Wikipedia talk:Commercial editing

Paid Editing Proposals

In November 2013, there were three main discussions and votes on paid editing:

No paid advocacy (talk) (closed: opposed)

Paid editing policy proposal (talk) (closed: opposed)

Conflict of interest limit (talk) (closed: opposed)

New draft

I've taken SlimVirgin's proposed text and made some tweaks based on the extensive feedback. I can support this proposal. The main change is to eliminate the reference to "paid advocacy" which is confusing to some people because all advocacy is forbidden on Wikipedia. I've tried to be more literal by referring to paid editing of articles. Jehochman ^Talk 22:04, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support: I like this so much more than all previous proposals. It is clean and points to how paid editors should behave and can participate in a simple fashion, rather than completely forbidding the possibility of constructive participation. This still leaves scholars who may be employees of academic institutions or publishing concerns in a gray area (and perhaps that is OK). I still believe that we need to hammer out more effective ways of addressing the problem of non-paid fans and other PoV-pushers (including paid editors, licensees, volunteers and others who choose not to reveal their advocacy). • Astynax ^talk 02:26, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose: I would prefer a zero paid editing policy, and this feels like it can open the door for weaker rules against it. I would rather not see some talk pages will turn into an order book, i.e. placing orders for edits. If one editor agrees with the edit request, and another disagrees, is it settled in the same way as normal conflicts? Still would like to hear opinions from advocates for the policy though. Esoxid^{talk•contribs} 03:25, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment - This is still in the draft phase and needs a rewrite, so supports and opposes are premature. I think I know what you mean in the "Subject-matter experts" section, but it is written so loosely, you could drive a truck through it. What's a subject-matter expert? What does it mean to " simply make sure that their external financial relationships in the field do not interfere with their primary role on Wikipedia."? Just need to tighten it up. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:27, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
• Especially with the phrasing "must not edit affected articles directly", this proposal seems concerned with edits to existing articles, remaining silent about the creation of new ones, which is a major activity of hired writers. Should it be allowed in the main space, user space, the incubator, Articles for Creation, or not at all? The phrasing "paid Wikipedia article writing services [...] violate Wikipedia's policies" implies article creation is not to be allowed at all; if that was intended, it could be said explicitly. —rybec 04:59, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose I do not believe an anti paid editing policy to be necessary or desirable. Note that our most virulent POV hawks, religious and nationalistic matters, are certainly not paid. All this will do is drive it underground. Far better to find an agreed path forward with the paid editing firms. Far more effective.--Wehwalt (talk) 05:35, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

There is always going to be a suspicion that paid editors have a built-in bias and/or agenda that may conflict with the encyclopedic purpose. That is not always the case, though it does occur, and this proposal is less drastic than the complete ban being sought by many. Since the real problem is advocacy, I'm wondering if the community would be satisfied if there were an automatic review process for contributions by paid editors, rather than banning their edits completely or having them submit a request that another editor insert information or corrections? As people seem to think that an outright ban would lessen the problem of paid advocacy, resources would be freed (from addressing PoV and CoI disputes) for handling such reviews. Regardless of which, if any, proposal advances, the greater problem of the sheer frustration and wasted time posed by all advocacy (paid and unpaid) will still be with us and need to be addressed separately. • Astynax ^talk 08:33, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I think a lot of trouble can be avoided by setting a standard that prohibits paid editing. While some paid editors might be able to edit just fine, it is a slippery slope. All concerned would be better off to set up a "fence" some distance back from the problem that we wish to avoid. The flip side of preventing commercial editing is that Wikipedia needs to be very responsible to requests by article subjects related to the fairness of our coverage. If we don't let them edit, we need to fix bona fide problems when they are reported. Jehochman ^Talk 13:05, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - this draft seems to focus on the status of the editor rather than the content of the edits. I don't think that paid representatives should be banned from making uncontroversial, technical changes. For instance, a company should be allowed to update outdated revenue figures with more recent numbers. I'm concerned that if routine, noncontroversial edits must be requested, these edits will just not be made in a timely fashion. I'm also concerned that we're undermining our WP:SOFIXIT culture. I'd like to see a proposal that says that editors should not make changes that might provide them with a tangible benefit rather than a proposal that says they "must not edit affected articles directly". GabrielF (talk) 07:27, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

It seems like a significant segment of the community is fed up with persistent advocacy that seems to continually worsen, and see paid/COI editing as the source for much of that. Some of CoI edits occur in little-watched articles, so advocacy slips through and may remain for a very long time before detected. Few Wikipedians enjoy taking on persistent advocates and that is another reason that advocacy slips through the cracks. The typical volunteer editor would also have less time and energy to expend on tackling advocacy than a paid employee or consultant, so that causes some to avoid disputing advocacy (or drop out of pursuing the byzantine and drawn-out remedies available). Fans, members, and other motivated editors with no direct financial interest can be equally frustrating in advocating and PoV-pushing, but the point has been repeatedly made that addressing a segment of the problem is at least moving in the right direction. I personally think that there should be a mechanism to allow paid editors to contribute the types of noncontroversial and neutral edits which you mentioned, and at least this draft includes ways they may. "Tangible benefit" may not make distinguishing editors with a COI any easier and may confuse people further (tangible how?). I do not see this proposal as doing enough to rectify the underlying problem (advocacy of all kinds), but I also see no reason that this proposal could not be one of a package of policy measures and example guides more clearly and effectively address advocacy (paid or unpaid), make it quicker and less time consuming to address violations, and create a streamlined way for contributions by paid editors or others who may be perceived as having a CoI. • Astynax ^talk 08:33, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support A balanced well reasoned proposal. Would like to see a bit more about the outing policy not protecting those who are paid editors. If you are the head of marketing of some large firm you should not expect to be able to edit the articles about your products anonymously and not be called on it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:29, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I think we need to say the opposite: outing is not allowed ever. The problem is that innocent people can be outed during a hunt for COI editing. This policy will help invalidate the business model of paid editing. It will help when somebody declares that they work for a business. I won't help when people are secretive. In those cases we can refer to WP:NPOV to stop the advocacy. Our policies each provide different protections, and to be comprehensive there must be overlaps at the "seams". What do you think? Jehochman ^Talk 13:01, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. This may not be perfect, but it is a good starting point and can be improved over time. Jehochman ^Talk 13:02, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment I would like this proposal to explicitly allow using articles for creation. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 15:24, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose, while appreciating the attempt. I can think of 6 ways of gaming this policy right now. A non-enforceable policy is useless. Staszek Lem (talk) 15:51, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support, as an improvement on the first proposal. This is too important to argue to death while nothing is accomplished (SOP here, alas). Miniapolis 16:01, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose (1) Unnecessary policy that will reduce the volume of constructive edits. (2) The draft as it stands would prohibit paid editors from performing even simple edits like updating statistics or dead links, adding citations, or expanding through constructive research. (3) It only allows paid editors to suggest edits on talk pages, which assumes a plentitude of capable patrolling editors. Sadly, we know there are few such editors compared to the size of wikipedia, and we know that pool is shrinking. (4) Clearly undermines WP:BOLD, which states wikipedia develops faster "when everybody helps to fix problems, correct grammar, add facts, make sure wording is accurate, etc." (5) The goals of this proposed policy are already accomplished through other accepted policies, such as WP:NPOV.--Rawlangs (talk) 17:22, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment: At least this proposal has a vandalism clause, though I don't think it's strong enough, since it doesn't cover correcting non-vandalism errors, such as the equivalent of a wrong birthdate, nor does it cover cases where someone from the company asks Wikipedia to fix an error and Wikipedia just delays forever.

And another thing I've notied, both on Wikipedia and elsewhere, is that when it comes to anti-business political positions, it's very common to see someone accuse the other side of being a corporate shill. If you go to Jimbo's talk page and search for Monsanto, you'll see a case where was a user was accused of being a Monsanto shill to such a degree that he had to open a COI investigation about himself just to clear his name. The worse we treat paid editing, the more we encourage this sort of thing. Ken Arromdee (talk) 18:02, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - Bias and propaganda should be addressed. It is possible that a user can be accused of paid editing, while their only intent is to get across a neutral point of view. This would leave the door open for opposing pov pushers. Also, there is no sure measure to know if someone is a paid editor (even if it is sometimes obvious). While unlikely, it is possible for a paid editor to contribute neutral and informative content. Biases cause as much trouble as paid editing can, and removing editing capabilities of one allows the other to push their agenda. Non-neutral pov or promotion should be deleted. Editors should be addressed if they abuse guidelines, including those having to do with bias and propaganda. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 18:10, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
• Weak Support - I frankly prefer the first draft (allowing paid advocates the freedom to edit provided that they weren't violating NPOV and provided that they declared a COI). I think it's often the case that a company will have gained positive RS-based coverage without any negative RS coverage and the paid advocate can quite easily perform advocacy simply by writing an encyclopedic article that covers the activities of the company and the praise it has received from third parties. In other words there are clearly times when advocacy interests and encyclopedic interests can align in the final product. It seems like there should at least be a WP:AFC option available for these editors if they are actually forbidden from editing the articles period. But this has my support for now because something needs to be done about this issue and far too many editors are making the perfect into the enemy of the good here. -Thibbs (talk) 19:25, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

@Thibbs: I agree that AFC should, and would, be allowed under this proposal. There's a problem if Wikipedia has articles about a company, but has nothing about a competitor of equivalent notability. The missing competitor could complain that Wikipedia was damaging her business reputation by not providing equal coverage. Jehochman ^Talk 19:59, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

OK I'll strike "weak". I think it gives the wrong impression anyway. I do support this proposal, but I more strongly support the first draft. -Thibbs (talk) 04:02, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. This proposal is written in pretty arbitrary terms, and lacks a sound theoretical underpinning. For example, the definition of commercial editing may well be tweaked, or have been tweaked, to exclude or include certain things, and it would be hard to tell. It specifically includes two cases which I am very ambivalent about, the reward board and the education program. My feeling is that offering a bounty for an article about a company or individual comes very close to the exact bad sort of paid editing we don't want, and our education program should be Wikiversity or a new MOOC program, not some crusade to get unpaid helpers to increase the value somebody gets when they pay college tuition. I refused to get involved in it when asked because the student needs to submit some kind of token to prove he's part of the course i.e. paid tuition, and that's not Wikipedia, that's just being a chump - an unpaid internship without even the make-believe career prospects. Maybe the perfect is the enemy of the good, but I don't think that starting a policy on this inconsistent basis is going to be productive. Wnt (talk) 19:39, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I suggest we approve something that goes in the right direction, and then have separate discussions about each detail, such as the reward board, and fix them. I think that if the reward board is obsolete or bad, it can be eliminated by miscellany for deletion. If we try to roll too many different changes into this page, we will not make progress. Jehochman ^Talk 19:56, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

That's not really the way I see it. We have a pretty strong informal policy about paid editing thanks to Jimbo, dating back a very long way, and the purpose of a formal policy is to improve the explanation of the concept. The possibility of banning a paid editor using the policy is practically irrelevant - he is an absolute nobody, a low-paid hireling who can be replaced tomorrow - rather, it is the potential for the employer to be humiliated in the press, and/or a careful documentation in our article of the whatever facts the company was seeking to suppress, which is the punishment. So we really don't need to formalize this policy next week or next year. We should only do so when it provides clarity of purpose, rather than confusion. Wnt (talk) 20:15, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I need a write up, endorsed by the community, of whatever this informal policy is. When warning, blocking or banning somebody, I want to point to a document and say, "This is the rule you've broken." If a friend or client asks me to fiddle with their Wikipedia article, I want to have a document I can point to and say, "No, I can't do that myself. Here's how you would go about fixing your article." Writing clarifies thought and helps transfer knowledge. Unwritten conventions are not as effective. Jehochman ^Talk 23:57, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support. This is a good start and it seems like something we can actually get a consensus on. Concerns about what constitutes "paid editing" are easy to resolve as they're already addressed at WP:COI#Financial. My primary concern is in what constitutes "disclos[ing] their conflict of interest." In past discussions some editors have suggested that simply putting a note on one's user page saying "I engage in [unspecified] paid editing" is sufficient. I disagree; the paid editing COI must be disclosed on the talk page being edited, either at the top or included with the editor's first comment in each discussion. No one should ever be incentivized to put COI disclosures where others might not notice them. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:53, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support: See my post on the original proposal. --Elvey (talk) 20:15, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support This proposal is better than the earlier ones. While the exact limits of its scope will need to be worked out over times, we need to prohibit the most egregious forms of paid editing. DavidinNJ (talk) 05:33, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
• Comment. The proposal singles out individuals who are being paid to edit or expect to receive tangible benefits for editing. But what if someone's significant other has a significant stake in the business or organization that he or she wants to edit an article about? (Your significant other, or someone else with whom you have a very close personal relationship – and in the case of a spouse [and possibly a parent], that personal relationship would imply that your own financial well-being is related to your spouse's ties to the business or organization in question.) Dezastru (talk) 23:10, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I'd think that sort of thing would (and should) fall outside of the scope of this proposed policy. You're editing and you're receiving a tangible benefit from the its subject, but you're not receiving a tangible benefit "to" edit the article. Hence the appearance of impropriety is lessened. Of course you'd still have a "vanilla" COI under the WP:COI guideline and your editing would be strongly discouraged. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:47, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

This is straying away from the specific concern I was raising, but following up on what you're saying: Suppose Simon works for an attorney who is retained by Mr. Jones to protect Mr. Jones' reputation, broadly speaking. Mr. Jones does not directly pay Simon (Mr. Jones' attorney does), and Mr. Jones has never even met Simon personally. Mr. Jones hasn't had any discussions specifically about Wikipedia with the attorney, or with Simon. Would the proposal being discussed here be intended to prevent Simon from editing a Wikipedia article about Mr. Jones? Because I can see editors arguing that since they are not party to any formal agreement that explicitly mentions Wikipedia, their edits are not covered by the proposed policy. Dezastru (talk) 05:15, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

If we can get the policy's broad contours right, interesting problems like the one you've posed can be addressed down the road. Editing on behalf of a spouse with a financial COI would probably fall within the scope of WP:MEAT. Jehochman ^Talk 23:51, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I see what you're getting at with WP:MEAT, but as I read that policy, it is the solicitation of editing by the first party that is prohibited, not the editing by the second party itself. A person could be editing an article about their spouse's business, without the spouse being aware the editing is occurring. (I understand that you just want to get consensus on fundamental principles for a policy. I'm just wondering about potential loopholes.) Dezastru (talk) 05:31, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Comment I think this is an improvement but it has the following weaknesses.

1. Per Thibbs, I like the idea that paid advocates have to identify themselves – which would lessen the need for the kind of restrictions that Rawlangs is grumbling about.
2. Per the discussion below, “some other form of close financial relationship with the subject” is very vague and needs spelling out in more detail. As worded, it includes all academics writing about their own subject.
3. “similar scholarly work.” Ha – this little statement hints at a significant bias here. Any casual observer of the advice from academia provided on behalf of the foodstuffs industry may have noticed what a parcel of rogues they seem to be, bought and sold on a regular basis. This idea that educators are somehow exempt from bias, whilst anyone with a commercial interest in a topic is by definition PoV pushing is naïve and absurd. A policy of this kind needs to treat the paid employees of a university on an equal basis with the manager of a car factory rather than assume the moral high ground on behalf of one or other cadre.
4. Given the above – better perhaps to ditch clause 2 altogether, which is in any case largely covered by WP:COI? Ben MacDui 09:27, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

• As per Ben, point 3 is the one I'm still grappling with and am still just not sold on (pardon the pun). Per my response to Jehochman on the original proposal, the concept of 'academic'/'scholar' is being treated as an unrealistic abstraction, and I can't accept simplistic analogies (such as the Theory of relativity) suggesting that academic skill sets are clear cut. Having worked for a university for many years, I know for a fact that academics are heavily influenced by funding. Drug companies (er, I mean the Pharmaceutical industry) hand out vast sums in grant monies in order to establish cheap research and development units (and that is precisely the extent of their interest). 'Academics'/'scholars' contributing to articles surrounding pharmaceuticals must declare the full extent of any potential COI. If Roche is sinking money into their institution, it is not going to serve the academic's interests to bad mouth the company's practices. Neither can one expect NPOV contributions to the article on generic drugs. The same can be said of statisticians, biochemists, GE propagation, ad nauseum. Being retired, I can declare that I have no financial or other interests to declare. There! It's all on my user page. That's not so difficult, is it? Should the situation change, I wouldn't hesitate to declare any employment by any company or institution which could compromise my neutrality. Ultimately, the concept of academic neutrality has to be elaborated on, so I'd probably prefer clause 3 to be expanded on. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:33, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support - this covers the main points of difficulty we have with commercial editors. I hope that if enacted, this will result in many editors, who would have been tiresome COI-pushers, to engage usefully with the encylopedia. Optimistically, I like to believe most do wish to play by the rules. There is a burden on us as the editing community to make sure that there is a working and efficient system for "white-hat" commercial users to obtain edits that are in theirs and Wikipedia's mutual interest. I would suggest this policy page clearly links to a plain-and-simple guide to engaging with the community to request edits.

This will be difficult to enforce for those insist on ignoring the rules, but hopefully this should be a small proportion of COI editors.

Lastly, if this is enacted, I would suggest we reverse part of the usernames policy such that we allow, and indeed encourage, usernames implying association with a corporate entity, such that good-faith corporate editors can engage with the community openly.

Short version, support, but make sure being a good-faith corporate editor can work. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 11:51, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

• Strong oppose - Is this horse not dead yet? This is really focusing on blocking something entirely because of the actions of a few. Good edits are good edits, regardless of who makes them. Bad edits likewise. This is like "stop all editing because some people don't follow the rules". It also doesn't address any of the really important issues like when you are receiving tangible benfit - is an employee editing on their own time, but with a work computer, without specific instruction covered by this? What if they do it at home? What if their boss just says "you're good with computers, can you tidy that up a bit?" The simple fact is that you are not going to prevent COI editing, and this sort of arbitrary rule only serves to undermine constructive editing. Furthermore, just keeping the argument going by starting new proposals strikes me as just trying to wear down the opposition to the point where they can't be bothered to comment on this weeks proposal - this is the 5th one in a month! Drop it, it's dead, move on. OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 12:31, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Once any given proposal has been finalized, a Request for Comments will have to approve it as a policy or guideline, so there will be an opportunity for dissenters to register their opinions then. isaacl (talk) 14:21, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
    • What was the point of that response? Is this to be helpful, or is this a stall? I suspect that there is a lot more non-paid COI editing than paid editing on Wikipedia. Address the advocacy edits, and not on witch hunting that can be used as a means to promote COI that is not addressed by this proposal. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 00:51, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
      • The commenter appeared concerned that through attrition of dissenters, a policy would get enacted. All of this discussion, however, is preliminary to an official RfC, and so there will be a chance to voice objections then, without having to object to each individual draft, if the commenter does not wish to. Of course, to craft a stronger proposal, it is always useful to hear new opinions and insight. isaacl (talk) 13:57, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
        • Ok, sorry. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 17:09, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Especially because of the last part of the proposal: If you see advertisements offering paid Wikipedia article writing services, know that these services violate Wikipedia's policies. Before hiring any of these services, you should ask yourself: do you really want to hire a rule-breaker and risk the potential embarrassment?. This is a clear failure to adhere to WP:AGF by assuming that someone who is getting paid for editing always breaks the rules. That is not necessarily so. The Banner talk 15:52, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
• Comment. I don't see the point of creating this as a new proposal, when it's basically identical to the one Jonathan opposed at WP:BRIGHTLINE. Would it not be better to support that proposal, then make any tweaks if it's accepted as policy? Proposals are never final drafts. Running this as an almost-identical parallel proposal is just causing confusion. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:00, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

  I felt that BRIGHTLINE did not address all the nuances, and that it used the wrong terminology, which is why I opposed. I am very happy with the current draft here. By having different drafts people can inspect them side by side. Jehochman ^Talk 13:39, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi User:SlimVirgin and User:Jehochman. May I suggest that the two of you a) collaborate to make another proposal addressing as much as possible themes that have emerged on both sides; b) withdraw and close down the three that are currently going; c) on the Talk page of the unified proposal, tee up the discussion by summarizing the key "pro" and "con" arguments from these three sprawling discussions, and ask readers to carefully consider those arguments and to refer to them while commenting. This would help a lot and if the two of you cannot come to consensus it is very unlikely the whole community will be able to. I would be happy to help if you like but as the proposers I think it needs to come from you, especially withdrawal of the current competing proposals....Jytdog (talk) 12:39, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I second Jytdog's suggestion that a stop, regroup for a thorough analysis of all responses so far, and then a merged summary proposal is necessary. The support:oppose ratio for all proposals offered so far is staggeringly weighted to the oppose side but I think for all the wrong reasons. Editors seem to be !voting "oppose" in large numbers due to concerns over minor textual ambiguities, misreading of the text as proposed, mere preference for the expansion of an existing policy, or preference for competing proposals. Despite the high number of opposes, I think there exists a general consensus that rules should exist to ensure that Wikipedia does not become a forum for paid promoters and advertisers to sing the praises of their corporate masters. The rules that are currently in place go some distance to prevent this behavior, but these wishy-washy suggestion-style guidelines clearly fail to send a strong message to the paid advocates and the enforcement of these slippery guidelines arrives in the form of ad hoc judgments by individual administrators (usually of a distinctly rouge hue). If the !votes cast so far are scrutinized and summarized, I think we should be able to come up with a decent list of common objections that can then be used to build compromises, identify positional contrasts, and screen fallacious underpinnings. -Thibbs (talk) 16:00, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support, this seems to address the previous concerns, and though I think the previous proposal could just have been edited, we are where we are. This sets down a good, clear set of rules that will let commercial editors know where they stand and what they are and are not allowed to do. Some may still break the rules, but with this in place, they could no longer claim ambiguity. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:03, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose as instruction creep at its finest -- any changes should be made to existing policies, and be fully discussed on those appropriate pages. This proposal is a blueprint for witch-hunts, and not likely to actually improve the project. I strongly oppose "Paypedia" but this proposal does not actually appear workable IMHO. I would point out that while edits may show laudatory editors, those who add negative edits may equally be "paid". Collect (talk) 15:39, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose. I'm losing track of the revisions, but this draft looks worse to me than some of the earlier drafts. Flat out forbidding mainspace edits is plain wrong, as if we are simply jealous of anyone who makes money. Although we need a policy about this problem, and it is a real problem, we should permit such edits, but simply require both transparency and adherence to policies and guidelines. The problem with paid advocacy isn't the part about making money. It's the part about violating NPOV in the service of an outside interest, and deceiving other editors about the motivations for doing so. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:25, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CREEP. It seems disruptive to be spamming so many identical proposals. Warden (talk) 18:09, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

• They suggested there would be another vote on whichever final proposal. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 18:55, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

• Another vote!? We have to keep voting until "they" are satisfied with the result? See Die Lösung. Warden (talk) 09:03, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Note no one asked for votes on this page; people just started listing "Support" and "Oppose" because they like doing that. For better or worse, with Wikipedia's collaborative model, the development of a proposal is typically done in the open, with everyone able to chime in. Unfortunately, this requires patience for reaching the propsal's final form, particularly due to the asynchronous nature of the discussions. isaacl (talk) 13:49, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - What about a Wikiproject to address COI editing, instead? To attack the actions of propaganda. To not witch-hunt the editors who may be writing out of enthusiasm over a subject, and not over monetary gains. Sure, address the editor if he/she abuses policies. Accusing someone may be a cheap attack to promote non-neutral opposing pov. Propaganda is or can be a problem, but there are far worse coi problems on wikipedia.- Sidelight12 ^Talk 19:13, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

It sure can't hurt to have more editors putting eyes onto this problem, and I agree with your formulation about not being a witch-hunt. However, it really wouldn't be that different from having more editors watchlist WP:COIN. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:03, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. --Another Believer _(Talk) 02:45, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - The sheer complexity of this proposal, with its exceptions and clarifications, emphasizes its unworkability. And who will next be banned from editing on the presumption of bad faith: volunteers for political organizations, members of the clergy, global warming deniers, gun control advocates, convicted criminals, officials of evil governments? And what will replace our slogan "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"?--agr (talk) 03:39, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose For the same reasons I opposed the previous drafts. First, it is redundant with existing policies and guidelines which already forbid advocacy of any kind. Second, it contradicts WP:AGF and Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers, not to mention the fundamental principle that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Third, this is a fool's errand as the worst POV pushing comes not from paid editors, but by unpaid editors who will happily push an agenda for free, and who will do so with far more zeal and gusto. No matter how you slice or dice it, this is a bad idea. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:51, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Although this is an improvement. It seems now to be more of a rehash of existing policy statements on the topic. I fail to see why this one category of editor bias is being singled out when clearly other forms of bias can and indeed do exist on Wikipedia that to me are even more problematic than even the paid editing. It still requires voluntary disclosure of conflicts of interest, as anything mandatory is simply impractical and still a violation of WP:OUTING. My largest complaint about this guideline (it really isn't a policy proposal at the moment) is that it still implies a mandatory disclosure even if a strict reading doesn't require such a thing. This is on top of my hesitation about topic bans on editors assuming bad faith, as I do think that an Apple engineer could realistically add some meaningful content to an article about ASP.NET. They ought to be cautious and likely use the talk page much more before they make substantial edits, but I simply disagree even with the restrictions demanded of users in this way. --Robert Horning (talk) 14:59, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support - we need a policy against paid editing and this one seems to be reasonable. I personally would draw the line slightly differently allowing paid edits so far as COI as clearly marked and no edit warring from the paid editors. Still this policy is better than no policy Alex Bakharev (talk) 01:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree with where you'd draw the line. From what you're saying here I think you might be more interested in voting for the 1st draft. That's my preference of the two. This one only has my support as a second best option. -Thibbs (talk) 04:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose It is illogical to assume that paid editing is going away in any way through this proposal. Driving paid editors underground, something they are already doing, is not our goal. A much more nuanced approach must be taken for making paid editors disclose themselves, and get them to work with the community, not against it. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 01:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Comment I'd really prefer is this draft said "paid editing is generally discouraged and not allowed under certain circumstances" rather than stating that it is not allowed from the start. What the first sentence says is not aligned with what the community thinks of paid editing. Paid editing is not a problem. The problem comes from paid editors who deliberately violate our core policies. This draft, although doing a good attempt at solving the issue, does not solve it the way it needs to be solved. We need a soft solution, not a hard solution, given that the problem is not present on all paid editors but on a slice of them. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 03:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose as unworkable. I can't see anything wrong if editors write articles for a fee provided these comply with our policies. We can't ban people from receiving money for making WP edits, and there can be no guarantee that people will not "forget" to declare their interest or set up sockpuppet accounts. We already have strong policies against spam and NPOV that are used daily to combat blatant commercialism or PR manipulation. There are editors here that are repulsed by the mere thought of someone receiving money for contributing to WP, attacking those who do even when there articles arc compliant. Thus I fear that COI declarations will, pardon the Godwinism, stigmatise like the pink triangles of the past. -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 03:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Those who govern the best are those who govern the least. This is certainly the case for Wikis. We already have the necessary tools to remove editors which are more troublesome than helpful. Spannerjam 14:05, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose on several levels. First, we should focus on the content, not the editor. If the paid editor produces good content, he should be welcome; if not, we have procedures in place to address bad conduct. Second, if we were to define a class of editor to discriminate against, we should ban advocates, regardless of their motivation. I have dealt with financial COI and with unpaid zealots and I find the former to be generally more reasonable. Finally, even if we thought this sort of thing was reasonable, it is impossible to administer. Editors would be acting against their own interests to self-identify and the witch hunts around whether an editor is an undisclosed paid editor will just distract from addressing real issues. Celestra (talk) 15:47, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. The section about expert editors editing in their area of expertise is an improvement over previous proposals, but is still seriously problematic. In the example given, why is an Apple employee forbidden from editing an article about a Microsoft product but not forbidden from editing an article about an AT&T product (C++)? What distinguishes Microsoft from AT&T as competitors of Apple? Does this mean that university employees are forbidden from contributing to articles on any other university or their employees, because those other universities are competitors? (I.e., no academic can ever write about another academic?) I think the implications of this are far-reaching, bad, and not carefully thought through. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:23, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. This appears to prohibit being paid by a college, board of elections, or candidate, and editing those articles at all. It's far too broad a prohibition. I would not be able to edit many articles to which I've already done contributions. I would prefer a policy prohibiting editing with the direct or express purpose of editing in a "peacock" style. Bearian (talk) 21:17, 4 November 2013 (UTC) P.S. I am in favor of a COI tag being posted in such articles. Bearian (talk) 21:19, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. So I'm automatically tainted by a fictional "conflict of interest" if I write about my university, or the company I work in, or competing companies? Go away, per WP:SNOWBALL. --vuo (talk) 22:50, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Paid or not, advocacy or not, Wikipedia has clear rules about content which include a neutral point of view, using reliable sources, and not giving any of those sources undue weight. These policies work, and bad info introduced by those who are paid, have a conflict of interest, or are otherwise advocating for a point of view get corrected or rewritten. This would happen regardless of the motives of the editor who introduced the bad stuff. We should always strive to higher-quality content here, but we cannot, and should not, try to legislate the motives of those who introduce that content. I'm sure plenty of excellent edits have been made by all of the above types of editors, and I'd hate to see their edits given undue scrutiny if they stood to make a couple of bucks. Content is king, and motivation is meaningless.--~TPW 23:05, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Wehwalt put it more eloquently than I could; our nastiest POV problems come from editors who carry a burning Truth in their heart which needs no salary, and continuing to focus on whether or not edits are paid draws more attention away from the real issue - whether or not edits are good. We already have policies like WP:NPOV; let's stick to that. (I'm not going to lean on "The Free Encyclopedia that anyone can edit", because a fundamentalist approach to that slogan is no longer compatible with the modern reality of an encyclopædia which has a complex ecosystem of blocks, bans, various forms of protection, WP:CIR, &c) bobrayner (talk) 23:57, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Strongest Possible Oppose Because (a) This will drive experts away from wikipedia!! (b) it's still totally unenforceable and instituting unenforceable policies just makes one look stupid, and, (c) The issue that needs to be addressed is advocacy, not paid advocacy. We need to work to maintain quality standards and avoid personal points of view dominating. Many editors seem to forget that when it comes to editing articles it is not their opinions that matter but rather good quality, reliably sourced information. Let's work to increase awareness of good editing practise in general rather than running around like chickens with their heads cut off responding to the latest drama that has made the news. Morgan Leigh | Talk 00:45, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support. I read and commented upon the first proposal. I felt lukewarm, uncertain about it being a neccessity. Then I spent some time thinking about, and information gathering on a different but closely related Wikiproject. I shared my findings and thoughts, and amicably discussed with others. Now I read the new version of this proposal. It is a significant improvement. I agree with Mini. It is important to have something in place, now, despite the legitimate concern regarding enforcement that Staszek Lem mentioned. Without a statement of policy, it is as though Wikipedia has an unclear stance toward paid editing. --FeralOink (talk) 02:04, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
• Strong oppose Much too complex, riddled with exceptions that don't seem justifiable (why, say, is the British Museum hiring a Wikipedian-in-residence different to, I dunno, Microsoft hiring a Wikipedian-in-residence?), and ultimately the proposal itself admits that it's pointless since investigating whether someone has a financial COI is against Wikipedia rules. So all it really comes down to is: are their edits problematic? If so, the rules to deal with that already exist. Which is why it's time to drop this nonsense.--Pointism (talk) 03:37, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Seems like a step in the right direction. Not perfect, but better than existing policies (or lack of them). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:23, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - a policy that outlines a position, then exempts a list of times it doesn't apply, which compromises ~99% of the times it might apply, is fundamentally broken. Since it's asked, I'm a professional astronomer, and would definitely be prohibited from editing astronomy-related articles by this policy, as I'd definitely be in violation of (1.), and (2.), and probably (3.) It's true the policy contains the vague phrase "Nothing in this policy should be interpreted to mean that subject-matter experts should not contribute to Wikipedia in their area of expertise." - but since the rest of text is a blaring Experts who work in a field making editors to articles in that field will definitely be banned, I must conclude the former statement is merely a vague platitude that won't have any meaning in practice. WilyD 09:11, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose; see #The word financial below. This is turning into a rehashing of WP:COI, but with the word "financial" inserted. The reward or motivation for an edit is not something we should (or are allowed (or are able)) to evaluate: Consider OpenStreetMap which is often described as "The Wikipedia of Maps", many, many people are paid to contribute: it's an opportunity that many would love to have. Ditto for the Linux kernel and most open source software. So why, if we are after promoting open culture, are we seeking to turn Wikipedia into something utter different? All of these other projects have written or unwritten policies about conflicts of interest. Thou shall not backdoor the kernel. Thou shall not delete your competitors business premises from the map. Like wikipedia's existing policies, these are based on evaluating the output, and not evaluating the motivation. —Sladen (talk) 10:33, 5 November 2013 (UTC) I get paid in wikt:kudos.
• Support. Paid editing undermines the integrity of our project. For example, User:Bernie44 appears to be a paid Wikipedia editor who has said so in a newspaper and then creates cruft like this with dubious sources like this record company for a music group called Figures of Light with pageviews averaging 10 per day. If the paid editing policy does not reach consensus, then we should think about focusing efforts on articles with (1) minimal pageview traffic (2) single editors which are usually about (3) businesses or (4) people. I would like a Wikipedia resource which automatically flagged dubious sources.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:36, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose, this is really classist. Some people will accept any work they can get because they have to feed their children and keep the lights on. From what I've read there has been paid editors for years so it's not like the practice is going away unless people are forced to set up accounts with photo id. And even then they can still lie if they are trying to make a living. So all this does is push the entire practice under the ground so even well-intentioned people are presumed to be against Wikipedia ideals. Saltybone (talk) 02:34, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Also this assumes that non-paid editors don't cause the same problems which is unlikely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saltybone (talk • contribs) 02:36, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose a) As I said on the original one or one of the other ones, all you do is drive some editors underground and make them dishonest. The dishonest ones will never admit it. One can only pray they will forget to login and get caught editing from a clearly defined IP. b) Let's face it, Wikipedia won't even deal with editors who proclaim their biases over and over in the most derisive terms, have brought sanctions to whole groups of articles, and are just plain obnoxious pains the butts. (And I'm thinking of several groups of articles, so my current wikihounders don't have to chime in here.) So why in the heck should it be able to detect some paid editor who doesn't disclose it, if they are civil and competent -- not to mention if they act the exact same way? Geeeeez...... User:Carolmooredc talk 07:06, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose This would only make any problem in this area worse. Drive paid editors underground. Also definitions are badly written; far too wide-ranging. North8000 (talk) 14:43, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. [Disclosure: I have never been paid to contribute to Wikipedia.] a) Contributions should be evaluated on their merits, not the motives of their contributors. We should not outlaw acceptable contributions simply because their contributor is being paid. How do we determine that the contributor's only motive is money? b) Is there evidence that up-front disclosure of paid status leads to improved scrutiny of a contributor's edits? c) In Real Life™, people paid to do something are sometimes better at doing it than those who are not. d) Presumably organisations that commission contributions will require those contributions to be persistent, which means the contributors (those with a professional approach) will want to stick to our core policies. e) We don't need to legislate against all paid contributors simply because we think some of them aren't very good at it. We have other, better, policies for editors who have poor skills. f) I don't like the idea that "the contributor has been paid for making some edits, so this contribution should be deleted" trumps "this edit is referenced, well-attested, and improved the article"; nor the idea that if I think an edit is obviously constructive then I must somehow "turn a blind eye" to the fact that its very contribution violated policy. --RobertG ♬ talk 15:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. Present policies are sufficient. Trilobitealive (talk) 15:36, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Present policies are sufficient for content, however, we need to acknowledge and regulate paid editing and COI editing. Highest priority: Disclosure. All paid editors should identify themselves and/or possibly their edits, including all the cases of paid editing, either wikipedian in residence or even people pad by wikipedia as part of projects, or editors who belong to voluntary organizations and write about them. --FocalPoint (talk) 12:17, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose This idea strikes at the heart of the idea of an encylopedia anyone can edit, moreover it is unenforceable, it will increase accusations of COI, and decrease the civility and good faith of the community. It seems a bad idea to create unenforceable rules and regulations. [I have never been paid to edit anything at Wikipedia.] Capitalismojo (talk) 19:41, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose It is not who you are but what you write that counts. This is unenforceable and contrary to the basic ethos of WP. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:59, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose We know and can verify the edits of a user but in most cases we cannot verify whether a user gets paid for editing or has a conflict of interest. The policy as proposed would be giant assume-bad-faith machinery towards new users editing in areas where paid editing with a conflict of interest is common. As before, we should focus on the edits, not the user and where they come from. Existing policy is sufficient to deal with articles that read like advertisements or suffer from biased editing. All this is based on the edits and can be discussed without getting ad personam. The next point is that paid editing is not necessarily a bad thing. It is not uncommon to have paid developers in open source developments (take some of the MediaWiki developers as an example) and why should it be a bad thing when we have a good author who is paid to write excellent articles in an area he or she has expert knowledge? (Yes, the policy tries to excempt such cases but it is overall that ambiguous and fuzzy that there is no clear line what is ok and what not.) Another point is that according to the policy I am possibly not allowed to edit articles about other universities as I am employed by one. I have never edited the article about my own university but why shouldn't I edit other university articles just because other universities could be seen as competitors? Finally, this policy works against all users who honestly reveal their conflict of interest. The real problem are not those who are honest but those who attempt to insert biased content in a subtle manner, possibly with the use of sockpuppets. These users will flatly deny a conflict of interest and consequently this policy will not help in such cases. Overall, this policy would be a new problem for the Wikipedia, not a solution. --AFBorchert (talk) 18:47, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Show me the evidence please that the particular class of editors being targeted here have undermined Wikipedia's quality. On the Chinese Wikipedia competitor Baike one can see that there is an obvious problem as articles are consistently slanted in favour of the Chinese Communist Party's official line. This suggests editors are being paid by the party to tilt Baike and that particular encyclopedia needs a policy to deal with the paid editor problem. I see no such evidence of a similar problem here. It appears to instead simply assume that the powers-that-be like large corporations are wielding their nefarious influence. In my experience the fanatic in his mother's basement is a more difficult editor to deal with than paid editors, who tend to be more knowledgeable, professional, and more civil than the average editor.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:16, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose We already have policies and guidelines in place to remove edits that promote a particular Point of View by someone with a Conflict of Interest. Those two are actually enforceable, unlike all of these new proposals. We focus on the edits, not the editor. Further, the frequently shouted declaration that anyone opposed to these new rules must be paid to edit Wikipedia is a violation of Assume Good Faith and patently false in most cases, including mine. What we need is a WikiProject that will positively engage with paid editors so they can learn to become productive editors here, much like other editors with various Conflicts of Interest such as: political; religious; racial or ethnic; nationalistic; pro- and anti- free commerce; communists; capitalists; democrats; republicans; pro-LGBT; anti-LBGT; etc. Anyone can edit if their edits are productive and neutral, no matter their beliefs, skin color, ethnicity, etc., and no matter what motivates their editing. First Light (talk) 15:48, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• Weak Support It seems that there are actually two issues here: (1) whether one gets something for their work in editing and (2) whether their editing is "flavored" as a result. On the one hand, it has long been seen that the best-quality work (in general) comes from a "professional" (e.g., professional athletes are seen as being better at it than amateurs), and I don't think anybody really wants to see Wikipedia worsened. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine that the fact that one is being paid to write/edit an article (and not by the publisher) will not influence, however subtly, what is written. This is not to say, of course, that there are no biased editors among Wikipedia's millions of unpaid contributors. As the saying goes, the best cure for corruption is sunlight, so perhaps some sort of disclosure might help. The "Wiki-marketplace" could decide if an editor's being paid to work on an article serves as a (dis)qualifier to his or her work. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 20:11, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Conflict of interest for employees

Regarding the two criteria for identifying a financial conflict of interest: though the first criterion is specifically targeted at those paid for editing Wikipedia, it's unclear if the second criterion is inclusive of all employees. Low-level employees are not typically considered to be significant stakeholders, but they do have a financial relationship with the article's subject. Either way, I think this point should be made clear. isaacl (talk) 16:59, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Agreed - this is important and hard because it can define the border between what is and what is not acceptable. If an employee edits Wikipedia 2 hours a year - is that a problem? If an employee is a regular Wikipedia editor and occasionally makes edits to the article(s) representing the employer - is that a problem? What if the employee includes negative information about the employee - not out of spite but in an attempt to provide balance - is that a problem? These issues will need to be resolved some day. -- kosboot (talk) 17:34, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

This is one of the reasons I suggested above that it might be more workable if, instead of banning paid editors (however they are compensated or employed) we substitute an automatic review process for contributions by paid editors in place of the requirement that they submit a request that another editor insert information or corrections. It allows a whole host of editors with possible CoIs to contribute, makes sure that they aren't advocating and actually gives the contributions from such self-declared editors more legitimacy (i.e., in that they will be automatically reviewed). • Astynax ^talk 19:27, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

The paid editor will never suggest negative info about their employer. No matter how accurate and well-referenced their material, the presences of such editors introduces systematic bias. I think the simplest and easiest rule is to just exclude them. On the flipside, when we do that, we become obligated to process requests for repairs expediently. We cannot publish info about people without a process to ensure accuracy and speedy remedy of problems. Jehochman ^Talk 19:35, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I like your formulation. Although if you say "agree" above, that would exclude that, wouldn't it? -- kosboot (talk) 19:41, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

If you're editing within the scope of your employment then you have a financial COI, period. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:55, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Maybe I don't see thinks so black-and-white. "Within the scope of your employment" - what does that mean? If you edit an entry related to your employer -- and WP activity is NOT considered part of your employment - is that ok? If you're a professor of Victorian literature, and you edit an entry dealing with Victorian literature, there is certainly a possibility of financial interest there - so why is that ok? -- kosboot (talk) 21:33, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

"Within the scope of employment" is a common legal term that roughly speaking means within one's job duties or expectations, typically for the benefit of the employer. If WP activity isn't considered part of your employment expectations then you have a "vanilla" COI that would fall under WP:COI but not under this proposed policy. As for the professor, professors generally aren't expected to edit Wikipedia and when they do, it's almost always anonymous, so there's no benefit to the university. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:46, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree. There are many cases where one can edit an article related to one's employer without any possibility of a tangible benefit to either the employer or the employee. As an example, an engineer for a major technology company wants to update List of displays by pixel density to include the latest generation of his company's products. The company is not going to derive any material benefit from this minor technical change. GabrielF (talk) 01:54, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with GabrielF here. What if one's editing activites are "outside the expectations" of one's job. Is that ok? And if it is, how do you define the border? (One problem with this discussion is that is stems from the Wiki-PR case so everyone is insuring that explicit for-profit editing is disallowed - but I think that's preventing what people should be thinking about which are the borders when something goes from unacceptable to acceptable. That would be more useful in clarifying the issue. -- kosboot (talk) 03:11, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I do agree. If an employee of a company uses the requested edit process on the talk page, with a good source indicating the display's pixel density, someone else will add it for them without fuss. But they do have a COI, and that still should be reviewed by a third-party editor. I've always stayed away from editing pages on my employers or their products entirely, but if I thought something needed to be done, I would follow the COI procedure. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:50, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I think we also need to clarify whether we need lists of seniority to define "low level" employees or whether we are opening a whole can of worms with this idea and can just leave it up to individual cases to adjudicate on a case by case basis as to COI.

Perhaps a concrete example would illustrate the difficulty. Imagine the example of a serving New Zealand Police officer. Standing orders prohibit that NZP officer from making a public comment in the media, (and editing WP discussion pages would probably come under that category; copy-edits and sourced contributions to articles would probably not) where the identity of the officer is revealed and/or it might be construed that the individual officer is not contributing in a strictly personal capacity, without the NZP officer getting pre-clearance from his/her superior in the chain of command. If that officer gets such pre-clearance from his/her superior to edit WMF projects on the basis that such edits will be made anonymously, then does that anonymous WMF account then have to declare a COI when editing an article relating to motorcycle gangs or cannabis legalisation lobbying groups or even political parties advocating a sharp reduction in police budgets (since the officer might be construed as "... editing articles related to a... litigation adversary, or an interest group that advocates regulation of, or sanctions against, your business or industry"? Or could we limit disclosure where the officer is of rank lesser than superintendent? --118.93nzp (talk) 22:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Divide and conquer?

I hope these forks don't divide and conquer the movement to get a policy in place. The forks contain the same use of "affected" that Jehochman complained about (by tagging it as vague) in the original!

The massive amount of bad new policy in the "No harassment of editors" section feels designed to torpedo the policy. Glad it's not in the 3rd (AKA 2nd) draft. --Elvey (talk) 20:12, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, I just made it 4. :) (Wikipedia:Sock puppetry/Employees) This is based on my comment above. Wnt (talk) 21:39, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I think we need to keep creating new drafts by refactoring the previous one, taking into account all the feedback. Once a discussion gets to a certain length fresh editors won't bother to read it all, and will be discouraged from commenting. By iterating through drafts we can keep getting feedback and keep making it better. Simply editing the proposal continuously isn't workable because then we don't really know what version people were looking at when they made their comment. If the number of proposals gets too large, we can remove the ones with the least support from the template. Eventually we should get a consensus version. Jehochman ^Talk 01:58, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

needs more examples besides businesses/PR firms

I like this proposal better than the first draft, and "commercial editing" is a much clearer term. However, it leaves too many cases ambiguous, so further clarity is still needed.

• Can an engineer who works for a software company (who isn't paid for their PR work) edit their employer's article? Assume they own minimal stock, and that nobody at the firm would know they made the edits.
• Can a government employee edit an article about their agency? Does it matter if they're trying to get more helpful information out to the public, versus inflating their agency's successes?
• Can somebody who is employed by a political action committee make subject-matter edits on topics addressed by that committee?
• Presumably there should be some mention of nonprofits, unions, religious organizations, etc to clarify the extent of "commercial". The same concerns could apply to such organizations, even though they may not be commercial.
• What about other relationships that are monetary but not owner/contractor? If I'm an ongoing customer of a company, can I edit their article? If I depend on a social welfare program, can I edit its article?

Thanks, Proxyma (talk) 02:23, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I would add licensee, franchise holder, appointed dealer, legal representative, agent and volunteer to the list. • Astynax ^talk 02:58, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I think we should simplify things by saying any editing with the main purpose of generating profit is not allowed. Wikipedia is a non-commercial website. Let's keep it that way. Jehochman ^Talk 12:41, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Your edit here addresses most of my concerns regarding situations in which someone has an interest in advocacy without direct payments. • Astynax ^talk 19:25, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Although I strongly oppose this (outlawing commercial editing), just to keep the playing field level, I would add: Grant reciepients who are editing WP or directing the editing of WP as a result of the grant proposal. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:48, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

If the purpose of the grant is to promote scholarly work, that is not incompatible with Wikipedia's goals. We specifically allow that sort of editing. If the grant is to promote political activism, or commercial advantage, I think we would slam that very hard. Jehochman ^Talk 12:56, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Here's the rub. A grant can be related to "scholarly work" but the resultant editing from that scholarly work can be very POV because of the nature of the grant proposal. And don't lose sight of the fact that universities are "commercial entities" with income statements and balance sheets. Grant $$$ are income for universities, professors and staff. As a result, they behave no different from the Pizza Chain owners trying to create the favorable image in WP that they want. --Mike Cline (talk) 13:05, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Some scholars do hit the PR circuits to tout their own works or programs (or those of their departments), and I would see using Wikipedia for that sort of promotionalism as also being unacceptable advocacy and a financial CoI. Not that scholars shouldn't contribute at all, even in their own fields, but they should recuse themselves from promoting their own work or departmental programs (or attacking opposing works or programs). • Astynax ^talk 19:36, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

How to identify commercial editing

At times users have objected to this policy because they say it will be impossible to enforce with anonymous users. I disagree. Here's an example of a possible paid editing project I came across today, P.H. Yu. Notice how the article was created by a small number of users with no edits outside this topic, and how remarkably good at wikicode they are for having only a few dozen edits under their belts. Notice how the article is strictly positive, even glowing. As a test I added the fact that the gentleman's company Xinnet was the worlds largest registrar of spam domains as of 2009. We will see if single purpose accounts appear to edit war over the inclusion of that negative fact. Jehochman ^Talk 12:41, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Well spotted, Jehochman. The duck test seems to have application outside of WP:SPI. I think the "difficulty of enforcement" argument is exceptionally weak and while it might provide a rationale for refraining from giving a "Support", I simply can't understand it as the basis for an "Oppose". My take on the enforceability aspect is that even if it were impossible to detect this behavior (and your post here puts that canard to rest) there is something to be gained simply by clearly setting out Wikipedia's official stance on the topic regardless. Let's imagine that vandalism was impossible to detect. Honestly this isn't far from the truth - subtle vandalism has persisted for years and is added to the encyclopedia daily. There is still a clear and tangible benefit to having WP:VAND listed as an official policy. -Thibbs (talk) 01:48, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

That is a good indicator of further investigation and the sign of somebody doing an excellent new page patrol review. Articles like you are suggesting here can be created by individuals who don't receive payment for their edits as well, so I fail to see how this example is a good test for paid editing? It doesn't matter if they are experienced at using Wikicode, they could still be new to Wikipedia. It should be pointed out that websites besides Wikipedia use the MediaWiki software (I've edited on many of them). It is possible to get experience using these tools outside of Wikipedia.

I agree that this kind of editing behavior is something that needs to be monitored. I fail to see how this particular draft of a proposed policy change is going to make much of a difference in preventing that kind of behavior. My other huge concern is the false positive problem where somebody who is otherwise completely innocent is being accused of being a paid advocate when in fact they most definitely are not. This policy proposal seems to suggest that such people get railroaded out of Wikipedia with trolls simply because they have the appearance of doing something wrong in the eyes of some. --Robert Horning (talk) 15:11, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't see it that way. Accusations always require evidence. At the Sockpuppet Investigation page we have daily accusations that editors are engaging in sockpuppetry (a blockable offense) and then on the casepage we see the submission of evidence by the charging editor, the disputation of evidence and offer of counter-evidence by the editor charged with the offense, and a final decision by an experienced and neutral admin using tools that would probably be considered outing if they were used by non-admins. This has been going on for years and years and I don't think it can fairly be said that it has provided a blueprint for outing/witch-hunts or that AGF/BITE is now defunct or even that it has resulted in an overly large number of convictions of innocent editors. In fact it's regarded as a necessary part of Wikipedia. Is it "workable"? Is it "enforceable"? Well has it stopped all sockpuppetry? Of course not. Has it driven sockpuppet behavior underground? Surely it has to an extent. But it's obviously wrong to think that the entire SPI program is a net negative for Wikipedia.

It's quite clearly a Good Thing™ that we have a clear-cut and categorical prohibition of negative behavior like sockpuppetry. Yes, some sockpuppets may help out on occasion, and so may some paid advocates. But the risks of them hindering are sufficiently great that a categorical treatment is warranted for both groups. Whatever tiny benefit we might see from them is far outweighted by the huge negatives they can and do produce. This has already been recognized by German Wikipedia where mandatory declaration of COI has been policy for over a year and they have notably not seen a huge swell of bad-faith, newcomer-biting, witch hunts. Simply requiring a declaration of COI (as is standard practice for all academic writing) is only onerous for those who are anxious to avoid scrutiny, but at a collaborative encyclopedia aren't transparency and scrutiny the fundamental underpinnings of our trustworthiness and reliability? Allowing this kind of editor to participate in any manner is far more liberal an approach than we see at any other encyclopedia that intends to be taken seriously. Mandatory declaration of COI would not prevent all damage but it would mitigate it. In an un-winnable scenario like this, pragmatism should be the order of the day. -Thibbs (talk) 17:01, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Re: Jehochman's We will see if single purpose accounts appear to edit war over the inclusion of that negative fact. That's a interesting approach. It's quite common to see desperate, repeated attempts by SPA editors to remove well-cited negative info from articles that look promotional. I've encountered it over the years at Miniclip (security problems reported by Homeland Security), Carnival Cruises (multiple ship fires, ships adrift), Michael Milken (rich convicted felon), Carhartt (popularity with drug dealers used promotionally), Skyy Vodka (it's redistilled industrial ethyl alcohol, deionized tap water, and flavoring, all done by an outsourced manufacturer), Moller M400 Skycar (over forty years of fund-raising and hype, still doesn't fly) and Magnetix (children dead, product recall). Something really bad has to be clearly on the record for this to work. It's not effective for the minor but overhyped company/product/person with little press coverage. John Nagle (talk) 18:54, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

One thing to watch out for is the posting of links. If someone posts a link-to a specific site-in the article, then he/she likely stands to benefit from people following that link. Perhaps, posting links in articles could be subject to special authorization-5 different editors, selected at random, must look over the entry to ensure that it is not promotional. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnDoe4000 (talk • contribs) 16:40, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Links are always of concern. I take especial notice of links when I look at articles, and I am sure I'm not the only one to do so. In addition, while there might be some benefit from readers directly clicking those links, because they're nofollow, they do not help the linked site's search engine standing.--~TPW 22:54, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Ambiguity in "Mitigating circumstances" section

It says "De minimis edits to correct obvious errors are usually not sanctioned either, though the editor...". The words "not sanctioned" can mean "not officially approved by us" or "not given punishments (sanctions) by us". Which does it mean? Lou Sander (talk) 13:53, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I've edited the text to clarify. isaacl (talk) 14:05, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Need to include attack editing for pay

The "Financial conflicts of interest" section, #2, describes a financial conflict of interest regarding editing an article relating to the company or subject that one has a COI with. It needs to mention that editing a business rival's page, etc., in such a case is also prohibited. It's yet another reason why "advocacy" should stay buried as a term in these proposals. First Light (talk) 14:10, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Done, thanks. First Light (talk) 04:22, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Employment questions

Here are two hypothetical examples. State whether they are permitted or prohibited by this proposal.

(1) A person is a newspaper writer. They write a story for their newspaper about a topic, and then they edit the Wikipedia article about that topic.

(2) A person is a professional movie reviewer. They write a movie review for money, and then they edit the Wikipedia article about that movie.

In both of these cases, the person is not editing their employer's Wikipedia page, but is editing something that they are financially connected to indirectly. DavidinNJ (talk) 04:47, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Those cases don't strike me as being prohibited under the spirit of this proposal, because while the reporter or reviewer was paid for the research, 1) they weren't being paid for their Wikipedia editing, they were paid for their content in the other outlet, and 2) most reporters/reviewers are free to draw their own conclusions, so there isn't (necessarily) the "opinion for pay" element. In particular it doesn't conflict with the spirit of the rule, which is editing *for the purpose of* gaining a commercial advantage.

That said, I think this highlights one area for improvement. The "non-commercial editing" section effectively described scholarly cases involving money which are nevertheless allowed. I think something similar is needed for private-sector professionals. It should be made clear that the mere act of receiving a salary in a field doesn't (necessarily, per se) prohibit edits in that field. Barring some explicit connection (competitor, litigation adversary, etc), the standard is whether the editing could create some advantage. This is something that can be left to interpretation and good faith. I think that's what the "subject matter experts" section describes, but it's a little unclear. Proxyma (talk) 08:30, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I've added content to address this. Please look again and re-comment. Jehochman ^Talk 13:43, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Looks good. I added some additional material about journalists and reviewers. DavidinNJ (talk) 19:58, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

The example of a reviewer, on the face of it, seems inconsistent with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. Could you expand upon your reasoning? isaacl (talk) 19:20, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

This goes to my problem with all of these proposals; they focus on the editor not the edit. In the case of a movie reviewer, editing a movie's article to promote their review or to amplify their criticism of a movie would be bad and clearly WP:COI and WP:NPOV. If they're adding in details about the cast, plot, box office takings, etc., in a neutral manner, why would that be a problem? Carter (talk) 19:49, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Jehochman, thanks! Addressing "editing at work" is a major improvement and I like how you have framed it overall. I think this moves the policy further towards viability.

That said, I am concerned by the breadth of the standard of "any article related to their employer or its competitors." Competitors don't compete on all products, an individual employee isn't involved in or even aware of all competition, and "related to" extends even further. Given the difficulty of a written standard for employee edits, perhaps it's best to leave the exact line unspecified and subject to common sense, good faith, self-policing, community interpretation, and ongoing debate.

One possibility: "Many people use Wikipedia as a reference while working. If a user notices an opportunity to improve an article, they are encouraged to do so, so long as they avoid edits which advance their or their employer's commercial interests. Edits should not be directed by, or for evaluation by, one's employer."

This is an equally-strong prohibition on employee edits for gain, employers "encouraging" employees to improve their articles, and PR staff being implicitly hired to do so. Even if it's not explicit, if it's "for evaluation" in one's job, it's prohibited. Meanwhile, it also avoids a blanket article-based ban which could be problematic. Under this language, an Apple employee who uses ASP.NET to develop iTunes for Windows would be allowed to make helpful edits to the ASP.NET page, but not to add a citation to the Surface page about poor sales (even if true), since this plausibly advances Apple's interests. Proxyma (talk) 21:53, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Jehochman, any comments on my suggestion here?

Under this language, an Apple employee who uses ASP.NET to develop iTunes for Windows would be allowed to make helpful edits to the ASP.NET page, but not to add a citation to the Surface page about poor sales (even if true), since this plausibly advances Apple's interests. - A perfect example of "COI will always trump NPOV. RS and Notability". This is dangerous ground. We might as well change "The Encyclopedia that any one can edit" to "The Encyclopedia Whose Editors Can Attack Anyone They Don't Like on the basis of COI" --Mike Cline (talk) 11:36, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

What if? Wikipedian's in Residence

This outlines the Wikipedian in Residence program fairly concisely. Under this proposal, what if General Electric, Apple or other major corporation like Southwest Airlines adopted the Wikipedian in Residence approach. What if they hired a Wiki PR or Wiki Experts to be their "Wikipedian in Residence" and allowed them to behave much like the outline in Outreach? Would that be allowable paid editing? Given this language "The Wikipedian in Residence model was first piloted by the GLAM initiative, but has since been adopted by other types of organizations.", it seems that adopting a Wikipedian in Residence moniker would be the solution to paid editing prohibitions by an interested corporation. Just a question! --Mike Cline (talk) 03:15, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

This isn't too hypothetical. Consumer Reports has had a WiR, which seemed to work out; though they also had a well-defined body of knowledge to share. I think this would be fine, given the highly public nature of being a WiR. Though any editor in residence at a major corporation would have their work closely observed. What problems do you foresee that are allowed by the WiR outline? It expressly prohibits editing areas with a conflict of interest. Are you concerned that anything that Apple has knowledge of that they could share would be somehow tied to their business and so necessarily promotional? – SJ + 09:11, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

@SJ – Actually I am not concerned about this as I strongly oppose the proposed policy and trust it will never achieve consensus. What I was trying to point out was that under the current proposal wording any entity—commercial, non-profit, association, institutions, etc. could chose to designate some representative as a “Wikipedian in Residence”. Such a designation would presumably make the WiF exempt from this policy. The purpose of such designation would be in-fact to get access to the same type of expertise that “Wikipedians in Residence” are providing GLAM organizations today. The WiR could be insourced (an experienced employee) or outsourced (experienced WP consultant) and there clearly could be remuneration involved. If I were an otherwise notable entity (organization, company, etc.) and wanted create content for WP in my areas of expertise or about the entity but was concerned that such editing might fall afoul of this paid editing policy, I would immediately find a way to designate someone (insourced or outsourced) to supervise the content editing (through training, ghost writing, research, etc. etc.). As long as NPOV, RS and Notability norms are being followed, such editing should not be problematic. However, under this proposal as written, the entity would be moved into the “acceptable paid editing” category if they were doing so via a WiR. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:34, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Compromise/Consensus on paid advocacy

I've noticed in these discussions that there seems to be two very desperate camps (and a few more that could likely be identified) on this particular issue. One seems bound and determined to rid Wikipedia of the scourge that paid editors bring to Wikipedia, however they are paid, and the other is equally determined to ensure that "anybody can edit" includes those who might get paid too. I'm sure I can find other sub-camps and perhaps even drastically different viewpoints as well, but that seems to be the primary arguments being raised.

My question is thus: Is any sort of compromise even possible on this topic? Is there some common ground that can be generally agreed upon? I think it can be said that the vast majority of Wikipedia participants want to maintain NPOV standards, frown upon vandalism... in either blatant or subtle varieties, and generally want to see improvement in the quality of the articles being edited and created.

I will agree that it seems slimy to no end that a company openly brags about the fact they have a team of editors (and admins) who work for them as paid staff which will help to sanitize Wikipedia articles. It seems just wrong that Wikipedia as a community would not have a response with some teeth to stop idiots like this from persisting in their damage to Wikipedia. At the same time, what kind of proposal could be put forward that also wouldn't substantially change the nature of Wikipedia at the same time, where other time honored traditions of openness with whomever might be an editor would also be recognized? --Robert Horning (talk) 15:30, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

The paid editors are highly motivated to protect their income stream. No doubt many of them are opposing this. By the time we get to a community-wide RFC, they will be overruled by a healthy majority. Jehochman ^Talk 16:02, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

e/c The Conflict of Interest guideline already has a long-standing compromise and consensus (arguably, since there have been about 50 edits there in the last two weeks, mostly changing the paid editing section). As so many editors have pointed out, our Conflict of Interest guideline and Neutral Point of View policy already address the main issues with paid editing.

Perhaps the main difference of opinion is whether paid editing is any more "slimy" than the COI and POV promoted by racial and religious believers or bigots, political fanatics, people motivated by hate towards another person or a company, etc.—all of whom are getting paid in the coin of their realm. There doesn't seem to be consensus to place different and arbitrary values on the motivations of different editors. Instead, we place value on good edits that follow our policies, as we've always done. First Light (talk) 16:21, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

A Wikiproject to oppose COI editing would be highly effective. It would adapt to the issues and existing policies better than this proposal. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 17:23, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm replying, in part, to Robert Horning's opening comment, and in part, to Jehochman's reply to it. Taking the latter first, I strongly opposed this draft, and ain't nobody paying me to do so; we'll just have to see if your hypothesis about the broader community will prove true. As to the former, I'm afraid that you are largely correct, but I can offer the possibility of a middle ground that may, indeed, prove to get broad consensus. I don't think we can get consensus to ban paid editing, full stop, because it does indeed go against the spirit of anybody-can-edit, and because there are plenty of ways in which paid editing can be non-disruptive. But I think that we may find consensus about prohibiting concealment of the kinds of paid editing that amount to advocacy. We have something pretty close to that in our existing policies, and I think that if those editors in the "ban it all the way" camp come to accept that a full prohibition will not get consensus, they might be persuaded not to oppose what is, to them, a too-mild approach – something that many of them have been opposing so far. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:57, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Robert Horning and Tryptofish, I don't think that a proposal that restricts paid editing undermines the openness of Wikipedia. Per WP:COI, editors are already prohibited from creating or editing an article about themselves. This proposal effectively extends that prohibition to bar an editor from creating or editing an article about a company or product from which they receive direct financial compensation. They can edit any other article, and there's over 4 million to choose from. Bluntly speaking, direct paid editing is very bad. No journalistic, accreditation, or reviewing organization permits it, and neither should we. That being said, I think that we need a policy that bars serious financial conflicts of interest without losing valuable subject matter expertise. Of the 4 proposals on paid editing, I think that this one comes closest to that goal. Can you give an example of a situation where you think that this proposal would cause a problem? DavidinNJ (talk) 22:29, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Tryptofish that there is the possibility of consensus here on concealed advocacy editing, and with DavidinNJ that this proposal is the best compromise of the four proposals. However, I also agree with Robert Horning's concerns that the current draft undermines "anybody can edit." I think this concern, as well as the "outing" concern, could be met by replacing the article-based prohibitions with content-based prohibitions.

For example, replace "editors with a financial conflict of interest must not edit affected articles directly," with "editors must not edit in order to advance their financial interests, or those of their associates." This prohibits the problematic behavior with fewer false positives, and without encouraging "gotcha" outing. In fact, it's arguably more effective at banning problematic editing since some commercial interests may not be closely associated with specific articles.

Similarly, #3 could be rephrased to "you are editing articles to gain an advantage against a business competitor or litigation adversary."

Overall, this accomplishes the goal of focusing on the edits, not the editors. I've made a similar point in the "Employment questions" section. Proxyma (talk) 00:36, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:COI, editors are already prohibited from creating or editing an article about themselves. This proposal effectively extends that prohibition to bar an editor from creating or editing an article about a company or product from which they receive direct financial compensation.

This is not true for articles about yourself, and the fact that this is not true is the main point I've been mentioning in paid editing arguments. WP:BIOSELF allows fixing errors in an article about yourself and WP:AUTO#IFEXIST allows you to "remove obviously mistaken facts about yourself, such as marital status, current employer, place of birth, and so on." So logically, we should allow similar sorts of editing by company employees on company articles. Ken Arromdee (talk) 02:51, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

What is the real issue at hand? It seems like the concern about paid editing isn't the fact that the editors are being compensated for their work while other editors are merely volunteers (although I'm sure that is some of the underlying complaint going on here... thinking it is a matter of fairness and sort of sour grapes they can't get work doing something they like such as editing Wikipedia), but rather that the edits being performed by these editors for hire are of inferior quality to that being made by otherwise non involved participants. It becomes a behavior issue when these Wikipedia participants routinely ignore pillar concepts like NPOV, consensus, or article ownership.

In trying to read between the lines here, and this is at least my take on what is being attempted here, there is what is seen as an attempt to try and stop a class of potential vandals from even being involved in the first place or at least trying to stop them and flag those editors in some way to paint them as potential vandals that need to be watched very carefully. I'm still not convinced that the end goal here, of basically putting a neon sign with a giant arrow pointing at this class of editors as potential vandals to anybody else editing articles they are involved with, will actually work in the first place.

Again I state here, as I've stated in previous discussions, the people we really don't need to worry about are those who voluntarily disclose potential conflicts of interest. Those are the "good guys" who are really trying to work within Wikipedia and to make life easier for everybody else involved. They may be new, naieve, or simply ignorant of the Wikipedia culture but they are definitely trying to work within the system and make Wikipedia better and are at least trying to stick with content policies. Those who are the largest danger, the ones that any sort of aggressive paid editing policy is really directed at, are those who want to hide in the shadows and refuse to disclose any conflicts of interest they may have precisely because such disclosure hangs such a negative view by any other editors involved. They are trolls and should be dealt with as such.

I simply state that I think this whole notion is wrong headed to begin with, but I'm willing to entertain the idea that some sort of genuine consensus could be had here. I'll look at proposals being made to try and rein in paid editing, but I think it is something we as a community will simply need to live with and cope with. The point of many of the tools we use on Wikipedia is that we want to make it harder for trolls to make changes than it is for the "good guys" to clean up after those messes. Certainly this proposal, as constituted as well as previous attempts, seems to be causing more harm to the "good guys" and does absolutely nothing to stop the "bad guys" from still doing damage on Wikipedia. At the very least, that is something I think needs to be addressed in any similar policy proposal in the future.

I am fine with an essay or even a general guideline (more likely an essay that contains "good advise" with broad consensus from many Wikipedia editors) which can be informative to those who may want to be involved with Wikipedia and still edit. It wouldn't have any teeth in terms of deciding individual ArbCom cases, but it might be useful in terms of helping to explain the Wikipedia culture to PR firms and employees of companies that may want to put some positive information about their respective companies into articles about those companies, products they manufacture, or services they provide. I also firmly believe that many of these participants are even needed on Wikipedia, assuming they can behave themselves and work within other long standing Wikipedia policies. --Robert Horning (talk) 18:19, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Request small wording change

In the section "Requesting help", the text says, "Subjects, including people, businesses and groups, have an interest to ensure that their articles are accurate and up to date." Should this not be "Subjects, including people, businesses and groups, have an interest to ensure that articles about them are accurate and up to date"? —Anne Delong (talk) 17:54, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

 Done Jehochman ^Talk 17:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

What undermines Wikipedia most? Comment on 2nd Draft

The new draft is an improvement, but the section on allowed editing for gain is too weak. At least one current offer on the Reward Board sets up the most basic of conflict of interests. For a company to offer a reward for editing a Wikipedia article on that company is a blatant COI. Think about it in terms of, say, a television network news division. Should Wikipedia have a lower bar? Any reward to a Wikipedia editor to work on an article about a subject of financial interest to the offerer is the most basic COI. It's like a reporter being offer gifts to work on a story. Or, say, Disney World offering (which they do) to provide a camera crew, editing facilities, and satellite transmission to a news organization doing a story on Disney World. That's a basic conflict of interest that some organizations refuse, but that many accept. The phrase the encyclopedia that anyone can edit should mean that any individual can edit. And unless you think corporations and other commercial entities are individuals in the realm of ideas and information, corporations should not be allowed to edit directly or by proxy; in other words, a sock puppet. -Neonorange (talk) 20:59, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Good point. The reward board is in the process of being deactivated and marked historical. Check it out. That's a result of the present discussions. There is a benefit to document everything that's going on, make it visible and ask hard questions, like, "Would we be better without this?" Jehochman ^Talk 03:39, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't like the comparison to television news divisions or similar real-world activities. I believe the main legitimate category where a company may want to edit an article about itself is similar to when an individual would--that is, the article is inaccurate or POV or otherwise needs fixing, but Wikipedians don't have the motivation to fix it. Television news divisions don't have someone come in off the street and stick a random statement in a news broadcast that nobody wants to fix except for the subject and that nobody is responsible for. Only Wikipedia works that way. That's why BLP subjects are permitted to edit articles about themselves, and that's why companies should be. Ken Arromdee (talk) 22:38, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

The word financial

We are asked to consider "You have financial conflict of interest if…"; but with "financial" removed this becomes "You have a conflict of interest if…" which appears to be an attempt at rehashing WP:COI. Ideally tweak the wording of the existing policy (if required); otherwise this seems to be unnecessary duplication and WP:CREEP. The form of reward (in wikt:kudos or otherwise) is generally irrelevant when describing what a COI is. —Sladen (talk) 10:16, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

What about the coexistence?

I'm not a guru in wikipedia: I edit when I can. I found this topic important enough for wikipedia that I've read both talk pages and the 4 proposals in hands. Now time for a humble contribution on this matter.

This is what I've grasp from the discussion:

1. It is nonsense for wikipedia to control who is against COI: it is a waste of time and it does not address the content; it addresses the editors.
2. For practical purposes, Wikipedia cannot enforce users to comply with COI since anyone can edit anonymously.
3. Wikipedia is about content's quality, which is addressed in its content policies. The less bureaucracy affecting the editors, the better.
4. Paid editors are inevitable. The more attention wikipedia attracts, the more paid editors join.
5. Paid editors have time for any war, which regular editors don't. Regular editors cannot effort the time fighting these wars.
6. Paid editors are paid by companies. I suspect that the bulk of the contributions (or at least the dangerous ones) are from outsourcing: companies paid to edit wikipedia (and others) to promote the client's image.
7. Companies win their reputation by doing a good job for the client, which in some situations is against what wikipedia advocates (e.g. unbiased content).

The problem I see is that, contrary to what drives wikipedia editors - common good - economic incentives drives advertising companies.

So far, the discussion in manly focused in controlling: ways of advocating what you should and what you shouldn't and how to control if you don't. However, I argue that the practical consequences of this (e.g. in this editing policy proposal) are very limited because the economical incentive for a company, or its paid editors, to follow policies are very small if they are being paid.

What I suggest here is to consider a discussion that focus on the coexistence. How can wikipedia profit from paid editions, and how can companies profit from wikipedia? How can both profits coexist? In this sense, I was thinking on a stackoverflow-like reputation:

Wikipedia has a list of companies that pay editors (with the list of editors working for them) and publicly shares a measure of the company's quality within wikipedia - reputation -, according to which extent their editions are in favor of what wikipedia advocates for its content.

Any advertising company that wants clients profit from having an official measure of trust in wikipedia since it can use it to promote itself. Wikipedia profit from this because it can be generate an economic value to the company, i.e. it can drive the company's behaviour according to what it already advocates.

The tricky part is to choose a good set of measures that represent good and bad behaviour. For instance, consecutive counter-reverts (revert of revert) measures a typical bad behaviour. This measures can always be tricked, as everything, specially if the company only uses the editors accounts for "good" editions. But this means that companies can win points on reverting "bad" editions from registered users (anonymous don't count to avoid auto-inflation of reputation).

The idea behind this is the idea of reputation in stackoverflow, on which users gain/lose reputation by their behaviour on the community. While this is not required for wikipedia editors, it seems to me that it is becoming required for advertising companies paying editors to edit wikipedia because the problem I stated earlier: companies are not driven by common good. Thus, wikipedia's community should have a say on the company's behaviour within the community.

This of course does not address the problem completely, but it provides a starting point for discussing to what extent shouldn't wikipedia try to coexist with paid editors by formalising a symbiotic relation between an advertising company and the wikipedia community.

Does this make any sense?Jorgecarleitao (talk) 16:49, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I am undecided whether I am pro or contra paid editing, but if it would get allowed, something like the above mentioned rating or confirmation of the edits (like in the German WP for new users) might be a good idea. --Saimondo (talk) 17:00, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Jorgecarleitao, indeed it does make a lot of sense to work with the grain of human incentives rather than getting splinters in your thumb from advocating impractical solutions.

Let' leave this zero sum game behind and try to get into a win-win situation as our starting point.

In theory a state run restaurant with state certified chefs, state trained and chosen waiters and décor ratified by the best designers the bureaucrats of the restaurant commission can find should always beat Luigi's Trattoria "Mom & Pop" operation hands down. That's not to mention standards of hygiene. However, recent East German and Cuban experience seem to indicate that the nature of humanity sometimes defies the best laid plans of men... --118.93nzp (talk) 22:33, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

It might be a tiny bit bureaucratic as every rule, but if the regulation is worth it.. Jorgecarleitao was talking about a pretty common ebay/ amazon/web 2.0-like rating system and I was talking about how it is on WP semi-protected pages in the English WP or in the German WP in general, or say the Two-man rule also used in business. How impractical can it be when it is practiced every day in this big scale? I don´t see this connecting to a state run restaurant, DDR and Cuba. Regards--Saimondo (talk) 00:24, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

PR Wikipedia firms and proposal Wikiproject

While I voted oppose, firms that specialize in PR (seeWiki-PR editing of Wikipedia) is a problem. PR editing as a problem has not rivaled other types of COI editing in the past, but this could change. PR companies that specialize in Wikipedia editing are a threat to neutrality and pose an unquestionable COI. I think most who participated here can agree that this is a problem, and this problem could get out of control. Solution, we need a Wikiproject to work together (whether we support or oppose this proposal) to uphold existing guidelines against this. Making a paid editing policy proposal is unenforceable, and it wouldn't stop outnumbering/persistence/puppetry by paid PR editors. What does anyone think? - Sidelight12 ^Talk 14:13, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I think a group of concerned editors getting together in a Wikiproject whose goal is to control and contain PR firms who run roughshod over the community editing process (aka engage in blatant POV pushing, negative reference deletion, and other trollish behavior), as well as providing formal outreach to PR firms that want to engage with the community in a more positive light would be incredibly useful. One of the driving factors here is that a great many companies also want to combat a bunch of grumpy customers or even an aspy who is sitting in their mother's basement and does nothing but push negative information about a company onto Wikipedia. They are feeling helpless and really do think Wikipedia is tearing their reputation as a company into pieces. The whole John Seigenthaler controversy should show that similar things are happening to corporate articles as well, and one of the ways that companies know best on how to handle stuff like this is to go to a PR firm to clean things up. I really do think that positive outreach to groups who respect Wikipedia is the best way to go, and at least the big corporate clients will go to those companies who have a positive reputation as well and will drop the slimy companies in a New York minute. -- Robert Horning (talk) 16:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Robert Horning, I think engagement is exactly the way to go on this. Wikipedia is a large and influential, which means that organisations can't ignore it: especially when the infobox contents is there on the side of the top Google result. My feeling is that for every individual/company to which we can provide an inviting avenue for getting involved and learning Wikipedia's processes that will be a dozen fewer hapless edits that we won't be running after to check and hoping to find. While I can't condone the singling out of those with Asperger syndrome, I would encourage the forming a Wikiproject group as you discuss. In the first instance people are simply often afraid to ask questions. —Sladen (talk) 17:42, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I think this is the most rational proposal since it keeps the focus on where the root problem is: WP:NPOV/WP:Advocacy edits. Carter (talk) 17:55, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Sidelight12, while I agree with you that engagement and vigilance is essential, there is a big hole where a COI policy should be. (I've written this elsewhere in this sprawling discussion, and will just copy it here, please forgive the copy/paste.) My answer to you is on three levels. One practical, the second business-oriented and also practical, and the third grounded in concepts of good governance (which of course has practical effects). 1) Practical. Paid advocates are different. They are, literally, paid to advocate. While volunteer editors hold down day jobs and edit in their free time, paid advocates edit on behalf of clients (or themselves) during their workday. Practically speaking, volunteers just cannot keep up on pages where paid advocates are active. Second, the business argument. Right now, organizations like WikiExperts and WikiPR can advertise to clients that their editing Wikipedia on behalf of clients does not violate any policies, and this is true. As a result we open ourselves up to their staff (employees or consultants) coming here and creating and editing articles that are not written with the goal of creating a great encyclopedia, but rather with the goal of making their clients look good (or at least giving them exposure on Wikipedia). If we made it clear in policy that paid advocates cannot create or directly edit articles, their business model is destroyed, as these companies could no longer represent that they can deliver what they promise; we get rid of the whole slew of problems and time-suck created by paid advocates. Finally, basic good governance. Governments, nonprofit companies, and most for-profit companies, have policies (not guidelines) about COI. This is basic good governance. Like all good governance, many good things follow. Such policies make it clear to employees and volunteers what is OK and what is not, with respect to using public or company resources for personal gain. Having such a policy ensures relevant stakeholders (the public, clients, volunteers, etc) that the organization is competent and is protecting everyone involved from corrupt activities. Having such a policy allows the organization to take decisive action when violations are found (which prevents confusion and inappropriate action). Wikipedia is important enough that we need a COI policy to provide clear guidance to editors about what behavior is OK, to ensure the public that we are on this so we can retain the trust that we have, and to allow editors and admins to take action when the policy is violated or suspected to be violated. I know it is hard work to get consensus around, but we need this. Jytdog (talk) 23:07, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

If I'm understanding your proposal correctly, the goals and tasks you describe sound like a good fit for Wikipedia:WikiProject Integrity. Can your planned tasks be undertaken by this WikiProject, or, for more outreach-oriented tasks, Wikipedia:WikiProject Cooperation? isaacl (talk) 07:04, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Paid for teaching

Suppose a professor is paid by a university to teach a course. Instead of passing out class notes to students, the professor creates or modifies Wikipedia articles, then direct his/her students to read the articles. Is this paid editing? Wikfr (talk) 00:17, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I have done essentially this (although it was mostly putting together collections of readings in the Book namespace, and cleaning up existing articles, with a smaller amount of article creation on topics I was confident in the notability of). So I am very interested in the answer, but I'm not sure you're asking quite the right question. It should be: Is this problematic paid editing? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:32, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

At work I occasionally have to write reports, and sometimes use Wikipedia as a reference to define technological terms (because it saves space to reference Wikipedia rather than to copy chunks of text from Wikipedia into my report). Am I in trouble for correcting errors or improving articles so that I can cite them? For instance, domain name. Jehochman ^Talk 12:33, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Jehochman didn't you create this draft proposal? If even you're not sure about how to treat editing at work, then it looks like the draft has a big problem :). I just think it raises many more questions than it answers. I've proposed solutions to some of the ambiguity, but doing so would likely change the proposal significantly. Proxyma (talk) 22:49, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

That we don't have answers for all questions should not stop us from answering the most common, easiest questions. Jehochman ^Talk 22:55, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

That's a valid point, but I think misapplied here. These questions are being raised by the proposal itself. They weren't at issue, and now they are. To be viable, the proposal must either answer them or avoid raising them. Perhaps the proposal should be more narrowly tailored to address only the "most common, easiest questions" as you put it, which is firms explicitly contracting other firms for assistance, and avoid the harder question of employment status and personal investments. Proxyma (talk) 00:12, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Administering the policy

This draft lacks clarity on how Wikipedia will administer this policy. Providing a policy on paid editing/COI is very important and I fully support it. But for this to be a useful tool for the community, the policy needs to clearly describe a) what an editor should do if he or she suspects another editor of violating the policy (currently the draft says only "Cases of suspected commercial editing may be reported at the Conflict of interest noticeboard" and b) how the community will handle any investigation once a suspicion is raised in the appropriate forum. It should also make clear to editors how not to handle suspicions of COI editing, and possibly provide sanctions for inappropriate expressions of such suspicions. (the prior version had a section on this, which is now gone) As many have pointed out here, we need to preserve and underline WP:AGF -- to do that and avoid witch hunts, and to ensure that investigations are fair and swift, we need to provide clear guidance about what to, and what not to do, when editors have concerns about other editors. This is important to me, as I have been the subject of attacks along these lines. I acknowledge that my perspective on this may be skewed by those experiences and may not be aligned with the consensus.

Concretely, I propose that the Investigations section be changed to the following:

If an editor has concerns that another editor may be violating this policy, the concerned editor should politely and without accusation, call attention to this policy at the subject editor's Talk page. If the behavior of the subject editor does not change, the only appropriate forum for raising concerns is the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard (COIN). The concerned editor must notify the subject editor of the posting at COIN and must present specific edits that raise the concern. Administrators at COIN shall a) use appropriate Wikipedia tools (checkuser, etc) to determine whether the subject editor may have a commercial motive; b) interact with the subject editor offline and confidentially in order to obtain disclosure of the subject editor's interest in the topic; c) review the subject editor's edits; and d) post a summary of findings at COIN and state relevant sanctions (as described below), if any.

Editors who have concerns that another editor may be violating this policy and do not follow the procedure above, may themselves become subject of sanctions. Civility, with its assumption of good faith, is a pillar of Wikipedia and this policy remains subject to that pillar. If an editor discloses a financial interest, it is expected that others will scrutinize the changes made by the editor while not commenting on the editor. Hounding of editors due to their actual or suspected financial interests is not allowed and hounding behavior is subject to sanctions. Furthermore, Wikipedia's "outing" policy expressly prohibits the disclosure of personal information of any editor, including editors who have disclosed a financial interest related to their participation in Wikipedia. It is not permissible to investigate editors for conflicts of interest using sources from outside of Wikipedia.

There you go. Thanks for considering this. Jytdog (talk) 15:05, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

"It is not permissible to investigate editors for conflicts of interest using sources from outside of Wikipedia." Where is this coming from and why does anyone think such a broad statement has policy- or guideline-level support? --Ronz (talk) 21:59, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi User:Ronz. The bit that you picked out (indeed most of the 2nd paragraph) came directly from the first draft of this. I am fine with deleting that bit, and have struck it. What do you think of the rest? thanks! Jytdog (talk) 22:27, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. The four proposals seem to be converging, which is what we want if any are going to be accepted. --Ronz (talk) 23:40, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

It's in accordance with Wikipedia's policy on posting personal information. isaacl (talk) 23:05, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

It's an over generalization of WP:OUTING that conflicts with current consensus on sockpuppetry, vandalism, usernames, conflicts of interest, spamming, canvassing, and more I'm sure. We do look at outside sources. The restriction is on the identification and use of personal information, not on where information comes from that is used to determine if a conflict of interest exists.--Ronz (talk) 23:40, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Remedies

Also, in the Remedies section, there is a sentence: "Articles tainted by commercial editing may be tagged with {{COI}} until they have been thoroughly reviewed and repaired by neutral editors. When an article is unequivocal advertising, it may be speedily deleted." This is too broad and liable to abuse, and should be changed to "Articles tainted by commercial editing with content that violates NPOV or sourcing policies that was directly created or deleted by an editor with a declared COI or by an editor who is later identified via the process described above as having a COI, may be tagged with {{COI}} until they have been thoroughly reviewed and repaired by neutral editors. When an article is unequivocal advertising, it may be speedily deleted."Jytdog (talk) 14:30, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I think we need concise wording to encourage understanding. How about "Articles that appear to have been written by editors with a close connection to the subject may be tagged..."? Jehochman ^Talk 13:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for discussing! The original version was better than that, as the language was more closely tied to the subject of the policy with specific reference to "commercial editing"); your proposal above is more vague... I hear you on the importance of concision; the kind of precision I suggested is indeed too wordy. How about " "Articles with content directly created or deleted by a commercial editor may be tagged..."? I have been involved in article where editors slap the COI tag on too sloppily and more precision would be useful to avoid that. Thanks again! Jytdog (talk) 13:54, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

How about "Articles with content affected by commercial editing may be tagged...", which leaves open all the different possibilities for how a commercial editor could screw up a Wikipedia article? Jehochman ^Talk 14:01, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

good enough, thanks!Jytdog (talk) 14:02, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Why?

We can't force paid editors to disclose their status, can't detect them unless they are incompetent, and can't impose any penalty other than forcing them change their email account. Of all the editors trying to push a point, the paid editors are a tiny minority. Saying "We disapprove of editors working for pay" is pointless. Let's stick to policies that say what result is wanted, not how the result should be achieved. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:14, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree. It is not who you are that matters but what you write. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:55, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Disclosure of COI is more important than the reason for it

Paid or not, a lot of editors have a conflict of interest on some articles. The main thing is that it shouldn't be hidden. If all editors, paid or not, were asked to declare a conflict of interest when editing any article, their edits could be judged accordingly. In this way the paid, or just closely connected, editors would feel welcome to add content, but others would be alerted to scrutinize these edits for bias. Of course, there would be some editors who would hide their COI, but the number of these would be less than it would be if they felt that their edits would be rejected automatically and not given a fair chance. If all COI editors were treated the same, that is, given respect as colleagues if they did their best to follow the policies, the problem of deciding the definition of "paid" is avoided. (For example, is a person who works in an art gallery and writes about artists whose work hangs in the gallery "paid"? Is a member of an orchestra who creates an article about the orchestra "paid"? How about a minister who writes about the bible?) —Anne Delong (talk) 04:16, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Commercial editing

I've copied the latest draft to Wikipedia:Commercial editing and marked it as a guideline because I feel that there is substantial consensus within the community for these statements. A discussion may follow whether to upgrade this page to a full policy. Please continue editing or making comments on that version. I know we have a lot of versions floating around. This is not a problem. They can eventually be merged. Jehochman ^Talk 13:48, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

So now there are five talk pages to try to track. This is getting ridiculous and impossible to follow. It seems that while there is a strong minority opinion in favor of some sort of paid/commercial editing policy, the majority of expressed opinions feel that WP:NPOV and WP:ADVOCACY policies, and keeping the focus on the content/edits not the editor, is the proper approach. I'd urge those who are in favor of some sort of policy to close four of the proposals, create a new unified proposal and then move forward. Otherwise end this based on WP:SNOW. Carter (talk) 14:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, this is an unproductive move. We need to consolidate, not fork yet further or we will never move forward. Jytdog (talk) 14:21, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think moving forward is possible, except to ratify the status quo, but I agree that another proposal is not constructive. There is so much discussion underway that following all this is far too time-consuming. Coretheapple (talk) 15:23, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

In accordance with Wikipedia's policy on guidelines and proposals, the recommended practice is to have an Request for Comments to build consensus for guidelines. The discussion so far has been to refine the proposal to accommodate multiple viewpoints; I do not believe a consensus has been developed yet to label the proposal as a guideline. isaacl (talk) 15:39, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Jehochman there are serious problems with your approach to this (your) proposal. Many reasonable points have been raised on this talk page, yet you haven't addressed many of them, including direct questions posed to you. Failing to do so while forking the proposal again does suggest forum shopping, and unilaterally upgrading it to a consensus guideline suggests that you're discounting our opinions. A third draft would only be appropriate if it incorporated our responses to the second, and ideally withdrew the other drafts.

Overall, I'd like to request that you engage in more good faith dialogue with critics of your proposal. Some of your comments suggest you believe that most opposition is due to paid editors protecting their income. Could that explain your apparent discounting of the opposition here, and declaring consensus when there is none? Not only is it a faulty assumption, it also undermines our chances for actual consensus.

I am unpaid... I'm debating this for free! Despite my misgivings, I've made suggestions to improve your proposal. It's frustrating that these have gone unaddressed. Proxyma (talk) 22:24, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

• If I may suggest something here, I would encourage you, Jehochman, to expand WP:Paid Editing into a full blown essay (not even a guideline) that details concerns and questions about paid editing, written as an introduction to participants on Wikipedia who may receive payment, a salary, or some other form of compensation for their editorial activities. I know that doesn't have the bite you are hoping in terms of a policy or even guideline which prohibits paid editing, but detailing legitimate concerns which many other participants on Wikipedia have about paid editing should be made apparent to newcomers and those who legitimately want to clean up articles about their organization. I really think that an essay is the best way to go at the moment, considering the huge schism this is developing among Wikipedia editors. It can and should be a group essay (not just a single editor), but those can and do express strong viewpoints which not all editors necessarily must endorse either. --Robert Horning (talk) 00:57, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Comments from a brief talk-page fork

The talk page was briefly forked; edit history preserved at Wikipedia talk:Commercial editing/archive. The sections from the new talk page:

Comment

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

• I oppose opening yet another Talk thread here, from scratch. Lots of people have taken the time to come and comment - we have three sprawling discussions on the three main proposals (the fourth proposal on Wikipedia:Sock puppetry/Employees has not gotten any traction and should be removed from the list to the right). To honor the time people have given to comment, and to actually move things forward, I suggest (again, as I just proposed this on the former Talk page) that User:SlimVirgin and User:Jehochman a) collaborate to make another proposal addressing as much as possible themes that have emerged on both sides; b) withdraw and close down the three (and now four?) discussions that are currently going; c) on the Talk page of the unified proposal, tee up the discussion by summarizing the key "pro" and "con" arguments from these three sprawling discussions, and ask readers to carefully consider those arguments and to refer to them while commenting. This would help a lot. If the two of you cannot come to consensus it is very unlikely the whole community will be able to. I would be happy to help, especially with c), if you like, but as the proposers I think it needs to come from you, especially withdrawal of the current competing proposals. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 14:17, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Jehochman you are reading this page as you have commented below - I would very much appreciate a response. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 21:07, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree. It's duplicative and confusing. Coretheapple (talk) 15:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Has this guideline been adopted? How did that come to pass? Also, I want to point out that the shortcuts (WP:PAID and NPAID) go to another page than this one. Coretheapple (talk) 14:28, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Changed header to Proposal to reflect what this really is. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:07, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Of course, now there're three nearly identical proposals, which seems redundant. I wonder if this one could be used, though, to rewrite the real problem, section one, which seems to be the real problem (given that section two and three are immediately dedicated to refuting section one). WilyD 15:23, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

• Stop this please. This fifth simultaneous proposal is forum shopping for something that has, so far, not demonstrated itself to have consenus (or anything approaching it). Please, concentrate discussion in one location. →—Sladen (talk) 15:23, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I concur. --118.93nzp (talk) 15:56, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I also agree with this. Do we have to keep expressing our opposition to the same proposals for all the same reasons, with all the previous discussions hidden away on the other page names? This is getting ridiculous. It's long past time that these were all marked as failed proposals. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:05, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

• Agreed that this should Stop now. For starters, the page is full of unsubstantiated claims, or as I call them, "lies". We shouldn't base guidelines, much lest policies, on the basis of falsehoods. I would go into all of the false claims, one by one, but it just isn't worth the time, since this is just another failed proposal in the making. - 2001:558:1400:10:E1C7:8438:5E48:3232 (talk) 17:09, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree with either you or User:David Eppstein that any proposal has failed (in the sense that we should walk away). There is a great deal of concern about paid editing and likewise, a great concern that efforts to address problems with paid editing would make bigger problems. My hope is that people ~try~ to work toward consensus instead of making this a WP:BATTLEGROUND. Claiming that a proposal if full of lies is just not very helpful. In any case we need to move forward, not laterally. Jytdog (talk) 17:25, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

But supporters of paid editing have a point. No matter how you slice it, they have majority opinion on their side. The way Wikipedia is set up, that pretty much making a curb on paid editing impossible. That passes the baton over to the Wikimedia Foundation, which has it within its power to amend its terms of service as a matter of self-preservation. NPOV is a Foundation policy, and does not depend upon the consent of Wikipedia editors. Even if a majority decided to rise up against NPOV, my understanding is that NPOV would remain regardless. We can argue forever but the maximum result would seem to be a rule that would just enshrine the status quo. If that were to happen, the Foundation may just shrug its shoulders and say "the community has spoken." I think that's the worst of all possible outcomes. Coretheapple (talk) 17:36, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Would the Wikimedia Foundation have the legal ability to define a terms of service that prohibits one class of editor (paid editors) on a non-profit, tax-exempt project with the official mission "to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally"? Nothing there says that the content must originate from volunteer, unpaid editors. To enact such a discriminatory policy on "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" would likely open up a sort of false advertising vulnerability for the Foundation. Could you imagine if the Red Cross said people over the age of 60 -- regardless of their health -- were prohibited from donating blood, or if ProLiteracy said that non-native English speakers -- regardless of their fluency -- could not tutor non-English speakers in reading English? You can't just ban an entire class of people from a non-profit educational mission, just because of imaginary beliefs about their suitability toward fulfilling the organizational mission. Do paid editors help "collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain"? Yes, virtually all of them do; with many of them doing a better job of it than their non-paid volunteer counterparts. For example, here is a crappy stub that was authored by (presumably) volunteer editors, and here it was after expansion by several editors who (presumably) had conflicts of interest. Granted, the second version is full of marketing fluff and some disparaging content, too. But, which one more effectively collected and developed educational content under a free license? Certainly the second version reflects a better fulfillment of the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation. And, of course, eventually through the cooperative efforts of both volunteer and paid editing, the article becomes rather kick-ass. Why would you want to make Wikipedia less kick-ass, by having the Foundation (probably illegally) ban a class of some of the best contributors to the organizational mission? - 2001:558:1400:10:E1C7:8438:5E48:3232 (talk) 20:57, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I checked in with them. They are considering options but the Wikipedia community is really on its own here - we govern ourselves and need to come up with a way to deal with this. It is on us. I for one don't have a lot of patience for the pissing match going on here.Jytdog (talk) 21:05, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Would the Wikimedia Foundation prefer to do nothing? Yes. Could the Wikimedia Foundation ban paid editing? Same answer. Coretheapple (talk) 21:07, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Coretheapple: May I draw your attention to requirements 5 and requirement 6 of The Open Source Definition. If one is seeking to restrict based on endeavour or specific groups, (rather than actions); then a licence would be non-free. You may feel that it may, or may not, be directly relevant but it should give you a quick check as to what types of actions or discrimination are generally acceptable in forming the policy surrounding libre projects and who can contribute. —Sladen (talk) 21:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Paid editors can continue to edit Wikipedia until their fingers fall off. They just can't charge for it. I think that a ban on child pornography would fall into that general category. Coretheapple (talk) 22:38, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I should point out that I am very much not a "supporter of paid editing", meaning people or companies whose business model is to write Wikipedia articles on behalf of subjects who want to have Wikipedia articles written about them. But despite some half-hearted language about it in the last couple of drafts, the supporters of these proposals have failed to distinguish those sorts of editing from other types of editing that are not advocacy but also happen to be paid (e.g. expert editing), and have failed to show how requirements to identify yourself as a paid editor will be enforced or will have a positive effect on the scourge that is promotional editing. Rather than addressing these issues they seem to be making cosmetic changes, changing the name of the proposal, and hoping that the people who complained about the flaws in their previous proposals will just go away. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:46, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't really thinking about you specifically, as there are a lot of people who support, ideologically or otherwise, paid editing. I think that objections concerning expert editing are not and should not be an obstacle as there is no sentiment for curbing it. That falls under the category of "collateral damage" and it can be dealt with, as nobody wants experts to not edit Wikipedia. Personally I think it is not a genuine issue and that there is not going to be any impact on experts editing Wikipedia, but that is neither here nor there because, one way or the other, there is not going to be any progress on this issue. Coretheapple (talk) 18:06, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Coretheapple: I support the creation of a libre encyclopedia that is balanced (WP:NPOV), unbiased (WP:ADVOCACY), reliable (WP:RS) and cited (WP:CITE). Reading the previous four pages of discussion, the majority of contributors appear to share that goal too—and like them, I don't feel a need to evaluate apparent motivation for a contribution meeting those shared pillars. Desiring a libre encyclopedia does not make people either pro, or anti any particular mechanism of achieving it. —Sladen (talk) 21:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

But your reasoning omits the reader, who is left in the dark about whether a major contributor has a conflict of interest as long as the article does not read like a puff piece or hatchet job. Only in Wikipedia is contributor COI viewed as inconsequential, offensive to discuss, rejected as a relevant factor and not to be disclosed to readers and only grudgingly, if at all, to other editors. Coretheapple (talk) 21:46, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

• Please stop forking. Support closing this page in favor of the lively dialogue already taking place here. That dialogue needs to be respected and continue. Proxyma (talk) 22:28, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Attempting to force this through by persistent spamming is disruptive. Warden (talk) 23:33, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. What a massive pile of misdirected angst. This presumes that people who volunteer are all doing so for good reasons and with the best interests of Wikipedia - which is obviously not true - and assumes anyone, including the many approved paid enterprises, are against the best interests which is also obviously not true. What remains is a truth somewhere in the middle where there are both valid and unscrupulous people who edit, and some of each actually get some payment. This will not solve this, just sets up a witch hunt for anyone accused of being paid. Notice there is no equal effort to find out and reveal who is both paid and making valid edits? Likely because they did so without going against Wikipedia rules. Instead of focusing on the cash, focus on the actual problem editing which is against the rules of sourcing, being unbiased, etc.Saltybone (talk) 00:52, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
• Conditionally Oppose I agree with much of the content of this proposal, but I disagree with how these 5 proposals have been advanced. We cannot keep opening new proposals, especially when 3 of 5 proposals are extremely similar. All 5 proposals need to be closed, and we need to approach this this in a different manner, perhaps a Wikiproject. DavidinNJ (talk) 01:15, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I support the idea of a WikiProject to address this type of issue. Proxyma (talk) 01:26, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Paid editors here

I don't doubt that much opposition stems from paid editors trying to protect their income. Please disclose when commenting if you accept pay for edits Jehochman ^Talk 18:10, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Wow, WP:AGF much? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:32, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Do you think people paid to edit would just ignore this conversation, rather than lobbying to get their way? Jehochman ^Talk 20:42, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Why would paid editors worry about any of these failed and failing proposals? Those that already abide by the Bright Line Rule will not be affected. Those that carry out their paid editing without disclosing will also not be affected. Jehochman, please disclose when commenting if you write advertisements suitable for Wikipedia. - 2001:558:1400:10:E1C7:8438:5E48:3232 (talk) 20:22, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

It's reasonable to ask that editors disclose if they accept pay for edits when discussing rule changes affecting paid editing. It is an indication of how lax the current practices now are, how accepting of COI, that such a disclosure is not required. Nor would it be required if this rule or guideline is adopted. Coretheapple (talk) 20:32, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

It's also reasonable to ask that editors disclose if they have an unusual bias against being paid to edit when discussing rule changes affecting paid editing. It is an indication of how silly the current practices now are, how dysfunctional is the view of COI, that such a disclosure is not required. Nor would it be required if this rule or guideline fails like all those before it. - 2001:558:1400:10:E1C7:8438:5E48:3232 (talk) 21:12, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Only in the Bizarro World. Coretheapple (talk) 21:15, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

As a professional astronomer employed by a university, I'm paid to reach out to the public and educate them about astronomy. That includes writing Wikipedia articles, yes. WilyD 21:08, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Nobody wants to stop that kind of activity. But if you work for the Acme Rocket Company, which wants to blast off a capsule of chimps to the the next galaxy, you should not be allowed to write an article about the Acme Rocket Company. I think this kind of thing has been addressed multiple times. Coretheapple (talk) 21:11, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Failing to see why you wouldn't want someone highly familiar with the Acme Rocket Company writing educational content about the Acme Rocket Company. I suppose Coretheapple would prefer to have the chimp editing Wikipedia. - 2001:558:1400:10:E1C7:8438:5E48:3232 (talk) 21:13, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible that Coretheapple's lengthy work on topics like Monsanto, BP, and the Twilight Zone helicopter accident reveals an agenda that predisposes him as anti-paid editing? It's reasonable to ask. - 2001:558:1400:10:E1C7:8438:5E48:3232 (talk) 21:24, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary, I am beginning to feel like a fool for not getting my own clients, as you purport to have, though I'm not clear if your talk page post was joking or not. Seriously, what is the point of working for nothing? Paid editors make fools of us all. Coretheapple (talk) 21:28, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

this is really self-indulgent you guys. 21:32, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

No, while I don't agree with the IP, he's making an argument that is not unknown on these pages, as am I. If you want more scintillating conversation, you've chosen the wrong place. This is, I believe, the 300th proposal on paid editing to surface in the last two days. Coretheapple (talk) 21:36, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

If nobody wants to stop that kind of activity, why do we keep seeing proposal after proposal that attempts to regulate this kind of activity (e.g. look at all the restrictions on expert editing within the "Experts and editing at work" section of this proposal). Why can't we just have a blanket statement that these are not the people the policy applies to? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:38, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea. Since the entire process is broken, I don't expect that it will get anything right, including that part. Coretheapple (talk) 22:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I keep hearing that nobody wants to restrict that, then reading policies written to only restrict that. The question I keep asking, that nobody can seem to answer is "What behaviour is currently allowed that needs to be disallowed?". WilyD 06:50, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm paid in kudos. Are you? —Sladen (talk) 21:43, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Kudos don't pay the rent. While I disagree with paid editing and don't believe it is correct, I can't blame paid editors for taking advantage of the opportunities Wikipedia offers for them to corrupt the process for their own monetary gain. Coretheapple (talk) 21:49, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

We are going about this the wrong way.

When the options are finite and reasonable well-defined—which color should be paint the new shed, it is perfectly appropriate to list the options and take a vote. This is not limited to "small" issues–choice of the next American President is not a small issue, yet ultimately, there will be a simple vote.

Somewhat more complex issues can be addressed with the standard way of decision making on Wikipedia. Someone floats a draft, there's a discussion period, with tweaks and modifications to the draft, and then we call for a consensus, and the draft is adopted, or not.

That model works for a surprisingly broad range of situations. It even works, maybe a bit creakily, for what are termed large and complicated ArbCom cases. I don't mean to dismiss the complexity of those cases, some are very complex, but the good news is that the decisions boil down to a relatively small finite number of options. Admonish Users X and Y, topic ban user Z, etc.

The approach can even work when the options are almost unlimited, but the community is largely on the same page. We all agree that articles need to be supported by Reliable Sources, and while the exact wording of the policies has involved hours of wrangling, it has usually been about the details, not the fundamentals. It is plausible to write a rough draft and get to a consensus.

The approach breaks down when it comes to issues where the community is not all on the same page.

Examples:

• Civility Guidelines
• Userbox policy
• RfA reforms

and now, paid editing.

The problem is that we are trying to use the same model - throw up a rough draft, and tweak it. When the first one fails, try another. And another, and another.

If we "succeed" it will only be a triumph of exhaustion over reason.

We need to stop throwing up draft guidelines and have a serious brainstorming session to identify the issues, and potential solutions. We need moderated discussions to sort out all the issues, and come up with some proposed guidelines that will work.--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:57, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. Has anything like that ever happened? Coretheapple (talk) 22:15, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Sphilbrick I love this and agree we need moderated discussion - how do we do that? I have been asking Slim and J to step up and do that but they are not biting. Not clear to me how to move forward. Very happy to help but I am process-ignorant. 22:46, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

This should be moderated by someone not previously involved in the discussion. Jimbo himself, if he is up to it, or perhaps somebody from the Foundation. Coretheapple (talk) 23:17, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I like this idea a lot. Proxyma (talk) 00:48, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

This is a great idea, S Philbrick, and a fair classification of the types of issues where such facilitation is needed. We should find outside moderation -- and should develop and honor that skill in our community. Since it is needed in depth a few times a year (if not more) on any major project. Any topic worth this sort of facilitation could be supported with a wikiproject, which tries to clarify points of agreement and departure, as David suggests below. And Core, in the short run, your suggestion is an option. – SJ + 10:00, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

I think that the best way to go forward is evaluate the different sections of the proposal individually as part of a Wikiproject. We can list a specific idea or hypothetical situation, and get feedback about how editors feel about it. I think there are a lot of areas where there is broad consensus, and once we determine what those areas are, they can be part of a future proposal. To make this work, there must be people with differing perspectives participating in the Wikiproject, and there must be a consensus reached before a new proposal is put forth. DavidinNJ (talk) 01:23, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree DavidinNJ I proposed such a Wikiproject for RfA here. Almost no response. We'll survive if don't reform RfA. Paid editing is a more serious problem, and I'm tempted to take that proposal for an RFA wikiproject, and mutatis mutandes for a Paid Editing Wikiproject. However, that other one went over so poorly, so I'd like to see some support before trying it.--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:59, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Dank previously led a discussion on options for improving the request for adminship process; I've asked him if he would be interested in leading a discussion on this topic. isaacl (talk) 02:38, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

RFA is a good example of a process that is subject to perennial reform proposals that never go anywhere. I think we need to keep trying to generate a consensus a while longer. Though it might not succeed, we must still try. Jehochman ^Talk 12:42, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I think there's a chance that if the occasional editor throws together some proposal, that someday, something will catch the fancy of enough respondents to stick. However, I think we could do better if we got organized.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:51, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree that discussion should not be closed down and that the interested parties should keep trying to develop a consensus. I also agree with those who feel that having multiple drafts of the same proposal under discussion simultaneously across multiple talk pages makes it difficult to work towards a common agreement. Thus I think having someone take a more active role in shaping discussion will make it more effective, versus everyone simply lobbing in supports and opposes. isaacl (talk) 18:01, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the invite. I agree that the usual approach with RfCs doesn't work for some protracted disputes ... but this dispute isn't protracted (yet), so I don't think the way forward is clear. What would you guys like to do? - Dank (push to talk) 04:37, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Aside: +1 on having a similar facilitation for RfA reform. – SJ + 10:00, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Sj. It wasn't successful, but it did calm things down a little, and maybe things we learned along the way will be helpful here. - Dank (push to talk) 12:55, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree that we need a different approach. In reading through the comments on all of the proposals, there are a mix of different ideas as to how a policy should look. The problem, of course, being that no single proposed policy has the right mix. I think we need to tackle this in three parts. The first is to get consensus on whether or not a policy is needed. There were a lot of people objecting because they felt that existing content policies were good enough to manage whatever issues arise. Thus we need some sort of discussion leading to a consensus on whether or not a policy is required. Once that is out of the way, presuming that there is support for a new policy, the question changes to what the basic policy should look like - in particular, to we allow direct editing of articles or limit it to talk pages, and do we require disclosure. Then we can handle the problem of what the wording should be.

I'm reminded of the Australian republic referendum of 1999. Voters were given two choices - to say no to a republic, or to say yes to a republic with a President elected by Parliament. There was an argument floating around at the time that a majority of voters wanted a republic, but they didn't want that model, and so it failed. In this case, I think it is possible that a majority of editors want a policy limiting paid editing in some way, but they don't like the models proposed. Thus we need to take the models out of the equation in order to get things rolling. - Bilby (talk) 05:43, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Intention to close

Note that this page is one of two discussions concerning Wikipedia:Commercial editing. I closed the other discussion yesterday, at WT:Commercial editing, since the opposition was unanimous and strongly worded, and since it was the fifth talk page with a simultaneous discussion on roughly the same question. I'm leaning in the direction of closing the discussion on this page; although the discussion itself has been productive, with new ideas and increased participation, there's a long-standing consensus against opening a fourth simultaneous vote on roughly the same question, and almost all the votes since early on 4 November have been opposes (and the recent voting is even more lopsided when you consider the opposes at WT:Commercial editing). I have no objection at all if anyone wants to repeat their comments here in one or more of the other discussions, where more people will be reading your comments. Your thoughts are welcome. - Dank (push to talk) 18:07, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Dank, although I supported this proposal, it appears as though there is far more opposition than support. Having all these proposals open is confusing editors, so I think we should close this one. DavidinNJ (talk) 20:48, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

The fork of this talk page was confusing; I've merged them together above. – SJ + 21:46, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Dank, can you clarify what you'd close this in favor of? It looks like you'll close Sock puppetry/Employees soon, and Paid editing policy proposal was merely the first draft of this proposal. That leaves this proposal and No paid advocacy, but they have different content and accordingly different debate/participants.

Overall, the debate suggests that a new policy might not gain consensus at this stage. I'd like to echo others' suggestions of creating a Wikiproject on advocacy editing instead. There are improvements that could be made without drastically altering the editing landscape, such as promoting WP:PER with a link on the edit page, or preventing abusive editing practices. There are likely many other constructive improvements that could gain broad consensus in that context. Proxyma (talk) 23:11, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll leave this alone a couple of days and wait for comments, and I want to see if anyone volunteers to help close per my request at WP:AN (with a copy on my talk page). If you're willing to put on a "neutral" hat for a moment (that is, ignore for a moment the question of the best solution to the problem, and consider what result the wider community would be most likely to accept, given the votes and rationales so far, in the various proposals): how would you close this? If you wouldn't find consensus for this proposal, what encouragement would you want to give the supporters? (Btw, if I'm understanding your question ... I think it's too early to close the "Paid editing policy proposal", even though the creators of this page intended for discussion to move here. For whatever reason, this page didn't catch on. That page has a lot of meat to it, and I'd really appreciate having more closers, more time, and a wider discussion before a close is attempted.) - Dank (push to talk) 00:27, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Dank sure I can put on my neutral hat :). I'll let you be the judge of my success in doing so. I'd close Sock puppetry/Employees per that discussion, and let Jehochman convert this one into an essay as he intends. If any other proposals still have active debate (I haven't been following them very closely) then I agree you shouldn't close them.

As far as encouraging proposal supporters, I think it depends on making tangible progress on this issue. Even most "oppose" voters would probably agree that there's room for improvement, they just didn't enjoy the proposals themselves. That's why I like the idea of a wikiproject as a path forward, since there are likely more targeted improvements that could be made, and creating a standing wikiproject on advocacy would be a significant and permanent accomplishment. By starting with a project instead of a proposal, you'd take some of the heat out of the room. Proxyma (talk) 02:33, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

my summary of the discussion on this and similar pages is:

1. WP is basically and volunteer project, and most . though not all, volunteers here are very uncomfortable with the presence of paid editors
2. Almost everyone is of the opinion that it is much more difficult for a paid editor to write a proper article tha follows the rules about CPOV and advocacy, and shows proper balance.
3. Most people are of the opinion that paid editors often accept assignments for topics that are not really suitable for WP, and tend to stretch the rules about notability and reliable sources
4. Most people recognize that some paid editors do it properly, by using only talk pages according to the Brightline rule.
5. Many but by no means all of us think that some paid editors can write properly directly in article space, even if most paid editors cannot.
6. Most of us recognize that it is in practice impossible to identify all paid editing, or to enforce a rule that requires self-identification. Many, probably most of us, would want to enforce a rule if it were possible to do so.
7. Most of us recognize that enforcement is limited by incompatibility between the need to detect COI and the rules permitting anonymous editing and prohibiting outing, but few of us are willing to change or abandon the relevant rules.
8. There is no agreement about whether paid or unpaid advocacy is worse, but everyone agrees that neither of them are acceptable.
9. As a consequence, most of us recognize we have no real way of dealing with the problem except vigilance about improperly written articles and article content. Some of us extend this to a willingness to judge only by article content, and ignore who is doing the editing, but many of us still want to do whatever limitation of COI editing is possible,

my own opinion about the proposal as it currently appears here is that it is thoroughly impractical, and will lead to selective prosecution and increase the likelihood of clever people trying to successfully evade it, whereas a more permissive rule is likely to have a greater degree of compliance. I sympathize very much with what the proposer is trying to accomplish, but it cannot be done this way. DGG ( talk ) 00:55, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

That's fine. I've marked this as an essay. Please leave it that way without any ugly templates. Okay? Jehochman ^Talk 01:32, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Agree with the closing, agree with marking as essay, agree with not needing any more templates, disagree with claim that templates are ugly (I think templates are rather lovely), disagree with parts of DGG's 9-point "summary of the discussion on this and similar pages". Details below. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:20, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

My take on the 9 points above is:

1. While some volunteers here are indeed very uncomfortable with the presence of paid editors in particular, other volunteers question the reasoning behind this and argue that, say, religious and political advocacy editors cause far more disruption.
2. Whether "it is much more difficult for a paid editor to write a proper article that follows the rules about CPOV and advocacy, and shows proper balance" is not something that a talk page discussion can address. It requires mind-reading and again there are those who argue that religious and political advocacy editors are as bad or worse.
3. Knowing whether "paid editors often accept assignments for topics that are not really suitable for WP, and tend to stretch the rules about notability and reliable sources" would require a study of a reasonable and unbiased sample of paid edits. The problem is that the sample is biased. Some unknown percentage of the ones who wouldn't stretch the rules if they directly edited are already voluntarily making talk page requests instead of directly creating/editing articles. Some unknown percentage of the stealth paid editors stick to the rules well enough that we don't detect them. That leaves the unknown percentage who are stupid enough and ham-handed enough that they end up on a noticeboard, and of those we really only consider those who fight the community and ignore those who simply stop editing under that name.
4. No issues; DGG accurately summarized the discussion.
5. No issues
6. No issues
7. No issues
8. No issues with the first half. The second half is problematical. Everyone agrees? Advocacy is unacceptable? Most of these discussions have been about advocacy editing, not about advocacy on user or article talk pages. And what definition of advocacy are we using here and how does it differ from having a COI?
9. Finally, the claim that "most of us recognize we have no real way of dealing with the problem except vigilance about improperly written articles and article content" is a conclusion not supported by the discussion. Clearly many here think that there is way of dealing with the problem, even if they cannot agree on what it is.

In my opinion, both DGG's 9 points and my response should be labeled as our opinions, and we should get a summary by an uninvolved editor that simply states what the respondents to this proposal accepted and or rejected. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:23, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Guy, I have been careful to say most, or many, not all. I agree with almost all of your comments. Indeed, I am one of those who think advocacy for a cause to be at least equally dangerous. That paid editors accept borderline topics has been admitted by one of the most prolific. That volunteer editors do also, is apparent to everyone. And some paid editors are exceptionally cautious to make certain their subject is notable, more than most volunteer editors would be. It is clear to me that the move to higher standards of paid editing is being in some part driven by the most responsible among the paid editors, who do not want their work tarnished by the reckless or incompetent. The only thing where we disagree, is that I continue to maintain that the basic principle of NPOV is to avoid advocacy; if some would disagree with maintaining NPOV, there is real question whether the community will tolerate editing on such a basis--this is not the same thing as saying that advocacy is intrinsically wrong--it can be a most valuable contribution to society, and just like other valuable contributions such as original research or creative art, to be pursued elsewhere. And I think most of us do realize; that we keep trying to find solutions is a worthy endeavor, but who among us really believes that we will? I can say I would be extremely pleased for my skepticism to be proved wrong here. DGG ( talk ) 05:15, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

This section was intended by Dank for discussion of his/her intent to close this topic. It's pretty clear the process of debate broke down, so I'm not sure a summary of consensus is needed here or likely to be accurate. Proxyma (talk) 07:04, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the discussion has been, for the most part, cordial, with parties listening and responding to each other, so I don't believe it has broken down. It has been drifting a bit, so I hope it can be made more effective with some guidance. isaacl (talk) 07:22, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

That's fair. To clarify, by "process of debate" I was referring to structural issues, not tone of debate. There have been too many competing proposals, and the provenance of the proposals has been unclear. Rather than debating yes/no on whatever proposal an editor sees fit to present (correct me if there was any vetting of which I'm unaware), there should at minimum be a drafting process with some consensus testing before making a serious proposal. Or, as I'd argue, create a wikiproject which can create a pipeline of best practices -> targeted reforms. Proxyma (talk) 08:53, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

As for drifting, not really. I am sure that DGG appreciates it when someone reads his work and comments -- I know I do -- and it won't turn into a long back-and-forth because we pretty much agree on everything. Plus, there is no compelling reason to stay focused on the proposal now that it is an essay. As for a drafting process (which is also topic drift, but well worth discussing) multiple proposals on essentially the same topic are pretty rare, and I don't think the community would support any new policies that would restrict the multiple proposals because the policy would also restrict the normal proposals too much. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:04, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Similiar to Proxyma, I was not referring to DGG's comments, but to the structure of the discussion. Perhaps out of deference to the initial creators of each proposal, so far the discussion hasn't proceeded in one of the various possible ways forward. I hope that a little guidance will help matters progress. isaacl (talk) 12:35, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Essay

The reason I labeled this an essay is that it does not appear to have sufficient support, yet, to be policy. As an essay people can easily refer to it when having a discussion about paid editing. If eventually the essay evolves and gains more support, it might become policy. That is a process that could take an indefinite amount of time. Thank you all for your comments. Jehochman ^Talk 12:19, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

[Sorry if this is a stupid question, but] Does this mean that all the recent COI/NPOV/ADVOCACY/PAID discussions have run their course, or are there still some smouldering embers that we should be watchlisting? If so, which ones? - Pointillist (talk) 00:26, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Another question to Jehochman: since they remain unchanged from previous drafts, does this mean that it is your preference for the significant restrictions on expert editing in the "Experts and editing at work" section (everything after its third sentence) to become policy? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:53, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Agree No real support for policy (here, or elsewhere for that matter. There seem to be multiple discussions on this topic, all slowly circling the same drain). Bfigura ^(talk) 00:26, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

+989 karma points for that observation.... - Pointillist (talk) 00:41, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Just add a line to COI. This is creep

• Oppose any of these proposed new guidelines. This is basically a small print issue that could be mentioned on COI. We need to start reducing the number and length of rules and guidelines on wikipedia, it is counter-productive. Lesion (talk) 11:08, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
• May I also add that this is the second time that this issue has been spammed on people's watchlists. If I click dismiss on one of these topics I do not expect to have to do so again. Lesion (talk) 11:10, 12 November 2013 (UTC)