Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-08-12/Forum

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Just one quibble. I don't undestand Sportsguy saying "not all paid editors and COI editors are here for their own benefits..." Aren't paid editors here because they are paid? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:31, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Demur - many people with clear "conflicts" hold their beliefs independently of their "job." As one example - suppose a person interested in (say) Gnarphia edited a very large number of Gnarphia related articles - I would suggest that he (or she) was doing so out of actual personal interest, no? A doctor who specializes in treatments for Cholophilia (tis is supposed to be a fully fake term here unlikely to have any article - if it means something, I apologize) should reasonably be expected to be interested on articles about his speciality. That doctor is being "paid" (in a very strict sense, to be sure) but the issue we ought to be concerned with "Is the person making edits , and receiving payment (of any form) for those edits.

As long as the requirements for reliable sourcing applicable to the topic are met, and the general Wikipedia policies and guidelines are closely adhered to, I am not too worried.

What would be of concern is if Wikipedia became "Paypedia" - that is where commercial entities told "customers" that they could make a favourable Wiki article for $X, just as I find the "purchase" of followers on Twitter to be nicely absurd. More to the point, editors who hold "personal opinions" which outweigh their willingness to abide by policies and guidelines actually applicable to the end product of Wikipedia are far more of a problem than the editor who dares to write "d**n" in a post not part of the final product - articles and the material related thereto. (Wikipedia:Wikipedia and shipwrights) Collect (talk) 15:29, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

@CorporateM: thanks for putting this together, nice work. Gamaliel (talk) 15:16, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

No problem! Thanks to everyone that participated. Sometimes we only hear from people with the loudest microphone that have the most extreme viewpoints, so this was an opportunity to hear from editors with more well-rounded views that are not often heard. I'm a personal fan of @Smartse: and his devotion to following high-quality sources; also, he expertly up-roots even the smallest bias in my COI work, all without a hint of drama. So it was no surprise that I also found his contribution better than anything I could have written myself.

Regarding the discussion above, a POV pusher is basically just an editor with strong opinions that are not reflected in the source material and not supported by the majority demographic of editors (for example, open-source advocates are not considered POV pushers, because everyone supports their editing agenda). I think most PR people, article-subjects, etc. edit based on their personal views just like any POV pusher, but their conflicted motives, exposure to corporate kool-aid, and a desire to please their paymaster create very extreme views, thus they become POV pushers. Most POV pushers, including conflicted ones, are acting in good faith and just believe in the rightness of their edits. Paid editing firms are a little different in that their motives are more purely financial, but even in my sponsored work I find myself developing complex personal views and being upset if an editor makes changes I don't think are very good. This personal investment is true even though the edits don't effect my pocketbook and even when those edits are promotional and/or benefit the article-subject, but are still not very good. CorporateM (Talk) 17:36, 14 August 2015 (UTC)