Oppose The methods that allow someone with a COI to request an edit are broken and backlogged 6+ months, and AFC is a mess too. In the absence of effective ways to work within the proposed rule, making it a policy will just lead COI to violate it, and once they do, why abide by all our other policies if we are going to block them anyway. If anything is to be done, we need to deal with the issue in a comprehensive fashion, dealing both with reducing Bias and other problems that COI editors can introduce, while simultaneously making it more attractive for those COI editors to work with us, not against us. Monty845 17:11, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This is a very minimalist policy, and I understand why that is. But I think that it may be too minimalist, especially in that it does not address AfCs, fails to take into consideration COI editors on talk pages sometimes functioning as de facto "managing editors" or straw bosses, cracking the whip in their articles. It contains no method of disclosing to readers when articles contain content that originated from the subject of the article. Given the gravity of the situation, and the resistance to even cosmetic change from the "community," I wonder if this really is a situation in which Jimbo Wales or the WMF needs to take the lead. After all, it is their brand whose value that has been harmed by COI editors. Given the utter absence of understanding of this issue by Wikipedia volunteers, I fear that there is really no other recourse as a practical matter. They need to step up to the plate and come out from under their desks. If they don't, then they are the ones harmed, their reputations are hurt, the reputation of their product put in harm's way. As a person who is not paid, as just a hobbyist, I can't see myself getting worked up into a lather when the proprietor of a business, even a nonprofit one, allows his property to be degraded as has happened with Wikipedia and its persistent COI problem. Coretheapple (talk) 17:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support may people claim that our policy regarding public relations on Wikipedia is confusing. This should solve that problem. In reality the Bright Line rule has been accepted for a long time now - practice sometimes outruns actual written policy here - but we just need to officially confirm that this is policy. The content shouldn't be contentious - advocacy is prohibited, so paid advocacy should obviously also be prohibited. This just gives a method that PR firms can use to avoid the problems posed by the already prohibited paid advocacy. I would just like to see a clean up-or-down decision on the Bright Line rule, there should not be anything difficult about it.
(EC) with the comment immediately above. Let's please keep this to one issue at a time. If I read your opinion correctly, I'll suggest you put in "Support" for this and take up other issues later. Let's make this clean and simple. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:44, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support I think that minimal is probably sufficient, because paid editing per se is not against policy, only subversive paid editing. Accordingly, what seems to be needed immediately is a basic framework, which can be built upon later, as appropriate. As it stands, this joker at Wikiexperts is just acting like he can ride in on a moral high horse and try to misappropriate "the project" for his (and his benefactors) private ends.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 17:52, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Past practice is that factual, non-controversial, edits to articles may be made directly by editors with a COI, especially if a source is provided. For example, if an article about a company lists its officers (or some of them), and one of them retires and a successor is appointed, A business owner, company employee, or paid editor could directly edit to make that change without going through the {{edit request}} mechanism. Also, obvious blatant vandalism may be reverted by such editors. I would like these included in the proposal. Any objections? DES(talk) 17:43, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be reasonable for someone that may be doing paid advocacy to submit an article to AFC as long as they have full disclosure in that submittal? --MASEM (t) 18:07, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That is the current practice. Coretheapple (talk) 18:10, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Then that should be added here, as another route for how such editors can still contribute (assuming, of course, we don't completely shut off paid advocacy per above discussion) --MASEM (t) 18:36, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think it's important to note that much of paid editing is done by experienced Wikipedia Editors, not outside PR firms. And because these Editor are fully aware of WP policies and guidelines, I think their participation is much preferred to newly created accounts and IPs who show up to put out fires.
I have actually seen instances where I know an Editor was paid to be a liaison between a company and those Editors who were actively editing an article and his/her participation led to a better article. In one particular instance, the paid Editor posted suggested edits on the Talk Page that uninvolved Editors were free to accept, reject or ignore (and all of their statements were sourced). I just think it's important to realize that paid editing takes a variety of forms and not all of it is ham-fisted PR companies asserting ownership over articles. LizRead!Talk! 18:43, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. The Editors in question were transparent about their role and COI. They didn't hide what they were doing. LizRead!Talk! 18:45, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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Disclosing financial COI in signature
I think it would be good to require an editor with a financial conflict of interest, as defined in this proposal, to disclose that fact in their signature with text that says "(paid)" or "(PAID)", linking to a subpage in their userspace (or a section on their main userpage) that identifies their sponsor(s). This would maximize transparency, so that someone reading a discussion in which that editor participated would be able to weigh that editor's statements and their sponsors' interests accordingly. Thoughts? alanyst 17:18, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
People may not have a COI about every issue they edit about, so unless it's an SPA we can't ask people to add it to their sigs. I think we need to focus like a laser on producing a very simple policy. SlimVirgin(talk) 17:24, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Editors can create alternate accounts, which can be used when they have a conflict of interest (or when they don't). This isn't a bad idea. Coretheapple (talk) 17:26, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Running with that idea (probably way out of scope), what about a special class of account—which might be an alternate, for those who also edit as volunteers—in which names have a distinctive prefix or suffix (say, “$$$”), and that doesn’t get auto-confirmed? One advantage to the paid editor from using such an account: page-histories would be easier to scan for billing purposes. ;) —Odysseus1479 18:31, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
