User:Benjiboi/paid editing draft


 * Wikipedia® is the number 10 website in the world, and the only website in the Alexa Top 20 run by a nonprofit. Despite its low overheads, with only six paid staff, the Foundation has had tremendous difficulty in keeping up with the ever-increasing demand for server hardware, not to mention the bandwidth bill for serving an average 150 megabytes per second, doubling every six months. Slow page loading and frequent downtime remain perennial problems.

Wales rejects a proposal to sell advertising on Wikipedia

WikiProject Spam

Article which also references Cash for Spam

CNN

User:FT2/Commercial and paid editing

User:Jmabel/PR

As of yet paid editing is not a blockable offense under any policy

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.

proclamations of policy that have no community backing have no standing.

not compatible with being an administrator

perception of impropriety, public image of integrity, payola

outright banning of paid editing wouldn't stop it, but only drive it further underground.

"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

the term "paid editing" - as I have said elsewhere - is too imprecise to allow for a nuanced discussion of the issue - Jimmy Wales

A massive amount of these - WP:COIN reports - are companies, so if we conclude small time companies edit their own entries, i assume we can be sure the big ones do likewise.

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.

- 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. ---

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.

-

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

-

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

-

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.

--

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.

---

de facto policy that paid editing is ok as long as its secret (don't ask, don't tell)

-

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

-

policy creep

- do not bite the newcomers.

Paid editing, or editing Wikipedia articles in return for material reward or compensation, raises several concerns. Although there may be some forms of compensation which are generally acceptable, such as the Wikipedia reward board, there are other forms which are considered unacceptable.

Background
Paid editing is a topic that continues to be the subject of many strongly divided discussions, particularly an extensive Requests for comment at Requests for comment/Paid editing in June 2009. Some users support forbidding paid editing altogether, based on the belief that it invites biased contributions and creates more work for the project than it saves. Other users feel that some forms of paid editing have always taken place and remain acceptable if the contributions align with policies and guidelines on content and contributing. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has previously blocked editors, and stated his support for blocking editors who set up an editing service. He added that editors wishing to do so should instead freely license their work and publish it elsewhere allowing Wikipedia editors to use it if they desired.

Wikipedia utilizes WP:Consensus to build content and maintain the project. Using administrator tools or participating in policy discussions for compensation of any kind is strictly forbidden. Advocacy and conflict of interest editing against consensus is also prohibited. Editing in this manner may result in blocks or banning from Wikipedia.

What is paid editing?
Paid editing, broadly construed, is any editing where an editor is being compensated in some way, e.g. employees and contractors for money, students earning a grade and course credit such as School and university projects, recognition from social and business associates, Wikipedians at Bounty board, in-trade compensation, etc. The issues of paid editing tend to focus on the problems rather than any benefits, if someone makes good contributions the edits will likely be kept regardless if the editor is seen as being "paid."

There is stated opposition to Wikipedians setting up an "editing service" and there has traditionally been similar concerns about companies who advertise for someone to write an article about them on Wikipedia. While there is general opposition to promotional editing of any kind, efforts to ban it merely drive it underground. There exists no practical methods to prohibit promotional efforts and some of those edits are supported in policy as the subjects are notable, and claims verifiable in reliable sources. As evidenced in the first formal community discussion on the issue there seemed to be a sense that if things were out in the open, then the usual editing processes would take care of anything egregious.

Quality of editing

 * Paid editors are encouraged to create a user account on Wikipedia, and retain this over time, even if not all their editing is received positively. This helps you to build an accurate reputation, and helps other editors to scrutinize your contributions overall.

If you are uncertain about whether your contribution is appropriate, you can begin by creating the article as a user subpage. To do this, visit your user page and then add to the URL a slash ("/") followed by the name of the subpage. You can then request feedback on your subpage from more experienced users before using the "Move" feature to move it to its correct title.

Advocacy and conflict of interest
Any form of WP:Advocacy, which is any contribution or edit to Wikipedia content that advocates a point of view, is forbidden by WP:NPOV. Significant information and widely held opinions that are documented in reliable sources that are contrary to your point of view or business interests must be included. Wales stated that he felt paid advocates should contribute to articles on the articles' talkpages.
 * Advocacy

The guideline on conflicts of interest (COI) must be observed at all times. Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest. When someone is being compensated, the integrity of the work, including the likelihood the content remains neutral toward those who are doing the compensating, is reasonably considered to be compromised. Editors with COIs are strongly encouraged to declare their interests, both on their user pages and on the talk page of any article they edit, particularly if those edits may be contested. Using administrator tools for compensation is strictly forbidden.
 * Conflict of interest

Consensus

 * All content is edited mercilessly, sometimes very quickly. Make sure your employer(s) understand this in advance. If you create an article that is not in compliance with Wikipedia's policies on notability and reliable sourcing it will likely be deleted. Do not game the system to prevent this.

Policy discussions:

At XfD: For instance, if a paid editor, whether anyone knows they are paid or not is the primary author of an AfD'd article we want them to participate so the discussion is productive. Anyone meatpuppeting, however, will be blocked.

Copyright material

 * Do not copy material verbatim from an employer's website or publications, unless they have donated the material as described at Donating copyrighted materials. Simply telling you that you can use it is not sufficient to comply with Wikipedia's legal requirements. You can use those as self-published sources if you attribute them accurately.
 * Do not submit to Wikipedia any newly written materials that are a work for hire with copyright owned by the person or company paying you, unless that copyright owner has specifically granted permission for the material under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and that grant is confirmed through the OTRS process. This issue can apply to independent contractors, as well as to employees, and the legal issue will also vary by jurisdiction.

How to handle paid editing issues
All editors should be extended good faith that they are here to help improve the encyclopedia. If concerns are civilly addressed we hope that editors will abide by policies and guidelines on content and conduct. If you are dealing with an editor new to Wikipedia consider adding welcome to their talkpage and add a note if you have a specific concern. Administrator intervention may be needed if neutrality policies are being compromised; you may need to seek assistance at the Conflict of Interest noticeboard.