User talk:CorporateM/signpost

1. As I have often said,
 * You asked for comments:

a/ promotional articles on commercial products from enthusiastic customers acting independently with no financial COI at all can be as difficult to deal with as those from the company

b/ promotional articles for nonprofits are worse than for profits making firms, because their PR staff is on the average considerably less competent.

c/ Promotional articles for a cause by zealots are the most difficult of any of these, and there is no sharp cut off between promotional zealots and reasonable supporters. 2. A partial solution to the problems of responsibility is to accept corporate users, like the deWP.

3. The German court case was over a rather extreme example of very deliberate deception & manipulation

4. The FTC rules document is fascinating, particularly because they seem to be followed by even responsible US firms as narrowly as possible, print as well as online.

5. Based on the document, there is no way a company can contribute anything to WP because they must give the responsibility for making the statement next to the statement or obviously associated with it, and we permit it only on the contributions p. and the linked talk p.

6. To some extent, our rules for citing can do what I consider the effective equivalent.: According to the company " ..." [link]</ref]. That shows the basis for the statement, tho it does not say who put it on WP. The most practical thing you & I could do at this point is change the rule for role accounts--to in fact make it the exact opposite.: Anyone editing for an organization must edit using the name of the organization as their user name, and prove it thru OTRS As well, possibly, as giving a personal identifier thru at least OTRS.  DGG ( talk ) 04:47, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks DGG. A lot would depend on the situation and how the law was interpreted. Some reactions from the German court case did conclude that there was no lawful way for companies to contribute. I would like to talk to the FTC to see if what I do is considered lawful.


 * It's been argued to me that if the content is sourced to an independent publication, it is not a statement from the company and if it is neutral, it is not covert advertising.


 * So one could argue that properly sourced neutral editing from PR reps is lawful. CorporateM (Talk) 12:15, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I've been thinking further about this aspect too, since there is no really sharp boundary between informational and promotional. The FTC booklet does not discuss this. It refers to claims, of whatever nature, and the problem it addresses is to prevent unfairness & deception. Viewed in one direction, nothing that goes into a WP article should be subject to this, for nothing in a WP article should be addressed to the prospective customer  but rather to the general public. Viewed in another way, the mere fact that someone has thought the subject of the article important enough to add information to, is deceptive if it's someone from the company.  Consider for example an apparently straightforward phrase: "the company operates in 17 countries." Normally, this is documented from the web site, but it can equally well be documented from an annual report, and it could say so in the text, not just a footnote (the FTC apparently considers footnotes as inadequate disclosure). But this   ignore such questions as whether it operates to a significant extent in these countries. Reporting sales in a specific year is misleading unless it is a typical year; even if it is always revised to the latest year, it might be anomalous--financial analysts seem to pay attention to such things.  Referenced facts from reliable sources can be misleading. People with COI will use these consciously--biut all too many naïve WP editors will use the same material because they don;t know netter or don;t think critically.  DGG ( talk ) 02:58, 6 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The reason it doesn't translate nicely is because Wikipedia lacks the concept of authorship. Each tweet, forum post, product review, etc. is written by a single distinct individual based on their personal opinions. It is always misleading to impersonate them and someone with a financial connection will never write a balanced product review on themselves. Unlike other websites, it happens often enough here not to ignore it.


 * Misleading tactics of communication, such as cherry-picking may be distasteful, but they are not illegal.


 * I am less interested in how it translates technically as much as how it translates in-principle, that it's unethical to impersonate a crowd-sourced volunteer and overtly use Wikipedia for advertising and whitewashing. CorporateM (Talk) 03:45, 6 September 2013 (UTC)