User talk:MyWikiBiz: Difference between revisions
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Jimbo Wales (talk | contribs) If you continue |
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:All interesting thoughts and concepts. As I've said elsewhere, it's up to the leading Wikipedia authorities to take this "a step further", not me. I currently have a workable arrangement which the co-founder of Wikipedia has himself endorsed. He has expressly disapproved ("Absolutely unacceptable, sorry") of alternative proposals to somehow "flag" paid-for content in the Wikipedia mainspace or userspace. Personally, I think people are more afraid of the '''appearance''' of impropriety than the actual improper activity itself (which, as you say, is already very active here). Hillman, you know you're taking years off your life, don't you, with all of this investigative "digging"? I hope it gives you some sense of reward. My reward is the satisfaction of (and payment for) introducing NPOV info about businesses where there was previously none. --[[User:MyWikiBiz|MyWikiBiz]] 03:04, 29 September 2006 (UTC) |
:All interesting thoughts and concepts. As I've said elsewhere, it's up to the leading Wikipedia authorities to take this "a step further", not me. I currently have a workable arrangement which the co-founder of Wikipedia has himself endorsed. He has expressly disapproved ("Absolutely unacceptable, sorry") of alternative proposals to somehow "flag" paid-for content in the Wikipedia mainspace or userspace. Personally, I think people are more afraid of the '''appearance''' of impropriety than the actual improper activity itself (which, as you say, is already very active here). Hillman, you know you're taking years off your life, don't you, with all of this investigative "digging"? I hope it gives you some sense of reward. My reward is the satisfaction of (and payment for) introducing NPOV info about businesses where there was previously none. --[[User:MyWikiBiz|MyWikiBiz]] 03:04, 29 September 2006 (UTC) |
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== If you continue == |
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If you continue to misrepresent my position, and troll people dishonestly, I will ban you personally and permanently. |
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Let me be perfectly clear about this: you are treading on thin ice. Your entire approach to Wikipedia is 100% antithetical to our community values, and what you are proposing is deeply unethical and inappropriate. |
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It is especially inappropriate that you attempt to influence policy which would allow you to reap profits from spamming wikipedia with corporate fluff, by misleading people about my position on it. |
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I very strongly recommend that you stop editing Wikipedia altogether, and close your company. I will speak long and loudly against what you are doing every time I am asked.--[[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales]] 03:46, 5 October 2006 (UTC) |
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Revision as of 03:46, 5 October 2006
ARCHIVED TALK:
User_talk:MyWikiBiz/Archive 1:June 2006 - August 12, 2006
User_talk:MyWikiBiz/Archive 2:August 12, 2006 - August 30, 2006
If you are looking for:
"What should Wikipedia do about editors who are paid to contribute to Wikipedia?"
...please go to User_talk:MyWikiBiz/Archive_2. You may read the discussion there, but if you have anything new to add, please do it on my current Talk page (below). Or, join the discussion at Conflicts of interest.
Public relations
Public relations people are going to write articles in Wikipedia whether we like it or not. I've offered my draft of how I think this should be approached. If you have comments, for now please use its talk page: I've deliberately left this in my own user space. - Jmabel | Talk 18:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
October 7th
Hey! Always good to see someone with the same birthday :) If only I knew before hand, maybe my vote would have been different....*evil laugh* heh heh heh! >:) Thε Halo Θ 16:31, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Gregory,
Thank you for your comments. I have modified the page to include the information you provided, but in future please leave them in User talk:Hillman, where I am sure to see them promptly! (Unfortunately, it seems that I forgot to add the header I meant to include, which I have now added. This header asks other Wikipedians not to edit my user subpages but to comment in my user talk page if they have a concern.)
If you haven't already done so, by the way, please see this for why keeping notes is sometimes acceptable. I think you recognize that wikishilling is highly controversial, so I take it you are not very surprised to find that your edits are being watched more closely than those of most other users here. I hope you won't that personally. I encourage you to think of Wikipedia as a glass house in which all your actions are visible to anyone who happens to glance in your direction. This is how I think of my own edits--- I have no doubt that my edits are also watched more closely than those of many other users, in part because I am publically some notes for my developing essays on forthcoming policymaking discussions. ---CH 02:18, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
So how does your service work? Do you write the articles then post them to your website under GFDL where it is then reviewed by other Wikipedia editors and copied here? If so, it seems woefully ineffective, I see your article on Arch Coal there which is pretty good, but there's no version of it on Wikipedia. I suggest you take them to Wikipedia:Articles for creation where they can be reviewed and posted. I also feel that after review, it should be posted under your account so the articles can be better tracked. I actually think it would be better to post the article on a user subpage, such as User:MyWikiBiz/Arch Coal, post this to AFC, and if it is accepted, then for another Wikipedia user to move the page over to the main space. - Hahnchen 16:41, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
- "Woefully ineffective" is how I initially felt about it, too, Hahnchen. But, all of our clients who have had any urgency about their articles being posted, have been promptly picked up and posted. (We know how to contact open-minded non-paid editors.) When we proposed to Jimmy Wales essentially what you've mentioned here -- to post new articles on a user subpage, so that there would be some transparency in our process -- Wales responded: "Absolutely unacceptable, sorry". He does NOT want MyWikiBiz working for pay in the article mainspace OR in user space; and I have to assume that includes WP:AFC. Besides, AFC is full of backlogged garbage and declined spam, with which I don't want to be associated. This is the problem with Wikipedia being run by fiat. Good, sensible, logical ideas can be shot down, and there's a chilling effect on further conversation. Take a look at how the activity on WP:COI died down when the community began to realize that discussion was somewhat pointless if it was just going to run counter to Wales. We tried to launch 100% in the bright, disinfecting sunlight of full disclosure, but Wales has clearly demonstrated that he wants it this way -- no tracking because it's off-site, no clear disclosure because there's a certain "randomness" to who posts. Furthermore, out of respect to our clients' transactional privacy, we take down their GFDL content from our site once it's posted by someone into the Wikipedia article mainspace. Whew, I hope you enjoyed that explanation! Finally, I'd like to ask you, Hahnchen, "why didn't YOU post Arch Coal (found here) into the article mainspace?" -- MyWikiBiz 18:56, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
- Firstly, a technical idea - rather than having 27 sub-pages, links to all articles to be evaluated could be easily displayed on a single page. I'm a little concerned about the referencing being used, presumeably these are based mainly of information verifiable from the company website and the google finance link? LinaMishima 19:19, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
- Your article on Arch Coal is much better than the majority of articles at AFC. I do not think there are significant referencing concerns on the Arch Coal article. The reason I didn't copy it over to the main space, is because I do not want my account associated with that article an an anon IP copying it over would look suspicious. Which is why I think that the article should be posted to your userspace, or say to AFC, where it could garner a review. I think the Jimbo decree is the wrong option, it stands in the way of accountability. I want to be able to track the paid-for articles on Wikipedia, to check for POV pushing etc. I do not want to take responsibility for other people's work by copying the Arch Coal article, even if in the edit summary I wikilinked your username, it would still obscure other editors from checking which articles were authored by your company, as your User-Contributions would be hidden. - Hahnchen 23:58, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
- The big problem is that although almost anything goes in userspace, we cannot encourage the world to apply this to everything. The reason for this is google - it cannot distinguish between a userpahe and a real article, and nor can most visitors! Sad but true :( LinaMishima 00:43, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
- Google can easily differentiate between Userspace and article space. For example, see my "on hiatus" article at User:Hahnchen/KISS. Even though that has been around longer than KISS: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child and contains more content, my neo-article is not ranked anywhere near as high as the main article due to lack of inbound relevent links, categories etc. Try it on Google and see. I've worked on various pages in my userspace such as Kingpin: Life of Crime and Abram Arkhipov and the same applied there. - Hahnchen 01:18, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
- The big problem is that although almost anything goes in userspace, we cannot encourage the world to apply this to everything. The reason for this is google - it cannot distinguish between a userpahe and a real article, and nor can most visitors! Sad but true :( LinaMishima 00:43, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
- Your article on Arch Coal is much better than the majority of articles at AFC. I do not think there are significant referencing concerns on the Arch Coal article. The reason I didn't copy it over to the main space, is because I do not want my account associated with that article an an anon IP copying it over would look suspicious. Which is why I think that the article should be posted to your userspace, or say to AFC, where it could garner a review. I think the Jimbo decree is the wrong option, it stands in the way of accountability. I want to be able to track the paid-for articles on Wikipedia, to check for POV pushing etc. I do not want to take responsibility for other people's work by copying the Arch Coal article, even if in the edit summary I wikilinked your username, it would still obscure other editors from checking which articles were authored by your company, as your User-Contributions would be hidden. - Hahnchen 23:58, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
- Firstly, a technical idea - rather than having 27 sub-pages, links to all articles to be evaluated could be easily displayed on a single page. I'm a little concerned about the referencing being used, presumeably these are based mainly of information verifiable from the company website and the google finance link? LinaMishima 19:19, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
"Model" at Mywikibiz, modify or not.
Please remove "model behavior in the Wikipedia community" from your userpage.
I also don't agree with using "logical" and the marketese writing, but keeping that's up to you. -- Jeandré, 2006-09-16t06:08z
- How about "future attempts to exhibit model behavior in the Wikipedia community"? Would that pass muster in YOUR personal judgment of MY user page? --MyWikiBiz 15:32, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Openness
Thanks for your transparency about what you are doing. I hope you can preserve more information about what entries you are working on here, on your user page; and can develop a body of useful work on the project outside of your client work as well. More editors who are doing work on behalf of others should follow your lead, rather than hiding these connections. You have said something about removing original content from your site once it is migrated to wikipedia, to veil its origins; do your clients really care if you do that? It seems much more interesting if that connection is preserved, and if people can study comparative changes to those articles over time. +sj + 19:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
- Legaly, under the GFDL, the original author needs to be given credit. ---J.S (t|c) 20:00, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
- Sj, I'm afraid one man's "interesting" is another man's "fodder for attack". Being that several noted Wikipedia administrators have made it known that they are opposed to what we do and look forward to deleting anything posted of ours, even despite the provisions of the "Jimbo Concordat", we are afraid to draw unnecessary attention to the clients we have served or the articles written, as that would only make easier the work of these detractors and deletionists. (See the history of Norman Technologies, for example.) If we could have gotten full transparency agreement from Mr. Wales, then that would be a different story. We'd suffer the criticisms in the article mainspace, but at least everyone could see that we were making every attempt to write NPOV content. But, c'est la vie. If anyone is dying to monitor articles we've started, I'm willing to reference the aforementioned Norman Technologies, Arch Coal, and The Family & Workplace Connection (which we created pro bono, but came as an order through our website). --MyWikiBiz 04:12, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
- The posting of Arch Coal in accordance to the Jimbo Concordat is exactly the kind of system that I don't want to see. If these articles are written in a neutral tone and of encyclopedic value, then they should be on Wikipedia, and would hold up to increased scrutiny. What we need is openness and transparency, otherwise there is absolutely no way that people will be able to track the "paid for" articles. Right now, nothing about Arch Coal suggests that it was written by a paid agency; there should be some notice on the talk page, and the article should have been posted by User:MyWikiBiz. I really cannot understand how the current hidden system is an improvement on that. - Hahnchen 15:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
- I couldn't have said it better myself, Hahnchen. Why don't you contact Jimmy Wales about it, and see if you can't get him to change his mind? He was pretty adamant with me. I think he's being stubborn, because the Concordat was "his idea". But that's just my opinion. In his defense, he's also said elsewhere that the community should make these kinds of decisions, so it's up to people like you, and Stevage, WAS_4.250, Jmabel, Kelly Martin, Eloquence, Trodel, Fan-1967, NeonMerlin, Sj, and LinaMishima, et al, to hash it out. Why don't you guys form an action committee? Until I see a formal guideline or policy that's clearly different than the Concordat, I have no choice but to follow it (and exploit it for all it's worth as a marketing advantage). What OTHER firm has a personal accord with the co-founder of Wikipedia?! ;-) --MyWikiBiz 16:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
- The posting of Arch Coal in accordance to the Jimbo Concordat is exactly the kind of system that I don't want to see. If these articles are written in a neutral tone and of encyclopedic value, then they should be on Wikipedia, and would hold up to increased scrutiny. What we need is openness and transparency, otherwise there is absolutely no way that people will be able to track the "paid for" articles. Right now, nothing about Arch Coal suggests that it was written by a paid agency; there should be some notice on the talk page, and the article should have been posted by User:MyWikiBiz. I really cannot understand how the current hidden system is an improvement on that. - Hahnchen 15:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
- Sj, I'm afraid one man's "interesting" is another man's "fodder for attack". Being that several noted Wikipedia administrators have made it known that they are opposed to what we do and look forward to deleting anything posted of ours, even despite the provisions of the "Jimbo Concordat", we are afraid to draw unnecessary attention to the clients we have served or the articles written, as that would only make easier the work of these detractors and deletionists. (See the history of Norman Technologies, for example.) If we could have gotten full transparency agreement from Mr. Wales, then that would be a different story. We'd suffer the criticisms in the article mainspace, but at least everyone could see that we were making every attempt to write NPOV content. But, c'est la vie. If anyone is dying to monitor articles we've started, I'm willing to reference the aforementioned Norman Technologies, Arch Coal, and The Family & Workplace Connection (which we created pro bono, but came as an order through our website). --MyWikiBiz 04:12, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
My approach
I've responded to you at User_talk:Jmabel/PR#What_about_creating_.22new.22_articles.3F. - Jmabel | Talk 07:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
A modest proposal
Here's an idea which will no doubt prove as controversial as everything else related to your company :-/
What about creating a header for mercenary articles, including any migrated from your website? (Something similar to existing headers for content migrated from Brittanica 1911, for example.) If you and Jimbo agree, the Concordat could be modified to say that anyone modifying one of your "articles for hire" would include a header saying that this article originated as an article for hire at your website, or another company with a similar business model. What's in it for you? Free advertising by another name, darn it all. What's in it for the Wikipedia reader? Warning that content may be slanted.
As you may realize, I hate the very idea of articles for hire, or advertisements by another name, but am willing to go along with Jimbo's "wait and see" attitude for now. It's always dangerous to sacrifice a principle (no advertisements, volunteer labor) and since Jimbo has been very resistant to the idea of sacrificing other cherished principles which have probably outlived their usefulness (welcome anonymous editors), I was very surprised by the Concordat. But as long as he's gone so far, it might make sense to at least discuss taking it a step further.
I do take the point that if you simply must do this, it is better to do it openly, and I also take the point that there is every reason to think guerilla marketeers are very active here and probably pose a more serious threat to the interests of Wikipedia readers. Sigh...
If this "article for hire" header doesn't fly, what about a "volunteer article header" for say the talk page in case of articles you created on a volunteer basis? That would be pretty useless to most readers, but it would help me check that the Concordat is being observed. (Note that I fear that the persons who move articles from your site to WP might be "movers for hire", so Jimbo has started down a slippery slope. I hope you will check harder than anyone to verify this isn't happening.)
Well, just a thought, do with it what you will. ---CH 00:29, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
- All interesting thoughts and concepts. As I've said elsewhere, it's up to the leading Wikipedia authorities to take this "a step further", not me. I currently have a workable arrangement which the co-founder of Wikipedia has himself endorsed. He has expressly disapproved ("Absolutely unacceptable, sorry") of alternative proposals to somehow "flag" paid-for content in the Wikipedia mainspace or userspace. Personally, I think people are more afraid of the appearance of impropriety than the actual improper activity itself (which, as you say, is already very active here). Hillman, you know you're taking years off your life, don't you, with all of this investigative "digging"? I hope it gives you some sense of reward. My reward is the satisfaction of (and payment for) introducing NPOV info about businesses where there was previously none. --MyWikiBiz 03:04, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
If you continue
If you continue to misrepresent my position, and troll people dishonestly, I will ban you personally and permanently.
Let me be perfectly clear about this: you are treading on thin ice. Your entire approach to Wikipedia is 100% antithetical to our community values, and what you are proposing is deeply unethical and inappropriate.
It is especially inappropriate that you attempt to influence policy which would allow you to reap profits from spamming wikipedia with corporate fluff, by misleading people about my position on it.
I very strongly recommend that you stop editing Wikipedia altogether, and close your company. I will speak long and loudly against what you are doing every time I am asked.--Jimbo Wales 03:46, 5 October 2006 (UTC)