Wikipedia talk:Paid editing (guideline)

Missing the point

I see considerable productive discussion above which touches on several significant things, and many have brought up good points. However, I also clearly see considerable amounts of talking past each other as well. I think I see why this is happening.

Without doubt paid editing is something that, even if unanimously condemned, could not be eliminated by the community without a complete reworking of the participatory nature of the project. So it would be impractical at best for our policies to suggest such a complete universal restriction. However, the argument that it doesn't matter, so long as the editor abides by other policies, does not answer the question of what this policy should say. That argument conditions on here is a otherwise good editor, who has been found to be editing for pay, then asking what should we do?. This is far from the best conditioning argument. It extends only to those who (i) are otherwise good editors who (ii) edit for pay and who (ii) get caught doing (ii). This is not where damage to the project usually comes from.

The most important conditioning argument is, there is a large universe of potential paid editors whose contributions would be problematic (indeed I have participated in areas where I was virtually certain it was already happening). Acknowledging this, what should our policies state to best benefit the project?

Those advocating cracking down on paid editing probably are internalizing the idea that we should not be encouraging paid editing, but are likely phrasing it differently. Those appealing to Content rulz are correct but are missing the fact that the policy will pertain to every potential editor, including all potential problematic ones, not just one preselected good editor. This is what I meant by talking past each other.

The reason why I was so incredulous before about how "lenient" the current guideline is that the major problem is not what to do with otherwise good editors. (The policy should indeed address that too, but that should be relatively easy.) The major problem is how to avoid increasing the burden on the project that problematic paid editors might introduce. This is why the final paid editing policy, whatever it might be, should discourage paid editing, perhaps strongly, not to presume guilt on any one particular editor but to (1) minimize the encouragement to the universe of problematic editors (see WP:BEANS), and to (2) give the community some teeth in it's ability to stop disruption quickly and sans drama when done by an editor whose paid status is subsequently discovered.

We can revisit this from the POV of a new editor who wants to edit for pay. This editor should recognize that what they are doing is frowned upon, but not expressly forbidden. The editor's options thus become

1. disclose. This means they will put themselves under significant scrutiny. That can be a hassle but perhaps it should be documented somewhere that it might also lead to a better article under their care, due to the many eyes intently watching.
2. have second thoughts. For an otherwise good editor this is indeed a loss but it should be notes that many editors under this scope will simply not become good editors. To get rid of a lot of problematic editors and some editors who might be good but are wary of their ability to abide by policy seems a net positive.
3. not disclose but be diligent. But for being paid, these are exactly the kind of editors we want.
4. not disclose but be undiligent/disruptive. These editors will be handled just as other, presumably nonpaid, such editors are. The goal of the policy is to minimize this number. The caveat is, an editor deemed problematic/disruptive by a substantial part of the (involved) community who is then found to have been editing for pay, should be shown an absolute minimum of leniency. A permanent irrevocable topic ban (say) at least. This type of behavior should not be tolerated. Full stop.

One point which is necessary to make this work. Undisclosed paid editing should be deemed (borrowing from US traffic law lingo) a "secondary offense", one that which by itself is not actionable (except for the perhaps uncomfortable consequences of additional scrutiny), but one that when in conjunction with another offense can dramatically change the intervention.

In summary, the policy should lay down an exceptionally bright and clear line in the sand and be crystal clear as to the consequences of crossing it. It should not, indeed really can not, forbid walking up to the line, but should be clear that to do so is to do so at one's own risk. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 19:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

However, the argument that it doesn't matter, so long as the editor abides by other policies, does not answer the question of what this policy should say. - It answers. It says that this policy should not exist.

About the rest of your post, I don't understand the point very well. We both agree that most paid editing is disruptive, but again I don't understand why "an editor deemed problematic/disruptive by a substantial part of the (involved) community who is then found to have been editing for pay, should be shown an absolute minimum of leniency." -why should we be more lenient with a disruptive editor which was not paid? --Cyclopia^talk 19:36, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Now it's my turn not to understand :P. I don't get the first part of your reply. As to the second part, we have a long history of giving second/third/fourth/etc chances to run-of-the-mill disruptive editors; throwing the book at them right away has been deemed overly Draconian, probably because the community believes in second chances. But once an editor has revealed their paid status, it would be hard to put that cat back in the bag, as there would be no way to verify the ceasing of such status. So the trust factor would be forever breached. Remember too that this is designed to benefit the project: demonstrating some teeth will be a good disincentive to other cases where their first priority is not the improvement of the project.

Also, this question is far better viewed the inverse way, it is less lenient on additionally paid for editing editors, that is, the status quo is the baseline against which this policy is measured. To reverse the perspective, to appear to question the enabling of disruptive but pro bono editing is somewhat prejudicial.

Remember, this is something we wish to discourage, not because we should (or can) prevent it, but because the project benefits by discouraging it. Making disruptive paid for editing just another form of disruption does nothing additional to dissuade this disruption, when there is by definition even more incentive to be disruptive in the first place. The dissuasion/discouragement should be accordingly proportional. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 21:09, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to rephrase my first part :)

You said: "However, the argument that it doesn't matter, so long as the editor abides by other policies, does not answer the question of what this policy should say." It is easy to see what it should say following this argument: Nothing. Or, if you prefer, the policy should consist of a 0-byte file with no name. :P (Seriously, maybe I didn't understand you)

As for the rest, now I understand your points and I say that I mostly agree. But they require no policy, they only require a sensible guideline and application of our current COI policies. See below. --Cyclopia^talk 10:23, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

In other words, this policy/guideline should make it absolutely clear that the existing NPOV, COI, edit-warring, and other such policies/guidelines must be scrupulously followed, and that paid editing will result in WP:AGF having much less weight in deciding how to handle the person should they break those policies? I could support that. Anomie⚔ 21:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

If all what the policy would say is what Anomie above proposes, I'm all for it. At this point it wouldn't be a policy, but more of a guideline simply giving sensible advice on how to deal with such cases within our policies. --Cyclopia^talk 10:23, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Of course a policy isn't needed, because it's longstanding policy that one must edit for a neutral point of view and should not attempt to misrepresent the proportion of verifiable information out there. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and doesn't need redundant policies to protect it from a threat that, if it's even a threat at all, is sufficiently addressed by what other editors are doing already - checking one another's work. A guideline that points this out is a great idea because it makes it easier for any erstwhile paid editors to be pointed to the relevant policies and guidelines, which will make them better editors or keep them from being surprised when they're blocked or banned for behavior which is unacceptable whether or not you're paid to do it.--otherlleft 01:57, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see how a "policy" would be redundant, but at the same time a "guideline" would be a great idea. They are almost the same thing, but with a slightly different status. In general, editors are expected to follow both what is in policy as well as what is in the guidelines.--Reinoutr (talk) 09:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

WP has guidelines that help to explain the application of policies. For example, WP:RS. If WP:RS were a policy then it'd be redundant with WP:V.   Will Beback  talk  21:27, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

What would we do if an editor banned from Wikipedia for paid editing and contentious behavior then started sub-contracting out the paid editing to other Wikipedians, who then do the dirty work for him, even knowing that he was banned? This may be an example of exactly that. -- Orderly Conductor (talk) 04:36, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The reward board has been going for a long time, though I don't know how successful it really is. I don't see that anybody is breaking any current or proposed rules here (Is theKoser sp? really completely banned?). At least it is out in the open, done according to a Wikipedia selected method, and can be monitored. BTW the reward board would be a lot more successful if they paid more than $15 per article. Get it up to $100, and I might even participate. Smallbones (talk) 04:45, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Realistically editors are not banned for being a paid editor but for breaching other policies/guidelines. Ergo a meat or sockpuppet of theirs, once revealed would also be blocked/banned. -- Banjeboi 18:48, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Request for suggestions

Any ideas about what to do about this article, evidently written because of this offsite request? Stub it down to something neutral? There are more, of course.--chaser (talk) 06:45, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd put NPOV, unsourced and COI tags, make it as neutral as possible if you feel to, and make the community aware of it and its author on the appropriate noticeboard. --Cyclopia^talk 09:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

So where do we stand?

I know the community RfC was generally in favor of allowing responsible paid editing (although not everyone agreed it was possible to write an neutral article and be paid at the same time). I also know Jimbo spoke out very strongly against it. So besides having no official guideline/policy, where does the community stand on this matter?

Hypothetically speaking, let's say a regular editor is approached by a company (perhaps owned by a friend) asking him/her for help getting an article on Wikipedia and offered compensation in exchange for his/her time. The editor verifies the company passes notability and writes a neutral article. Obviously, if the editor says nothing no one will ever know, but let's say he/she discloses the compensation on the article's talk page and WP:COIN. By making this disclosure is he/she risking community wrath?

Or take another scenario where an editor decides he/she wants to write about a favorite business. If he/she just writes the article, obviously there is no issue, but let's say he/she approaches the company first and asks if it is willing to compensate him/her. If this editor makes the proper disclosure, is he/she risking a block/ban?

Thoughts? --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

You're incorrect in your premise. A great many people spoke specifically against the usual notion of a paid editor. A person who discloses their paid editor status will probably be subject to a great deal of extra scrutiny. They may be asked not to make the edits to the relevant article(s) at all. Certainly if an editor came to me to ask if they should edit, my advice would be to avoid the apparent conflict of interest and make suggestions of changes on the talk page. If they made the edits anyway, if there were an apparent conflict of interest, I would probably seek community consensus to appropriately protect the encyclopedia, which may include a block. If an editor were discovered to have made edits for pay, without disclosing their status as a paid editor, where there is a clear conflict of interest, that's simply unacceptable to most people. They would probably be blocked. Indeed, such a person might well expose the company who hired them to negative press, as has happened before. It is simply a really bad idea to do things secretly. --TeaDrinker (talk) 06:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I should have been more clear... what I meant by "generally in favor" was that more people endorsed the "it's not really different than other COIs" type statements than the "ban anyone who has been paid for any article" type statements. Obviously, there wasn't a true consensus as to what should be done or it would have become an official guideline. I didn't mean to imply there was one.

As I thought would be clear from my examples, my intention here is to discover what these means in practical terms. If we are being honest, we all know undisclosed paid editors exist on Wikipedia (but probably in small numbers.) If one is just going to get blocked/banned if he/she comes discloses his/her COI, what possible motivation is there to make that disclosure? Maybe that is the way we want it - at least this way we avoid the PR embarrassment of having a policy that says paid editing is OK.

Obviously, paid editing is a tricky situation. I really don't know what the "correct" answer is here. I am just interested in where we currently stand from a practical standpoint. If a newbie shows up and writes good articles that are later discovered as freelance work, what will most likely happen? What if instead of a newbie, we are talking about a long-time contributor who was only paid for a small percentage of his/her recent work? --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:09, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, blocks and bans are for the protection of the encyclopedia, not as punishment. The first step would not be a block, if someone came forward and said they had been paid. If they came forward with "muhahaha you can't catch me," then sure. But if they come forward for advice, I think we can give them advice--avoid conflicts of interest. If they choose to ignore advice, we can get a sense of the community, and if they ignore that, sure, block away. But we have no control over the news media, who may make their own judgement. That's a point that is worth noting as well. --TeaDrinker (talk) 06:03, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Accept, Modify or Reject

May I request a formal discussion to accept, modify or reject this proposal. As another editor suggested, that discussion should be required before tagging with {{failed}}. Thanks.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     17:47, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The basic premise of this guideline (not policy) has been stable for a while with only cosmetic changes for many months. One change I think should be discussed is the Paid editing only equals "payment" rather than what was there, "Paid editing is editing Wikipedia in return for material reward or compensation." I think the same issues arise when someone isn't being paid "extra" for updating their company's article but they are indeed considered a bit less objective. There is also the cases of students or volunteers earning recognition for a job well done but technically no money was given. As for the formal discussion I think it would be good but how do we do it?Wroted (talk) 17:59, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I thought that it had been so long since this was requested a guideline that Consensus in its favor was not established within a reasonable period of time. So I posted {{failed}}. I don't think there needs to be a formal discussion to reject this proposal, otherwise this would drag on. -- This proposal was first proposed on 11 March 2007. -- Oh, it is dragging on. :) -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 17:43, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

The page was created on that date but it has been worked on since and I do not see any attempt to formalize it to go to a vote. To me it seems like there are still a few problems to work out, like the redundancy issues and ensuring the admin statement is accurate. The page also could do well to sort out how to deal with potential paid editing situations (focus on the edits and interactions first, witch hunts seems counter-productive, etc and wheer to report problems if not at the COI board.Wroted (talk) 12:13, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

• Reject - this proposed guideline could easily be viewed as encouraging paid editing - even as a "how-to" manual on how to squeeze by the rules to do paid editing. It is so far from the consensus on Wikipedia against paid editing, that it will never become an accepted guideline, and thus can serve only as a source of confusion to people who read it. It's time to put this out of its misery. Smallbones (talk) 17:15, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
  • "Squeeze by the rules to do paid editing"? What rules? What consensus? This is the best we have, and it amounts to don't ask don't tell. I'd prefer a more open system in which paid editing is acknowledged and managed. - hahnchen 22:21, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes this is clearly Don't ask, don't tell, but that has nothing to do with the current rules. Paid editing is obviously a strong conflict of interest, but don't ask, don't tell does NOT apply to WP:COI. Smallbones (talk) 13:36, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

As nobody has actually come forward in several weeks to accept this as a guideline - it's very clear that that this should be marked "failed" - I'll do that within a few days. Smallbones (talk) 17:38, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Marked as failed as no new discussion has come up - certainly nobody has said anything about "accept". Smallbones (talk) 17:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Administrators

I'd like to suggest that Administrators be expressly forbidden from any and all Paid editing, with defined sanctions and penalties. The WP:COI issues involved would be very risky, and very difficult to mitigate. While this is mentioned now in the drafts, it is not clear enough. We only have the text "Using administrator tools for compensation is strictly forbidden". That doesn't go far enough. Administrators should be strictly forbidden from any and all paid or commercial editing. Period.

It may be fair to have an amnesty period, where current admins can fess up and declare their past COIs without fear of reprisal. If an administrator then wishes to do commercial editing, they must first turn in their admin bit and then redeclare their COI as a normal editor.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     03:04, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the current wording came from Wikipedia_talk:Paid_editing_(guideline)/Archive_7#Administrator_tools_statement. If I read that correctly it's roughly the same issue as all paid editing in that it's unlikely to know i someone is paid unless they cause problems or reveal themselves. Likewise being paid for a specific action may be a violation of trust but there is nothing "on the books" besides WP:ADMIN which is clear enough that "Administrators are also expected to observe a high standard of conduct.", etc. I don't think there will be support for this as there are examples where an admin could technically break such a rule while not the spirit, paid Wikipedia foundation member or consultant, etc or a paid editor who does non-controversial admin actions. I think the main point is that if an admin is asked to make an edit with the tools that they wouldn't make if they weren't being paid then their judgement is questionable and that's already covered.Wroted (talk) 11:54, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Unless the edit is merely one of direction. For example there if there is no difference between how they edit an article on Inflation having offered a bounty, and how they edit an article on My favourite software company Inc having been paid, then they are more or less harmless. Rich Farmbrough, 18:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC).

How To Declare a COI

This proposed guideline currently says "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". This is very broad, and leaves much room for different interpretations. A while ago I tried to get some discussion going on User talk:FT2/Commercial and paid editing regarding this. Perhaps it is an idea to move the convo here. Some areas that could use clearing up:

1. When should you disclose?
2. How should you disclose?
3. What must you disclose?
4. What must you not disclose? (ie: WP:ADVERTISING)
5. What articles must you disclose your COI on?
6. What articles must you not disclose your COI on?
7. What articles may you choose to disclose your COI or not?

etc. Just a start. Thanks.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     14:11, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that editors with such a COI are likely to fall into one of two categories:

1. SPAs; they just focus on a particular article or group of articles associated with the subject of their COI;

2. Editors who have a normal range of editing apart from a COI on a particular subject - perhaps somebody who felt their experience could earn a few $ at a paid-editing site, or somebody whose employer says "Hey, you know wikipedia don't you? Could you fix our article..?".

In neither case do I believe that there's a net benefit to mandatory disclosure on article talkpages. In the first case, because the COI is obvious from the edit logs; and in the second case because I think there are demarcation problems between COI and non-COI edits, and because we risk stigmatising a contributor to a hundred pages simply because they had a COI on one page.

Userpages seem to be the place where everybody says "This is me! I'm interested in X, I have a career in Y, I like to do Z". Even people who don't think that they have a COI will often put something on their userpage which gives a clue. So, if we are to hang leper-bells round the necks of people who are getting something in return for wikipedia contributions that are otherwise policy-compliant, the userpage would be a perfect place to hang the bells. Why mandate further declarations elsewhere? bobrayner (talk) 20:39, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

A most interesting metaphor, the leper-bells. Another one: The Scarlet C.

One important issue, that I don't see anyone really discussing yet, is the contradiction between COI declares and WP:ADVERTISING policy. Continued COI declarations on article talk pages will, in effect, be promotion and advertising for the commercial entity doing the declare. The more good, includeable pages the commercial entity creates, the more "forced self-promotion" they will be doing.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     21:02, 30 November 2010 (UTC)