Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Paid editing

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

An RFC on the notion of paid editing.

NOTE: As of the launch time of this RFC, this is not a blockable offense under any policy, or to my knowledge against any explicit policy, but dances around WP:COI in some ways. rootology (C)(T) 18:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

REMINDER TO USE THE TALK PAGE FOR DISCUSSION: All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.

If you're interested in this discussion, you may be interested in the page under construction at Wikipedia:Paid editing providing advice and warnings to prospective paid editors.

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Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

What's the question?

Is paid editing a problem? Is it fine? Is it against policy? What policy? What should be the response?

Desired outcome

A start toward consensus on what the community view is on the matter of "paid editing".

Attempt at a solution

This issue essentially boils down to three viewpoints, I feel. I've outlined them below. Please keep comments to one sentence or less!

Blocking

Users involved in paid editing are banned after a yet-to-be-decided number of warnings.

Allowing with caveats

Users involved in paid editing must, for example, disclose their clients, and submit the article for review by neutral editors in good standing. For example, that is - exact caveats to be decided.

Allowing without caveats

Paid editors are allowed to continue paid editing, but must be aware of the CoI etc. Basically how it is at present.

Statement by Rootology

Summary: Why you write content is irrelevant--is the content free to Wikipedia itself, and policy compliant?

My view on this is pretty basic. I don't care why someone writes free content for us, as long as it's compliant with WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:BLP, WP:N, and all the other associated content policies for inclusion in Wikipedia. Did you write the article because you thought it was interesting as a subject? Because you're a fan of the place/person/business? A patron? An employee? Because they paid you? Once you release and post the content to the encyclopedia, you have no control over it--it's live. Your paying sponsor, if you had one, paid you--not Wikipedia. They have no claim or control over the content we have here. We have a host of policies to deal with content, and editing by users. Does it really matter why they wrote the content, if it's quality? If not, we have the options in-process of WP:Speedy Deletion and WP:Articles for Deletion for content that doesn't qualify. That's all we need. More to the point, if someone does something crazy like pay a person to write a featured article about them, their company, or product, do we care? We get another Featured Article out of the deal.

Speaking as myself, I've written a featured article because I'm a fan and I've met them several times, they're tremendously nice people, and chat with one member periodically; wrote a good article for the same reasons, plus I've had a couple of drinks with the band; have one featured article bubbling in development because I'm a patron and their staff are some of the nicest guys I've ever encountered; two future FAs because I'm a fan of the place and a shopper there, and know at least two individuals in passing involved in various degrees with the administration of the overall facility; and have a nascent project to which I have actually given them money, and have multiple friends who are a part of the orginization. Any one of them could have paid me in theory $100 to write this content--they didn't--but if they had, so what? We'd have more good articles out of the deal.

I am wholly ambivalent about the motivation of why someone writes free content, so long as they do, we get it for free, it's policy-compliant, and they understand and accept (or don't, since their acceptance of policy is irrelevant in the end) they and their client has zero right nor claim of ownership of it from the moment it's posted. The "Why" doesn't matter; only the free content does, and there is nothing about the motivations of why someone writes that has anything to do with our "free culture". That "free culture" thing applies to us giving it away free to our readers, not "you must write it for free".

If someone wrote a stunning and neutral Featured Article on Topic X-Y-Z with 100+ sources, as their sole contribution, and then admitted immediately after it's promotion to FA status that they were paid $500 to do so by the subject so that they would get the massive "Google Juice" or exposure, would we block the author and depromote the article on principle, and run it through WP:AFD? Nonsense, any admin (any admin) doing so on grounds of "paid editing" would be grossly out of bounds. The FA cost us nothing but the time to review it. rootology (C)(T) 19:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. rootology (C)(T) 19:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
2. User:Smith Jones 20:36, 26 July 2009 (UTC) - intelligent and rational, excellent summary of the situation
3. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
4. >David Shankbone 19:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
5.  – iridescent 19:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Ironholds (talk) 19:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
7. The ends justify the means. Bsimmons666 (talk) 19:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Reinoutr (talk) 19:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
9. As someone who is paid to edit articles, I ensure that the additions that I conduct towards WP are compliant within the existing policies and guidelines. seicer | talk | contribs 19:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Basically the correct view. Why people write content is completely outside our "jurisdiction", we just judge whether they follow the rules. If they do, noone should care, why they do it. Regards SoWhy 19:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Brianreading (talk) 19:58, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Agreed, so long as the editor follows Wikis guidelines and policies, their being compensated is irrelevant. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 20:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
13. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 20:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Yes; dispassionately, there are very many reasons why people contribute and doing so for financial reward should not be one of the few that is looked upon poorly - as long as the content satisfies the criteria then it should be allowed. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
15. The reason that people write for is immaterial, as long as their content follows our guidelines. We are about content, and if that's up to snuff then I don't see why were should have a problem with it. --Falcorian ^(talk) 20:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
16. I generally agree with this. If content that meets our standards comes about as a result of paid editing, that's a positive factor. I do have serious concerns about other side-effects, though, which I'll outline below. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 20:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
17. That is pretty much my view. There is a slight concern over perceptions of COI (actual COI isn't really a problem, we can fix whitewashed articles), but that's all. I don't think it is a major concern, though, it can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. --Tango (talk) 20:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
18. I think there are reasons why motive matters, more in terms of maintaining the health of the community than creating quality content, but I don't think it's something we either can or should regulate formally. In general I endorse this statement.--ragesoss (talk) 21:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
19. Agree. As long as the content is good and adheres to all policies and guidelines, I don't care how it got here. -- Michel Vuijlsteke (talk) 21:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
20. Content is the key. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 21:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
21. I think it is much harder to avoid bias from political opinions or being a fan of the subject, than being paid. There will be paid editors that misbehave of course, but let's deal with it on a case by case basis. I think Greg Kohs was greatly mistreated when he started open paid editing. As I understand, he is now banned because of other things he has done later, and I cannot comment on that. Allowing company employees to edit the article about the company may actually be beneficial in countering the unhappy customers and ex-employees that often add unreferenced crap. Besides, the open source world has not had much problem including programmers that are paid by various companies. --Apoc2400 (talk) 21:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
22. I agree nearly 99%; full disclosure should be needed. Computerjoe's talk 22:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
23. I agree. I'm thinking of offering paid editing myself, some time in the near future. I will, of course, scrupulously adhere to all the relevant policies when doing so. AndrewRT(Talk) 22:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
24. Endorse, as long as any paid editors are willing to acknowledge that in the end, it is the Wikipedia community that decides, based solely on Wikipedia's policies, whether an article is suitable. If you are being paid to write an article about a (by Wikipedia's standards) non-notable company, and your article is deleted, that's just too bad. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 23:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
25. Endorse. Getting something out there that articulates current policy, and lays out expectations for all parties to avoid confusion or missteps, would be a good followon. If we can, with that in place, right some past wrongs, so much the better. ++Lar: t/c 23:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
26. Endorse. Sure, why not? If paid editors are made to follow the same rules as everyone else why should we stand in the way of someone's livelihood? At best, we'll get some nice articles and at worst, we'll have to block some miscreants, which isn't any different than usual. Multixfer (talk) 23:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
27. Endorse and point out (not for rootology's sake but for others) that this describes MyWikiBiz? Viridae^Talk 00:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
28. If someone offered me $500 to write an FA about their organization my first question would be, when do you want it done by? As long as paid editors follow the rules and don't get any special treatment I don't see anything wrong with paid editing. Would someone please make this clear in the policies? Cla68 (talk) 01:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
29. Strongly Agree - saying that "bad" motivations always lead to bad articles is a logical fallacy. All contributions should be judged on their own merits, not on the contributors motivations. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
30. As long as the edits are WP:NPOV and everything, I see no problem. Same goes for any other possible COI, really. Anomie⚔ 02:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
31. Endorse, provided the COI is acknowledged. I;d rather know than guess, and its fairer to everyone. working with the article. DGG (talk) 03:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
32. I don't mind this explicit statement. Where it can lead could be problematic, but this exact concept is alright. MBisanz ^talk 03:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
33. Don't really care why someone adds biased, non-neutral, or non-notable information to Wikipedia. If someone volunatarily adds this stuff it can be dealt with the same way as if they were paid to add it. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
34. As long as it is neutral and unbiased, well sourced, etc then I find that paid editing acceptable. Basket of Puppies 04:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
35. Support in principle, but the majority of paid edits I come across are spam. MER-C 05:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
36. Well said. -- Ned Scott 05:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
37. Totally agree. Killiondude (talk) 07:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
38. pfctdayelise (talk) 07:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
39. Well stated - We have a mass of guidelines on CoI and Content that can deal with inappropriate articles, as well as enough means to delete bad articles. If we cannot see the difference between paid and not paid, it must simply be a good article. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 07:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
40. On Wikipedia, it doesn't matter who you are or why you contribute, but what you contribute. [[Sam Korn]] ^(smoddy) 09:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
41. Totally agree. The quality of the article should be what counts, not the motivation. There's no reason why writing for cash is any worse than writing out of fandom. Paid editors would probably even be more careful since their income depends on not being blocked. --Helenalex (talk) 09:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
42. Agreed.  Sandstein  10:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
43. Ensorse, though it probably should be mandatory to declare such (or indeed, any) conflicts. -- samj _in^out 10:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
44. Any NPOV free content is fine, no matter how it was generated. The usual problem we have with COI editors is not that they have a COI, it is that they don't write NPOV (as MER-C says). I don't see paid editing as different from any other form of editing-with-a-preexisting-bias. Comment on content, not the contributor, and judge what they write, not why they do it. Kusma (talk) 11:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
45. Agree. Judge the content, not the person. NVO (talk) 11:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
46. My feelings exactly. لennavecia 13:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
47. Largely agree, though I share Fred Bauder's concern about giving a green light to those able to focus a huge PR budget on an article.--MoreThings (talk) 15:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
48. If the content is right, then it is cool, however - i would be wary of any corporate campaign or any type of scatterblast blitz... Modernist (talk) 16:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
49. Whole-heartedly agree. -- M2Ys4U ^(talk) 17:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
50. Seems reasonable. --John (talk) 18:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
51. Agree. I think this ought to be disclosed as a potential Conflict of Interest, but this sums up pretty much my views on the matter. More transparency is good, and this is something that is going on under the radar for a while. Let them be open about it. -- Luk ^talk 19:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
52. Endorse. This is a similar issue to WP:COI in general. COI is a guideline and strong recommendation; those who are related to a subject will often write an article that has some sort of slant. In the end, though: is the subject notable, and does the article follow WP:V, WP:NEU, WP:NOR and WP:BLP? I personally never have thought that COI has strong weight under some circumstances. Like you said, if somebody was paid $100 to write an FA, if they were related to the subject and wanted to help it get promoted, is that so bad if we get a nice FA as a result? Jamie^☆S93 19:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
53. Endorse. Pace Jimbo below, we should not have a hard and fast policy in this area, but should evaluate each editors contributions, and encourage them to disclose any COI's including financial ones. Eluchil404 (talk) 23:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
54. Endorse. If we get quality content that meets all of our guidelines out of such an arrangement, then why should be concerned? As far as I'm concerned, the motivations of any editor should not be used to judge the quality of their work. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 08:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC).
55. Endorse Why is financial motivation any worse than other forms of motivation. Apply WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:OR and the problems lessen considerably. We are experienced with dealing with POV pushers and I have no reason to believe that a paid-for POV is likely to be any worse. The purpose of this project is to create a free encyclopedia, not some sort of gathering place for "free and independent scribes" to work altruistically. Turning away freely licenced content simply because someone has been paid to write it seems pointless. Paid writing is not bad or even necessarily biased. While I don't agree it was Johnson who said "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money! I should narrow my support here to paid article writing. "Paid for" use of additional tools such as deletion (or undeletion), blocking etc. is unethical and paid advocacy is very questionable (unless declared). -- Mattinbgn\^talk 11:32, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
56. Endore - I agree.  iMatthew :  Chat  00:36, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
57. Endorse - was neutral until I read Jimbo's "Consider this to be policy as of right now" statement below, which pushed me right off the fence in the opposite direction. I'm with rootology - if an editor contributes well written NPOV policy-compliant material, I don't care what their motivation is. Gandalf61 (talk) 15:17, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
58. RP459 (talk) 15:41, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
59. Endorse - Continuing to drive this underground does no good. Bring it into the light. The community will ensure that WP:V, WP:COI, WP:N, and WP:OWN are met. So we gain good articles. The only ones who will lose are the payers who don't, or don't want to, understand those concepts. Esprqii (talk) 16:31, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
60. For me a cardinal virtue of Wikipedia has always been that contributions are judged not by who made them or why they did so, but on how valuable (and policy-compliant) they are. Gonzonoir (talk) 17:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
61. Olaf Davis (talk) 23:54, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
62. Agreed. It seems obvious paid editing is already happening from articles about politicians and scientists as well as companies. Rather than endorse or approve the concept however I think it makes the most sense to point out why it's COI and suggest signs that one's editing on a subject is COI with POV being among the bigger concerns. -- Banjeboi 18:07, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
63. Quality, not reasons are important. Hobit (talk) 00:25, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
64. Agreed, even if it's moot per Jimbo below. — Alan De Smet | Talk 05:35, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
65. Absolute Support. After all, there is a bounty board... Leujohn ^(talk) 08:52, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
66. Absolute Support. I don't see how it is any different from an organization paying its employee to post accurate information on WP. This is a common practice, particularly in the tech industry. Ahugenerd (talk) 13:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
67. Absolute support. Agreed with the use above who said this is "basically the correct view". All the problems that can be caused by paid editing are things that are already violations of policy! It makes no sense at all to make a new policy to prevent possible violations of existing policies. —Werson (talk) 22:30, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
68. Absolutely support. Most of our featured articles are written because of an incentive to do so, being a fan of the subject etc. But our community mechanism is able to make the articles neutral and respectable. It shouldn't matter how the article got there, whether it is money, being a fan etc. The fact is that motivation and incentives to dramatically improve an article are the precedents to developing quality on wikipedia and with 85% of our article on here stubs and a measly 1 in 1200 articles at featured quality we need to leave it open for articles to develop in anyway possible. The fatc is that neutrality issues and any others with paid articles wil be spotted by the community and the result will be improved content which is why we are all here. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 10:01, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
69. Support --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 12:38, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
70. Support - my thoughts exactly. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
71. Support—it's not that I necessarily support paid editing, it's that I oppose opposition to paid editing. If, for example, a long-time Wikipedia contributor is offered by X a certain amount of money to write a good article for their company or product, and this is done transparently, there is no problem. The paid editor would be under no obligation to write with a certain POV, and since they do not own the article, other editors would NPOV it if the paid editor indeed wrote with a POV. I am sure that there are already some stealthy paid editors on Wikipedia, so it would be useful if Wikipedia encouraged transparency for this, and not the opposite. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 21:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
72. Support --A333 (talk) 00:49, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
73. Support. anyone who thinks paying someone to write an article for them will make a difference is their problem, not ours. as long as the material at WP is good, it doesnt matter how it got there. to quote Keats, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water". that image seems to me to sum up the problem of permanence here, and trying to hold onto the content for oneself. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 04:47, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
74. Support. Per my statement below, I believe paid editing should be actively encouraged as a way of enhancing the overall quality of Wikipedia. As long as there is transparency, existing policy and the free market will tear down biased editors. Dcoetzee 06:02, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
75. The summary sums up my personal view nicely. Ω (talk) 08:02, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
76. Support. snigbrook (talk) 08:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
77. 08-15 (talk) 22:40, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
78. Support. Thanks for a strong introduction on an important topic. -Pete (talk) 00:34, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
79. Endorse Statement makes sense. A paid editor can never WP:OWN an article. It would behoove any paid editor to follow the rules because a poorly written, poorly sourced, and policy violating article by a "professional" would be altered or deleted thus damaging any paid editors reputation and bringing them less offers to write an article. A paid editor is motivated to reach toward a featured article because anything less, or at worst pulling any shenanigans, is not going to be profitable in the long-run. The upside is still greater than the downside. I think some people are freaking out a little bit about this. If the concept falls flat on its face it can be done away with and put in the dustbin of wikihistory. Wikipedia needs to give things a try at least once if it gets some sort of following. If it fails the doubters can say "I told you so" and that will be that. MrMurph101 (talk) 03:59, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
80. Endorse. I work on a lot of political articles, and I never worry about whether some other editor is working for a politician or a campaign or not. Either an editor's submissions and actions are valid per all the guidelines or they aren't. A professional corps of the best editors could likely improve some of the most visible and sensitive areas of WP. I acknowledge there are some possible downsides as detailed in the many other sections below, but on the whole I think it should be allowed. Wasted Time R (talk) 17:11, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
81. Whatever - just as long as it follows policies and guidelines. --Joshua Issac (talk) 22:36, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
82. Endorse. SkyBon^{Talk\Contributions} 19:26, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
83. Support - PEPSI2786^talk 04:39, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
84. I absolutely agree that, as, in the end, the only thing that matters to the reader is the quality of the article, paid editing should be allowed as long as it leads to better articles, which all content that complies with our policies should in theory. --Aqwis (talk) 23:55, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
85. Suppport--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:59, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
86. Endorse. --Javier Carro (talk) 11:55, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
87. Support --bodnotbod (talk) 17:14, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
88. Endorse. Paid editing doesn't contradict 5 pillars — vvv (talk) 19:49, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
89. Support. If paid editing ever becomes more common, we should keep an eye on whether WP:NPOV and all the rest are holding up well, but I'm not convinced that WP:COI is inadequate or that money is any more hard to deal with than religious zeal, political zeal, fanboi-ism, etc, etc. Kingdon (talk) 00:54, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
90. Endorse, please see my comment below. Cribananda (talk) 15:56, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
91. Endorse Nutiketaiel (talk) 12:38, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
92. Endorse. We will never be able to tell with certainty whether somebody was paid for writing an article. So why should we reject the article if we can't even tell the difference to a non-paid article? Regards, --ChrisiPK (talk) 16:39, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
93. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
94. Secret ^account 17:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
95. Users Lankiveil, Apoc2400, J.delanoy and MrMurph101 sum up my opinion as well. « ₣M₣ » 03:48, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
96. Suppourt The proccess of how it got there means nothing. Quality is the key to Wikipedia, not Ethics. --TheWave (talk) 01:48, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
97. Yes. It is already happening. The community should address the mechanics of making this open, transparent, ethical, and conforming to our standards. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
98. Support - though would suggest a more efficient way of dealing with those who are paid and thus subject to COI who then do attempt to OWN in order to prevent on-going attempts at whitewashing. My experience with the COI board proved that the board was meaningless (granted that was 2 years ago), and OWN usually takes a lot before someone gets blocked. That is to say, allow blocking immediately of any editor with a known (or say proven beyond a reasonable doubt) COI who then attempts to OWN an article. Then allow unblocking only on condition that they do not edit that article/topic. Aboutmovies (talk) 09:01, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
99. Support - I really don't care where it came from, content is all that matters. Labrat256 17:20, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
100. Support Proud to be the 100th editor supporting this lucid and obvious statement. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 22:19, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
101. Support - This is not any different than a paid media reporter who writes a quality non biased news article. Jcmiller1215 05:25, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
102. Endorse Irbisgreif (talk) 12:56, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments

Talking about transparency, would you accept placing the below template at the top of the article? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 07:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I sincerely hope you're joking. Killiondude (talk) 07:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That seems kind of vindictive to me. Like you're making Example a target. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 07:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

If I were you, I'd have rather assumed good faith, Greg. Killiondude, I am not joking. Do you say that because of the wording and the Dollar sign or because of the whole notion of the template? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 07:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

In all due honesty i initially chuckled at this, thinking it was a rather good joke - i assume it is the combination of the dollar sign and the text that causes that. More template specific, is such a template really necessary? Being paid to edit is not a problem per se; if it is compliant to our policies i don't see a reason to mark a page with a specific username - it is actually rather vindicative towards other editors. Also, wouldn't this be rather redundant to the CoI template? Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 07:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Excirial, you are approaching the issue as if the whole world know about this issue of paid editing. What people around the world know is that Wikipedia is being edited by volunteers. Failing to mention to them that article X is not being edited by a volunteer is unfair and lacks transparency. You say there is no problem per se but observers and readers may not believe so. Another point, why not promote expert editing instead? We have a history of treating experts not nicely. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 08:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps something more along the lines of:

This doesn't target a specific user, nor draw too much attention to a dollar symbol, but it gets across the idea that someone is there. Also, I'd rather put it in talk, as it's not a maintenance issue. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 08:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

It shouldn't be on the article, because templates at the top of articles are meant to be temporary. Perhaps on the talk page. Stifle (talk) 08:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I see your point now, Greg. Placing it on the talk page would serve for little (being very transparent with our readers who don't bother reading talk pages). How many readers read them? My whole point revolves around transparency. Stifle, transparency is much more important than our less important guidelines. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 08:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I can see what you mean but, as Stifle says above, maintenance tags are supposed to be temporary. Articles shouldn't really have them on. And when do you propose to take them off? Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 08:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Guidelines are not set in stones, Greg. We are here debating a much more important issue. You are discussing it here as if it were a routine case. Mind the media. That said, if we are going to accept paid editing then I see no reason why we can't place a template at the article forever. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 08:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

If you're going to have templates like that, how about ones saying "This article has been edited by one or more (ex-)members/supporters/employees/... of the political/religious/commercial/artistic/... group/organization/... concerned and/or one or more of its rivals"? Peter jackson (talk) 09:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Please, let's not compare advocate editors with 'paid editors'. The whole world knows about the formers but not the latter group. We are talking about a new business model here. I feel that we are not assessing the media reaction right. If people want to disregard it and put the reputation of Wikipedia at risk then let them go ahead; I am not a associated with that. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 09:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

But why is it inherently different? If I'm a member of the Church of Scientology and think they're the greatest thing ever (or an ex-member and think they're evil) how are my edits any less suspect than someone the Church has hired? --Helenalex (talk) 09:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

If you can convince the readers and the media with this argument then I'd agree. As I said in my statement below, the media do not dig into the pros' arguments. Readers follow what the media says. "Wikipedia allows paid editing" alone is enough to prompt harsh reactions. We are acting here as if Wikipedia has already won the hearts of observers. Other soft headlines would include "What is the difference between Wikipedia and Mahalo?", etc... This RfC would probably be better held in universities I believe to get the right feedback. What we are doing here is that we are thinking of paid editors more than readers and observers. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 09:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I see no need for this template. Such templates are for pointing out problems with articles. --Apoc2400 (talk) 09:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd say I see a problem not mentioning it. Would you buy a product without knowing from where it comes and who made it? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 09:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Since when did we allow the media to dictate policy? A few years ago practically every media article on Wikipedia said that because anyone could edit it, Wikipedia was fundamentally unreliable and hopelessly inaccurate. That doesn't seem to have harmed us much. And people already read and trust Wikipedia having no idea who wrote it. --Helenalex (talk) 10:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The media dictates people's minds in a sense. And you must put 'having no idea who wrote it' in contrast with 'an article is written by a paid editor'. Just to give you an idea about what I am talking about --> read the 'Best Answer - Chosen by Voters'-- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 10:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

See WP:DISCLAIM. It says "no" to your idea. If that policy is changed, I have no problem with such a banner at the top of articles it applies to... along with banners disclosing all the other sorts of potential CoI (Catholic, Tarantino fan, Pokemon hater, latin nomenclature advocate, etc. etc. etc.) of every editor who worked on the article... paid editing is just one kind of CoI of many. ++Lar: t/c 11:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

You are changing the core of Wikipedia with this novel paid editing idea and bringing in a mere guideline to show that my idea is terrible? Ok, I have a policy for you :) -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 12:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Great idea. Gimme money than slap it all over my contribs. Then slap the rest of wikipedia with "This article was, shall we say, edited by uninvolved drive-by volunteers who won't get paid for it, ever". NVO (talk) 11:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• To FayssalF -- I wouldn't object to some kind of footnote template, but not header template, which said "This article has been edited by one or more paid editors," and which then linked back to the talk page header which detailed whom, and whom the client was. I would absolutely object to such a template being put up without evidence. rootology (C)(T) 13:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

  I'd be probably gone by the time this whole issue gets a formal status. You'd be free to choose any template or none at all. As I said in my statement below... if I had known that someday we'll arrive to this point I'd have not bothered with contributing the first day. Good luck to all. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 14:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

  That seems a bit ...overdramatic. Paid editing happens here now, as we speak, and I think most everyone knows it. What matters is what stance we take about it, because it can't be stopped. The choices are to drive it underground, or have the CoI out where it can be seen. Your article header banner singles out paid editing... if we want to highlight CoIs I say highlight them all. I'm all for that actually. But a bit less rhetoric ("I'd have not bothered with contributing the first day. Good luck to all" and suchlike) might be good. Threatening to leave is rather a weak rhetorical device, actually. ++Lar: t/c 16:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

  There's a big difference between threatening and telling the truth about myself. And there's a big difference between having it underground and making it official. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

  Comedy and drama aside, the problem, as I see is, is that disclaimers like this work both ways. To some, paid editor is a no-no and a disaster. To others, it may be a sign of professional contribution, something along the lines of what Citizendium claimed to do. Disclaimers are discouraged for many reasons, one of them is that anyone can claim to be a professor on the subject, slap This is quality stuff, I get paid, you're not, beat it! and effectively hijack the topic "with a little help from my friends". There are no ways to verify it and even long-term, earned reputation on wikipedia may be deceptive (Essjay). My recommendation is, don't introduce any more wiki-ranks, the site is already divided. NVO (talk) 16:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• In another context, one where I refuse to reveal my allegiance, imagine how many marijuana smokers there would be were smoking marijuana legal! Covert existence and overt permission are vastly different things.--RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 16:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

  That's a pretty weak analogy, as it can be answered: why is alcohol legal, but marijuana not? I've never seen a pot head kill another pot head in a bar brawl. Why is it okay to be a registered Republican and edit the Republican Party articles? -->David Shankbone 16:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• You're missing the point. It's not about whether smoking pot should be legal or not. It's about how many people would smoke pot were it legal. (Many more than do now.) The analogy is that there would be many more paid editors would there be if paid editing could be done openly and without fear of retribution. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 16:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

  Yes, but for your analogy to hold, both more people smoking pot AND more people getting cash for edits are bad. That's not obviously true. Perhaps more people with glaucoma and multiple sclerosis will be smoking pot to aid their ailments. That's not necessarily bad. And oh, by the way, your theory that there will be more pot smokers (or paid editors) is not backed up by the available evidence. -->David Shankbone 17:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

  How is this different from MyWikiBiz, either as it is now or as it was in the bad old days? My question is about substantive differences, not superficial ones, especially substantive differences in respect of expected outcomes should the articles go awry. // BL \\ (talk) 03:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment

• Can you Please clarify on your summary?Are you talking only about editors or also saying that Admins and crats can also do paid editing and this RFC is being in the context of for spam and Particular cratoffering his services for paid editing through I assume Assume good Faith and wait for an explanation from the concerned crat.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 08:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• My statement is pretty basic. User = anyone that is paid a fee to drop new content into Wikipedia, which I don't consider inherently good nor evil. Do we get free content for readers out of the deal? If it's good content that complies with policy, then great. If not, we can remove the content, and the if the users violate actual policies, we can deal with them under those. That's what my statement is. rootology (C)(T) 13:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• The issue is much greater than just article content, consider the implications of paid editors/admins influencing policy, consider that we already have atleast 2 admins who admit to having received money for 'influencing' wikipedia (for better or worse). The ramifications of this are staggering, without intending to make any specific accusations consider whom they may have blocked, or how many opinions they may have swayed, how many 'per cool guy with admin bit' votes? If there was the chance that 'officially' accepting paid editing would ensure that full disclosure would follow, maybe I would endorse it. In reality this would probably not happen, we all know what happens to the expert editor, to the COI contributor, those in a position to have their voice be worth something would most likely be smart enough to try to avoid undermining their own value. I think the greatest danger in all of this is not of positive contributions, ie adding information which might be peacocky, but rather in the suppression of information, consider what any number of the very affluent people we offer unflattering information on would pay to have it fall under BLP violations, undue, etc. Outlawing paid editing might have the consequence of subterfuge, but at least we have clear cut rules to follow once it comes to our attention. Unomi (talk) 18:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
• I think paid editing would not be a problem. Most people have some personal reason to edit anyway. Admins taking pay would be a problem however. Northwestgnome (talk) 07:49, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
• As long as an editor is following policy, it doesn't matter what they do off-wiki. --w^{L<speak·check>} 06:53, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Abyssal (talk) 02:41, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
• Agree mostly So long as the article is policy compliant, why should we care their motivation for writing the article? WP:COI is the only possible hang-up here. Some sort of discolsure should probably be made. —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 17:55, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
• Support —Chris! _ct 04:07, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Please, no more ambox's! There are too many of them already. Ω (talk) 08:02, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• Support- To begin with, what happened to 'assume good faith'? Even if someone was compensated to write an article, if it is interesting, should it be considered inferior to an uncompensated article write-up? To wit, if the article is excellent, the motivation is irrelevant; if it isn't, it can always be edited or deleted. —Sappho'd ^(Talk)
• Support - absolutely GTD 11:54, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Contrary to popular belief (I'll go ahead and say the dreaded words), Wikipedia is actually written by people with inherent interests. It is not that there is no POV here, it is just that there are many (accepted) POVs. Someone who is hired to create or edit articles will actually (1) be a fairly good writer, (2) do more-than-typical research on the topic before editing, and (3) try to prevent the account from getting blocked, hence follow policy. One thing that does concern me, however, is that because of the visibility and popularity of Wikipedia, businesses and corporations will probably start pumping in huge amounts of money. That's possibly still ok, since that is not the majority of Wikipedia. Another positive thing that could happen is, instead of the usual donors, we might start seeing topic-related donors. I for example, might like to see good articles on my city, community, school etc. and might decide to pay someone to touch-up these articles rather than making a blind donation. Cribananda (talk) 02:50, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by SarekOfVulcan

As Rootology says above, if the community judges it to be good content, then what's the problem? If the community doesn't judge it to be good content, it gets taken care of the way any other article does, and a clueless company has wasted their money. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
2. rootology (C)(T) 19:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
3. seicer | talk | contribs 19:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
4. >David Shankbone 20:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
5.  – iridescent 20:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Falcorian ^(talk) 20:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
7. — Gavia immer (talk) 22:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Multixfer (talk) 00:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. --Helenalex (talk) 10:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
10. لennavecia 13:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
11. MacMed^talk_stalk 19:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
12. -- M2Ys4U ^(talk) 03:00, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Esprqii (talk) 16:31, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Ahugenerd (talk) 13:32, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Short and simple support :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
16. snigbrook (talk) 08:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
18. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 02:32, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
19. Yes! -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 22:20, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment:

I think that what you and User:Rootology are missing is that the constitution of this 'community' that judges content will change and therefore so will wikipedia. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 10:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Any tips on what, when and how will be changed? Some secret revelations? NVO (talk) 11:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I should think it is fairly obvious that a community of unpaid volunteers is not the same as a community that contains paid, even openly, non-volunteers. But, I guess that was obvious only to me. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 16:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The pursuit of knowledge is an avocation which combines both paid & unpaid contributors. Just because a tenured professor makes a good income, does that mean you will stop investigating & learning more about subjects in that field? -- llywrch (talk) 05:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Clearly, paid editing is slanted, biased, and does NOT in fact reflect closely the facts of the matter, or the opinions of the community. Even paid editing, though disclosed, serves the illicit purpose of mutilating the facts, and manipulating the reader(s). Propaganda, no matter how you pretty it up, is exactly that. Propaganda. Let the Fascists continue to have their way, and we will dance to George Bush's (Orwell) drummer ... just do it for the children, think of the children ...

Statement by David Shankbone

I have always supported paid editing if you can get that work. Unfortunately, in the past the person/people most associated with paid editing are unpleasant and disliked; thus, the issue has been paired with them. It's time to review the idea outside of the past, and ask why our other policies and guidelines will not take care of perceived WP:COI issues. They would. Paid editing happens; only diligent review of material for NPOV, V and OR will circumvent problems with any of our material, paid or unpaid. -->David Shankbone 19:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
2. rootology (C)(T) 19:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Not something I'm accustomed to saying, but David Shankbone is absolutely right. – iridescent 19:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
4. — Gavia immer (talk) 22:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
5. I would prefer to see some degree of acknowledgment of the status--which of course can only be expected once such editing is explicitly permitted. For some of the subjects I work with its easier enough to guess, but I always feel a little silly with some of the circumlocutions I need to go to because i cannot straight out say," as a representative of the ccomnpany, can;t you find some better press comments about it and the published financial figures?" DGG (talk) 03:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. -- Ned Scott 06:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. pfctdayelise (talk) 07:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. --Helenalex (talk) 09:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. What Iridescent said. لennavecia 13:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
10. I think realpolitik dictates that we have to accept that paid editing will happen, so we may as well make the best of it. I'd like to see declaration of COI become mandatory and included in policy, rather than remain optional and included in a guideline.--MoreThings (talk) 15:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
11. If, as is likely, that paid editing exists now, by having it not openly declared and tolerated you are likely to find that these editors are going to be very careful in not allowing their edits to be disallowed - and thus the editors being paid will be the very best in the profession, and only those concerns who can afford such professionals will benefit. Wikipedia content will be, if not already, influenced by the multi nationals, large political parties, national governments, and other interests with the resources to create the articles they desire - as much as for this, as well as Rootology's premise is that it is the quality of contribution that counts and not its reasons, do I find myself agreeing with Mr Shankbone. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
12. -- M2Ys4U ^(talk) 03:00, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Esprqii (talk) 16:31, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Absolutely correct about the need to review both our own attitudes, and also our articles... TheGrappler (talk) 19:40, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Support. Biased editing is the real problem, and one that Wikipedia has long had success in overcoming. It is behavior, not motivation, that must be scrutinized. Dcoetzee 06:07, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
16. snigbrook (talk) 08:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
17. --Aqwis (talk) 00:00, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
18. Support. Agree w/ Editor:Dcoetzee. Behavior has a history.--Buster7 (talk) 09:00, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
19. --KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 12:53, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
20. Right on, right on. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 22:21, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Redvers

Paid editing leads to paid nutters - you know who I mean - with an inherent POV to push and a monetary reason for pushing it. By all means, commonsense should be applied rather than a blanket ban, but third-party payment for editing of any subject for commercial or POV gains should be sanctionable if proven.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. ➲ redvers ^{throwing my arms around Paris}
2. Not all paid editing is beneficial, editors oftentimes defend actions against our policies and guidelines if it makes them a buck. ThemFromSpace 20:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Cirt (talk) 06:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Third-party payments = POV. Johnuniq (talk) 09:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. MuZemike 17:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Certainly a concern. We've had a few snake-oil salesmen stop by to peddle their wares here, and I don't relish the prospect of opening those floodgates further than they are already. MastCell ^Talk 22:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. I don't like the results paid editors produce, and officially permitting it undermines the credibility of the project. See for example today's Register article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/12/wikipedia_cash_for_spam/ JN466 16:07, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
8. --Mecanismo | Talk 16:36, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Paid editing can only inevitably lead to COI. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:27, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Paleking (talk) 15:39, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Enric Naval (talk) 20:32, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
12. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:19, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
13. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 07:47, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
14. I don't see how paid editing can ever fail to be a COI situation. A blanket ban may be unenforceable, but paid editing is undesirable. Many of these things linger for a long time--often ads--before someone stumbles upon them and improves or AfDs them. JJL (talk) 02:54, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Durova²⁷³ 16:07, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments

Question: Why would anyone hire a nutter to edit Wikipedia for them? Surely if anyone is going to hand over their money it will be to someone sensible and professional who can edit without aggravating the rest of the Wikipedia community. Like you say, common sense should be applied rathe than a blanket ban. In response to ThemFromSpace, you might have noticed that lots of people defend actions against policies and guidelines if it means they get the article version they want. Obviously a paid editor would have a real incentive, but unlike the people who believe that they alone know the truth and want the article to reflect that, they also have a financial incentive not to get blocked. --Helenalex (talk) 09:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Redvers has a point here. Selling these services (not unlike selling search engine quackery or that new get-slim-fast-concoction) selects a particular breed of people. It's not about the writer, it's about the seller (who, typically, will paste the text himself, or at best hire a wage slave from Bangalore). NVO (talk) 08:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't the Brad Sugars example illustrate that the community is very efficient in blocking out bad content? Wouldn't the community be able to keep tabs on an bad content from paid editors or to be able to revise their additions to remove any BLP/POV issues? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 09:54, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Unpaid editing by people with POV is what gives us the worst problems. PR people are likely to more rational than enthusiasts. DGG (talk) 00:17, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by TimVickers

Even if we did proscribe paid editing, how on earth would we ever prove that it had occurred? Since it is impossible to prove that money has changed hands, and it is highly unlikely that people will admit to paid editing, we need to judge content on the basis of what it says, rather than making guesses about the motivations of the people who contribute it. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Functionally yes, but what if anything to do with folks who admit it? rootology (C)(T) 19:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
2. One of the first things I did when I got seriously involved here was state my biases and conflicts of interest. I'd much rather deal with someone on a known basis than on a speculative one. Outlaw paid editing and only outlaws will edit for pay. And that's bad... and that's what it has to do with folks who admit it. Encourage admission instead of playing games trying to detect and prevent. ++Lar: t/c 23:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Cla68 (talk) 01:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. -- Ned Scott 06:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. pfctdayelise (talk) 07:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. There are paid editors out there - we just don't know who they are because they have every incentive to be sneaky about it. Allowing it would increase their numbers, but we would know who they are and could keep a proper eye on them. --Helenalex (talk) 09:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Practically speaking, yes - at some level, it doesn't matter whether someone is abusing the encyclopedia because they're paid to do so, or because they really really believe that the AMA and the Rockefellers are suppressing cheap, natural cancer cures... the end result is the same. MastCell ^Talk 22:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. I concede this is partly true yes. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:33, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Additionally there could be "payments" to editors in less direct ways. Lots of employees (paid salaries) edit the article relating to their organization. In the case of the Creative Commons license, the "non-commercial" use clause is disallowed presumably due to the lack of clarity in what "commercial use" is. Shyamal (talk) 06:59, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
10. We can't very well start putting watches on user's bank accounts... Ahugenerd (talk) 13:37, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
11. DGG (talk) 20:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Well agreed. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 20:05, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Duh :) Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Indeed. And we all know it has been happening for some time on here. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 09:51, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Indeed.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Well put. TheGrappler (talk) 19:36, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Abyssal (talk) 02:44, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
18. snigbrook (talk) 08:13, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
19. Yes, proof is going to always be a problem. I generally think that serious COI violations are usually identifiable by obvious NPOV problems and deliberately evasive prose styles. On the other hand, if the edit is generally constructive, motive is irrelevant. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 14:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
20. Aervanath (talk) 19:17, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
21. Of course. It would be a great disappointment for me if English Wikipedia ever started such investigations of its users’ private life (and, eventually, a prosecution of the freethought) like we already can see in Ru.wikipedia (the case of Lvova (rus.), discussion (eng.)). Motivation, beliefs and offline affairs of an user should not become a subject of public regulation in Wikipedia. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:34, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
22. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
23. Spellcast (talk) 06:12, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
24. Per rootology. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 22:23, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• Indeed. It only leads to incidents like now, where good editors have to break other policies (socks) or just lie or feel ashamed. And has anybody considered that in some Third World countries, this may actually be a way for some people to get out of poverty? To all of those who are against paid editing - I presume you don't need that money, good for you, but what right do you have to tell others that they cannot earn their money this way? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Adding on to Piotr's comment: See my essay User:Dcoetzee/Internet users by language per article on Wikipedia. There are 81 million Internet users who speak Hindi, yet the Hindi Wikipedia has only 34000 articles. Paid users are the only ones who can bring the smaller Wikipedias to critical mass. Forbidding paid editing would be a death knell to our international mission. Dcoetzee 06:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by iridescent

As those with long memories may recall me arguing during the MyWikiBiz brouhaha, I think allowing paid editors to edit openly is a net positive. At least part of the material on every band article is written by fans; on every corporate article is written by employees; on every politician article is written by supporters… Yes, a paid editor isn't going to be neutral – but someone openly admitting that they're editing for profit is someone making their prejudice clear. I don't see how, for example, allowing paid editors to write about a corporation is any different in terms of the impact on Wikipedia than, for instance allowing a user who identifies as a gay-rights advocate on their userpage to edit sexuality-related articles, or an active church member to edit religious articles. Ten thousand active editors hopefully provides a bulwark against bias.

Besides, I would far rather have users able unambiguously to edit with their potential bias in the opening, than the current poor compromise, in which editors feel the need actively to hide their particular points of view. And everyone in the world has a point of view on any subject they're likely to care enough about to write an article. As long as we have people willing to keep an eye on their edits to make sure they don't step over the line into advertising, we should give an amnesty to all the existing "paid editor" blocks – yes Greg, even you – and start again with a clean slate. – iridescent 19:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1.  – iridescent 19:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Modified support, case by case on the latter paragraph, if they're interested. rootology (C)(T) 19:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Endorse first paragraph; not the second. For some people who have been banned for paid editing, they have exhibited problematic behavior and/or downright antipathy toward us, that they have pretty much destroyed any goodwill that an amnesty would symbolize. -->David Shankbone 20:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Endorse first, but "all the existing PE blocks" could be problematic.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
5. I support the point I think Iridescent is making. Fanatics who edit Wikipedia to promote their political, social, or religious agenda are far more dangerous than someone paid to edit. Those in the last category will quit their job, even if it is their primary source of income, far more quickly than those in the first category will change their beliefs. -- llywrch (talk) 20:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
6. This is consistent with best ethical practices in the PR world. Hipocrite (talk) 21:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
7. — Gavia immer (talk) 22:13, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
8. --Gwern (contribs) 23:04 9 June 2009 (GMT)
9. Per my endorse of Tim V, just above. BOTH paragraphs, not just one. Give amnesty, and if the users DS refers to veer off the path again, so be it. Costs little to be generous in this, and doing so has a potentially huge return in good will. ++Lar: t/c 23:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Cla68 (talk) 01:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
11. -- Ned Scott 06:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Support both parts. Greg Kohs was a bit of a [nuisance], but only after he was shafted by Wikipedia. --Helenalex (talk) 09:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

    The above altered by me to remove WP:NPA violation. The policy still applies to comments about banned editors. BLP, too. لennavecia 13:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

13. Agree. NVO (talk) 11:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

    This pretty much sums up my views, and, by the last paragraph, I'm assuming iridescent means anyone who was blocked just for paid editing, not a combination of that and other issues, including civility. hmwithτ 11:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC) Going through this page, I changed my mind. hmwithτ 12:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

14. Support all of this. لennavecia 13:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Support. Any editor that would get paid for editing will likely be familiar enough with Wikipedia to evade most forms of detection while creating an article. Biased information is added from IP's, registered users and who knows what else, we already get tons of that every day. Simply blocking the top of the iceberg we find won't stop the somewhat less obvious people - In other words: Can't eliminate? Then regulate. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 14:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Support, wholeheartedly. -- Luk ^talk 19:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Yes, except "And everyone in the world has a point of view on any subject they're likely to care enough about to write an article" - the wiki-muse moves in mysterious ways, I find. Olaf Davis (talk) 23:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
18. I concede that if we conclude that paid editing is inevitable (and becomes widespread), that it is better monitored openly than proscribed and unknown about I guess. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:35, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
19. If we allow paid editing then the people with PE bans should have them removed. If some have shown problematic behavior or antipathy they will likely be banned for it again anyways. Ahugenerd (talk) 13:44, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
20. Inevitable, for how can we prevent it? I do not in any case see it worse than other forms of COI, to the extent that they are likely to be slightly better at it, it will diminish the worst spam and POV because they will learn to avoid it. DGG (talk) 20:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
21. Absolutely. A lot of good content would be generated by paid editors and most obvious POV/BLP issues would be spotted by other editors. If editors are given an incentive to develop an article quality should improve at a faster rate which is why we are here. If we are serious about developing an encyclopedia of the highest quality and professionalism we need to think of a way to attract the millions of professionals who don't edit wikipedia. how else could we bring these people to the project who at present are unwilling to edit other than for money? My main concern, however, would be that how many people are going to offer money to develop an article on say a city in Burkina Faso. Paid editing would likely increase the bias towards corporate/commercial subjects on here at the expense of traditional encyclopedic subjects which are not attached to commercial values. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 09:39, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
22. Agreed. Amnesty idea is good. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
23. Abyssal (talk) 02:47, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
24. snigbrook (talk) 08:13, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
25. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
26. Secret ^account 17:10, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
27. Yep. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 22:24, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

comment

• even if there is a mechanism for freely showing that a page has been edited by a paid editor, there's no way to ensure that this would stop all instances of paid editing? in actuality, it seems plausible that individuals paid to legitimately improve a page would use the feature, while avoidance of this feature would be easier for individuals who might have a stake in adding content that might be considered non-neutral. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:35, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Umm… I think you've posted this in the wrong section? – iridescent 20:43, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
    • No, I don't think Niffweed has. When I read your statement I wanted to make the same comment :) Your statement includes the sentence "Yes, a paid editor isn't going to be neutral – but someone openly admitting that they're editing for profit is someone making their prejudice clear." I think Niffweed is stating that currently no mechanism currently exists to disclose paid editing, and (as Tim Vickers explained above) we can't tell who is being paid, therefore any such mechanism would be circumventable.TheGrappler (talk) 19:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Ah, I'm with you. All it would need would be something similar to the already existing {{Notable Wikipedian|editedhere=yes}} template – see Talk:Elonka Dunin, Talk:Sasha Grey, Talk:Arthur Rubin etc for how it looks in practice. – iridescent 20:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
        • Thanks for the reply. Yep, funnily enough somewhere else on this page I think I proposed exactly the same thing :) It seems the best analogy to me.TheGrappler (talk) 17:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by LessHeard vanU

Anyone, and I mean anyone, who has an ulterior motivation in contributing should note their interest on their userpage - be it editing for financial gain, a relationship with the subject, or other factor potentially effecting their bias. As regards bias, it is recognised that we all have one and it is by the amalgamating of differing bias' that we hope to achieve NPOV; being a paid editor should only be an extension of that consideration, among others also disposed toward a certain viewpoint.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Arakunem^Talk 20:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC) - I always consider a COI-affected editor who declares his connection to be demonstrating good faith in his intent to improve the encyclopedia
2. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Sensible. rootology (C)(T) 20:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
4. This is consistent with best ethical practices in the PR world. Hipocrite (talk) 21:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Yes. Let's switch from avoid disclosing to avoid uproar to disclose to avoid uproar Maybe even sanction for NOT disclosing? ++Lar: t/c 00:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Support full disclosure of all COI that might cause a non-neutral POV. Priyanath ^talk 04:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. MBisanz ^talk 04:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Yes. MER-C 04:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. What Lar said. Sanctioning nondisclosure is a good way to minimize COI. +sj+ 06:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
10. -- Ned Scott 06:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Not sure where this would end - 'user is female, heterosexual, from country X, has this level of education, of Asian descent, hates celery...' but it would be good to encourage honesty. --Helenalex (talk) 09:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Absolutely. "Soulful eyed puppies, cute ducklings..." count as well. NVO (talk) 11:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
13. I agree with Lar. -- Luk ^talk 19:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
14. A sensible point, and also per Lar. -->David Shankbone 17:25, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Agree with LessHeard van, and with Lar. Paid editors should be welcome on Wikipedia. Agradman (talk) 17:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
16. yes. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:35, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
17. agree with Helenalex however. Hobit (talk) 00:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
18. Agree with LH vU's response to my question below. Olaf Davis (talk) 11:31, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
19. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:36, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
20. Enric Naval (talk) 20:38, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
21. In principle, yes. In practice, POV pushers ("true believers") will not declare their POV, so this will not really work... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:46, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
22. Support given LHvU's answers below, on the basis of this being an explicitly encouraged ethical expectation, rather than a source of sanctions and witch-hunts. At some level (arbitration elections? RfA/B?) perhaps there should be mandatory declaration but for standard editing this would be, as Piotrus points out, unenforceable anyway.TheGrappler (talk) 20:03, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
23. snigbrook (talk) 08:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
24. لennavecia 21:07, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
25. Agreed, so long as its upfront and said editors edit within the guidelines and policies of Wikipedia, I don't see a problem with this. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 03:24, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment

1. Can you Please clarify on your summary?Are you talking only about editors or also saying that Admins and crats can also do paid editing and this RFC is being in the context of for spam and Particular cratoffering his services for paid editing through I assume Assume good Faith and wait for an explanation from the concerned crat.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 08:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

   Admins and 'Crats, when they are contributing content, are editors - so disclosure of potential COI is on that basis. If this were to pass and paid editing were permitted, then disclosure of potential bias by those with access to buttons should be strongly encouraged. I had no person in mind when I wrote my summary. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

2. When you say "should", do you mean "it's really a good idea" or "sanctions for failure to do so if it becomes public"? The former is sensible but the latter seems like it would lead to more drama than it was worth. Olaf Davis (talk) 00:00, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

   I think we should AGF, in that there may be legitimate reasons for someone not to declare a COI, so I wouldn't want to make disclosure mandatory - but if an undeclared COI is discovered then it is understood that edits made in related subjects by the editor are going to be more vigorously reviewed for pov violations, etc. My "should" falls between the two interpretations suggested, my sense would be "it's a really, really good idea - especially if you don't want extra severe scrutiny of your edits should it be discovered". LessHeard vanU (talk) 08:53, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Looie496

It's simple, really: paid editing automatically creates a COI. A known COI does not prevent editing but greatly reduces the requirement to assume good faith for any edits that have an appearance of non-neutrality.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. ThemFromSpace 20:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
2. ➲ redvers ^{throwing my arms around Paris}
3. Cirt (talk) 23:28, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
4. By definition, yes. Arakunem^Talk 00:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Yes, and this is why we should encourage people with COIs (financial or otherwise) to be open about them. --Helenalex (talk) 09:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Johnuniq (talk) 09:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 19:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. yes. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:37, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
11. --Mecanismo | Talk 16:38, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Exactly. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:36, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Enric Naval (talk) 21:23, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Definitely. We need to consider ways of making sure the "rules of engagement" reflect the COI status of an editor - but it does need to be done in a way that doesn't encourage witch-hunts and therefore secrecy; as Helenalex points out it's important for people to be open about COIs. TheGrappler (talk) 20:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Matt Deres (talk) 22:59, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
16. snigbrook (talk) 08:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
17. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:21, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
18. Aervanath (talk) 19:20, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
19. — Aitias // discussion 11:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment. This is a huge leap in reasoning that requires some extraordinary support, in my opinion. It seems to me that this is a large motivating reason for "taking action" against paid editing, but simply stating this as a reason does not make it true. Ω (talk) 08:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by WAS 4.250

Paid editing is like editing without a username (an IP edit) - it should not be banned, but it is a red flag. Who is paying is more important than who is being paid - what are they expecting for their money? WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Yes... except for the IP bit. I like IP editors. They do good work in the background. But otherwise, very good point. ➲ redvers ^{throwing my arms around Paris} 20:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Cirt (talk) 23:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
4. ThemFromSpace 00:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. The paid/not-paid dichotomy is too simplistic. What matters is who is paying, how much they are paying, what they are paying for, and how honest the payee is about sticking to WP policies. It all needs to be explored very cautiously. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Abyssal (talk) 02:49, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Alanyst

I largely agree with Rootology's points above, at least as far as the end product is concerned. If an article can go through the review processes and become featured, in the end it doesn't matter what the motivations were of the person who wrote it -- whether out of nationalist pride, personal fulfillment, a vendetta, or the prospect of income.

However, I think paid editing should only be allowed under certain conditions because of its impact on the process of developing an article (or otherwise influencing WP content):

• All on-wiki activity done for pay (article writing, commentary, dispute resolution, votes and !votes, etc.) must be done by a separate, disclosed sock account.
• The paid sock account must disclose on its user page:
  • The identity of the client
  • The aim of the edits or activity
  • Any self-imposed or negotiated restrictions (e.g., "This account will only edit articles having to do with 19th-century advances in chemistry, and will not participate in the project namespace unless compelled by the dispute resolution processes.")

Such disclosure would be mandatory but enforced via the honor system. It's pretty much impossible to prove that someone was paid for their edits unless they admit it themselves at some point -- so the aim of these rules is not to catch underhanded behavior, but to provide a standard way for good-faith editors to regulate their edits and to be clear about what they are trying to accomplish on behalf of their client and how they will respect WP policies in doing so. Clarity upfront should help avoid suspicions and misunderstandings down the road.

If someone is found to be editing for pay and they haven't followed these rules (and knew or should have known about them), they would be subject to trouting or other sanctions depending on the egregiousness of the behavior.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. alanyst ^/talk/ 20:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
2. This sounds like a good idea. People setting themselves up as professional editors should use the one account though, rather than a new one for each client. This will make them easier to monitor and avoid the reasons why sock puppets are usually banned. --Helenalex (talk) 09:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Agree that if we do not proscribe paid editing, then some form of monitoring is essential for review of COI etc. This plan seems feasible. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:38, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Will Beback

Anyone who edits for pay has a conflict of interest and should follow WP:COI. That guideline calls on editors with a COI to declare their conflict and to only edit the article talk pages, not the article text. If they do so then there is no problem with being paid.   Will Beback  talk  20:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Fair enough. ➲ redvers ^{throwing my arms around Paris}
2. Yep. It's a GREAT BIG GLOW IN THE DARK COI. Reveal your interest and edit accordingly. - David Gerard (talk) 21:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
3. This is, by far, the most succinct way of stating the matter. Anyone who is paid to edit has a financial stake in the state of an article, and is by definition in conflict of interest. Iff they follow WP:COI, then that is not a problem. — Coren ^(talk) 21:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
4. This is consistent with best ethical practices in the PR world. Hipocrite (talk) 21:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Logical. What if they drop a new article live right off, though, that is 100% policy compliant, and then stick to talk? I don't think I'd have a problem with that. rootology (C)(T) 21:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

   I'm not sure how one creates an article without having edited it. My take is that creating an article is a form of editing and the WP:COI guideline would still apply.   Will Beback  talk  21:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

   By your logic we need a sanctioned place like a Wikipedia:Paid article submissions for openly paid users to drop off content that they would like to see used, and whomever decides to move it live is then responsible for that First Edit. Is that what you mean, in theory? Going rigidly by the implied rule of WP:COI on the question of paid editing (which has never had a consensus review, before this very RFC) would preclude any paid users from ever starting a new article, and only modifying existing ones. I guess my point is that there has never been a review of this practice, so we can't (till this RFC closes) say that policy is "for" or "against" the practice, but if the RFC consensus eventually aligns with the present COI wording, it still doesn't preclude paid editing outright--just puts it in a tidy bubble, in which case we'd need something like a submissions page for new articles. Or am I misunderstanding your point? rootology (C)(T) 22:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

   "A GFDL-compliant section, which could then be scraped by non-paid, independent editors into Wikipedia", you mean? – iridescent 22:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

   Or CC compliant, I suppose, but yeah. Is that what you mean, Will? rootology (C)(T) 22:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

   To coin a phrase, "A nice mutually beneficial ground would be for them to charge customers for writing high quality NPOV articles about their companies, with sources and verifiability, but for them to work with well known and respected wikipedians who are NOT being financially compensated to actually enter the articles into Wikipedia upon their own independent judgment" – iridescent 22:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

6. Cirt (talk) 23:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
7. ThemFromSpace 00:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Agree, but with the comment that currently, COI-affected editors may still edit the article itself, they just need to be extra careful to stay neutral, and they should expect many more critical eyes on their edits than they would otherwise have as a normal editor. Arakunem^Talk 00:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. If no one except those with an express COI care enough to see material added to an article, then let it stay out. I also don't see a problem with simply disallowing those with COI to start new articles either. Again, if no volunteers care, then it's probably best left out. Siawase (talk) 11:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
10. I agree with Root's idea. I see an enormous difference between (a) someone paying me to pull together an article and sources for them on subject X, and e-mail it back to them: they can then do what they want with it, including add it to Wikipedia if other editors will let them; and (b) someone paying me to write an article on Wikpedia itself. If we had an area where people could post paid submissions for other editors to add to mainspace, if they wanted to, we'd be much closer to (a), which I see as non-problematic. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
11. The principle is clearly set out in WP:COI with specific reference to paid editors, that sanctions careful non-controversial edits which remain an option. New approval of paid editing is inappropriate and unnecessary. . . dave souza, talk 20:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
12. endorse per rootology -- M2Ys4U ^(talk) 02:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Further to SlimVirgin's idea of "an area where people could post paid submissions for other editors to add to mainspace", I would suggest that the article talk page provides such an area, at least in the case of already existing articles that see some traffic. JN466 16:19, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
14. This too is a feasible step/option/plan if we do not proscribe paid editing. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
15. --Mecanismo | Talk 16:49, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Enric Naval (talk) 21:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Aervanath (talk) 19:22, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
18. Seems reasonable. — Aitias // discussion 11:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments

Comment: Will's position is inaccurate. COI does not call upon editors with a COI to refrain entirely from editing talk pages; in fact, it has an entire section on non-controversial edits. Furthermore, remember that WP:COI is merely a guideline. Its language is not proscriptive; it offers some words of wisdom, not rules. -Pete (talk) 01:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree, and further the whole "post on the talk page for someone else to put in the article" idea doesn't work so well if no one else is interested enough in the article to do it. Anomie⚔ 02:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment Declare their interest certainly, but write only on the article talk page is ridiculous. Let them write out in open where everyone will pay them the usual critical attention. If someone wants to do a talk page first and ask an opinion that's not wrong, any more than from any other editor, but there is no reason for to be required. The only thing I would still like to insist be put on the talk page first, is external links to the organization from other articles. (of course, they're easy to spot anyway, and I certainly have no trouble identifying and removing them, whether or not there's a coi declaration.) Some of the articles I have contributed to are those to which I have some degree of COI, and this is probably true of almost all active editors. DGG (talk) 03:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

agree with DGG's position on the article talk restriction mentioned above - it's silly. Privatemusings (talk) 04:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Also agree with DGG. It would be hopelessly impractical. We've all seen good suggestions languish on talk pages because no one can be bothered following them up. --Helenalex (talk) 09:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Also agree with DGG that this is an unreasonable restriction.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Writing on the talk page is problematic for many reasons (it creates second class citizens and more work for the first class citizens, it discourages editing, it introduces unnecessary lag, edits are often lost, it's not real time, etc.) - once the conflict is declared (which should probably be required btw) the regulars will monitor it. -- samj _in^out 10:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment Beback, are you ready to stay aside from editing any articles you ever had interest in editing? Welcome to the brave new world. Now you will still be able to edit articles that you don't care at all but once you do it once... catch-22. NVO (talk) 11:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC) Remember, as of today the guideline says "There are no firm criteria to determine whether a conflict of interest exists", so anything the editors writes (or deletes) can be interpreted against the editor. NVO (talk) 11:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Will has some experience via the Prem Rawat article with dealing with an editor who was, or perhaps still is, employed by Rawat. That editor (and former admin) never admitted to being paid to edit the Rawat articles. Whether he was paid or not is irrelevant, in my opinion. The problem was that the editor in question was clearly violating NPOV with his/her edits. In that case, allegations of COI were appropriate as evidence as to why the editor might be violating NPOV. If the editor had followed the NPOV rules from the beginning, then there probably wouldn't have ever been a problem. Anyone who is paid to edit needs to make it clear to their employer that the terms of the agreement do not allow for gaming or flouting of Wikipedia's policies. Cla68 (talk) 01:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment. All fine, if COI was a good policy. It ISN'T. Everybody and their dog has a COI of some sorts, and the arbitrary blurry line we have is hardly a solution. Just read NPOV, which clearly states nobody is neutral and everybody has a POV, which is acceptable. Every POV creates a COI. Contradiction in our policies... :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:50, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Hipocrite

If a paid editor is going to be editing, they should be following the PRSA code of ethics, located at [1], specifically the parts about avoiding deceptive practices and revealing the sponsors for causes and interests represented.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Hipocrite (talk) 21:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
2. I have absolutely no problem with this, especially disclosing the "client" if called upon. rootology (C)(T) 21:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Cirt (talk) 23:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Fred Talk 02:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Perhaps not those exact words (although why not, they seem good to me... but there is copyright to consider I think) but certainly in spirit. Good point. ++Lar: t/c 02:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Support full disclosure of who is sponsoring the editing, or be blocked. Priyanath ^talk 04:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

   hmmm.. well I'd like to think we could point at wiki's very own code of ethics, with specific and particular discussion on best practices, standards etc. etc. - this, and other perrenail issues would be good to address... in the abscence of such a thing, yeah - the PRSA thing is pretty good :-) Privatemusings (talk) 04:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

   This is Wikipedia, not wiki. Stifle (talk) 08:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

7. Mostly endorse. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. That does sound like a most reasonable course. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. That would be nice. MastCell ^Talk 22:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Kusma (talk) 12:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Looks like good guidance that could be cited in WP:COI. . dave souza, talk 20:41, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
12. -- M2Ys4U ^(talk) 02:26, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
13. again, if paid editing is not proscribed then something like this is prudent. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Very strong support -- if all people with COI--paid or unpaid-- adhered to their ethical provisions, WP would be much better off. (as a sign of the same sort of difficulties we have in enforcing our COI rules, though, I note they have no provision for enforcing their rules unless members are actually convicted in a court of lw of an offense that would violate them). Insidious undeclared work is a much greater threat. DGG (talk) 20:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
15. We can also eventually make our own code, based on the PRSA code. Enric Naval (talk) 21:40, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Support. Transparency is good. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 12:42, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Per Patar. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:52, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
18. This should be encouraged, but it's difficult to see that it is genuinely enforceable. Endorsing the stance of the Public Relations Society of America may be US-centric; if other similar ethics code exist perhaps it would be better to exhort editors to follow the ethical guidelines of professional PR organizations, and link to several (if other relevant ones can be found), without giving special status to the American one. TheGrappler (talk) 21:16, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
19. Per The Grappler--Aervanath (talk) 19:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Nihiltres

I don't find paid editing inherently problematic. As Rootology mentions above, if paid editing results in content that meets our guidelines, we gain from it. I do think that explicitly allowing paid editing would open a Pandora's box of issues, though. The question of paid editing concerns not only the content produced but the methods used. For an obvious example, what happens when a paid editor participates in an AfD on his paid content?

We can't look just at content, but must also consider behaviour. If we allow paid editing, we implicitly allow the promotional advocacy that will come with it, that will use rules-lawyering and our own openness to attempt to push a particular version of "the Truth™" on us. While I'm confident that we know how to deal with spam, can we—and more importantly, would we—deal appropriately with behaviour that's promotional as well as content that's promotional? In the longer term, would the paid contributors burn out any of the volunteers? Would the advocacy result in arbitration cases and corrosive, endless disputes? Would it be detrimental to the health of the community?

The easy counter-argument that people can currently do paid editing without disclosure is not relevant: paid editing that can hide well enough that it isn't noticed isn't a huge problem, and people will always be able to edit under the radar as long as we have effective anonymity or pseudonymity. I see the problem not so much in paid editing itself but in the endorsement of paid editing (through any explicit allowance for paid editing). Wikipedia always needs to make a strong stand for its neutrality, and such an endorsement of advocacy is dangerous to that cause.

I don't mean to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt: if there are solid answers to the questions I ask, I'm willing to support paid editing. As a user experienced with Wikipedia, I might even stand to gain from it—I've already been offered the opportunity more than once (but politely declined each time). What I emphasize is not so much evils inherent in paid editing but dangers associated with them. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 21:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC), modified slightly at 22:13, 9 June 2009 (UTC), with a slight phrasing update at 04:32, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 21:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Fred Talk 02:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. An excellent description of the problem. While it's nice to imagine philanthropists dropping wisdom into the encyclopedia, in practice we would get promotions of individuals and organizations. One paid editor and two sockpuppets (or two other paid editors) would be enough to get almost any puff-piece article kept at AFD. The article would have to read well, but that would be easy because it is a promotion. The issue is is the subject notable?, and it's easy for a tiny number of editors to achieve a "keep" by simply asserting notability with a few positive-sounding words. These would be paid editors and they would learn to say what it takes so articles are kept. Johnuniq (talk) 10:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 18:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. The worry about the health of the community is an important concern. I'm thinking how galling it would be to be up against a group of paid editors in an important political area; imagine having to spend hours or days finding sources and arguing on talk to keep the article balanced, knowing that the other editors are being paid to do it, while you're sitting like a mug doing it for free. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Yes, I was going to make a more succinct point along these lines if someone has not already done so. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:42, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Enric Naval (talk) 21:43, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Ulflarsen (talk) 12:14, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
10. snigbrook (talk) 08:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• I agree with most of this, but I'm not convinced we shouldn't explicitly make provisions (and guidelines) for paid editing. A culture of "promotional behavior", as opposed to promotional editing, is something we should try to avoid. One imagines userpages that act as flyers for paid editing services: "I wrote X (and charged $N), Y (and charged $M), and got Z featured (and charged $P). Need some editing done? Contact me for quotes." And that would seriously erode the existing voluntary collaborative culture.--ragesoss (talk) 02:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
• I agree that these are all dangers of paid editing, but its also all behaviour which we're all familiar with, because lots of unpaid editors do it. Editors should be judged on their behaviour, not their motivation. --Helenalex (talk) 09:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
• "If paid editing results in content that meets our guidelines, we gain from it." However, if it tarnishes our public image and people no longer trust us, we lose from it. What's the point of Wikipedia existing if no one trusts it or wants to use it? hmwithτ 17:41, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

  I didn't specifically address that, but consider it included in the "Pandora's box" I mention and note my endorsement of Abecedare's statement below. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 18:44, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• There's a lot in what Nihiltres wrote with which I agree, although I believe that paid editing can be done in a way which does not harm Wikipedia. I only wish that instead of being distracted by the "Unpaid edits good, edits for pay bad" rants, we had explored se N. raises. Can we manage editing which is overtly done for pay? Should we worry about editing secretly done for pay, yet follows policy & guidelines? That is what I want to know, not how to draw threats of being permanently banned from Wikipedia. -- llywrch (talk) 04:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Paid editing is no worse than any other COI editing. Every problem here applies to that also. Why is it different if an officer of a society edits its page, or pays someone else to do so, or asks a friend to do so? How is it different in an AfD debate in the three cases? I find it greatly simplifies an AfD debate when someone is naïve enough to admit such COI--we still listen to the views, but we know how much weight to give them. We cannot eliminate COI--probably most of the articles on organizations here have been written by people with some degree of COI, if only as supporters; essentially all the articles on media have been written by fans; essentially all the articles on politics have been written by those with a strong interest on one or another of the positions. Paid editing is a simpler form of COI--it's a job, not an obsession. DGG (talk) 20:29, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• I can't agree with the statement "paid editing that can hide well enough that it isn't noticed isn't a huge problem". I submit that if Mantanmoreland, Lastexit, Tomstoner, and Samiharris had been paid editors of Gary Weiss, instead of mere sock-puppets, then all the problems highlighted in WP:Requests for arbitration/Mantanmoreland would still be with us now. Talk:Gary Weiss/Archive 2 might give some idea of the mire we'd be wading through. --RexxS (talk) 00:16, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by DoriSmith

We need a best practices policy/guideline, so that we can separate the good from the bad versus just tossing all paid editing into the DONTWANTIT bin. Some paid editing is good, such as when you can't distinguish between it and everything else here. Some paid editing isn't, such as when you can't distinguish between it and a press release. WP should make it clear what the rights/responsibilities are of both the editors and the clients that pay them.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. I'll admit right now that I'd take a paid gig editing WP in a second. Dori ❦ (Talk ❖ Contribs ❖ Review) ❦ 21:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Everything but the last sentence. "Clients" have no rights beyond what they would have if they signed up for non-role accounts. rootology (C)(T) 21:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

   IMO, clients have the right to know what they can or can't reasonably expect for their money. If an editor is paid, that does not mean that the community can't take the article to AFD, and the client should know that in advance. But that's my opinion... Dori ❦ (Talk ❖ Contribs ❖ Review) ❦ 21:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

3. I agree with this. As Dori points out, anyone promising to write an article on any topic which will not be deleted is, frankly, a liar. If someone is paid to write an article about a subject that falls into the grey area of notability, all one can do is wikify it, make it as encyclopedic as possible, & hope for the best. Actually, that is all one can do with any article. -- llywrch (talk) 23:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Agreed about clients. We should word our rules so potential clients of paid editors know what to expect, and thus discourage charlatans. DGG (talk) 03:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Agreed. I investigated doing this earlier this year, and the main thing that put me off - apart form the ambiguous policy on paid editing - was the lawyers' fees for drawing up a contract that wouldn't get me sued if the article I'd edited got turned into a hatchet job by someone else. --Helenalex (talk) 09:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Endorse. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Strongly endorse. Some good ideas have been proposed already and I am pleased to see them. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:43, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Enric Naval (talk) 21:43, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Endorse. Particularly from the point of view of making it clear that client's effectively have no rights...TheGrappler (talk) 21:21, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
10. لennavecia 21:20, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Endorse - Joshua Issac (talk) 22:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• There is only one way that paid editing can overcome the natural self-correcting tendency of a healthy Wiki community like Wikipedia: that is to hire a group of people to camp out on an article, or a group of articles, to subtly but clearly subvert the bias of the material so it favors their employer. When one group of volunteers tries to do this, the unrelenting pressure of opposing Wikipedians eventually drives them away, because they have no motivation for continuing to camp out on these articles. But give enough money to people who will not follow the guidance of a collection of best practices (or a code of ethics, as Hipocrite mentions above), & they will harm the project. -- llywrch (talk) 05:25, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Abecedare

Paid editing is a PR disaster waiting to happen. Neither academia nor journalism are going to accept the argument that "everyone has biases ergo financially induced bias isn't an issue either". While it is true that paid editing can be very hard (if not impossible) to police, unless wikipedia does (and is seen to do) its utmost to be vigilant against such activities and bars them unambiguously, the project's credibility will suffer. Imperfect enforceability should not limit our ideals, else we may as well discard NPOV as an unachievable and naive goal too.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Abecedare (talk) 21:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 21:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
3. I agree with this, but I must note that we shouldn't let public relations rule our actions. For example, Wikipedia would get better press if we stopped allowing open editing—there'd be no more "Look, Wikipedia is vandalized!" stories—but open editing is key to our success. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 23:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
4. ThemFromSpace 00:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Fred Talk 02:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Per Nihiltres, it's probably true that it is a modest PR disaster waiting to happen, but that shouldn't trump more basic principles.--ragesoss (talk) 02:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Absolutely. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Cirt (talk) 06:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 06:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
10. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 06:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Just imagine what Britannica would look like if it invited entities to write their own entries, even subject to 'editorial oversight'.--RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 10:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

    You mean as they already do? – iridescent 13:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

    Now I know why I like wikipedia better:-) Britannica isn't inviting paid editors (though I bet they're reading this page!) and their oversight model (they pay their own editors) is not workable on wikipedia. (Unless admins start getting a salary - now that's a proposal I'll support!!)--RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 14:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

12. We can't stop paid editing, but we don't have to shoot ourselves in the foot by saying anything less than it's a bad idea. The wiki fairy might bring great paid editors, but we have to plan for what's likely. Johnuniq (talk) 10:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
13. AdjustShift (talk) 13:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
14. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 18:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
15. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Dekimasuよ! 03:41, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
17. hmwithτ 17:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
18. Finell (Talk) 20:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC) : And it is a potential PR disaster because the idea itself is inherently wrong. There are already far to many advertisements posing as articles on Wikipedia already.
19. Although paid editing in full compliance with WP:COI as it stands now has limited sanction, and further approval or support is problematic. . dave souza, talk 20:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
20. Well said. JN466 16:27, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
21. Exactly. -Sketchmoose (talk) 17:25, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
22. Dwr12 (talk) 02:20, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
23. The risks at overt allowing of paid editing are huge. Financially well-endowed companies or individuals could overrun wikipedia. Seriously. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:45, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
24. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
25. Agreed. We see attempts by PR people to edit Wikipedia now and then. They usually produce blatant puffery, and demonstrate WP;OWN behavior, so it's not that hard to detect. We don't want to encourage that. --John Nagle (talk) 04:56, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
26. Agree, paid advocacy editing is essentially Paid POV Pushing, which would absolutely kill any credibility that Wikipedia does have. Priyanath ^talk 05:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
27. --Mecanismo | Talk 16:50, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
28. Good point. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:39, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
29. Paleking (talk) 15:44, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
30. very strong endorse Enric Naval (talk) 21:44, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
31. Not "waiting to happen". It's going on! Alexius08 (talk) 12:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
32. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:24, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
33. Davewild (talk) 19:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
34. Jozal ^(talk) 19:05, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
35. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 01:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
36. Durova²⁷³ 16:10, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• Nobody in academia thinks that WP is a trustworthy source of unbiased information. — Charles Stewart (talk) 09:38, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• Which does not mean that we should take steps to prove them right. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 01:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Greg Tyler

I personally feel this is one of those things is best to take an "I can't see you" approach to. Some paid editors are decent editors trying to earn their way. If you're a long time Wikipedia contributor and get offered cash for doing what you enjoy, fair enough. Other paid editors aren't good editors, write poor articles and lower the 'pedia's standards. They should be treated like anyone else.

In my view, we should ignore whether people are paid or not. That's their business and not ours. The only thing that's important is whether they're adhering to our policy and creating good content. A featured article is a featured article, whether the author was paid or not. Similarly, vandalism is just that, whether the author was pushed to do so or not. Paid editors should be treated no differently to anyone else, and their status as such should plainly be ignored. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 21:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

User who endorse this summary:

1.  – iridescent 21:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
2. rootology (C)(T) 22:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
3. --Helenalex (talk) 09:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. لennavecia 16:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. -- M2Ys4U ^(talk) 02:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
7. --Robert Horning (talk) 18:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC) I would like to have it pointed out how, exactly, somebody who is paid to make an edit is even going to noted or what even constitutes being paid. It is a Pandora's box of a policy making discussion to even try to decide what might even constitute being paid to make an edit.... something best ignored where it is the content that is weighed and measured and not the background of the person or the philosophical leanings of that individual. "Payment" can mean 72 virgins in paradise or blessings from Jesus (and you wonder why religiously oriented topics sometimes turn into flame-fests on Wikipedia?) There are many motivations to making edits on Wikipedia, and the fact you are paid is but one more to heap on the many motivations that make people try to put content up here. In this, I couldn't agree more with Greg Tyler in this statement of what should be done about payment on Wikipedia: Nothing at all.
8. snigbrook (talk) 08:28, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
10. Of course. -- ǝʌlǝʍʇ ǝuo-ʎʇuǝʍʇ ^ssnɔsıp 22:27, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Quadell

Wikipedia welcomes positive contributions from anyone regardless of their personal motivations. However, experience has shown that when an editor's primary motivation is to promote a given organisation or cause, that editor is more likely to cause harm to the project. A glance through the arbitration logs confirms this. Widespread editing for financial gain can be expected to lead to problems such as single-purpose accounts, POV-pushing, edit-warring, and other policy violations, just as the motivations of religious fervor and nationalist pride have done so often in the past. Such ulterior motivations are difficult to square with our primary objective of building a neutral encyclopedia. The acceptance or legitimization of paid editing is likely to lead, in practice, to acceptance and legitimization of behavior that harms Wikipedia.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. – Quadell ^(talk) 22:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC) (as the creator of this statement)
2. Cirt (talk) 23:31, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
3. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 23:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
4. – // BL \\ (talk) 23:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC) How WP would police this, I don't know, but any permission, tacit or overt, that encourages a sense of ownership of a page cannot be good for the encyclopedia in either the short or the long run.
5. ThemFromSpace 00:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Abecedare (talk) 03:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. You forgot spamming. Most of the paid editors I have encountered were spammers (two very recent examples: [2] and [3]). MER-C 05:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 06:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
10. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 10:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Johnuniq (talk) 10:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
12. AdjustShift (talk) 14:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
13. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Dekimasuよ! 03:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Kenosis (talk) 11:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
16. hmwithτ 17:33, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Finell (Talk) 20:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
18. While paid editing in full compliance with current WP:COI guidance is reasonable, anything further is a problem. . . dave souza, talk 20:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
19. JN466 16:28, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
20. the risk of this is substantial. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
21. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
22. --Mecanismo | Talk 16:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
23. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:40, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
24. Paleking (talk) 15:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
25. Enric Naval (talk) 21:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
26. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:25, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
27. Davewild (talk) 19:03, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
28. --Susan118 ^talk 01:03, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
29. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 01:49, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
30. Durova²⁷³ 16:13, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
31. Alexius08 (talk) 03:18, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment: The logical outcome of your argument is that we also ban nationalists and the religiously fervent. Like you say, they cause the same problems as paid editors would. --Helenalex (talk) 09:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

We already do that (see, e.g. WP:ARBMAC, WP:ARBAA2, WP:ARBPIA, WP:ARBSCI). MER-C 11:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Not really the same. Banning extreme nationalists and extremely religious individuals as a whole would naturally reduce the presence of certain types of POVs. Paid editing doesn't do that in the same way. But, in any event, we have been willing when necessary to ban large swaths of people based in part on their viewpoints making it very difficult for them to edit productively. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The examples you've given all involved people being banned if they violate Wikipedia principles. What you're talking about for paid editors is a blanket ban on a group of people regardless of their behaviour. This would be like banning someone who feels strongly about Armenia or whatever just because they felt strongly about it, rather than because of how they acted. --Helenalex (talk) 07:33, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

What I'm talking about is asking any paid editors to comply fully with the current guideline. Hope that doesn't seem too onerous for your tastes. . dave souza, talk 20:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Arakunem

If you write an article on Wikipedia, your only concern should be to improve the encyclopedia. If you're getting any real world benefit from an article appearing a certain way (or appearing at all), then your interests are divided between WP and "something else". This is a COI any way you look at it.

Yes, paid editing happens more often than we are likely happy to admit. However, I would hazard a guess that Souckpuppetry also happens more often than we'd like. I don't think we should adjust our principles as a result though. We may not be able to stop either, but we can react when we discover them. Arakunem^Talk 01:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Cirt (talk) 06:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
2. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 06:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 06:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 10:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Johnuniq (talk) 10:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. ThemFromSpace 16:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. I agree with your comparison with sockpuppeting. hmwithτ 17:32, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
8. JN466 16:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Sketchmoose (talk) 17:28, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
10. yes. even if well-intentioned at times. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Dekimasuよ! 04:35, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Enric Naval (talk) 21:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
14. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:27, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
15. Good point. Just because it is happening doesn't mean we need to legitimize it. --Susan118 ^talk 01:01, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Jozal ^(talk) 19:07, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
17. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 01:49, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
18. Alexius08 (talk) 03:19, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Pete Forsyth

If a person edits a Wikipedia article, they are almost prime facie "interested" in the topic. (Some edits, like reversion of vandalism, may constitute exceptions to this generalization.) At the most general level, I believe an editor's interest derives from a simple desire to help others learn what one has learned oneself. But "what one has learned" is a grey area.

In mathematics, what an editor adds may be simple factual knowledge. But in other topic areas, an editor may have developed a more subjective view. When one gets into areas like same-sex marriage or assisted suicide or pedophilia, just to name a few random examples, it is simply impossible to write in a way that doesn't betray a certain point of view; every term one can use carries some cultural baggage, and some pre-packaged assumptions.

Such articles often become very good, when editors of differing points of view enter into good faith discussions, and find a way to incorporate both (or multiple) points of view into the article, permitting the reader to make his or her own judgments.

The idea of a "conflict of interest" is an attempt to draw a clear line where the reality is shades of grey. All Wikipedia editing is done by contributors who have an interest in the subject at hand. Drawing a clean line at paid editing is an ill-fated attempt to find a simple solution to a complex situation.

At the core, no policy or guideline can resolve such shades of grey; rather, the solution lies in the quality of our editors, and their ability to discuss topics from a framework outside their own personal views. This has been shown to work on some articles, but as a community, we still have some growing to do, and there are always more editors to help grow into this style of collaboration.

So, I oppose having any firm prohibition on paid editing. However, we must remain concerned about paid editing; I'm not advising we stick our heads in the sand.

I believe the solution lies in encouraging transparency, as WP:COI suggests. Editors who are closely connected to an article -- whether through payment, close personal associations, emotional attachment, or other ways -- should be encouraged to disclose this fact; and if they are regular contributors, they should find ways to do so (maybe repeatedly) so that other regular contributors are genuinely made aware of the conflict. Also, the principle that individuals, not organizations, have Wikipedia accounts is an important one to enforce.

There is one thing I strongly believe we should reconsider, which is this: currently, when making a new account, an editor is greeted with the following text:

You should strongly consider choosing a username that is not connected to you. All edits to the encyclopedia are permanently recorded and publicly visible in the history of any page that you edit, as well as on discussion pages. If you use your real name or a username that you go by elsewhere, people seeking information about you online may see your username and others' comments on your editing. If your editing happens to cause concern, there may be discussion linked to your username.

I believe this should be rewritten. Certainly, some words of guidance are appropriate, as the choice of a username can have lasting implications. However, the way it is currently worded sets new editors off on a path that discourages individual accountability; it almost assumes that an editor will be making edits that he or she would not want attached to his/her name. This does not set the right tone for the kind of collegial environment that we should be striving to maintain.

-Pete (talk) 01:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

In the interests of...er, disclosure of COI...I have been exploring a business plan that would include paid Wikipedia editing.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. I haven't been exploring any business plans, but I endorse the rest of it. Real names encouraged would be a positive step, in my view.--ragesoss (talk) 02:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Well said. Encouraging transparency is the solution. "Outlawing" paid editing will only hurt the wiki in the end, because then more of it will be done in secret instead of in the open. -- Ned Scott 06:07, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. --Helenalex (talk) 09:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. لennavecia 16:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. I am new here and I joined because of my PR work. I endorse encouraging the use of real names (or prominent disclosure thereof) for any paid editor: separating flacks who are risking professional reputation from flacks with nothing but the current client to lose should make it easier for volunteer editors to decide which contributions are most in need of close scrutiny. --Weronix (talk) 21:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. -- M2Ys4U ^(talk) 02:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Esprqii (talk) 16:31, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Support. Whether or not a paid editor chooses to advertise their real name, they should be encouraged to use a consistent identity - this is the only way to build a positive professional and community reputation. Dcoetzee 06:41, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

'Comment I don't think anyone is claiming that the only unacceptable COIs are involved with paid editing. The issue is that paid editing the vast majority of the time will be too much of a COI. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:17, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Question: Joshua, I agree that nobody's claiming that the only unacceptable COIs are involved with paid editing. I'm not sure what this has to do with my statement? Question for you, though -- do you think the majority of current, actual paid edits are too much of a COI (or create problems along those lines)? I do, and I'd like to do something about it. That's one of my main motivations in what I said above, in fact. -Pete (talk) 01:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Anonymity is evil. Transparency is good. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Fred Bauder

The problem with paid editing is that it opens the door to professional public relations firms being paid to craft and monitor Wikipedia articles for their clients. A firm or individual being paid $100,000 or more annually to ensure favorable treatment for their client in the media can significantly impact the content of a Wikipedia article. Now, such public relations operatives are forced to sneak around and run the risk of exposure and embarrassment to their clients. Endorsement of paid advocacy editing opens the door to massive influence on Wikipedia content by those interests who are able to afford professional public relations work of this nature.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Fred Talk 02:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
2. When the Wikiscanner results became public the persons and companies involved were shamed by the media for being underhanded, and that certainly discouraged public firms from (openly) indulging in such conduct. Why would we want to legitimize paid editing now and effectively invite PR firms to openly bid to write company and biographical articles ? Abecedare (talk) 03:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. I work a lot with such people in some particular subject areas, following Durova's suggestions at WP:BF. Almost all of them are not very good at WP style at the first, and rather easy to spot. there are three groups, about equal in size: 1/3 who ware willing to learn the rules and do, and write acceptable articles, 1/3 who are not willing or able to learn--who are too ingrained in their style of writing to learn a neutral encyclopedic one,and unless someone rewrites the material for them --which I have been known to do-- the article gets deleted, and 1/3 who see it is more than they bargained for and go away, and again, the company or organization , however worthy of one, does not get an article unless someone takes up the job from them. But even in the acceptable articles, there is sometimes a certain recognizable monotony of style, too great to be just imitation. There is clearly someone making a business of doing a series of entries of an number of related subjects. I would much rather deal with these peoples frankly. As is , I leave them alone unless the material is impossibly bad, because there is so much that really is impossible & thus of higher priority. I do try to leave them a hint, by deleting some of the puffery and leaving a clear edit summary, but unless the article is challenged, they usually do not learn. We d need a proper way of working with them. We found a proper way of working with class groups, we can do this also. DGG (talk) 03:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Cirt (talk) 06:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 06:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 06:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Wikipedia has become an important source of information on the net and, if paid editing is permitted, what's to prevent entities out there (corporations, celebrities, governments, military juntas) from hiring 'wikipedia consulting firms' to monitor and manage articles that affect them? These entities already spend billions on lobbyists and this would be a clear no-brainer and impossible to manage or control.--RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 10:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Excellent point. Have a look at any day on the AFD page – there should be ten or more independent editors giving careful consideration to each proposed delete. However, there are simply too many articles: a very small number of paid editors could overwhelm an attempt to delete an article on a non-notable individual or organization by simply asserting notability. Johnuniq (talk) 10:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
10. AdjustShift (talk) 12:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
11. // BL \\ (talk) 14:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
12. ThemFromSpace 16:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Nothing to add to this excellent point. --Hans Adler (talk) 18:07, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Endorse this as well as DGG's comment. MuZemike 18:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Rebecca (talk) 21:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
16. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
17. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
18. Also the question of legal cases that may arise if businesses are unhappy with the result. Orderinchaos 02:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
19. Dekimasuよ! 03:44, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
20. SiobhanHansa 14:34, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
21. Alf ^melmac 14:59, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
22. Agreed. Kenosis (talk) 15:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
23. hmwithτ 17:30, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
24. Finell (Talk) 20:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
25. Cautioning it as a COI is reasonable, endorsing it invites such problems. . dave souza, talk 20:51, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
26. This is the central problem - Wikipedia is already being used to promote products by PR firms, and this should under no circumstances be encouraged or facilitated as it damages Wikipedia's credibility, leads to edit wars, obviously involves article 'ownership', violates WP:NPOV, etc, etc. Nick-D (talk) 07:28, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
27. Also agreeing with comments of Abecedare and DGG. On an individual level Id concur with rootology, but the long term effect of open paid editing would likely be corrosive. That said fair play to anyone who supplements their income this way, as long as transactions are conducted decently behind closed doors. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
28. Hobartimus (talk) 14:03, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
29. JN466 16:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
30. Sketchmoose (talk) 17:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
31. Dwr12 (talk) 02:23, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
32. Strongly endorse. Furthermore the number of companies and governments for whom $100k is chickenfeed is considerable. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:49, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
33. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
34. Priyanath ^talk 20:22, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
35. --Mecanismo | Talk 16:52, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
36. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:41, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
37. — Charles Stewart (talk) 13:26, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
38. Paleking (talk) 15:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
39. some organizations have the resources and motivation to pay lots of $$$$$$ to several editors just to watch one article. Enric Naval (talk) 21:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
40. MER-C 07:21, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
41. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 12:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
42. Good points, but see my comment below.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:18, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
43. Tempshill (talk) 20:27, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
44. Agreed. Paid editing, and the risks that Fred Bauder has described, has the potential to erode the credibility of Wikipedia. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 22:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
45. –Megaboz (talk) 03:11, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
46. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:29, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
47. Davewild (talk) 19:04, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
48. Agreed. Paid editing of Wikipedia will eventually result in Wikipedia becoming just another advertising medium. --Susan118 ^talk 00:58, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
49. Agree. Mirrors my views precisely. Jay Tepper (talk) 14:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
50. Agree.--Yannismarou (talk) 07:59, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
51. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 01:50, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
52. Durova²⁷³ 16:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
53. Agree. RegentsPark also points to other entities that could be similarly motivated and funded. Their argumentation would not be hindered by the same constraints that volunteers face. Novickas (talk) 23:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
54. Alexius08 (talk) 03:29, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment

• The risk is that this is happening right now by large organisations who can afford the services of content writers who will likely escape detection - but would be denied and therefore far more difficult to determine. Allowing paid content writing provides a basis by which concerns can provide an acknowledged professional appearing WP compliant article, without the potential embarrasment of appearing to subvert the project to promote its interests. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:18, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

• Indeed. We need to create positive incentive for those organization to disclose themselves, not negative ones which will make them more experienced in dodging our policies. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• Nothing that we shouldn't be able to deal with via transparency. The PR person/firm/etc. should abide by the rules and disclose what they are editing, for how much, and for whom. The article will be reviewed occasionally by other editors, and any problems dealt with. If the firm cheats, or tries to break the policies, the issue will draw more attention (normal wiki dramu), and this will backfire on the firm (media attention, etc.). As far as I see, transparency solves this problem pretty well - so why not invite the well-paid PR to work on wiki? The end result will be a bunch of well written articles, occasional wiki/media dramu, even more Wiki presense in media, influx of more editors... I really don't see a problem here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:18, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• "Now, such public relations operatives are forced to sneak around and run the risk of exposure and embarrassment to their clients." - Permitting or encouraging paid editing does not imply permissive treatment of biased editing. To the contrary, editors with a declared COI would be even more carefully scrutinized for bias, and they would be just as embarrassed by any consequent sanctions imposed upon them. Dcoetzee 06:52, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by RegentsPark

Any form of acceptance of 'paid editing' on wikipedia should be actively discouraged. The reasons for this are:

1. Inequity is always a turn-off Wikipedia functions the way it does because no one is being paid for their efforts. Allow people to be paid and you'll soon have an army of editors doing nothing but 'paid editing'. This will slowly, but surely, drive off all the unpaid editors. As an analogy, consider how likely you are to work for free for a soup kitchen which selectively allows volunteers to be paid by outside sponsors. Most people will either gravitate toward other soup kitchens or will seek a sponsor. To put it bluntly, why would User:X slave away half the nights editing Arab-Norman culture for nothing when User:Z is getting a couple of hundred bucks editing Fair and Lovely from the company's latest press releases?
2. The market will take over If paid editing is permitted, more and more admins/bureaucrats/overseers/arbs/experienced editors will seek to monetize their expertise and experience. That is the first law of markets - if you can make a buck, you'll make a buck. Or, why would User:X slave away half the nights editing Arab-Norman culture for nothing when he/she can make a couple of hundred bucks editing Fair and Lovely?
3. The encyclopedia will lose integrity POV is the bane of an encyclopedia and neutrality is a battle that is hard enough without paid editors throwing the reliable sources book at us. Several editors seem to feel that if an article can be a FA then who cares how it got there but I've seen articles in the FAR process that have reliable sources as long as the line for sponsored soup kitchen volunteers would be (see #1), but which are entirely, from title to text, original research that should have no place in any encyclopedia. It is hard enough to catch these ones, and bad enough that a few get through the net, but where would we be as a trusted source (of sorts!) if paid editors were allowed by policy. (And there'll be plenty of them. We all need money as much as the next guy.)

Unfortunately, money is the ultimate killer of any voluntary enterprise. There is nothing worse than the cheated feeling you get when you discover what other people are making for the same amount of work, there is nothing as attractive as getting paid for what you are good at, and there is nothing less reliable than the paid press releases put out by corporations, government bodies, individuals, just anybody.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Agree. And these are just some of the pitfalls. Abecedare (talk) 02:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
2. FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Cirt (talk) 06:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 06:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 06:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Strongly agree. If paid editing is allowed, then why not to pay all the editors who contribute to this encyclopedia? AdjustShift (talk) 09:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 09:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Precisely. If you're paid and I'm not, I'm going to end up resentful. Not at first, but after a while I'll think "well if Wikipedia has a policy to allow paid editing, why should I try to oppose the promotional puff-piece articles that result?". The motto will become "the encyclopedia anyone can pay to have edited", and any claim of integrity will be lost. Johnuniq (talk) 10:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. ThemFromSpace 16:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
10. MuZemike 18:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
11. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:17, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
12. --Folantin (talk) 11:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
13. hmwithτ 17:29, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
14. dave souza, talk 20:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
15. --JN466 16:31, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Sketchmoose (talk) 18:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
17. --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:46, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
18. yes. Having been in voluntary organisations outside WP I can vouch for this. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:51, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
19. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
20. Priyanath ^talk 20:23, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
21. Nectar Card (talk) 22:59, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
22. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:42, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
23. Enric Naval (talk) 21:54, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
24. AreJay (talk) 01:53, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
25. Paid editing will drive away lots of good wikipedians for sure -- Tinu Cherian - 09:54, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
26. Agreed, and RegentsPark has several good points. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 22:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
27. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:31, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
28. Davewild (talk) 19:05, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
29. Seems reasonable. — Aitias // discussion 11:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
30. Jozal ^(talk) 19:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
31. —Deor (talk) 14:17, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
32. --Yannismarou (talk) 08:02, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
33. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 01:51, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
34. Durova²⁷³ 16:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment

Disagree. Counter to point 1: 99% of people today edit Wikipedia for fun, this will not change. People don't care that some people are being professional gamers or players and are making $$$, they still play games/sports. NBA doesn't mean that fewer people are playing basketball. Counter to point 2: "Why would User:X slave away half the nights editing Arab-Norman culture for nothing?" Because he enjoys doing so, and can apparently make good living without editing Wikipedia for $. Not everyone is driven by $, so not everyone will switch to paid articles. And what about the possibility of non-profit organizations offering $ to have people write articles on, let's say, Arab-Norman culture? Counter to point 3: paid editing is just one of many POVs. Personally I worry more about religious fanatics and secret government agents then PR firms. Money just has a bad rep in some leftist fora :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by FayssalF

No.

1. Automatic COI;
2. extremely hard to police and manage;
3. GA and FA status can be reached with or without 'paid editing';
4. the media won't mention the pro-arguments in details. Talking about the media —and in an unrelated note—, please have a look at this. Expect to read stuff such as 'Wikipedia paid editors have been making the politician's Wikipedia paid entry looks great", etc...;
5. We've already been there somehow. ArbCom has been dealing with advocating groups. They were sanctioned for a reason (read MBisanz's post at WR);
6. Mahalo.com or Knol would be the right places for people who edit for money. Taking advantage of the notoriety of Wikipedia to make money is unethical;
7. WMF should be approached before taking any action;
8. It could be the end of the 'reliability and neutrality of Wikipedia' dream. Wikipedia will lose a great deal of respect from observers and readers;
9. If I had known that Wikipedia will accept paid editing one day I'd have decided the first day not to join and contribute;
10. I'd leave Wikipedia the day paid editing gets formally accepted/approved. I don't want to be associated with a project that would not be based on voluntarism anymore.

-- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. There is more to lose than to gain. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Cirt (talk) 06:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 06:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. A "no payment" rule may prevent a philanthropist from improving, for example, our botanical articles, but it is necessary to protect the integrity of Wikipedia. We can't prevent payments, but we can say they are not permitted. Johnuniq (talk) 08:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Paid editing will damage the project. There should be no paid editing. AdjustShift (talk) 09:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 09:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. ThemFromSpace 16:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. To elaborate one of FayssalF's statements above, such vested editing would shut out volunteer Wikipedians from articles and foster a restrictive environment that is currently displayed at encyclopedia sites like Knol. MuZemike 18:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:18, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Priyanath ^talk 17:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Support. Priyanath ^talk 17:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
11. hmwithτ 17:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
12. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:23, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
13. --JN466 16:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
14. I might stop by occasionally to clean up crap added to articles I wrote, but I think I will stick a retired tag on my page if we officially and clearly allow paid editing. I do not want to do that but I can't see any way around it. The idea that this is being considered seriously makes me nauseous.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:51, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Although points 9 and 10 are Fayssal's own, I fear the huge impact paid eidting will have on perception of neutrality, in a similar way that advertising on wikipedia might. Once there are significant sums of money affecting anything on wikipedia, the impetus of this vs neutrality will increase exponentially. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:55, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
16. I don't care what the point of this RfC is, I agree with this. Perhaps of a sense of duty that comes from growing up in the Volunteer state, there is something incredibly unsettling to me that someone is getting paid for what I do for free. The notion goes against the fundamental principles of why Wikipedia was launched as a sister to Nupedia. Never, ever should that be accepted as a societal norm here. Ever. I wouldn't delete a personal attack article for a dollar if offered. Every edit here should be done out of principle. I am an altruistic person. So along those lines, I wouldn't actually leave. Keegan (talk) 09:22, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
18. Nectar Card (talk) 22:59, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
19. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:43, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
20. Enric Naval (talk) 21:55, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
21. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:33, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
22. Davewild (talk) 19:07, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
23. Mostly agreed. — Aitias // discussion 11:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
24. Jozal ^(talk) 19:15, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
25. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 01:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
26. - With emphasis on Faysall's note below about un-informed reader consumption. Novickas (talk) 23:28, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
27. Alexius08 (talk) 03:32, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment (I have placed this comment also at Jimbo's Statement - where it has high visibility - but it was originally going to be placed here. I am doing so because I believe I am going to get a more considered response than someone who references a predilection to sanction without recourse anyone who may take a different view.) Right at the top of the masthead, it says that Wikipedia is the "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" (my italics); the "free" bit is regarding the content to the reader, but the "anyone" makes no determination on what categories of potential contributor may or may not be included - my understanding is that 'anyone' means universal acceptance. Our licenses do not require that content is provided free, even though it is noted in the editing window that it may be used by third parties for financial reward. If Jimbo is correct then we need to clarify what we mean by "anyone", and amend our flagship statement of intent accordingly. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Response (responding below as well) "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" has been there since the first day. I don't recall when the first instance of vandalism occurred but I am so sure that it didn't happen the first day. I don't recall when the first instance of a POV pushing occurred but I am certain that it didn't occur the first day. Till this day, we haven't added anything to the motto. Our motto doesn't restrict any category of editors (neither vandals nor extreme POV pushers). It wouldn't be a good idea to include a long list in the motto. The motto is still valid unless you want us to add a small warning such as those placed on alcohol beverages or ciggies's packs (i.e. consume with moderation, smoking kills). Anyway, do you feel that the motto is misleading? Probably though editors get to know about policies and guidelines once they start editing or getting warnings from admins if they do something wrong. But what is more misleading is to let readers consume paid-for articles without letting them know while keeping the info for us hidden in the talk page that 99% of readers never read. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 21:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

In the editing window there is a warning that all content is subject to "merciless" editing - this is the basis under which vandalism and other policy non-compliant material may be removed. Anyone can edit, but the content needs to comply with the rules, policies and guidelines if it is to be expected to stay. However, it now appears that content can be compliant with all WP policies and yet be determined to be inadmissible simply because the individual supplying the content admits that they are being rewarded by third parties. I recognise that there is the case of banned editors contributions being removed despite otherwise being fine, but that is after the individual has proven themselves being incapable of acting within the policies, etc. - and even they were originally permitted to contribute. The "paid editor" is seemingly the only class of contributor to whom the door is closed. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

We seem to care more about "paid editors" for the money they'd be making individually than about the image and reputation of Wikipedia as a whole. Wikipedia reputation as an important source of knowledge is much more important than the money one person may make out of an article. It has been proven that FAs and GAs could reach such status without paid editing. Also, I doubt there'd be more people paying for editing Claude Monet to be a featured article than others paying for [Toy X] to get a FA status. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 21:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the point is that we shouldn't care if the editor is making money from their writing, providing it is transparent, because we should care only about the quality of the articles being produced. That there may be media reaction to the news that professionals are sharpening their quills to make money in providing content is only as harmful as the media noting how often important subjects have got information wrong - sometimes with malicious intent. I would also suggest that the reason why people use the encyclopedia diminishes the problem of people successfully advocating their latest toy - it gets one day on the front page, and then a little sticker on the article to say that it was once a Featured Article; other than on that day, you have to search for that subject to find it. Someone looking for Monet is not going to find the S(pam)FA article, and Monet is likely to be made into an FA at some stage because it will attract someone sufficiently knowledgeable about the subject and encyclopedia writing to do it for the love of the subject - Toy X is only going to otherwise receive fancruft which damages (in a different way) WP's reputation. Toy X may be a search parameter, so what is so wrong with a policy compliant well written article that was the result of someone crafting it for financial gain? LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Mythdon

I think paid editing would be a problem. First of all, if paid editing was in the project rather than free editing, there would be lots of committment issues within. Why? Some editor would be saying and thinking things like "why ain't I getting paid for helping", "if you don't pay me, I'll leave", "if I don't receive compensation for my edits, I will file a lawsuit", "oh, I get paid, this is the perfect job for me", "if you don't give me ${number} or more, I'll leave", and "I want money". Paid editing would destroy an editors abbility to be true and loyal to the project, and instead, they would only be loyal to themselves.

We don't get paid for our contributions to Wikipedia, and the lack of payment actually benefits us, because the editors as of now are true to the project, and are not like "give me money, give me money, give me money". If you're only here for money, you don't belong here, and should be kicked out to the farthest distance possible. Editors who are really here to help and not for money are the editors that belong here. They aren't here so they can gain an extra dollar, they're here so they can help make the encyclopedia better, which is why we are here.

To a certain extent, we editors do get something in return already. 1) The enjoyment of editing and 2) Our learning from other articles as a result of the writing of other editors.

It's not like the project tells you "if you help Wikipedia, we'll pay you this cash". It doesn't and shouldn't go that way. Instead, it goes "your help to this project would be appreciated by many readers, and your help and commitment will be accepted".

Why should I be paid for any edit I have made? Why should I be here for the cash and not the commitment to help? Why should anybody be paid? Why should Wikipedia pay you?

With that said, paid editing would destroy the integrity, purpose, commitment, hopefulness, and everything it possibly can, and will not help us in any way, period.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 06:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC) (creator of the summary)
2. Cirt (talk) 06:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 06:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 07:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. AdjustShift (talk) 09:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 09:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Johnuniq (talk) 10:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Similar to my rationale that I stated in my support of Jimbo's view. MuZemike 18:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. hmwithτ 17:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
10. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:25, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
11. JN466 16:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
12. --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Priyanath ^talk 20:24, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Paid editing is contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:44, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
16. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:35, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
17. Davewild (talk) 19:10, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by FT2

A point that hasn't been brought up and is worth mentioning:

We should probably distinguish users who are paid to edit, but disclose the fact and edit honestly (in the wiki sense) from those who try to promote by the back door - spurious links, mentions in other articles, "not here to write an encyclopedia", etc.

A code for commercial or paid editors, or those with a personal interest in the topic, would be a good idea. We'd still get abuse from those who would mis-edit anyway, but my sense is that as of 2009, a lot of the wider PR and business world recognizes the PR disaster of "we edited our own Wikipedia article" and if given a policy to follow, they would do so. In brief, subject to consensus on a suitable policy, there is possibly no need to tar all such editors with the same brush.

A possible outline of such a policy is at User:FT2/Commercial and paid editing to give some idea of the requirements we might make for a genuine commercial editor.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Conditional agree. I'm not not sure, however, that the guideline should be limited to a thin circle of "genuine commercial editors". Consider, for example, recent arbcom sentence on Scientology IP nodes. COI? definitely. Paid for edit? No evidence. NVO (talk)
2. I haven't read the outline, so this is just a general endorse.SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Mostly agree. I think the COI guideline should be amended to cover these though. -- Luk ^talk 19:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. A PR person here: I strongly agree. A clear guideline for how non-volunteers should behave would prevent clumsy PR efforts (disclosure: I am guilty of this) and help ensure PR activity isn't harmful to Wikipedia. --Weronix (talk) 21:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. There needs to be something along these lines yes. There are a whole host of situations WRT PR that can and do arise. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:57, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Yes. The details need to be worked out, but the idea of providing a code of conduct for paid editing is the right direction in general. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:38, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Good solution. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:27, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
8. I have not read the outline, but I agree that it would be quite helpful to have some advice about our policy specific to paid editors to help those starting out steer clear of any issues, much as our COI guideline does now. This is also a good reason for employers to hire experienced editors. Dcoetzee 06:59, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
9. snigbrook (talk) 08:38, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Seems like a fair compromise to me. We want to encourage openness and discourage POV editing. Murray Langton (talk) 09:23, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
11. I think that "Assume Bad Faith" with paid editing, but I agree that we may be able to craft workable guidelines for paid editing. — Charles Stewart (talk) 13:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• Isn't this already covered by, for example, WP:SPAM (just off the top of my head). What's the justification for a whole new policy? Ω (talk) 08:47, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not a "policy" in the wiki sense that it doesn't say anything new. It's a guideline in our sense, or a "policy" as the wider world would see it - "this is what you mandatorily need to know and comply with if you want to do X".

What it's called -- "policy", "guideline", "code of conduct" -- is secondary to us. But it's there for newcomers with an agenda on editing, and a forceful word like "policy" may carry weight and a sense of strong expectation, where "guideline" will sound overall unimportant. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:48, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Follow up note by FT2

I wrote this explanation in reply to a comment here (+ some minor edits):

"Such a person [a paid editor] might be capable of being valuable - we relish professors writing on their academic areas, enthusiasts writing on the topics they love... perhaps a high quality paid editor would be able to learn what an appropriate tone and level of information was for a topic and add information on well deserved topics. Perhaps not. But if someone seriously wants to edit Wikipedia, and it's commercial, we can say that the things in that draft are the sorts of things that they need to professionally educate themselves about and comply with, at absolute minumum."

"It might be that there is some kind of standard we award, "Recognized Wikipedia commercial editor". Such an award might be granted by the community, on reviewing say 20 paid articles the editor has written and agreeing they are writing appropriately, and could be withdrawn on consensus the editor is not writing appropriately to a high standard in future. That recognition in turn would be a sales feature the editor could advertize, namely that their historical work and involvement has been reviewed and deemed apt by the Wikipedia community, so their writings for a client will likely be appropriate, to standard, and more likely to be acceptable.

If an award like this was available, market forces would push serious PR and commercial writers to become recognized, and would also tend to place paid editing more in the hands of editors that the community has agreed capable of it. Our free but worked-for recognition of their work then becomes a professional item of value to be cherished, like any communal recognition. In effect they join us in the 'reputation economy'."

(By contrast, paid editors who have no interest in the project won't care -- but we'd have to deal with them anyway. Unrecognized paid editors will gradually be undesirable from all viewpoints- by us as likely biased, by professionals as giving them a bad name, by customers as lower quality and reliability.)

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 20:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by pfctdayelise

For those who hear "paid editing" and think "MyWikiBiz debacle" or "Microsoft stooges", I would like you to keep in mind other projects like LINGUIST List paying an intern to improve linguistics articles (see also User:Linguistlist). The Germany government has also paid to improve German Wikipedia articles in particular areas, see German_Wikipedia#Subsidies_from_the_German_government. Paid editing need not only be a force for evil!

Users who endorse this summary:

1. pfctdayelise (talk) 07:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
2. cab (talk) 08:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Thanks for reminding us of community endorsed paid editing that has occurred in the past. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. --Helenalex (talk) 10:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. -- Luk ^talk 19:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. --Sphilbrick (talk) 20:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. --Weronix (talk) 21:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. True. In cases where there isn't so much of a conflict of interest in wanting an article improved, paid editing isn't so much of a problem. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 23:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. "Paid editing" is not the same as "paid POV pushing", but can simply mean creation of more free content for the benefit of all plus the financial benefit of the writer. Kusma (talk) 12:10, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
10. -- M2Ys4U ^(talk) 02:04, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
11. ok, so there are exceptions where paid editing is good. I'm wary, however, of making a blanket endorsement that would put in the same category the LINGUIST list voluntary drive for improving articles neutrally and the throat-cutting PR agencies that could compromise themselves to get paid only if they remove everything negative from a certain article. Enric Naval (talk) 22:02, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Yes, exactly. Here's another example: I am "paying" my students to edit Wikipedia in exchange for grades (of course, grades depenend on quality of their content). So does everyone at WP:SUP. Still, the student's motivation can be seen as "for profit". COI? Bleh. COI is a bad policy, that's all. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
13. I appreciate many editors are wary of blanket endorsement, but blanket condemnation would be just as bad. TheGrappler (talk) 21:40, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
14. If the paid editors follow the rules, their edits would never be "a force for evil." Abyssal (talk) 02:53, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Great example - I'm sure there are many more examples of positive paid editing to be found. Dcoetzee 07:01, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
16. — Charles Stewart (talk) 13:28, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Support This is more a statement of fact than anything else, but I suppose I can sign under it. MBisanz ^talk 02:22, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
18. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. (Although I view MyWikiBiz as the "pinnacle" of paid editing.) :-) - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment

• Remember all the students who write in WP, because their teachers told them to do so. They don´t get money, but a good grade. We also know that companies, people and other organisations do look after their article, because they have an interest in what is writen there. We have rules for that (WP:COI "Editors with COIs are strongly encouraged to declare their interests, both on their user pages and on the talk page of any article they edit"). Maybe we schould have rules for paid editing too? What do you think of something like the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 ("lobbyists are required to register with the Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Secretary of the Senate."). By the way, a paid editor who is deleting negativ information without a good source should be thrown out of WP. (And remember that many companies work for the Linux kernel, e.g. IBM, Red Hat, Linux Foundation) --Goldzahn (talk) 05:05, 16 June 2009 (UTC) (deWiki)

Statement by Pharaoh of the Wizards

1. In the immediate context where it being stated that a crat is doing this and is doing paid editing through I assume Assume Good Faith as I would like to see the explanation from the concerned crat. I would like to say that No Admin or Crat should be allowed to do paid editing.
2. Admins and crats should not be allowed to do as allowing them is very dangerous as they will come under intense pressure to use there tools to protect,unprotect articles or even block,delete articles under pressure from those who pay them.It would destroy neutality and led to open bias .
3. Paid Editing is Automatically COI and led to POV pushing.
4. Further it could like to ownership of pages and edit wars as a Paid editor will be inclined to defend his editing as if another user changes it and be prepared to engage in revert waring even in content issues.Further if a Company hires more than one editor and if company hires 5 to 10 editors it can mean total ownership and team tagging.
5. Further it could led to negative editing a company may ask the paid editors to ensure that articles of rival companies or persons highlights more negative points than positive one.
6. Every Editor has a POV and even in normal circumstances we see content disputes and socks this would only aggravate it.
7. In general one should not allow Paid editing but for Admins and crats never.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 08:07, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Johnuniq (talk) 10:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Endorse with the caveat that not allowing admins and crats is not going to solve the problem. How many admins will stay admins if they can sell their expertise in the marketplace? I, for one, love the smell of fresh greenbacks as much as the next guy and am already designing my advertisement. "Article deleted? No worries. RegentsPark, former WIKIPEDIA ADMINISTRATOR, has inside knowledge on how to game the system. You won't be disappointed and he won't be undersold! CALL NOW 1-800-WIKI-MAN" The ranks of admins will be decimated. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 14:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
5. ThemFromSpace 16:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. hmwithτ 17:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Cirt (talk) 07:03, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
8. I support immediate desysopping of any administrator or bureaucrat paid to edit. Foxes guarding the henhouse.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:03, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Priyanath ^talk 20:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Enric Naval (talk) 22:05, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Make this mandatory for all admins. Smallbones (talk) 19:01, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment as an admin: disagree. It would be a discrimination against admins and crats. Of course, if an admin/crat abuses their tools / breaks policy "for profit", he should be desysoped immediately. But good faith should be assumed towards them just as towards other editors. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:36, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Johnuniq

Conflict of interest editing is strongly discouraged because it is incompatible with the aim of producing a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia. In particular, an editor who receives a payment for their work is known to have a conflict of interest, and is strongly advised to comply with the relevant guideline by declaring their interest on their user page and on the talk page of any article they edit. In addition, such editors should restrict their comments in the articles for deletion process to brief statements of fact, for example by providing a reference regarding a disputed assertion. Only editors with no conflict of interest should debate whether an article is to be retained or deleted or merged.

Establishing whether a particular editor has a conflict of interest may not be possible, or even necessary. What counts is whether the editor displays a pattern of appearing to promote individuals or organizations. Such behavior is incompatible with the aim of producing a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia.

The community should deal with editors who may have a conflict of interest in a prompt fashion. If a pattern of promoting individuals or organizations is suspected, the editor should be restricted from creating any further articles or redirects other than those pre-approved by a mentor. Johnuniq (talk) 08:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Johnuniq (talk) 08:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 10:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Cirt (talk) 17:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Only one I've seen so far I agree with 100%. Dekimasuよ! 03:32, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
5. dave souza, talk 20:58, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Enric Naval (talk) 22:06, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
8. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:37, June 18, 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Helenalex

A positive argument:

So far most of the pro-paid editing arguments have essentially been 'it won't be any worse than some of the stuff we get already' and 'we can't stop it so we should encourage people to be honest'. While these are both good arguments, I think paid editing could actually benefit Wikipedia.

The first point is that the number of articles affected would probably be fairly small. Corporations will pay for their articles, cities, countries etc will pay people to keep an eye on their pages and try and remove unduly negative material, agents will hire people to work on their clients' pages (musicians, actors etc) and political parties will be very interested. But generally speaking no one is going to pay money for someone to edit a page on a species of tree, or a dead composer, or a movie that came out in the 1960s or any one of thousands of other topics. Earlier this year I investigated setting up an editing business but decided against it when I realised that the number of pages which anyone had a financial interest in is actually pretty small. So Wikipedia will not be engulfed in a horde of PR people messing with every article. They will edit a limited number of articles, almost entirely in areas like politics and current events which tend to need close policing anyway. I think the strongest affected area would be politics, but since all parties would end up hiring editors, they would hopefully cancel each other out. For example if a Republican-paid editor put a puff-piece article up, a Democratic-paid editor would be in there to un-puff it. This is not really an argument in favour of editing, just that the impact would be far less than most people would think.

There seems to be an assumption that paid editors will inevitably behave badly. People are forgetting that paid editors would have a major financial interest in not being blocked, not having their every edit reverted, and not having the entire community distrust and dislike them. This would far outweigh the financial benefit of giving into a client who insists that their page have no negative material on it. In short, paid editors could not afford to piss people off, and would therefore be more conscientious than the average editor about abiding by policy, giving way to community consensus etc.

The majority of paid editing we know about is done by PR hacks who have no idea how Wikipedia works. Consequently their edits are awful. Enabling people who know what they're doing to offer their services will stop these people from trying to do something they don't know how to do - why would they when they can hire a professional who does? So rather than increasing the amount of PR fluff and so forth, this could actually reduce it as the clueless are replaced by the experienced.

Currently people who choose to edit for money are encouraged to be secretive about what they are doing. The current policy does not prevent paid editing, it simply drives it underground. Encouraging people to be honest about what they are up to means bias will be easier to spot and deal with. Plenty of biased editing looks fine at first glance; if we know that an editor has been paid and by who we can look a bit more closely and see whether we can trust them or not. Basically it would mean that paid editors would be scrutinised more than the average user, who may well be biased through personal prejudice, political or religous beliefs, nationality etc.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. --Helenalex (talk) 10:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Agree. Too many articles on corporations are in such a sorry state... apparently no one there even knows of wikipedia. The scope of paid corporate editing (which is sort of easy to detect, but not prove) is very narrow. Nationalist/religious editwarring is a far larger problem, and seldom traceable to anything. NVO (talk) 12:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Excellent summary - the consequences of transparent paid editing will likely result in a net bonus. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. لennavecia 16:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Agree, but suggest keeping in mind that sometimes PR people (like me) will contribute occasionally as part of their work without becoming Wikipedia experts. Clear guidelines us would help to cut down on awful edits -- we want to be professional, not disruptive, about this even if we don't aim to make Wiki-editing major part of our business.--Weronix (talk) 22:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

   In your case, the most important thing is that you have some idea of how Wikipedia works and are willing to learn and to work with the community, rather than just blundering in and spamming, and then getting pissed off when your work gets reverted. --Helenalex (talk) 07:37, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

   Learning and trying to be a good Wikipedian after some blunders... I think most PR people who take their work seriously would want to do the same from the get-go; to you our blunders are annoying and disruptive, to us and our clients they are a professional embarrassment. It's in everyone's best interest to cooperate. --Weronix (talk) 16:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

6. Agree. This supports Pete's statement above about transparency. -- llywrch (talk) 04:57, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Indeed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:36, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Consistently well put. TheGrappler (talk) 21:42, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Well put. Allowing paid editing will create a free market where poor editors cannot compete. Dcoetzee 07:05, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
10. snigbrook (talk) 08:42, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by hmwith

When it comes to reliability, Wikipedia already has a poor reputation as it is, and this would only further harm its public image. Paid editing is something that Wikipedia should neither encourage nor condone.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. hmwithτ 13:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
2. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 14:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. The least that can be said. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 14:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 15:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. ➲ redvers ^{throwing my arms around Paris} 16:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Cirt (talk) 17:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 19:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Johnuniq (talk) 05:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
11. dave souza, talk 20:59, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Nick-D (talk) 08:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
14. MuZemike 18:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Wikipedia would lose the rest of its credibility if people thought articles were paid PR/advert/fluffpieces. Priyanath ^talk 20:26, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Damage due to loss of reputation would be much bigger than any benefit. Enric Naval (talk) 22:24, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Sketchmoose (talk) 18:15, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
18. Agreed; we should be improving our reputation, not undermining it from within.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:39, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
19. Davewild (talk) 19:12, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
20. — Aitias // discussion 11:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
21. Absolutely. Jozal ^(talk) 19:19, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
22. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 01:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Jimbo Wales

Some things are not policy simply because it's never been necessary to make it policy. 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. There are of course some possibly interesting alternatives, not particularly relevant here, but 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.

I think the opening statement on this page is a red herring. Would we block a good editor if we found out after the fact is a very different question. We have traditions of forgiveness and working with people to improve their behavior and ours whenever we can - things are never so simple. Of course it is possible to imagine a situation where someone can and should be forgiven... because that's very common.

That's not the same as saying that it would ever be ok, as a matter of policy. 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.

Now, could it be perfectly fine for someone to set up an independent writing service for GFDL / CC BY / CC BY-SA content, to be posted somewhere else, and for completely independent wikipedians to find it useful in some way? Of course. But that's very different from setting up shop to sell one's services as an advocate editing articles? We have ways for advocates to participate in Wikipedia - the talk page serves perfectly well for this.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Support — This should be at WP:NOT#ADVERTORIAL. Jack Merridew 15:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Though I am not sure who those 'completely independent wikipedians' might be. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
4. You tell 'em Jimbo! ThemFromSpace 16:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Yup. ➲ redvers ^{throwing my arms around Paris} 16:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Yes, hired advocates will fatally erode neutral point of view. Fred Talk 16:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Perhaps this is the best option - don't policy this, judge per-case. I assume the bulk of the company article's started out as a CoI with people related writing them. If we can't see the difference with a normal article, fine. But indeed, explicitely tolerating paid agency's might be risky due to claims of ownership and pov pushing. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 16:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
8. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 16:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Volunteer Wikipedians should not, in any way, be intimidated by users who are paid by a given entity of some sort. Allowing such users to have such control over articles goes against Wikipedia's being "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". MuZemike 17:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Cirt (talk) 17:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
11. The potential for abuse is too great. What do we do if paid editors influence policy? This readily devolves into monetization from within. Unomi (talk) 18:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Absolutely agree with every part of this statement. Well said, Jimmy. hmwithτ 18:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
13. I'm going to have to agree with this. I don't think paid editors would necessarily be biased, given suitable oversight and transparency, but we don't just need to avoid bias — we also need to avoid the appearance of bias. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 18:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Support - seeing where this discussion is heading has changed my original thinking. Priyanath ^talk 18:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
15. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 19:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 19:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Especially the fourth paragraph. NW (Talk) 20:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
18. Siawase (talk) 20:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
19. As with the judicial system, even an appearance of impropriety may be almost as damaging as actual impropriety. Locke9k (talk) 20:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
20. Support Collect (talk) 21:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC) WP has in the past been beset by people with financial or other conflicts of interest, and where any doubt exists as to WP policing such, WP is the loser.
21. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
22. People pay me to research things and write reports. I also research things of my own interest in my spare time. Never the twain shall or should meet. Sam Blacketer (talk) 22:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
23. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
24. Abecedare (talk) 03:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
25. Of course we can't stop all shills, but we can make it clear that paid promotion is against policy and that discovery will bring a block, and a loss of reputation to the individual or organization behind the promotion. Johnuniq (talk) 03:41, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
26. AdjustShift (talk) 05:33, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
27. To clarify, I don't oppose paid editing where a conflict of interest isn't a big deal (e.g. stars, planets, etc). However paid editors (advocates) who whitewash articles/RL reputations and especially paid spammers should be dealt with harshly. MER-C 09:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
28. Kenosis (talk) 11:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC) .

    I know in my soul that this project will flounder if we don't follow Jimbo's example of being free and independent scribes. Jimbo, let me know if you need anything; I'll be right here under the table. It's my honor and right to wash your articles while you receive sleep or other good and valuable consideration. --NE2 12:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

    Wow. -->David Shankbone 15:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

    Oh, but I like flounder. Never mind! --NE2 21:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

29. SiobhanHansa 14:44, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
30. Finell (Talk) 20:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC): Amen!!!
31. The principles are clearly set out at the current WP:COI guidance, openly presenting ideas on the talk page could be ok but an "editor for hire" idea invites problems. . . dave souza, talk 21:04, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
32. Paid advocacy is certainly not acceptable. An advocate, by definition, isn't neutral. I think we can all agree on that (at least, I hope we can). The grey area we need to discuss is paid editing in forms that aren't explicitly for benefiting the person paying the money (or, at least, are for the mutual benefit of Wikipedia and the person paying the money). --Tango (talk) 21:10, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
33. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:35, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
34. Yep - paid editing is inherently unacceptable and against the whole point of Wikipedia Nick-D (talk) 03:16, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
35. Hobartimus (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
36. Before I got to Jimbo's statement, I was thinking that this was a hopelessly tangled web, and now it seems so simple. I knew we kept this guy around for some reason :) If someone offers you money or says they make money writing Wikipedia articles, just tell them that making money to write CC-BY-SA articles on a company's website is totally okay and even great ... and probably well worth being paid for, open content is still underrated, even today. And if someone wants to notify the relevant wikiproject of that content (and notify them of open content from competing sources while you're at it, you'll get a much more enthusiastic response) for possible inclusion in Wikipedia articles, and if it's high-quality content, you will probably see someone grab the content and use it after a while. Pull, don't push. - Dank (push to talk) 15:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
37. --JN466 16:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
38. Sketchmoose (talk) 19:06, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
39. Agree. Wikipedia should be free from mercantilism and payable activity is highly prone to WP:POINT and disruptive editing. Indeed it is probably worthy of some parole. brandt 22:52, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
40. --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:07, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
41. This is absolutely the greatest thing I've ever read on Wikipedia that wasn't an article. While I only have roughtly 15,000 edits/actions that are logged in what's about 5 years editing since first appearing as an IP, I have spent far too much of my very little free time doing all that I do consuming and giving back to this project whose intents and purposes are related to freedom of content as well as the freedom to consider this a passion and not a job. Bravo, sir, bravo. Keegan (talk) 06:35, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
42. I support Jimbo's encapsulating summary and each and every other summary that declares a stand against paid editing in any form. I do so despite the clear rationale provided by editors (including Rootology) who in many cases I hold in high to very high regard. In my opinion (and in agreement with others who state it also) I believe that Wikipedia would be irrevocably damaged by opening the door to such a practice. Indeed given that there is no strict guideline against such writing I would very much support the creation of a formal policy along these lines. I understand that this will not completely stop the practice. I will go further and say I am also of the strong opinion that paid editing is a form of theft from the community because unlike other mediums that sell their services and thus pay for and create their own infrastructure partially for the use of their paid editors, this organisation is fed and supported by donations - in the main from the "common" people and I and others who donate do not do so to create and support a writing infrastructure upon which others (except those directly a part of the day to day running of the organisation) can gain monetary benefit.--VS ^talk 12:33, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
43. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
44. Seems good to me, paid advocacy is analogous to spamming, but there could be instances where paid writing is not all bad. -- Oldlaptop321 (talk·contribs) 16:43, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
45. --Mecanismo | Talk 16:56, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
46. Editors don't own the content they edit or create, so what are they being paid for? Not the content, but the point of view of the content they create or edit! If their edits are valuable to someone, then they are not likely to be neutral. Beganlocal (talk) 02:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
47. Tiptoety ^talk 06:35, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
48. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:47, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
49. specialy fourth paragraph. Nothing stops companies from making their own pages/wikis under a license that allows us to reuse the content in wikipedia. (Of course, if they want to be considered seriously by wikipedia editors then they will have to make work of good quality and they better have good sources....) Enric Naval (talk) 22:25, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
50. Support. COI issues.Professional editors with a paid mission will reflect badly on Wikipedia. (Off2riorob (talk) 10:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC))
51. Strong Support for this statement and no other. I have personally been offered money to write an article numerous times, and have turned it down for the very reasons Jimbo states. Wikipedia isn't just an Internet encyclopedia. It's one of the most influential and important public institutions in 21st century society to date, and accepting money to influence an institution that exists for the public good is something I consider a bribe. I am not part of a community of paid shills, I don't intend to become one, and I don't intend to tolerate them ever. Steven Walling (talk) 05:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
52. Strong supportI think there is a significant difference between, say helping a friend edit an article about them for small compensation, vs. setting up a business to do so. if i read jimbo right, he is saying that any establishment of a business for this purpose must be opposed by WP. this makes sense to me. businesses can be incorporated, granted protection from personal liability, etc. (2nd amendment parallel idea: owning guns can be legal, the incorporation of businesses to manufacture and sell guns could be made illegal. want a gun? build it yourself. want to smoke? grow your own. no protection from liability, no guarantees possible for your works success. so while a given article may end up being quite good, banning edits from known professional editors makes sense. (i still think its absolutely nuts for anyone to think paying money for an article is money well spent)Mercurywoodrose (talk) 06:20, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
53. totally agree Simplicius (talk) 11:39, 17 June 2009 (UTC) please see comment about German Chapter
54. Fred Bauder's statement is related. Tempshill (talk) 01:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
55. –Megaboz (talk) 03:10, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
56. --OlEnglish (talk) 03:22, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
57. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:42, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
58. The second, third and fourth paragraphs at least. Davewild (talk) 19:16, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
59. All of it, especially the 3rd paragraph, as policy, as stated by Jimbo. Smallbones (talk) 19:15, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
60. Per Tango. —Animum (talk) 00:33, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
61. Agree. Paid editing is contrary to the principles of Wikipedia. --Susan118 ^talk 01:17, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
62. I agree wholeheartedly, though I am not sure I understand the very last suggestion made by Mr. Wales. Other editors have pointed out that there will be various manifestations of "paid editing" no matter what, and that it is something that is hard to prevent, That does not mean, however, that Wikipedia should endorse, explicitly or otherwise, such practices. Jay Tepper (talk) 15:16, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
63. Endorse, but I also share MER-C's sentiment; at the moment, I don't see paid editing being a problem for non-contentious topics ("e.g. stars, planets"), but any subtle POV-pushing of people, companies, or historical events should be firmly dealt with. Spellcast (talk) 07:53, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
64. Phew. I'm glad to see that Jimbo agress with me :-) SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 19:14, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
65. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 01:54, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
66. Durova²⁷³ 16:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• Comment - before you comment please try to refrain from the nearly meaningless phrase "paid editing" - this blanket term does not get at the substance of what I have said--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - Should we amend our policies to reflect this WP:JIMBO action that paid editing is a blockable offense? -->David Shankbone 16:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Not unless there is consensus for it. There are two known admins doing paid editing today, both admitted, one in this very RFC, and Jimbo is aware of them--they're both unblocked still. Seicer and Nichalp are both admitted to paid editing, neither is blocked. Jimbo is himself not above policy at this point in time, and I hate to be a dick about it, but I only started this RFC to see what everyone else actually thought about the matter. I have the feeling a couple people are seeing this as some sort of attack on Wikipedia itself, which is silly. There is so far no policy-based support for blocking someone. If there is, let's see if Seicer and Nichalp will be blocked today. If Jimmy does, it will be at RFAR within the day. This is a stupid thing to do a constitutional crisis over, but honestly, if people are OK with this in various forms, and it's been underground for ages already, it is what it is. rootology (C)(T) 16:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Jimmy has the power to shut down Wikipedia through Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. At that time, how would people make money out of editing Wikipedia? Also, we surely wouldn't have this debate if it weren't because of the fact that Wikipedia is successful. And Wikipedia is successful because of the voluntary work of dedicated people. Taking advantage of its success to make money out of this is unethical and harmful to the image of Wikipedia. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Is Wikipedia really only existing at the behest of Jimmy? He could pull the plug on the whole site if he desired? -->David Shankbone 16:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• This would have been true before he gave it all away legally to the WMF itself, I believe he the owner before that. The WMF is independent of Jimmy, but I'm sure he has influence over them as much as anyone that senior could, but it's not like he can go in there and padlock doors or unplug servers. rootology (C)(T) 16:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• If we don't know about how much influence he's got on the Board then you could have at least contacted the WMF to get their view on paid editing before advocating it here and contesting Jimmy's declarations which are one of the sources of policy making in Wikipedia. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• The WMF can't take a position on this. Section 230 plays a role here; they could probably get away with it if they adopted binding terms and conditions for all of the WMF projects. See my post on Jimmy's talk in regards to his creation of policy lately. If he has support, he can do it, otherwise, no. rootology (C)(T) 17:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• What are you talking about? He's one voting Board member; Jimmy has zero power to "shut down" anything WMF level. This is pure fiction. He's not the legal "owner" of the WMF or the Board. rootology (C)(T) 16:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• • Jimmy Wales did, at one point, have "the power" to shut down Wikipedia. He owned the servers and paid most of the bills (once upon a time) to make Wikipedia happen. That is no longer the case, and he is but one member of the board of trustees. That his opinion on this and other topics does seem to carry substantial weight, and that he also has plenty of fans that are diehard supporters of him (as witnessed by the signing above) that will back him no matter what is also true. He also does have a vote on the board of trustees... something I and others like you don't have... and that position seems to be there only by virtue of having been one of the founders of this project. For good or bad, the WMF does set general policy on matters like this. Issues like this also have the potential of splitting up the community... which is why I wonder why it is being raised at all. --Robert Horning (talk) 18:21, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

“

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.

”

• Isn't this exactly what has happened recently? Will you be blocking Nichalp? --MZMcBride (talk) 16:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Not just Nichalp (talk · contribs), an Admin, but also Seicer (talk · contribs), an admin, who stated in this RFC he does paid editing. I asked Jimmy directly this question on his talk page. I really think this would be a bad idea to do this without broad community support; his authority comes from us, and so far there appears to be no support for this position. A bad block by Jimmy is no more valid than a bad block by anyone else. rootology (C)(T) 16:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• A good admin won't block without warning. I assume the statement of Jimmy up here is a kind of a warning. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Certainly, warnings are key, but as paid editing isn't against any policy, my point was simply that yourself, the AC, even Jimmy lack the authority to do such a block. Any block without a demonstrated policy basis may be undone as a bad block. Even the AC, AC members, and Jimmy have boundaries and thresholds is my only point. All the collected AC/Jimbo authority flows upwards, not downwards. rootology (C)(T) 16:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• You'd probably open a RfC on the role of Jimmy while putting this one on hold. But that would be moot since one of the sources of Wikipedia policy is Jimmy himself. Above he states explicitly "Consider this to be policy as of right now". -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• And I am openly contesting him on this and his authority to do so, and I consider this proclamation to have no standing and to be invalid; he's got no authority to do anything we don't allow him to do. I don't know if that makes me a fool or will reveal Jimmy to be something he isn't, but someone always assumed he was. But his "policy" here has no standing without us backing it up. If this RFC backs him, then he's right. If not, he's not. It's really that simple. rootology (C)(T) 16:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Rootology, I really think you are just trying to pick a fight that no one wants to have. I'm sure it's great fun to get excited about "Jimbo versus the community" but that is not even remotely close to what is going on here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm certainly not trying to pick a fight; I began the RFC--for the hundredth time--since we've never had a discussion on this to see what policy and practice actually are. You upped the ante through the stratosphere with your language and claimed standing to do such a thing without community backing. rootology (C)(T) 17:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I understand that you are contesting the policy itself, not Jimmy's declaration. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:04, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm very much challenging his standing to make a policy without community support of the same. He initiated that fight, not I. rootology (C)(T) 17:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I showed you policy. Now, where does it say that a community support is required so that he'd be able to make policy? Nowhere. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment I've removed my support of rootology's original comment after seeing where this pissing contest is headed (and probably where it started). Priyanath ^talk 17:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm siding with Rootology here. The intent of this RFC is to gauge what the sense of the Wikipedia community is, & Wales' contribution to this discussion has effectively silenced any open discussion about this phenomena. (My sense was that the consensus was that paid contributing is permissible in some circumstances, but not permitted in others. I think the conversation was just about to consider when it should be permitted when it was pre-empted by this ex cathedra declaration.) If Wales' opinion is at odds with the consensus of the community, it doesn't matter who picks a fight with whom; the whole project will suffer because, at the least, volunteers will vote with their feet & the project will lose momentum. No one wants to work for, let alone volunteer labor for, someone who & ignores input abruptly makes decisions. -- llywrch (talk) 18:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Ahem. Off topic but worth clarifying a couple of things. None of us work for anyone when we edit on wikipedia (that's why we're not 'paid editors' - couldn't resist that one!). Secondly, if it were true that No one wants to work for, let alone volunteer labor for, someone who & ignores input abruptly makes decisions, the modern corporation would cease to exist. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 18:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

As I see it, all of this talk about Jimmy "God-king" Wales makes it sounds as if we are working for him -- not the ideal of free knowledge. Unless his role is limited to that of a figurehead or symbol of Wikipedia; but that means he has no power -- anything else is a contradiction. As for your second point, there is a big difference between "wants to work" & "needs to work". You apparently haven't been in the work force very long. According to a recent survey about 15% of all employees love their job; the rest of us are ambivalent -- or worse -- towards our primary source of income. -- llywrch (talk) 05:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. The modern corporation exists because it pays its workforce. Entities that rely on volunteer labour need to listen to their volunteers. --Helenalex (talk) 07:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - "Paid writing" is sometimes ok and sometimes not ok. "Paid advocacy in Wikipedia article space" violates policy and always has. All y'all, stop confusing the two. WAS 4.250 (talk) 17:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

  It is a very fair comment but many people here are saying that observers, media and readers won't read what you've just written now. The following statement is from an informed person but not all people are that informed. You obviously can't trust Wikipedia whatsoever in this area. This is unfortunate, since I am a big fan of Wikipedia. But since the day when [X] decided they needed to pay people to "improve" the ODF and OOXML articles, they have been a cesspool of FUD, spin and outright lies, seemingly manufactured for [X]'s re-use in their whisper campaign. My advice would be to seek out official information on the standards, from the relevant organizations, like OASIS, the chairs of the relevant committees, etc. Ask the questions in public places and seek a public response. That is the ultimate weakness of FUD and lies. They cannot stand the light of public exposure. Sunlight is the best antiseptic. (source: Groklaw.net) -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

  Exactly.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

  Indeed that is true. Just as editing with a strong opinion (say, because I come from country X, believe in religion Y and have sexual orientation Z) is sometimes ok and sometimes not ok, while advocacy for these causes is not okay. Now admitting this may be bad for PR, but it is not clear to me that it is bad for the encyclopedia in the long term. Kusma (talk) 20:07, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Right at the top of the masthead, it says that Wikipedia is the "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" (my italics); the "free" bit is regarding the content to the reader, but the "anyone" makes no determination on what categories of potential contributor may or may not be included - my understanding is that 'anyone' means universal acceptance. Our licenses do not require that content is provided free, even though it is noted in the editing window that it may be used by third parties for financial reward. If Jimbo is correct then we need to clarify what we mean by "anyone", and amend our flagship statement of intent accordingly. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Response "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" has been there since the first day. I don't recall when the first instance of vandalism occurred but I am so sure that it didn't happen the first day. I don't recall when the first instance of a POV pushing occurred but I am certain that it didn't occur the first day. Till this day, we haven't added anything to the motto. Our motto doesn't restrict any category of editors (neither vandals nor extreme POV pushers). It wouldn't be a good idea to include a long list in the motto. The motto is still valid unless you want us to add a small warning such as those placed on alcohol beverages or ciggies's packs (i.e. consume with moderation, smoking kills). Anyway, do you feel that the motto is misleading? Probably though editors get to know about policies and guidelines once they start editing or getting warnings from admins if they do something wrong. But what is more misleading is to let readers consume paid-for articles without letting them know while keeping the info for us hidden in the talk page that 99% of readers never read. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 21:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

My response in full is under your statement. I would, however, add that it has always been part of the wiki process that the community determines what is upon the page and that the reader (should they care) is protected by process - should this process be deprecated by transparent paid editing? LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

What about a test? Seriously, let's see what a headline like 'Wikipedia debates paid editing' in the media would prompt. If we can get a positive feedback then I'll just shut up and apologize for all the posts I've been making here. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 22:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Having the media determine our policies seems to be a truly horrible idea. We make policy because we think it is good, not because we think it might be good for public relations. At least that's what we should do (I admit that IPs were restricted from creating articles as a response to the Seigenthaler affair, which had nothing to do with IP page creation). Kusma (talk) 06:30, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• It's not PR, not the media. It is the reputation and the survival of Wikipedia. The whole world knows that we don't work for money and that's part of the success of the project. This is not the media determining our policy. The media is just what it is; the media. Let me tell you this; having my pocket determine our content and policies seems to be a catastrophic idea. Then, this is not me telling you this but it will be surely what the reader and observer will tell you before stop reading. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 13:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. Jimbo's assertion of the authority to make policy by fiat is consistent with how his role on the English Wikipedia has been traditionally understood. This is seperate from his role with the Foundation where he no longer has that authority. I suggest that the policy allowing him to do so be changed as no longer necessary. The Foundation can set any standards that it wishes but the community should be free to interpret the pillars of Wikipedia according to the dictates of its collective conscience without binding limitations from any one individual, however highly respected. Eluchil404 (talk) 23:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• I've placed my comment about the situation at User talk:Jimbo Wales#Reply from Seicer. It should be noted that I resigned as an administrator on 01 April, noted at WP:FORMER. seicer | talk | contribs 00:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• I believe that Jimbo's statement to "consider this a policy" is invalid. I don't believe that Jimbo is any longer allowed to implement policy by fiat. If I'm mistaken, please let me know. Cla68 (talk) 01:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I hope the community takes away Jimbo's admin bit (as absurd as it would be) for abusing his admin tools, should he continue his practice of banning paid editors. Founder or not. It's pretty clear from his comments here that he cares more about image than the quality of the Wiki. -- Ned Scott 06:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a terrible thing to have a constitutional crisis over, but apparently the question does need to be resolved: 'Can Jimbo do that?' I suggest someone with more experience than me open up a new RFC on whether Jimbo does or should have the right to set policy in the absence of community consensus. This is far wider than the paid editing issue and really needs to be resolved because it goes to the heart of how Wikipedia is run and whether the power lies entirely with community or not. --Helenalex (talk) 07:51, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I thought that the power of Wikipedia lies with the community, not with one selective individual calling the shots based on personal opinion. seicer | talk | contribs 11:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I explained to Jimbo four days ago on functionaries-en@wikimedia.org that I have also done "paid editing", and have not hidden this fact. Jimmy is right to say that we should not clump all "paid editing" together, but he is very wrong to write policy on a whim and threaten that he will block anyone who sells their services as an "editor", which equates to any form of "paid editing". FWIW, many of the instances of paid editing that I have seen are fundamentally wrong, however as illustrated at #Statement by pfctdayelise, there are many fantastic collaborations that involve money or in-kind. We should not be silly about this, and put our head in the sand. This is complex. We need to be open and honest about our editing, discuss the pros and cons, and it is not helpful to have threats of blocks hanging over our heads. If the community decides that I shouldn't create content at work, I will comply, and I expect others will as well. But I will not seek forgiveness from Jimbo, who has benefited from my efforts, or anyone for that matter. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 11:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. In theory there would be no problem with getting paid to edit Wikipedia in an NPOV fashion, e.g. "for the good of the world" with no other agenda, hidden or otherwise. In practice there is very little funding out there that's available for this purpose. As we know from experience, there's plenty of funding out there that's available for POV pushing. Occasionally we find out, but more often we merely suspect a particular SPA of a COI involving money. Absent an unforseen radical change in the way money flows in the "real world", legitimizing paid editing would be extremely harmful to the project.. ... Kenosis (talk) 11:55, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

  Do you have any data to back up that claim? Kusma (talk) 12:18, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I made several claims, so I'm not sure to which one you're referring. In any event, Jimbo already has dictated the policy for the present time (absent an overruling by the Foundation or an adequately persuasive argument for him to change his mind, of course). As Jimbo appears to me to have made clear, there's presently no objection by the community to someone receiving grant money to spend one's time improving the project. And we already have the tools to deal with COI's where they exist. Legitimizing paid editing services in general, though, as Jimbo pointed out, essentially has the effect of legitimizing COI's in a project that's set up with NPOV as a core content policy. ... Kenosis (talk) 12:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I was referring to how much financially rewarded editing is done for company advocacy vs. for the general good. Anyway, in my view, policy is what people do, not what Jimbo (or any one person) says. Jimbo has no way to make me (or anyone else) block people who get paid for good edits. I really think we should enforce NPOV more strictly than we do now, but I want to judge people based on their edits, not on whose payroll they're on. I think we should discriminate between edits based on their quality, not based on the sex, skin color, nationality, religion, or employer of who made the edit. (And one more thing: It is important that the outside world does not forget that Wikipedia is just as unreliable as any other publication. Fortunately, wre get some press publicizing our unreliability every now and then, which is an important warning for everybody that they need to use their own brain and critical reading skills at all times, when using Wikipedia as well as when using Fox News or the Encyclopedia Britannica. But that has nothing to do with paid editing, just with the validity of "our reputation" as an argument). Kusma (talk) 13:01, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

RE "I was referring to how much financially rewarded editing is done for company advocacy vs. for the general good" : I have about as much empirical data as I do on how much money US businesses spent last year on "stealth PACs". Or, about how many undocumented people live in the United States. It's easy to figure out how many documented ones there are, but...
RE the rest of your comment here: As Jimbo indicated, there already exist the tools to deal with COI's. Remember the original questions in this RfC were "Is Paid Editing a problem? Is it fine? Is it against policy? What policy? What should be the response?": There are a lot of questions there and they're phrased somewhat misleadingly-- "a red herring" as Jimbo observed. The last question asking what should be the response presumes it is a problem, ignoring the first two which ask whether it a problem or is it fine? The last question what to do about it also presumes something needs to be done that isn't already being done. So it's already something of a conceptual mess right from the getgo, unnecessarily pulling a lot of emotional triggers. Nonetheless it's opened up an interesting conversation that brings in many perspectives on many potentially related issues.
RE separating the issue of "our reputation" from other realities of WP, please see my response to the comment immediately below. ... Kenosis (talk) 14:01, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment As regards COI, which is the primary concern regarding editing/advocating for financial reward, has anyone noticed the irony implicit in Jimbo commenting here - the one person who is financially rewarded (in the way of speaker fees, etc. rather than the appropriate expenses of representing Wikipedia/Wika) for the editing of content by third parties. Dare we ask if Jimbo's COI in advocating maintaining the status quo (by fiat, if necessary) is not prompted by considerations of the remuneration he has enjoyed which resulted from the building of this encyclopedia, and whether that disbars him from acting or even commenting on this RfC? LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

No, I had not noticed any irony. Organizations don't pay speakers unless they perform well, and have some special notability/notoriety, or some special knowledge. Anyone paying Jimbo must believe he meets those criteria, and Jimbo's work as a speaker would not be influenced by his position on the paid advocacy issue, so there is no COI. Johnuniq (talk) 13:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Jimbo gets paid to run WP, not to edit its content. His only concern is to keep the whole enterprise afloat, which depends on both the reality of seeking NPOV, and to a large extent on the public perception that that's what WP is in fact actually trying to achieve--that's an interest, but not a conflict of interest as we understand the words. ... Kenosis (talk) 14:01, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, he doesn't get paid for running Wikipedia. And in private correspondence with him, he has claimed to me that he has not made any money from his speaking engagements -- except, I assume, being reimbursed for expenses. (And I have the impression that he hasn't made any money from Wikia yet.) That said, it would be disingenuous for anyone to say that he has not benefited from being the public image (if not the leader) of Wikipedia: he has been made a member of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society due to Wikipedia, as well as received many awards and honors. Meanwhile, the hardworking volunteer who writes articles, handles vandals & troublemakers, & other has actually contributed to the success of this project can only hope for the occasional mention or profile in the press. So if some of us established users are unhappy at his declaration he'll ban anyone who makes a public offer to edit Wikipedia for pay, I should hope the reasons are understandable. -- llywrch (talk) 17:01, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Llywrch, please examine very carefully whatever Jimbo wrote to you. It is public information that his asking price for a speaker's fee is ABOVE $75,000. And the publicity benefit and "halo effect" to Wikia is incalculable. It is true that he receives no salary from the Wikimedia Foundation, per their financial disclosure form. But that is not the same as making no money from Wikipedia, taken in a broad sense of the term. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Whether I remembered what he wrote to me accurately or I misunderstood what he wrote about how much he makes from speaking engagements is, as I wrote above, irrelevant. He has benefitted from Wikipedia. Not I begrudge him his good fortune; what upsets me is his threat to ban anyone from Wikipedia who offers to edit for pay -- while he enjoys his good fortune. -- llywrch (talk) 04:44, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Llywrch, you were the 2006 'Person of the Year'. [4] -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Yippee. I got a bigger kick out of being mentioned by name in Andrew Lih's book. -- llywrch (talk) 21:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Andrew Lih is a good and perfect example of someone who knew how to make money out of his Wikipedia experience without bashing Jimmy. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:05, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Jimbo does NOT run Wikipedia nor the Wikimedia Foundation; and he is NOT paid by the Foundation nor the Wikipedia community nor anything called "wikipedia" (which is a set of on-line encyclopedias in many languages and has no money as it is merely a set of web pages). WAS 4.250 (talk) 17:01, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

If, as you and Llywrch say, Jimbo doesn't get compensated for anything relating to WP (other than getting reimbursed for genuine expenses), then that pretty much settles the point that LessHeard vanU made about the "irony" of Jimbo commenting here, very strongly implying some kind of appearance of COI arising out of his "renumeration". This was what I was responding to. Either way, I stand by my point. Call it what you will, but to date Jimbo has indeed run the organization and effectively still does today, and if he so chooses can continue to do so-- at least absent a mutiny of sorts by the foundation. And IMO he does it quite remarkably well on the whole, as evidenced by WP's present placement w.r.t. the flow of information in the world. But of course this discussion has somehow gotten off point, which I hope I haven't managed to exascerbate. ... Kenosis (talk) 18:20, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, while it may seem to be off-point, I think this still is something Wikipedians are sensitive about. We all want some kind of recognition for our work here. Most -- if not practically all -- of us are quite content to do this for free. However, being told by someone who has has visibly benefited from his association with Wikipedia that he will block anyone else should she/he seek to make money from editting here is insulting. -- llywrch (talk) 21:55, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Be a speaker and make money... nobody would argue with you or accuse you of potential COI or POV. People would come and listen to what you say. Those same people may not read articles you wrote while getting paid for. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:07, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah? What would be my title? "Self Aggrandizing Old Fart Does More Of The Same"? "How To Edit Wikipedia for Three (Plus) Years and Never Take An Article to B-Class"? "Wiki-Lawyering; What Does It Mean? (Please bring Sleeping Bag)"? Or, perhaps, "I Was Threatened With Ban by Jimbo Wales - The Man Who Invented Wikipedia"? Which one is going to stir even the slightest interest. I mean, if Jimbo is embarrassed about the money he makes for speaking from the status he derives from the association of Wikipedia, he could cut his revenues by noting his topic will be "Why I Threatened to Ban a Self Aggrandizing Old Fart, Who Had Never Taken an Article to B-Class in Three Years of Contributing to Wikipedia, For Wikilawyering". Providing Jimbo places "Wikipedia" somewhere in the topic title, he will be guaranteed a fee. Not that Jimbo does not deserve the benefits that having his idea of an open edited encyclopedia accrues, but it would really not mean anything if it wasn't for the sheer quantity (and perspectives of the quality) that are the results of other peoples efforts. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:44, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Why are you asking me LHvU? I don't know but probably you could make more money sharing your admin and wiki experience in high schools than writing articles under the pressure of both Wikipedia policies and your client. In a less serious way, Jimmy is the Spiritual Leader and you can be the Mullah! Both make a good living although there's no democracy. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 23:55, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment In the spirit of Jimbo's refrain[ing] from the nearly meaningless phrase "paid editing", I'd like to ask for a refresher on definitions. If I'm a self-employed expert on Subject X, AND I also contribute my expertise to Wikipedia because I think it will be good for our industry as a whole, am I a paid editor? What if I'm a bureaucrat who asks my employees to make these edits during paid work-hours because the articles will be a good resource for regulators who must understand Subject X to be effective? What if I run a non-profit, the "Subject X Information Center," and solicit donations from philanthropies to support my habit of improving Wikipedia articles on Subject X? In all these cases, I'm quite obviously a "paid editor," and yet my work is quite obviously innocuous. In fact, I can't imagine that even people who are anti-"paid editing" want to discourage these behaviors. (right?) If we are concerned by the Conflict-of-Interest aspect, we need to distinguish those situations in which people are being paid to impartially educate the public. This currently includes much of the nonprofit sector, and I believe Wikipedia should encourage them to hire employees to edit pages in their area of expertise. Agradman (talk) 22:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Good examples of blurry lines. What if I am a student and I am getting paid in grades for contributing to Wikipedia (WP:SUP)? What if I win a $ prize for a Wikipedia article? What if I promise $ to those who contribute to certain articles? What if I include the fact that I've written 1,000 Wikipedia articles in my CV? What if contributing to Wikipedia becomes accepted in academic community, and will contribute to one's academic career? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• What is the price to buy deleted articles. I remember writing something what was deleted and was time I really need it. Will be it not OK to negotiate to somebody to PAY for that service or just is not OK to receive gratification? 76.16.176.166 (talk) 15:36, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment With all due respect to Jimbo's contribution to the project, no one person, save perhaps the Foundation lawyer, can set policy. Any statement "Consider this to be policy as of right now" should be made by those empowered to make such policies: The community, legal department when required by a legal issue, and sometimes the arbitration committee. Policies set or rather clarified by ARBCOM are generally subject to override by the community through discussion and consensus, although in practice that rarely happens. This discussion is one of the steps toward having the community decide what the policy will be. As for blocking, since paid edits are inherently COI it will almost always be easy to find a reason to block the editor unless the editor is being scrupulously complaint with all guidelines and policies. If he is in compliance, then there is no reason to block him. For example, I see no difference between a company President correcting a non-controversial spelling error in an article about his company than if he farms typo-checking out to a third party. In both cases, the editor should disclose the COI but the edit should stand and the editor should not be blocked. If either party made edits that changed the tone or substance of the article, then there would be a COI violation and reverts and blocks would be appropriate. If the edits were "quality" another editor would and should "take ownership" of the edit so it doesn't get reverted, but the editor with the COI should still be at least warned not to make similar edits again. Editors with conflicts should propose substantive changes on talk pages and let another, neutral, editor make or reject the proposed edit. There is one blanket exception: WP:BLP - anyone, including editors with conflicts, can and should remove harmful false information about living people. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• Question: Why is it ok to get paid for creating images for Commons but not for writing articles? How about Wikipedia:The Core Contest or Wikipedia:Bounty board or several related projects involving $ incentives? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I have basically the same question. I know that Jimbo is referring to "paid advocacy" and not the broader "paid editing" but if there is to be a policy against the former and not the latter, then there needs to be a clear definition of the term, with a line drawn somewhere. It seems there is actually a spectrum here not a dichotomy. For instance, is being paid by an environmental charity to write articles about green energy "advocacy", per se? Or is this more to do with user conduct? TheGrappler (talk) 21:56, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment The conflict of interest introduced by paid editors is greater than it is for other COIs, such as fans writing for bands, advocates writing for causes they believe in, etc. A fan whose peacock prose got cut or modified would probably be willing to concede the point eventually, but someone whose paycheck, perhaps even livelihood, depends on them getting something onto WP would not be so accommodating. The paid editor is not working for WP; they're working for Company X, so they have nothing to lose by trying to get their POV on here however they can. Also, pardon my French, but the idea of admins or crats being paid to sway policy here makes me fucking sick. Matt Deres (talk) 23:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment Jimbo no longer has the power to make or break policy. It was by his unilateral decree that speedy deletion criterion T1 was created 3 years ago. It was later repealed by community consensus. He is respected for his vision, and as the face of Wikipedia, but as he himself has so often said, it is not he who builds or runs Wikipedia, nor is he any more capable of predicting the most effective policy to instate. Our policy must be written as our articles are, and as the laws of every democratic nation are: by the consent of the people. Dcoetzee 07:18, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment: The German Chapter Wikimedia in Deutschland e.V. is cooperating with the state and a private institute. The projects' theme is writing articles about Renewable resources. The chapter spent 17,663 Euro for salaried personnel concerning this project from the budget of 2008. It is job-creation measure financed from the general donations. -- Simplicius (talk) 11:39, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Disagreee This would be a radical, and I fear unenforceable change to WP:COI. Personally I would be quite happy if it became normal in Hollywood and Bollywood to pay their publicists to release low resolution photos and artwork stills of actors and fictional characters to Wikipedia, providing someone had already created an article about them. However I would much prefer that this was done transparently and publicly. As for other paid editing I don't see that we have the tools to ban it and therefore would much prefer that we set rules such as at wp:COI rather than attempt prohibition without the means to enforce that prohibition. At present when I suspect paid editing is going on I'm quite happy to refer people to wp:COI. I'm not sure how one would handle suspicions of paid editing if we had a complete prohibition, but I suspect we would all tend to be a bit more cautious before accusing newbies of something blockable - hence my fear that this would be another example where prohibiting a human behaviour increases rather than reduces it. ϢereSpielChequers 13:54, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment as some users have said above, I think we need a separate request for comment to determine, once and for all, whether Jimbo - who, I'm sure we all love and respect dearly - can set down legislation on his own. I'm not sure I have strong feelings either way: on the one hand I am rather anti-authoritarian and democratic. On the other, on a more human level, I realise I'd feel a bit pissed if a community I virtually created and nurtured took me out of the loop. In theory, if Jimbo DOES say he can legislate alone, then the RFC kinda fails no matter what anyone else says on the subject. I feel this might be something we have to work out, just so we know. --bodnotbod (talk) 19:19, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Bodnotbod, have a look at this page. More input is definitely welcome, no matter what your opinion on the matter is. -- llywrch (talk) 16:27, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Thinboy00

Personally, I feel that editing with a COI is a much bigger issue than rootology makes it out as. For starters, rootology claims that every paid editor is either a "good" editor or a "bad" editor, and is recognizeable as such on sight. This ignores subtle POV-pushing. For a current example, see [5] [which apparently was noticed by someone else too, see above], which alleges that outright lies have been introduced to ODF (I have not investigated both sides of the issue; however, if POV pushing similar to that described by this article was going on, I don't think we would notice based solely on the contributions). A COI is a very serious issue; we cannot compromise on this. A paid user may be "bad" but also very subtle. A sufficiently subtle user might be misinterpreted, even deliberately so, as helping the community (or trying to) when in fact he is hurting it. We need a solid policy against this type of thing. I propose considering all paid accounts to be role accounts, since their motivations are extremely similar, and in fact there may not be much difference between them. It seems to me that:

1. A role account is an account which is formally recognized by the entity in question, usually operated by employees who are usually paid by the entity
2. A "paid account" is an account which is operated by someone who is paid by the entity to do so. The entity will often dictate the behaviors of the account. Unlike a role account, a paid account need not be recognized at every level of management, but it seems unlikely that the Board of directors for a given entity would do more with a role account than to recognize it (they would delegate day-to-day operations to lower levels).
3. Currently, an entity can avoid some of the stigma associated with paid editing by ensuring that the editing is not officially recognized by upper management. Our current policies are actually more lenient on such accounts than they are on role accounts. That is a problem.

--Thinboy00 @903, i.e. 20:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC) Additions in square brackets.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Cirt (talk) 03:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
2. ThemFromSpace 04:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
3. hmwithτ 17:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment

• A role account is an account that follows the role, not the person. Wikipedia rules state that with some very limited Foundation-role accounts, each account must have one and only one person operating it. Currently, an organization's employees may each have one or more Wikipedia accounts, including single-purpose accounts for editing articles related to the organization. However, the account follows the person, it is not transferable. I could have an account "AcmeVPMarketing" to edit articles related to Acme, Inc., for example. However, about the only thing I could legitimately do with that account would be correct typos, remove BLP violations, and make suggestions on article talk pages. Anything else would get all of my accounts blocked for COI violations. That's not terribly useful, except to segregate my edits of this business from my other edits, which is itself a legitimate use of multiple accounts. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:40, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Alansohn

I enjoy Wikipedia, and I had never thought about being paid until a few weeks ago when I saw a request for a freelance writer on an email list and offered some of the Wikipedia articles I had been mostly responsible for as samples. The businessperson replied that she had tried to write an article about a clearly unique product that she sells, but that the article had been speedy deleted. I did a quick search and found several reliable and verifiable sources that would have allowed me to create a DYK-eligible article in under a half hour. I thought of offering to write such an article in exchange for my services, but declined to even make the offer as it would irrevocably tarnish my amateur standing, and I always wanted to be able to compete internationally if they ever made Wikipedia an Olympic sport.

When I saw this RfC, I assumed that I would be against paid editing. Until I saw Jimbo's remarks. While I appreciate the lofty goals that have been set, so many of them end up being imposed at the expense of the most committed editors. Despite all of the bots, and all of the folks on Huggle, Twinkle and other tools, I am one of many editors who spends hours each day trying to keep out the crap, poop and other shit from vandals, who are invited in with no barrier to entry in the name of having an "encyclopedia that anyone can edit". While I put in my time as an amateur, nothing prevents Jimbo Wales from trading off all of the effort put in by unpaid labor ($3 billion worth, per his article) to receive fees and expenses for his speaking engagements around the globe in which he talks about how wonderful all the volunteers at Wikipedia are. While paid editors may create problems that tarnish our reputation, we seem to do a great job of embarrassing ourselves, up to the ArbCom level, without a penny trading hands.

I couldn't help but be reminded of all the talented amateur athletes at notable American colleges and universities who play football or basketball, working their asses off in training, practices and on the field/court. Their schools bring in tens of millions of dollars each year, their coaches are paid millions and the athletes are paid zero (don't worry, I haven't forgotten about scholarships). If any player received a dollar for their hard labor, their school is obligated to toss them off the team. The NCAA seems to spend inordinate amounts of money and effort tracking down those disgraceful violators who seek a few dollars to cover their bills and ensure that the financial purity of the sport is maintained. And we volunteers at Wikipedia don't even get the scholarships that are purported to be the tradeoff. Remember that brainiacs get colleg scholarships without forced labor involved.

Let's pick one or the other. If we can't make money off Wikipedia, let's make sure that no one does. If it is okay for some to trade off their Wikipedia involvement, let's set up a mechanism under which some of the editors who contribute massive amounts of time and effort can have the opportunity to earn a few bucks for their labors.

My suggestion would be to have an equivalent of a "paid articles for creation". A company, organization or individual would submit a request for a new article, detailing why it's notable and providing whatever material they have on their own. As long as there is a whiff of basic notability, existing editors would then bid for the right to create the article. The winning bidder would create the article, which would have to pass muster of both the entity that wanted the article and some board that would verify that the article meets Wikipedia notability and POV standards. Everything is on the up-and-up, there is no direct connection between bidder and author and we can have a win-win situation; editors can earn some money and someone can get an article created that no one qualified to create the article would have an interest in creating.

At last we peons would be able to earn a small fraction of what Jimbo earns from Wikipedia and I would be able to tell my wife that the time I spend on Wikipedia is bringing in some income.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Alansohn (talk) 22:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Well said. Cla68 (talk) 01:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
3. I have also noted Jimbo's potential COI in a (second) comment at his statement - I should have read this first. I also concur with the amateur/professional analogy. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:50, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Like LHvU, I also should have read this before adding my last comment. Although for reasons I gave elsewhere I wouldn't ever accept a deal to "edit for pay", I'd like to think that I could do that & remain a valued editor if I changed my mind. And while I disagree with some of the assertions Alansohn makes above, his point about being "able to tell my wife that the time I spend on Wikipedia is bringing in some income" is particularly important to those of us who are married with children, a factor younger editors might not yet have learned. -- llywrch (talk) 17:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
5. -->David Shankbone 14:32, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment

• If I had wanted to worry who could benefit from my work or whether I'd get paid, I wouldn't have licensed it GFDL or contribute to an encyclopedia that mandatorily does so. When I edit, I do so aware that I'm volunteering free content that can be used by anyone in the world. When I am told that someone might take the content I added, and re-use it in a way that somehow makes them money, that's fine - it's free for commercial use too. I expect it, and I don't begrudge it. My focus is on the content anyone can use, not green-eyed envy at who might be benefiting from it "out there" whether Jimbo, a student, some web entrepreneur, whatever.

  Frankly, if Jimbo has moved on in his other projects and found that his standing due to Wikipedia enables him to make an honest income elsewhere... or Veropedia can reuse and polish our better articles and wants to use them with advertizing for profit... or some unknown finds a whole new way to profit from them... frankly I care more whether the next edit I write will be an improvement to free knowledge. That is what the "free" in "free knowledge" is about. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:04, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• With all due respect, FT2, my arguments in defense of paid editing isn't primarily out of envy for anyone else's success. Every hour I devote to Wikipedia is an hour I take from either my employer or my family; it'd be nice if I had the option to make some money to lessen the distaste of choosing the lesser of two evils -- as long as I felt it wasn't at the cost of my integrity. (But I'll admit to some: I'm human, I wish I could get some of the glory Wales has, & I wish I had published books on Wikipedia as five other Wikipedians have done.) -- llywrch (talk) 05:07, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Accepted :) I don't have a problem per se with editors saying they would be willing to write for cash. The problem is that once it's more than a handful of articles, or established in the community, then the almost inevitable follow-up is shortcutting and bias - compromise of neutrality. I have a major problem with that. So an extremely tight rein and standard would be needed (see my comment above). If that's there, and a user is prepared to abide by it openly, then paid editing may add to the project rather than bias it, though I'd still have deep concerns and want to see review as automatic of such articles. But "what Jimbo does" is a side issue, and it was that which I responded to in your comment. People are welcome to make money using our work. Its there to be used. Our focus on this RFC is whether commercial editing can ever be done in a way that doesnt endanger neutrality and its perception, not who profits from articles. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• Amateur status is no longer a prerequisite for participation in the Olympics, except in boxing, so you should be all right if they ever include editing Wikipedia in the games. See Olympic Games#Amateurism and professionalism for details. --76.253.6.158 (talk) 20:28, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
• I think we already have such a board: Wikipedia:Bounty board. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:55, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Collect

Paying to have articles written (presumably favorable ones) is antithetical to the original premise of Wikipedia. Perhaps somewhere a "paypedia" will eventually be created, but this is not the project to try the experiment on. We already have significant problems with people pushing points of view because of personal beliefs, allowing overt payments for articles would be an order of magnitude more of a problem, especially where competing interests might pay for conflicting articles. Collect (talk) 23:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Cirt (talk) 03:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Abecedare (talk) 03:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
3. ThemFromSpace 04:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Johnuniq (talk) 05:03, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 16:41, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
6. hmwithτ 17:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
7. (presumably favorable ones). -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
8. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 18:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
9. --JN466 16:41, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Sketchmoose (talk) 19:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
11. --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:23, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Collect (talk) 11:10, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
13. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Priyanath ^talk 20:28, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Yes, precisely. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
16. make a paypedia and I might join it, lol --Enric Naval (talk) 01:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
17. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:45, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
18. — Aitias // discussion 11:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
19. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 19:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by YellowMonkey

Some of the above comments above say that editing for pay is fine as long as NPOV, V etc are followed. Well, in the case of a businessman who hires a person to look after/write a Wikipedia article for them with a narrow objective, the chances of NPOV are pretty negligible.

Would a businessman pay for an article if it was not promotional? If it contained information about the lawsuits against the businessman in question?

I googled up the subject of a hired pay-article (a businessman) written by User:Zithan (as discussed on Jimbo's talk page) and I found that he was the subject of law suits for a variety of frauds, racism and so forth. He was also a business partner with a person who was sanctioned by a watchdog for improper business practices/scams and criticised by a leading finance pundit and author in a mainstream newspaper for being dodgy. I can email the links to people because the article's subject does have a tendency to sue people who criticise his business practices.

Needless to say, this was not in the pay-article, and I have no doubt the client/subject would not have paid up if it was. Which is why believing that paid editing on specific orders of people who want an article about themselves can be NPOV is pretty naive. After all, which businessman has not made a mistake, not to mention those who willfully engage in dubious business practices and want misleadingly glowing profiles of themselves on Wikipedia? YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 02:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Orderinchaos 02:34, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Cirt (talk) 03:17, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Essentially agree (although I am naive enough to object to "which businessman has not made a mistake" :-) ). Longer rant on the topic here. Abecedare (talk) 03:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Thanks. This summarizes the situation incredibly well. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
5. ThemFromSpace 04:27, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Yes, although as mentioned above, the statement about business practice is a little too sweeping. Johnuniq (talk) 05:05, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Yep! AdjustShift (talk) 05:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Great summary Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 11:34, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 16:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
10. FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Good example of bias introduced already by hired editing. Priyanath ^talk 17:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
12. hmwithτ 17:50, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
13. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 18:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Nick-D (talk) 03:13, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Agree Alex Bakharev (talk) 06:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Totally agree. Bidgee (talk) 13:28, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Hobartimus (talk) 14:11, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
18. --JN466 16:42, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
19. Sketchmoose (talk) 19:15, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
20. --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:24, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
21. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:04, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
22. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
23. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 21:30, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
24. Sarah 11:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
25. Precisely right. The concept of marketing is focused on polishing the positives until they shine, and never letting the negatives see the light. Being on one edge of the marketing industry with my current work, I see the techniques and recognize them showing up here - allowing people to bring their campaigns to Wikipedia without strong COI policy would be foolish at best. We wouldn't be an encyclopedia if we let people polish the blemishes off their company/personal articles with impunity. Tony Fox (arf!) 16:00, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
26. Exactly. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
27. Exactly - there may be merits to paid editing but the problems far outweigh any good. While I would prefer just declaring money to be a WP:COI and treating it as such, banning editing for pay is probably simpler and easier to enforce uniformly. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
28. MER-C 07:46, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
29. Stifle (talk) 13:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
30. Wikireader41 (talk) 16:49, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
31. Locke9k (talk) 20:27, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
32. JKBrooks85 (talk) 06:31, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
33. Laurent (talk) 11:41, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
34. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:38, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
35. Davewild (talk) 19:20, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
36. Yes. —Animum (talk) 21:07, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
37. 37th ed.EaswarH (talk) 18:37, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
38. Agree. In fact, I opined to this effect in a 10 June 2009 post to WikiEN-l. AGK 01:39, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
39. Agreed. — Aitias // discussion 10:02, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
40. — Ched :  ?  11:53, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
41. Agreed. Cam ^(Chat) 20:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
42. Completely in Agreement. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 05:13, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
43. Fight paid editing like the devil. Eradicate it from Wikipedia! If I knew that this could be te projest, I would have never participated in the project. Paid editing is not only bad; it is also stupid and dangerous at the same time! The fact that it is difficult to track it down does not mean that gives us the right to legitimize it.--Yannismarou (talk) 08:10, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
44. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 01:56, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
45. Durova²⁷³ 16:55, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
46. Some new articles would draw attention for PR wording, but a good paid writer could easily adopt WP style. It wouldn't be noticed at article onset, and if POV were detected later, a strongly-motivated editor could use other editors' lack of time, or energy, or stamina, or policy acronym familiarity to create lengthy, time-consuming discussions that end in the exclusion of negative coverage. Novickas (talk) 00:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
47. Stong support --TeaDrinker (talk) 16:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
48. Totally agree93.96.148.42 (talk) 23:51, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• This is not an argument against paid editing, but an argument for disclosure and transparency. If the above article was declared as "paid for" and reviewed by neutral editors, we would end up with a good neutral article. But as "paid for" articles have to be hidden, such review is currently lacking, until we de-wikicriminalize "paid for" activities. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Paid for articles don't "have to" be hidden. This is like arguing that thieves "have to" hide their stealing. There is a simple alternative - don't do it in the first place. The fact that people are going to try to be sneaky and break the rules isn't an argument for having no rules at all.Locke9k (talk) 20:27, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
    • No, its an argument for doing something. A law that is commonly broken should either be changed or strictly enforced. Consider Internet piracy (copyright), drugs and prohibition. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:05, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
• The article should be expanded. User:Zithan should be warned about biased editing, and sanctioned if such editing continues. In a free market of paid editors, the ones who stick around will be the ones who write balanced articles, and people will pay them because they get results. Dcoetzee 07:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• What are you talking about?! Do you understand that this is not the Wikipedia we know for years, and it has nothing to do with its initial conception: a universal group of editors editing for their pleasure and for spreading knowledge without any profit? Do you want to make it a business-like encyclopedia?! If this is your purpose, and if it prevails, I'm gone, and I think I'll not be the only. You speak about a free market of paid editors? And why are you so sure that your optimistic projection for the future will prevail? We all now live universally the repurcussions of the free markets' distortions. How are you so sure that we will avoid such distortions in Wikipedia? Do you want my projections? Yes, those who get results will stick around, but the results their employers wish; and I don't think that most of them will care for quality articles. Yes, it is difficult to track down paid editing, but this does not mean that we should legitimize it. The opposite, we should give a strong message that we disgust it.--Yannismarou (talk) 08:21, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• Paid editing (whether or not paid advocacy) inevitably introduces motives other than a good encyclopedia. Paid editing with a prohibition on advocacy results in the same problems as campaign finance does in the US: although Congressmen may not be paid for specific legislation, being beholden to moneyed benefactors results in skewed policy. While it is possible to devise scenarios where specific pecuniary motives can coexist with a good encyclopedia, they are few and far between. A firm policy against paid editing of any sort is the second best bulwark (after the vigilance of editors) against creeping advocacy. Make corporate shills and PR hacks fear public exposure with strong community condemnation, not waste good editing time responding to their relentless efforts to introduce bias. --TeaDrinker (talk) 16:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
• I see little prospect of eliminating paid editing - how can one tell that a set of edits was paid for? Remember that plenty of editors push POVs for free, especially on controversial political and religious subjects. IMO in both types of case good enforcement of WP:NPOV is the only solution. The most likely subjects of paid editing are companies, executives and products. In theory it might help to introduce a monitoring programme for such articles, similar to what is supposed to exist for WP:BLP. However monitoring of articles that fall under WP:BLP is patchy, limited mostly to high-profile figures in the developed world - the problems are lack of resources, and the difficulty of identifying such articles if they have not been flagged by New Page Patrol. --Philcha (talk) 07:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Fedayee

The disadvantages far exceed the advantages.

Once it's endorsed, it's to officially open the door for interest groups and tell them they're welcome. It will slowly and gradually have as result to filtrate Wikipedia when the non-paid editors will be driven out and be replaced by the paid ones.

MyWikiBiz is MyWikiBiz, everyone is free to build his own paid Wiki. If it's working elsewhere and good articles are built elsewhere, the material can be brought here, no need for any form of endorsement. It can't be prevented since it's probable that many are already paid to edit, but at least the naive editor who is not paid is encouraged into believing that others like him who contribute are doing it solely in the spirit of building an encyclopedia. It's so demoralising for the unpaid editor to know that another is being paid for the same amount of energy he puts on the project without any sort of monetary gain. It's inevitable that this same editor will either leave the project or turn to paid editing, thus leaving the subjects dear to him and migrating where there is some monetary advantage in editing.

The German government had good intentions but the government should have opened its own Wiki. If that Wiki could have anything relevant it could have been brought here.

Wikipedia has already many fatal problems, the last thing we need is an endorsement to a motto which says: The encyclopedia is where the money is. - Fedayee (talk) 17:03, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. JoshuaZ (talk) 17:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
2. hmwithτ 17:50, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 17:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
4. FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 18:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
5. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 18:46, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Agree but propose alternate slogan, "The best encyclopedic coverage that money can buy". Abecedare (talk) 21:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Cirt (talk) 06:59, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
8. --JN466 16:43, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
9. --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:26, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Knol was the other to mention. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:05, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Endorse. It would for all intents and purposes be Paid Advertising. Priyanath ^talk 20:31, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
13. --Mecanismo | Talk 16:57, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
14. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:14, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
15. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 19:09, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
16. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 01:57, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Agradman

1. Organizations that share our educational mission: If people are scared about "paid editors," remember that a lot of them will be employees at "public interest" organizations (nonprofits/governments/schools), which earn their budgets by convincing donors/taxpayers/tuitioners that they are achieving their missions of "educating the public on [topic X-Y-Z]." Currently, these organizations (and Wikipedia) waste huge amounts of time in accomplishing this common mission. First, the organizations hire employees to publish this info at their websites (e.g. www.epic.org, www.commerce.gov, etc). Then a Wikipedian has to find these resources in a Google search, and mention it among an article's "external links". Then the information slowly creeps into the article by osmosis. If we could convince these organizations to perform their educational mission directly on Wikipedia, then they (and we) can better accomplish that mission. (To make my point more concrete: I happen to be a government employee who sneaks in occasional edits (on my areas of expertise) while at work. Imagine how much better Wikipedia would be if my boss ENCOURAGED this as part of our bureau's mission!)

2. The Credit Motive: If the nonprofit chooses to surrender this web traffic to Wikipedia, it will want to make it up somehow. These paid editors aren't going to want to HIDE their affiliations; they will want to DECLARE it. If Wikipedia is to reap this huge benefit, we should accommodate the credit-motive, not quarantine it. For example, there should be a space on the talk-pages to accommodate these shout-outs: "This article on the history of anti-semitism in Europe was extensively edited by the Anti-Defamation League." "This article on housing discrimination has been adopted by the New Jersey Attorney General." This may require a structural change -- e.g. special accounts for individuals who are performing their edits as part of their employment. Agradman (talk) 18:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. The "credit motive"? While I could never edit for financial reward (because I know that that patron will never exist) I have to say that my early edits were as much for the satisfaction of my name being associated with the subject as for the subject article itself (and I quickly learned to make my edits policy compliant to ensure a measure of permanence) so why should we not allow patronage of editing where - rather than hide the fact - it can be transparently proclaimed? (If not perhaps as blatantly as suggested by Agradman.) An excellent meme, where transparency is part of the goal of paid editing. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Good ideas. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:59, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments

Using Agradman's example, the logical conclusion of paid editing and the incumbent full disclosure will be statements on the article and/or talk pages such as:

• "This article on Tiananmen Square has been paid for, edited, and is closely watched by the Government of China."
• "This article on Apple Computer is edited by paid public relations employees of the Microsoft Corporation."
• "This article on The Holocaust is edited by writers paid by James Von Brunn."

I acknowledge that this is a bit over the top, but not by much when you start to think about it. Priyanath ^talk 21:24, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• Agradman, isn't what you are proposing called advertising? Except that no one is even required to pay wikipedia for it; just claim that their edits were done for pay! Can I get my name credit added to the 100s of articles I have edited, or will I have to claim that I was paid for all that work in order to be eligible ? Abecedare (talk) 21:39, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• In order to maintain full disclosure to the readers, I think it would be required to disclose who paid for the article, so there is no way to get around Agradman's idea if there is going to be paid/sponsored editing. Priyanath ^talk 22:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• Support paid editing but disagree with special crediting. All editors should be credited through the article history. We do not sign our articles, even on the talk page. Dcoetzee 07:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Finell

Openly endorsing paid creation and editing of Wikipedia content would make Wikipedia look foolish, because it would be foolish. It is already policy that Wikipedia is not a soapbox for advertising or self-promotion. Therefore, is it not an outlet for paid promotional writing. Endorsing paid the editing of Wikipedia by paid advocates would be authorizing COI on steroids and would undermine the pillar of neutrality. Finell (Talk) 21:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Finell (Talk) 21:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC): my proposal
2. Agree, with the caveat that "paid editing" is just a convenient label for the type of case, whose revelation motivated this RFC. Abecedare (talk) 21:41, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Yes, although I would say "paid advocacy" is the problem. There is some confusion on defining what we are talking about since many (including me) would be happy if, say, university-paid researchers edit articles on 12th century vases or gravity waves. Johnuniq (talk) 00:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Endorse, "paid editing" will nearly always equal "paid POV pushing". I thought we wanted to discourage POV pushers, now we're going to pay them? Priyanath ^talk 00:33, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
5. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 02:23, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
6. It is true for bad paid editing. There are possible examples of good paid editing as well Alex Bakharev (talk) 06:33, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Cirt (talk) 07:00, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 13:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
9. hmwithτ 13:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Dekimasuよ! 14:17, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Sketchmoose (talk) 20:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
12. --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:27, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
13. ThemFromSpace 02:58, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Enric Naval (talk) 01:16, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Absolutely. Locke9k (talk) 21:00, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Endorse subject to Abecedare/Johnuniq's caveat that I assume you are talking about paid advocacy. I disagree to some extent with Priyanath's assertion that "paid editing" will nearly always equal "paid POV pushing" - there are several occasions when paid editing has been non-controversial. TheGrappler (talk) 16:55, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
18. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:39, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
19. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 01:58, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by FayssalF II

Wikipedia:REQUEST already exists.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 23:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Statement of fact Alex Bakharev (talk) 06:31, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Cirt (talk) 07:00, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Per Alex. (I also haven't seen so many redlinks since the famous Communist Seaside Golf Tournament of 1983) LessHeard vanU (talk) 19:57, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• And look at how long some of those articles have been requested. Seriously. Not to mention the opportunity cost of volunteer editors editing a requested article instead of doing other work. Dcoetzee 07:32, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Rootology II

Addition of paid-for new content (new articles, or expansions of existing articles) where that content is wholly compliant with all "content" policies (WP:NPOV, WP:BLP, WP:N, etc.) is not a bad thing, in particular when that is disclosed as what it is, and the user(s) who add that content adhere at all times to community-endorsed policies relevant to the addition of content to Wikipedia.

Paid-for advocacy--either to retain content at venues such as WP:AFD, modify content in any way contrary to content policies (WP:NPOV, WP:BLP, WP:N, etc.); or to "purchase" the aid of Editors, Administrators, or any other higher-level Wikipedia users to do the same is completely wrong, against policy, and any users who participate in such actions should be banned.

In short, "adding" new paid policy-compliant content is not bad, but paid advocacy of any sort beyond that is very bad.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. rootology (C)(T) 00:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
2. I think this is reasonable. Cla68 (talk) 04:19, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Precisely. Kusma (talk) 05:57, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Alex Bakharev (talk) 06:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
5.  Sandstein  11:29, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
6. If it is done in a way which doesn't compromise neutrality and agenda and adheres to all of our standards as stated above, and on articles which are not related to corporate gain then I think paid editing would be a good idea as it would give incentives to editors to dramatically improve our articles. Besides which neutral members of the community will easily see any POV in article and the end result will be a higher quality article and eventually will be neutral. Remember articles are not subject to being edited by one person. Other wikipedians can fix any possible POV created by paid editing.I would disapprove of say Microsoft paying for somebody to write a promotional articles on one of their packages for instance but even if an employee wrote a full article on it you can bet that the article would contain much useful information and any POV issues would be stamped out by other editors monitoring them. But if it is done on non commerical related articles in which people genuinely want the article improved, offering incentives to writers on here to dramatically improve things is an attractive thing I think. Besides which any paid editors who insist on adding clear POV will be found out and blocked from editing if they persist. I see the possibility of paid editing a way to dramatically improve the quality of our articles in the long run providing we have a system which keeps track of it and to maintain our normal neutral standards. There are enough editors on here who care about blocking out POV in articles to make this work. If somebody offered me money to go and try to develop an article to FA standard now I would certainly jump at the opportunity and the nett result would be a better quality article. Personally I don't care how it is done providing our quality greatly improves. 85% of our articles are stubs and any mechanism which encourages editors to focus on quality in writing full articles should be seriously considered I think. Sure there are definately some negative possibilities of paid editing but I think enough edsitors on here care about not turning this into some corporare machine plagued with POV to stop anything like this happening. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 08:59, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Exactly what's needed.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:01, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
8. snigbrook (talk) 08:55, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
9. If the editing is declared, then POV can be immediately seen and removed, and will be, because of the justifiably high level of suspicion. . The second part is also right: paid editing is incompatible with the role of administrator. DGG (talk) 21:48, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment

• Ok, let's see. Instead of wasting the time of everyone... this tries to find ways to reconciliate the extreme sides of the debate. Jimmy has suggested that he'd have no problem with people setting up an independent writing service for GFDL / CC BY / CC BY-SA content, to be posted somewhere else, and for completely independent wikipedians to find it useful in some way. I've just acted boldy (no IAR though) and created Wikipedia:Contract Editing Review for the purpose. Of course the reviewers would apply all concerned Wikipedia policies and guidelines while reviewing. All we need to do now is discuss the mechanics and scenarios (something like you are trying to do here in this statement). We can discuss this at the new page's talk page. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 00:44, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Greg L: Paid writing tends to be inherently biased

I’d like to draw your attention to this version of the Ashlar-Vellum article (a CAD program). Note the Wikipedia is not your Website thread on its talk page, where an editor wrote I tagged this article for a number of violations, but mainly for consisting of advertising and press-release material. As far as I can tell, due to my knowledge of what was going on with Ashlar at the time, the editor User:Yu.yutik, was “close” with the Ashlar company and this resulted in the “brochure” nature of the article and the need for a bunch of work by the rest of the community to make the article objective.

The statement by Rootology I don't care why someone writes free content for us, as long as it's compliant with WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:BLP, WP:N sounds pragmatic from a point of view of the objective, but I don’t think it is a realistic measure of what will really happen. There is a reason why most major democracies don’t have the judge in a trial act also as the prosecutor. If the “judge” (the Wikipedian responsible for ensuring an article is fair, neutral, and balanced) is the same person as the “prosecutor” (someone being paid by someone who hopes to advance an agenda for financial gain), bias will be an inherent and chronic problem.

I would say that if Wikipedia were to ever allow (or experiment with allowing) content to be posted that was written by editors paid to write the content, that they be required to A) register, and B) have a “(PAID AUTHOR)” suffix at the end of their user name, such as Greg L (PAID AUTHOR) (which I am not, by the way). This way, the community can more easily audit the work product of these authors and have two eyes open as to what we are getting into. Signed: Greg L (talk) 00:57, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. SBHarris 05:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Agree in principle but adding (PAID AUTHOR) to the signature seems too extreme Alex Bakharev (talk) 06:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
3. I agree with the analysis (the first two paragraphs), but not the possible solution if its allowed (last paragraph). hmwithτ 17:59, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Ditto—agree with the analysis, disagree with the solution (and yes, I saw the "if" part).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:42, June 18, 2009 (UTC)

Statement By S. B. Harris

WP:OtherMzoli'sExist, or why it doesn't matter where donated content ultimately comes from.

Continuing with what Greg L. writes (and noting that I have no horse in this race and am not likely to be paid by anybody to write anything for Wikipedia) I think it’s worth emphasizing that the legal system DOES work on the basis of material contributed largely by paid advocates. The reason it can DO this is, that the judges and juries aren’t bribed. With WP, it hardly matters where the raw content comes from, so long as other editors are free to pound it into some kind of “fair and reasonable” shape, later. To that view, it’s far less damaging for WP to have some company pay somebody to contribute raw material (paid writing), than it is for WP to allow some company to pay somebody to WP:OWN an article and continue to push a POV after the sourced material and images have been initially put in (paid editing and promo).

For an example of the last, which we don’t want, see the great Scientology fiasco. The problem there was, we didn’t have any “statement of COI” by the Scientology advocates, or in the articles. YET, for an example of an industry where such statements work reasonably well, see the US pharmaceutical industry, which contributes more money for basic biomedical research than the US government does. How do the journals keep up with the flood of COI writing, of which there is a great deal? By making sure there is no COI final-editing, and that all writers self-identify that they’re being paid pharma money. In the end, the truth comes out in later publishing, and bad and non-working drugs are identified anyway.

So why do medical journals put up with all of this? Because of the shear amount of content that isn’t available any other way. A great many corporations and foundations have a LOT of inside-information, and also inside-images (copyrighted images are even more important), which they would never be interested in putting on Commons if they thought that their contributions would be immediately deleted, the moment somebody found out it was contributed by somebody with a COI. But so long as information isn’t BLP info (a whole area I personally think WP should stay away from, due to the potential COI problems due to money, sex, power, you name it), then I think all this can be dealt with.

A last example of this is useful, as one which was as bad as if it HAD been a paid-advertisement article: Once upon a time, some high Wikipedian had dinner at Mzoli's Meat in Capetown, South Africa, and liked it, and created a stub on the butcher/restaurant, sort of in the style of Andrew Zimmern or Anthony Bourdain. It went immediately for speedy-delete under WP:NOTTRAVEL, but survived mainly because of who had started the stub. Editors scrambled to find ways it should be notable. After a while, the place was starting to sound like the diamond of upper-class black South African networking. Finally, it settled down to being a pretty good article, of the sort you might want to read if you were in the area looking for a place to eat, and wanted to ignore NOTTRAVEL (you may have noticed that most of the things in WP:NOT actually are about stuff that WP:IS). So in the end, it didn’t matter. Even though the Mzoli’s probably should have been deleted under WP's own policies, so long as WP was forced to keep it by editors who thought they owed it to the project to FIND reasons to keep it, it came out okay ANYWAY, ala WP:IAR. And the same will happen to articles written and illustrated by corporations and businesses too, so long as (at some point) their influence ends, and their initial input is declared, and labeled. As well as the copyrighted images they provide. That’s the way it happens in the “real world,” from journalism to law to politics to medicine to science. Initial material is provided only by the biased, and is fixed up later. Wikipedia is kidding itself if it thinks it’s going to get much better than that. SBHarris 05:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• Users who endorse this summary:

1. Agree. NVO (talk) 05:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Agree Alex Bakharev (talk) 06:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Thoughtful statement; the model of the pharmacutical publishing industry self regulation in COI/POV literature might be usefully applied to WP should paid editing be permitted. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:42, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Well-said. Paid editors are potentially good at doing the grunt work of generating content. They tend to not be good at editorial judgement about their area of interest. Editorial decisions should be placed in the hands of the wider volunteer community. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:42, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Exactly. I also think enough editors on here care about not turning this into some corporare machine plagued with POV to stop anything like this happening. Even if someody was paid to develop a full article you can be certain that the article would contain a lot of useful information (if referenced to appropriate sources) and a monitoring system on here would detect any obvious neutrality.BLP problems. Our main project goal drawing up an encyclopedia of the highest quality to anybody. We seriously need to think of a way to start making this happen as 85% of article on here are stubs. Encouraging anybody to improve an article should be a good thing, the shame on here seems to be that money is regarded as some sort of evil. In reality we know it is the way in which the world operates. People will do practically anything in this world if the incentive is right. At present there is little incentive for editors to really develop quality enmasse on here other than personal pleasure at article writing and a sort of buzz that their work will be read by anybody shared by the members of the core team on here, wanting to see the encyclopedia improve. Unfortunately our core team on here is very small in relation to the potential millions that could find some time in the day to edit wikipedia. Now what else would attract this potential mass of editors who at present are unwilling to edit wikipedia other than money? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 09:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Good points. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:04, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
7. snigbrook (talk) 08:58, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment

• In fact, I don't think that declarations of COI, by themselves, have been successful at preventing the subversion of science by Big Pharma: medical research needs stronger protections from commercial pressure than it has. But WP may be better off if paid editing is done openly, rather than tacitly. — Charles Stewart (talk) 09:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Stevage

What a lot of statements! A suggestion for how to frame future discussion:

Should we:

1. Actively solicit edit sponsors
2. Allow, but not solicit, paid editing
3. Passively discourage paid editing
4. Actively discourage and/or ban paid editing

In the first two cases, should we:

1. Use templates or other notices to notify readers/editors that an article has been written or edited for a fee, and who the sponsoring organisation is.
2. Or not.

Fwiw, I think we should do 1) and 1). Possibly we could even have a process for removing the template when an article has been thoroughly reviewed and "de-biased". There *is* a difference between a big article written from scratch by a paid editor, and one written by a volunteer, and I think it's reasonable to acknowledge that.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. 2. and 2. would be my preferred choice - the account page should have the notification for the purposes of transparency (with a Category for ease of review?). The reader need not know the fact of paid edoting any more than they need to know how many times the article has been vandalised. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:46, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
2. 1. and 2. are my choices. Paid editing is ultimately beneficial for a variety of reasons I discuss in my statement. In really bad cases where the editor has a clear bias, the {{COI}} template can be pulled out, and the editor sanctioned, but this should be removed once the article is cleaned up. Dcoetzee 07:41, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment: I don't agree that we should do #1, so I cannot endorse your statement, but I do agree with how we should frame future discussion. Personally, I think that we should do #4. hmwithτ 17:56, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Tony1

Why the song and dance?

1. We can control only the product and explicit on-wiki editor behaviour; that is all we need to control. Pretending we can dig down and control the underlying real-world editorial process (aside from when skulduggery comes to light) is futile, so why try?
2. COI is not necessarily correlated with payment.

Let's look at the tangled web:

• Many organisations pay in-house staff or contractors—whether explicitly or implicitly—to skew WP articles to the organisation's liking. One South American regime has its goons crawling over articles related to it. We still don't effectively control the product for skew in that particular case, but could.
• Some organisations (e.g., possibly the German government and the Russian linguists, see above) may be paying for editorial assistance on WP with no implicit or explicit requirement for skew, beyond greater coverage of their field. The product needs scrutiny, like all of our text.
• COI and bias, in all of its forms, is rife among unpaid WP editors: volunteered editing is not necessarily NPOV, and paid editing does not necessarily imply COI. The BBC and the ABC—both non-commercial—employ in-house and freelance journalists and reviewers who are expected to be NPOV, even though the organisations are state-funded and are ultimately answerable to their government. Like WP, they have guidelines and protocols for neutrality and COI, which seem to work well enough (a lot better than in most corporate media organisations).
• Rarely, a WPian might pay for assistance in the preparation of a featured nomination. Who cares? It's not an ego competition from WP's larger point of view, but a way to set high standards and to bring at least some content up to those standards; this is true even though we know damn well that from the stance of individual editors, ego (peer recognition) is the driving force behind the featured content program. One harnesses the other; that's fine. If you're envious that one nominator has paid for assistance, there's the motivation to skill up.

Possible improvements: Focus on the product. Consider establishing a COI/POV task force of both admins and non-admins, including technical experts and BAG, answerable to ArbCom, that offers specialised training to volunteers, identifies problem areas and articles, and monitors possibilities for improving the automated identification of COI/bias. It should be a badge of honour to be a foot soldier for such a task force.

[Disclaimer: I don't and won't edit on WP for money—it couldn't be afforded, anyway. Nor do I enjoy the luxury of being able to edit during paid office hours.] Tony (talk) 05:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• Users who endorse this summary:

1. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement By Alex Bakharev (talk)

According to Wikipedia:COI#Financial Paid editing is a straight case of the conflict of interests that should be dealt according to WP:COI (that IMHO should be a policy and have more teeth in this). Thus, at the very least paid editing should be acknowledged as a matter of course.

Looking from the goals of the project paid editing might help to create new content that is a good thing but also might encourage bias and POV disputes and so might be quite dangerous. In my opinion we should encourage sponsoring of creation of the new content (like our Wikipedia:REWARD does e.g. an Australian entomological society sponsors creation articles on Australian insects) and discourage or even outright ban sponsoring POV pushing (e.g. an elected official or a commercial entity sponsoring articles promoting itself). One of the bad cases of POV pushing sponsoring might be a government agency hiring PR professionals to glorify (or whitewash) their policies on wiki (e.g. Russian of Georgian government paying PR professionals to influence 2008 South Ossetia war article). I have not yet seeing a convincing case of such meddling but the accusations are quite common and the matter can be quite damaging if it happan in reality).

Another case could be bribes for administrative actions. I am not sure if it ever happen but I was once offered something that looked like one (and obviously refused). I think paid administrative (bureaucratic, oversight, checkuser, arbitrator, etc.) actions should lead to immediate removal of the privileged bits.

This is basically my position: all paid editing should be acknowledged. Sponsoring of "good editing" should be encouraged while "bad paid editing" should be a blockable affair. Administrative bribes (if proven) should lead to desysopping.

• Users who endorse this summary:

1. Support, but I expect much discussion over the definition of "good editing". --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Mostly support. As for the divide between sponsorship and advertising/marketing (Tony1's concern below), I would suggest following the "when in doubt, treat as advertising" principle—if at least one editor in good standing has concerns, then it's a no-go.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:46, June 18, 2009 (UTC)

• Other comments:

1. Strongly oppose: Sponsorship has the advantage of being open, but it is almost impossible to draw a line between it and advertising/marketing. And what I forgot to say in my own statement is that templates disclosing that paid editing/writing has been performed on the article are themselves akin to advertising the services of editors-for-hire. We need to stay well away from both: they're slippery slopes. Tony (talk) 07:17, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Civilizededucation

Rootology is a terrible idea.Civilizededucation (talk) 07:59, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment

I don't understand your statement. Do you mean his idea is bad, or that "Rootology" (what ever that discipline is supposed to be about) is a bad idea? (I assume you don't mean that he, himself, is a "terrible idea" ;-) -- llywrch (talk) 16:13, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, depending on which ex from my youthful days you ask... rootology (C)(T) 16:17, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The above response is an attempt to preclude the obvious answer. It's obvious that even he himself knew the answer.Civilizededucation (talk) 09:22, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

If this comment regards Rootology's personality rather than paid editing, it does not belong on this page. hmwithτ 17:53, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Dekimasu

Paid editing represents a conflict of interest. Conflicts of interest may result in biased editing even when the contributor in question intends to maintain a neutral point of view. For this reason, editors who have previously (i.e. prior to the opening of this RfC) accepted money for their efforts have an ethical responsibility to disclose their financial gain. Disclosing these past conflicts of interest will allow other editors to evaluate whether any neutrality problems have arisen. In the event that an editor does not move to divulge these interests and is shown to have taken money in return for publication of Wikipedia articles or advocacy in the article space, it should be taken as evidence that that person is not editing with the intention of improving the encyclopedia. Such an editor is disruptive and should be subject to community sanctions.

It will not be possible to rid Wikipedia of all paid editing. However, all future paid editing in the article space should be prohibited by policy. The time required of unpaid editors to evaluate and/or extirpate NPOV violations from articles written by paid editors is time taken away from the development of more compliant portions of the encyclopedia. Any individual or for-profit organization shown to have commissioned an article should be considered a banned user, and a user who is shown to have accepted funds from such a source should be subject to the terms of the ban, as per Wikipedia:Banning policy#Editing on behalf of banned users. Dekimasuよ! 16:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Cirt (talk) 22:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
2. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 22:27, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Johnuniq (talk) 07:54, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Agree mostly but with 1 major caveat: whether the payee is a for profit organization is less an issue, than if the payee is commissioning an article on a topic related to itself (broadly defined). For example, if Microsoft openly sponsors article writing on butterflies in South America (lets say for publicity), that would be of less concern than if Greenpeace, PETA or even the UN paid for articles on their own activities and personnel. The latter in fact should be unacceptable. Abecedare (talk) 08:18, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
6. hmwithτ 17:52, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Priyanath ^talk 20:34, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:53, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Sketchmoose (talk) 18:05, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
10. This statement has my full support.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:47, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
11. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 02:00, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

comments

I can't endorse due to the existance of some paid editors doing good neutral work, see statement by pfctdaye. This blanket ban would left them out of wikipedia. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:22, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

1. He certainly has a point about non paid editors may have to spend time neutralising articles written by paid editors. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 09:29, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Ha!

This debate was precipitated by someone spotting some paid editing actually going on so I've gone through the account mentioned [6] and matched the adverts ("clients") up with the articles created by User:Zithan. I recommend that people read the full text of each paid editing advert (the full version in the link at Ha!/paid editing adverts) and then assess the related article that was created, as it will provide an insight into paid editing that can then inform the debate

Note: I didn't realise you can't read the full text of the adverts unless you sign up for a (free) Elance account. I've put that full text at Ha!/paid editing adverts

• "Create a wikipedia article about our CEO Brad Sugars..."[7]. Brad Sugars
• "I would like to have my product submitted to Wikipedia..."[8] Oil Gone Easy
• "I need a short article written and posted on WikiPedia..."[9] - Ken Underwood
• "As discussed, Wiki page on Stereofame.com..."[10] - Stereofame
• "We would like a very fresh and informative wikipedia page for our organization..."[11] - National Defense Industrial Association
• "Already have a Wikipedia entry, but it has been sited as an orphan (no inbound links), does not cite references..."[12] - Process Window Index and, later, Thermal profiling
• "I need someone to write the entry on Wikipedia for our company: Dalberg Global Development Advisors..."[13] - Dalberg Global Development Advisors
• "need someone to write up wikipedia entries for two companies. I created the first entry and it was tagged to rapid deletion from Wikipedia due to lack of sources..."[14] - Broncolor
• "We own an environmental information site....we would like wikipedia article written about the site"[15] - Click4Carbon
• "I need someone to edit and prepare the article [...] to raise awareness of his contribution to evaluation & decision making processes through the creation of his ProGrid Methodology..."[16] - Clement Bowman
• "Need a Wikipedia page writer for 1 project initial content developed..." [17] - Marketing Performance Measurement and Management
• "I need an experienced wikipedia writers to write a few articles on varying subject matter..." [18] - Dave Levine/Sextoy.com

... some more from another Elance account, see User:Ha!/paid editing adverts (2nd set of examples) for details. Ha! (talk) 01:10, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

* Jon S Davis. Article not created yet

* User:Cinagua/Technology Sales Leads

* Viva Properties

* User:Cinagua/Kaki West

* 30 links to noclaimsdiscount.co.uk added to various articles by socks or some kind of collaboration between editors

* CozyCot

* NoClaimsDiscount.co.uk

* User:Cinagua/Law of importance

* Dustin James Leighton

* User:Cinagua/El Diablo Tranquilo

I'm 100% sure on these correlations and have much more detailed "proof" and reasoning if there's any doubt (it's not hard to work out by just reading the adverts/jobs). Sometimes blank or unrelated articles were initially created in a sandbox months earlier and later moved to the article name, so some article creation dates may seem out of sync with the advert bidding dates, but they match when those moves are taken into account. There are three adverts [19][20] I couldn't match up - but they will turn out to Dave Levine/Sextoy or the range of Marketing Performance Measurement and Management articles or Qualifying Industrial Zone as those are the only other articles created by this user (the account was used almost exclusively for these paid articles)

It's clear to me that these articles were created for the benefit of the companies and individuals concerned and not for the benefit of the Wikipedia project. On close scrutiny it's obvious that skilful and experienced editing and knowledge about how to stay on the right side of policy has been used to create the impression of respectability, reliable sourcing, some mutual reinforcement and notability.

I propose that any paid editing must be openly declared in the same way as if it was the subject themselves that was creating or editing the article, but also with an open declaration by the editor that they are being paid for it. Ha! (talk) 16:43, 12 June 2009 (UTC) To be clearer, this would only be in the event that paid editing is accepted - which is something that I believe would be very damaging to the project on a practical as well as an ethical level. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

---

Comment - I confess I started very sympathetic to the idea of paid editing, and still lean that way, but reading some of the linked sites is very troubling. Not simple PR-ish, but blatant about it - I expected better.--SPhilbrickT 18:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

1. Thanks very much for taking the time to investigate and write up this enlightening case. When this appears in The Register, we are going to look pretty silly. Johnuniq (talk) 07:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Thanks as per Johnuniq .Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 20:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Thanks, reinforces the impressions I had from reading Brad Sugars. Editing for payment by third parties is very, very much not what Wikipedia is or ever should be about. JN466 21:35, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
4. This confirms that allowing editing by paid editors is not good. In all these examples, the end results read like PR blurbs. JoshuaZ (talk) 01:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Only, as you say, if paid editing is to be accepted, which would already be damaging. Dekimasuよ! 01:29, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
6. I just put a "Fee-based edit warning" box on each of those articles. That makes it clear that people are watching. --John Nagle (talk) 05:12, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

   It also casts unjustified aspersions on any editors other than Zithan who might have edited the articles. You've just falsely labelled all of Privatemusings' work at Brad Sugars to be editing for a fee, for example. Uncle G (talk) 05:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

   I didn't name the paid editor. Brad Sugars is in AfD and headed for deletion, anyway. The "fee based edit warning" box is an experiment; I want to see what comments it generates and whether the involved articles are deleted or improved. It's like the {{advertising}} template in that respect. --John Nagle (talk) 17:34, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

   The fact that you didn't name the editor, and simply labelled all editors of the article as having edited it for a fee, is exactly the point. Uncle G (talk) 12:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

   perhaps it might follow the wording of the COI notice. "A principal editor" DGG (talk) 19:11, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

7. Could Dave_Levine and his company sextoy.com be the first costumer of Zithan? The articles were the first projects of this fake account and definitely need a more neutral style. --78.34.4.52 (talk) 06:52, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

   Thanks for that. I matched the other two up and added them to the bottom of the bullet points. The detailed reasoning for those two and a correction (two adverts didn't result in articles or editing, the one article left can't come from adverts on that Elance account) are on the sub page linked above. Ha! (talk) 14:01, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

   Did some cleanup at Dave Levine, deleted some self-serving links, added warning tags, proposed deletion. Not really very notable; the guy was on a TV dating show. Everything else there is hype. --John Nagle (talk) 18:39, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

8. Some time ago, we blacklisted a site whose owner paid people to spam Wikipedia. So, yeah, not the only instance (I've mentioned two others on this page, also spam). MER-C 06:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Great analysis, thanks for doing this. Cirt (talk) 01:59, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
10. What Dekimasu said.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:49, June 18, 2009 (UTC)

Comment
I've added some more from another Elance account to the list above and added the details to User:Ha!/paid editing adverts. Ha! (talk) 01:10, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Fedayee II

This is being oversimplified to no end. Paid editing has a lot of repercussions beyond anything any supporters of it have considered so far. Just to name one which was still not brought up is the filtering of administrators. If someone is paid for the job, he will obviously have more time to edit than the average editor because he will not edit only in his free time but also during working hours. Wikipedia is built in a way that edit counts is the number one qualifier to become an administrator. Those being paid will be overrepresented in the higher positions because they have more time to contribute than others. So in a way, with the money, you are not only buying articles but also the higher positions. It's just ethically wrong to give any position to any editor when there is any monetary gain in his contribution which is against the spirit of voluntary work.

Another major problem, lets suppose you have two editors with 40,000 edits (both in a period of two years) presenting themselves for adminship. The first one is paid and the second is not. It can be assumed that in a big sample where a group is in one category and another in the other, in average those being paid have a higher background than the unpaid one who made 40,000 edits. Now comparing the higher background editors among them, on average those who are paid will have on average more edits. Those editors have both the background and the number of edits, opening them the door to any of the higher positions.

The result of this is obvious, those on the higher position will not be motivated mostly because of their interest for the project itself. Some people brought up that editors who are paid or not do it for reasons. Well, let it present it this way, will you grant adminship to a nationalist POV pusher? His contribution is at risk of being motivated by other things than the encyclopedic nature of the project. I'd rather give that position to honest contributors when all, I mean, all of his edits are made to further the project.

And here I am presenting one problem among many others, which is not directly linked to content itself. Because not only content will suffer, when the volunteers will stand no chance against the paid editors.

Like I previously said and also along the lines of what Jimbo has proposed, paid editing can be done elsewhere, it should be to the non-paid volunteers to know what can be retrieved to be brought on Wikipedia.

It also boggles me that some supporters will reply by saying that Jimbo himself has a monetary advantage with the project itself. But how does his gain endanger the integrity of the project like paid editing would? - Fedayee (talk) 17:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 22:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
2. --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:35, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Not sure edit count is the number one determinant, but it is basically a prerequisite. Abstract "article writing" without reference to effectiveness are both very important. Dekimasuよ! 02:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Sketchmoose (talk) 02:24, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Thank you. I had been ignoring the Jimbo bashing, assuming it was just the normal attention-seeking behavior that one sees everywhere, but you point out that even assuming worst case, it is irrelevant. Johnuniq (talk) 07:38, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Ha! (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
7. hmwithτ 17:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 20:36, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
9. --JN466 21:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Palthrow (talk) 18:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
11. Enric Naval (talk) 01:25, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment Regarding the edit count equaling adminship qualification - very few articles will be covered by just one patron, and where there is a disproportionate effort in one area (unless it is gnomish activity) most reviewers at RfA will usually determine a lack of overall input and !vote against. As for Jimbo, his opinions are important but the community has evolved passed the requirement for automatic felicity to his word. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:59, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I've started an essay on this matter and many of the problems which are not directly related to individual article content. I have no time completing it right now but I'll have it in my space once completed. But expect it not before two weeks. Since your comment touches what I will be covering I will not comment here and now.

Just a side note, payment by a meritocratic system (independent of the subject area) through the foundation itself is a possibility and the only way which I think it might be acceptable. I'll develop on this later when I have more time. - Fedayee (talk) 00:28, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• • Comment To follow up on LHVU, concentration on one topic with possible COI will already reduce the likelihood of confirmation as an admin. Concentration on a topic with admitted COI from paid editing will certainly do so. Whether someone who is a paid editor could ever become an admin if he proposed to edit on other topics also is where things mighrt get interesting: would we prefer the use of two accounts, and of course the declaration of never being involved as an admin on the same topic as someone is paid for? After all, someone could use admin powers now, on a subject they were interested in but never edited & never disclosed their COI -- & I would be very surprised if people didn;t do that now. DGG (talk) 22:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Paul

I only believe fifty percent of the technical information on Wikipedia and on the internet. Any technical article that is not peer reviewed by 20 to 30 competent technical reviewers is of questionable value. Although I have coordinated the review of approximately 150 technical papers, I am still concerned that I might have allowed the publication of an article that was pure science fiction. Fortunately, other researchers will repeat experiments when they question the results of another scientist. I doubt that Wikipedia has adequate staff to assure the accuracy of the technical content on its website.

One of my friends is paid to edit the technical content of a publication. The quality of the technical portion of the publication has dramatically improved while he has been the editor.

I realize that I and other members of the academic community volunteer our time as editors. However, I believe that more professors would volunteer to serve as editors if they were paid.

• Users who endorse this summary:

1. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

• Query Is your position that WP itself should be willing to pay reviewers of articles to ensure standards? I think that is rather different from what the original premise of the RfC here was -- that it, the RfC posits having outside companies, people or organizations pay for people to produce, or edit articles relevant to their commercial or other concerns. Collect (talk) 13:17, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment Wikipedia paying some staff for editorial oversight, serving encyclopedic interests, would be very different from third parties paying an editor to serve their interests. It might or might not be a good idea, but any problems associated with it would be very different. JN466 21:44, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment While the verifiability of content on Wikipedia is surely an issue, I don't see why this is directly related to the issue at hand of paid editing. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens (talk) 12:56, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Fuhghettaboutit

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I do not question that the experienced editors supporting this have good intentions, but at the same time I am shocked at that support because of just how transparently misguided this seems to me. This is a fundamentally bad idea; a betrayal of our most fundamental precepts. Officially permitting paid editing is a fairly straight and very steep path straight downward. This will ruin us.

It is true, as some note, that paid editing already happens and will continue to happen whether we sanction the practice or not. I take this as an excellent reason to tighten our standards to stop and frustrate it wherever we can. Using it as a rationale to authorize it is to my mind an abject abdication of our core principles, those being NPOV, unbiased writing, keeping us from being a soapbox for advocacy and keeping us a volunteer effort which fosters all those policies. Paid editing and NPOV and related policies are implacable enemies. This would be giving the foxes the keys to the henhouse rather than acknowledging that foxes are out there prowling, but doing our damnest to keep the doors shuttered. Someone compared this earlier to decriminalizing drugs (which I am for); it is not. It is akin to a practice we all recognize as a society as inherently criminal or immoral, the decriminalization of which might have some minor, surface-only silver lining, completely out of proportion to its negatives, but we do it anyway because "hey, we can't stop it entirely and it will go on whether we make it a crime or not, so let's just write into the law that it's okay, and puts some processes in place to regulate [that inherently bad] conduct".

A person writing for a company is 100% beholden to them and if they are experts at using Wikipedia, they will win most of the time. This is especially true when our resources are stretched thin and boy would they be in short order. Someone comes to me and pays me to write an article, don't you think it would be easy for me to game the system, twist and pervert a few policies here and there, "including that criticism would be undue weight", and "no, the the burden is one you" and "you're not assuming good faith! and I was just being bold!, and making false sockpuppetry reports and well, we all know how many WP:BEANS ways there are to make the whole process a nightmare for admins and experienced good faith editors who are trying to deal with a canny POV warrior who knows our policies to some extent. Just wait until they are paid to be experts—not just at writing but at gaming Wikipedia; they will have manuals describing strategies to use, sockpuppets hidden by in-house IT professionals, and an army of coordinated meatpuppets in different geographic locations to draw on, and they will edit Wikipedia all day long motivated by money. It is a nightmare scenario.

"But we already have all manner of COIs; with disclosure we will be able to regulate them." No you will be converted, subsumed or made irrelevant over time. Yes, we have COIs (and that guideline would be a policy with fangs under my ideal version of Wikipedia) but there is a scale to them; a manner in which they manifest that keeps them under some wraps; by discouraging them; looking down upon them; having G11, and WP:SPAM and our NPOV policy as a bulwark and others, we keep them in some check. A secondary effect I project in allowing paid editing will be to increase our regular COIs by many orders of magnitude. Things have to be scalable to be dealt with, and we will reach a threshold beyond which our best efforts will be bailing water from a sinking ship with thimbles.

Allowing paid editing would allow companies, even with "disclosure", to mount an effort that we could never keep in check. The resources they would bring to the table would tie us in knots. And the long picture is that even if you stay—aren't converted by the very insidious appeal of making an avocation your vocation and aren't driven away by the idea that you're donating your time while others are being paid—you're just early members of an indefinite project. The long term prospects for this are 1, 2, 3 more? millions of articles all written by companies like "Wikipedia Writers Associates, Inc." "The company with the know how to make your Wikipedia article stick!" (♯ insert jingle ♯)." They would have a twenty page form where they asked what the company wanted WWA to stump for in the article, what should be minimized or mentioned in a way that takes the sting out of, and so on, and they would advertise perfect confidentiality as to what you asked them to do and that they would strictly keep their client list private within the bounds of the law.

One premise used in support of this is that good content is good content (an FA or GA is an FA or GA). An underlying assumption in stating this is that there is a workable and easy way to assess whether an article meets both our policies and our stated assessment criteria for fine articles. There is not. All of our good content, every single well-developed article on Wikipedia—every single one—was not built from collaboration by thousands of different people adding content here and there. And certainly, concerted efforts at promotion are not stopped and "decontaminated" by drive by editing. We are a collaboration but it's not any pure form that that word standing alone may imply to some people. Drive by editors fix mistakes, add facts, change a word here or there, etc., but reliable, well organized, unbiased, sourced articles are in all cases written by a core group, sometimes just one person, sometimes a few, who organize, focus, do research and cite facts, while writing and shaping the main content. The meaning of this is that that core group vastly controls the final product. "Ah", you say, "but we have assessment processes that will take care of any problems such as promotional tone, POV problems, failure to include anti-material"—all the things that our neutrality policy covers. They will make sure the article is comprehensive as to material in general and that there is proper weight given to negative and positive material... Nope. That is an oversimplification that crumbles upon closer examination.

It is well nigh impossible to take a fully written article that is grossly promotional, subtly promotional, or both, and fully remediate it; not just by fixing its tone, but in all manner of subtle ways that affect the end article: shades-of-meaning word choices, careful omissions, emphasis on one fact and de-emphasis on another, organization that places one thing before another for a purpose, choice of reliable sources used, even things like which products to mention in a list of examples that a company manufactures (and only they know which ones they want to promote now), and on and on. People at WP:PR and WP:FAC and those who do review in less formalized ways are not omniscient, which is what it would take. They question whether a source is reliable and they sometimes say "why isn't X included", and much more, but they aren't normally experts on the subject, and they are not rewriting from the base up and they haven't spent 100 hours (or maybe a career) studying the subject. Without being that kind of an expert, and doing a complete rewrite, they can never remediate all the nuanced sneaky and subtle promotion. We would be their shills and they would be us before long. No, they'll catch many surface defects and some of the more subtle problems, but the article will never resemble that never written article that truly disinterested third parties would have composed.

X giant corporation's professionally hired and written article about itself by Wikipedia writing experts, and vetted at great labor by our best disinterested personnel, will still be chock full of promotion that you won't be able to find because it will be built into the base structure and manifest itself in ways that are so hard to recognize, they're more about the path not taken. We will never get to compare that article to what it would have been, but only if you saw that, could you recognize the difference.

And that's best case scenario for articles that do go through some sort of rigorous assessment against our policies. Most articles never get that type of treatment. Enforcing our policies after the fact is many times as difficult and less efficient as having them instilled by belief so they are *truly* followed by those writing content, ab initio. I say truly because I do not mean by this, people who are intimately familiar with all we expect and knowing that, try to meet the appearance of compliance. But there won't be anyone minding the store to even try to do this. We will sleep with the enemy and we will be transformed, not just tomorrow but over the long haul. The singular effect of having others paid to do what you do for free will drive away not just some of our present editors, but a much larger number of future editors. They will never become "hooked for free" because there will be no philosophical altruistic model to make them want to come. Someone mentioned a soup kitchen analogy earlier which I think was spot on. Your future brethren will not resemble you.

You ever look in the newspaper at movie ads? Normally every single ad has one or more quotes from people extolling the movie's virtues. Actually good movies have excerpts from The New York Times and Rolling Stone because they actually got a real review. Bottom of the barrel crap also has "best movie ever" pullquoted, but when you examine the source, it's always some person or organization you've never heard of. Often those are quotes from publications whose sole business is to write glowing reviews of offal so they can be quoted in movie ads where no industry person with integrity would.

Similarly, if we do this, in ten years there will be publications built on the business model of supplying for hire seemingly reliable sources so that Wikipedia articles can supply some peacock factoid, or rebuttal of criticism, or maybe even to be used to insert a sourced statement geared towards raising the company's stock price minutely during a particular time frame so that the accountants at some transnational have the ability to shave some pennies off a number used to calculate quarterly tax payments. It will all be okay, because even if discovered, it will only be seen as minor "wiki-spin" by some lower echelon functionary who would receive the blame, if any was needed. At that point it wouldn't be seen as an embarrassing thing to do as it is now and it would be very unlikely that anyone would catch subtle manipulation because Wikipedia would have already officially allow companies to edit their own articles and to hire people to do so. It would just be the status quo and we would probably be nicknamed McPedia already by that future time so who would care? Let us reject this with a resounding no, no, a thousand times no!

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Indeed, the argument that making Paid Advocacy transparent will help is about as sound as saying that making POV-pushing transparent and acceptable will improve Wikipedia. The Paid Advocacy articles linked by Ha! in his statement above are proof that Fuhghettaboutit is correct. Priyanath ^talk 22:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Endorse Fuhghettaboutit : Normally I think highly of LHvU's approaches (see comment below); he is "sensible" as I said, in high praise, at his reconfirmation. However, about this matter, we are on opposite sides of the discussion. I would like to emphasize that, as far as I know, WP does not, currently "drive (paid writing and/or advocacy) underground". WP says the the inappropriate results of any writing or advocay is subject to extreme scrutiny, likely deletion and possible blocking. We don't currently forbid it, precisely, although the MyWikiBiz hoo-haw has/had that taint about it. We do not, however, currently condone the activity and we do make strong warnings about what is likely to happen to the material introduced, and to the introducer. As soon as we "permit" in any official way the introduction of paid writing, then we lose most of the force of our arguments against what results. Why does someone pay for something to be written? I can think, off-hand, of no instance of paid, non-fiction writing which isn't advocacy in one form or another. Why then should we be surprised, having accepted that paid writing is allowed, that such writing is focussed in some specific way? And if we are not surprised, then on what basis do we delete it, given that it is, after all, permitted? It may take a few steps and some time to get to this position, but the first time we block a "permitted, paid" editor for continued bias or edit-warring, this will be the cry: "But I am permitted to do this; this is why writers are paid." (As an aside, I don't think that too much activity of the "we will hunt them out" kind is a good idea, either.) // BL \\ (talk) 23:13, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Very strong endorsement, the best statment as of yet! - Fedayee (talk) 00:29, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Cirt (talk) 04:19, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Maybe this will give people a better picture if they haven't yet thought into WP's future. hmwithτ 05:52, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 07:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Indeed. Not only do paid editors have the time and motivation advantage over regular editors but they will be active in areas where regular editors tend to be that interested so gameing the system will take less effort than it would say in an article about a major political party.Geni 09:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Sketchmoose (talk) 20:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Support as a hard rebuttal of MyWikiBiz's advertisements about paid editing. Alexius08 (talk) 02:57, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
10. Support I could have fallen in on any of several of the posts, but this one makes the point most cogently. In the abstract, I would prefer a see no evil/hear no evil/speak no evil approach, but this is a case in which the realities of human dynamics must be taken into consideration. It is naive to think that our ideals can be upheld by editors financially beholden to others. Like others, I agree that there is a toxicity that invevitably will damage the volunteerism which is the lifeblood of this project. Once we loose the good will that allows people to donate so much of their time, which won't happen overnight, but I fear inexoribly will happen, I suspect that Wikipedia in the form that we now recognize it will end. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 14:55, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
11. very strong endorsement a scary picture, the fact that it's probably an accurate picture makes it even scarier Enric Naval (talk) 02:03, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
12. You had me at paragraph one. However, I read and support all paragraphs, and found the last particularly insightful. Johnuniq (talk) 02:18, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
13. well put. ThemFromSpace 02:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
14. Dekimasuよ! 10:18, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
15. Agree absolutely. If paid editing becomes acceptable it will inevitably become the norm, at least on business and commerce related articles. And both NPOV and voluntary development of other areas will suffer. Abecedare (talk) 16:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
16. Agreed, this would be Wikigeddon. Locke9k (talk) 20:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
17. Endorse Very well said. -- œ^™ 02:28, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
18. –Megaboz (talk) 03:07, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
19. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. This is the most to-the-point statement of all.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:54, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
20. Davewild (talk) 19:24, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
21. Strongest possible endorsement. Had paid editing been acceptable when I discovered the site in 2006, I would never have taken Wikipedia seriously enough to bother donating my time and goodwill. EyeSerene^talk 07:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
22. Support probably does echo my sentiments more accurately than some of the other views. I can appreciate any and all views that improvements to the project are good, but I'm not convinced that "the ends justifies the means" in all cases. — Ched :  ?  17:02, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
23. Ha! (talk) 13:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
24. Strong support Finell (talk) 22:29, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
25. I regret I didn't endorse this earlier. MER-C 12:57, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
26. Unreservedly endorse. Spellcast (talk) 07:19, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment Excellent argument; if this were a debating club this view would be a contender to "win"... Cynically, I would suggest that this scenario may act out itself even if we actively attempted to seek out and remove such content and forbid its acceptance. What a lot of the "pro" inclined have done is to seek to make transparency the bulwark against professional COI tainting the writing of the encyclopedia - by driving it underground it is made or the more difficult to detect and respond to. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:36, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you LessHeard. I know it's a dissertation, but if it's not clear, I feel very strongly about this issue. You may be right that our best efforts will not suffice. But there;'s a vast difference between giving something an official imprimatur of authority and keeping up the good fight. Yes, more difficult to detect, but I think a thousand times less prevalent as well. I really believe our reputation, such as it is (and it will be better down the road when we have 10K FAs and 30k GAs) would be destroyed by this.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:56, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I am fully aware of your passion regarding your viewpoint; it is a pleasant change to be able to discuss a differing viewpoint (as I have with FaysallF also). You and I both wish to diminish the negative potential of editing for financial gain, but differ in how to achieve it - you by proscription, and me by transparency. We are both working, in our differing ways, toward a better Wikipedia. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:00, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Allowing it gives those doing it another rule to game. Far better to allow for a quick shutdown when the issue is discovered.Geni 11:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

If it's spam, much better to make it easier to spot; if it isn't why would we want to remove? it's the present situation that is gameable: no actual rules and the name policy actually encourage hiding COI. DGG (talk) 20:02, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

What makes you think anything will make it easier to spot?Geni 09:17, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

permitting or requiring the use of the company's name makes it very easy indeed to spot. So would a required declaration of paid editing. DGG (talk) 19:13, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Correct me if I am wrong, but this article basically boils down to: "allowing paid editing will result in creation of well-paid professional POV-pushers". We already have pro POV-pushers, and I think we are dealing relatively fine with them. Several editors, included myself, noted that we are all biased and hence our creations are biased, why should it matter if the content comes from a fan/believer or a paid professional? Paid pros can at least be forced by ethics and stick of loosing reputation/contracts/jobs to abide by rules such as statement of POV/transparency/etc., so we should make them work in the system, not force them to break it. I am sure there are and there will be editors working for $, having a stricter policy and occasionally finding one and hanging them out in public is and will not change this. Adopting them and educating them may help (to a certain degree). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:14, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Piotrus. I don't mean this to be curt, but I wrote a rather large amount of text above, carefully, and I refer you to it again to see that it does not boil down to that at all; if that's what you distill from it, either I failed to convey what I was trying to convey—miserably—or you skimmed at great haste. The only thing I didn't tackle head on is the notion some have cited that we are all biased; that's true to some extent but just shy of meaningless as a generalization. It's like if the topic was serial killers, and they are lumped together with jaywalkers and litterers to make the point that crime is pervasive.

Biases fall on a continuum. On one extreme end would be "0 bias motivation": the person who likes to learn by writing and writes on a random topic just to learn about it (I've done that). Somewhere near to that end would be the person who writes because they are intellectually fascinated by a topic, then "involved as a hobby or career"; I won't belabor this by listing every interstitial point I can think up, but on the opposite end of our fictitious scale would be those writing to influence a fanatically held religious or other worldview position and, at the very apex, would be those who are paid by a third party, hired to promote that person or entity's image. Why? Because they have a 100% likelihood of being biased, having contracted to write a panegyric, and are accountable to that third party with money at stake.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Let me explain why I disagree. First, assumption that paid POV pushers are/will be more dangerous/numerous then current unpaid POV pushers of various flavors is an unproven hypothesis. Over the years I have seen enough motivated, active and wiki-savvy POV pushers that I find it hard to imagine anybody can be more dangerous. Second, editors above have presented good hypothesis for why (at least a significant portion of) said paid POV pushers will in fact be less dangerous than you expect: those who are ethical (I do believe some exist...) and/or think long term (want their work to stay on Wikipedia forever and be truly respected and even consider such things as publicity gained for FAs - and how impossible it is to FA POVed content) will bluntly say to their clients that they have to respect NPOV, because if they don't, they risk that NPOV will eventually strike at them back with a vengeance (once enough wiki dramu hits their biased article). And the unethical/short term ones, well, they will have to deal with said wiki dramu :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• While I see the risks, I believe that our existing policies regarding reliable sources, biased editing, and conflict of interest should suffice to root out troublemakers no matter how much money is sunk into them. Highly-motivated process-savvy users are a problem, but one that we can take on as we always have, with ruthless enforcement, as we did with the Church of Scientology. Moreover, I believe forbidding paid editing presents a very real danger to topic areas and foreign-language Wikipedias that do not have enough volunteers to reach a critical mass of content contribution. Dcoetzee 07:55, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
  • As far as I know, we are here about changing existing policy and guideline as to how we regard paid editing and treat it and the effect of that. Banning is one way to go. Not changing anything is another. I address above the situation where we actively sanction paid editing.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 08:13, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
• Question I totally agree with your statement. Looking ahead, paid editing would have a negative impact overall towards the long-term. However I don't want to sound like a hypocrite because honestly, I don't know what I would do if someone offered me a reasonable wage or salary to watch over their article... do you? -- œ^™ 02:39, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Insidious aint it?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 08:13, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I already do this sort of watching for dozens of articles, and have helped dozens of commercial organizations and PR staff, if they are willing to follow our policies, and if they are notable. (I warn them what is likely to happen otherwise.) Nobody has ever suggested money. But then, I say right out that I am an administrator, and any sensible person would realize that I mean by this is that I regard myself as an officer and am doing it as part of my responsibilities here, as is of course the case. As we all may know, there is at least one other admin, who is openly a paid editor. I regard those as incompatible functions. DGG (talk) 19:19, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I stated in response to a different user's statement that I support immediate desysopping for any admin paid to edit. I'm sure that may seem harsh to some but I see it as an irreconcilable and unwaivable conflict of interest.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:33, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Nick-D

The main argument in favour of paid editing made above is that it doesn't really matter as other editors would correct any policy violations. From what I've seen, this isn't correct. It wouldn't be difficult for a medium-sized organisation or semi-famous person to put together an article on them which meets the notability standards. Once the initial checking of the new article is done its unlikely that anyone would watchlist the article and it would then be easy to add over-statements while ensuring that nothing negative is allowed to remain. This article would then be one of the first things to appear on Google searches on the topic (making it a useful, and cheap, form of advertising) and it's very unlikely that anyone would care enough to ensure that the article was factual and neutral and/or be prepared to fight the paid editor over content on an obscure topic. Nick-D (talk) 00:28, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:01, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Cirt (talk) 04:19, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
3. hmwithτ 05:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 07:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Hreinn (talk) 14:28, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Sketchmoose (talk) 20:42, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
7. wikipedia has too many obscure abandoned topics that can go this way --Enric Naval (talk) 02:04, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
8. Johnuniq (talk) 02:19, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Dekimasuよ! 10:19, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
10. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:55, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
11. Agreed that the premise paid editing doesn't really matter as other editors would correct any policy violations is incorrect. Ha! (talk) 13:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Wikireader41

The argument that paid editing has a potential to generate good articles for the project has some validity. I can see philanthropic groups who want to support good editors to encourage their work for creating a free encyclopedia available to anyone with an internet connection. But I see a whole bunch of problems coming up also if paid editing is allowed for anyone and everyone. as pointed out above many individuals , companies & groups will likely pay editors of their choice money to create and subsequently maintain articles favorable towards them. Reputation of Wikipedia as a reliable source of info will likely suffer with this. What other encyclopedia lets you pay to write a paid article about yourself, your client your company or your organization even if it is an excellent article ?? Also if I was Bill Gates I could hire a zillion editors across the globe to make sure no mention of Anti trust allegations against Microsoft ever surfaces in the articles. any volunteer editors will soon stop touching the article once they realize that any mention of negative info will soon be purged. worse a competing company would hire another zillion editors to push their point of view. It will soon be WW3. I can see a whole industry developing and coming up with innovative ways to defeat wiki policies to ensure favorable articles for their clients for the right fee.Wikireader41 (talk) 05:41, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Wikireader41 (talk) 05:41, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Cirt (talk) 02:03, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Enric Naval (talk) 02:05, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Johnuniq (talk) 02:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Sketchmoose (talk) 18:03, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Ha! (talk) 13:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Charles Stewart

Two thought experiments:

• One: an established Wikipedia editor in good standing, the client, accepts money from someone, the patron, to change the coverage on article X. The client authors a rival version of the article, and put it in their userspace. The client then makes a request to the active editors of X to look at the content, explaining the circumstances of the commision, and begs the editors to incorporate whatever content they see fit, and to explain any biases they may find in the paid version; the paid editor indicates that if the results of the active editors do not meet the patron's expectations, the money will be returned, and if they do, as a token of gratitude, the client will donate 20% of the fee to the Wikimedia Foundation.
• Two: a philanthropist wishes to improve the freely available content in area of inquiry Y, and establishes an independent trust to provide modest bursaries to WP editors deemed to be in good standing and knowledgeable about Y, to spend 15 hours a week over half a year editing Wikipedia, with a particular emphasis on a list of articles relevant to Y. Beyond a simple check to ensure sufficient editing activity takes place, credible promises about complete independence are made. — Charles Stewart (talk) 15:15, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Postscript — I should make clear that these hypothetical situations are meant to raise questions about where the WP:COI risks lie. The first does have WP:COI risks, but since no paid editing is done in article space, it is not clear what measures can be taken against it, and it seems analogous to the situation that Jimbo explicitly says is legitimate (i.e., commissioning a copyrighter to write GFDL copy). Should the editor be barred if they are a freelance copywriter? The second seems to be verifiably free of COI risk, but is paid editing in article space. — — Charles Stewart (talk) 13:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. (But see below) LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:39, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Self-endorse: The first situation I haven't made my mind up about. The second shows that the supposition that all paid editing carries COI is false. — Charles Stewart (talk) 13:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
3. In the first case, for editors who disclose the payment, their contributions to product, company, or industry-related articles would receive scrutiny thorugh existing processes, the second - kind of a 'sponsored editing' seems to be the best version of 'paid editing'Cander0000 (talk) 19:45, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment

• You may like to expand upon this at Wikipedia talk:Contract Editing Review - although right now I can see one fly in the ointment; the potential of unpaid volunteers maliciously improving the article for free. Both of the above processes need to take account that once content is created it can be improved by anyone for no reward (and maintained against vandalism under the same basis). LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:39, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Alexius08

The only trouble with paid editing in general is biased (either positively or negatively) material about the subject. I have requested deletion of several promotional articles—most of which are done through speedy deletion. I often judge on the content of the article (which sometimes lead me to nominating corporate stubs for deletion).

Sticking to the more established Wikipedia policies about notability, advertising, and defamation, the only articles that can be deleted are those that are severely-biased and/or discussing about hardly-known subjects. As I have said outside Wikipedia:

“

Anyone who would advertise paid editing of Wikipedia would lead the project into corruption. Why pay someone else if you can do it yourself? Wikipedia is open for everyone, without distinctions of any kind and without limitations in any manner.

”

I handled such a case some time ago. The report is just to show you the potential damages of paid editing, once tolerated too much. I don't want more of this to appear. Otherwise, entire corporations could wage edit wars against one another and they would go out of our control. Alexius08 (talk) 02:50, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Alexius08 (talk) 02:50, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
2. hmwithτ 13:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Smith Jones (talk) 14:30, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
4. These are the dangers. Cf. also, Fred Bauder's summary, in case you missed it. — Charles Stewart (talk) 14:32, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Cirt (talk) 02:04, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Enric Naval (talk) 02:12, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 17:35, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments

Regarding that quote you wrote above, I found it kind of humorous. The entire point of your statement is that nobody who is paid to write should be editing Wikipedia, yet you finish off by contradicting yourself with, "Wikipedia is open for everyone, without distinctions of any kind and without limitations in any manner." -->David Shankbone 14:31, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Except for banned editors, because their contributions are no longer needed or desired, and any paid editors would become quickly one of those. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:12, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Note that I wrote it during what seemed to be a war against MyWikiBiz on Yahoo! Answers. Alexius08 (talk) 23:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Tyrenon

One problem I have seen arise from "paid editing" of one kind or another is scandals surrounding undisclosed edits from one organization or another. Most of this ultimately falls under WP:COI, but I do think that careful attention does need to be paid to edits made by people who are being paid to make them. In many cases the edits are not harmful (and can easily amount to having someone from an office patrol a page to watch for and revert vandalism), but there is always the chance that an attempt will be made to influence the direction of Wikipedia. This is particularly the case with political campaigns (I am made to think of the John Howard editing controversy some years back), but it can be the result of any group or organization (or even a person) desiring a better spin on themselves on here.

With this in mind, I believe that undeclared paid edits need to be made a blockable offence. This should probably only actually result in a block after a warning or two, but if someone is repeatedly influencing the viewpoint of an article and not declaring what is a very clear and present COI, then either the user needs to be tagged as having that COI or, in the interest of preserving impartiality, they need to be blocked. As to paid edits, I feel that they should be flagged for review; a "paid" grammar fix is not so bad, but many of these edits will not be simple corrections or vandalism reverts, and as such they do need some form of third-party review, which flagging would accomplish.

As I said, I do not see paid editing as inherently evil. It is when said editing is also undeclared and unmonitored that a problem will almost inevitably arise, and it is unmonitored, undeclared paid editing that needs to be banned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tyrenon (talk • contribs) 06:14, 15 June 2009

Users who endorse this summary:

1. snigbrook (talk) 09:16, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Agreed that undeclared paid edits are unacceptable - if paid editing is accepted (tacitly or explicitly) by the community then the editor making those edits needs to declare that they are being paid for them and those edits should be checked Ha! (talk) 13:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by MER-C

I had a little poke around some paid editor havens and what I found was quite disturbing. A summary of my findings is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Paid editing roundup. WikiProject Spam would like your help in discovering who these guys are on Wikipedia and what they want to spam.

Even more disturbing is this one and this one (US$ 270), which only just concluded. It is starting to look like another sockpuppet. MER-C 07:34, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Naturally. MER-C 07:34, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Cirt (talk) 02:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
3. wow, wtf, awesome catch there. Enric Naval (talk) 02:14, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Johnuniq (talk) 02:24, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Dekimasuよ! 10:23, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
6. This means a potential rivalry between the users of eLance.com (who edit Wikipedia for payments) and MyWikiBiz. We better watch out and suppress fire from both sides and disarm the belligerents of their edit wars. MyWikiBiz could prepare for a campaign anytime from now if they wanted to get back the money they lost from potential customers who turned to eLance for editorial assistance. Alexius08 (talk) 11:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
7. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 21:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
8. hmwithτ 14:56, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
9. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 17:34, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
10. —Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:56, June 18, 2009 (UTC)
11. OlEnglish (talk) 19:42, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
12. Ha! (talk) 13:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by User:Erich Mendacio

All this talk over the merits or evils of "paid editing" misses the larger significance of having people editing Wikipedia for money, namely, that eventually not only will article-space edits be sold to the highest bidder (which people don't seem to have much of a problem with), but ALL edits will be bought and paid for, including administrator actions. Being paid for article editing just will "open the door" to the sale of all edits. Erich Mendacio (talk) 19:31, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Note: The person who made this statement has been indefinitely banned by the Wikipedia community, and is not permitted to edit Wikipedia pages (including this one) absent the ban being lifted. -Pete (talk) 18:33, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Cirt (talk) 02:12, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
2. same as Davidwr's statement below Enric Naval (talk) 02:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Johnuniq (talk) 02:24, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Sketchmoose (talk) 18:00, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
5. hmwithτ 14:57, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 22:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by User:Davidwr

Jimbo's statement notwithstanding, the current de facto policy is that known paid editors are treated as if they have a conflict of interest, all but eliminating any motivation to disclose. What's the point of paying someone if they are neutered in their ability to make the edits you want made? On the other hand if they are caught after the fact, they are banned for not disclosing and their edit history is gone over with a fine-toothed comb, again removing the benefit to the sponsor.

If we loosen this up and allow paid editors to make substantial edits, there is no going back, large swaths of Wikipedia will become commercialized within months if not weeks, established editors will quit in disgust, and the character and content of the project will change. On the other hand if we keep the status quo or implement an all-out ban we can loosen up a few years down the road if times and community consensus changes. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:56, 16 June 2009 (UTC) typo fixed 00:07, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Cirt (talk) 02:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
2. principles are good enough... right until someone starts having economic problems in real life, and he gets offered the money that he needs to feed his family. Queue the escalation until people start editing for money because they can't pay their second car. Queue people who will enter wikipedia with the explicit goal of earning money. Notice the case of Poetlister, who managed to avoid blocking of his socks, including an admin account, for many months, and almost managed to get checkuser rights, and he had no monetary motivation. Now imagine the sort of highly motivated people that will enter the system if we see that they can earn money. Picture the chinese sweatshops of people getting paid 1 dollar per hour to edit wikipedia. Etc. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:19, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Viewing WT:WikiProject Spam shows the problems simply from people adding external links. If paid editing is in any way endorsed, the burden of proof will shift to those who wish to remove fluff. "Prove that my external link is not allowed; prove that my PR-spin should be removed." Johnuniq (talk) 02:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
4. hmwithτ 14:58, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 22:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Ha! (talk) 13:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
7. —Animum (talk) 02:28, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
8. And User:Johnuniq has a good point as well. Sketchmoose (talk) 18:17, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Werson

If the article on Big Company X has sources to show that it cured world hunger, then it cured world hunger regardless of who edited the article. And if you want the article to say that Big Company X killed babies, then it's your responsibility to add those reliable sources to prove it. I have every right to start an article on myself that is supported by reliable sources and you have no right to accuse me of being non-neutral if you can't find sources to prove it.

I don't see where the hysteria's coming from. We (the real editors) aren't going anywhere. We've already found tons of paid editors, scrutinized their edit histories, went through all their articles, deleted the non-notable ones, removed the false facts, fixed the wording, added the negative facts that were omitted, slapped {neutrality} and {cleanup} templates all over everything, removed their admin status. We've done this over and over again. I see no reason why this would stop in the future. The prediction that "This will ruin us" is based on the supposition that there will be so many paid editors that we will not be able to control them. How is that economically feasible? We have 10,000,000 user accounts, assume 0.1% of those are active and you still have 10,000 users. No company is going to waste money fighting 10,000 people to keep their articles pristine when there are much easier ways to get a Google presence. We will always outnumber the paid editors and we will always be around to go through and get their articles in line. This dystopia will never happen.

Of course we should find the paid editors, pick on them, fix their articles, scrutinize everything they've done. We should have a task force that just does that. But deleting an article on a notable topic because it's not neutral? That doesn't make any sense at all. That's like deleting a notable article because it's full of typos or doesn't have inline citations; that's like deleting an article on a notable band because it talks about how great they are. If a subject is not notable, delete it immediately with extreme prejudice and don't look back. If it's notable, there's no justification at all for deleting it, and there's no justification at all for banning the user who made it. Fix the problems or put a template on it and let someone else do it.

Look at these articles. Brad Sugars Ken Underwood These articles suck. They are laughably awful. All paid articles will be. We've (the real editors) been editing this encyclopedia for years, we've evaluated FAs, we've had our articles meticulously criticized, we know exactly what NPOV looks like and this crap sticks out like a sore thumb. Let the paid users edit, watch what they do and fix it when it sucks. That's what we do here.

"Allowing" paid edits doesn't mean you have to leave them in place. If they make the encyclopedia worse, undo them. Just like anything else. The idea that paid shills will all become admins en masse and take over the encyclopedia is laughable. There's a long, arduous process for becoming an admin and a blatantly poor edit history will stop it in its tracks. Admins have already been removed for non-neutrality, and will continue to.

There's no need for this apocalypse talk and there's no need to go around banning people. They are still contributing, they're just contributing their side. The encyclopedia is never harmed by information as long as it's verifiable. No, it won't always work. Lots of spam articles will slip through the cracks. But that's going to be the case whether you ban these people or not, just as there will always be non-notable band articles and poorly cited history articles and former featured articles that completely fell apart. It's not perfect but there's no reason to get upset about that.

Summary: I'm strongly in favor of treating COI and paid editing just like any other bad editing. If an article has a problem, fix it or put it through the appropriate process. If you can't point out a demonstrable problem, then you have no right to assume their is one just because money changed hands, and you have no right to accuse an editor of being a bad editor based on his financial interests alone. This does not mean that we need to sit back and let this turn into McPedia. We can watch out for this stuff and track everything these users are doing, but we should resolve it the same way we resolve everything else. Sockpuppetry is still an offense, revert wars are still an offense, inserting false information and removing real information is still an offense. There will never be enough momentum for this to "ruin us". —Werson (talk) 22:24, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary;

1. I am glad I took the time to review this page. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:13, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
2. The sky will not fall any faster than it was previously. If there are adjustments required, we will make them. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 12:51, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

David Shankbone II: Final thoughts

At the end of the day, paid writing happens on Wikipedia. Jimmy is content with keeping it underground and illicit, but I think his perspective does not consider a fundamental challenge that time poses to Wikipedia's growth. As our rules, guidelines, culture and bureaucracy become more complex, it becomes more difficult to break our surface. Our wikified article text and templates, and in particular our eye-crossing citation layouts, separate text in ways that are too bizarre to stare at for even a trained eye (mine). Our edit boxes used to be more clean. Our bureaucracy and rules, and the nuances in them, are a challenge to comprehend. Even seasoned editors are continually--and incorrectly--told that they are at the wrong place to have a problem addressed. After a recent media event, it's been heavily reported that we have a "Supreme Court".

Nobody but a small subset (you and me) wants to learn all of this! It is a challenge for a person, or company, to become involved in navigating our weird world. In my experience, article subjects have disastrously horrible attempts to talk with us and learn our MOS, policies and guidelines. Examples are too numerous to mention.

If nobody cares about the subject, it sits there dead in the water, hurting us, hurting them, with either misinformation or WEIGHT problems. We see this over and over. It hurts our reputation. It makes us appear clannish and insular; impossible to understand outside a massive investment of time. We seem ambivalent to the real-life consequences a bad article has for a subject that none of us cares about. We can be inadvertently, and sometimes intentionally, insulting when we do interact with a subject reaching out. There are good experiences, but the bad ones are legendary.

Paid writing helps resolve an inevitable problem of time: our increasingly labyrinthine internal structure.

Everyone is worried about PR hounds and infomercial products. That will be out there, but it is now as well. That ignores that there's a real world out there that both Jimmy and I have interacted with. I would find it hard to believe if Jimmy said he has not come across many people in the last eight years who would simply love just to pay someone to write a decent, balanced article about them than what they found. In my experience, these people are fine with paying someone for their knowledge to fix it. These people have limited time, and their wikignorant assistants fare little better. I think it's an unfair response to them to say: wait until somebody feels like it.

You don't have to ask Jimmy and me, you can ask OTRS. They hear problems all the time that could be resolved if the subject had the option to engage an editor to fix a meritorious, but perhaps complex, problem. A WikiProject could be set up. Editors could register to accept such work, and when engaged, would register the work to be completed. I envision a community-wide opportunity; run in above-board system where neutral editors who don't even know a subject could work on their articles. Registration, a code of ethics, a likely army of on- and off-site oversight would make policy-compliant improvements and everyone much better off in the attainment of WP:ENC. I think it's a fair and just option, particularly for BLPs. -->David Shankbone 01:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

1. Don't know if we want to do it via a Wikiproject, but much of the above has me saying, "Exactly". There are potential PR disasters to avoid, but we currently have a PR disaster in that when people are unhappy with articles about subjects that are close to them, our message is often unsatisfying, and in many cases totally rude. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC) But hmmm. While I sympathize with the rationale for a Wikiproject, it's hard to reconcile with my basic belief that the spirit of Wikipedia is volunteer-based. David's idea might be good for addressing article-by-article content issues, but it may send out the wrong message in the long term. The issues we're discussing on this page are complex. Still thinking. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:20, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Good point. Paid editing can help us in various ways. It's a bit like atomic energy or such - including the fact that one's its out, you cannot put it back in the box. People will keep trying to edit wiki for $ anyway, might as well try to regulate this and get some benefit out of it. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:19, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. I'll know I'm notable when someone writes an article about me without me offering them any money; if OTRS and talk pages are handling article issues, they're doing their jobs. Paid articles with questionable notability are sure to sit "dead in the water" after their creation, because in reality, no one cared enough to use his or her own time to write about the topic in the first place. Dekimasuよ! 10:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment I agree, David,with what you say about the ill-advised policy of making it illicit but tolerating it in practice, and I agree it can not in practice be prevented. But that's a very different thing from making it part of the project. To the extent we facilitate encouraging people to hire editors, we discourage volunteers. I'm here as a volunteer, but I'd be damned if I;d continue as one if my colleagues were openly paid for what I am doing free. DGG (talk) 19:25, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

• Is that really true, though? Wouldn't it work the way many systems work, which is that a meritocracy based upon quality contributions would create a system where the best get hired the most? I think so. I don't think it would be, "Why bother - other people are getting paid" and instead be, "I'd like to contribute to a point where people wanted to hire me to do the same." I also think the stronger argument is that our BLP problems demand a viable way for people with little time to have their issues addressed. -->David Shankbone 20:33, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

• It seems to me that the people most likely to be paid wouldn't be the most meritorious in the sense of working for the benefit of the encyclopedia. They would rather be the most meritorious in the eyes of the hiring firm, which would mean: able to skirt closest to the line of advocacy and gaming the system without getting called out on it. The fact that there are two different conceptions of what is meritorious is really the core problem here. Dekimasuよ! 14:34, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by User:Dcoetzee

I've thought a lot about this and my position on the matter is a bit radical. I don't just think paid editing should be permitted; I think it should be actively encouraged. Paid editing and volunteer editing can safely coexist, just as commercial photography and freely-licensed photography coexist. The benefits of paid editing are numerous:

• Combatting systematic bias and addressing needs of readers: Often, there are people in the world who have an interest in seeing a topic area expanded on Wikipedia, but lack the experience or resources to expand that area themselves. An experienced Wikipedia editor with research skills can write effectively on a huge variety of topics, and a free market mechanism leads naturally to expansion in the areas where demand among readers rather than interest among contributors is highest.
• Specialization and bigger investment: Paid Wikipedia editors can afford to spend more time editing and become more skilled and prolific members of the community. Users who are passionate about Wikipedia can afford to make it a more significant part of their lives. They can justify significant investments in research and media acquisition, such as travel and equipment costs, that ordinary users generally cannot.
• Greater ability to recruit professionals: given a choice between writing an article for a newspaper or journal and for Wikipedia, many professional writers, photographers, and editors will opt for the one that lets them pay the bills, even if they would prefer to write for Wikipedia. Paid editing, even if it is not comparable in rate, will shift more of this valuable skill to work on Wikipedia.
• Appraisal and increased legitimacy: the ability to appraise editing by the amount a third party is willing to pay for it allows the value of editing to be manifestly demonstrated and to earn editors respect outside the community. Paid edits can go on resumes and generate references, a valuable secondary benefit for up and coming writers.

There is often a tacit assumption that all or most paid editing would be promotional of a single commercial entity - but there are countless additional channels for income. Professional organizations often want to see expansion in their area of profession to generate interest in the area among students selecting a career. The many tiny foreign-language Wikipedias can benefit from recruiting poor native speakers who otherwise could not afford to contribute. People from a little-known culture or with a scholarly interest in an esoteric area may want to see coverage of that area expanded for the sake of posterity. Effectively, the charity is transplanted from the contributors directly donating their time to third parties donating money to a specific cause.

It is often claimed that if a user is paid to cover a subject, they will be motivated to portray it in a biased light to please their employer. The fact is, however, that the market doesn't work like that. Users who write biased articles will be banned or blocked, and their articles rapidly removed - as a consequence, people stop hiring them, because they can't achieve results. Only people who work with the system, follow policy, and create realistic expectations with their clients, will achieve long-term success as a paid editor, and other paid editors will follow their example in the hopes of similar success. Our ability to police contributions and impose sanctions, and the interaction of this with the market, is the only defense against biased paid editors that we require.

Of course paid editing is a manifest conflict of interest, but this is dealt with effectively by our existing policy, which specifies that such conflicts should be openly declared. Restriction of paid editing only forces users to hide these concerns.

Another objection I've often heard is that the presence of paid users is a discouragement to volunteer contributors. In analogy with many jobs like photography and software development, paid editors and volunteer editors can happily coexist - studies on motivation of Wikipedia users point to factors like community recognition and a feeling of impact that don't go away just because paid editors show up. Moreover, there's no reason to believe that paid editors will supplant volunteer users, partly because they will tend to edit different topic areas (generally, areas that require expansion and have few interested editors at present), and partly because paid editors and volunteer editors can effectively cooperate. Some users may be driven off by the presence of paid editors out of a sense of ideological purity, but I believe the benefits as enumerated above would be vastly more beneficial to the project as a whole.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Hear, hear. A nice counteragument :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
2. snigbrook (talk) 09:20, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Good points. Well stated. لennavecia 20:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
4. LessHeard vanU (talk) 11:36, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
5. bodnotbod (talk) 17:19, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
7. Secret ^account 17:13, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by User:Amartyabag

I don't find paid editing to be be anything wrong if the article follows the basic Wikipedia norms of WP:NPOV, WP:RS and other manuals. However a message can be put on the top saying that it is a paid edited article and need to be verified by an administrator for accuracy. The ultimate benefit is of the Wikipedia if it gets a good article out of a paid editing. Moreover, many users often write article which are closely linked to them, though they are not paid they may contain some conflict of interest contents. And for some students it can obviously help them to support their huge cost of education. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 13:01, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Most of our best editors, the ones best suited for reviewing such articles, are not admins - otherwise, yes. LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Per LessHeard. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:38, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Agree, except that administrators are probably not the people to be verifying things for accuracy. That can be done by anyone. Stifle (talk) 13:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Per LessHeard. لennavecia 20:06, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Piotrus

See also My essay on conflicts of interests and paid editing

Let me say this simply: paid editing should be allowed, if disclosed. Why should we care what is the editors motivation for creating articles? People do it because of various reasons, not all of them pure and altruistic. What about editors who create articles not for money but to please someone or as a favor? What about students creating articles for an assignment, and getting paid in (hopefully) good grades? What about editors creating articles to get wiki awards? We shouldn't care if somebody is doing this for $, as long as content is good (npov, notable, etc.) and this is disclosed (for COI-npov analysis). In the end, there should be only one question to ask: has Nichalp articles helped Wikipedia or not? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:30, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. snigbrook (talk) 09:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
2. لennavecia 20:07, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
3. I think this is a restatement of the general consensus on this matter: most editors have no problem with material being contributed for pay, as long as there are no problems with it. And if there are problems with it, those will be handled by the current processes. (Although I think we ought to go a step further, & if an article written for money violates one or more of Wikipedia's rules, then the penalties ought to be more severe.) llywrch (talk) 16:39, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by User:Locke9k

Wikipedia rests on a universal assumption of good faith -- the concept that every editor's top priority is to improve WP. It is this presumption that allows us to strive for consensus rather than see every dispute as a battle. Even the most biased editor can still put improving the project first and can thus be reasoned with. Of course, there are some few editors out there who don't put the project first, but they ultimately get censured or banned unless they are very sneaky, because there incompatible motivations eventually lead them to misconduct. This enforcement allows the contributing community to maintain a certain necessary level of faith in one another.

Allowing paid editors would erode this system. Where a biased editor can still put WP first despite their bias, a paid editor fundamentally has a higher master: their employer. By explicitly accepting paid editors, we would be endorsing an abandonment of our underlying principle for editor conduct: when you're editing on Wikipedia, improving the project comes first. Ultimately it comes to this: despite any bias, while contributing is an editor's allegiance first to Wikipedia or to something else? If its to something else, they shouldn't be welcome. No paid editing.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Endorsing my own view. Locke9k (talk) 20:52, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Cirt (talk) 10:13, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
3. hmwithτ 15:01, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 17:32, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Dekimasuよ! 14:28, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Ha! (talk) 13:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Sketchmoose (talk) 18:15, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by TheGrappler

I have three basic points that I don't think I've seen anybody else address:

1. If a policy prohibits "paid advocacy", but not "paid editing" in general terms, a very clear definition needs to be drafted to distinguish the two - especially if the sanction for "paid advocacy" is harsh. There may not be an obvious dividing line between the two, either in theoretical cases where we know the full facts, or in practice (when we will not).
2. Blanket restrictions on "paid editing" are problematic not only for the risk of driving such editing "underground", but also because the label covers a wide spectrum of behavior, some of it beneficial and to date, largely non-controversial (User:Nttc springs to mind as a type of user account other statements haven't considered). [An account used by employees of Tourism NT to improve content relating to places in the Northern Territory - added for clarification, 17:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)]
3. One underlying cause of the current storm is that our notability policies set a hurdle for inclusion too low to limit the number of articles on people, organizations, products etc. to a level that we could systematically cover and maintain (contrast Citizendium's "maintainability" criterion). This, and the level of wiki-expertise now required to create an article, has created a market for paid editing, particularly in the large area at the borderlines of notability. (I am not proposing changing our notability policies, but we should acknowledge that this is one of their costs.)

What follows is a tldr analysis of why it will be hard to define "paid advocacy" distinctly from other forms of paid editing, including types that have previously not been controversial, and other types that while controversial arguably have some merits. It is not an essential component of my statement, but does explain the chain of reasoning that led me to the three conclusions above, and should be very relevant to anyone trying to draft a definition for a policy on "paid advocacy". It is entirely possible to agree with some or all of the three conclusions for completely different reasons :)

Users who endorse this summary: (I think my 3 core points are sufficiently distinct that some editors may wish to partially endorse the summary by indicating the one or two they agree with)

1. TheGrappler (talk) 06:22, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Agree with points 1 and 3. Dekimasuよ! 06:57, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
3. snigbrook (talk) 09:23, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
4. The collapsed part here is best explanation yet of the complexities involved, and why simple solutions won;t deal adequately with this. DGG (talk) 04:12, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Agree for the reasons DGG gives. -- llywrch (talk) 16:49, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
6. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor who appreciates a comment that takes up this much WMF server space. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Smerdis of Tlön

Summary: Spam is also patent nonsense, and problematic conflict of interest will out itself. We need to tighten notability guidelines for non-consumer businesses.

I've long been of the opinion that the real problem is not so much "paid editing" or "paid advocacy", which as noted by many above raise difficult problems of proof and may conflict with the assume good faith requirement. But I think that the truth will out by the (lack of) quality prose and blatant WP:NPOV violations that are going to be found in most truly problematic articles. Spam tends to be patent nonsense as far as I am concerned. Being written in pointy haired boss talk is a dead giveaway. If:

• an article is full of "euphemisms, inappropriate abstractions, deliberate ambiguities, depersonalizing constructions, weasel words and glittering generalities"; or
• it is written in "buzzword laden prose that seems as if its chief purpose is to demonstrate fluency with current TLAs, or to disguise the triviality or banal truisms of the underlying content",
• then it is also "(c)ontent that, while apparently meaningful after a fashion, is so completely and irredeemably confused that no reasonable person can be expected to make any sense of it whatsoever" and ought to be deleted on sight, even if it is nominally grammatical and could be read from start to finish with the aid of a headache remedy.

And where the specific concern arises -- paid insertions by non-notable businesses -- the promotional style and intentional NPOV violations will cause any such article to be filled with these obvious stylistic and content flaws. On the other hand, if the article or edit is written in plain English rather than promotional twaddle, and appears to be neutral and referenced, speculation about the editors' motives seems to be mostly irrelevant. The alternative solution is fairly zealous speedy deletion of strongly promotional POV articles about non-consumer business topics.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Ω (talk) 15:19, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment:

• I do not see why non-consumer businesses are a particular problem. Consumer driven businesses are in fact likely to be much more of one, given the readership of Wikipedia. The problem with businesses is getting morearticles written by people with a manageable COI. There are too few Wikipedians with experience and interest in this area. DGG (talk) 00:19, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

• Generally, the question to me is whether or not a business is likely to be a subject "for the ages". Consumer products are potentially interesting here, if only because they give a glimpse as to how ordinary people lived during the time they were in use. Non-consumer products have a somewhat harder time meeting that test, since few of them are part of the lives of people outside the industry using them - which makes them inherently less notable. Service businesses are usually too fluid and intangible to make that grade.
  
  The other problem is that technical businesses know that Google likes Wikipedia. This makes a Wikipedia article is a valuable publicity prize. This calls for aggressive policing.
  
  The main point is to remember that obvious advertising is a speedy deletion criteria that exists entirely independent of notability: i.e. if it's obvious advertising, it should be deleted even if the business might be notable enough to support another article. And problematic conflict of interest will out, in that the resulting article will prove to be promotional in tone. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 16:22, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by llywrch

Just adding a datapoint here. People have been not only openly paid to edit in the past, but the person who came up with the idea was highly praised for his creative experiment. Kasper Souren gave a talk about how he did this at the 2006 Wikimania conference for the Bambara Wikipedia. Unilaterally banning anyone who does this, without any exceptions, is a hasty & potentially harmful idea -- & anyone who is familiar with the Wiimedia projects would know this. -- llywrch (talk) 16:57, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. A good illustration of my point on how our "$ is evil" hurts the poorest people in the world. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:56, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
2. As always, Geoff, thanks for adding some solid history to the debate. I am increasingly of the opinion that Jimmy Wales has marginalized himself from this discussion by introducing language that simply doesn't capture the nuances of the topic. I hope he will clarify at some point. -Pete (talk) 18:29, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by MrMurph101

This is pretty fascinating. I can see how this is controversial and there is always the rule of unintended consequences. I don't see why it shouldn't be allowed. It would be better for transparency in paid editing rather than having anon editors possibly with agendas being paid to secretly influence content. If we're going to do this there should obviously be some set of caveats. One would be to only allow full disclosure of paid editing. If an editor does not disclose they are being paid it should be a bannable offense. Another worry is, although paid editors say they will conform to policy, will they gain enough clout to influence the wording of policy in their favour? I can see a provision where a paid editor has to waive their rights in policy discussion to avoid any conflicts of interest (real or perceived) issues.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by SB_Johnny

Admittedly I haven't read this entire page (way too long), but I do find the idea of blocking any "paid editor" frankly appalling and contrary to the spirit of putting free content before the "social aspects" of the site. Our license (be it GFDL or the CC license we have chosen to adopt) is quite clear that our content is free for commercial use as well as educational use. While that might in some way seem neither here nor there, it could have bearing on outside organizations that might want to clean up Wikipedia content along a certain theme for eventual use in a publication. For example, say the Pennsylvania department of forestry wanted to put together a mini-encyclopedia about all of the plants, animals, and other organisms that live in Pennsylvania forests. It seems to me there would be nothing wrong with them doing a "roll call" for experienced Wikipedia researchers, botanists, and copy-editors to improve the articles here on Wikipedia rather than importing them to another site and then searching high and low for staff with similar skill sets. If they offer a few bucks for "adopting" articles or groups of articles, I think that would be excellent. And: if they're paying people to do the content improving here on Wikipedia rather than on their private mirror, we all benefit from the added and/or improved content, and they benefit from having thousands of other eyes potentially picking out grammatical or factual errors.

I have actually done paid editing (in a sense) on Wikibooks in the past, and hope to do more of it in the future. Part of my "real life job" involves researching horticultural topics (primarily plants and the things that harm them), and I always add this content to Wikibooks (as well as photos to Commons, and I generally try to improve the WP article as well if I come across encyclopedic material that belongs there). I don't think most of my clients particularly care that I post it on Wikimedia sites, but I do so because I believe in free content, and hope that my work will be improved upon when someone else happens upon new scientific data or finds something I missed.

So to reiterate: blocking any editor who stands to make a few bucks for helping to create quality content is a Very Bad Idea. Advocacy is a completely different thing of course, but (despite what you might think if you only ready the noticeboards) most of Wikipedia's content does not have anything to do with BLP's, companies, or politics. Subtlety is called for, not jerky knees and witch hunts.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Eklipse (talk) 10:49, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Well put MrMurph101 (talk) 04:33, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
3. --Aqwis (talk) 23:58, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by GRBerry

Paid editing raises a second issue that is, as far as I can see, completely unadressed above: copyright. Depending on 1) the relationship between the person paid and the person paying and 2) the legal jurisdiction governing that relationship the writer may or may not have copyright in the words they are writing, and thus may or may not be able to release them under the free content license used by Wikipedia. See work for hire. This creates an obvious problem for the ability of the paid editor to actually produce content that Wikipedia can use. There is no point in having an editor producing content that we would have to delete for copyright reasons.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. While I share the concerns about conflict of interest, this issue would also need to be addressed in any paid editing policy. GRBerry 18:14, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Concur, acknowledging that the same concerns may be raised in non paid for contributions (but perhaps not as many). LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:51, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Cirt (talk) 05:03, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
4. hmwithτ 14:24, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
5. Dekimasuよ! 14:24, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
6. —Animum (talk) 16:29, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
7. Durova²⁷³ 16:06, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment:

1. This problem is true for unpaid editors as well. Anyone who authorizes an editor to write an article in Wikipedia authorizes them to write it according to our rules. In fact, we could ask for a specific statement to this effect--regulating paid editing would make it easier to be out front about this, and, paradoxically, might actually get us more free content. DGG (talk) 02:58, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Animum

Many of my thoughts on this matter have been adequately addressed in the twenty-fourth paragraph of George Washington's Farewell Address, particularly in the last two sentences. What isn't covered therein I will cover below.

The main point that has been raised is that paid edits are not necessarily bad. This is true when the person paying is unrelated to the subject of the article he or she wants improved, an event whose happening I have considerable difficulty imagining, or when the article has BLP violations, which should be directed to the OTRS queue. If the subject in the latter case paid someone to fix the article, the paid editor would very likely give the subject his money's worth in "improvements," which is exactly why those violations should be reported to OTRS. The very, very likely scenario would play out something like this:

1. Subject, probably one with money and prestige, of an article reads it and doesn't like it.
2. Subject pays someone to rewrite it to a "satisfactory" version.
3. The paid editor gives the paying person his money's worth (i.e., inserts disinformation, unreferenced claims, glowing language, etc.). I can tell you that if I were a businessman, politician, or celebrity who paid someone to rewrite an article for me, I would want that article to be good—not just good but damn good.
4. The "improved" version is eventually spotted and fixed, and the editor who "improved" the article is blocked or otherwise reprimanded.

There is nothing wrong with editing an article with which you have a conflict of interest if you follow NPOV, V, RS, etc., but that standard is generally only observed by active users—that is, users who have actually read the core policies, respect objectivity, and uphold neutrality. The paid revisers of these articles generally would not be active users, would not have read the policies, and would respect only the money that they will receive for their services.

If we permit paid editing, no, we will not be completely inundated with adverts, and the site's administration will not be dominated by corporate interests. And yes, we do have spam articles now; but if we allow paid editing, we will certainly receive more advert-edits than before, which will make us look more like Google than Wikipedia. This same sort of situation always seems to play out on this site with politics, so I'll draw a parallel to lobbyists: They are paid to look out in the government for interest groups, which I view as contrary to the spirit of democracy, much like I view paid editing as contrary to the spirit of a free encyclopedia (in both the copyright sense and the "free-as-in-freedom" sense). As mentioned in the sections above, maybe we would glean some FAs from it, but we can do that with volunteer editors and without the increased amount of unnoticed spam that would come with paid editing.

Summary: The potential negatives of paid editing far outweigh the possible positives. Though paid editing could possibly be used for some beneficent purposes, such as those noted in some of the sections above, the very likely scenarios for its use would be for propaganda or advertising. If you want to advertise, use Google, or start your own wiki. The positive things that paid editing could accomplish can henceforth be and have hitherto been done by volunteer work. This is a free encyclopedia. We need editors, not mercenaries.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. I consider this summary an elaboration or continuation of YellowMonkey's. —Animum (talk) 21:10, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
2. I agree.EaswarH (talk) 18:34, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Ha! (talk) 13:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
4. hmwithτ 14:46, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Rd232

There are far too many statements on this page. For this level of discussion activity, the "Statement/Endorse" approach isn't very helpful. Really we need to find a way to be able to create collaborative Position Statements, and thereby (a) limit the number of statements (b) focus on the arguments and (c) use the same approach we do to articles, which has a certain appealing philosophical consistency.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Oh, the irony...' but this is true. We need to focus on where to go from here and a better way to organize the ongoing discussion. hmwithτ 14:45, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
2. Yes, this makes sense. I've thought, along the same lines of "position statements", as you put it, often about how such a method of discussion would work, and it seems like it should be tested sometime. I do think that individual "positions" would have to be relatively atomic for the system to be effective, but the idea is nonetheless tantalizing. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 03:34, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
3. Permission to be bold and re-organize the page so that all similar arguments are grouped together by theme. —harej (talk) (cool!) 04:24, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments:

1. I believe the reason for "too many statements" is that this is a topic every serious Wikipedian has thought about at one time or another: "could I get paid for doing this?" And being a wide collection of individuals, each of us has her/his own take on this matter. That is why this page is pushing half a MB in size. But you are right, Rd232, this page is getting to the point of unreadability: a lot of worthwhile thoughts (& a few not so worthwhile, like maybe mine) are in danger of not being read. It is possibly time for someone to draft a poll on this topic to see if we have come to the consensus I've mentioned on this page & elsewhere: as long as an editor follows all established guidelines and procedures, she/he may be paid for his edits. -- llywrch (talk) 17:02, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by TomStar81

Evidently, my fellow wikipedians have a short memory span.

Just recently, we encountered this exact situation sans the money with Scientology articles. There, the last resort was the unilateral blocking of all isp addresses from the church due to a never ending war of opinions, and these were from people who were not being paid to edit the articles in question. How much more so will the situation here spiral out if money is added to the equation.

Additionally, there is the matter of being paid to edit a non-profit project. Being paid by a third party to edit on a non-profit organization defeats the entire purpose of a website where people volunteer their time because they believe in the mission and the purpose. What we lack for in income for our editing we make up for internally through our awards and prizes and the occasional mention in offline publication. If that was not enough incentive to contribute originally then why should money serve to lure in new contributors.

Then their is the matter of the community as a whole. A house divided against itself can not stand, and if we embrace paid editing then it is my firm belief that Wikipedia will not be able to endure a split between those who accept payment for article development and thus have a vested interest in maintain the articles and those who contribute to the articles for the purpose upon which the site was founded - expanding human knowledge. In effect, we are discussing a permanent change to wikipedia, and it does invite all manner of bad company to the site.

Lastly, with growing number of online wikis out there, it is my belief that we can safely pass on the money-for-edits position. I have no doubt that sooner or later, if it has not happened already, someone will establish a wiki somewhere with this exact goal in mind, and we can point money for articles people there and they can make all the money they want on another site.

The bottom line, to borrow from Kirill Lokshin's advise to coordinators of the Military history project: "The status quo is generally a stable position, if nothing else; maintaining it for a while longer is unlikely to be as controversial as changing it." — TomStar81 (Talk) 05:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Cirt (talk) 11:25, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
2. Ha! (talk) 13:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
3. Well put Nick-D (talk) 02:02, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
4. hmwithτ 14:43, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
5. Durova²⁷³ 16:04, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
6. ThemFromSpace 17:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
7. Enric Naval (talk) 02:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
8. Sketchmoose (talk) 18:12, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
9. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 11:57, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
10. Spoken with eloquence; strong argument. I couldn't have said it better. Cam ^(Chat) 17:31, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
11. CliffC (talk) 18:44, 27 July 2009 (UTC) Paid editing would be an automatic COI.

Statement by SkyBon

In my opinion anyone means anyone. Everyone should be able to edit Wikipedia no matter he\she is or isn't paid. SkyBon^{Talk\Contributions} 19:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Endorse, from an experienced and ethical paid editor. - Thekohser 14:03, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Jay Tepper

I am an outsider less than I am a Wikipedia editor, as I am very new and have only begun to edit articles. So please take that into consideration that this is an outsider's view.

I think that this discussion gets to the heart and soul of Wikipedia. I can understand why Mr. Wales takes the position that he does, as he founded this website and clearly has a utopian and idealistic view of its mission and purpose. The idea that somebody unaffiliated with Wikipedia would use Wikipedia for commercial purposes is antithetical to that view.

I personally don't care one way or the other about that, but I do think that explicitly endorsing paid editing would be very bad for Wikipedia's image, and would remove any tenuous hold it may have on integrity. It is bad enough that Wikipedia has a reputation for inaccuracy. We all know that. It is a subject of ridicule. Were Wikipedia to explicitly allow paid editing, however defined, it would be a green light for swarms of public relations firms to come to Wikipedia on behalf of their clients, both to create articles and to edit the ones that are there.

Some say that Wikipedia's volunteers and policies could prevent paid editing from affecting the content. I disagree. There are millions of articles, the vast majority of which appear to get very little attention from anybody. Some are blatant advertising. Some are obviously written by their subjects. The existence of such articles is bad enough, but I cannot understand why Wikipedia would open the door to even more of them.

As I said, this is the view of an outsider, a new user here, but I think what I am saying would be said by many if not most other people who just use Wikipedia as a source and possibly even trust it. Jay Tepper (talk) 14:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Agreed that paid advocacy would be bad for Wikipedia's image. Ha! (talk) 13:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
2. I think your view as a "outsider" and new editor is very important. I'd like to hear more views of people who read Wikipedia, rather than those who know all of the inner-workings. hmwithτ 14:42, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
3. Enric Naval (talk) 02:27, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
4. The "green light" sentence is beautifully put. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 04:46, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
5. Yes. Sketchmoose (talk) 18:11, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Outraged statement by Privatemusings

Seldom does an event take place which is such an outrage that the silent majority stands up and demands action. But the silent majority is currently demanding that something be done about the wikipedia community request for comments process. But first, let me pose you a question: Is the wikipedia community request for comments process actually concerned about any of us or does it just want to inject even more fear and divisiveness into political campaigns? After reading this letter, you'll really find it's the latter. The foregoing greatly simplifies the real situation but it does indicate in a rough, general way that far too many people tolerate the wikipedia community request for comments process's homilies as long as they're presented in small, seemingly harmless doses. What these people fail to realize, however, is that the hour is late indeed. Fortunately, it's not yet too late to offer true constructive criticism—listening to the whole issue, recognizing the problems, recognizing what is being done right, and getting involved to help remedy the problem. My argument is that the wikipedia community request for comments process takes a perverse pleasure in watching people scurry about like rats in a maze, never quite managing to knock some sense into it. Ridiculous? Not so.

I would decidedly not have thought it possible that even if the wikipedia community request for comments process's sound bites were utterly successful in making a few people feel better, they would still be demeaning to everyone else, but it's true. Life isn't fair. We've all known this since the beginning of time, so why is the wikipedia community request for comments process so compelled to complain about situations over which it has no control? This is not a question that we should run away from. Rather, it is something that needs to be addressed quickly and directly because the wikipedia community request for comments process would have us believe that all it takes to solve our social woes are shotgun marriages, heavy-handed divorce laws, and a return to some mythical 1950s Shangri-la. That, of course, is nonsense, total nonsense. But the wikipedia community request for comments process is surrounded by complacent quiddlers who parrot the same nonsense, which is why it is a wee bit overzealous in its defense of anti-intellectualism. The best example of this, culled from many, would have to be the time it tried to divert our attention from serious issues. The wikipedia community request for comments process maintains that either it can override nature or that obscurantism is a viable and vital objective for our nation's educational institutions. The wikipedia community request for comments process denies any other possibility.

If the wikipedia community request for comments process gets its way, I might very well feel disconnected from reality. Because I unfortunately lack the psychic powers that enable the wikipedia community request for comments process to "know" matters for which there is no reliable evidence, I cannot forecast when it will next try to erode constitutional principles that have shaped our society and remain at the core of our freedom and liberty. But I can definitely say that difficult times lie ahead. Fortunately, we have the capacity to circumvent much of the impending misery by working together to drag the wikipedia community request for comments process in front of a tribunal and try it for its crimes against humanity.

Don't get me wrong; mankind, with all of its accumulated knowledge, wonderful machines, scientific methods, and material power, still has much to fear from laughable, obscene hatemongers like the wikipedia community request for comments process. But the wikipedia community request for comments process once tried convincing me that anyone who disagrees with it is ultimately ruthless. Does it think I was born yesterday? I mean, it seems pretty obvious that that fact is simply inescapable to any thinking man or woman. "Thinking" is the key word in the previous sentence. I don't mean to throw fuel on an already considerable fire, but the wikipedia community request for comments process's imprecations were never about tolerance and equality. That was just window dressing for the "innocents". Rather, the wikipedia community request for comments process wants to extract obscene salaries and profits from corporations that insist that our society be infested with Pyrrhonism, sensationalism, quislingism, and an impressive swarm of other "isms". What does it think it is? I mean, I would never take a job working for it. Given its infantile teachings, who would want to?

The wikipedia community request for comments process has hatched all sorts of whiney plans. Remember its attempt to substitute pap for art? No? That's because the wikipedia community request for comments process's so good at concealing its irritable activities. It's a well-known fact that the wikipedia community request for comments process's trucklers care more about speaking, acting, and even thinking like the wikipedia community request for comments process than they care about what makes sense. It's an equally well-known fact that the wikipedia community request for comments process quite likes using the old La patrie en danger ruse to garner support for its plan to delegitimize our belief systems and replace them with a counter-hegemony that seeks to till the hostile side of the Comstockism garden. When logic puts these two facts together, the necessary result is an understanding that if it can give us all a succinct and infallible argument proving that "the norm" shouldn't have to worry about how the exceptions feel, I will personally deliver its Nobel Prize for Chthonic Rhetoric. In the meantime, the wikipedia community request for comments process seems to have recently added the word "institutionalization" to its otherwise simplistic vocabulary. I suppose it intends to use big words like that to obscure the fact that there are few certainties in life. I have counted only three: death, taxes, and the wikipedia community request for comments process announcing some backwards thing every few weeks. It is time for someone to make efforts directed towards broad, long-term social change. Will that someone be you?

Maybe it helps to think of this as a dada statement of process appraisal. Privatemusings (talk) 11:25, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Hot damn, I knew it from the beginning of time too. Look, I told Moses, (or was it Kant?) I knew it all before, and where was this Privatemusings guy? NVO (talk) 15:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Thekohser

I am an experienced paid editor of content suitable for Wikipedia. When I was under contract with a person or corporation to write a new article about said person or corporation, I had very, very, very little interest in presenting an "advocacy" position on behalf of that entity. Rather, success is measured in durability within Wikipedia, so my highest priority was...

...wait for it...

...because this is important...

...many, many hours of learning have gone into this outcome, so you'd better appreciate it...

How do I write (and publish) this article in such a way that it passes WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:RS, and all the other WP:things, while simultaneously NOT DRAWING THE ATTENTION of the Hive?

Guess what? The articles that resulted were pretty bland, not puff pieces, quite encyclopedic, and (ever since I learned this technique) 100% durable within Wikipedia -- with surprisingly little follow-up maintenance, and likewise lasting appreciation of my clients.

That's why I believe those who oppose paid editing are thinking one-dimensionally, and they often feel the need to frame such workers as "paid shills" and other likewise pejorative terms. In order to rally equally one-dimensional followers, critics of paid editing must demonize the paid editing effort; I imagine because it is potentially, in fact, so non-sinister in its undetectability. My paid content was and remains virtually indistinguishable from the other content found on Wikipedia, except for the fact that, perhaps, it is of a higher encyclopedic and "neutral" quality.

I remain unwilling to disclose my still-undetected paid content contributions to Wikipedia (for the obvious reason that I wish not to feed those who seek revenge on me); however, if you wish to see an example of a similarly-written article, then you may visit the article about National Fuel Gas and compare how it started with how it exists presently. This article was written without request nor payment, but it mimics the style of my other paid content contributions.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Endorse. Cla68 (talk) 12:32, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
2. Self-endorse. I generally support things that Cla68 supports, since he is a talented encyclopedist. -- Thekohser 13:49, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
3. endorse User:Smith Jones 23:13, 20 July 2009 (UTC) - the kohser rational, intelligent, and rational point of view re: paid editing, which is indicative of what hapens when you let someone with actual experience share their prespective rather than just paranoia

Comments

• Comment with that article as an example, supposing there had been a legal matter that had gotten significant coverage in RSs, and where the result went against the company. What would you have written? Supposing the former president had gone to jail for manipulating the stock of the company? Would you have added this material? DGG (talk) 03:47, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

See my comment just below. In that particular article, from the outset I included a cited paragraph about some controversial social consequences of the product that right-wing groups had publicly raised. After some period of time (I think it was a couple of months), another editor came along and removed that paragraph. It might have been an employee of the company, or it might have been a run-of-the-mill left-leaning but otherwise unaffiliated Wikipedia editor. We'll never know, because of Wikipedia's adherence to an anonymity principle. In any case, the paragraph was never restored.

As a matter of course, if my clients had any noteworthy and publicly disclosed skeletons slipping out of the closet, I would indeed give attention to them in my articles. What I wouldn't do is give undue attention, such as what we see at the current Comcast article, where about 60% of the article's content resides in a "Controversies" section, which highlights such affronts to humanity as "Comcast does not carry WGN-TV (which broadcasts Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox games nationally) in Miami-Dade County." Is this the sort of standard for handling unflattering content that you would demand of paid editors? Of course not, because you're a reasonable person, DGG. -- Thekohser 14:22, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: It's very possible that your type of paid editing would be one that I wouldn't object to but without the evidence (the articles) there is no way for me to assess it. I appreciate and understand why you don't want to list the articles but the fact remains that any article should be able to stand up to the scrutiny of the community, regardless of who wrote it and why they wrote it.Ha! (talk) 11:40, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

One of my paid articles receives an average of 5,000 page views per month. It has been modified over 80 times since its birth date in late 2006. Since then, I have not attempted to influence the evolution of its content. To me, this is the very definition of "standing up to scrutiny" of the community. What you're asking for, I have found, more typically manifests itself as "undue scrutiny of a small segment of the community, bent on personal revenge for paid editing". I have no interest in putting my paid articles through that particular process, out of respect to my former clients. -- Thekohser 13:49, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Tk, mine was not an hostile question, but an attempt to evoke a reasonable response, as it did. That article certain needs some attention; I've cleaned individual consumer complains out of a lot of articles (The emphasis should be on the ones that are pubic issues, such as network neutrality). Good PR people do as you do. I've seen a lot of others here--you know how easily spam gets into unwatched articles. That's why I favor full disclosure, so we can judge people by their work. DGG (talk) 00:18, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

You are generalizing from one anecdotal example (your own self-proclaimed proper conduct in paid editing) to apparently reach a conclusion on the topic as a whole. Even if, arguendo, you wrote truly neutrally and would refuse to compromise your own standards, so what? You give 100 people the opportunity to steal and get away with it, some percentage will decline. It is axiomatic that with paid editing the motivation to satisfy the client—to provide the product they have paid for—will take a backseat to the integrity of the encyclopedia in many cases. That is how humans work. That is how business works. That is how psychology works. You are (again self-proclaimed) the lawyer who doesn't engage in deep pocket litigation or dilatory tactics; the butcher who puts no filler in his sausage; the bank that doesn't manipulate numbers, the chemical company that doesn't pollute. It happens and when it does it's great, but generalizing from it is a logical dead end.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:21, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Suppose someone wanted to put this story [21] into the NFG article but met opposition from say, seven registered editors in the pay of the company. If coached, they could cite all kinds of policies and acronyms to exclude it - UNDUE, RECENTISM, NOTNEWS, CONSENSUS, EDITWAR, etc. If I were the coach, I'd advise making edits at other articles ("your home town, your favorite bands - wherever - just try and keep a ratio of about six unrelated edits to each one of Our Company edits, and discuss it at talk mentioning these policies.") The editor that wants to include the story posts at a noticeboard, it gets a few passing responses from uninvolveds, but the issue basically languishes. Inclusion-pushing editor re-posts it there or at other noticeboards - gets scolded for FORUM SHOPPING. Don't you think the paid editors would have a significant advantage in this situation? Novickas (talk) 18:46, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they would, and that is the fault of Wikipedia's founding organizational model that "anyone can edit". Looks like we're stuck with an encyclopedia that can be easily manipulated by small teams of workers, huh? -- Thekohser 17:53, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

how is that more reasonable because of the paid editors? small groups of volunteers who pasionatley belief in a belief that maybe unfounded or crazy and tie up an article or group of articles for weeks, as the machinery of conflict resolution reaches it conclusion beucase of their passion and lack of other things to do than to engage in multifront battles, WP:POINT-making, and less cruel. Paid editors are not more likely to engage in this sort of unethical behavior; if anything, some of them may have a journalistic background and more respect for isues such as WP:BLP adn avoiding copyright infringment and infringment of the rights of others. There is no reason to think that paid editors will be more worse than the regular crazies that i have seen In Action in certain areas of this website. User:Smith Jones 23:07, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Experience shows that most POV pushers are loners (with some notable exceptions in easily-identifiable topics regarding clashes between ethnic or religious groups). There may be two or three editors supporting a fringe POV, but they have no particular motivation to organize off wiki. By contrast, some large corp would undoubtedly have weekly or even daily meetings regarding their latest promotional campaign, and if one team member reports they are having trouble getting a POV to stick in Wikipedia, the response will be "What can we do about it?", and the answer will be exactly what Novickas said above. The only long-term defense Wikipedia has is the shame for the corporation of being found to be in breach of a policy regarding how paid editing may occur ("no paid editing unless such-and-such conditions apply"). Johnuniq (talk) 00:16, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm thinking of someone who is quite the expert on group dynamics and ethical social behavior, and he would have had quite an instructive response to anyone who foolishly thinks that "shaming" is an effective social construct upon which to achieve progress and knowledge. But, you all ran him off the project, too. -- Thekohser 02:39, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Durova

Oh, for heaven's sake. No.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Durova²⁷³ 16:01, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
2. If this is the future of Wikipedia, than count me out. ThemFromSpace 17:52, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
3. Simple. Eloquent. Informative. Perfect. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 19:42, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
4. Read it and weep. Perhaps they were just trying to make a WP:POINT, but if that is anything like the future of Wikipedia, all non-paid editors would leave and the credibility of the site would go to zero. Smallbones (talk) 19:59, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
5. You'd think that folks offering their services as "professional" writers would actually be able to write. "We will explain you about the choices we consider in rendering the text ... the paid editing on Wikipedia supposes a long-term foresight." How about paying these folks to not contribute to Wikipedia instead?   Will Beback  talk  20:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
6. Ugh, are you kidding me? Blah. hmwithτ 20:59, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
7. Cirt (talk) 21:21, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
8. —Animum (talk) 21:59, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
9. Great find, little D. How'd you come across it? -- Thekohser 00:52, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
10. concisely expressed! --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 02:32, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
11. I hope that's a hoax, but I fear that it's genuine. Nick-D (talk) 10:28, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
12. It's real all right. MER-C 13:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
13. Maybe a joke, but it will become real with paid editing, with lots of people from poor countries creating websites like that one for real. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:20, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
14. Enemies spotted coming from wexperts.net. Need administrative assistance. Alexius08 (talk) 01:23, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
15. Yuck! Finell (Talk) 22:09, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
16. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 23:07, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
17. per TomStar81. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 04:27, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
18. -- œ^™ 19:18, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
19. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 13:01, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
20. Sketchmoose (talk) 18:06, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Short Brigade Harvester Boris

Yeah, I'm late to the party.

Paid editing is going to happen. Paid editing is happening. Pretending we can ban it is not realistic.

What we need to do is to get it out in the open so we can monitor the articles for neutrality, COI and so on. I'd favor allowing openly acknowledged paid editing, with the articles being tagged with a template or something, together with a ban on covert paid editing. This would give a powerful incentive for paid editors to do things publicly and above board with no fear of retribution. But if we discover that people are doing it covertly -- and given that they will likely need to advertise, we've got a reasonable chance of finding them sooner or later -- the assumption will be that they've got something to hide. Because they'll have no reason to hide if they're willing to follow our policies. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:10, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Ideally I'd rather this didn't happen, but pragmatically this is the way to handle it ϢereSpielChequers 11:06, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
2. I think this encapsulates the "Better the Devil you know" philosophy of the majority of those supporting the acknowledgement of paid editing on Wikipedia. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:04, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
3. I agree. The Ostrich method is unworkable. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 03:12, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
4. I'm opposed to it but if it happens inevitably it must be open and transparent and regulated. Regarding the parody below: a better analogy would be the prohibition era gangsters or the decriminalization of marijuana. -- œ^™ 19:25, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Parody in opposition

Contract killings are going to happen. Contract killings are happening. Pretending we can ban them is not realistic. What we need to do is to get it out in the open. We need a policy to regulate contract killers and require them to declare themselves openly. We can offer incentives so that they will identify themselves. Etc., etc., etc. (The same argument, especially the first three sentences, could be made about any other criminal or socially undesirable activity; the latter might actually make closer analogies.) Finell (Talk) 22:43, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

A better analogy may be, off the top of my head, personal attacks - which do happen in Wiki space - rather than a sensationalist subject like murder. Murder does not happen on WP but if it somehow did it would not be accepted like it is not accepted in real life - however, paid editing and employment generally is very much accepted in real life (and on much of the internet), and it is WP who is out of kilter by demanding a unrealistic (sh)amateur approach to contributing. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:52, 18 July 2009 (UTC) nb. Personal attacks are also decried outside of WP - it is best to make analogies universal and relevant.

Good points, LHvU. I might also add that not all contract killings are bad for society. Just as quality paid editing on Wikipedia tends to raise the bar above the normal fare of work submitted by most Wikipedians. -- Thekohser 02:45, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Murder is usually considered a very bad thing, equating paid editing to it is emotive but not really relevant, prohibition is a better example as the production of alcohol is celebrated in some societies, tolerated in others and banned in quite a few. If a Hollywood studio or a Premier league football team were to commission a photographer to release good quality pictures to Wikipedia to illustrate articles that already existed would we really want to object? Though I agree we'd want to know which editors were paid to edit and which weren't, and I can foresee the day when we have to set rules as to which teams kit a footballer appears in for the lead photo. ϢereSpielChequers 11:01, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Parsecboy

I've got mixed feelings about this. I certainly agree with the viewpoint that paid editing is going on and there's really no way to stop it. I also agree with the sentiment that as long as the resultant articles stick to our policies, then there's no problem. Also, I suppose it isn't all that different from the bounty board. There's just something that bothers me about the notion of people being paid externally to edit Wikipedia. It might be more acceptable to people if it's required that paid users disclose their clients, but there's really no way to enforce that. While editors could be blocked for paid editing, unless the editor him/herself admitted to being paid, it would be nigh impossible to prove. Another thing to consider is that as long as the pages are being reviewed for GA, A, and FA classes, there'll be people checking them for bias. Ultimately, I think we've been presented with a fait accompli; paid editing is going on and we can't stop it. As uncomfortable as it might make some us, the best course of action is to just accept the situation as it is and move on with our wiki-lives. Parsecboy (talk) 20:15, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

Comment

What can you say about this? It was listed as a good article on January 2009, despite citing primary sources six times and authored by User:Zithan, an editor proven to be hired for doing it. Alexius08 (talk) 13:22, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Not to impugn reviewer, but s/he obviously did not check the sources thoroughly enough. Yes, articles can fall through the cracks, but they will eventually be caught. I seem to recall hearing about a pair of editors reviewing each others' articles for GA as a quid pro quo deal—that was caught as well. Our reviewing system isn't perfect, but it works the vast majority of the time. Parsecboy (talk) 16:09, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Checking the review - Talk:Dalberg_Global_Development_Advisors/GA1 - shows that the reviewer examined the sources and asked for improvements. The article at the time of assessment largely met the GA criteria (there is some personal judgement involved, and some reviewers would have passed it, and others wouldn't) - it has since been delisted - though that was as part of the concerns about paid editing, rather than direct concerns about the listing. It looks to me like the reviewer at the time acted in good faith and made an acceptable decision within the known facts. The article has been subjected to an AFD and survived, and the article is currently rated a B. As an example of a paid article, it's actually more of an argument FOR paid editing than against it. There are certainly many more articles on Wikipedia with far more POV which have been created by people not paid. Some of our worse ArbCom cases have involved unpaid POV editors! SilkTork *^YES! 12:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Gurubrahma

• I fully agree that allowing paid editing on the plea that it happens anyway cannot be supported if our reasoning is based on principle. In the same vein, not allowing paid editing on the plea that we do not yet have mechanisms to take care of COI is also not based on principle, but mere practicality.
• The amateur vs. professional debate (or should it be free vs. paid?) is an old one - both co-exist now in the world of sports and open source software.
• I have been benefited by Wikipedia and intend to help the Wikimedia Foundation financially. However, I am of limited means and as such, I could be interested in stuff such as WP:Bounty Boardand one does inform the people there of targets getting met. A logical extension, one might argue, is that I may even earn this "donation" money from paid assignments received from interested parties/ organizations as long as I notify this. Another logical extension, one could argue, is that one might earn money for himself/ herself through such assignments.
• Wikipedia has reached where it has due to the brave initiatives it has taken - given the medium in which we operate and the community that we build on, trialling a reasonable initiative before rubbishing it on the basis of impracticality is counter-productive.
• Hence, I suggest the following trial of all types of paid editing for a period of 3 months with these safeguards: - 1. Each paid user identifies this interest on the talk page of the article and his user page.

2. He commits to not use any sock-puppets. 3. He commits to abide by all the policies of Wikipedia. --Gurubrahma (talk) 16:28, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

Statement by Ssilvers

Add your statement, leave one copy of the section at the bottom.

Paid editors are just like any user editing his or her own article. It should be permitted subject to the WP:COI restrictions. -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:13, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.