Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2014-06-11

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2014-06-11. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Featured content: Politics, ships, art, and cyclones (333 bytes · 💬)[edit]

Beautiful array of images. Tony (talk) 12:45, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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News and notes: PR agencies commit to ethical interactions with Wikipedia (8,224 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • So... some PR agencies "have declared their intention to follow 'ethical engagement practices' in Wikipedia editing". Take it from someone like me, who is older and wiser, and who has been associated with the field of advertising for over 25 years: this is the foxes declaring they can be trusted to guard the chickens! I am asking the community not to be naive about this, and not to take steps that we will look back on and regret. Invertzoo (talk) 12:57, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your negativity and lack of good faith isn't very Wikipedian. William and others have been positively editing Wikipedia for years and have done their absolute best to follow the conflict of interest rules. SilverserenC 15:29, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ethics from a PR firm? That's rich. I'll AGF it for now, but I gotta feeling that this is is gonna end up producing some outrageously crazy AN/I and Arbcom cases. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:24, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • So PR firms agree among themselves not to violate Wikipedia rules - I think that is wonderful as far as it goes. But of course we should not assume that all problems with PR and other paid editing will magically disappear. "Trust, but verify" - we should give them a bit of trust and they should WP:Verify their edits on the talk pages. As far as the ethics of PR firms, they do have professional ethical and legal responsibilities - not to Wikipedia, but to their employers. They cannot write an NPOV article, if it goes against the interests of their employers. Legally, this is called the duty of loyalty, which is automatically part of any employment contract under common law. You must put your employer's interests above your own or anybody else's in the scope of your employment. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:32, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Except we're talking about paid editors here. And even in regards to direct PR firm employees, they can still follow the rules and just not make a change if it is one that will not be neutral. Seriously, what is this "duty of loyalty" nonsense? The PR rules and regulations go far and above that and violating those ethical codes is much more severe and can lead to being disbarred by the other groups. SilverserenC 19:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Rule 1 "ADVOCACY- We serve the public interest by acting as responsible advocates for those we represent...."
Rule 5 "LOYALTY - We are faithful to those we represent, while honoring our obligation to serve the public interest."
  • So in short PR folks are ethically and legally required to put their employer's interests first, above anything to do with NPOV. As far as the silly claim that they can just refuse to edit if their employer's interests don't align with ours: they'll always add complimentary information about their employers when it is true, and always leave out uncomplimentary information, which will not lead to an NPOV presentation. Rather it will put a systematic bias in all our articles written with PR "help". Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:56, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • In general, people are going to be more likely to add positive or neutral information about a topic than negative information. Since a direct focus on negative information would be a concern about the editor having a personal negative COI regarding the subject. Also, one of the examples given in the PRSA Code of Ethics is this:
"Examples of Improper Conduct Under this Provision:
A member representing a ski manufacturer gives a pair of expensive racing skis to a sports magazine columnist, to influence the columnist to write favorable articles about the product."
So I don't think acting irresponsibly and non-neutrally is in line with the Code of Ethics. It's quite clear that doing as such, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, would be a violation of it. SilverserenC 00:02, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, this following example seems to directly deal with your last concern there:
Examples of Improper Conduct Under This Provision:
A PRSA member declares publicly that a product the client sells is safe, without disclosing evidence to the contrary."
Does that help? Making edits to Wikipedia that doesn't disclose the negative evidence would be a violation. SilverserenC 00:06, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • And even more than that, making this kind of public statement means throwing down a gauntlet. We've seen the media attention that organisations being caught editing under the table gets; can you imagine how fun journalists will find "Caught editing under the table, after explicitly saying they wouldn't"? Particularly for firms that specialise in public relations. I'm actually pretty confident in the willingness of companies who have signed this to follow it - not necessarily because I think they're all wonderful lovely people who give the projects' needs and desires primacy (at the end of the day, someone is giving them money to prioritise their needs and desires), but because not being able to control your own PR is a great way of making that stream of money dry up. Selfishness is a great motivator. Ironholds (talk) 19:12, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's a lot of truth in this, but it only goes so far. Your argument is that when it serves their interest, PR folks will help us. But of course there are times when it won't serve their interest to help us, in which case I'd expect them to hurt the encyclopedia. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:56, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolutely; isn't that the entire problem with paid editing? ;). My argument is not "we're out of the woods now that they've made this statement", it's that the amount of incentive required to hurt us is now greater because the consequences of being caught doing so are so much greater. For that reason alone, this is a good thing to've happened - it doesn't solve the problem, but it does increase the barrier to it happening. I'm probably just an optimist, though. Ironholds (talk) 21:42, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So all these PR agencies are going to stop doing PR? That's good news, and better for them than following Bill Hicks' advice. -- Jeandré, 2014-06-17t11:24z

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  • Beware: Opening our doors to any level (however well-intentioned) of paid advocacy editing is essentially the same thing as opening our doors to advertising, something the community has always opposed, for very good reasons. Invertzoo (talk) 12:50, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would take paid editing over POV editors any day. The latter are ideologues that cannot be reasoned with and they dominate in many areas of Wikipedia, even beyond those that have been put under sanctions. The former, especially when speaking about those like in the article above, are merely seeking to improve certain Wikipedia articles. And that is something we can all be involved in. SilverserenC 15:39, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Paid editing, POV... at the end of the day its the editors and admins who end up cleaning up the mess left by either camp. Regardless of which group is judged to be the lesser of two evils for Wikipedia an evil is still an evil, and I say lead us not into temptation, for we can manage on our own. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:22, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your assumption that they will make a mess is just as valid as me thinking that you will make a mess and therefore I need to patrol your edits. SilverserenC 19:05, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • And that will end in reverts of numerous good faith edits, which will result in plenty of blocks. Either way, this conversation aside... After reading the whole article which expressed various view points (including the comments), I came to mixed feelings on the whole subject: On one hand I used to report usernames which were in breach of COI rule. On the other, as I saw one time, someone did updated a share for a company, (I don't remember the username or the company he edited). That user, did however asked permission to only update shares (weather the NYSE or NASDAQ are up or down, by the end of either month or year).--Mishae (talk) 04:22, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I attended one of the sessions at WikiconferenceUSA and was very intrigued by the subject, even more so by the idea that organizations want to edit WP without violating any of its policies (through a 3rd party). I think there needs to be an ongoing forum like an email list to continuously discuss these multiple issues. give voice to the various sides and reveal solutions that have been proposed and implemented. -- kosboot (talk) 06:46, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to add that Jimbo has made me (and Bearian) co-administrators of the LinkedIn Wikipedia group. I'd say the majority of "real" people there are interested in engaging in WP but would represent a COI, so they have great interest in seeing any outcomes to such discussion. -- kosboot (talk) 13:06, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The description of PR work related to WP struck me as familiar. It resembles descriptions of the role of a Wikipedian in residence, being as much about educating clients as serving their wishes directly. Of course the institutional environment differs but, as an outsider to both activities, I can see that much of the work is the same. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:44, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed that was brought up at WikiConferenceUSA: If a Wikipedian-in-Residence is at a non-profit organization, then WP has less of a problem. If the organization is for-profit and the WiR is doing the same kind of activity, that is a problem. It was noted at the session that this is hypocritical. -- kosboot (talk) 17:13, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The principle is supposed to be that WIRs are editors who the community trusts not just to do their own editing properly, but to show others how to do their work properly. (I note that I myself am an unpaid WIR at the NYPL; I consider it part of my normal volunteering). DGG ( talk ) 01:00, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The gargantuan PR agencies with the gargantuan (i.e. clearly "notable") clients aren't the problem. It is the burgeoning world of freelancing with the marginal clients that are the problem. That's not to say this initiative is without value — the agencies will be expecting something like action with regards to so-called "bright line" editing requests on talk pages. We'll see how that works... Maybe there will be new methods or structures emerging from the backlog... But the big problem remains unchanged no matter how this turns out for the Big 10 agencies and their Fortune 500 clients... Carrite (talk) 04:08, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not so sure of the innocence of the major agencies. It was mentioned at the NYC session by the representative of a major firm that they will not themselves edit on WP, on the rationale that they cannot adequately control the work of their employees to assure compliance, but refer their clients instead to another smaller firm that is willing to do this editing, and the representative of that particular smaller firm who was present agreed that they engaged in this. It strikes me as utterly hypocritical. I cannot believe that any responsible firm would knowingly employ people whose work they cannot trust, or that they do not monitor their own staff in the work they do. It rather indicates that they do not want to risk their own reputations in directly doing the work, but are willing to actively help in seeing the work gets done in such a way that they can disclaim their own responsibility. If the industry accepts such practices, how can we expect any of them to honestly follow any rules? DGG ( talk )

Special report: Questions raised over secret voting for WMF trustees (4,721 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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Public votes[edit]

My vote in WMES web was public, as everybody's there. So I see no reason why I cannot know what chapters or organizations voted for whom. B25es (talk) 13:58, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Correct title[edit]

Hi Tony, Ichsan Mochtar is the Head of Board of Trustee in Wikimedia Indonesia, our treasurer is Indra Utama. Thanks! Siska.Doviana (talk) 14:18, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, Siska. Correcting now. Tony (talk) 15:25, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is part of the overall secrecy of dealing related to chapters[edit]

Aff Com is just as opaque, perhaps even more so. Thelmadatter (talk) 15:29, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Informing the chapters[edit]

While Tony raised the question of transparency, he did not raise the issue that in an open election with a bit less then 50 voters it would be very important to make sure that all voters equally know all candidates (otherwise a candidate may increase his/her chances by contacting voters in private). It's a pity that the author presents no suggestions on this issue — NickK (talk) 15:41, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The real issue[edit]

I have to agree with the last thing Alice said. The process is opaque (it was once even worse!), but the bigger issue is that it doesn't actually produce better outcomes than a mix of community elections and direct appointments. —Emufarmers(T/C) 23:36, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Typo[edit]

  • "Wikimedia Australia appears to be no records of committee meetings since February" - "have"? Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 14:41, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks, John. Was copy-edited before publication by a non-writing editor. Tsk. I get worn out just before publication. Tony (talk) 15:05, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification on Wikimedia Italia vote[edit]

With regards to the statement "The Signpost tried to check the published committee minutes of several other chapters, including Wikimedia Italia, but found that access is blocked to non-members.", I would like to state that WM-IT voting resolution has been published following the standard procedure for all Board's resolutions, i.e. by publishing it on the dedicated members-only namespace on our wiki and on the internal mailing list of the Association. No further measures were deemed necessary by the Board or any member of the Association.

In addition, at least to my personal knowledge, there have been no direct requests from the Signpost to the Association to disclose WM-IT vote. Any such request would have been considered and discussed by the Board, independently from the outcome of such discussion. --Sannita (WM-IT Secretary) 16:46, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the point was that the vote, which affects the entire Wikimedia movement, is not transparent to them—not that you might release it to us upon request. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:54, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Photo of James Hare[edit]

Dear TONY , Please use a more up-to-date photo of James Hare. Here is my suggestion:

My best regards, Gerald Shields

Gerald, that pic looks like it was take four years ago, although uploaded this year. Are you sure it's more up to date? Tony (talk) 12:22, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I can attest that the photograph linked to by Gerald was taken on February 1, 2014. The one currently used in the article is from January 2011. Here is a photo from April 30, 2014. Personally, I have no preference for which photo is used. Harej (talk) 18:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Traffic report: The week the wired went weird (2,236 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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It seems like since it is June 14th, this list is two weeks behind. I realize that you can't put a June 8-14 list together by press date but there must already be a June 1-7 list ready, right? Would this be possible? Liz Read! Talk! 13:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch, Liz. I've fixed the date range to 1–7 June. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:01, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, no Facebook? :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:10, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I don't see Facebook in this week's traffic report. }IMr*|(60nna)I{ 01:22, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that the GoT figures do not represent orthogonal measurements (that is, the folks looking at one are generally the same folks as those looking at the other related articles), and that it makes more sense to list "closely related articles" in the same box as the highest viewed of the group (thus - listing the three articles and their respective viewership), but not adding figures together. Collect (talk) 13:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm With PK on this one: Facebook's absence is a little surprising. In my opinion, the absence of Facebook is a Christmas Miracle (and in the month of June). Wonder why it didn't crack the top 10 this week? TomStar81 (Talk) 17:28, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]


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