User talk:SlimVirgin/No paid advocacy

All paid editing?
The way you have it written now (especially criterion 2) makes it apply to pretty much all paid editing. Was that your intention? If so, then I think we are treading on the same ground as the failed proposal at WP:Paid editing (policy). I'm going to edit it to be radically different in a way that I think might have a better chance of consensus. You can revert back but consider it carefully first please. Gigs (talk) 02:34, 27 October 2012 (UTC)


 * No, it wasn't my intention. Feel free to play around with it. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:53, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Dissection of phrases I think are problematic

 * "those who are paid to edit Wikipedia" -  PR and marketing people aren't paid to edit Wikipedia.  They are paid to manage a client's public image.
 * "Paid advocacy refers to those who " - How can an action refer to a person?
 * " organizations, or who in some other way derive a financial benefit from using Wikipedia" - A political campaign doesn't get a financial benefit from whitewashing an article.

Gigs (talk) 02:40, 27 October 2012 (UTC)


 * As above, please feel free to refine, modify, etc. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:56, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, give it a look. I actually left the scope of the bottom applying to all paid editing, which I'm not sure is a great idea, but paid editing does lead to a risk of paid advocacy, so we might be able to talk about it here.  I need to review the old failed policy to see what the feedback on it was that lead to its failure.  I think I might have even commented on it, but it's been a long time so I don't remember. Gigs (talk) 03:07, 27 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll also look back at the failed proposals and the RfCs (lots of reading!), to see what kinds of paid editing people wanted to protect. We can just list them (this policy does not apply to x, y and z). SlimVirgin (talk) 03:32, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Conflict between definition in the lead, and definition in scope
I don't think the lead is consistent with the scope section. In the lead you define paid advocates as those that derive a financial benefit from promoting or protecting the interests of certain individuals or organizations on Wikipedia, contrary to Wikipedia's mission to provide neutral and unbiased coverage of topics, which I would read to apply to individuals specifically hired to do that. Prohibiting those specific individuals from direct editing may well make it to consensus. The problem is that the scope section then expands what is covered substantially, including those who are paid as representatives, whether or not paid to edit wikipedia and whether or not directed to edit it fairly. It also includes, amongst others, stakeholders. First, many of those classes have members that could well edit fairly, and are much less clear cases. Particularly the stakeholders language, which could be read to be extraordinarily broad. I'm a stakeholder in Wikipedia, even if I don't derive financial benefit from editing it, I care about it. Even if we limit it to financial stakeholders, does having some shares of Microsoft stock in your portfolio make you a paid advocate? I would say not. What about if you concentrated your entire retirement fund in its stock? Likewise, just because you are an employee at Microsoft doesn't mean you have an irreconcilable conflict of interest, why can't the Janitor edit the Microsoft article? While you are of course free to propose it as is, I think your much more likely to get support for an editing restriction on paid advocates if you have as narrow a coverage as possible. Monty 845  21:09, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I would also mention that the above issue is only really a problem when we talk about an actual prohibition on editing. We can provide advice that is unclear about who is included, as is in the current guidelines, without it being an acute issue because we are merely advising. Editors are free to disregard the advice, or decide it doesn't apply to them. When we switch to enforcing a restriction, the precise scope of who the restriction applies to is fundamental to any attempt at enforcement, and being overly inclusive has the potential to create a much larger harm. Monty  845  21:20, 27 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that we have to be careful with the scope of the lower section. I'm about to start reading all the previous RfCs and proposals about this to see what people objected to, and then (if I ever make it to the end of the reading) try to find words so we don't include things that people saw as legitimate (such as helping museums). SlimVirgin (talk) 21:46, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

re "Paid advocates may suggest changes on article talk pages"
I have a big problem with "Paid advocates may suggest changes on article talk pages". In practice, this devolves to "Paid advocates may post a completely new, entirely re-written version of their client's article, which presents their client in an entirely favorable light, on the article talk page. Paid advocates may include in this new version such GA-worthy enticements as plenty of properly formatted refs, lots of attractive pictures, proper sectioning and formatting and professional-level prose and so forth. Paid advocates may then be assured that some other editor will happily post the new version (perhaps with unimportant changes after some desultory conversation) over the existing article, and Bob's your uncle."

There are number of reasons why the second editor will do this favor. Some editors are committed libertarians and, assuming the client is a private entity, are glad to help valorize a private entity. Some editors are naive, or credible, or just eager to please a fellow person. Some will be seduced by all the GA-level foofraw, which is only human and understandable. These people are professionals at this, after all, and most editors are really no match for them in terms of mind games. Even some fairly simple flattery can be effective, in my experience. (Beyond all this, there's always the possibility of the second editor being in on the deal.)

So at the very least we'd need to prohibit this. I'm not sure how, though. Herostratus (talk) 02:36, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If the replacement draft is an improvement, and not overly promotional or a drastic reduction in well sourced negative information, I don't see what the problem is. Gigs (talk) 01:52, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If. Herostratus (talk) 03:04, 8 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Perhaps Herostratus underestimates Wikipedia editors. Having a well referenced, well formatted text that is CC-BY-SA would be a nice luxury.  If sentences or paragraphs are relevant and check out, why not include them after checking?  Pictures could also be copied directly.  But most of the material would have to be re-written, just like most of the material we include in other contexts. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. The sentence "Paid advocates should provide full disclosure of their conflict of interest on their user page" would cut down on any "ambushes" by PR agents.  I'd think there should also be a requirement that the paid editing should be declared on the talk page.  I doubt there'd be much in the way of silent collaboration between the article editor and the talk page editor.  It should be obvious that this would be against the rules.  As long as it's NOT the case that Bob's your uncle, this should be ok.  Smallbones( smalltalk ) 03:06, 8 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Herostratus, I agree that this is a major problem. I've seen some very poor editing inserted because a paid advocate requested it. There are editors who are almost engaged in WP:POINT over this issue. The truth is that most editors are not familiar with the material they write about on behalf of paid advocates, don't carefully check the sources (or search for missing ones), and therefore aren't in a position to judge whether UNDUE is being violated. On a related note, Jayen has just posted about a German court ruling that says certain forms of paid Wikipedia editing are illegal in Europe. See Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:09, 9 November 2012 (UTC)