Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppetry/Employees

Discussion of proposal

 * Oppose This proposal goes way too far, redefining the serious offense of sock puppetry to include conflicts of interest, even if those conflicts of interest are declared. I am strongly opposed to most paid editing, but if an editor declares that they are an employee of company, and edits that company's article, it's not sock puppetry. Sock puppetry by definition involves dishonesty. DavidinNJ (talk) 05:29, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This is a radical redefinition of sockpuppetry. Advocacy is at best a form of meatpuppetry but even that crime doesn't fit unless the company has its own account in addition to the advocate or unless there are a platoon of advocate editors all working for the same company and engaging in bloc voting. Sockpuppetry is the use of more than one user account by a single individual. A paid advocate might also engage in sockpuppetry, but he's not a sockpuppet by merit of the fact that he's an advocate. -Thibbs (talk) 00:41, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:CREEP. This stuff seems to be being forum-shopped all over and this seems abusive and disruptive.  There should be one centralised RfC, not several. Warden (talk) 18:13, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Some interesting ideas, but overall this is a combination of overly draconian measures, loopholes you could drive a truck through, and claims about what violates Wikipedia's policies that are factually incorrect. This could become a nice essay in userspace, though. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:38, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose. To paraphrase the opening sentence, this proposal is generally unlikely to be generally compatible with the general long-term sustainability of a Wikipedia editable by generally anyone. People generally have jobs and generally this is generally not a problem.  What we do generally might help are some efforts to assist with advocacy, as generally documented in WP:COI, WP:NPOV, and WP:PUPPET.  These policies generally have little to do with each other; it's generally rare to find somebody doing all three.  Separate concepts generally are not helped by confusing, watering down and redefining terms: which is we have disambiguation pages through out Wikipedia.  Keep it simple, keep it focused, and perhaps sharpen the existing policies rather than diluting them. —Sladen (talk) 13:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose: the definition of "non-commercial editing" is begging for arbitrary interpretation, and appears to be designed to allow someone's pet project, Wikipedians in residence, to continue.  We should not care if someone gets paid to edit or not, because it is the content we can and should judge, not the contributor.  We block vandals for committing vandalism, we remove non-English articles because they can't be read by the target audience of this Wikipedia, and we revert weasel words and puffery because there isn't a reliable source to back up an assertion.  We are editors, not cops.  Cops get to posit on motive, editors do not.  If there's a problem, it's with the community's ability to improve articles according to the core content guidelines.  This proposal, which I deem the vaguest of those I have seen in this current round, should be denied.--~TPW 14:10, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose: I really don't like the tone of this article to begin with, not to mention the very strong assumption of bad faith.  Furthermore, I disagree with the opening sentence that paid editing has much if anything to do with sock puppetry.  That some paid editors may engage in sock puppetry is true, but that still is a flat out false statement that being paid to edit Wikipedia is even wrong, much less that every paid editor should be automatically assumed to be engaging in sock puppetry.  Indeed I would dare say that it is entirely possible to be up front about the fact that you are paid by a client or your employer to edit Wikipedia and most definitely not be a sock puppet.  This is on top of other very substantial problems with even the very notion that paid editing is wrong that I strongly disagree with.  Yes, I'm opposed to vandalism but this is simply the wrong way to try to deal with poorly behaving Wikipedia participants that may even be misidentified as paid editors.  --Robert Horning (talk) 18:32, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose, mostly on WP:CREEP grounds. Paid editing is not sock puppetry (though there may be some correlation between the two activities), conflating the two is a mistake, and this proposal is even more sketchy, half-baked, poorly thought through, and with likely bad unintended consequences for expert editors, than the previous three I commented on. At this point this feels like whack-a-mole. Take a break from making new proposal drafts on this topic for say a year, use that time to think about what *activities* you want to prevent rather than what *people* you want to prevent, and stop trying to achieve a victory by exhausting your critics. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:05, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, it seems hard to picture this catching on at this point, but I should just say that I was not trying to "forum shop" here, but rather to offer an alternative concept to the other drafts with what I still think is a somewhat broader theoretical underpinning. Wnt (talk) 00:23, 6 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I think that it is an interesting concept and an intriguing and thought-provoking approach to the problem. However, I think that no proposal on paid editing is going to get anywhere. This is a Foundation issue (see the post on my user page). Coretheapple (talk) 22:46, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I've basically come to agree with Coretheapple on this. I just don't think the community as a whole has the patience and concentration to get this done. There is far too much idealism to overcome to get anywhere meaningful. But I do appreciate the effort, Wnt. You demonstrate the kind of attitude that would guarantee a positive result if more members of the community shared it. -Thibbs (talk) 23:14, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * "Idealism" is charitable. I think "naivete" is a better word. Anyway, I'm about tapped out on this general subject. Sometimes I dive in, see how hopeless it is, and then go on to other things until curiosity brings me back. Pretty much hopeless. Coretheapple (talk) 23:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

(EDIT CONFLICT)
 * Weak Oppose since I agree with Wnt that this proposal currently has little chance of gaining traction. I would also like to thank Wnt for the usual thoughtful and respectful way this has been approached and for helping to clarify some points.


 * Personally, I think it might be useful in WMF projects generally to clarify between three classes of editors so that there is less time and effort devoted to witch sockpuppet hunting. Rooting out sockpuppets is currently important because of their ability to pervert votes or secretly give an impression of greater support for a position than really exist.


 * If there were 3 classes of edits then life might be simpler.
 * 1) Wholly anonymous edits such as from IP addresses or where the editor had not publicly nor confidentially declared to WMF foundation staff a committed real life identity supported by a hash code. These type of edits would not be allowed in votes and it would be up to the individual judgement of editors as to how much weight they should give to these wholly anonymous edits in discussions such as this one (this contribution itself is an example of this class of edit).
 * 2) Partially anonymous edits where the editor had confidentially declared to WMF foundation staff a committed real life identity supported by a hash code. These type of edits would be allowed in votes and it would be up to the individual judgement of editors as to how much weight they should give to these partially anonymous edits in discussions such as this one since it would be difficult to discern how much of a conflict of interest might be without having the ability to research the editors real life background.
 * 3) Non-anonymous edits where the editing account had publicly declared a committed real life identity supported by a hash code. As well as single natural persons, this type of account could include official "corporate" accounts such as "Monsanto" or "GreenPeace" where more than one human being/intelligence could be allowed to use the account with official authorisation from the corporate account holder. These type of edits would count in votes and it would be up to the individual judgement of editors as to how much weight they should give to these completely transparent edits in discussions such as this one.


 * If this proposal were to go ahead, I think we would need to clarify whether we need lists of seniority to define what "low level" employees might be exempt from accusations of sock-puppettry or whether we are opening a whole can of worms with this idea and can just leave it up to individual cases to adjudicate on a case by case basis as to COI.


 * Perhaps a concrete example would illustrate the difficulty. Imagine the example of a serving New Zealand Police officer. Standing orders prohibit that NZP officer from making a public comment in the media, (and editing WP discussion pages would probably come under that category; copy-edits and sourced contributions to articles would probably not) where the identity of the officer is revealed and/or it might be construed that the individual officer is not contributing in a strictly personal capacity, without the NZP officer getting pre-clearance from his/her superior in the chain of command. If that officer gets such pre-clearance from his/her superior to edit WMF projects on the basis that such edits will be made anonymously, then does that anonymous WMF account then have to declare a COI or be accused of being a sock/meat puppet when editing an article relating to motorcycle gangs or cannabis legalisation lobbying groups or even political parties advocating a sharp reduction in police budgets? Or could we limit disclosure and/or accusations where the officer is of rank lesser than superintendent? --118.93nzp (talk) 23:06, 7 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Call for Snow Close per WP:SNOW. I encourage everyone to read the proposal carefuly; there are a lot of good ideas that could be used in future proposals. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:17, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Intention to close this vote: There are currently 5 3 votes open on roughly the same topic, and this new vote currently has no support. Are there any objections to a close at this time? - Dank (push to talk) 03:59, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes to close, but I count 4 open votes on roughly the same topic:
 * Wikipedia talk:No paid advocacy
 * Wikipedia talk:Paid editing policy proposal
 * Wikipedia talk:Paid editing policy proposal/2nd draft
 * Wikipedia talk:Sock puppetry/Employees (the page you are reading).
 * I corrected the template. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:05, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It can't be 4, it has to be 3 or 5, because two of the links went to the same page, a vote that I closed yesterday per consensus to close. - Dank (push to talk) 14:54, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It's one of the confusing aspects: the project page for Paid editing policy proposal/2nd draft was redirected, but the talk page is still separate. isaacl (talk) 15:00, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, this puts us in a Twilight Zone where we have an ongoing vote and discussion that are productive in the sense that they're generating new ideas and increased participation ... about a proposal that's already failed, based on the vote and discussion that happened on the talk page of that proposal. What a mess. Okay, I'm fine with your edits, and I'll leave it alone for now, we'll take stock of where we are when the current round of discussions are all closed. - Dank (push to talk) 16:47, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I've indicated on that page that I'm leaning in the direction of closing that vote and discussion. - Dank (push to talk) 18:11, 10 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Snow Close This proposal has received very little support, and is taking away valuable time needed to review more viable proposals. DavidinNJ (talk) 20:26, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * This should be a Wnt essay. –  SJ  +  05:58, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Close this up, and stop linking to it from the more well-supported discussions. --LukeSurlt c 12:23, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose per what I've said multiple times already.  Spinning Spark  01:01, 13 November 2013 (UTC)