I drafted this. It still seems the best approach in terms of keeping good editing and reducing problematic editing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:FT2/Commercial_and_paid_editing
FT2 On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 12:05 AM, David Goodman <dgoodma...@gmail.com>wrote: > Most current paid editing gets deleted at Speedy, simply because the > organization has no serious claim to being notable. People who > deliberately write paid articles on topics they know hopeless are > unethical; if they write them without knowing, they are incompetent. > But this sort of thing is not the current problem, for it's no more > difficult to handle than the even larger amount of similar articles by > volunteer editors. > > The problem with the more competent of the people writing for pay is > not that they try to flout Wikipedia rules, but that most of them have > assimilated only the more superficial elements of the technique . They > do not adequately understand the difference between promotional and > informative, and they typically include inappropriate content such as > contact information or a long list of products. But this is fairly > easy to spot. It would be easier to spot if they declared their > status, and I think a rule against paid or other COI editing that we > do not enforce is unproductive-- if it is good editing, we cannot > detect it, and if it isn't, we do not need the rule any more than with > bad volunteer editing. > > And of course there is the continued existence of the reward board, > which is in direct contradiction to policy, but would not be if we > accepted declared COI or paid editing. > > As for the proprietor of this service, I've just been removing from > the article on him article one of the clear signs of COI/promotional > editing , the excessive use of his name. > > > On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 6:50 PM, Risker <risker...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On 18 November 2010 18:33, David Gerard <dger...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> On 18 November 2010 23:09, John Vandenberg <jay...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > >> > Am I 'paid editing' when I write articles during 9-5 ? Is that bad? > >> > >> > >> The problem with paid editing is when it violates content guidelines, > >> such as NPOV. > >> > >> Someone paid to improve the area of linguistics in general? (This has > >> happened.) Fine by me. > >> > >> Someone paid by (say) a museum to write articles on the contents of > >> their collection? Could risk NPOV, but the idea is probably a net win. > >> And the photos! > >> > >> Someone paid by a company to monitor their article for negative > >> information and edit it accordingly? Could violate NPOV. The very > >> proper way to do this is to openly introduce yourself as a PR person > >> on the talk page, supply information as appropriate and never touch > >> the article text itself; this can be problematic for you if there's > >> little actual interest in the article, though, and so little > >> third-party editor traffic. > >> > >> Someone paid by a person to keep rubbish out of their BLP? Trickier. > >> In a perfect spherical Wikipedia of uniform density in a vacuum, they > >> shouldn't go near the article on them. In practice, BLPs are our > >> biggest problems, for reasons I needn't elaborate on. Usually if they > >> contact i...@wikimedia.org with a BLP issue it gets an experienced > >> volunteer on the case, and the BLP Noticeboard is an excellent and > >> effective way to get experienced attention to an article. > >> > >> "Paid editing" is, of course, not one thing. > >> > > > > > > I'll repeat what I said on enwp's Administrator's noticeboard here for a > > different audience: > > > > "We are extraordinarily ineffective at providing neutral, well-written, > > relatively complete and well-referenced articles about businesses and > > individuals - even as of this writing we have tens of thousands of > > unreferenced and poorly referenced BLPs - and equally bad at maintaining > and > > updating them. Given this remarkable inefficiency, and the fact that a > > Wikipedia article is usually a top-5 google hit for most businesses and > > people, there's plenty of good reason for our subjects to say "enough is > > enough" and insist on having a decent article. We've all seen the badly > > written BLPs and the articles about companies where the "controversies" > > section contains every complaint made in the last 10 years. We aren't > doing > > the job ourselves, and it's unrealistic to think that we can: the > > article-to-active editor ratio is 1:960 right now[1], and getting higher > all > > the time. I'm hard pressed to tell someone that they can't bring in a > > skilled Wikipedia editor, following our own policies and guidelines, to > > bring an article they're interested in up to our own stated standards. As > to > > COI, one wonders why financial benefit seems to raise all these red > flags, > > when undisclosed membership in various organizations, personal beliefs, > and > > life experiences may well lead to an even greater COI. "Put it on the > talk > > page" only works if (a) someone is watching the article, (b) that someone > > doesn't have their own perspective that they feel is more valid, (c) and > > someone is willing to actually edit the article. Those three conditions > > aren't being met nearly enough (see editor-to-article ratio above). We've > > created the very situation where organizations and people are no longer > > willing to accept that they have to put up with a bad article about > > themselves. And precisely why should they be prevented from improving our > > project?" > > > > As to the Volunteer Response Team, they are a very small group of > volunteers > > who are usually swamped with requests, and they often wind up having to > > negotiate with the existing "interested" editors to clear out BLP > violations > > and clean up the articles to meet our own standards, sometimes having to > > fight tooth and nail to do so. (I should clarify that there is a large > > group of volunteers, but only a few who are actually responding to > tickets > > on a regular basis, not unlike most wiki-projects.) It is challenging for > > subjects of articles to find their way to submit a request to have their > > article fixed, too. And remember that 1:960 ratio - even if every active > > editor on enwp made it their business to do nothing but maintenance and > > improvement of existing articles, we couldn't keep up with the workload. > > > > Risker/Anne > > > > [1] <http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm> > > _______________________________________________ > > foundation-l mailing list > > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > > > > > > -- > David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
