Jimbo Wales

Hi Jimbo, in two years of looking for solutions to the BLP issues have finally stumbled upon an idea that hasn't been raised before. Basically it's this:

Suppose we noindexed biographies of living persons, upon the subject's request.

This would require developer assistance, and require a bit of structure to make sure the ability doesn't get misused. An initial draft proposal is at my blog.[1] Am interested in your thoughts. Durova^Charge! 20:54, 4 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

It does indeed sound ingenious [with an "o"]. -- Hoary (talk) 02:06, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

This is a great idea Durova! 98.210.241.176 (talk) 06:04, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

That sounds like an awful idea. What is the point of even having the biography if it isn't visible to search engines. You might as well just propose deleting it at the subject's request. Prodego ^talk 06:15, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I like Prodego's idea best. Let's go with that one. We'll call it... oh, Dead Tree Opt Out, or something like that. لennavecia 06:24, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

(edit conflict)Oy. That would be quite fun for us admins to get to deal with... Valley2city^‽ 06:28, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

One point of having a bio that's not visible to search engines is to satisfy the curiosity of people who don't always bother with search engines. -- Hoary (talk) 06:27, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

My point is that either an article is bad, and should be deleted, or good, and should be kept. If an article isn't good enough for Google it isn't good enough for Wikipedia either. Prodego ^talk 06:36, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Have to agree with Prodego here. Either it sucks and should be deleted (for whatever reason) or it should remain and be fully indexed. THAT SAID HOWEVER, we should be using flagged revisions / full protection of every single WP:BLP article on here. The solution ALREADY exists and why we aren't already using it is BEYOND ME. Wikipedia fail. JBsupreme (talk) 07:05, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

The problem is that crappy articles on non-notable people get kept because people don't understand or completely ignore the criteria. So we're stuck trying to protect and maintain more BLPs than we are capable of effectively doing. The Foundation and Jimbo are not concerned with the BLP problem because the Foundation enjoys the protection of Section 230. However, for those of us whose concern is with the vicitims of BLPs, it's not an easy job to clean this mess up, and we've got years of mess to clean up while new crap is constantly being dumped on us. There aren't enough editors with a grasp on the gravity of the situation, so it remains overwhelming. That said, Jimbo, for those of us who dedicate the vast majority of our time on Wikipedia to preventing and cleaning up the John Seigenthaler, Fuzzy Zoeller, Taner Akçam and Catherine Crier-type messes, what improvement to this entirely broken system can we look forward to, and when? Or are you and the Foundation just going to leave the problem festering indefinitely? لennavecia 14:10, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I object very strongly to your characterization of me and the Foundation not being concerned with this. I have led the way for many years in the development and enforcement of BLP and I have been a strong supporter of the software development for Flagged Revisions, and for the policy development that will roll it out. It doesn't do your case any good to turn on your strongest supporter! Perhaps you're not aware of the current status - we're waiting on Brion Vibber to roll the feature out, and he's indicated "before Wikimania" as a target date. I can't magically help with the software issues, whatever they may be, but if I could, I would!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:02, 6 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

By allowing search engines to index BLP, Wikipedia is immediately spreading libel and defamation around the world. And the problem is getting worse: Microsoft Bing is touting its prominent use of BLP as an advantage over Google! NOINDEX will largely prevent this.67.169.147.73 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:30, 5 June 2009 (UTC).Reply

Quite right. And when the libel hits Google, it's picked up by mirrors. So even when we clean it up here, it can linger on other sites for weeks. لennavecia 15:04, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps combine this with Flagged Protection? When an article does not have flagged revision, tag it as NOINDEX, otherwise let search engines index the flagged revision. -- M2Ys4U ^(talk) 15:45, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

What really needs to be sorted out are the hard core minority of vociferous admins who are devising their own unique interpretations of BLP, such as out of sight special protection forums, dead tree notability or time limited notability, and 2 hour deletion discussions, and applying these across the pedia as if they were policy. MickMacNee (talk) 16:48, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Or we could clue in the people who think there is value in having poor-quality, unwatched biographies on non-notable or marginally notable living people, opening them up for real-world damage, because of some stupid tag line about anyone being able to edit. There are better things to do with one's time here than defend Wikipedia's imaginary right or obligation to host libel platforms of living people while simultaneously disrespecting a devaluing the work of those wasting their time tying to fix the problem. We wouldn't have to resort to liberal interpretations of policy and special forums if people would stop ignoring the problem and exhibit some commonsense and basic decency. لennavecia 17:16, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I don't usually get involved in these discussions, but I do want to know: why the hell hasn't something been done about the appalling state BLPs have been in for what would appear to be years? Skinny87 (talk) 17:35, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

A combination of 1) the WMF being unwilling or unable to intervene in content matters to not endanger their Section 230 legal immunity under the Telecommunications Act; 2) concentrated pushback from "open wiki" advocates who are more interested in the juvenile libertarian views that some aspects of this project were built around (this will be hardest to beat, as far as BLP goes); 3) apathy, as it's a constant struggle against #2. rootology (C)(T) 17:48, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Rootology, #1 is completely and totally false. I can tell you with great confidence that when the Foundation board has discussed BLP issues, software development around Flagged Revs, etc., it has NEVER been proposed by board or staff that we should not do something about BLP issues due to Section 230 concerns. Never, not once, not at all. That's just not true, and we should put a stop right here and now to any rumors to that effect.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:05, 6 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

A lot has been done and is currently being done. Flagged versioning has been approved for all BLPs and is right now being worked on by the Foundation's software staff to be able to implement it. As for Section 230 legal immunity under the Telecommunications Act, the whole point of that section is to encourage content modification by promising such modification (such as deletion of potential libel) does not make the entity then responsible for content it did not modify or create. WAS 4.250 (talk) 18:19, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I don't know how anyone can claim Wikipedia is not doing its upmost to protect living people. Take a look at the recently closed DRV for our ex-arbitrator David Boothroyd, who had an article for three years until mysteriously dissappearing once a bit of scandal broke. The new streamlined BLP enforcement process is now well established - throw Afd out the window and delete an article out of process (twice by the same admin no less) citing 'BLP', and when there is not 80% support at DRV that the closing admin was totally out of order, and he continues to be blissfully oblivous to the 14 people telling him he screwed up (not a big majority supposedly when compared to 16 people chiming in to carry on debating the Afd, while the article is invisible, and ignoring the fact the venue was DRV not AFd), it can then be claimed all is well with the world as there is no consensus to change the 'status quo'. It's a joke. It's no wonder The Register takes the piss mercilessly, it has ample source material. MickMacNee (talk) 18:59, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

"I don't know how anyone can claim Wikipedia is not doing its upmost to protect living people." Conversely, I don't know how anyone can claim Wikipedia is doing ANYWHERE NEAR ENOUGH to protect living people. It's shockingly scandalous and sooner or later someone is going to sue the WMF, and win, section 230 immunity or not. Even if they don't win, they can waste significant amounts of WMF time and resources defending. Pray someone with 100M in the bank (and there are a fair number of those) doesn't decide to invest 1% of their fortune... the cost to the WMF would be far more than 1%. ++Lar: t/c 19:22, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

100 million? I'm amazed no one has libeled one of the thousands of billionaires in the world yet, enough to get them to open years of legal proceedings. If a billionaire (1 bill only in the bank) wanted to dump $500,000 in legal costs at us, it would be only 0.0005% of his static wealth. That would be like one of us with $10,000 deciding to spend $5.00 to get back at the WMF. Chump change. Pray that some fool doesn't libel the wrong billionaire. If one of them decided to spend $100.00 in "real person" money, it would be like the WMF defending against what--a million dollar legal assault? rootology (C)(T) 19:29, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Yes yes yes, the mythical lawsuit that's always just around the corner. Although it never happens, and for quite obvious reasons. And if you doubt the new power of BLP deletions, just read the Afd policy, the BLP policy, and try and square them with the above incident, and the actions of the admin in question, who to this minute remains purposely oblivious to the widespread feedback about his unilateral action in the name of Defending the Living People TM (he posted directly below me just now, presumably for effect). MickMacNee (talk) 19:32, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

• From somebody who knows a bit about search, this is a bad idea. Wikipedia is licensed in a way that encourages copying. Noindexing does not resolve problems. If content is dodgy, it has to be removed. If we do mass noindexing, people who want to make a quick buck will just set up a mirror with the noindexed content and the traffic will go to them instead of to us. Jehochman ^Talk 19:13, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

There will only be a few noindex articles if Wikipedia requires a notarized letter from the person in the biography. This will only happen in a few egregious caes.171.66.109.236 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC).Reply

• I'm not convinced this is a good idea either. But it has the merit of bringing some of the folk who knee jerk resist ANY idea to help ameliorate the BLP problem out where they can be seen. ++Lar: t/c 19:22, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply
• This is a good idea, much better than the flagged revisions idea and would go a long way towards placating these individuals. While flagged revisions does affect our free editing idea and take huge amounts of voluntary effort we have no remit to maximise wikipedia's presence in the search engines (that is not in the vision at all) and if this could be done as a software fix it would just need a small amount of work by the foundation in maintaining a list of verified abstainers. If Barak Obama does not want to be on the search engines for his wikipedia article? No problem because we have no remit to put our presence in the search engines. Jehochman, I hope I know a bit about search too. I am sure it wouldn't be a large list, a few hundred at most, and what other commercial operators do with our material is not our problem, its their problem. Thanks, SqueakBox talk 23:11, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply
• Not a bad idea, but not the best idea either. The root of the problem is the creation of poor quality/non-neutral/libellous BLPs, so the best solution would be one that most directly addresses that root problem. Noindexing will only help those who have already been damaged by their bio sufficiently to prompt them to contact us. Flagged revs is a much better solution, and better still would be a combo of flagged revs and a higher inclusion standard for BLPs. 203.213.2.194 (talk) 00:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Whatever happened to "helping the Internet not suck"? Have Wikipedia's administrators come to the conclusion that "we help the internet suck a lot, so we should go away"? Content pages should not be NOINDEXED, that's tantamount to taking Wikipedia's articles offline. I don't even like the idea of NOINDEXing other pages--if I google something, and it's on the Internet, I expect to find it--though I guess it's necessary in some circumstances. I suppose that NOINDEXing a few troublesome bios won't be a big deal (as long as they aren't particularly well-known). But I'm afraid this will lead to a creeping NOINDEXing of all BLPs. 67.187.92.105 (talk) 01:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Sorry to pull the quote out like this, but you're a member of the Board, which has ultimate control over the priorities of the Foundation. Have you tried saying "this is more important than planning a vacation in Buenos Aires, focus on this first"? --MZMcBride (talk) 22:06, 7 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I don't think that is at all fair to the people working at the Foundation. If you think the developers are spending their days "planning a vacation" then I don't know what to tell you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Indeed the software is excellent on wikipedia, clearly people working hard on it. Thanks, SqueakBox talk 13:42, 8 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

My rhetoric aside, you didn't answer the question. A lot of contributors (I imagine yourself included) consider the "BLP problem" to be the single most important issue facing Wikipedia. Why isn't the Board pushing for a quicker implementation of software that has been ready since last June and had local consensus for months? I'm correct that the Board sets priorities for the Foundation, yes? --MZMcBride (talk) 17:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

The bug for a test implementation on en.labs.wikimedia.org, Template:Bug, has been opened since 4 April and remain unacted upon, and this while Aaron already made most of the internal extension updates (see Wikipedia:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions/Implementation) and a working configuration is ready. I must say I'm also puzzled on the priorities, especially after having seen much pushing by the wmf, resources and time spent on the absolutely non-critical book extension which generated massive usability problems. But it takes months to even have a test for this ? Doesn't seem right... Cenarium (talk) 01:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I wonder if the WMF issued a global top-down policy--by fiat--that local projects must remove any content that "may legally endanger or expose" the WMF, would endanger their Sec 230 protection? Just tossing this out there, as a possible way that BLP can be given bullets via the WMF. rootology (C)(T) 19:36, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Way too broad. That would be like giving legal threats "teeth".. If it's a verified legal issue, something like WP:OFFICE should cover it. --Versageek 19:48, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Well, the idea would be simply that this would (like the present global copyvio rules) be a non-editorial direction from the WMF that projects must comply with (non-negotiable, like present copyvio rules), and that would be carried out by users on the editorial level, but would be the equivalent of a user citing OFFICE--any invocation must then be backed up by local consensus, with the WMF simply not weighing in, shielding themselves. This would give both BLP and Copyvio rules "solid teeth" that cannot be circumvented. rootology (C)(T) 19:51, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I don't think we have a problem of authority, do we? What I mean is, it isn't that there's a group of editors who are libeling people and no one is doing anything about it, or that admins in general, or ArbCom, or me in my role, don't have the authority to block people who are libeling, etc. I don't think, to answer your first question directly, that there is much that the WMF could do that would endanger Section 230 protection. The protection doesn't extend to edits done by employees or board members, but setting editorial policy (even in a strong way that would be against our traditions) would not make the Foundation responsible for what other people write. That's more or less the whole point of Section 230 protection. However, I am not a lawyer, so this is amateur musings. In any event, I guess my answer is that "no, I don't think it would endanger Section 230, and no, I don't think it would help, since I don't think this proposal addresses a problem that we actually have". I'm open to argument, of course.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:08, 6 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

What do you think would help, Jimbo? لennavecia 18:14, 6 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

1. Flagged revisions 2. Firm enforcement of existing policy with low tolerance for whining 3. Tweaks to policy whenever it falls short. Perhaps we could make this discussion more concrete if we look at some specific example where you feel that there was a failure that a command from the Foundation (or me?) might have helped?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:27, 7 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

2 is what we've been focusing on. This statement from you should assist in enforcing the low tolerance for whining, though. So thank you. We're working on 3. As for specific examples, I could list out some recent edits that introduced unsourced, negative false information into BLPs and were left unreverted for an unacceptable amount of time, or I could list out some OTRS tickets; but that's not the point, and I don't think the problem is seriously in question anymore. The problem being that we don't have the resources to monitor all of our BLPs, and as long as anyone can edit them, we're allowing living people to be libeled.
We're doing as much as we can. We've started WikiProject Living people, organized WP:BLP/N, identified tens of thousands of BLPs not categorized in Category:Living people. We list potential BLP violations for editors to check and correct, fight for the protection of living subjects in AFDs, etc, etc.
The new Foundation document talks about guarding against self-promotion, but it doesn't talk about the imperative to protect against libel. The way to satisfy both the Section 230 issue and the BLP issue would be for the Foundation to do the same thing it did with non-free images. Issuing an wmf:EDP style document saying that sites which host material on third party individuals with legal rights against libel and slander must have and enforce a policy to protect those legal rights or the material will be deleted.
With the non-free image EDP, Wikipedia was quite successful in ensuring a minimal level of protection for copyright holders of non-free images and creating across the board compliance with a core policy. It's time for the Foundation to make the BLP problem a top priority. لennavecia 22:14, 7 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

"The way to satisfy both the Section 230 issue and the BLP issue would be for the Foundation to do the same thing it did with non-free images." -- Thank you. I'm not always the most to the point person, or I'm too to the point, but this is exactly the point I was trying to make. rootology (C)(T) 13:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Jimbo, any thoughts on the above? لennavecia 13:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Jimbo, if you have the time I would like your opinion on a hypothetical situation - at a Deletion Review, someone votes to keep a page deleted. The DRV is closed as upheld but allows for the recreation of the page if the original problems are fixed. The person who voted to keep the page was an admin and decides to full protect the page from being created as per the DRV. Question - 1. Is the admin conflicted from being able to ethically page protect the original page? 2. Are page protections acceptable without seeking community support for such a salting of earth? 3. In the situation where the DRV is closed stating that the page should be recreated with the original problems corrected and conforming to Wiki standards a page that should have any sort of protection which would hinder the easy creation of the page with such fixes? Thank you for your time. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:07, 8 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

This is pretty much standard operating procedure, Ottava. Normally, one would create a candidate replacement article in user space and bring it to DRV where it will be examined to see if the problems are, indeed, fixed. — Coren ^(talk) 23:10, 8 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I've never seen a page protected after an AfD or a DRV. I've only seen page protections after it was determined that multiple recreations were abusive. This was not the case. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Could you tell us what specific situation has prompted you to ask this 'hypothetical' question? I'm sure Jimbo would prefer to have all of the relevant information before offering a firm opinion. It would be very unfortunate if a general, off-the-cuff statement of his based on a purely hypothetical imaginary case were taken as some sort of definitive pronouncement on a specific issue. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

There's nothing remotely hypothetical about this situation. It has to do with Stifle's protection of Plot of Les Misérables following Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Plot of Les Misérables (2nd nomination) and Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2009 May 29#Plot of Les Misérables. See also the WP:ANI discussion, here (permalink as of 01:19, 9 June 2009). --auburnpilot talk 01:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I could provide one (and Auburn went ahead and did it for me), but I would rather have the founder's opinion on the ethical side for a more general interpretation of CoI than a specific ruling on a particular case. It seems that quite a few admin don't care if they put forth a vote and then uphold their opinion via protection. I feel that such a thing gets in the way of consensus and causes problems with content editing, but if Jimbo provides a good reason for it or points out something that is a concern that I am unable to see (problems related to content creation, vandalism, etc) then I wont worry about such a thing happening in the future. The problem with specifics is that they are just that, specific. We need a general understanding to work with, and the understanding would deal with the heart of this project as an encyclopedia, which the founder would understand better than the average person. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

You should know from real life work that most, if not all, managers understandably dislike being gamed by their employees in this manner, i.e. floating a trial baloon or hypethical situation question for their opinion when you have a current, real situation that you want to apply it to that you aren't telling them about. Yes, Wikipedia isn't a real life work situation but the same principle applies. Cla68 (talk) 01:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

The community is quite capable of handling a specific incident on its own. The founder is the only one capable of elucidating on the founding principles and what is ethically best for the project as a whole. Asking the CEO of a company what the company's mission is would be the equivalent to this. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

You didn't ask him what the mission of Wikipedia is. You detailed a specific situation, but presented it as hypothetical. Would be better, I think, to detail the situation with links, giving Jimmy all the details, then let him comment. His comment to a hypothetical situation would carry less weight than his comment on an actual situation, as the former leaves him less informed. لennavecia 02:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I can post other situations where the same action has come up before. And who said I want weight on the actual situation? I simply want his opinion on the matter. If he doesn't support the type of action, then I will feel more confident in my current feelings. If he believes there is enough problems to warrant such actions, then I will stand by his feelings and not worry about the action in the future. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Ottava Rima, first you say that "I've never seen a page protected after an AfD or a DRV.", and three hours later you claim that "I can post other situations where the same action has come up before." It looks like these two statements can't both be correct... Fram (talk) 07:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Other situations would mean that there are details within the situation are different. The core of the question was Conflict of Interest and full page protection. This can happen in far more than AfD. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Hey Jimbo. I'm curious what you make of the Arbcom member/ leftist politician violating conflict of interest policies and sock puppeteering? And now we also have admins working aggressively to delete the article about this politician that was KEPT in 2005. I thought notability doesn't expire? Does it expire when the politician and Arbcom member are caught undermining Wikipedia's integrity and after there is substantial coverage in reliable independent sources? Shouldn't this be something we work hard to root out? Arbcom seems to be very sick, and it's distressing that the problem of those engaging in censorship and bias goes all the way to the most powerful editors on Wikipedia. I guess this explains why they're so aggressive in supporting the NPOV violations and POV pushers going after anyone trying to balance our Obama coverage with notable controversies and criticisms? ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

CoM, I'm a little curious myself as to the nature of your question. Is it about ArbCom members or "leftist" politicians? Or do you feel that ArbCom members and leftism are one and the same? What exact question do you wish Jimbo to answer? Franamax (talk) 01:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

It's about bias, censorship, neutral point of view, conflicts of interest, and integrity. We have policies about these things, so it's surprising that so many editors don't seem aware of them or feel the need to comply with them. If it was conservative politician distorting our coverage I would support the same full disclosure, investigation, and clean up that's required here. This is a tip of the iceberg type situation where we have to pull the weeds out by the roots. I have no animosity against Sam, I haven't edited with him at all that I can recall, but we have policies and they need to be enforced. Those who are trying to cover up for him or to preserve the bias, NPOV violations, and other improprieties that permeate Arbcom and our political coverage need to be confronted. All editors, whatever their politics, need to enforce our policies and to make sure that our coverage is reliable, balanced, and appropriate. This is a big problem, and we have a real opportunity to address it starting with full disclosure and an honest approach to the problem. ChildofMidnight (talk) 03:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Oh yes, it's all a leftist conspiracy *rolls eyes* Skinny87 (talk) 08:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

You can roll your eyes that one of our Arbcom members was caught engaging in COI editing and sockpuppeteering. But I think this kind of policy violating behavior should be taken seriously. The camping out of editors on political articles to push a particular point of view is a serious problem that violates our core policy of neutral point of view. That an Arbcom member was himself engaged in this kind of behavior and that the other Arbcoms are in the process of going after good faith editors who have faced a wall of incivility, wikilawyering, obstruction and other policy violating behaviors in trying to improve our coverage is a serious issue. I am very interested in Jimbo's thoughts on how we can fix things or if he supports the current course of action to sweep them under the rug and hope we don't get caught as that would only add to our embarassment. ChildofMidnight (talk) 17:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Sam Blacketer resigned, which is enough I think. CoM, you and others will not be allowed to slander that man by writing an unbalanced biography of him in mainspace. Mainspace is not for punishing people. The community has approved my approach to this problem by confirming the deletion at WP:DRV. Jehochman ^Talk 09:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I didn't write his article, nor have I ever edited it. But the abusive threats and intimidation attempted by you, Jehochman, as highlighted in the related ANI discussionare very unbecoming. Let's stop this attempted cover-up. It stinks at least as badly as the subterfuge and violations that created this mess in the first place. Stop blaming good faith editors who want to maintain Wikipedia's integrity and root out this kind of rot. We need to promote transparency and accountability instead of an old boy buddy system where we create and edit articles based on our personal interests and alliances. ChildofMidnight (talk) 17:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 47#Please help I know you're very busy, and I'm guessing the thread was archived by a bot before you could render a judgement, but to sum up in case you need a quick refresher:

I've always used all pertinant information from what we consider reliable sources in my edits. Articles about Scientology feature in depth coverage of its negative aspects. We would have to ignore the bulk of what the sources say about Scientology if we set out not to say anything "bad" about it. For example a Time article called The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power obviously is going to say things Scientologists don't like, and might just make anyone citing it look anti-Scientology. (Another more current example is the debate in France over banning Scientology) If there are reliable sources out there which say good things about Scientology I'm just as happy to include them as well. (I haven't found any which AREN'T dominated by negative aspects though.)

I think the ARBCOM believes that by topic banning anyone labelled a POV pusher it will somehow end any future arguments. However as long as the sources concentrate on the negatives of Scientology, Scientologists editing from home will work at removing them and calling anyone who cites them a POV pusher. I'm agnostic and have no personal interest in defaming Scientology, I just think our articles should reflect what valid sources say good or bad. Anynobody(?) 02:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I am aware of your appeal and will comment in due course. I've been reading over all the case materials (and there's a lot of it, as you know) and also discussing some general principles with the ArbCom to make sure I understand their thinking.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I totally understand, you're probably usually pretty busy as it is and there is a lot to read up on. Thank you very much for taking time to consider this, whatever you decide :) Anynobody(?) 00:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Did you get my email about a functionary using an undisclosed sock to edit for money on behalf of businessmen? YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 02:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Sorry about that, just checked my email. I mistakenly thought you weren't interested YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 03:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

No problem. I answered immediately upon seeing your email. I asked you what you were talking about. I still don't know, and I don't see an email back from you. Can you explain here, or in email if that's more comfortable for you? I see no reason to be mysterious.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:31, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I replied to the arbcom mailing list (I guess you're still on it) at around 4 UTC/GMT/Wikipedia time yesterday and Roger sent me an email confirming that he approved of the receipt [retired arbs might be vandals I suppose]. As for the explanation, Alex Bakharev has outed Nichalp anyway so there isn't anymore to say below that I didn't already say in the email. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 01:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Everything that is out in the open (here or on WR) is already on the arbcom mailing list. Obviously I have not much idea what the current arbs are saying about it on there as I haven't been part of the replies YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 01:07, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

If this is related to [2], then I think the matter is serious and should be investigated Alex Bakharev (talk) 05:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Somewhat related is this case where a (now blocked) editor complains about their efforts being reverted because the editor's client "has paid for the work, and yet is not listed in Wikipedia, and is understandably upset". Johnuniq (talk) 10:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

See also Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Smkovalinsky/Archive. I do not recall ever seeing Jimbo process any routine checkuser requests. Jehochman ^Talk 10:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Given how this seems to be coming up more and more there should be a community discussion (RFC?) on the whys and hows behind this and to come up with a community-endorsed stance on this. I think I'll draft up an RFC. Since "paid editing" in and of itself is not a blockable offense, and may or may not be frowned upon depending on how it's handled. Frowned upon = widely, I know some people are totally against some, some don't care, and I'm in the middle of I don't care why someone writes a "good article", so long as they understand the minute it's posted they have no ownership stake or claim over it on this site. rootology (C)(T) 17:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

"If you need a good profile on Wikipedia, I can help you out there too through my rich experience" (bolding mine) Yeah, okay, blue sky helicopters pushing the envelope taking a greenfield view.... No chance in the real world with that. Best ignored IMHO - I disagree with Alex above that the matter is "serious" - so what? People can do what they like (mostly) off wiki unless it harms wikipedia - this doesn't, although it makes that particular person look a littel foolish. Looking silly is not, as yet, against policy. Pedro :  Chat  21:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

More than a little foolish - it looks, on first glance, to be an unethical offer. But who is this, on-wiki?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:31, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

What's unethical is that they can't sell anything more than what any policy abiding editor can do, However, policy-abiding time and experience might have value in a free market, which seems ok to me. The worry is, most of the stuff I've seen done for money here was very NN. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Actually it's very easy to make POV violations and get away with it. They're everywhere, including on some FAs. I'm keeping my mouth shut there, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to close the specific articles if and when they land at FAR. On many topics, nobody cares or knows about it except the author. You can find a citation for almost any opinion, so just because something's sourced doesn't mean anything, just pick sources from one's preferred POV-spectrum and ignore everything else. In some country topics, almost all the history articles are POV and everyone uses inflammatory language like freedom fighters and martyrs. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 01:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

They could be bluffing, or this could be a Joe Job. Unless there is technical evidence connecting a functionary to sock puppets, I don't think there's much to go on. Jehochman ^Talk 22:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

see this post + thread over at wikipedia review for rather compelling information. To answer Jimbo's question, it seems this relates to User:Nichalp and User:Zithan. Privatemusings (talk) 00:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

oh, and a nutshell explanation probably won't hurt - User:Nichalp has various priviledges including oversight, and crat 'flags', and would have appeared to ressurect himself following retirment as User:Zithan, who would appear to be getting paid for some editing, such as at Brad_Sugars. The ins, outs, rights and wrongs of all this aren't super clear at the mo.... Privatemusings (talk) 00:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Zithan was active long before Nichalp retired YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 01:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

he was indeed, mea culpa - for what it's worth, User:Zithan's early edits appear to be related to sex toys and pornography, and in the ever shifting world of wiki-rules-about-sockpuppets I'm not sure if having a designated account for kinda embarrassing edits is smiled or frowned upon. It wouldn't be particularly shocking either for Zithan to have been a commercial account from inception. It may be that a policy requiring explicit disclosure of financial interests in the subject of articles editors are working on might be useful at this point, it seems it's not self-evidently sensible to all? (and yeah - I'll copy this to the RfC thingy too... why not....) Privatemusings (talk) 04:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

This is overdue, probably: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Paid Editing. Given that this (and related WP:COI issues) seem to be coming up more and more, I've launched this basic RFC. We've never had an actual community discussion or mandate about this. Please review the statements, leave yours, endorse as you see fit. Should make for an interesting and enlightening discussion.

Jimmy, would you be willing to leave a statement on the RFC itself? rootology (C)(T) 19:31, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I am content to watch, right now. I don't agree with the biased way the question is being presented. I think it would be a serious blow to the credibility of Wikipedia if it came to be generally accepted that people are taking on clients to write on their behalf. I am reminded of when Yahoo - disastrously, in my opinion - started charging people for premium submissions into their editing process for their directory. Allegedly, as I recall, these entries were to be judged by staff in the same way as unpaid submission, they just moved to the front of the line. But the perception of impropriety essentially destroyed the image of Yahoo as an impartial editorial board deciding what links belonged in which category. I think that far from *weakining* COI policy, we should be in the process of *strengthening* it. I will continue to block people who I find to be engaging in this sort of conduct.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

In which case I honestly think you should say so on the RFC. At the moment we have no policy against paid editing – which is precisely why the whole MyWikiBiz thing flared up, as Kohs could fairly say that nobody had told him not to. It's been three years since then; we really ought to have a policy one way or the other. – iridescent 21:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

My humble 2 pence: I don't think there should be a policy against paid editing by policy-abiding individuals, but if the WmF ever cooked up some paid "fast track" it would very likely (and quickly) wind up a big, corrupted mess and hurt the project. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

If you intend to block people for it, you had better try and establish a consensus to do so. That's what this RFC is for. --Tango (talk) 01:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. But, er, what is biased about:

"An RFC on the notion of paid editing. NOTE: Today, as of the launch time of this RFC, this is not a blockable offense under any policy, or to my knowledge against any explicit policy, but dances around WP:COI in some ways."

And

Whats the question?

Is Paid Editing a problem? Is it fine? Is it against policy? What policy? What should be the response?

Desired outcome

A start toward consensus on what the community view actually is on the matter of "paid editing".

Since there is no policy against it today I left the wording as wide-open as possible. "What do you think?" is the tone. I'd actually ask you to not do such blocks, as you're still of course bound by policy as much as anyone. Your recent block of Petrosianii was for sockpuppetry, not paid editing. Seicer (talk · contribs), an admin, actually stated here that he is paid to edit content. Are you going to block him? Such a block would have no basis in policy and out of policy blocks have no standing, for any admin. rootology (C)(T) 21:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Can you please clarify on your question are you saying that only users can do paid editing or also saying Admins and crats can also do paid editing.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 08:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Admins are users too. So are 'crats, I hear, although rumor has it some have their doubts. ++Lar: t/c 11:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I think a not small number of people have those doubts re. admins as well. Unfortunately some admins do their best to enforce those doubts... SoWhy 11:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Only to stir up some thoughts, perhaps one way to deal with this, would be a policy that editors in positions of trust (admin, crat and so on) disclose any paid editing. Maybe this could be done on-wiki, or even by email, say to arbcom. I will say that an outright banning of paid editing wouldn't stop it, but only drive it further underground. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Driving it underground is sufficient. What I don't want to see are people advertising their services to clients on the web, and us accepting that. This is totally inconsistent with our values. I will never allow it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Are you referring to editors in positions of trust or to all users? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

All editors. If someone wants to set up a GFDL (or, soon: CC BY or CC BY-SA) writing service somewhere else, and post things there, and if completely uninvolved Wikipedians find it in some way useful, that's fine. Setting up shop to "sell" services as an advocate on Wikipedia as an editor, an admin, etc. is not ok.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Great! I totally agree with you. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Ok, it's "advocate" rather/more than "writing service" that you find worrisome and I can understand that. Your notion of free market GFDL/CC writing services which show up in Google searches that uninvolved WP editors would stumble across, then perhaps pick up for Wikipedia, owing only to skillfull encyclopedic writing and sourcing, is helpful, I should've thought of it! WP would have aught to do with it from the outset, with a bright line of "neutrality through uninvolvment." I guess if any paid writing which goes straight onto Wikipedia is driven so underground, it's not spotted, that'd more often than not be because policy was followed closely enough, which is the pith. Either way, I'd never support writing for pay which didn't heedfully follow policy. Thanks for giving your thoughts on this. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Where do I go to find these "completely independent wikipedians" referenced? We all have CoIs, every day, and to think differently is to fool ones self. Disclosing CoI is to be encouraged. ++Lar: t/c 16:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

(ec x2) I am frequently maligned and subject to assumptions of bad faith because of the way I make a living.[3][4] Such personal attacks should be denounced, but they never are. Based on my experience, there are more people willing to use a declaration as a way to gain the upper hand in a dispute than there are those who will respect it. This is a problem with our culture. Jehochman ^Talk 16:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

It is not helpful to air grievances on Jimbo's talk page in lieu of dialog with the people who posted them. Durova^Charge! 18:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I am just about ready to quit because a certain person has been following me around, setting tripwires and doing whatever she can tovarious factors have been ruining my enjoyment of working on Wikipedia. Durova, please stop posting complaints about me hither and thither, and please stop egging on other people to do so. I really mean it. Jehochman ^Talk 18:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Nobody is setting tripwires or egging anyone. Would you like to come my user talk page and discuss it calmly? Durova^Charge! 20:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Jimmy, I really don't mean this to be a dickish question, but the way this is unraveling is highly confusing. I started the RFC to simply see what everyone thought, as there has never been a frank public discussion of this before to see what the community actually thought. Your views have always been clear. Like I said in my RFC statement, I've always been ambivalent and more interested in the quality of the content rather than caring who wrote it--a paid author, Satan, it's all the same for me. Is it good, NPOV, notable, etc.? The way the RFC is spinning out is frankly the exact opposite of what I expected. I was figuring I'd get some supports, we'd see 20 statements in various forms "against", and that would be that. Not what is happening, but the opposite.

But I have to ask-- are you going to block Seicer and Nichalp for paid editing? rootology (C)(T) 16:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I don't know the particulars of those cases, so it is best that I not wade in hastily. I've been mistaken to block people in similar situations too quickly in the past. But if they are editing articles or (worse) taking admin actions at the behest of clients, they should at a bare minimum stop doing so. Perhaps it would be best if they explained what they've been up to and why.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Just to be clear, if someone was using any special tools, even something as piddly as Rollback for money, let alone something like Oversight, I'd be first in line to skin them myself. My only stance is that I'm about the quality of content first and foremost. I'll drop Nichalp and Seicer notes to check in here. rootology (C)(T) 16:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Also are the people covered under this program going to be blocked? ++Lar: t/c 16:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I don't have an opinion about that. But please don't imagine that my position is simplistic. There's a very big difference between an organized grant program to improve the quality of Wikipedia and setting up shop to offer to act as a paid advocate.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

So you won't be blocking the two above-mentioned editors? Skinny87 (talk) 16:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I am expressing no opinion whatsoever on that. I'm just saying I don't really know anything about what they are doing. If they are doing something wrong, they should be blocked. If they are not doing something wrong, they should not be blocked. I'm not doing anything myself, but I don't consider myself under any inherent obligation to investigate every single case. As I am sure you can understand, whatever action I take or don't take here will be construed dishonestly by someone. If I block them, I'm acting hastily and so on. If I don't block them, then the trolls will claim it's because I'm friends with them (I'm not, don't know them really) or whatever. So I want to be really clear here: I don't know enough to do anything, and it isn't my job to police everything on Wikipedia. Anyone trying to interpret my action or inaction here is making a mistake.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

To be fair, you made a relatively strong WP:JIMBO statement when you said, "I will personally block any cases that I am shown. There are of course some possibly interesting alternatives, not particularly relevant here, but the idea that we should ever accept paid advocates directly editing Wikipedia is not every going to be ok. Consider this to be policy as of right now." -->David Shankbone 16:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Which I am as of now contesting. See the comments section on his RFC post. I think this is a silly thing to fight about, to be frank, but proclamations of policy that have no community backing have no standing. Who's going to enforce them? If it goes all the way up to Steward tools to enforce them, then Jimmy loses that battle too, since Stewards have limits on what they can do too. This is a stupid battle to fight on these lines. It's ultimately up to the community. rootology (C)(T) 16:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I'm not interesting in "fighting the battle" on those lines, because it's completely unnecessary for me to do so. I consider it to be absolutely within policy already. Some people like to imagine that "the community" is absolutely sovereign, but it is not, has never been, and never will be. Wikipedia is not a democracy, as existing policy has long made abundantly clear. But trying to portray this as an issue of a community clamoring to allow paid shills to openly do battle in wikipedia versus Jimbo trying to stop it is pretty hilariously out of tune with the real discussion. You wrote an openly biased RFC that led people down a certain path - I consider this pretty pointless.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

It's not a democracy, no, and never has been, but for several years now it hasn't been your word-as-law either. If it was, you would have done any number of things we needed by fiat already, like Flagged Revs when German got them, laser-sharp enforcement of BLP, mandatory semi-protection of BLPs by default, BLP AFDs defaulting to delete rather than keep, and we would have actually seen people being tossed from the project for rampant abuse of NPOV, which is a Foundational issue, as readily as we toss people for copyright violations. You would have stamped on the neck of the ongoing disasters we've seen like Mantanmoreland and any number of festering sores everyone has had to deal with, and not just label anyone that goes against your views as "trolls" and whatnot, dismissing critics out of hand, even the critics who have--surprise--turned out to be right on some matters. If you want to try to force this, against whatever consensus forms--and again, I don't care either way in the end if we block paid editors or put them in a manageable bubble to get content out of them--you're welcome to try with the standing repercussions you may encounter. This isn't a threat, so don't take it that way, but this will end up in RFAR if you try to force your hand against the community on something they don't want. Your power is not absolute. You have a bigger box than most, but you still live within a box as much as we do. I don't really have anything else to say beyond we need you for your leverage on the bigger things, and to draw in contributions financially, but your unwillingness to stand up with a firm hand when you've been needed on the really critical things makes this seem a truly pointless matter to risk your standing and "Traditional Role" on. You don't own WP. rootology (C)(T) 17:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your rant, Rootology. Let me summarize it. You want me to act decisively and with great authority in some areas, the ones you care about and think I should, but intend to fight to depose me if I do it in other areas, the ones where your views differ. Noted. I will protest a bit with this strange and false claim that I "just label anyone who goes against my views as 'trolls'". Some people are trolls, of course, but I think it's hardly fair to suggest that I overuse the term to apply to anyone who disagrees with me.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Until WP:JIMBO is repealed, WP:JIMBO stands. -->David Shankbone 17:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

That's sort of the point of this discussion, David. rootology (C)(T) 17:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I would caution you against taking the paid editing issue and conflating it with JIMBO issues. If Jimmy takes an action that contradicts community consensus, then it's an issue. Until then, a lot of this discussion seems to be moving into the legitimacy of the JIMBO system. Too many hot issues at once. -->David Shankbone 17:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

And I agree, but Fayasslf and Jimmy have pushed this into the JIMBO side. I've been arguing nonstop on this in the past day that the decision with community backing would be as bulletproof as policy can ever be. Jimmy, though, has repeatedly stated his stance as policy, and I am saying point blank that today he cannot unilaterally impose a binding fiat on something without community backing, in response. I didn't push this into constitutional waters; he did regrettably. rootology (C)(T) 17:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

• To be fair Root. Neither me nor Jimmy has mentioned WP:JIMBO. I spoke the policy lingo while he didn't even mention it. Wikipedia has been here for more than 8 years and claiming that you got a consensus in 12 hours is very misleading. And Jimmy has just stood up with a firm hand while dealing with a critical thing; it just happens that it doesn't suit your views.-- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 18:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

• I never claimed consensus; I've just pounding on that on such a hot-topic item, we shouldn't do anything without a mandate that as many people as possible buy into, since whatever happens will have lasting repercussions in multiple directions. Citing that policy page is citing JIMBO, if not in name. Jimmy and I are mailing, however, but I still ask that he just not do anything unilaterally here. There are far bigger stakes in play here. Hell, I wasn't even thinking of closing that RFC until over a month out, like the Flagged Revs survey. rootology (C)(T) 18:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

• Following the context, by 'bigger stakes in play' I'd understand $ ;) I know it is a hot debate but let's please keep our cool; we both know that we all work for the best of the project after all. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 18:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

• Why don't you write a policy proposal to ban paid advocacy and we can work together to get support for it?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

• You have mail inbound on this topic to the wikia-inc address. rootology (C)(T) 17:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

• I think the more strategic way to handle this is to see what the RFC says. If you have a sense that there is consensus for paid editing, then you have to decide what to do next, if anything. If Jimmy steps in to frustrate the community's wishes, then address the issue. You're allowing yourself to be sidetracked into other hot areas simply because of some comments, that currently have had no effect on anything (just like the RFC itself). Just FYI: I support the JIMBO system, and I'm not advocating you go after it. I'm only suggesting a more strategic and productive way to handle your concerns and issues. -->David Shankbone 17:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

• I'm most assuredly not going after "JIMBO" today in that sense, and I'd really rather not force some bloody conflict on something that people are in truth only apart based on the nature and magnitude of the response. I've told him as much in mail, and this looks like both may have gotten puffed out from misunderstanding intentions and long-term goals (which I know from previous conversations with him we're not far apart on, just the "how to get there" bit). I'm too pragmatic for my own good sometimes, and think that "JIMBO Showdown" will eventually happen in some form, some day, but again, I'd really rather not see something like that this year or over something so simple. rootology (C)(T) 18:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

(od)That seems like a rather harsh comment against rootology, Mister Wales - I can't see how the RFC was written in a biased manner - hell, it's opening lines were shorter than most RFCs to begin with. Skinny87 (talk) 17:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I'm sorry if it sounded harsh. My main complaint is that he proposes what is clearly an extreme case to set the tone of the discussion. It would be just as biased to propose an extreme case on the opposite end of the spectrum. And the use of the term "paid editing" - as I have said elsewhere - is too imprecise to allow for a nuanced discussion of the issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

It is rather natural that the statement is a bias towards a certain stance, but thats the way its supposed to be as its a user opinion. Every person can judge for himself if a statement is completely bogus. Personally i support both your statement and Rootology statement as i can deduct the danger of "WikiSpam Incorporated, PR Division", while i can also understand the value paid editors could have, provided they stay within policy boundries.

I do agree that "Paid editing" is to broad to form any policy - but isn't that a good thing? A discussion can narrow this down, and at the same time we can be certain we didn't leave any important issues out of consideration. On a different sidenote: Isn't the "Blocking all spam agency's" statement is a bit of a moot policy? I am certain that if an experienced wikipedian created a second account for promotional purposes, his or her knowledge would be sufficient bypass both new page and regular patrols trough creating a quality article with some positive bias. Even if we noice an article is slightly promotional we still need to assume good faith. And lets be honest: If a corporation would be serious about selling these services, it would take a lot more effort to root out then, for example, the average sockpuppet user. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 17:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

It's worth remembering that role accounts and sockpuppets are forbidden. Wasn't it MyWikiBiz's use of a role account that led to their banning? Computerjoe's talk 18:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

For what its worth I fully agree with Jimbos stance on this. To my mind this deserves a zero tolerance policy. We are assuming in good faith that paid editing will amount to peacockery at the most. In reality the money is not in trying to spruce up the notability of some borderline companies, the money is in removing negative information about some of the very affluent subjects we already cover. The money is in adjusting policy, it is in removing 'trouble makers'. While 'outsiders' with COI editing articles are of only limited danger because of their limited areas of interest and unsophisticated approach to wikipedia, once we establish a culture of paid editing, this will inevitably spill over to administrative actions and policy formulation. Unomi (talk) 18:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

• Unomi, how do you know such things aren't happening already? Our current system is defective because it provides an advantage to those who don't reveal their identities. I say who I am, and all it gets me is lots of suspicion and assumptions of bad faith. Somebody else can edit on the sly and not have to put up with that (at least not until somebody outs them). Is the answer to require all editors to identify themselves? Jehochman ^Talk 19:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I have no idea to what degree that is happening now, we have had some recent and high profile cases of COI being discovered. We also see that there is an admin who is offering his 'wikipedia experience' for the highest bidder. So there is some indication that such things do happen. As it stand now, however, we expect the Sam Blacketers and Nicholas A.s to be reprimanded and likely to lose their positions of influence. I must admit, I have no idea who you are. But if you yourself is a person with a bone in the whole COI game then you likely should not be playing such an active part in the Sam Blacketer drama. I very much doubt that a broad acceptance of pay-per-edit will induce any kind of full disclosure, that would only serve to undermine their credibility and leverage. Unomi (talk) 19:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I earn a living as a marketing consultant, specializing in online marketing. You're making an inappropriate ad hominem argument when you say I should not be involved in X because of who I am. I am free to comment just as much as anybody else. My user page says exactly who I am, and anybody is free to check me out and see for themselves. Please don't discourage participation by casting doubts on people because of how they make a living. Jehochman ^Talk 20:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Like I said, I had no idea who you were or how you are making a living. What I said was that if you had a bone in the COI game then you should probably not be playing such a large part in the discussion. Please refer to WP:COI and the line then we very strongly encourage you to avoid editing Wikipedia in areas where there is a conflict of interest that would make your edits non-neutral (biased).. I would imagine that your involvement in voluminous drama regarding what some on ANI have characterized as the appearance that what's being protecting isn't BLP concerns, but Wikipedia's rep., could potentially be construed as COI. Let me ask you this, have you edited any articles regarding or on behalf of any of your clients? Unomi (talk) 20:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I am not sure if I have a bone in the game, but I do have a unique perspective and would like to share my opinions with the rest of the community. As for paid editing, I don't do it because it is not compatible with being an administrator, and frankly, there are more profitable things I can do with my time, such as overhauling website code or helping people spend their ad budgets more effectively. Jehochman ^Talk 20:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I doubt that anyone will really mind what you do for a living - i think that people will mind a lot more what your intentions for editing are. If an editor is paid to monitor and update a company article while remaining clearly within policy boundries i would argue that while a CoI is present, my opinion is we could overlook it in case the edits are non biased and high quality. If however, the job description reads "Make our article as fancy as possible, and make us look as near to perfect as can be" then yes, there should be a topic or indef ban. The CoI policy is there for a reason, and wikipedia is after all, not some form of marketing instrument. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 20:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I agree with you. I used to spend a lot of time at WP:COIN and saw many, many cases of COI editing. The problem is widespread. Jehochman ^Talk 20:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

• Unomi, how do you know where the money is? Are you just guessing, or have you taken time to talk to people who have actually been paid to write articles and spoken to people who are willing to pay about what their motivations and desires are? I have been offered to be paid several times, and I can tell you from my experience that what you state are the goals of people who are willing to pay for work on Wikipedia, it is not what their stated goals are. -->David Shankbone 19:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I am just guessing. It should be clear that established identities that are notable and affluent enough to already have articles would have more money to throw around on PR than companies that are borderline notability cases. Consider for example Ronald Perelman, with a bit more sophistication the 'official biographer' could have hired an editor with influence to wikilawyer blp violations and undue to remove pretty much whatever they wanted. Unomi (talk) 19:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

In regards to the two statements above: Personally i think we are only uncovering the top of the iceberg when we talk about coi conflicts. I cannot provide exact data, but seeing that on some days the amount of CoI editors blocked trough WP:UAA by a single editor can be more then two hands can count, we can conclude there is a lot of CoI. I did not even include the ones that are spammy, buy have no violation based upon their username. A massive amount of these are companies, so if we conclude small time companies edit their own entries, i assume we can be sure the big ones do likewise.

Again not relying on data, i think we can easily conclude that "Hiring" editors would seem like a fantastic means to promote a company, at least unless you end up in a PR nightmare after being discovered. Think about it: A detailed entry on one of the most popular sites of the internet, which doesn't cost a thing and can be edited at will? Compare that with the average cost a "Normal" PR campaign would cost for that exposure and it would look like an instant easy win. Likewise, if an entry start leaning towards the negative side this can be quite bad for business. And who would be the best people for this? Established editors or administrators - people who know the rules and who can influence a community trough their reputations or status. The morale of this story? I think that regardless of policy - be it tolerate, regulate or forbid - we can never really stop this behaviour. If not due to or ability to detect it, then due to our ability to prevent it. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 20:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I'm sure this comment will get missed in all the hubub, but ho-hum. I've been an editor for 6 months and contributed quite heavily for the last 6 or 7 weeks. This is my first comment about "paid editing". I've looked at this issue and think that I would be against an explicit policy - edits against consensus/policy/guideline are bad edits whether the reason for them is vandalism, misunderstanding, bias or money. In Excirical's example above, a "free" entry on wp must still be substantiated, it would still require coverage in good ol WP:RS and the only benefit is that googling the company name put's our page above theirs... I've created a few pages here, and am confident that if someone approached me to create a page for them I could do it without notice. It would be balanced, establish notability and cover all the bases, and if my client wanted to spend more money for a positive spin I would explain that they were wasting their time - WP:NODEADLINE means that at some point (next minute, month or year) it would be reverted and balanced. If paid "advocating" is unwanted I believe the exisiting policies and guidelines are robust enough to deal with it, and if someone wants to offer money for editing it will be done, policy or no policy, just as there are undetected sockpuppets, meat puppets and whatnots. Bigger digger (talk) 10:49, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Thanks rootology for notifying me of this thread. To clarify my rather vague statement I made earlier, I resigned as an administrator in April to pursue my off-WP writings and photography, along with my full-time job as a designer and coordinator for a private university. I had a lack of time in dealing with the usual drama and ongoings at WP, and felt it best to resign the bit' and (now) edit semi-frequently.

With that, I don't edit much anymore because of potential conflicts of interests with four very large web-sites that I manage. I spend hundreds of hours a year researching various topics and then photographing them, and I rarely have the time to copyedit every one of them into WP. It also eliminates a potential COI when dealing with other editors.

As for my function at the university, one of my tasks is to update, periodically, our university's article. I haven't done any clean sweeps nor removals; I only add content or modify content with information that is sourced directly from our publications and web-sites, or from accompanying articles and publications. It's not paid advocacy because thus far I have not advocated for or against anything, and is only to plug in information where none frankly existed. The article sucked and was sorely lacking content, to be honest. That's very different than one running an operation for external clients to purely advocate a certain fringe POV upon a certain and dedicated article, and that's not what I am doing or advocating for.

One year later, not one individual has come up against my potential COI because I strive not to have a bias to or against the university. I've authored numerous GA's and have done a lot of work for many articles on WP, and not once has the speckle of COI come up until now -- and after my own admission. I'd like to keep it that way. seicer | talk | contribs 00:07, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I know of a university employee who took the article on her university to FA status, i.e. she was being paid to do so. I know because I helped copyedit the artice (for free). I don't see anything wrong with what she was doing because she was following the rules. Cla68 (talk) 00:33, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I haven't done that much to even get it to GA status, let alone FA. I am primarily just adding content and copyediting, although I haven't touched the article in weeks due to time constraints. It's not my sole duty, let alone with any importance, and I am paid the same whether or not I edit the article. seicer | talk | contribs 00:37, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Thank you Seicer. I recommend against that sort of editing, recommending instead that you interact on the talk page and ask other editors to actually edit the article. I assume here that you have previously disclosed, when editing the article, that you work at the university. And this is also the sort of example that explains why COI is a guideline and not an absolute prohibition. This is very different from someone putting up a website offering article editing as a service.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I formerly did on my user page, although I long ago removed that due to workplace harassment. seicer | talk | contribs 00:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Do you recommend that sort of editing only in case of "paid COI" or also in other cases? (The encyclopedia might be a better place if anybody with a strong interest in a given country, religion, or issue was only allowed to edit the talk page instead of the nationalistic edit wars that Wikipedia is so famous for. Or it might be a worse place because people actually interested in a topic are supposed to not edit it.) And when do you think bias should be declared? I recall that you opposed the declaration of political bias on userpages (userboxes); why is your university or company affiliation (affecting your neutrality in potentially the same way) so very different? Kusma (talk) 07:01, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

[5] First I get banned for BS and now the Taleb article is getting out of hand and has been escalated to WP:Office. Since Taleb has recently been the subject of the Wall Street journal as a potential target of death threats [6] This after no administrator did anything to the perceived harassing editors. NOTHING. But one administrator took time out from their busy, to post a remark on my talk page. Singled me out and then repeatedly blames me for pointing out them being hypocritical in their behavior. The admin blew me off and went back to doing nothing to the opposing editors. This could have been handled by admin without going office. If administrators had followed policy and been fair in the comments and behavior then it could have been handled on the bio talk page. Administrators are still not addressing the abuses of editors on the article harassing the Taleb estate legal rep with comments that they are violating Wikipedia policy by addressing perceived misconduct. No Admin has told the offending editors publicly to stop misusing Wiki policy to end the Taleb estate rep from posting on Wiki. They have instead reported the rep for WP:No legal threat and WP:COI which is reprehensible. This behavior needs to be addressed. Some administrators are too buzy giving knee jerk reaction bans and sarcastic comments to stop behavior that has already been escalated to office. I am requesting an apology and the behavior addressed publicly. If people can post a warning about my comments publicly on my talkpage then their oversights can be correctly publicly to. People's security should matter more then policy. LoveMonkey (talk) 16:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

This user has cross posted from WP:ANI. Suggest keeping the conversation together over there. I for one have no idea what this user is talking about. Jehochman ^Talk 16:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I agree, this is not the right place for this at this time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Alright Jimbo I'll take it to ANI. LoveMonkey (talk) 17:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

As far as I sm concerned "Paid advocacy in article space" is already against WP:NPOV policy and WP:COI guideline. Jimbo, what changes, if any, would you like to see made to those to make this clear? I would like WP:COI to be made policy and tightened up as (in my opinion) people with conflicts of interest have watered it down. WAS 4.250 (talk) 18:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Well, I agree with you on both counts. I think it needs to be made clearer that "I am getting paid by the subject of the article to edit the article (as opposed to making suggestions in the talk page, writing an article on a different website, etc.)" is paid advocacy of the kind in conflict with policy. That's very different from "I have a job as a professor and we are encouraged to contribute to Wikipedia about things that we know about" or "I am participating in a government funded project to improve the quality of Wikipedia entries". There are many subtleties. I think it's pretty easy to know the difference, and hard to write it down precisely.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I know it when I see it. The answer, my colleagues, is to judge the edits rather than the editor. Editors should be encouraged to reveal their potential conflicts so that their contributions can be scrutinized appropriately, but the existence of potential conflicts should not be used as mud to throw during arguments, as was done here and here. Jehochman ^Talk 19:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Jehochman, your user page says you are Jonathan E. Hochman. I remember you from the SEO discussions that Durova was involved with and remember you as some sort of SEO guy. Is this: [www.hochmanconsultants.com Hochman Consultants » Internet Marketing, SEO, PPC, Web Development] you? Would someone who makes money on such things want Wikipedia's rules on COI to be lax? I think so. So do you disclose this COI in every post you make trying to argue for lax COI standards? WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Wow, that's an awfully presumptuous and incorrect post. I provide full disclosure of my identity, write featured articles, and what do I get? Assumptions of bad faith. Shame on you. Jehochman ^Talk 21:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I am not being presumptuous nor am I making assumptions. I am drawing conclusions from evidence. I think your self interests with regard to Wikipedia COI rules are at odds with what is good for the Wikipedia community's ability to maintain neutral articles. Shame on you. WAS 4.250 (talk) 22:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Okay, think whatever you want, but my respect for you just dropped from a pretty high level to something less. Jehochman ^Talk 22:07, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

(ec) Let's cool down a little please. No one can accuse me of being Jehochman's advocate,[7] but this goes more than a little bit far. I've never known Jehochman to cash in on his editing work, nor to attempt to manipulate Wikipedia's policies for the benefit of his colleagues. There's a big gulf between what Jehochman is and does, versus a functionary who runs undisclosed sock accounts to cash in on his Wikipedia ops. Durova^Charge! 22:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Self interest colors one's views. It does not have to be conscious, does not have to involve overt cashing in, does not have to involve conscious manipulations. Self interest often takes the form of people honestly believing certain things and feeling their acting on those beliefs has nothing to do with their self interests. That's just how the human mind works. That's why judges recuse - not because anyone thinks they will deliberately make self-serving decisions. WAS 4.250 (talk) 22:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Your argument appears to be hypocritical, because you do not seem to have disclosed your identity. For all we know, you could have all sorts of hidden biases. Why should an editor who discloses their identity, thereby inviting scrutiny of their edits be treated worse than somebody who remains anonymous? The assumption of good faith should apply to all editors, at least until they demonstrate otherwise through their actions. Jehochman ^Talk 22:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I agree with you that "The assumption of good faith should apply to all editors, at least until they demonstrate otherwise through their actions". I am judging you on your actions, both on and off Wikipedia. I think you should recuse yourself from COI discussions. Obviously you feel different; just as initially Jimbo felt ok with editing the Wikipedia BLP on him. I am accusing you of being like Jimbo and being on at least one issue blind to how your self interest might color your beliefs and actions. That's not such a bad accusation is it? I accuse you of being human. WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Yes, it is a very bad accusation to say that somebody is a second class member of the community, not entitled to participate in important policy matters that affect them. Every person in the community deserves to participate in any policy discussion as they like, as long as they are not disruptive. People have a right to a voice in all matters important to them. This is a fundamental human right. Jehochman ^Talk 03:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I think this conversation illustrates some of the difficulties in arriving at a COI policy that meets with general consensus. I want it tighter. You don't. I think people with COI problems are on your side; and frankly everyone has views that are colored by self-interest - but not everyone edits articles or policy discussions that are on issues related to their self interests. Well, Wikipedia is a work in progress and you nor I nor Jimbo are perfect but we are all assets to Wikipedia (and more importantly, to the free culture movement that gave birth to it). WAS 4.250 (talk) 05:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

We'd be foolish to deny that at any given moment in time, someone who is editing en.wiki is being paid for doing so. Perhaps they are the employee of a company or an individual, or a PR agent for record label or film studio, or even a freelancer trying to make a buck.. It's already happening, we only catch the ones who flagrantly disregard our editorial policies & guidelines.. As long as Wikipedia sits at the top of the search results, this will not change - no matter how many policies we create to disallow it. We need to acknowledge this and ensure these sort of editors understand that peacocking and whitewashing are blockable offenses and that they aren't exempt from WP:V, WP:RS or WP:OR just because they are being paid to edit by the company/person that an article is about. IMHO, --Versageek 19:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I'd also like to see COI become policy, but as Jimbo says, it's hard to get the wording right. We don't want to be discouraging people with expertise, which a badly worded COI policy could end up doing. I opened a discussion about this here in March, WAS, if you'd like to comment. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Would they actually care if we put policies in place? As we both seem to agree on we only catch a fraction of the total amount of CoI accounts; I assume any somewhat long term editor is proficient enough in wikipedia usage to evade most forms of detection for at least some time. I would personally prefer if we simply blocked all clear WP:SPA or advertising accounts on sight, but we have to be realistic and admit that we currently have a hard time to detect them, let alone block them. Therefore i would much rather legalise and regulate/monitor the few CoI editors who wish to work withing the guidelines, then seeing them slip under the detection net. The ones who don't follow that rule can of course be removed trough whatever means necesarily. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 20:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I don't think "we can't catch everyone" is a sufficient reason to not have a policy. One of the things that the current situation prevents is someone successfully setting up a service promising to create articles or modify them for a fee and advertising for it on a blog or whatever. The last thing we would ever want from the point of view of NPOV and our public image of integrity is the notion floating around that "If you want a p.r. puff piece in Wikipedia, it's easy to do, because they are very corruptible. Just hire one of the admin-run services to do it for you. Wikipedians are cool with payola." That's just totally never ever going to be acceptable. If instead such services are - quite rightly - treated as being shady, then sure, of course, some amount of corruption always goes on... it's the way of the world. We stop it when we can, and make sure it doesn't become dominant... we're easily able to do that, and we should.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I don't think Rootology's RfC was a biased approach in any way or form. I understand that you (Jimbo) don't want people openly advertising their services for editing Wikipedia. I suggest that instead of establishing as our de facto policy that paid editing is ok as long as its secret (don't ask, don't tell), instead the existing policies on NPOV, edit warring, and reliable sources be strengthened and enforced better. If editors are abiding by those policies, then it really doesn't matter whether they are being paid to do so, does it? Cla68 (talk) 00:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

The RFC got off to a pollyana start by discussing "Is Paid Editing a problem?" with the scenario of an excellent article being created, where the creator had been paid. That's lovely, but what is more likely (see links above) is that shills will offer to promote an individual or organization. Presumably an annual protection fee would ensure that the created article doesn't deviate far from the wanted POV. Providing such an arrangement went undetected, it would be very hard for an occasional editor to combat bias in a sponsored article. We can't stop shill editing, but we can make it clear that it is not welcome. This is a question of integrity, not some imaginary freedom. Johnuniq (talk) 04:50, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I believe we should have a clear division between the two extremes we are discussing. On the one side we have the perfect article created trough payment, and on the other side we have the "Pay for PoV" article. For the first we should maintain a "don't ask, don't tell" policy as it was called above. In other words: If we cannot see anything is wrong with an editor, we can hardly accuse them. As for the second option i wholehearthy agree with a hardline policy - if we can see its clear CoI and point pushing, it is simply against the rules, with consequences up to a indef block. Should we explicitely welcome paid users? No, absolutely not. Should we make explicit rules to block every single one of them? Also, no. I would say we should keep it as is: Silenly acknowledge the fact they are out there, and only take action if we find them; Because once we do, they are certain to be in violation of current COI, NPOV, ADVERT, SPAM and likely a bunch of other guidelines. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 07:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

The problem is the POV, not the pay. We should ban people who use Wikipedia for advocacy. Period. This includes people who use Wikipedia for advocacy because they get paid for it, and people who use Wikipedia for advocacy because they feel their religion is the only truth, and people who use Wikipedia for advocacy because they want to help starving children in Africa. Kusma (talk) 07:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

But if you do that, my dear Kusma, there will be no one left to write the bloody encyclopedia. Especially if you also ban those who advocate Wikipedia or have ever made a COI edit. Hell, then you'd have to ban the owner of this talkpage. And that wouldn't go over too well, would it:)--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 07:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Problem: We now have a large discussion (here and RFC) arising from a "Cash for spam" posting on Jimbo's talk page (above). After that, Wikipedia's integrity will suffer if we decide that there is no particular reason to say "paid advocacy is wrong and will be blocked". In an academic paper, one may well argue that POV advocacy is the problem, so there is no need to also ban paid advocacy. However, we can't duck the issue now: Yes or no, should Wikipedia block a user believed to have been paid to promote an individual or organization or point of view? Johnuniq (talk) 07:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Paid to promote a viewpoint? Yes. We already have a battery of policy missiles in place to nuke that down. See WP:NPOV, WP:Advert, WP:SPAM, WP:NOR, WP:COI, WP:NOTADVERTISING and i can likely go on a while quoting policies. But i really doubt that this is, or should be the issue. I think the issue should be the grey area in the middle where CoI editors actually do a fine job editing article's. Should be ban Microsoft employees for keeping microsoft products up to date? Should we ban apple employees for creating a new subsection on the IPod article? In other words: Should we ban editors because they admit they have a CoI, if their edits don't show this? Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 08:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Indeed. I believe we should allow Microsoft employees to write about Microsoft products, just as we allow Catholics to write about Catholicism. We should ban Catholics who push a Catholic POV, we should ban Microsoft employees who push a Microsoft POV. Actually, we should also ban Catholics who push a Microsoft POV, and Microsoft employees who push a Catholic POV, no matter whether they get paid for it or not. In other words, it is what an editor does that we should be concerned with, not why they do it. (This is in a a way an extension of "comment on content, not the contributor", part of our civility rules). Kusma (talk) 09:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Excirial: You make good points, but you did not address my concern (the issue of what to say about paid advocacy). My view is that we can confidently assert that an editor who accepts commissions to write promotional puff pieces has a COI problem that cannot be overcome, and is not wanted here. Such a rule need have no practical effect other than to establish our integrity. Johnuniq (talk) 11:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I believe that if we can say with confidence that an article has a CoI editor, he or she is already violating the neutrality guidelines quite blatantly. I assume we could create a seperate guideline that governs this issue, but i wonder if that is not a form of policy creep (After all, we have somewhat more generic guidelines in place that cover it). There is already a footnote that specifically deals with paid editors in the WP:COI article. If we are to take a stance by writing a new policy, i think we should limit it to extending the CoI guidelines to reflect our stance paid editing a bit better. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 12:29, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Within paid editing there is a spectrum of activities:

1. If somebody's job responsibility is to monitor their organization's Wikipedia entry and transparently request corrections on the talk page, to revert vandalism, and to enforce WP:BLP, such actions are acceptable and even encouraged by our policies.
2. If somebody has a job for a company and they decide to edit that organization's Wikipedia entry, there is a chance those edits could be harmless, or they could be biased.
3. If that same person edits a competitor's entry, that would be apparent or actual impropriety.
4. If an editor advertises their services for editing, and does that editing in a non-transparent way, we have a definite problem.

I think we need to make a few changes:

• WP:COI should be upgraded to policy. The time has come.
• The advertising of Wikipedia article editing services should be strictly forbidden, except with the express consent of the Wikimedia Foundation. I'd expect that permission would not be given to commercial enterprises, but might be given for something like government grants to scholars. WMF has rights to the Wikipedia trademark (I hope). Thus, they have the right to prevent that Trademark from being used in trade without their permission.
• Paid editing by consultants or employees must be transparent, and comply with all policies. Paid editors need to disclose their real world identities and affiliations prior to making an such edits. Failure to disclose would be grounds for immediate blocking or topic banning. Violations of policies by properly disclosed editors would be dealt with as usual, observing do not bite the newcomers.
• Reward editing, such as Wikipedia:Reward board and Wikipedia:Barnstars should be exempted from any of the above restrictions. Our own incentive programs are already regulated by the community.

Somebody could fine tune these proposals and try to get them approved. Jehochman ^Talk 14:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure trademark law helps. One can use a company's name in a description of services without invoking trademark law, as long as it does not cause confusion as to the source, sponsorship, or affiliation of the services. You'd probably have to come up with a more creative legal theory, like inducing breach of contract. And build the COI avoidance / no fake account rule into the terms of use. Mike Godwin is up on all that I'm sure. Wikidemon (talk) 19:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Whatever the legal rationale may or may not be, I think the point is that the community doesn't want people advertising paid editing services. Jehochman ^Talk 02:52, 12 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

The community can't stop folks from advertising paid Wikipedia editing services, but it can stop accounts openly or clearly linked with such advertising from editing. On the other hand, if an account is editing within policy so carefully that there's no clue the editor behind it is being paid (and this indeed happens every day here), it's more or less the same as any PoV and advocacy brought to en.WP by so many unpaid editors. Hence I wouldn't see a need for rooting them out, it's not the slippery slope towards fund-raising banner ads on Wikipedia offering a fast track to a professionally written and sourced encyclopedia article about your notable business, project or interest. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

This discussion arose from a report that someone is soliciting payment as a Wikipedia mercenary. We cannot stop such paid advocacy, but now it's been raised, we have to decide our stance: no problem, but must follow policy or that's ok, but must follow WP:COI or not allowed. Johnuniq (talk) 11:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I'm just going to offer my two cents here, and of course due to the Arbitration Committee deciding on brute force remedies as a "preventive" first resort, it's actually worth about $0.000000002 at current market value. But here goes anyhow. Wikipedia welcomes editors* to contribute what they can give towards Wikipedia's mission. Some editors are placed such that they have acquired a really in-depth knowledge of a particular POV, and knowledge of where the details of this POV can be found in reliable sources. Other editors are placed such that they have no ties to any particular POV, and they can exercise an unfettered judgment about how to include information from the reliable sources on all sides to bring the articles closer to the ideal NPOV. Both editors have a valuable role, but no editor can fulfill both roles. An editor may tell Wikipedia that he can be fully neutral when editing the articles on Blarney's Beer even though he's being paid by the Blarney Brewery to represent them on Wikipedia, and he may fully mean that. But that doesn't mean he's correct. He is most likely not anywhere as neutral as he thinks -- by which I mean "not near enough to neutral for Wikipedia to accept as such". Even if he were completely neutral on the subject of the client that's paying him -- assuming for the sake of argument that that's possible -- it would mean he's performing inadequately in his role as paid representative. And if that editor is neglecting obligations and expectations for which he is taking pay -- even if in completely good faith -- it means we cannot expect that that editor will live up to the obligations and expectations of Wikipedia.

IMHO: Paid representatives should not be forbidden on Wikipedia. But they must declare that paid relationship, and if they do not, it's a serious sign of dishonesty. They also should not be editing the articles on their clients directly, because making the final decision on what should or shouldn't go in the article requires an unbiased judgment which they simply don't have.

• Except for people who edit Scientology articles. They're obviously scum and Wikipedia should drive them all away. -- Antaeus Feldspar (talk) 12:46, 12 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I noticed on Google Earth that the newer articles are not been added like Russell Lake has Wikipedia stop adding to the Google Earth Layer ? Cherry1000 (talk) 01:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I don't really know anything about it, I'm sorry. I don't know things got there in Google Earth in the first place. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 03:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Pardon me for butting in ... my understanding is that it takes them a while for them to update. See for example this page; go to the bottom and notice the update dates for the various layers. If anyone else understands better the process whereby they do this, I'd love to know myself. Antandrus (talk) 03:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, they seem to update every one to three months, per this page. Graham87 03:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Hi Jim. Wondered how important is Wikiproject Biography Thoughts, concerns? ♫ Cricket02 (talk) 01:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Seems important to me, but I suppose the best measure of importance of anything like this depends on the importance it has to the participants.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 03:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

Can I have your autograph on my Talk page please!

Pretty please?--AodhanTheCelticJew (talk) 20:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I've just created Wikipedia:Contract Editing Review. This is kind of a partial implementation of the suggestion you made in your statement. Discussions at the RfC have become very heated. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 01:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)Reply