Wikipedia talk:Paid editing (guideline)/Archive 5

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Jimbo's abdication of blocking

Resolved

 – Added, tweaked, etc.

In the course of a recent dispute, Jimbo Wales voluntarily and permanently gave up blocking. While this does not of course invalidate Jimbo's views about paid editing, it does mean that he doesn't have the ability to enforce them unilaterally, which may affect the shaping of this policy. Dcoetzee 05:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I saw that too and added a footnote to this page. -- Banjeboi 13:45, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Added a note that Jimbo may not be the only one who can block on Wikipedia. --TeaDrinker (talk) 18:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

This reminds me: Maybe we should add a section on paid admining. If it's OK to edit for pay I don't see why it should be a problem to block users or delete articles in exchange for payment (assuming all relevant policies are followed, of course). I imagine that many blocked editors would be willing to pay to get unblocked, for example. Any objections?   Will Beback  talk  18:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Arf, arf see below (btw, how much money are you talking about?), and how much would it cost to become an admin? Smallbones (talk) 18:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

We haven't addressed the matter of paying for !votes in an RFA, but it's another logical extension of paid editing. There doesn't appear to be any rule against it.   Will Beback  talk  18:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

This is slippery slope nonsense. If there's not a rule regarding paying someone to unblock or to vote in a discussion, we make one. There obviously need to be limits to what an agent can do on behalf of a client to preserve the structure of our system. Dcoetzee 21:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

What limits do you propose?   Will Beback  talk  22:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

This page used to say the limits I proposed: "Using administrator tools or participating in policy discussions for compensation of any kind is strictly forbidden". I think this is stronger than it needs to be, but little is lost in making such a restriction. Since then it's been revised into the current "disrupting the consensus processes" language in the Background section. Dcoetzee 00:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like reasonable language. Why was it changed? I don's see any explicit discussion of it.   Will Beback  talk  00:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I hope nobody took the little joke above seriously or considered it too irreverent. But maybe (a very little) humor on the talk page can loosen things up a bit. I hope that I didn't change the above language on administrators - I certainly support it now. There were 3 sentences in that paragraph, the 1st is great, the 2nd innocuous, and I didn't like the 3rd. "It is okay to share your viewpoint regarding content that you have contributed, but keep Wikipedia's larger goals in mind when doing so." That would seem to say that some of the fairly normal grandstanding, wikilawyering, calling in the calvary tactics (Am I exaggerating?) are ok. I don't think so. But maybe the compulsory COI statement for paid advocates would take some of that away. In short I support the 1st sentence. Smallbones (talk) 03:09, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The 3rd sentence was added because of this hypothetical scenario: someone writes an article for money and then that article is nominated for deletion. While we don't want any meatpuppets swinging AfDs, presumably we'd want the article's original author to at least be able to comment in that discussion. I think this is a limited and reasonable concession. Dcoetzee 03:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Unless I hear a good reason for the deletion, I'll restore Dcoetzee's text.   Will Beback  talk  10:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

You have two issues smooshed together (i)"Using administrator tools" and (ii) "participating in policy discussions" both labeled as "strictly forbidden". First off, if someone is using administrator tools against policies that is the issue, not if they are paid or not. To me that seems like a solution in search of a problem, I can imagine a few theoretical situations but frankly we don't need to go there. Is this really a problem that needs to be spelled out? If an admin is causing issues the problem isn't the money it's the editing and behaviours. That brings us to policy discussion, and no, we don't threaten, intimidate or "strictly forbid" anyone from fully participating as a Wikipedian. If anyone proves themselves to be disruptive, again it really doesn't matter if they are doing so for free or not. We get a lot of free vandals. Perhaps we need to also ban paid vandalism? Doesn't that seem a bit silly? We have an underlying policy against vandalism which eliminates the need for a redundant statement. -- Banjeboi 10:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be saying that anything which is disruptive is forbidden so there's no need for other policies or details. I disagree and I think others on this page disagree too. I addition, there are numerous policy and guideline pages that explicate just which behaviors are considered disruptive, and that's what we're doing here. I'll restore the material based on what appears to be a consensus of the other editors.   Will Beback  talk  10:54, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm saying I strongly object to re-adding anything that is not aligned with current policies as if it were. Is there any policy against admins being paid? If so link to that. Is there any policy that paid editors are strictly forbidden to participate in policy discussions? If so where is it? -- Banjeboi 11:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

@Benjiboi: I view this language as stronger than necessary, but a useful compromise. I would expect most paid editors to be normal users with little interest in Wikipedia policy beyond discussions about articles they have personally edited. The biggest fear of the anti-paid editing crowd is that admins may be paid to abuse their tools, or meatpuppets paid to warp consensus; this broad rule eliminates this concern with little impact on most users, promoting the adoption of the policy. A divisive issue like this needs unpleasant compromises to converge. In the future this language may be weakened once we have more experience with paid editors. Dcoetzee 01:35, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Please read this carefully this time and do not revert it. It is policy and you have reverted it at least 4 times now. Claiming that you don't know this policy or "show me the link" is simply disingenuous. Click on Jimbo's name for the link!

It is not ok with me that anyone ever set up a service selling their services as a Wikipedia editor, administrator, bureaucrat, etc. I will personally block any cases that I am shown.... the idea that we should ever accept paid advocates directly editing Wikipedia is not ever going to be ok. Consider this to be policy as of right now.... Just imagine the disaster for our reputation. Are we free and independent scribes doing our best to record all human knowledge? Or are we paid shills. I know what I choose. Jimbo Wales

Smallbones (talk) 13:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

You seem to missing the fact that Wikipedia does not write policy simply because Jimmy Wales dictates the rest of us do so and in that same section it is pointed out that he won't go against consensus. There seems no policy about this if you want to try to enact this as a policy please do that first then declare it so here. Our job is not to declare new policies we which to see but to summarize the current situation. -- Banjeboi 03:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, although this page was originally intended to summarise existing policy related to paid editing, I think it's worthwhile to write a normative policy (or at least guideline) on the subject. The division of opinion over what exactly the status quo is indicates a need for clarification that is specific to paid editing. Jimbo's move to give up blocking makes it possible for us to speak of what a good general policy would be without concerning ourselves with vigilantism. Dcoetzee 04:48, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that drafting some proposed policy is fine, but this is not that page. IMHO, the tremor here won't be seeing any such policy soon. To me it's much more constructive to summarize current practice for those currently dealing with these issues. Reflect RfC community opinions and summarize relevant policies without injecting our personal wish to ban everyone. I think I'll post on AN to get some feedback as well. -- Banjeboi 22:22, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Cooling down period

Having had a few days off from this page, somehow it's started to look a bit better. I made 2 fairly small changes, which I think might actually put this on the road to completion!

In the Paid advocacy section I put "People who operate as paid advocates in any forum may not write or edit articles on their clients in Wikipedia." and "Paid advocates must declare their conflict of interest."

It seems to me that we have to come up with something in this policy that actually says something concrete to people who are considering paid editing.

If these survive, I think we can say that the Paid Advocacy section actually does something. Other changes I'd like to see before saying this is complete are

1. An introduction that is a bit more complete
2. Cutting down the background section - nobody will be interested in the internal bickering in a few months. It wanders.
3. Blocking policy as declared by Jimbo re: people who go out and advertise, and administrators, bureaucrats, etc.
4. The quote from Jimbo. Benjiboi says that it is redundant, but I don't see this. The quote says to me at a minimum that a) advertising editing services is out, b) paid editing for admins etc. is out c) this is policy and you will be blocked for it, d) paid advocacy is out. (and in his next edit after the quote - that paid editing is almost a meaningless phrase, unless we define it). If all this stuff is in the policy, then we don't need the quote.
5. The advice section should be trimmed, or certainly better organized. As I've said before, it can read like "This is advise for not getting caught doing paid editing."

Smallbones (talk) 18:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Other policies include quotes from Jimbo Wales.   Will Beback  talk  18:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm certainly not against including the quote, and frankly a little redundancy sometimes is good. But I won't object to not including it, as long as everything in it is included in the policy. Smallbones (talk) 21:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I think you might want to read that whole RfC thread again, there was significant disagreements on most everything except that advocacy is indeed forbidden. And please remember this page is not a policy and will never be if it doesn't align with community views as expressed in the RfC which were quite mixed. I think we agree the advice section should be reworked as causing perception issues if nothing else, I'll take a go at it after re-reading more of the RfC. -- Banjeboi 10:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Limited goals

I would ask if we have consensus on each of the following points:

1. This is not a referendum on Jimbo's role in governance. At present he has at least the ability to enforce his statement and there is no consensus to oppose it. Anything we write here needs to reflect that.
2. Absent consensus from the RfC and considering Jimbo's statement which is taken by some to have the force of policy, our immediate goal should be to establish a policy which reflects current practice.
3. The current text does not reflect current practice.
4. The same text does not reflect the consensus of editors.

Do we all agree on these points? --TeaDrinker (talk) 14:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

No - I don't agree with point 2. A policy should document current practice that we believe is best practice, not just any old current practice - see WP:POLICY. Current practice that is not generally agreed to be best practice should not be given the force of policy. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

(i) Do you agree with the other points and (ii) would agree to point 2 if the words "establish a policy" were replaced by "establish a document"? --TeaDrinker (talk) 14:52, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I am happy with the other points as descriptive statements of fact. I think the problem with point 2 is that you are trying to prescribe what the goals of this process should be - and I see no consensus emerging on either goals or approach. I certainly see no point in having a goal of simply documenting the current muddle and confusion. Gandalf61 (talk) 15:26, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

You make a very good point. Would it be appropriate to have a page, marked "Descriptive of present practice" or some such term? I didn't mean to imply the long term goal of this process was not to develop a policy rooted in consensus. But I think a description of present practice would provide a good starting place for that discussion, and it would provide guidance to editors who are trying, in good faith, to be good editors. It would be unfortunate to have someone, for instance, take a contract with a company to work on their behalf, then get blocked for their trouble. Is there a harm in writing down the present practice (and marking it as such)? --TeaDrinker (talk) 19:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I really am opposed to these statements and generally bristling at what seems to be a powermove to enforce one POV versus all others. IMHO, when there is sharp disagreements we work to find common ground as that's more likely to stick anyway. Who cares if one wins some temporary battle if everything is rewritten and refocused in a month? Is there some pressing concern of pillagers at the gates just beating our doors to get a job editing here? The RfC was pretty clear that there isn't a consensus and the summary of that RfC itself is a mess. If this page is to reflect community consensus and there isn't even a clear summary of that then if think it's fair to say we have to consider multiple viewpoints and do so with care. If an overwhelming majority agreed upon anything we would have less ambiguity as to what direction to take. As I see it our job is to help those seeking clarity find it. Ergo we must seek that clarity ourselves on an issue that only has so much of it. -- Banjeboi 15:15, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Is it point 2 that you bristle at, or all four? I had thought you'd go along with 3 and 4 since you had the notion of rewriting original proposal yourself, at one point. It's fine if you oppose all four of course, but I just wanted to be clear (if we can get some consensus on something, it would make everyone all sorts of happy, I'm sure). --TeaDrinker (talk) 19:32, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree with the four points - we might be able to go a bit further and put in some ideas of what the policy should be, but only after a description of the current policy. I'll ask Banjeboi to look at his own actions. Who is trying to "enforce one POV versus all others?" Who has refused to modify his views and move toward consensus? Who is trying to change policy via this process? Smallbones (talk) 16:25, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

All policies are documents. ;-) Jimbo overrides all others; so while not strictly consensus (WP:CONEXCEPT), I agree that what you have been stating is current de-facto policy as practiced. But describe and attribute it correctly, as if writing an NPOV article: "Jimbo and several admins currently block for this practice. Others are not so happy with such blocking, but we would strongly recommend you don't actually try to do paid editing at the moment" - but then appropriately boringized and with less weasel-words, perhaps.

Incidentally, I predict that the current de-facto policy may well provoke an actual substantial fork in the not-too-distant future, if left unchanged. --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:15, 4 August 2009 (UTC) and no, I shan't be the forker. Don't look at me like that!';

Everybody except Banjeboi seems to agree with points 3 and 4 - that the current text on the page does not reflect current practice or consensus. I object to his multiple reversions [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] of the revisions of myself and others. Consensus does not mean that we can only agree with his preferred version - it means that everybody gets to contribute! In particular it means "Consensus is one of a range of policies regarding how editors work with each other, and part of the fourth pillar of the Wikipedia code of conduct. Editors typically reach a consensus as a natural outcome of wiki-editing. Someone makes a change to a page, then everyone who reads the page has an opportunity to leave it as it is, or change it." Why is it that only Banjeboi is allowed to change it (or else be reverted by Banjeboi)? Please stand back and let others contribute - if not on the actual project page, then at least on an alternative page that is linked to the project page. Smallbones (talk) 03:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

No one is stopping drafting of proposed versions and such. We don't slap a link to the alternative version on the top of the page however nor do we usually include it at all. We link to it from the discussion - which I think has already happened and actually discuss changes. Trying to single me out as the lone holdout of some sort is also unhelpful to collaborative editing. You seem to believe that a policy exists when it really doesn't and others are working on a NPOV way to try to word what the actual current status is - at some point I thin we'll have to lean on other community discussions to see a best practices wording for Jimbo's current role and what due weight to put on his statement. Meanwhile, as evident in the RfC on this issue the community is divided, we should fairly and accurately reflect the various viewpoints without blame or demonizing editors who either engage in or oppose the concept of paid editing. The strong-arming shows you have a passion about this - fine. Personally I don't care that much except I don't want good editors driven away. I'm utterly convinced that someone who is a paid editor who causes no actual problems is in fact causing no problems. Unless this information is revealed in some way we likely would never know. To me this is analogous to imposing a policy that no green-eyed editors are allowed here; it pushes people who have green eyes but still want to contribute into a closet needlessly. The core concern with this issue, IMHO, is that being a paid editor can easily lend itself to advocacy and cause problems for these editors from editors likel yourself who can't seem to understand that a paid editor may easily be causing no problems ergo may cause problems for them without due cause. I think we should keep all parties in mind here and encourage best practices as opposed to leaps of bad faith and ominous "you'll be banned/blocked" statements without proper context. If everyone else feels I'm misinterpreting things or am the sole voice of these concerns fighting an overwhelming consensus I'm happy to walk away. Let me know as I have been crafting a draft but if my input is that off-base i probably shouldn't waste everyone's time and energy. -- Banjeboi 04:19, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Just don't try to impose your ideas by multiple reversions. Either let me and others edit, or walk away - it's your choice. Smallbones (talk) 04:29, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I think a dispassionate and objective look at the various reversions, which is after all still red herrings to the actual issues here, would show I was pushing for discussion via the WP:BRD process. In any case we have a talkpage so let's work on utilizing that to find common ground for moving forward. -- Banjeboi 04:40, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the present text was written for another purpose (propose new policy rather than write down current practice), and as such is entirely missing the boat. I have incorporated a small portion of it into my own proposed text, but most of the content I felt was unworkable, unwieldy, or novel. I didn't replace the text entirely, however, since I didn't feel like it had achieved a full enough discussion. I thought providing a link was an adequate compromise; I didn't revert your removal of it, but I am interested to hear what objection you have to merely linking an alternative wording. --TeaDrinker (talk) 16:07, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

We don't have pages then a link saying - "here's an alt version" - we work to incorporate all veiwpoints. I agree waht we currently have isn't ideal but I feel the proposed version is going to far in another direction. -- Banjeboi 00:09, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I see nothing inconsistent with proposing an alternative view. I'm not suggesting we have two policies, I suggest the present proposal is rejected and the best way to write it is replacement. May I ask what about my proposal you feel does not represent current practice? --TeaDrinker (talk) 12:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Trying to reconcile RfC with current page

“ This page in a nutshell: This was a Request for comment on paid editing. No clear consensus emerged from the discussion.

Rootology's opening view was that motivation for editing is not important, it is the end result of that editing - the content - that matters. They asserted that if the content is policy compliant, there shouldn't be a problem, and this viewpoint received 102 support votes, the most of any statement. While there were few other statements directly in favour of paid editing, iridescent felt allowing it would be a net positive because a declaration of intent would reveal potential bias; pfctdayelise pointed out that the German Wikipedia had allowed paid editing; David Shankbone said that existing policies take care of conflict of interest issues; LessHeard vanU felt that we all have an inclination toward bias which the shared editing process would hopefully amalgamate to a neutral point of view, and expressed a common view that editors should reveal any potential bias, such as a relationship with the subject, or a financial gain. Thekohser asserted that most experienced paid content editors are likely producing higher-quality, more compliant content than volunteer editors.

The majority of those that offered their own opinion statements felt that paid editing was a conflict of interest which should be discouraged or controlled in some way - Jimbo Wales stated that he would block any user selling their services as a Wikipedia editor, and that he considered it policy not to accept paid advocates directly editing Wikipedia. Some 66 support votes were cast for this view, the highest among any statement criticizing paid editing. FayssalF suggested a template to identify articles which had been edited by paid editors; YellowMonkey gave an example of a known paid article on a businessman which did not contain details of lawsuits for fraud against the businessman; Fred Bauder felt that endorsement of paid advocacy opened the door to influencing Wikipedia content.

”

The above is the nutshell from the RfC; while I personally would wish it be a bit less personality driven it does seem to fairly summarize the RfC itself.

1. I think our current page does include these points although certainly could be improved. I wonder if we should look to this as the actually community consensus on the various concerns and issues and help guide what we present here.

2. I'm not convinced that we should include the statement that Jimmy Wales stated he would block any editor selling their services and paid advocates. The discussion there was quick to point out that didn't seem to align with consensus, he might have the authority to declare a policy as such, respected admins and editors outed themselves as paid editors (and had done so previously) and didn't appreciate having a potential block hanging over their heads and any unwarranted block likely would be reversed as a bad block anyway, etc. According to Wikipedia:Role of Jimmy Wales, as a general principle, he has been unwilling to act in contravention of community consensus. In this case there is no consensus but somewhat contradictory statements.

3. Jimbo's statement also seemed to advised that interested paid editors should write under open license like we do here and post it elsewhere for other Wikipedians to use as they see fit in whole or part - if it's quality work we likely will use it.

4. Jimbo's statement also says that paid advocates should use the talkpages to express their interests

There are other issues but these seem to be the main sticking points as I see them. -- Banjeboi 07:35, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow entirely. What was it from the RfC that you felt had consensus (the points included in the current page)? As far as Jimbo's statement, he seems perfectly happy to block at the present. He has done so in the past and has said he will do so again. To avoid stating this would be misleading. It is another question what he will do if faced with a consensus of editors who oppose his policy, but that is not the case presently (although he lacks consensus support). I agree with points three and four. --TeaDrinker (talk) 15:56, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

the RfC summary gives an overview of what seems to be several consensus points - certainly there is no consensus that all paid editors should be blocked and that seems to be a sticking point here presently - declaring that to be the practice or policy when neither seems to be true. In short I think we can use the RfC as a guide to what we do here. -- Banjeboi 00:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see what points you're seeing consensus on. I agree there is no consensus to block all editors who are paid to edit, although I would claim that there is a current practice (call it policy or not) to block users who engage in certain forms of paid editing. Would you agree with this latter statement? --TeaDrinker (talk) 12:41, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

My point is that the current consensus is that there is no consensus. The community does not agree on any particular point ergo we represent major views with due weight and dispassionately. -- Banjeboi 00:44, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there's no undisputed consensus (getting meta with talk about agreement over whether there's agreement). That is why I suggested we compose the page first as a document characterizing the present state of things. Do you agree that current practice does involve blocking some editors who persist in paid editing? --TeaDrinker (talk) 18:10, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't, advocacy yes but there are many editors who are paid who have outed themselves yet are not blocked so this is automatically unhelpful. It's better to stick with the problems that should be avoided or addressed if they persist. -- Banjeboi 02:59, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Who? We should investigate these cases and see what is different about them. --TeaDrinker (talk) 17:09, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

As I've mentioned before you may wish to read the RfC where several examples are revealed. As a suggestion I wouldn't bother with what feels like a witch hunt, do you really think any effort to stop paid editing will succeed? If we don't already know who is or who isn't, and many statements confirm that unless someone reveals they are one we don't know, and many folks don't see themselves as a paid editor, I'm unclear why going down an enforceable path to trying to out people is supposed to accomplish? -- Banjeboi 01:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I would appreciate you pointing them out, to be sure we're on the same page about which examples you're referring to. As far as enforceability, our first "enforcement" mechanism is trusting people to follow the policy, per WP:AGF. If it is a problem with people not following policy, there are options available to us in this and many other cases. We can discuss what those might be, if you wish, but lets first trust people to follow policy and guidelines. --TeaDrinker (talk) 01:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Outdent. I'm uncomfortable revealing other people's business in this manner. Several folks cited examples and themselves in the RfC. If you wish to pursue that route that is your option. I agree we should extend AGF and help steer folks into compliance if they are erring into problem areas. -- Banjeboi 10:39, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I am ok with the two inactive paid editors who are not taking contracts... My issue is only with people who are presently paid editors. If they proverbially renounce their past, I welcome them. Are we talking about the same editors? On your second point, I think we need to have clear policy. We can then steer people back to constructive editing. This would be made much harder if we don't have clear instructions to users because we were worried they might not be effectively enforceable. --TeaDrinker (talk) 00:46, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I think unenforcible is the faultpin in the whole concept that somehow all paid editing will be stopped and "those editors" will renounce their ways. I think longer term editors might mea culpa to avoid the needless drama but really they tend, IMHO, not to be the vast majority of those in this issue area. Maybe you answered this already and I missed it - If an editor causes no problems and otherwise makes constructive edits and they are found out/disclose they are a paid editor ... do we care?, should they now be blocked? If so, why? and under what policy? -- Banjeboi 02:31, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

And they decide to continue to edit for pay? Yep, they will be blocked. If not, provided they didn't violate the trust placed in them by the community, probably not. I think we should write policy assuming people will follow it. We can come up with enforcements when it becomes necessary. I don't understand what you're trying to say in your second sentence. --TeaDrinker (talk) 02:45, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

So you think if they are constructively editing, causing no problems and are still getting paid they should be blocked? Can you point me where in blocking or any other policy that supports that? -- Banjeboi 14:37, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I've already addressed this. You may have an incentive to fail to recognize that, but enough is enough. --TeaDrinker (talk) 19:21, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Apologies if I missed it then, can you post the diff? -- Banjeboi 20:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Amazon Mechanical Turks

I wasn't sure if any of these proposals/discussions specifically address edits made via Amazon Mechanical Turks. Just thought I'd point out that this has been used in the past to drive Wikipedia editing (it may still be in use, but I haven't seen it lately). For example, see [8], [9]. (I had left basically the same message at Talk:Amazon Mechanical Turk some time ago.) -- Gyrofrog (talk) 23:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Your question deserves a better answer, but I can only say your links (with just a little bit of digging) show that this is a (fairly common?) practice. Thanks for the heads up! Smallbones (talk) 18:11, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

This does bring up a quite startling reality - paid editors are hardly guaranteed to even an adequate job and may be wasting an employer's money. It may be a much smarter investment to pay a researcher to write good copy adhering to Wikipedia's sourcing guidelines and freely license the work and let experienced Wikipedians do the actual adding of content. -- Banjeboi 10:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, we can hardly consider the economic best interest of employers when writing policy for Wikipedia. Bad news or not for the employer, it is clearly causing a problem on Wikipedia. --TeaDrinker (talk) 16:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Who's suggesting we should "consider the economic best interest of employers when writing policy?" -- Banjeboi 14:43, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Second sentence

I intend to remove the second sentence, which reads " Although there may be some forms of compensation which are generally acceptable, there are other forms which are unacceptable", as this particular thing is not addressed anywhere in the rest of text and it is very unclear what exactly meant now. --Reinoutr (talk) 11:29, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:COI mentions the Reward board as an example of a situation where an editor may accept compensation for editing tasks. Some items on the board offer financial rewards. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:08, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

We are in the process of determining what is acceptable, and what is unacceptable, but I think everybody agrees that some things are, and some things aren't acceptable. If nothing is unacceptable, then there is no reason for a policy on this. If everything is unacceptable then the policy could be very short. Smallbones (talk) 14:48, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

If it is stated this boldy (yet unspecified) in the lead, clarification should be later on in the same page, not in one of the pages it links to. --Reinoutr (talk) 16:06, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay - I've added a mention of the reward board to that sentence in the lead. Gandalf61 (talk) 21:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The wording in the intro that some forms of paid editing "might be considered unacceptable" was readded, over "are unacceptable." The "might be considered" language I find just bizarre. I DO CONSIDER many forms of paid editing unacceptable, but that is not the main point: if we can't outline some sort of unacceptable behavior then there is no point in having a policy here - Jimbo's stated policy will just have to do in the minds of most administrators, and people who are wondering what our policy actually is will just have to go searching for Jimbo's statement.

I've noticed a tendency on this page to hint, without directly saying it, that all paid editing is acceptable. Don't fool yourself on this; we can't come up with a policy like that. Three-quarters of our editors would just laugh if somebody tried to put that forward as a policy. That type of "policy" would be dumped within 10 minutes of an RfC. Why bother trying to put that forward? Smallbones (talk) 20:25, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

This page is meant as a guideline/policy to clarify the opinion of english Wikipedia on paid editing, right? If the first paragraph says "some forms of paid editing ARE unacceptable", but it is NOWHERE explained what those forms are, this page (and the policy) are pretty useless to anyone. By adding some nuance to that sentence, it at least becomes clear that while some forms can be considered unacceptable, nobody can present a clear definition (with consensus). --Reinoutr (talk) 06:29, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Valid concern, I think a NPOV section, after the "Background" section, on what is paid editing that spells out there are different forms may be helpful here. Within it we can include officially sanctioned forms, forms that don't involve actual money but are under the same compensation umbrella and finish with more obvious examples and allude to how the primary concerns with paid editing is quality of editing (including COI and advocacy) as well as our consensus and civility policies towards other editors. Does this seem like it would help address these issues. -- Banjeboi 10:27, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that would greatly help, yes. I am not asking for lists of "acceptable" and "unacceptable" paid editing, but some guidance should be provided. Now the actual issue is largely circumvented. --Reinoutr (talk) 10:48, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll see if I can work up something, a lot of my efforts have actually stuck so I think I may be able to strike a nuanced balance. -- Banjeboi 11:34, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I added "Advocating on behalf of a client is strictly forbidden." I'm sure we can all agree that such is true. --TeaDrinker (talk) 14:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Can we? I am not even sure what that means. What does "advocating" means in this context, editing articles?, defending someones position on Wikipedia in discussions?, arguing for deletion of an article? And is a "client" by definition paying his "advocate", and is that always bad or only if a payement is given in return? If I write an article requested on the "reward board", then I am technically writing an article (advocating?) for a client, who will pay me. This only adds to the confusion in my opinion... --Reinoutr (talk) 15:06, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it's unhelpful just wedged in there without context but amended to remove the client part. Any advocacy, paid or not, is forbidden, this again conflates all paid editing with advocacy in the lede which is a step backwards IMHO. -- Banjeboi 18:59, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Sure, although we don't need to consider all forms of advocacy, we should be narrowly focused on the topic of this page. I took the liberty of changing it back. --TeaDrinker (talk) 16:28, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

TeaDrinker, I think your recent edit is helpful, but there's more clarification needed. I believe that advocating for a position on a talk page, project space, etc. is often fine, if it serves to move the debate over a confusing or contentious issue forward. Do you agree? Essentially, I'm unclear on whether you intend that sentence to apply only to article space, or to all of Wikipedia. (Please note, I would not say anybody has carte blanche to advocate elsewhere; there are certainly many examples of where such advocacy goes too far. I would remind you that I support requiring disclosure of financial conflicts of interest in such cases, and that other policies like WP:CIVIL etc. etc. still apply.) -Pete (talk) 16:35, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes I agree. I played around with various wordings in my head, but was unable to come up with something that really worked succinctly. I'm open to suggestions, of course. We actually don't even welcome all advocates, even on the talk pages. Suppose someone was hired to be a tobacco companies PR rep on Wikipedia. They only edit talk pages, and state up-front that they will not be swayed by arguments or discussions (just to make it super-clear) and will present (on talk pages) misrepresentations of research, selective quotes, etc to get their point across. They say directly they are a zealous advocate for their firm . Every day, they go to the talk pages of a dozen articles and try to engage editors to change the article to reflect the article to their liking. In such a case, I would ask for a community ban. That editor is not here to build an encyclopedia. I would ask for a ban in the same spirit as a die-hard POV-pusher. The benefit to the encyclopedia in such a case is virtually nothing and the cost in time is large. So saying "editing talk pages as a paid advocate" is also problematic. It is prefered to editing articles, and is generally ok, but not always permitted. --TeaDrinker (talk) 00:21, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I don't think this is a major issue to get into the document; to the best of my knowledge, this sort of zealous talk page advocacy has never happened. However I didn't want something I wrote to affirm someone being disruptive. --TeaDrinker (talk) 02:11, 21 August 2009 (UTC)