Wikipedia talk:List of paid editing companies

sciencehosts.com

A spam email forwarded to WP:VRT... "Because you're buying directly from an experienced Wikipedia editor and mod, you'll get your page a lot cheaper, faster and with more reliability." - Cabayi (talk) 09:27, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

wikiwritersworkshop.com

Just found wikiwritersworkshop.com, they're clearly a reincarnation of someone else on the list but there seem to be a few candidates. Their testimonials seem to imply this is "wikipediaexperts", however a closer look at the articles brings up a different master. Does anyone have an opinion as to who this is? Pahunkat (talk) 17:02, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

I see that Smartse has this as Wikiprofessionalsinc, and the two websites certainly line up - is it worth adding under their section? Pahunkat (talk) 19:06, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

New website for Hire Wikipedia Editor

The company formerly(?) known as "Hire Wikipedia Editor" and listed at Wikipedia:List of paid editing companies#Hire Wikipedia Editor, sockfarm at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/UA85, has another website, umairahmad.me . Their old site looks dead, but the archived version shows it's the same guy. A blog post from 7 November 2021, at umairahmad.me/blog, proudly claims to have created tens of thousands of articles, including fake sources for people who are not notable. That's obviously nonsense, but they might have active socks. The services they offer also include AfD "Keep" !votes. Grrrrr. --bonadea contributions talk 15:50, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Abtach (and Wiki Professionals) covered by World Trademark Review

Read an article last week about Abtach, and noticed that Wiki Professionals Inc is mentioned. A good read for any editors whom are fimilar with that family of pay-for-wiki sites. SamHolt6 (talk) 21:49, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Open Knowledge Association (OKA)

Ran into this disclosed paid editor working for OKA, an alleged Swiss nonprofit association (statutes) whose stated mission is the translation of Wiki articles into English. The instructions to their disclosed paid editors are public, and their workflow seems to be public too. However, there is no website, no transparency regarding who heads this association, and they are not listed on the municipality's website dedicated to associations, where they are supposed to be located. I don't see any red flag, but I think it's worth keeping on our radar as the current 3 disclosed paid editors translate more pages into English. Pilaz (talk) 22:39, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

@Pilaz: Thanks for the headsup. This reminds me of Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive948#Vipul.27s_paid_editing_enterprise which was a vaguely similar operation five years ago. Looking at the instructions you've linked to 7804j (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) seems to be in charge with Joshelijim, Maye Fernandez and Sofia Spinelli being the paid editors. It would definitely be good to have more details on what the plans are for this, if nothing else to reduce the risk of problems that can occur when translating articles. It might be better to discuss this at another venue though as I don't think many people will be watching here. SmartSE (talk) 13:30, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

@Pilaz: @SmartSE: Hello, I can confirm that I am the main founder and president of this association. The reason why it is not listed on any official website is that we were just created, and I am currently waiting from the tax authorities of the Canton of Vaud to make an official decision regarding the non-profit status. At the moment, all the full-time translators are funded from my own income. Additionally, as per Swiss law, an association only needs statuses to exist; most associations in Switzerland are therefore not officially listed in any public register (even when they are recognized by Tax authorities). Once we receive official non-profit status, I plan to increase the size of our teams and will then create a website. I am happy to provide more details if this is required, or where would be a good place to publish details/answer questions about our work on Wikipedia. I have added my name in our workflow to increase transparency. 7804j (talk) 13:47, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

@7804j: Thanks for explaining and apologies for taking forever to respond. It would be helpful if you could write a summary of what your organisation is doing and why on-wiki, ideally including moving your lists of articles etc. here so that they are more easily accessed. You should also consider posting at the village pump once that's done to get feedback from the community. I can definitely imagine some members of the community raising issues with your approach. First up would be that different Wikipedias have different sourcing requirements, so what's included in another project may not be suitable to include here. From a brief look at your article lists, it looks as if you are choosing to translate missing good articles, so this should hopefully not be too much of an issue. A potentially larger and more intractable problem is that if you are paying editors to translate, there may be a temptation to work faster with a consequential decrease in quality. This may not be an issue if you are paying by the hour though instead of per article/word count. Then there is the possibility of articles being excessively localised - this is definitely a problem with potato cooking which was translated from French and exclusively discusses the cooking of potatoes in France. You could argue that this is still an improvement on there being no article at all, but some may disagree and in general, the community isn't very happy on paid editors creating more work for volunteers. SmartSE (talk) 14:33, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Uh...After spending hours and hours on the truly terrible Estado Novo (Brazil) I am very torn. It is obviously a badly needed article. (I just rated it top importance,) The lowest available quality rating is start class, but I estimate it will take a dozen hours to get it to a really bad article with hopes of becoming start class article with possible plagiarism issues whose accuracy and coverage will still be questionable. I am really concerned by the nakedly extensive use of pasted materials, especially since I got there from Brazil in World War II, which is if anything even more repetitive yet manages to seem internally inconsistent. It says over and over again that Brazil declared war because its ships her being torpedoed but the details are different in every paragraph. Possibly the categories are different, I will find out. But beyond that most of the pasted language isn't neutral. I will follow up on your talk page about these two articles -- call them samples -- but how many editors are producing how many of these articles exactly? This is clearly machine translation paid by the word and whatever you are doing for quality control is clearly not working. And then there here is great concern for the reputation of a fascist dictator, why is that? @Mathglot, PauloMSimoes, and 7804j: Elinruby (talk) 14:09, 2 December 2023 (UTC) @Smartse:

I will get back to you on this eventually (ping me if I don't in several days), but with this, and dozens of areas where AI issues keep getting discussed all over the encyclopedia, I think it's only a matter of time before there is going to be a new noticeboard, maybe the 'AIN' (hmm, too close to 'ANI'), so maybe LLM-NB or something. All of these threads from all over need to be centralized in one place, and it's the logical thing to do, so we can all read about what else people are encountering in related areas. Thanks for the ping. Mathglot (talk) 19:24, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

nod. It could be that it's even a good idea, but I have seen editors generate translations into French that are flawless if a bit awkward, so what are they doing that gets the word order so wrong? It's a Romance language not all that different from French. This is somewhat worse that the MT translation from Arabic I was looking at the other day. And usually more related languages give better results. I think they need coaching at a minimum.And they need to stop paying by the word if that is what they are doing.

I'm committed to powering these two articles into readable English, since they adjoin some other stuff I am doing, making no promises beyond that. And yes, we should have an article. This regime may even be somewhat more important than Vichy, since there arguably were successor governments, but as I have said before about Brazil, I am not really the one and surely someone out there knows this history and reads Portuguese better than I do? I mean there is Paulo and that is why I pinged him, but I am sure he too feels that he isn't looking for a full-time unpaid employment. Hopefully he will be able to point out any big gaps in coverage, maybe comment on my hypothesis that perhaps the PoV is in the original text, wnich I haven't examined yet.

My real concern is that if they're doing this at scale are they doing us any favors? Do we need more bad article when there's a what, five-year backlog at WP:PNT? I also don't understand the business model. Are grants covering the payroll? How do you get non-profit paid editors?

Taking out some of this exasperation on the word order over there. I am making notes on the talk page if anyone is interested.Elinruby (talk) 21:16, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Elinruby,

Thanks for your work in improving these two articles.

Based on what you shared above, it seems we are talking about 2 things: (1) the quality of the English and (2) the content of the article.

On (1), I had a look at some of the edits you made. It definitely reads better now, thanks for this. I am not a native English speaker myself but this is the only language I speak every day for the past 10+ years, and I think that even if I had done these translations myself, I would also have made some of the "issues" you fixed. For example, a lot of these were correct English but just longer sentences that benefit from being cut short. Basically copy-editing. Occasionally there was mistakes or typos, etc. but we're all humans, so these things happen, and if we banned contributors who are not native English speakers like myself, Wikipedia would basically just be a US centric platform. That's also what makes Wikipedia so great in my opinion: that it is a collaborative encyclopedia.

On (2), if the source article has content or PoV issues, then the issue is not the translation itself, but rather the source of the translation. Unfortunately, the issues you raised don't seem to be trivial to spot. The translator that worked on these specific articles was actually quite knowledgeable about Brazil in World War II, but of course not a historian. Wikipedia is a collaborative project, which is why it is great to have people like you, who can help improve what others started.

But overall, would your judgement really be so harsh if this was the work of an unpaid contributor?

OKA contributors are not salaried, they only receive a stipend to cover their basic living expenses. At most, contributors that work full-time (40h a week) receive only up to 400$ per month. So they're basically volunteers who receive a bit of money so that they can contribute to Wikipedia instead of taking a better paid full time job. They are not paid per word, but based on the hours they report, and they are encouraged to take part in any work, not just translation, but also issue fixing. However, since most of them are very new to Wikipedia, translation is often a lower barrier to entry for them.

To your questions

- Who funds this? So far, only individuals, like me, who wants to help expand Wikipedia. In fact, I currently contribute to ~70% of the funding of our 12 translators.

- How do we hire non-profit translators? Through job posts on LinkedIn. More details are on our website oka.wiki

If the community really believes that the sum of our work is not helping, we would of course stop. We don't have a broader agenda than just helping, and if the consensus is that it doesn't help, then we'd stop. But I don't believe that's the case. For me the question is: if these were unpaid translators, would your perspective still be the same? I don't think OKA contributors should be judged differently from others just because they receive 100-400$ per month to help them subsist while volunteering.

7804j (talk) 09:26, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby: This isn't really a good location to discuss this. I'm not sure where is to be honest, but somewhere like the village pump would be a much better location to gather opinions. Worth noting the block of Alemedicen last month as well. SmartSE (talk) 14:37, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry @Smartse: I fainted.when he called me a native English speaker

. And American. And parochial. You're right though, he clearly can't hear me.

Hey @7804j: you want to walk back your personal insults there? I am going to send you the notes I made for you either way, because you need them and I don't, but I really think you should do that.

Smartse obviously you guys are looking at different articles rhn I am. I may have a question about that later. I was going to poopoo the Village Pump but then I remembered the recent change, thanks Elinruby (talk) 17:25, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I did not call you American or native speaker. I am just saying that if we were to judge everyone's contributions as harshly as paid contributor's contributions seem to be sometimes judged, then the existing known bias of Wikipedia having an overrepresentation of US content vs content from other countries would be only strengthened. No personal insult here 7804j (talk) 19:14, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

You can reply to the stuff I will post to your talk page, which I am watchlisting. This is not the place, as Smartse says. I am am just here for the diff and am not going to argue here about whether you said what you said or why you felt a need to supposedly not say it to me. Elinruby (talk) 23:36, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

wikisysops.com

I've just added them to the list based on a couple scam complaints I've heard. Not sure if it's a group we've seen before, but their domain registration is suspiciously recent; if their website looks familiar, I'd appreciate it if someone could merge them into the right group. GeneralNotability (talk) 01:23, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

wikimoderator.net

Reported in a VRTS ticket (no specifics provided). Cabayi (talk) 10:12, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Removal of OKA contributors

We have two editors trying to keep OKA contributors on the list, and another two editors removing them [1][2]. This should be discussed. I am in the former group and I think best practice is that once they are added, they are listed here continuously. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:55, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm in favor of removing - it honestly reads more like soft advertising to me than disclosure, given that the members of OKA are the ones doing the adding. GeneralNotability (talk) 22:54, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I've got a fresh one

What's the drill for adding them to the list? Orange Mike | Talk 04:23, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Usually just add in alphabetical order to the "unknown if blocked" list, unless you know of a connected blocked account. When possible, we include a blurb from the company website to establish that they solicit paid editing. ☆ Bri (talk) 10:35, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

@Orangemike: From my experience, it's worth checking to see whether it is yet another front of Abtach. SmartSE (talk) 11:44, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

@Orangemike: And indeed it does look like yet another front - compare the email they've been sending out here with Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Integrity/Archive_3#Paid_content_spam (specifically We are not saying that this is all you’ll ever need to go from common to...) which was from wikisharksinc. SmartSE (talk) 18:20, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

And another sign is their website banner/footer thing says Hire Top Book Writers At 70% Off To Help You Create Timeless Work - abtach have another line in ghostwriting books. SmartSE (talk) 18:24, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Using the same phone number or hosted on the same servers as other abtach sites: https://wikispecialists.com/ https://wikiwritingservice.com/ https://wikiconsultants.com/ https://www.onlinewikipublishers.com/. SmartSE (talk) 18:42, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

And via the obvious fake reviews at https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/wikiconsultants.com I found https://professionalwikiwriters.com and in turn via https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/professionalwikiwriters.com found https://www.elitewikiwriting.com SmartSE (talk) 18:49, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Actually that last one looks like a new front for elitewikiwriters.com listed at Wikipedia:List_of_paid_editing_companies#Digitonics. SmartSE (talk) 18:54, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure wikiconsultants.com is Abtach. It might also be Sybex, Digitonics or some other. There's a few groups in Pakistan that operate in a very similar way, all of them offer other services like logo design or ghostwriting, and all of them are effectively banned (whether explicitly or by 3X). MarioGom (talk) 15:06, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

On the other hand, I can confirm that the recently added thewikiinc.com is really Abtach. MarioGom (talk) 15:14, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

I have removed a few sites [3] that do not really match the same DNS characteristics as others. I'm currently doing further checks to see if they are from a different group, or if Abtach is changing their hosting and DNS to something else. If someone is interested, feel free to reach out. I have paid subscriptions to some research services which are quite handy to check historical DNS records. MarioGom (talk) 15:34, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

wikiconsultants.com is the same company as premiumwikiconsultants.com (same phone number, same hosting / mail servers). MarioGom (talk) 17:44, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Same as americanwikiwriters.com, wikiexpertsinc.com, elitewikiwriting.com, elitewikiwriting.co.uk, elitewikipedia.com, wikipublishingagency.com, editorialboardwikipedia.com, getmeonwiki.com. MarioGom (talk) 19:29, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Clarifying the purpose of this page and how it is linked elsewhere

Hello, I have some thoughts on this page for those who are most involved with its maintenance; I think that is currently Bri, MarioGom, SamHolt6, SmartSE and, historically, Doc James. Full disclosure: I represent one of the firms on the "Disclosed" / "Never blocked" portion of the list, Beutler Ink.

Background

For anyone who isn't familiar with this work page: it originated in 2017 as a "list of the blocked Wikipedia accounts of companies involved in undisclosed paid editing". Even today, the vast majority of the page is devoted to the list at Undisclosed paid editing, especially those "blocked at least once".

However, at some point its scope expanded from listing not just the known bad actors, but also firms doing Disclosed paid editing, including those blocked, "unknown if blocked", and "never blocked". It makes sense that the list would include all of these, especially given its nonjudgmental, descriptive title.

What links here

These days, this page is linked from many project and advice pages, including within the COI guideline—in the Beware of scams subsection, which seems appropriate—but also a couple of places that are worth a second thought. One is Plain and simple conflict of interest guide > See also, where a reader who comes across it might think it a resource, click through, and what do they find but a very, very long list of companies they absolutely should not hire, followed at the very end by a very short list of companies who would at least keep them out of trouble. I find the same issue at advice pages like WP:AUTOBIO, WP:ABOUTME, and WP:PAID, all of which are aimed at individuals with a COI. But neither those pages, nor this one, offer guidance to those who might otherwise think a "list of paid editing companies" is a menu to choose from.

Questions

To me, it raises some questions: What is the purpose of this page today, and who is its audience? Is it a reference list for Wikipedia volunteers to keep track of who is following the rules vs. who is not? Or is it an advice page for outsiders learning about COI issues on Wikipedia?

In my view, if it is the former, then it should not be linked on advice pages at all. If it is the latter, then I propose adding more context for readers which differentiates disclosed and undisclosed editing. Right now the page is a level-one size heading of wrong-doers, with a much shorter list of disclosed editors at the bottom of the page. If this page is going to be linked to from advice pages, then perhaps the listing order should be reversed, starting with the "Disclosed" and the "Never blocked" editors instead of prioritizing those trying to break Wikipedia.

I recognize my view is just one, and I'd be interested in what others have to say. Thanks, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:15, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Some thoughts:

• IMHO this is an "internal" work page, like WP:LTA.
• Most entries are irrelevant to countering UPE. Some entries like WP:ABTACH have some frequent use because they are very prolific and it is useful to have something to reference when you need someone to learn the background behind some blocks, reports, etc. As a list-making hoarder type of person, I do like having a comprehensive list, but realistically, only a very small portion is frequently useful. There are also cases where an old entry becomes relevant years after the initial isting.
• I agree the list of disclosed companies feels a bit out of place here. And I would agree to split them to a separate page.
• I think this page should not be linked from WP:AUTOBIO, WP:ABOUTME or similar pages. A link from WP:PAID should be ok. I think this applies both to disclosed and undisclosed companies.

So I'm all for refactoring this page. I think it could be renamed to WP:Paid editing companies with an introductory text and no listings, and move the existing listings to WP:Paid editing companies/Disclosed and WP:Paid editing companies/Undisclosed. The distinction between blocked and unblocked undisclosed paid editing companies is generally irrelevant. MarioGom (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Also splitting both listings would allow to add two distinct prominent disclaimers: for undisclosed, something along the lines that undisclosed paid editing violates Terms of Use, editors will be blocked on sight, and articles often deleted. For disclosed, a disclaimer that the existence of the page does not mean any endorsement by the Wikipedia community, that these companies are not affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation, and that Wikipedia is not responsible for any issues with these companies. MarioGom (talk) 16:49, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm OK with the split as outlined by MarioGom. Inviting a few others active at the list this year for their opinions: @Smallbones, Orangemike, and Smartse: ☆ Bri (talk) 19:57, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm leaning towards opposing a split - it's definitely simpler having everything in one place. I agree with WWB Too though that the purpose of this page is unclear. I see it as a place to document companies in order that we can keep track of them (whether disclosed or not), but if that's the case it is probably not sensible to link to it from pages as if it were a catalogue of companies to choose from. So I would be more in favour of removing links to it from see also section of pages where it doesn't belong rather than splitting it up. SmartSE (talk) 11:24, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

The page is somewhat unwieldy, so a split can make things clearer. But I agree with not linking it from help pages whether split or not. MarioGom (talk) 14:25, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Sounds like consensus exists at least to remove the links from the advice pages. I probably should not be the one to do it, but I'm hopeful one of you will. I can see both sides of the "split vs. no split" argument and take no position on this question. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 10:22, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I have removed most links from policies and guidelines, except a couple that looked reasonable to me. MarioGom (talk) 17:58, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Removing distinction between blocked and unblocked UPE

I think we should merge both UPE sections. A company editing Wikipedia without any disclosed account is engaging in UPE, and it doesn't matter if we were able to reliably link any account or not. In fact, I'm pretty certain many of the "unknown if blocked" companies we list will have many blocked socks (e.g. thewikipedians.com). MarioGom (talk) 15:14, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

 Done [4] MarioGom (talk) 17:16, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Waft Studios

Recommending we add Waft Studios to the list based on this COIN report which led to this SPI filing. Here's a quick reference to see where they are promoting their servics and obviously don't disclose per guidelines. CNMall41 (talk) 07:50, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Had not heard objection so added per BOLD. --CNMall41 (talk) 21:21, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Follow up to this as well. After playing whack a mole for a couple months, Waft Studios is operating out of the Bikrookanpurgangster SOCK farm. --CNMall41 (talk) 06:52, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Crowdsourcing

Hi all, I know this is a bit off-topic, but I need help or advice with something important. One of the companies on the list made some changes on Google Maps, naming a play yard in Kyiv after a company. Google considers it to be trustworthy, but it's all a ridiculous prank. I believe raising more complaints might make a difference. My fellows and my efforts were not enough. Link to the location and they also proudly boasted about that on their site. Anntinomy (talk) 19:29, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

You might be able to report this to Google? This is a good reminder that Google Maps is not a reliable source for this kind of information. MarioGom (talk) 16:37, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

wikipediaafd.org

Not known which firm this domain wikipediaafd.org is associated with; its use for a scam is described in a Reddit post referenced in the 2024-01-31 Signpost Disinformation report talkpage. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:05, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Vipul's Paid Editing Enterprise

Vipul (as visapro.com and other websites) is still doing his paid editing along with a retinue of sub-contractors whose accounts are still active. The situation was alluded to with link above, see the Open Knowledge Foundation section of this talk page. There was a huge discussion on AN about Vipul here. The summary indicates that it became chaotic and Jytdog (who first identified the concern) left Wikipedia shortly after, thus nothing was done.

From what I can tell, Vipul's Paid Editing Enterprise has continued over the past six years. Seems like this should be re-investigated because it is, at a minimum, paid editing without disclosure. FeralOink (talk) 10:24, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

hirewikipediawriters.com

Newly created paid editing agency which offers to create, promote, and ghostwrite drafts about businesseses, people, and research projects. ''Flux55'' (talk) 16:05, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Abtach

Is there anyone still around who has dealt with Abtach SOCKS on some level? If so, please ping me or email me. CNMall41 (talk) 08:56, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Is this paid editing company known? Them 2600:1700:103A:D800:CDFC:9C54:8975:30B8 (talk) 15:40, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I came across this a few months back and forgot all about it so revisiting the conversation. The site ReadWrite is used in Wikipedia over 200 times. I came across this article in ReadWrite which is a review for "Top 10 Wikipedia Page Creation Services 2023," yet every site listed in their top 10 is a website listed under Abtach, a LTA UPE company. This is obviously a paid placement since all 10 sites are owned by the same company. This kind of puts a tarnish on ReadWrite's editorial policy if they allow these type of placements. There is also a similar article here in Grey Journal, Noupe, Medium, Nicehacks, and a few others. I don't want to overstep or violate any guidelines, but was thinking of emailing each of these publications to see if they are aware of Abtach using them in such a manner. Or, if it is something maybe to get WP:RSN involved with? Since they have been around a while was hoping someone can provide feedback on anything that has been done other than banning them from Wikipedia. --CNMall41 (talk) 06:47, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Categories

Why does the page have Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Tester85?-FusionSub (talk) 10:09, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Fixed it. ☆ Bri (talk) 13:57, 20 March 2024 (UTC)