Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-07-23/Op-ed




 * ''David King is the founder of EthicalWiki, a firm specializing in Wikipedia–commercial relations. The views expressed are those of the author only; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section.


 * The Signpost welcomes proposals for op-eds. If you have one in mind, please leave a message at the opinion desk.

There has never been a better time to improve the behavior of marketing professionals on Wikipedia. For the first time we're seeing self-imposed statements of ethics. Professional PR bodies around the globe have supported the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) guidance for ethical Wikipedia engagement (not to directly edit articles). Although their tone is different, CREWE and the PRSA have brought more attention to the issues. Awareness among PR professionals is rising. So are the number of paid editing operations sprouting up and the opportunity for dialogue.

We have an opportunity to shape this relationship, influence behavior, establish processes, set policy and improve administration. If we can establish a beneficial relationship with companies, we can improve Wikipedia's credibility by reducing overt advertising, while reducing the burden of policing disruptive COIs. We can transform disruptive editors into helpful ones and maybe even turn some PR people into volunteers. To get there, we need to identify a more natural and productive relationship between PR people and Wikipedians.

A natural role
Our approach to COI often tries to transform PR people into Wikipedians. We ask COIs to write as if they don't have a conflict of interest (but we do), try to avoid bias (but we are) and learn Wikipedia's rules (but most of us don't want to). It's unnatural for any independent news and information source to ask PR professionals to play the role of journalist to cover their own story. This is our instinct as Wikipedians - to share and teach our culture, process and rules.

Rather than putting PR professionals in the role of reporting on themselves, while simultaneously cautioning against it, a more natural relationship would be to encourage companies to do public relations on Wikipedia, instead of paid editing. Public relations is about helping journalists (citizen journalists in this case) cover the story with resources, expertise and content.

For example, imagine the range of circumstances, where doing PR on Wikipedia is universally helpful and less controversial:
 * Every PR agency could have an intern share their media coverage reports on the Talk page for sources in the article. 51 percent of article tags on company articles have to do with needing more citations.
 * I wrote most of the article on Edelman years ago, but the Talk page still has dozens of paid-access sources. The article would get improved if Edelman could provide the full text of these sources.
 * In improving articles on the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and Cornerstone Barristers, in both cases the company could have answered questions I had on the Talk page.
 * I find that in our effort to present all majority and minority viewpoints, the company's own point-of-view is rarely presented on issues they're involved in. PR is the best place to get this perspective that is currently missing (and balance it with other perspectives)

This is a more natural relationship analogous to the non-controversial ways PR works with professional journalists. We respect a journalist's autonomy, their right to publish the article how they please and the expectation that they will write in a tone that serves their readers. However, the journalist finds value in working with a PR professional, who makes it easier for them to write the story by being a resource.

It would be a positive thing for Wikipedia to see a day where we could go to the article on any major brand, find their PR person on the Talk page and ask them for sources on their latest acquisition or technical help understanding their latest standard.

What we can do
Today the clear and obvious path for PR professionals is to edit Wikipedia and see what sticks. We caution against editing with a COI, but make poor behavior the easiest, fastest and most effective way to contribute. We create an "ethics tax" because it's harder and generates less "results" to do Wikipedia properly.

I suggest we take a proactive role in discouraging bad behavior. We can raise our content standards, investigate undisclosed paid editing, and embarrass companies for clear censorship attempts in situations where we can't reasonably AGF.

On the other hand, instead of merely throwing cautions everywhere for PR editing, we can give them clear instructions on how to contribute in ways that are generally accepted, helpful and less controversial. There's an essay in the works along these lines of providing advice for participation that has broader acceptance and is less controversial. Whatever your opinion is on COI, most of us can agree that companies donating images, sharing sources and answering questions are helpful ways to improve Wikipedia's coverage of companies that should actually be encouraged.

We can also improve the clarity of the COI guideline, create an AFC-like system for edit COIs, give companies a method to voluntarily block their IP address and improve templates. Let's give companies a better opportunity to contribute in ways that are helpful and make disruptive and promotional behavior less appealing.