A week ago it looked like paid editing was ready to take over Wikipedia. The public relations firm Wiki-PR had been banned for employing hundreds of editors, possibly including our own administrators, to make thousands of edits, taking in perhaps a million dollars. But several editors argued that such a ban could not be enforced, and that we must "assume good faith," even of obvious advertisers. They argued that the problem was simply "point of view" editing, and that it could be dealt with easily, by just editing out the bias. Some even argued that we should get rid of our Conflict of Interest guideline.
The situation has now completely changed, with a proposed addition to the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use, which says that all paid editors must disclose their paid edits and who paid for the edits. It does not ban paid editing, require the outing of paid editors, or allow harassment of paid editors. How could anybody disagree with that? Whether you agree or disagree, your opinion is welcome on Meta.
The proposed amendment would stop future edits by Wiki-PR and similar firms by letting volunteer editors know which articles the advertisers edit, thereby making it easier to check whether the paid edits follow our rules, and change or remove those edits if necessary. The advertisers would have to identify their paid edits to avoid legal action. The only people directly affected would be unethical advertisers who would no longer be able to slip in advertisements on the sly. Paid editors would be indirectly affected as their pool of customers dries up.
Still, I would like the requirements to be stricter, including prohibiting commercial editing of articles by or on behalf of businesses. There would be little difficulty in enforcing this ban. An advertisement, however indirectly, almost always suggests that a specific business placed it. These businesses, including the clients of the Wiki-PRs of the world, would be responsible for the editing of their agents.
Ads are already prohibited on Wikipedia and have been from almost the beginning. First we prohibited link-spam, editing by organizations, and meat-puppetry. Then we prohibited advertising and promotion, and finally marketing and public-relations content. The firm MyWikiBiz was banned in 2006. Every six months or so a new firm is found to be advertising and is usually banned.
Advertisers have often ignored our policies and guidelines. The conflict-of-interest guideline is scoffed at as "unenforceable". Apparently, these rules are too vague and changeable to be taken seriously. Enforcement of the rules by administrators and the Arbitration Committee has been shamefully lax.
By putting the prohibition in the Terms of Use, rather than in each project's policies and guidelines, enforcement is possible by the Foundation's legal team. The prospect of a slam-dunk legal decision going against them will remarkably improve advertisers' understanding of our rules.
The worst aspect of paid editing is how it changes our community. Paid editors are notoriously difficult to work with, ganging up on volunteers, defending their biased edits to the bitter end, wiki-lawyering until our policies and guidelines seem to have no meaning. Paid editors don't engage in collegial discussions of their edits. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" As paid editors increase, they change the rules to make paid editing easier, which encourages new paid editors and drives volunteer editors away.
I'm not a lawyer but let's cover some legal basics. Advertising and marketing include any communication from a business to a potential customer that may result in a sale. Omitting the source of the communication is deceptive advertising, which is illegal almost everywhere. A German court ruled that editing on Wikipedia by a firm was illegal, even though the firm disclosed the edit, because the disclosure on the article's talk page wasn't conspicuous enough. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which regulates most advertisements in the U.S., prohibits any business communication that may result in a sale unless there is clear and conspicuous disclosure of the advertiser. The FTC is now explaining and enforcing their rules on Internet advertising, as are the European Union and the U.S. states of New York and California.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Paid advocacy 2012–14 These governments would likely prefer not to have to enforce their rules directly in an environment as complicated as Wikipedia, but I'm sure they will if we don't enforce our rules ourselves and provide guidance to advertisers. "No advertising, no paid editing of articles by businesses" would be remarkably good, concise guidance. It would be best if the individual Wikimedia projects were to enforce the rules, taking into account the quirks of each individual project, but enforcement by the Foundation is better than no enforcement or enforcement by a government agency.
It's up to us, Wikipedia's volunteer editors. Let's get rid of commercial editing and advertising on Wikipedia.
An effort is underway for Wikimedia to codify a principle that has been a cornerstone of my Wikipedia training and consulting practice, Wiki Strategies, since our launch in 2009: essentially, that certain conflicts of interest must be publicly disclosed.
Focused community consideration of this principle is long overdue, and I applaud this effort. Undisclosed conflicts of interest pose a significant threat to Wikipedia. Action is needed. Why? Because of things like this:
Last month, a company offering Wikipedia services proposed establishing a business relationship with me. The founder spoke at length about the importance of dealing with Wikipedia ethically; he proudly contrasted his approach with his less scrupulous competitors, like Wiki-PR, who use sock puppets. But then he described his international network of Wikipedia editors: 20% disclose their role.
80% do not disclose that they are under contract.
While he may sincerely wish to treat Wikipedia ethically, this person is dead wrong to believe his approach is ethical. He fails to see the dissonance. Adopting a new policy would highlight that problem in an unambiguous way, supporting the Wikipedia community's efforts to confront and fend off unethical approaches. So the proposal, at its core, reflects a good idea.
But a TOU amendment is not the way to accomplish those goals. While it may be a good fit for Wikipedia, it may not fit other projects, like Commons or Wikisource, as well. If a museum were to pay someone, for instance, to upload their CC-licensed files to Commons, does a lack of disclosure constitute a real problem? Perhaps; but I'm inclined to say it doesn't. I'm skeptical about a provision that would define worthwhile contributions to our shared vision as violations. We should avoid outlawing good behavior.
The better path is to establish local policies on projects that need them, such as English Wikipedia. A Board-passed amendment is an unnecessarily top-down approach. If the problem mainly pertains to Wikipedia, why wouldn't the Legal department simply propose to Wikipedia (in various languages) that it adopt local policies? The discussion would be healthy; I believe policies would pass. Why ask users to go straight to the Board of Trustees? The proposed action is out of step with Wikimedia's system of governance; I don't see any compelling reason for it to be done this way.
Regardless of how a policy is established, the way we announce it is important and delicate. We owe much of our success to our broad invitation to participate in the Wikimedia vision. Our concerns about conflict of interest are justified, of course; but we should keep in mind that we frequently benefit from alignments of interest. For instance, museums sometimes upload thousands of public domain images. Companies sometimes draw attention to articles about themselves that have become badly outdated. Such efforts bring us closer to fulfilling our vision. Any announcement of a transparency amendment must be worded in a way that respects the good faith and the contributions of many independent organizations.
Finally, although it is stated that disclosure is a minimum requirement – that is, a necessary condition for ethical engagement with Wikipedia – some readers will incorrectly conclude that disclosing a financial interest is sufficient, putting too much stock in this minimal step. We must not take too much satisfaction in a policy change like the one proposed, but remain attentive to the need to articulate Wikimedia's ethical needs in a wide variety of scenarios.
Regardless of whether this amendment passes, undisclosed conflicts of interest are toxic to the Wikipedia community, and make it difficult for us to fulfill our vision. What can we do to address the problem?
Staff members have been hired into positions that require engagement on Wikipedia, with minimal ethical or practical guidance on how to go about it. This includes me (in 2009), and the problem remains: in 2014 a WMF employee prominently left her position after a dispute over her Wikipedia editing. While many facts of that dispute are (properly) invisible to public review, surely the organization must bear final responsibility for such a substantial misunderstanding.
In addition, WMF has at times given bad advice to other organizations about how to engage ethically with Wikipedia. That should never happen, given the wealth of resources and expertise available to them in our community.
Maintaining an ethical approach to Wikipedia engagement demands constant vigilance and diligent self-inquiry, going far beyond mere disclosure. WMF has great influence over the thought and behavior of its staff, contractors, funders, service providers, and business partners. That influence should be consistently put to good use.
Many of us are passionate about Wikipedia's success, and also spend or earn money relating to Wikipedia. We should be proactively building a shared understanding of Wikipedia ethics.
Discuss this story
Pete F.
I'm glad we agree so much on what the problems are, but your proposed solutions are pretty wishy-washy. Just navel-gazing really. Something needs to be done now. Smallbones(smalltalk) 05:48, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We are all paid editors
The proposed amendment to the Terms of Use of all Wikimedia sites, and its position that anyone receiving or potentially receiving a benefit from editing a WMF site, has the unintended consequence of deprecating the tens of millions of hours invested by millions of editors across hundreds of projects. The proposed amendment deprecates reward as a reason to edit. But there is not a single editor who has made good-faith contributions to a Wikimedia project who did not receive a benefit, extrinsic or intrinsic. In fact, the lack of intrinsic reward such as recognition of the value of one's work is often a key reason that editors leave the project.
Everyone, regardless of any other benefits that may come, starts out with the intention of making edits that they feel will make Wikipedia better. They create articles that they think will make it more complete, they fix errors in articles, they copy-edit, they remove vandalism or biased information. As they become more skilled, they participate in recent changes patrol, they take articles through audited content processes, they clean up copyvios, they evaluate new articles. Some do it for the pleasurable altruism of making Wikipedia better, or for the warm feeling that they get in sharing useful information; these are intrinsic rewards. Some do it because they gain stature within the community: as a respected editor, a helpful resource person whose opinion others seek, as an administrator, or someone with other advanced permissions indicating community trust and respect. These rewards are very powerful motivators, and they are no less important or valuable than a modestly increased bank account.
Hundreds of Wikimedians over the last 5 years have obtained gainful employment as a result of their participation in WMF projects: whether as a member of WMF staff (the current roster includes at least 60 people who were WMF volunteers before being hired, all the way up to the executive offices); as a paid GLAM intern (dozens so far, and increasing all the time); by including their volunteer work on a WMF project in their curriculum vitae, particularly when applying for positions within the tech or nonprofit industries. Hundreds more have obtained grants, scholarships, or other benefits from the WMF or a chapter because of their track record as a Wikimedia project participant. A recent WMF initiative sent out T-shirts to Wikimedians recommended by their peers. Many Wikimedians have participated in edit-a-thons and other activities where they receive gifts or other forms of recognition for their work. These are all Wikimedians who have received reasonably anticipated benefits from their work on our projects; not only that, they received compensation with "money, goods, or services".
Tens of thousands of editors work in areas that are within the scope of their personal expertise, and much of that expertise comes from their working life. This is true whether they're prostitutes or physicians, scientists or educators, game developers or archive curators. As a community, we often seek out these editors to assist in developing and improving our content in the areas where they are subject matter experts. We do this, regardless of the fact that some of them may focus on matters that could theoretically (or actually) impact on their funding or employment. Indeed, some educators expressly include Wikipedia in their classes, and many archivists and curators have "Wikipedia" in their job description.
And yes, some people edit specifically because they will receive a financial reward. Their edits undergo the same level of scrutiny as everyone else's. Their new articles still need to meet notability standards, and if they are written in a promotional manner, they will be tagged or even speedily deleted. Their edits to articles will be tagged in the same way as that of any other editor if they blank a section or modify certain types of information. Many of them have made an honest effort to behave in a very transparent manner in order to better interact with the community, only to find that they're belittled, marginalized, ignored, and even subjected to abuse; others have been treated with a reasonable degree of respect, although with (likely appropriately) increased scrutiny. But how many thousands of times have we seen article subjects (or people working on their behalf) abjectly abused because they've edited with a "COI" to correct errors or remove vandalism or BLP violations in the articles about them? How come so many of the articles that we're fairly certain were created by "paid editors" over the last few years have been kept because they're not inherently inappropriate; that is, they meet notability standards and are not obviously advertising?
In reality, we have long had the mechanisms available to us to make paid editing unattractive or unnecessary. More careful curating of existing articles and a more centralized and responsive process for article subjects to point out errors and bias would go a very long way in addressing one of the main "COI" editing issues. Clearer, more stringent, and strongly enforced notability standards will reduce the temptation to create articles for marginally notable organizations, products, and people. That, and getting over the notion that paychecks are somehow less respectable than the rewards that other Wikimedians receive for their work, will get us back to the reason we're all here. We need to remain "the encyclopedia anyone can edit". Risker (talk) 01:22, 3 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I am not a paid editor. Quit making things up. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:15, 3 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Scenario
Let's look at a typical scenario where someone thinks another editor is a paid editor. I'll note that I've seen pretty much this exact situation at least a dozen times in the last two years, so it's not an outrageous one at all.
So....what happens next? Today, we have likely driven away a new and productive editor because someone else has exercised WP:OWN. Two months from now, does the account get banned? Do we put a tag on its userpage saying "Banned for deceptive editing"? Do we add that tag if it is an account using the person's RL name? Risker (talk) 18:04, 3 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Bluff called, show me two of those "dozen times" Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:20, 3 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Unlike some people, I don't keep lists of all the really poor behaviour I see on Wikipedia. As a former arbitrator, I saw so much of it that it would have become a fulltime job. I'll poke around, but if I feel it will be an unnecessary additional smack directed toward an editor, I won't include it. However, I just came across this example of supposed "paid editing" that was a straight-out vandalism revert with a username that would not only be legitimate on many other projects, but would be the preferred one on others.[1]On the other hand, you've not answered the question, either. How do you think that accusations of deception and paid editing are likely to be raised and addressed, and if you were a third party reviewing an accusation of paid editing, how would you resolve it? Risker (talk) 20:43, 3 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]