedia image, we don't have details at this time (there's this podcast.) A number of Edelman employes are CREWE members, and CREWE was founded by Phil Gomes, an Edelman employee.
The Wikipedian, a blog by William Buetler (Wikipedia editor WWB and, as a paid agent, WWB Too.) The Blog just discusses Wikipedia generally (and well, too) rather than paid editing per se.
Now here's a thread at Wikipediocracy, where Greh Kohser investigates and describes specific instances of covert paid agents editing Wikiedia. It's Wikipediocracy, so it's not exactly peer-reviewed and may contain libel etc., but quite interesting. FWIW here it is.
WikiExperts is a different entity from Wiki-PR (although with basically the same business model), but about this time there were separate discussions about WikiExperts:
In this Administrator's Noticeboard thread, user AKonanykhin was banned for making edits on behalf of WikiExperts, but also for flat-out refusing to abide by some of our core policies.
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