Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Paid editing

Name

Is "Paid Editing" the same as paid editing? I ask because a capitalized phrase doesn't always mean the same thing: some "Good Articles" are pretty horrible. (I see that someone's lowercased the "articles", adding to the ambiguity.) --NE2 19:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The RFC is about if I pay you $100 to write an article. Good? Bad? Neither? rootology (C)(T) 19:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

One item to consider (I'm mentioning it here because it's not directly related to the topic under discussion) is that, having given it serious thought, would one want a job writing articles for Wikipedia? My answer is "probably not": we all want to do the best job in any work-for-pay situation, & if I was paid to write an article on a given subject, I'd feel that unless I produced a Featured Article on the subject I was cheating the person paying me. There's too much pressure by adding a paycheck to do a good job on something I currently do for my own satisfaction on my own schedule. -- llywrch (talk) 20:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I wouldn't want the stress either. rootology (C)(T) 20:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I was offered money to write the Larry Kramer article when I was just out of law school, behind three months on rent and very, very poor. I turned it down precisely because I didn't want the pressure. The article barely touches on his activism and concentrates on his writing, even though he is known (mostly) for his activism in the 1980's. Arguably, his activism had a far larger societal impact (he is credited with getting the FDA to fast-track approval for promising drugs). I wanted to write it without the "what does my patron think" worries. -->David Shankbone 20:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

You mean to tell me that you needed money, where offered money to write an article, turned down the money, and wrote the article anyway!?!? Where do you people get your logic!? If you were gonna write the article eiher way, you should have at least taken the money!Drew Smith What I've done 09:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

It does seem silly on reflection, but at the time it was the absolute right choice for me. -->David Shankbone 14:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Side point

Outside the scope of this RFC so I haven't listed it there, but every argument I've made applies equally to the IMO ridiculous promotional usernames policy. Why is User:MegaTechCorp editing MegaTechCorp bad, but the exact same user renamed User:BritneySpearsFan4653 somehow magically acceptable? – iridescent 20:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Really? If anything, that's a good argument to NOINDEX user space so that the names are 100% irrelevant in any event. If it's a role account concern, that's even simpler. rootology (C)(T) 20:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I fully agree. A lot of people who are just here to correct a mistake gets blocked for this rule. --Apoc2400 (talk) 22:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

And another thing

I can't believe nobody's mentioned this yet. Whoever it was who said "the elephant in the room just helps us squash the issues hidden under the rug out of sight" had a point. – iridescent 20:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I didn't even know that existed! Does anybody ever pay up?Drew Smith What I've done 09:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I also was never aware of this. But we're talking about people being paid hundreds or thousands of [generic currency] to edit articles, not a $10 cash prize. I suppose this is more about serious paid contributions. Though this is obviously something worth discussing. Wow. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 09:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I was equally surprised when I found this - I didn't find this first as I only searched for "reward" on the page. I started a topic below. Smartse (talk) 16:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Meatpuppets and definitions

Skeptical cat is skeptical.

If I pay 5 people to get Starbucks up to featured status and on the main page, and they all vote in the Featured Article nomination, is that meatpuppeting? How is it different if they're all just fans? – Quadell ^(talk) 20:16, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Because FA noms are trivially easy to sabotage--for good or bad purposes--and if "paid editing" in some bizarre ways exposes flaws in the process, that's a good thing. You can also meatpuppet to your heart's content on FA, but if Sandy or Raul don't sign off it's irrelevant. As for the fans vs paid, does it matter ultimate if the content is solid? rootology (C)(T) 20:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I just think that if I were the CEO of Starbucks (full disclosure: I am not the CEO of Starbucks), I could get an awful lot of advertising bang for buck if I offered 10 experienced editors $500 a piece to be paid whenever Frappuccino makes it on the front page, paid all or nothing, to everyone or no one, no matter how it got on there. And it would get on there, whether the article deserved it or not. – Quadell ^(talk) 20:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but that could be happening today, for all we know. Gaming process is separate from adding content, though. It's a wholly separate ball of wax that I didn't touch at least in my statement. My basic contention is that I don't care why you added a 9,000 word article, just that you did. rootology (C)(T) 20:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• At the end of the day, our core policies are our core policies, and collusion--for whatever motivation--to circumvent our core policies is cause for sanctions. I think Root's main point with this RFC is that money is no more odious an incentive than fandom, love, identification or ideology for writing about a subject. -->David Shankbone 20:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• You win the prize, David. rootology (C)(T) 20:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

But I don't think any company is going to pay someone to write a balanced article that follows Wikipedia policies. They're going to pay for "results" (meaning prominence, such as a front page mention, or lots of links to an article), not accuracy or balance. If you've ever been in advertising, or worked with someone who was, you'll know what I mean. In theory, good content is good content no matter what the motivation is. In practice, money will only motivate people to produce bad (imbalanced, gamed, ad-like) content. Prove me wrong. Give me one example where someone was paid to write something they wouldn't have otherwise written, where what they wrote was any good. I don't think it happens. – Quadell ^(talk) 20:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Sure, but still... if they pay, and it's the level of someone like Starbucks paying, they're not gonna post it on Craigslist. They'll do it as they have the budget in such a way we'd never know unless the author was quite stupid in his activities. And if someone is paid, and writes a "shit" article, good for them. We can delete it. If it's just a generally crappy but notable article, we can clean it per any number of policies. If they edit war to keep "their" version, we have any number of policies to deal with that. My point is simply that paid authors have no more power or authority than any other user. Unless you're suggesting someone like Starbucks will pay off hundreds of editors to sanitize their article? Otherwise, I guess I don't get the level of your concern. They can't game FA unless they buy off Sandy AND Raul. They can't game admin actions, unless they 'buy' a lot of us. They can't reasonably game consensus for normal stuff, because a hivemind cluster, every time it turns up, is usually caught pretty quick. How long did those Camera people last? I don't see what lasting damage they can do, beside to their own corporate reputation when they eventually get caught if they act stupid about it... rootology (C)(T) 20:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec) The original Arch Coal – which is the one that actually lit this blue touchpaper long ago – may not be going to win any awards, but certainly couldn't be considered spammy. – iridescent 20:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I never understood the point of this, which was clearly a bad delete (I believe he admitted as much later). The original Arch Coal was as generic and "stock" of a stub as we have. rootology (C)(T) 21:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• I doubt paid editors are going to start coming forth with "Look at this FA - that was I paid to write!" You raise a good point, though: a Wikipedia article does not often look the way a subject wants it to look. I have a notable friend who wanted his article replaced. He showed me the one that he wrote - it was full of military honors ("X served in the military, and achieved the rank of corporal"), minor achievements and information for which there is no public source. All of it was true. The central problem with paid editing is that the employer often thinks that entitles them to have the article written their way. Ultimately, it's up to the employer/employee to hammer out their expectations and not our problem when they have "paid for the work, and yet is not listed in Wikipedia, and is understandably upset." -->David Shankbone 21:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, but that's not a problem specific to paid editors. Watchlist any high profile music article, for example, and see the endless stream of almost-certainly-true facts posted by fans, which need to be reverted as unsourced. I think of "paid editing" as people who happen to be paid in cash, rather than in satisfaction. Pretty much everyone – including you – has desperately tried to get "their" version of an article be accepted as The Right Version at some point. Anything that starts getting high-profile is going to have enough eyes on it to hopefully remove obvious puffery, and puffery added by PR firms is no worse than puffery added by fans. – iridescent 21:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• Responding to Quadell above, I'll admit that I am working with people at a major computer industry (but won't say which one) to teach them how to successfully edit Wikipedia, & the biggest challenge I have is to get them to stop thinking like advertising flacks, & write like real humans. (Someone on the corporate payroll actually wrote up a guideline for editting Wikipedia, & it makes a number of sensible points I think everyone here would agree with.) For example, the power of linking articles inside Wikipedia is a new idea to them. :-/ llywrch (talk) 22:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I suspect that if someone tries to edit for pay, to promote a company or product, one of two things will happen. (1) He'll create nothing of value, get reverted, and give up dissatisfied. (2) He'll "get it" and stick around, writing good articles for all the right reasons -- he'll just happen to get paid for some of it as well. (See Raul's 3rd law.) And those who pay him are suckers, since he'd do it for free anyway. I'm not sure whether this is an argument for or against allowing paid editing, but I do think it's how it would play out most of the time. – Quadell ^(talk) 00:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I would be shocked if Arch Coal actually paid for the Arch Coal article that the paid editor not to be named wrote. It seemed to me to be far more likley to be boundry-pushing trollery. Hipocrite (talk) 21:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Huh? What part of this do you consider "trollery"? – iridescent 21:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

"Everyone hates me and is going to think everything I do is for pay. You know what would be funny? If I edited an article about a fortune 500 company for nothing and then watched it get deleted and complained a lot about how Wikipedia was this big evil behemoth that would even delete an article about a Fortune 500 company if I wrote it! I can play that tune on wikipediareview for YEARS!" Hipocrite (talk) 21:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

PR firm ethics

One might wish to review the PRSA code of ethics, at

http://www.prsa.org/aboutUs/ethics/preamble_en.html

Have we ever had a paid editor who was actually following this code of ethics, specifically "Reveal the sponsors for causes and interests represented?" and "Avoid deceptive practices?" If so, I'd very much like to see that. Hipocrite (talk) 21:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Definitely a minimum requirement if public relations professionals are to be accepted as legitimate editors. Fred Talk 02:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I hope PR professionals will remain to be accepted on Wikipedia. Most (of us) do stick to the code of ethics. Wikipedia is very different from other media we deal with, but I don't see why we PR folks couldn't follow its rules and guidelines and our code of ethics at the same time (though I admit that my first efforts here violated the former). Journalists accept us as legitimate sources of information; why shouldn't Wikipedians? By all means, scrutinize our contributions very closely, but don't discount then just on the basis we were paid to make them. --Weronix (talk) 22:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Paid editing okay

Assuming the result of this discussion is a consensus-grade level of support for the idea of paid editing, what next? Change the COI guideline? -->David Shankbone 22:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:COI is a guideline. Any changes to it need to be proposed and dealt with in the usual ways. No one here is proposing a change, and there's no notification of an overhaul. If paid editing is allowed on the same basis as any other editing then that would essentially gut the COI guideline. Is that the intention here?   Will Beback  talk  22:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

No, my intention wasn't to "gut" COI, it was to let people finally speak out on this. So far we've only ever heard from a tiny minority of the population on this that bothered to speak up, who don't have any authority to decide for the rest of us. Since I saw this coming up more and more often, I figured why not ask everyone to see where the consensus wind was blowing? rootology (C)(T) 22:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I hadn't really thought that far ahead to be honest. See my reply to Will just now. Either something like that or a WP:COI change, I guess. I figured cross the bridge when the other side came up in a month or so, and then we'll have a mandate for... whatever we have a mandate for to happen next. rootology (C)(T) 22:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd support removing this section altogether. – iridescent 22:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd have to disagree. I must admit, I've not replied to anything thus far mainly because really I don't see what the big deal is. We have five pillars, one of which is Neutral Point of View. If there is evidence in any post anywhere of something violating that policy, then it's unacceptable, whether intentionally biased or not. It doesn't matter if or how they're getting paid as long as it's non-neutral. I get paid through the pleasure of making what I view as a positive contribution to things I care about. Adding money makes it complicated, sure, but that's on the user side of things. If someone gets paid for a POV edit and it gets reverted, well then their boss is gonna have wasted some money. Not our issue. The financial section of WP:COI is very clear in its explanation - "...we very strongly encourage you to avoid editing Wikipedia in areas where there is a conflict of interest that would make your edits non-neutral (biased)." It's the same policy across the board, they're just providing examples. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 23:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The Financial section in COI refers to being paid BY a company (e.g.) to edit the article ABOUT that company. Probably not a good idea to get rid of that part, as that really creates a COI, more so than someone who advertises as a freelance writer who will edit on any article he is paid for. The latter's big concern there lis more likely to make sure the article doesn't get deleted (so he can be paid). The person doing the paying would have the bigger COI in this case, though he is abstracted from the encyclopedia itself... Arakunem^Talk 00:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Jah, my point exactly. Money is a means to an interest, not necessarily a conflict. I still say it's a stupid investment. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 05:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

David, I don't really understand your question. I've always thought that COI is a pretty good guideline, and I think paid editing is fine if you're willing to disclose what you're doing and put your judgment and reputation on the line. I don't see a conflict. Why would we have to gut WP:COI? Which section do you feel is incompatible with paid editing? -Pete (talk) 02:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• heh- I actually was just throwing it out there as a question, and wasn't proposing anything. COI just came to mind as a probable candidate for adjustment. Otherwise, I was just curious about what others thought. -->David Shankbone 04:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• A suggestion from a PR person (and, therefore, a paid non-expert editor) who unwittingly caused some disruption with clumsy Wikipedia efforts: the COI section was the first one I checked before I started editing, and I tried to follow it, but it wasn't enough. Then I was directed to COI best practices and that was very helpful, but it isn't easy to find. With so many rules and guidelines on so many different pages it is easy for a newcomer to blunder, especially when there is an expectation of quick results. It would be really helpful to establish clear procedure for this prima facie conflict of interest. It is not exactly like other types of COI because it seems to be perceived differently by many Wikipedians: the assumption of good faith doesn't -- and maybe shouldn't -- apply to flacks here. --Weronix (talk) 23:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Greg Tyler's statement

I can certainly see the appeal of a "don't ask don't tell" approach. But I wonder how this would work if applied to motivations beyond the financial. If the Church of Scientology (or Project Chanology) wanted to assign full-time workers to edit articles in such a way as to portray CoS in a positive (or negative) light, would we want to know, or would we want to turn a blind eye? If a pro- or anti-Israeli group organized small teams of paid editors to emphasize the human rights abuses of one side and downplay abuses by the other, would we want to know about such groups, or would we simply attempt to look at each editor in terms of the merits of that person's edits, without regard to the effects of the organized editing as a whole? – Quadell ^(talk) 22:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

"You get what you measure for"... it's far better to encourage people to disclose (if necessary, by sanctioning non-disclosure when it's found) than it would be to encourage people not to disclose (which is, defacto kinda how it is now, since if you disclose, sometimes bad things can happen)... ++Lar: t/c 00:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

One problematic follow-on from being paid to edit an article up to a certain level, is that the ones hiring are probably not going to like it being tweaked, tuned, pruned, edited mercilessly, pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered (Umm... ignore that last part :)) The result will probably be that the hirer will pay the hire-ee to keep the article in their preferred state. After all, who would want to pay good money to bring an article to their desired state, only to have that state constantly tuned, criticism inserted, etc. Back to a COI between Wikipedia's interests and some real-world interest. Arakunem^Talk 01:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That's not really our problem, though. If some 'client' tries such a thing, they'll learn quickly that they can't have 'their' way, and if 'their' editors don't make it clear that they have zero control over such things... it's again not our problem, and have policies in place to deal with such things already. I'd be against any attempt to give paid editors or the payees one single extra right than other editors have, in regards to policy-compliant content. rootology (C)(T) 01:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

True, caveat emptor and all. My fear is that officially sanctioning paid editing is likely to result in much more SPA activity hired to keep their pet articles just-so. While we do have policies to handle this, I fear the sheer influx of this type of editor, vs. what can be a somewhat slow response mechanism... look at recent ArbCom cases involving SPA and POV-pushing from whatever angle. Arakunem^Talk 01:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The fault of that is totally separate, which is the fact that unlike violates of every other policy under the sun, we don't have firm community-level enforcement of WP:NPOV. Since that's a Foundational issue, that's insane. When is the last time you saw someone blocked for repeated NPOV vios? rootology (C)(T) 01:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Spot on again, which is part of my point. Until we do correct the inconsistencies in policy enforcement, especially in the BLP area, opening a further floodgate for a POV deluge is very counter-productive. Arakunem^Talk 01:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Hypothetical conversation #1 between paid editor and client:

OK, got it, thanks for the info on your organization/band/county/agency. Now you know, I'm fully disclosed as a paid editor, and I have to abide by the policies in place that govern paid editing... those include a fundamental one, contributions are irrevocably released and any contributor consents to editing by others. Even merciless editing. So I can do my best to make a factual, neutral, and engaging article, but I can't guarantee it will stay that way. However it should reflect well on your organization that you play by the rules. Do we have a deal?

Hypothetical conversation #2 between paid editor and client:

OK, got it, thanks for the info on your organization/band/county/agency. Now you know, I'm editing on the QT... no one knows I'm a paid editor and I'll just be looking like another interested fan/geek... I should be able to influence matters fairly effectively as long as no one knows it's me. If I have to, I'll sock to defend it... after all, no one will suspect me in particular. Do we have a deal?

Now, an unscrupulous client may well prefer convo #2, although I think, or at least hope, many will prefer #1 more... but which one do WE prefer? Because there IS paid editing, and there will be. The question really is, on our terms? Or not? That's the choice we get. ++Lar: t/c 02:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Apologies, I've only just come across this thread. Going back to the first question, my belief is that we can ignore anyone's status as a paid editor because any NPOV issues or suchlike should become apparent to the community anyway. We already have, I'm sure, lots of Scientologists and Channers on Wikipedia editing those articles to their point of view. Why would paid editors would be any more of a problem than that? It's not that I want to ignore paid editors, I just want to ignore that they are paid and treat them like anyone else. Is our primary goal to generate good content for the encyclopaedia or protect our interests by taking actions by decent editors who just want a bit of cash for something they enjoy? Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 07:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Greg asks "Why would paid editors would be any more of a problem than that?" They wouldn't. The question is, do we want to add to this problem, or do we want to reduce it? – Quadell ^(talk) 12:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I was trying (not very well, I speak naturally and that doesn't come out well in written form!) to get across the idea that paid editors aren't different to anyone else. Some editors come on here with a COI, they're treated accordingly. Some paid editors do the same, and should be treated the same regardless. I'm not saying paid editors actively make any difference to our problems with vandalism, NPOV etc., mainly because they're in a vast minority. Now, if we encourage that, there'll be more of them and we'll have more issues. If we discourage them, we could get rid of some decent editors. So my view is to do nothing. Sure it's something we need to discuss but I personally think we're better off leaving it the way we are. Adding some sort of guideline, for or against paid contributions will have a detrimental effect. Carrying on as is and not bothering would be, as I see, our best policy. I'm not sure that's what you asked but, if not please try me again. Sometimes I just miss the point entirely. The pains of idiocy or something. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 16:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Arbcom decisions that could be relevant

The following recent arbcom findings of fact, in the Scientology case, seem relevant. I don't think any of them flatly prohibit paid editing, but they should be taken into account. – Quadell ^(talk) 00:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Purpose of Wikipedia

1) The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Use of the encyclopedia to advance personal agendas – such as advocacy or propaganda and philosophical, ideological or religious dispute – or to publish or promote original research is prohibited.

Neutrality and conflicts of interest

2) Wikipedia adopts a neutral point of view, and advocacy for any particular view is prohibited. In particular, Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines strongly discourage editors contributing "in order to promote their own interests." Neutrality is non-negotiable and requires that, whatever their personal feelings, all editors must strive to (i) ensure articles accurately reflect all significant viewpoints published by reliable sources and (ii) give prominence to such viewpoints in proportion to the weight of the source. Editors may contribute to Wikipedia only if they comply with Wikipedia's key policies.

Single purpose accounts

10.1) Single purpose accounts are expected to contribute neutrally instead of following their own agenda and, in particular, should take care to avoid creating the impression that their focus on one topic is non-neutral, which could strongly suggest that their editing is not compatible with the goals of this project.

Multiple editors with a single voice

11) It is rarely possible to determine with complete certainty whether several editors from the same IP or corporate server are sockpuppets, meat puppets, or acquaintances who happen to edit Wikipedia. In such cases, remedies may be fashioned which are based on the behavior of the user rather than their identity. The Arbitration Committee may determine that editors who edit with the same agenda and make the same types of edits be treated as a single editor.

Good-faith participation welcome

18) Contributors to Wikipedia may benefit the project by participating in a variety of ways. Good-faith participation is welcome whether it comes in the form of editorial contributions, tagging articles for clean-up, initiating or participating in community deletion discussions, or performing of administrative tasks. Editors making any or all of these types of contributions are welcome. The project and progress toward our goals are diminished if we drive away or demoralize a good-faith editor who contributes or has the potential to contribute, while complying with Wikipedia policies, in any or all of these areas.

Will paid editing discourage voluntary editing?

Something else to consider: Wikipedia's greatest resource by far is the army of volunteer contributors like you and me who contribute just for the fun of it. Anything that decreases that would be a bad idea. And there is evidence that if it were widely believed that some people were paid to edit Wikipedia, fewer people would do it for free. In the 1960s and 1970s, psychologists Edward Deci and Richard deCharms showed that when people are given money for doing things they enjoyed, they lost interest in those things faster than when they were not rewarded. The counter-intuitive finding that paid volunteers work less is backed up it many studies (e.g.) I haven't seen any studies on what happens to volunteer efforts when a few participants are paid but most are not -- I suspect the outcomes of these studies is pretty obvious. Volunteer support would dry up rather quickly. Of course we can't prevent company X from paying people to edit... but we can work to prevent the perception that this commonly happens, and one way is to officially discourage the practice. Thoughts? – Quadell ^(talk) 01:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

An interesting flip side thought: what is some university staff like professors get grants (hey, it could happen) to spend time adding quality content? rootology (C)(T) 01:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I read this heading as referring to Will (Beback) and perhaps insinuating that he was being paid to discourage some kind of editing. Clearly, it's time for me to get out and explore the big blue room. Over and out. -Pete (talk) 02:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Regular editing by Public Relations professionals will change the atmosphere on Wikipedia into a struggle between those able to afford professional public relations services and the amateur voluntary community which will be overshadowed by the professional expertise public relations professionals will bring to the task. It will be rather like going to court without a lawyer, while the opposition has the best lawyers money can buy. Fred Talk 02:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Fred: This is a legitimate concern, but I don't think it's within Wikipedia's power to totally eliminate this dynamic. As it is, there's plenty of paid editing on Wikipedia -- if you don't believe me, just run a couple searches on Craigslist. It's not within our power to prohibit paid editing; we can establish policies, but that will only affect people who abide by policy.

At the same time, I think your argument is a little exaggerated. We have lots of evidence that there are people who are willing and able to make exceptionally good contributions with zero financial incentive. To predict that those folks will be drowned out by professional editors is a bit of a leap of logic.

OK, I'm outta here..and I mean it this time :) -Pete (talk) 02:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

To reply to Rootology: It's the same general situation if they have a conflict of interest based on who's paying them. If, say, Jimbo hired someone to improve the "Jimmy Wales" article, it'd be a problem. If he hired someone to improve the thermodynamics article, there'd be much less of a problem—in fact, probably no one would care (unless Jimbo has strong views on thermodynamics that I haven't heard about :) ). The issue is always in the conflict of interest. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 02:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

"To predict that those folks will be drowned out by professional editors is a bit of a leap of logic." It's already happening. There are areas of the very long tail of wikipedia articles which core volunteer editors rarely visit, much less those who are willing and able to enforce policy. I have stepped away from areas and articles because I don't have the time or interest to put up to compete with editors with a financial stake. Also, "If a person edits a Wikipedia article, they are almost prime facie "interested" in the topic."[1] but there are subject matters where no one except those with COI has an interest, and these languish. I just don't see that the community will deal with COI; in many cases it's already not dealing. Siawase (talk) 10:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Pete says "It's not within our power to prohibit paid editing; we can establish policies, but that will only affect people who abide by policy." That's true, and it's also true of SPAs, edit-warring, sock-puppeting, etc. The question is, do we want to encourage or discourage this behavior? Just because we can't prevent all of it doesn't mean we should change our policies to legitimize it. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Your logic is sound, Quadell, and it's a difficult line to traverse. I think the winning rebuttal is that why is money any more odious an incentive than love, fandom, ideology or identification as motivators to write about a subject. I rarely start writing an article on a topic I could care less about. If I'm writing about Larry Kramer because I'm gay and he has done a lot for my community; or if I'm writing about Augusten Burroughs because he's a friend; or if I'm writing about Ecuador because I'm spent three weeks there and had the time of my life - what's the difference? We all have similar motivators; why is money the one line that can't be crossed? Some people find ideology and trying to shape public opinion through knowledge to be far more powerful a motivator than getting $500 to write an article, and people are often far more invested in the outcome. -->David Shankbone 14:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with much of what's been said here:

Siawase, yes, there are certain areas where calm and disinterested editors are reluctant to venture. And yes, that is a significant problem. I totally agree about that. But I don't see it as a problem that will overtake the entire project under any specific conditions. The "leap of logic" I referred to is the idea that some shift in policy or guidelines under consideration here will cause all of Wikipedia to become that way. I just don't think that's true.

Quadell, I agree that it's important to determine what kind of behavior should be encouraged or discouraged. But I disagree that paid editing is the place where the line should be drawn.

I would, however, say this (which is already more or less said at WP:COI): it would difficult in the extreme to comply with the letter and spirit of all Wikipedia policies and guidelines while maintaining a successful relationship with a client. It would require a thorough understanding and affiliation with Wikipedia policy, guidelines, and with the culture here; and also, the social and business ability to lay down the law when your client wants you to do something that would be unacceptable.

So I think that anybody looking to "make a quick buck" editing Wikipedia would (and should) encounter difficulty.

However, keep in mind that there are plenty of conditions where a "conflicted" interest is perfectly aligned with Wikipedia's mission: if an article about a company, for instance, contains information that is verifiably inaccurate, that is something we want anybody to fix. If such an article's talk page is viewed only very infrequently by regular Wikipedians, I'd say it's better to have a paid editor fix the error, and notify related WikiProjects, than to leave a note on the talk page and wait for months for somebody to come along.

Other edits are pretty innocuous: if an employee of a company wants to add its logo to a page, they should be able to do so (complying with WP:NFUR of course) without sparking controversy.

In the end, I guess I believe that this area is better dealt with via guideline than policy (as is already the case with WP:COI), and that it's a good idea for anyone engaging in paid editing to adopt their own policies over and above Wikipedia policy, to which they voluntarily and transparently hold themselves accountable. -Pete (talk) 16:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

What are we discussing?

The issue that we are supposed to be discussing is "paid editing", that is, edits being made where the editor is being paid for those edits. The issue that many people seem to be discussing is "paid promotional editing", that is, edits being made to promote a view/organisation/person where the editor is being paid for those edits. Generally, if edits promote a particular organisation or person, it is further assumed that that organisation or person is paying for the edits. Brian Jason Drake 03:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The topic of discussion was set forth very clearly & succinctly at the top by Rootology: "The RFC is about if I pay you $100 to write an article. Good? Bad? Neither?" If more information is needed for a consensus to be formed when it might be good, bad or neither, then we need to bring more information into this discussion. -- llywrch (talk) 04:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

This is important. Company X is never going to pay good money to have an editor write "an article" on their company, without caring whether the article makes them look good or bad. In any real-life edit-for-pay situation, there is going to be an inherent POV-pushing aspect. It may be explicit or implicit, but the deal will always be that "I'm paying you to make us look good on Wikipedia", and that's against policy. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That's not particularly true. I know people who want to pay people to write simply an accurate article about themselves. It's the William French Anderson problem: a genius and father of gene therapy, who was convicted of pedophilia. It's very likely Anderson would like far more discussed about his gene therapy career, for which he was almost a Time Person of the Year, instead of having half his article about his conviction, and an unhelpful section about his gene therapy work. Yes, he'd probably pay to have someone expand his gene therapy work section so that the pedophilia is not so glaring, knowing it can never be removed. -->David Shankbone 14:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Agree with David again. There's also the not-uncommon case of a business/organization which does meet the notability guidelines, but happens to not yet have an article (or only a one line stub). Watch Special:NewPages for a few minutes and you'll see example after example of articles being deleted as "spam" purely because they were created by a new account with a similar name to the company being written about. I would imagine a lot of companies, community groups, academics etc would welcome the "affirmation" that the existence of a Wikipedia article on them provides, even if said article wasn't particularly flattering to them. – iridescent 14:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I am sure many people would welcome many things, including bad outcomes like this, and be happy to pay for it. Too bad. Wikipedia is not a place for people to pay to have themselves seem famous or important.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely. Perhaps it doesn't seem like a huge deal for now, but once word gets out, especially in the media, there will be a rapid influx of users who are getting paid to edit/create articles. hmwithτ 19:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with David & Iridescent on this: while some companies obviously want their articles to be white-washed paeans, there are some who understand the idea of an encyclopedia. I'm working with one corporation (yes, it's one you're undoubtedly heard of) at the moment, advising them on how to write an article for Wikipedia on one of their products. (Most of my input has been to copy edit, wikify & teach them not to write like an advertisement copy writer.) The article will be added to Wikipedia whether I help them or not, so I might as well help them write one that is appropriate for Wikipedia. -- llywrch (talk) 19:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The topic that we are supposed to be discussing in the RFC (paid editing) was set forth (not very clearly, in my opinion) by Rootology in the second comment on this page. But the topic that we are actually discussing (which seems to be paid promotional editing) does not appear to be the same one.
The discussion in this section appears to be about whether the two topics are in fact the same. I still don't think they are. Brian Jason Drake 05:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, here are two actual ads (found through the WR link on JW's page) :

• Stable Wikipedia Product Placement
  "Expand "carpet cleaning" article and create articles on "carpet dry cleaning" and on major system manufacturers. Competitors will be included but every sourceable and encyclopedic marketing spin will be present. Ongoing stability advocacy is included..."
• wikipedia entry for boosting webtraffic
  "We want to have a page created in Wikipedia about Carpet Dry Cleaning. We have already prepared an extensive content, and need someone to revise and adapt it. The goal is to get listed and have a backlink to our site ..."

The goals seem quite clear. Abecedare (talk) 15:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC) [edited for readability Brian Jason Drake 05:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)]

Even if the goals are quite clear in those cases, it doesn't necessarily mean that all paid editing is biased. Brian Jason Drake 05:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

If the second article is made with proven notability, and provides a backlink to the website, then where's the issue? If it's not notable and doesn't deserve an article, we'll delete it for those reasons. In either situation, the article will get what it deserves. We know this because we have a tried and tested system which we can enforce. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 07:51, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Privatemusings comment

I think the RfC format mightn't be the best suited to this sort of discussion - it doesn't actually seem to encourage folk to read others' views before bunging their own in, and already this page is pretty unwieldy. 20+ views at this point is a lot of noise. Privatemusings (talk) 04:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)yeah yeah, I commented below the 'do not comment below' instruction.... sorry about that - it's sort of my point that the 'instructions' here don't necessarily help much!

I agree. What we need is a pro-and-con kind of article that people can use as a basis for discussion. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 15:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

IMO, this format is working for now. After this has run its course, we can start a guideline without an edit-war. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not simply letting paid editors edit specified pages

I think you guys are being a bit naive about this if you think that all you're discussing is a few paid editors who will make $20 an hour writing up the occasional piece which will then become a Good Article and everyone will be the richer. That's not what will happen. What will happen is that, before long, companies will have a wikimedia coordinator, publicity agents will add wikimedia experts to their staff, Barack Obama's Technology guy will hire wikipedia experts. People with articles will be able to pay a small sum of money to small time consultants to watch and monitor their articles. Wikipedia is the single most important source for information on the web and, as anyone who has ever manipulated their parents know, control of information is the most important thing in the world. So why aren't companies doing this now? Because they have to do it sneakily. and doing sneaky stuff backfires badly.(Why else would the crat in question have to do this on the quiet?) Allow declared paid editing and the rules of the ball game change completely.

So, that's not totally a bad thing for the admins and crats currently on the scene. I'm sure many who've contributed extensively to the pedia will be happy with the opportunity to monetize their experience. Not, I'm sure, for making a few dollars but if it immediately adds value to the resume of an admin or crat, why overlook that added value. If the admin gets a job that is partly on the strength of 'wikipedia expertise', who wouldn't willingly resign adminship, declare COI, and keep editing. Over time, adminship, which now carries no monetary value whatsoever, will take on a measurable dollar value. When that happens, the process will immediately be corrupted, if only ever so slightly.

Finally, there is the question of how to deal with paid editing accounts and policy decisions. Will anyone who has ever edited on a paid basis be disqualified from commenting on an RfA or at AN, ANI, XfD etc? Will there be a threshold - one paid article for every ten unpaid ones? Will they have to prove a lack of involvement or will their involvement have to be challenged? What if someone like User:Helenalex decides to take up paid editing after years of unpaid involvement on wikipedia? Will they be disbarred from wikispace completely, partially, not at all? The point is that whatever you do, the moment paid editors are involved in even unrelated areas of wikipedia but definitely on wikispace, policy will start shifting ever so slightly toward their interests. Anyone who has ever brought up children knows that after the tenth convoluted reason for that second piece of chocolate, you give the chocolate and I'm sorry to say, that's what will happen to wikipedia. (I only use User:Helenalex as an example because he/she has both a declared interest in paid editing and also has a long history at wikipedia. No offense intended.) --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 15:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

We already have openly paid editing. But the source of the money is clearly neutral and the relationships are disclosed (create images selected by the Foundation, create additioanal article about any encyclopedic subject in the Arabic language wikipedia, $20 to take an existing article to FA status, add to the Wikimedia software whatever is needed to make it easier to edit and to edit non-text,and so on). "Paid editing" is too broad a category to be useful. WAS 4.250 (talk) 18:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

RegentsPark: policy is already shifted in favor of the loudest and the baddest. So-called "consensus", refusal to take editorial content decision until it blows up etc... If nice corporate gentlemen will attempt to reverse the mess, they should be warmly commended, should they not? And don't underestimate Obama staffers, please :))

I still don't understand yours and other folks premise that this RFC will change something and open the floodgates. There were no floodgates. Some organizations, as evidenced by COFS arbitrage, were keenly involved in editing. Others, like web brigades, are just allegations. Are, present tense. What makes you feel that they will multiply? NVO (talk) 08:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've worked in large corporations at various levels over many years and know the obsession with image and control over information. Wikipedia is not currently viewed as being a part of the 'media' but rather as what it is - a volunteer based encyclopedia (editing wikipedia is not banned while talking to the media without permission usually is). That will change if corporations feel they can control what goes in here. I, for one, can see several business opportunities if 'paid editing' is officially recognized, and, if I can, I'm sure hundreds of others can see many more such opportunities! My bigger concern is that allowing paid editors will, over time, skew the pedia toward where the money is and away from its encyclopedic mission (Roger II of Sicily is unlikely to have paid advocates!). Unfortunately this has become a bit of a circus so I'm going to see how this plays out from the sidelines. --RegentsPark (My narrowboat) 16:51, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

This RFC

Under the section entitled "Paid editing okay" I asked what next if it is shown there is consensus for paid editing. I should have added a caveat: Rootology, who initiated this RFC, has pointed out that it is simply for informational purposes and not meant to be instructive. That doesn't mean that what is gleaned from this RFC can't turn into changes in guidelines or policies. But he hasn't set it up that way. It's set up simply to gauge where the community is at with this issue. issues of pro/con formatting, etc., are less relevant in such a circumstance. -->David Shankbone 16:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Might be of interest

No comment on the RfC (I got lost around half-way down the page!), but this might be of interest to the debaters here. I guess it could be taken as evidence for either position: "paid editing is bad because this is where it leads"; or "we might as well permit paid editing because those here for nefarious reasons won't disclose themselves anyway". EyeSerene^talk 19:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC) ...aaand, if I'd got to the bottom of the page, I might have noticed my above was unnecessary. <sigh> EyeSerene^talk 19:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

:). Another note of that was left at Rootology's talk page. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 19:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Heh, well, it's been a long day and I can only monitor so many tabs at once :) I saw you'd already posted it too - for me it confirms my gut feeling that paid editing is not something we want to encourage. EyeSerene^talk 19:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That was posted at COIN here but it apparently wasn't the right place. WP:RFAR was suggested - this is an interesting contemporary case in light of this whole discussion. Smartse (talk) 16:29, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Sockpuppets

Not sure if it is of relevance, but I would like those involved to take note of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Paid Editing which I am currently in the process of reviewing. Tiptoety ^talk 21:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. When I first come to this discussion, I was confused with the sockpuppet user because of the capitalization of paid editing in some places. That user was blocked by now anyways. And it is not of their relevance, the two are not related in any way. --98.154.26.247 (talk) 22:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Reward Board

There hasn't been any mention anywhere yet about the Wikipedia:Reward board. When I found this I couldn't help feeling slightly uneasy about the concept. I was surprised no one has mentioned it yet. Smartse (talk) 00:07, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, someone else did mention it and they too were surprised that they were, apparently, the first to do so. It's buried in the section #And another thing above. Brian Jason Drake 04:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I've seen this in the past and I have a hard time comprehending how we can let it on this site. Returned favors (copyedit jobs or peer reviews) are acceptable "bounty" but monetary rewards are not. ThemFromSpace 04:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Some forms of monetary compensation might be ok. The most obvious is contributing to the Foundation money in honor of the person who did so (or contributing to some other charity in the same way). This might be ok even if one takes a strict stand against paid editing. But yes, direct bounty is really problematic. JoshuaZ (talk) 06:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Hardly. The Reward board is open, transparent, and one of the best ways to go about any kind of paid editing. My article writing skills are pretty lame, but I do have the occasional wad of cash that wasn't spent on pizza. If I can pay someone to do something like improve the article about muscle wire (something that has always fascinated me) then I have found a way to contribute to the wiki, despite my poor writing skills. Doing something like banning the Reward board would prevent that, but do nothing for companies who pay people to push POV's on articles for their products. It's like DRM; you're only hurting the people who are being honest/legitimate. -- Ned Scott 08:58, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

There may also be a distinction also where the reward board presumably isn't people paying for topic that they have any connection to. I presume you don't work selling shape memory alloys. JoshuaZ (talk) 13:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you think we should prevent people from paying someone to take photographs of 100 species of butterflies and upload them to the Commons? I think we shouldn't; this creates awesome free content that anybody may reuse. Similarly, I think it is great if people are paid to write articles these species of butterflies. More free content is good. Of course, if the photographs are of poor quality, they will be replaced by better photographs, no matter if paid for or not; and if the articles are bad, they will probably be deleted or rewritten. But I don't see a fundamental difference between paid articles and paid images; it is all free content that everyone can use to build upon. Kusma (talk) 10:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely not but paying to make articles on fairly obscure topics without mentioning what their motivation is does seem a little iffy (e.g. this. The real issue is what people aim to gain from the articles being made. In the case of companies/products etc. it seems as though it should be strongly forbidden but if a university/library/charity wishes to employee someone to create articles about species or to take photographs of them then I think this should be encouraged. The reward board is hardly used and although I can understand its purpose I don't think that the benefits of it outweigh the possible costs of people doubting the neutrality of WP. Smartse (talk) 16:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Also I think it's worth mentioning - is anyone really going to go to all the effort of making an article for $10? If you want to earn money WP isn't really the best place (even for the famous 2 cents an edit that I get :p) Smartse (talk) 16:25, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguating "paid editing"

We really need to establish better what we mean when we say "paid editing", because various ideas have been floating around that muddy the discussion. Below is a roadmap definition of various types of paid editing and distinctions to be made between them. Feel free to add distinctions, ideas, or dangers to the list, but please sign your additions. I know it's incomplete, but I am typing this on my iPod and it's rather tedious: help and comments would be appreciated. I'll update it when I can; my main keyboard is currently broken. :( {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 16:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC) (iPod edit)

Payment

All "paid editing involves editors who are receiving some tangible reward as a result of their edits to Wikipedia.

• Posting freely-licensed content for others to scrape is not paid editing
  • Danger: a sockpuppet account being used to scrape content and thereby legitimize it
• The extent of the payment can vary: is a $20 "not so serious" payment better or worse than a $1,000 "exceptional public relations service" one?

Motivation

Why people want to create or edit articles, or to have someone create or edit articles for them, makes a difference.

• Publicity: the simple "any press is good press" mentality. By creating a Wikipedia article, the notability of the organization, person, or product is implied to the viewer, since not everyone has Wikipedia articles.
  • Danger: Wikipedia is not a platform for promotion, so if the entity described in the article isn't notable, there is a problem.
• Promotion: wanting a good review on Wikipedia, which is generally known to at least try for a neutral point of view.
  • Danger: this directly conflicts with NPOV
• Passive promotion: By improving the article neutrally, the subject gets publicity through the channels that good content on Wikipedia already gets. For example, if Wolfram Research sponsored the development of the Mathmatica article to that of a Featured Article, they'd likely eventually benefit from a feature as Today's Featured Article.
  • This is generally good practice, but not perfect.
• Altruism: people might sponsor someone to improve a particular article or set of articles, just wanting them to be excellent encyclopedia articles
  • This is probably commendable.
• Attack: by tearing down something or someone, a third party benefits.
  • This is naturally rather undesirable.

Expectations

(needs to be filled in)

Transparency

Do these paid editors disclose their status, their clients, and their goals, or some subset thereof?

• Complete transparency
  • Most desirable, but potential PR problems for both the client and Wikipedia as part of perceived manipulation
• Partial transparency
  • Less desirable, but better than nothing, potentially lessens PR issues for the client
• No transparency
  • Better that it's admitted that there's paid editing going on (as it's easier for Wikipedians to know to review the user's contributions) but otherwise probably undesirable
• No admission of paid status
  • Status quo; avoids PR problems for Wikipedia but is tricky to manage.
• Active avoidance of transparency
  • Typical of banned users (e.g. MyWikiBiz) and serious POV pushers; undesirable in general

---

(Arukunem)

Relationship of paid editor to the topic

This relates to the person doing the editing and not the entity paying for the work. This will directly affect the level to which the paid editor has a COI.

• Hired by a company as a Wikipedia "Article Manager"
  • This editor is likely to have the most slanted POV as his job's role is to keep the company happy.
• Hired by a PR firm to improve articles for clients
  • This editor would likely bounce from job to job, but would also likely be called back to an article when other editors change the preferred version, so periodic POV reversions may happen
• Freelance writer who happens to also take Wikipedia jobs
  • For "one and done" work, least POV problems, depending on the level of ownership felt by the author.

(Added Relationship section) Arakunem^Talk 16:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment about motivations: I don't want to mess with your list, but consider adding another motivation for paid editing: unfortunately, it is easy and not uncommon for Wikipedia (or most of the rest of the internet) to be misused to defame someone. Unless that person is famous, chances are volunteer editors might overlook pages where this happens. So the person who falls victim to this may hire someone to protect their professional reputation (which is a hard-earned intellectual property), and to remove the source of emotional stress that comes from seeing malicious statements about oneself in an encyclopedia. This is not publicity, promotion or altruism, but it may be a likely motivation. --Weronix (talk) 17:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment about relationships: Consider removing the quotation marks from "improve." It implies you believe it is impossible for a PR person to actually make an improvement to an article about their client. The editor may bounce from topic to topic (not necessarily job to job), and monitor topics of interest to the PR firm and its clients. Paid -- yes; COI -- of course; danger -- not if the editor obeys Wikipedia rules and guidelines (imho); benefit to Wikipedia -- possibly, if the editor draws attention to areas overlooked by paid editors. --Weronix (talk) 18:03, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I separated off the relationship section off and struck it for now as I think it's already covered under motivation; it also presumes that the goal of the paid editor's clients is a slanted article, which isn't necessarily the case. I also removed the quotes from "improve" in that section—you're right that that has a presumption there. Arakunem's addition misses the point in some ways (no offense meant, Arakunem)—my intention is to categorize what "paid editing" encompasses. For example, we can distinguish between the benefits of transparent, altruistic paid editing and the harm of promotional, opaque paid editing. There are upsides to both prohibiting and allowing paid editing: I want to take a closer look at them. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 21:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, good point: attacking competitor might be a possible motive for paid editing. But on the flip-side -- and this is what I meant in my comment about motivation -- those attacked may pay an editor to defend themselves (or their business) from such attacks (or attacks made by volunteers with the same effect). I know there are off-line Wikipedia protocols when this concerns living persons, but I am not sure how it would work for companies (trademark violation?) or for those who might want to protect (which is not necessarily the same as "whitewash") the memory of a dead person. It is not unusual for prominent people or companies to have PR firms help them manage reputational issues. --Weronix (talk) 22:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with your edits, and strikeouts, though I don't think your section on Motivation addresses the variety of editors who might get paid. It speaks to the person doing the paying, and why they might want these edits, but not to who the editors themselves are likely to be. (Note, I do a lot of work over at COI/N, so this latter aspect is something I focus on often over there). Your section draws no real distinction between a full-time WP editor for MegaBigCorp.com, and a freelance writer on Craigslist. Those 2 people will have wildly diverse senses of ownership, and as far as COI goes, one will be all about the single check, while the other one's job may be hanging on their article work, so they're more likely to be somewhat aggressive. I just think while we're defining paid editing, this certainly should be factored in, since it speaks to the people actually doing the editing, and not just the paying. Also, the "improve" was simply meant to imply that a PR firm's idea of improvement may sometimes not be consistent with ours. Not necessarily anyone's fault, just a difference based on the way they and WP operate day to day. I can see how it could be read with massive sarcasm quotes, so removing them is appropriate. Arakunem^Talk 01:35, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

This is unenforceable, hence unnecessary.

How can we know if editors are being paid outside of Wikipedia? And if we don't know, what's the point of making a policy that is unenforceable? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 17:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree but some people may get 'caught'. I dislike using that word but I have no other choice. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:18, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

No one has made any policy here or can yet. The matter is very much under discussion. As it is, Jimmy would need to ban apparently one Arb and an Oversighter at the rate we're up to now. But yes, it can't be banned. I have a feeling that we'll end up with a policy where if you're caught out as a paid "advocate" you're done for, but that paid "contribution of policy-compliant content" will end up OK. But thats just my prediction. rootology (C)(T) 17:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Root, why would Jimmy need to ban anyone? You can't ban people because they were not informed of a wrongdoing in advance! -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like we are formalizing a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Policy. We can do better.--Sphilbrick (talk) 17:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Oops, thought I was being original - should have known better, should have searched.--Sphilbrick (talk) 18:59, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Cary Bass told me at this year's Recent Changes Camp that it's an open secret there are people being paid to edit Wikipedia. Then there is this report that Microsoft wanted to hire a consultant to edit OOXML; but I stopped following that event so I have no idea if anything came of it -- however see this. I would guess that Bass's comment was based (to use a metaphor) that we can tell that there are noises & spoor in the woods, but no one has seen bears or other wild carnivores there. Yet. Better to prepare our plans now, & not after the wolves have come into the fold & killed our livestock. -- llywrch (talk) 17:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

There are two different issues - and unfortunately, some of the preceding discussion conflates the two:

1. Should we allow paid editing? This is like debating whether we should allow gays in the military, or 20 years olds to drink beer. To the extent that people are debating issue 1, they are wasting time.
2. What position should WP take regarding paid editing? This includes a wide spectrum of possibilities, including the useless "ban it", and "encourage it", as well as more sensible middle options.--Sphilbrick (talk) 17:59, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

   It is rather "ban it" vs "make it official/accept it". I choose "discourage it" as it has been the case for a long time. I don't see the need for any policy. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 19:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Also, keep in mind that we have a lot of trouble enforcing restrictions against sockpuppeting. That doesn't mean we're going to get rid of our rules against that. (And similar remarks apply to returning banned users). Difficult to enforce is not by itself a good argument against trying to enforce something. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:51, 11 June 2009

People currently have to feel ashamed doing it and have to keep it behind closed doors. I can't fathom what would happened if they longer had to do it in the shadows. hmwithτ 19:19, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

JoshuaZ, I did not say it is "difficult" to enforce. You are right that is not a valid argument. I said that it is impossible to enforce. Unless Wikipedia verifies people's personal info and\or hires a team of private investigators to stalk every Wikipedia users, they have no way of knowing who is a paid editor or not. Even doing IP lookups which are then linked to certain organizations, we still would have no way of knowing if this is a coordinated effort or if Wikipedia is simply being used by people on their work computers. Now, if through the media or whatever else, we do find a paid editor, then any of their edits can then be looked at more carefully for POV violations and, if they fail to meet Wikipedia's standards, fixed. If they create a problem, with sockpuppets, contentious editing, etc., this would be dealt with under existing policy. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 01:18, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

So, a hypothetical for the sake of discussion

I'm not actually planning on doing this, since it's not like I'd even have the time (nor the interest). What if this appeared on Craigslist or a website?

I am a seasoned Wikipedia editor that knows how to write "Good Articles". Do you think something should be in in Wikipedia?

If so, please e-mail to xxxx@xxxx.com with information on the subject topic, along with a minimum of TEN links to "independent reporting" or sources about your subject. Independent means 100% separate from the subject itself. If I feel the subject can 'work' as a Wikipedia article, I will let you know, and how many hours it will likely take to get it written. Research time is $20 USD/hour. The writing fee is $30 USD/hour. Both are payable via Paypal; the fee must be paid ahead of time before the work begins and a time length is agreed upon for writing, copyediting, and research. Given the requirements on Wikipedia of strict neutrality in writing, you will not have approval over the article text and contents.

Once the article is posted to Wikipedia, I will assume no further maintenance on the article in any way, shape or form. The article text will not be subject to your approval, and must comply with all Wikipedia policies, such as "Notability", "Neutrality", and if I become aware of negative information about the subject matter in question, I reserve the right to add such information if it is reliably and independently sourced (similar, for example, to how responsible newspapers often report the good and the bad on a topic).

My services offer zero guarantee that 1) the article will remain forever on Wikipedia; 2) will remain in any way near to the form in which I posted it. I guarantee no on-going maintenance of the article after I post it, but you are free to do anything within Wikipedia's policies with the article, independent of me. Should the article come up for any "internal" Wikipedia discussions involving it's fate, such as a request by a user to "delete" it, I will not participate in such a debate. Upon posting on Wikipedia, you will receive a confirmation e-mail which will contain a detailed series of links to relevant policy pages and noticeboards on Wikipedia where you can receive assistance with the article going forward.

If you are interested, please e-mail. Click here: xyz for samples of my previous work on Wikipedia.

Would this get someone in trouble? My statement, the first on the RFC, is based upon the perhaps idealistic notion of people doing things like this hopefully in a responsible fashion. rootology (C)(T) 18:05, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

If I ever seriously think about leaving Wikipedia again, I'll just post a version of that on Craig's List. Then we'll see. (It'll advertise my disgruntlement while being far less disruptive than ranting about other users & dropping the f-bomb at every opportunity.) -- llywrch (talk) 05:17, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Llywrch, you've always been a very patient editor :) By the way, the Register has just published the story. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 05:22, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Register story. That was fast. Cla68 (talk) 05:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

It's a hot story on a topic people will read -- that's why they put it up fast. FWIW, the Register's article could have been worse. -- llywrch (talk) 15:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Paid editing might increase diversity on WP

This is offered with tongue-in-cheek; please interpret accordingly:

(BTW, is some silliness allowed on discussion pages? I can't find a guideline for this.)

This morning I heard Jimbo on KCRW, talking about the "White and Nerdy" song and its reference to WP... I happen to be white and geeky myself, but many PR people are not. Perhaps embracing them on WP would lead to a greater diversity of voices and thus a more balanced content and coverage? Yes, we are all supposed to be neutral -- just like justice is supposed to be blind -- but perhaps some "Wise Latina" type of influence might be beneficial? --Weronix (talk) 18:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I just don't see how 'paid editing' might increase diversity on WP. I am not a 'white' person and have been editing WP for years as a volunteer. There are plenty other non-'white' editors over here. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 18:41, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I know not all editors are "white and nerdy," that it's just a silly stereotype. Still, editing WP is time-consuming and takes dedication; if it is done mostly by those who are computer-savvy and tend to spend their free-time indoors typing away, then a significant portion of the population is probably under-represented. Paid editors would bring diversity because:

1. they might represent those who are are not computer-savvy (and who can afford to pay... but hey, wealthy Luddites are part of the population);
2. they themselves might have different temperament/lifestyle than most volunteer WP editors, or at least might tend to spend their free-time differently, and thus bring different life-experience.

But really, please don't take this too seriously. I am sure the Wikipedia community covers all age-groups, the whole nerdy/hip spectrum, and most of the non-techy/techy spectrum. It is entirely possible that the only characteristic the volunteer editors have in common is their ability/willingness to regularly spend their free time here as opposed to elsewhere. --Weronix (talk) 20:17, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Paid editing will do the opposite, you certainly did not meditate on it enough. Free editing is what brings diversity so much, because each person has his interest and his opinion. Paid editing will restrain the interest and position of the editors both being influenced by a higher body for which those editors will be working for. There is more individuals in the world than there are organisations, so there is much more potential for diversity when considering each person vs each organisation.

The only sort of monetary gain which should be permitted is on the basis of excellency, have an article (and this regardless of the subject area) to FA and have some sort of compensation. Even this can be problematic but this is the only form which should be tolerated.

And it is futile to claim under the basis that 'it can be beneficial' that it's OK. Decisions are taken by considering the pros and cons, and in this case the cons clearly outweigh the pros. If there is legitimate material without copyright issue outside of Wikipedia, editors are free to use it regardless of if the writer was paid. But on Wikipedia, paid editing should not be welcome. - Fedayee (talk) 18:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Don't capitalize paid editing

As Tiptoety said before on this page, please do not confuse this discussion with the blocked sockpuppet Paid Editing. And please don't capitalize "paid editing" when commenting on editing with exchange of a fee. --98.154.26.247 (talk) 22:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

My thoughts and potential copyright issue

I generally agree with all those who have said that paid editing, while a very noticable conflict of interest, is perfectly okay as long as that conflict is declared and their contributions are compliant with policy. In fact, I would take this one step further - as long as their contributions improve the state of the encyclopedia in the long run, their contributions are welcome, even if they are biased. For example, writing a new article on a notable topic that happens to be biased is generally better than not having an article on the topic at all - as long as the effort involved in cleaning it up is generally less than the effort involved in rewriting it from scratch. COI editors and neutral editors can achieve effective collaboration.

My one concern though is this: often people who perform a work for hire either contractually or by default under the law assign copyright of their work to their employer. As such, they do not have the right to release it under the GFDL, making their contribution a copyright violation. Although it seems ludicrous to suppose a company may pay someone to write a Wikipedia article and later sue us for including the content, I'm willing to believe it could happen sooner or later (for example, if the article later has criticism of them added, they may invoke this to attempt to suppress the article). To mitigate this problem, I think it's important for us to distribute a "standard form" contract for use by people engaged in this sort of endeavor that will clearly release all work emerging out of the deal under the GFDL. If my legal analysis is faulty someone please tell me. Dcoetzee 23:10, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• Wow, good point. I would definitely be interested to know whether your analysis is correct. Agradman (talk) 23:18, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales made a better suggestion. Please read his statement.

Now, regardless of the copyright issue, the analysis is mainly based on a personal preference... writing a new article on a notable topic that happens to be biased is generally better than not having an article on the topic at all. Not necessarily. For me, no article is better than a biased article or one full of lies. Also:

1. Important topics do not necessarily need a paid editor to start them. If they are really notable, they are either already created or will be created some day;
2. Instead of hiring someone, contractors have Wikipedia:REQUEST -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 23:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• • This is nothing but the old debate of eventualism versus immediatism. I think it's better to have a biased article now and a good article later. You think it's better to have no article now and delay (or even prevent) the eventual creation of a good article. Paying someone to write an article will get it written quickly, while merely requesting it or hoping someone will write it will not. Personally I think we should be focusing more on how to efficiently review the contributions of COI editors, rather than prevent them. But that said, I do think that we should ban COI editors whose contributions would require more effort to clean up than to rewrite, since they do us no service on any timescale. Dcoetzee 23:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

This is what Jimmy has suggested...

Now, could it be perfectly fine for someone to set up an independent writing service for GFDL / CC BY / CC BY-SA content, to be posted somewhere else, and for completely independent wikipedians to find it useful in some way? Of course. But that's very different from setting up shop to sell one's services as an advocate editing articles? We have ways for advocates to participate in Wikipedia - the talk page serves perfectly well for this.

What do you think? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 00:10, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

If all paid edits go to talk pages, and only to talk pages, I'd have little objection. The copyright issue is a serious one. Should we go through and delete all the paid edit articles we have as copyvios? JoshuaZ (talk) 00:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

It will be great if we can find a good procedure for the suggestion. I suggest that content gets a review at WP:CER; that is WP:Contract Editing Review (to avoid 'paid') before being published officially. There'd be no chance for an article to be deleted after review. What do you think? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 00:19, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Let's proceed calmly on the copyright angle. In most cases, the people who paid for these articles want them here and would be happy to release rights to them through OTRS if contacted. Additionally, I'm not yet certain whether my analysis above is correct, or is only correct in limited situations. Dcoetzee 00:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

IANAL but I doubt copyright is an issue. Even if we assume for arguments sake that the edit's copyright rests with the employer, the paid editor is editing under his instructions and as his agent; as such the editor would have the right to license the content under GFDL. The copyright of course would continue to be owned by the employer. This scenario is relatively routine when company employees submit academic articles for publication and have to assign the copyright (or license the content) to the journal on behalf of their employer. Abecedare (talk) 00:27, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

According to [2], "prior to commencement of work, both parties must expressly agree in a signed document that the work shall be considered a work made for hire". Nothing to see here, move along. --NE2 00:28, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

There's still a potential issue here since your link regards US law only, and since we don't know the terms of any contract between the employer and employee. For example, in Australia, rights of a work produced by a photographer for hire automatically are assigned to the client. I still think it would be useful to offer recommended clauses for inclusion in paid editing contracts to ensure that there are no licensing issues. Dcoetzee 00:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

As for Jimbo's suggestion, I disfavour it and believe that COI editors should be involved in the regular editing process wherever possible. The main reason for this is that we can't expect their edits to always be reviewed and incorporated by interested editors in a timely manner. Contribution mentoring is practised, but this kind of treatment is only appropriate for editors with a history of damaging edits; it's for rehabilitation, not a preventative measure. Dcoetzee 00:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I've already acted boldly and created the page. Contracted articles will be reviewed by a committee. Since I am one of the fervent anti-paid editing, I'd have no problem in working in the reviewing committee. If you have any other idea then we can discuss it there at the talk page. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 00:50, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok Wikipedia:Contract Editing Review created

The newborn WP:CER is created. Discussions about mechanisms and procedures are welcome at its talk page. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 00:59, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• (Moved my own response to Wikipedia talk:Contract Editing Review)

The $10,000 article

And that's probably a low figure for some articles or the fees for editors and companies with proven ability (i.e. edit history) to successfully create and maintain a Wikipedia presence that reflects the goals, history, mission of (Whatever). The $100 articles, the ads on Craiglists and the furtive paid writing is not the kind of "paid editing" that we're discussing. What you see (or suspect) now are those willing to violate professional and corporate ethics to edit here. Paid editing will remove that restriction for 99 percent of those willing to pay for access to the articles and influence of Wikipedia and its community. Everyone keeps discussing this like it will just affect individual editors, but it does not. If Wikipedia allows paid editing, then everyone/thing will be able to legitimately edit and openly develop and promote their expertise. Paid editing is ultimately about providing corporate/organization access and influence in a community that was previously reserved for volunteer individuals who agreed to having only one interest. Good, bad, whatever, introducing other interests would fundamentally change Wikipedia. Flowanda | Talk 22:18, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Since when were current editors limited to "one interest", and what do you mean by that? I edit US political articles, musical bands, some historical topics, a few business articles on firms I particularly like, advocate on the backend for improvements in BLP on this site and general oversight of the management of this place, and avoid topics related to any of my business interests simply to keep things compartmentalized. I don't get your "one interest" statement. As for $10,000, if someone wanted to give me $10,000 to get their personal article, corporate article, or article about their favorite flowering tree to WP:FA status, and it had the sourcing, you can click here to start the process, and I'd resign my adminship if I had to, because $10,000USD is $10,000USD. rootology (C)(T) 22:28, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Which is basically the point -- that offering you $10,000 would make your interest in their article greater than your interest in improving Wikipedia. That's the perfect description of an unacceptable conflict of interest. That's exactly why COI needs to be given teeth. Dekimasuよ! 02:15, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that last sentence is quite telling. If someone were to give me that money I wouldn't create an article for them - taking that money seems to me to be at odds with the principles of Wikipedia. Further, given your skills, knowledge and standing at Wikipedia, it would be easy enough for you to add material that doesn't really belong here. I'm not saying you would, just pointing out that this seems to me to be a reason not to have paid editing, rather than to have it. Ha! (talk) 14:26, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

This is getting a bit twisted around - this is my stance and only point

1. Any user that adds content that is valid, quality, and fine under our existing community-endorsed content policies = OK.
2. Any user that adds content that is against our existing community-endorsed content policies = not OK.
3. Motivation (fiscal or otherwise) of why a user adds content that is valid, quality, and fine under our existing community-endorsed content policies = 100% irrelevant.
4. Blocking of users that add content that turns out to be paid for, but meets the criteria of point #1 = not OK.
5. Blocking of users that add content that meets the criteria of point #2 = very OK.
6. Blocking of any users of any rank or tenure that employ advocacy besides the addition of new content that meets the criteria of point #1 = OK.
7. Blocking of any users that attempt to use, do use, offer to use, or offer to purchase the use of any "tools" or "status" use of anything from Rollbacker to Flagged Revs to Admin to AC = instant perma-ban for all involved operators, with as much information disclosed on the matter that our privacy policies will allow.

That's where I stand. Since we can't stop or control points #1 or #3, I don't see why #4 is unreasonable. Our mission to put out free content that meets our policies for content inclusion. Does it matter if I write a quality article about Mr. Lou's Hawaiin Burger Joint because I had a good burger there, because Lou and I are both practicing members of religion xyz, because I married his daughter, because I saw a red link, because I like the article name, or because Lou flipped me $200, if the net article is quality for our readers? rootology (C)(T) 22:42, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

• My position is that 3. is already happening, so what do we do? Do we turn a blind eye, do we (propose) spending effort - and to what purpose - in determine who is doing it? Or do we permit it, and encourage people to admit to it so we may better ensure that the material is appropriate to the encyclopedia? Those who edit for gain, but fall under criteria 2., are liable to be dealt with as any other, and have their efforts amended, replaced or removed. Simply, and I trust in agreement with Rootology, whether an editor is rewarded by the subject for their contribution is irrelevent providing it is policy compliant (or intended to be so). LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
• I agree with all the above. In fact, I believe paid editing will vital to the success of the encyclopedia in the long run, by providing better access to expert editors and enabling them to spend more of their time editing.

  That said, it is policy that users with a conflict of interest declare such conflicts openly. This benefits us because users with a COI are more likely to introduce biased material, and so must be subject to greater scrutiny. Ideally, they would published a detailed list of all past and open contracts on their user page, complete with the identity of the employer and their specific request. There is some compromise to be found here, but there is one thing I will not compromise on, and that's pre-emptively punishing users who have not violated our content policies or otherwise disrupted the project, on the assumption that they will do so. Dcoetzee 00:03, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

  • ... it is policy that users with a conflict of interest declare such conflicts openly.
    Is this a "policy" (mandatory)? Wikipedia:Conflict of interest is a guideline (not mandatory). Brian Jason Drake 07:53, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
• How is seven separate points an "only point"? ☺

  You haven't read what others are saying if you assert point #3. Others are saying that the motivation is very relevant. It has both direct and indirect effects. Directly, it determines what content people write. (What paid editor is going to write something factual but negative about any subject, when MediaWiki makes that editor's edit history available for all potential future customers to see?) Indirectly, knowledge of the monetary incentives for others drives unpaid volunteers away from the project. (This is what happens in the real world. I've even seen it happen myself. Jimbo probably has, too, which is possibly why he so strongly advocates not going down this road. My advice is to listen to the voices of experience.) Uncle G (talk) 02:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

  • Quite understandable. "Why should my volunteer work monitoring recent changes for vandalism be used to lend legitimacy to that paid article?" "Why should I look for a reference for free when he's getting paid to do it?" People talk about the unreliability of Wikipedia all the time, but when editors are getting paid for editing here, they are really cashing in on everyone's work. If it wasn't for the unpaid editors, Wikipedia would be a pile of blog comments and attack pages, not one of the top ten sites on the Internet. Dekimasuよ! 02:22, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I've refuted some of these arguments elsewhere. Anyone who seeks coverage on Wikipedia ought to be going in with the knowledge that anyone can edit their article and possibly add negative things. As such, it's senseless to refuse payment to a paid editor because they happen to be the first to include negative facts - a sympathetic critic is the best kind. If they wanted advertising, they'd hire a copywriter, not a Wikipedia editor - one of them makes you look good, the other writes content that is less likely to be deleted, which is really what the employer is paying for.

    As for paid editors leading to decreased motivation for unpaid editors, I simply don't buy it. Some editors may leave, sure, but what ultimately motivates Wikipedia editors (according to studies) is factors like personal interest, community feedback, wide impact, and so on. It's demeaning to suggest we do it merely because nobody is being paid to do it. Dcoetzee 08:27, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

    • I reiterate my advice to listen to the voices of experience. In the real world the introduction of factors such as the perception that altruism is no longer part of the game drives volunteers away, and no amount of whinging that "It's demeaning" to point this out changes what happens, and has happened, in reality. If one doesn't want to listen to the voices of Wikipedia editors with experience, one can listen to the voices of others who've seen this, too. Here's a reading list that will start one off on learning about this:
      • John Amis, Trevor Slack, & Tim Berrett (1995). "The structural antecedents of conflict in voluntary sport organizations". Leisure Studies. 14 (1): 1–16. doi:10.1080/02614369500390011.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
      • John McKnight (1996). "Professionalism". The careless society: community and its counterfeits. BasicBooks. ISBN 0465091261. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isbn13= ignored (help)
      • Jeni Warburton and Allyson Much (2000). "Volunteer Resources". In Jeni Warburton and Melanie Oppenheimer (ed.). Volunteers and Volunteering. Federation Press. ISBN 1862873763. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isbn13= ignored (help)
      • Mark Lyons and Susan Hocking (2000). "Australia's Highly Committed Volunteers". In Jeni Warburton and Melanie Oppenheimer (ed.). Volunteers and Volunteering. Federation Press. ISBN 1862873763. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isbn13= ignored (help)
      • Elaine V. Backman and Steven Rathgeb Smith (2003-07-14). "Healthy Organizations, Unhealthy Communities?". Nonprofit Management and Leadership. 10 (4). Wiley Periodicals, Inc.: 355–373. doi:10.1002/nml.10402.
      • J. Gregory Dees and Beth Battle Anderson (2004). "Sector-bending: Blurring the Lines Between Nonprofit and For-Profit". In Peter Frumkin and Jonathan B. Imber (ed.). In search of the nonprofit sector. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765805189. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isbn13= ignored (help)
    • Consider your refutations, whatever they may have been, to be themselves refuted by the voices of experience, and by quite a lot of expert study of this matter.

      The only small ray of light that you have is Tracy Daniel Connors:

      • Tracy Daniel Connors (1993). The Nonprofit management handbook: operating policies and procedures. J. Wiley. p. 262. ISBN 0471537020. Successful volunteer participation cannot be measured by volunteer numbers alone. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isbn13= ignored (help)
    • And whilst I'm here providing examples from the real world to read about and learn from, consider a particularly enlightening study of what happens to end products. Titmuss famously contrasted the transfusion blood supply organizations in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1960s, and noted that in the U.S. system, where blood was sold by the people giving it, there was a chronic problem of hepatitis, whereas no such problem existed in the U.K. system, where blood was donated voluntarily. Titmuss directly attributed this to unsuitable suppliers coming forward in the U.S., to be paid for a bad product, because they were motivated by the money, not motivated by altruism. People were motivated to lie about the quality of their blood. This causal relationship was echoed by the 1973 announcement by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare of its revised National Blood Policy. The parallel to people motivated to produce poor encyclopaedia article content because they are serving the interests of an article's subject, should be apparent.
      • Richard Titmuss (1970). The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy. London: Allen and Unwin.
    • Uncle G (talk) 11:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Further to Uncle G's excellent information, an abstract starts "Most economic models are based on the self-interest hypothesis that assumes that material self-interest exclusively motivates all people. Experimental economists have gathered overwhelming evidence in recent years, however, that systematically refutes the self-interest hypothesis, suggesting that concerns for altruism, fairness, and reciprocity strongly motivate many people."

We are discussing a complex topic which, of course, has no simple rule that applies without exception. However, given that we cannot actually stop subtle paid advocacy, all we can do is discuss our policy reaction. My own view is that while there may be a need to list exceptions, we should start with a clear paid advocacy is not allowed policy.

Particularly for puff-piece promos of individuals and organizations, a rise of paid advocacy would drive out many volunteers who would be motivated to move to areas where greater fairness is apparent. Johnuniq (talk) 02:05, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

As I said, I don't argue that some contributors may perceive unfairness in paid editing and so be less motivated to participate. I only argue that the effect would be small, and the overall benefit to the project of allowing paid editing would be positive. One batch of hepatitis in the blood supply is a big problem - one bad editor among hundreds, who can be rooted out and disciplined, is not. This is something that needs to be regulated and monitored, not pre-emptively banned. I can name countless scenarios in which paid editing is appropriate. What about charities that want to hire people to expand Wikipedia in their general area of interest? What about expanding small foreign language Wikipedias by hiring native speakers? Not every piece for hire is a promotional piece. We strip ourselves of innumerable methods of invaluable growth by outlawing this practice. Dcoetzee 02:38, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't know why you keep raising these distractions which are nothing to do with whether Wikipedia should unequivocally reject paid advocacy. After establishing some integrity, we can discuss exceptions. Johnuniq (talk) 04:56, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Are we distinguishing here between paid editing and paid advocacy in general? Besides the fact that such a distinction is subjective and unenforcable, it says "paid editing" at the top of the page. One-sided advocacy and promotion, whether paid or not, is already against existing policy, most noticably the fundamental pillar of NPOV. What are we proposing to add here? More severe punishments for those being paid to unilaterally promote? Why? I would think our reaction would be proportional to the disruption, rather than the motivation. Dcoetzee 05:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

This discussion started at Cash for spam (in archive of Jimbo's talk) which was "about a functionary using an undisclosed sock to edit for money on behalf of businessmen". User:Ha! investigated details and produced this statement with this expansion. This RFC was started shortly after the post on Jimbo's talk. Some of us feel the RFC question is a bit biased given the background I just mentioned (perhaps because the details weren't well known at that time).

If you browse the above "expansion" you will see an extraordinarily blatant misuse of Wikipedia. Now we get to the joke. Consider Brad Sugars which (apparently) was written for a fee to promote a particular individual and his business interests. We have an earnest AFD debate with the usual looks notable to me kind of argument. Personally I would say that unless incredibly obvious notability applied to a paid advocacy article, it should be deleted, but that's my bias for integrity and I understand the intellectual weakness of my argument.

In summary, evidence revealed in the above "expansion" requires a response. I believe we should start with a clear paid advocacy is not allowed policy, then add wriggle room for exceptions such as a research foundation that wants to improve knowledge about ancient vases, or similar uncontentious issues, with more and more stringent WP:COI requirements as articles move towards the promotion of individuals or organizations. Such policy is purely window dressing because undoubtedly paid advocacy will continue undetected; we just have to say what we think about it. Johnuniq (talk) 09:26, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Reality

Hypotheticals and proposals — There are quite a few of those here. Reality is somewhat different, and we haven't given proper consideration to the more predominant form of this problem. In addition to the concrete examples put forward at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Paid editing#Statement by Ha!, here are two further concrete examples of what the reality here is, exemplifying some of the cases that Ha!'s examples don't cover:

• Artezinteractive (talk · contribs), an editor whose account name telegraphs a conflict of interest, repeatedly (1 2) removes {{coi}} from Artez Interactive, and writes an article sourced entirely to press releases and to the company's own autobiography.

  I suggest that people opining various positions on editors clearly identifying their monetary conflicts of interest comment on how they themselves would actually put their opinions into practice for this case.

• Whitney Wyatt-Kovar, a self-identified PR person for Mr. Rooter Corporation, edits the Mr. Rooter (AfD discussion) article three times, under two accounts (1, 2, 3). In one of the edits xe replaces sourced information with unsourced contradictory information. In another of the edits xe replaces a specific statement of franchise numbers in separate countries with less-specific information. In all three edits, xe adds text, written in the first person, that exhorts the reader to come to the company's own WWW site. Later, StacyTasha, who does not similarly declare a conflict of interest, and who uses a mis-leading edit summary, appends a marketing brochure, written in the first person and exhorting the reader in the second person, to the article.

  Again, I suggest that those opining on self-identification of conflicts of interest consider what their opinions would lead them to do in practice in this and similar cases.

As a few editors with Recent Changes Patrol or Cleanup Patrol experience will no doubt attest, these are the norm, not the exceptions, when it comes to such editing. Such cases also far outnumber the instances of freelance-writer-for-hire editing, such as those that have sparked this discussion. (Consider that Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/COIReports/2009, Jun 10, for example, is just one day's worth of edits, and contains several instances of such editing.) And as can be seen from the edits themselves, the idea upon which several arguments here are based, that editors with monetary conflicts of interest will generally make neutral content, verifiable from independent sources, that improves the encyclopaedia, is not wholly borne out by what already happens in reality.

You want to know the answer to your question about what the community thinks, Rootology. It's simple, and it is shown by the fact that the community has created, and actively maintains, such things as the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest noticeboard and Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam, and has endorsed speedy deletion criterion #G11. These and others demonstrate what the community thinks. To put it in the form of your points above: "Editing Wikipedia with the lining of one's own pockets being the intended consequence of one's edits = not OK". Uncle G (talk) 03:19, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

• Are paid editors more likely to introduce material that does not follow our content policies than volunteer editors? On average, yes. Similarly, high school students are more likely to vandalize than non-high school students. The obvious solution: ban all high school students. I'm speaking in hyperbole, but the point here is not to prejudge somebody based on factors such as these, however useful they may be, but rather use them as the basis of determining where to place our scrutiny and impose sanctions, which is exactly the purpose of the COI noticeboard and G11. Dcoetzee 08:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
  • See above. Take heed of the voices of experience, and of reality. Uncle G (talk) 11:11, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
    • I was responding directly to your message above. I am taking heed of the voice of experience. I believe the most prudent course is increased scrutiny, rather than pre-emptive action. Is that so terribly unreasonable? You also didn't respond to my argument at all. Dcoetzee 02:31, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Yes, I did. Again: See above. Uncle G (talk) 06:38, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
• I think the reality is important and easy to overlook. Currently on RC patrol it's easy enough, with the right tools, to spot people trying to add stuff that shouldn't be on Wikipedia. I'm talking about the semi-legitimate looking material rather than the vandalism. The reason it's easy enough to spot it is because the people adding it are mostly idiots. They're naive high school kids adding stuff about their favourite band, wannabe entrepreneurs that want to add themselves/their business or businesses that have delegated to some junior techie that knows something about Wikipedia to add their business. In other words, they're people that are not skilled in what I call the "art" of Wikipedia; they don't understand how important the appearance of respectability is, how important the mutual reinforcement of sources and material is, how important it is to know the rules and play by them and be able to negotiate their wording to bypass their spirit, how important alliances and compromise with other editors are. The problem with sanctioning any form of paid editing is that the idiots aren't going to be the ones getting paid to edit; the skilled and experienced Wikipedia editors are going to be the ones getting paid to edit. These people (probably you if you're reading this) do know how to get stuff on to Wikipedia. If you're an experienced and knowledgeable editor, ask yourself this, "if I was determined enough, right now, to add material (permanently) that I know shouldn't really be on here, would I be able to do so?" The answer is yes, you would. By sanctioning any form of paid editing you're giving the green light to it. Once you do you will significantly increase the number of skilled people doing it and the ease with which they can do it (they will have a policy to point to and say "look, I'm allowed to do this"). This in turn will make it much harder to patrol material that shouldn't be on Wikipedia. Ha! (talk) 14:26, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm curious. How can you be sure that this isn't already happening on a large scale ? How do you know that skilled and experienced Wikipedia editors are not already being secretly paid for contributing well written, unexceptional, reliably sourced, NPOV articles ? And if there is no objective difference between a policy-compliant paid edit and a policy-compliant unpaid edit, how exactly is paid editing harming Wikipedia ? Gandalf61 (talk) 16:04, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

We cannot stop it altogether, but we can do our best to stop it when we can, as well as force people to be ashamed and do it behind closed doors. In response to Nihiltres claiming that, if the content meets our guidelines, Wikipedia gains from paid editing, I claimed here that "if it tarnishes our public image and people no longer trust us, we lose from it. What's the point of Wikipedia existing if no one trusts it or wants to use it?" hmwithτ 19:00, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I didn't exactly make that claim, and I specifically responded to your comment here. I agree with you! Don't take chunks of my opinion out of context, please. My basic agreement with Rootology's main point does not mean that I take all of his views. My overall view of paid editing is somewhat critical—I merely don't dismiss it without careful consideration. If it were as simple as "content meeting guidelines == good" then we wouldn't be having this debate in the first place. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 04:13, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

My absolutely sincerest apologies. I just wanted to make my point. I didn't mean to judge what you said or make it looks though you meant anything other than what you did. I misunderstood your point, but my rebuttal (which applies to multiple statements by different editors) still stands. However, I cross out anything that referred to you, Nihiltres. hmwithτ 04:35, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't buy that argument either. People judge an encyclopedia based on its content, not its authors. What reason do they have to trust anonymous volunteer contributors? Wikipedia is built to correct for bias in the system, regardless of the source. Dcoetzee 02:31, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually Dcoetzee I read your point is an excellent one as to why paid writing should not be accepted. At the moment our encyclopedia is "helped" by the fact that it is judged somewhat negatively on the fact that its authors are unpaid volunteers. This fact brings other volunteers who think/know they can do better - so that the 'pedia is in a state of constant flux - never quite trusted (which is good) and always being improved. Sanctioning paid editing adds an unreal legitimacy and would, in my view, probably drive editors away from wikipedia, and would be far more likely to do so where paid editors stamped the page with their sanctioned action.--VS ^talk 03:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Dcoetzee, I don't know about you, but I'd sure trust volunteers that choose articles to edit rather than someone that I knew was getting paid to do certain things. hmwithτ 04:35, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

My point is that no one should assume that any individual Wikipedia editor can be trusted, because this is often untrue, for a variety of reasons. The accuracy of the encyclopedia as a whole emerges from a feedback mechanism in which many people participate. Whether or not an editor is paid affects what articles they edit and the facts they choose to emphasize - but the same is true of whether an editor is American, or a fan of jazz, or a child. Systemic bias in individual editors is inherent and being constantly corrected for, and suffices to cope with paid editors without implementing new mechanisms. Dcoetzee 04:45, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

But I'd hope (ideally) that other editors with differing viewpoints would balance out, and consensus can't be based around one person. However, if companies start hiring dozens of editors to help with things, that can totally shift consensus, be it deletion discussion, addition/removal of content, even changing policy. hmwithτ 14:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. People are always peddling their wares. And they always will do so. Sure you can ban Artezinteractive (talk · contribs). But they can create another account and keep going. Another account with a different name that isn't so obvious, making it harder for us to keep an eye on people who have a conflict of interest. We're not going to eliminate COI articles by banning paid editors. We're not going to get rid of paid editors by banning paid editors. These are yet more fickle methods to make people act more intelligently and further beyond our radar. Does anybody honestly believe that forming some sort of anti-paid-editing policy is going to stop this for good? I can only see it making everyone's jobs more difficult. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 16:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

No, but if we don't force it underground and let it come out & allow it openly, it will get much worse. Right now, people have to be ashamed and hide it. hmwithτ 16:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not like laws keep things from happening altogether. For example, they don't just legalize theft just because it's going to happen anyway, and it would be better to know who was stealing from where in order to keep an eye on it. If theft was legalized, it would be much worse. It must be kept illegal, and when people are scared of getting caught and have to keep it secretive, it happens less often. hmwithτ 16:26, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

So we should "scare" people because they have a point of view? Winston Smith would be so proud. Your comparison to theft goes against WP:NOTLAW and I hardly think a comparison between robbing someone of their possessions and trying to game a system that allows (and will always allow) you to do so is a fair one. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 20:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

It's a perfect analogy for not allowing or condoning something bad just because it's going to still happen sometimes. hmwithτ 13:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Paid article versus paid content

Could someone clarify the differences between the following

1. Party A pays to party B to write a peer-reviewed article, contents of which are eventually used as a source for a Wikipedia article.
2. A Wikipedia editor/ or anyone else pays to a professional writer or a specialist in a certain area (for example history/physics etc) to write an article which is to be submitted to Wikipedia.
3. Someone pays to the Wikipedia editor to write, submit, edit, and maintain an article up to a certain standard (featured for example).
4. Someone pays an editor with a good standing or, possibly, with privileged status on Wikipedia to use his account (and the status) to give more weight for the submitted content.

A significant number of sources for the Wikipedia articles are a result of someone paying for the content (newspapers paying to journalists, research institutions paying to their employees, NSF funding research, etc, all are in some sense similar to point 1 mentioned earlier). Now imagine someone who hires a professional writer to provide a good quality content which he later submits to Wikipedia under GPL(point 2 above). Now imagine someone with an idea for an article paying a Wikipedia editor (or anyone who is familiar with Wikipedia rules, standards, regulations, techniques etc) to submit an article and bring it to the featured status (point 3).

I think it is perfectly ok for someone to offer his expertise in writing featured articles for Wikipedia. However the 4th option above is not ok by any means. (Igny (talk) 17:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC))

It's about the talk pages

People being paid to demand you meet them in the middle, and who no longer have to hide any conflict of interest or pretend to be neutral. I think a lot of volunteers will have trouble with the idea that they need to "achieve consensus" with professional publicists. That's the industry we're talking about here. Foogus (talk) 03:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Judge edits independently of editors?

Some users have pointed out that there are other potential biases (you might be a fan, a customer, an employee who isn't paid specifically for your edits, etc.), so how is this one different? They say that you should judge each edit on its merits, regardless of who made that edit. I like that idea, but I would point out (which no one else seems to have) that we aren't following it (Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#G5: "Banned user. Pages created by banned users in violation of their ban, with no substantial edits by others."). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianjd (talk • contribs) 07:41, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually we can and do refuse to delete good contributions from banned editors. --NE2 07:56, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

some might argue that cretianing any contributions from banned editors undermines and even capitulizes the integrity of banning. if an editor can start to edit again simply be defiyng the community and evading a ban by temporarily making goodfaith contributions, athen why should anyone play by the rules??? my opinion towards such as situation is that the editorshould be unbanned as long as he makes goodfaithed contributions, but his edits hsould be scruticinzed for a given period of time to ensur that good faith editing is osmething that will continue normally and not just a ploy to reworm access into the editing and achieve priveleges that he has deliberately forfeited by spamming or trollin g or perpetraing acts of vandalism. with regards to paid editing this should be annalyzed the same as any other edit; if ti is a good edit, there is no need to scrutinize as to motive; if it is a bad edit, then it doesnt matter if it is paid or unpaid since a bad edit should be revised as per our very wellthoughtout policies 21:34, 15 June 2009 (UTC) Smith Jones (talk) 22:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smith Jones (talk • contribs)

G5 indicates that contributions from banned users may be deleted without discussion. The CSD policy is also very clear (although not always properly followed) that, just because a page can be speedied, there is no reason why it must be. The policy is not normative. If the contribution is beneficial to the encyclopedia, it can and should be kept. If the contribution is of questionable utility, it can be deleted without further ceremony. Happy‑melon 13:30, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that Happy‑melon has got it exactly right: G5 does not say that any page created by a banned user should be deleted: it says that if such a page is considered worth deleting then the fact of its creation by a banned user is sufficient to justify a speedy delete. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:52, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Heading/Nutshell change

I changed the nutshell from "there has been no real community consensus..." to "there has been no specific community consensus...."

I think this better reflects reality: I think there is and probably always has been an unwritten understanding on- and off-wiki that if someone pays you to do something, you have an inherent conflict of interest. The community has already developed a consensus and a guideline on how to edit if you have such a conflict. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:04, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Dekimasuよ! 01:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of paid articles.

The list at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Paid_editing#Statement_by_Ha! has put a spotlight on a group of articles inserted into Wikipedia for pay by the same editor. Almost all of them are now on the way to being deleted, by speedy deletion, proposed deletion, or full AfD. It turns out that most don't stand scrutiny. They all had many references, but a close look showed that most of them were to hype outlets like PR Newswire.

Here's where we are now:

• Brad Sugars -- deleted after AfD.
• ActionCOACH -- deleted after AfD.
• Oil Gone Easy -- now a redirect to S-200 (fertilizer).
• S-200 (fertilizer) -- in AfD, may be kept after a major rewrite.
• Ken Underwood -- in AfD, headed for deletion
• StereoFame -- No such article at the moment. Deleted?
• National Defense Industrial Association -- Warning boxes added, but no attempt to delete.
• Process Window Index -- Legit article edited by banned editor. No problems.
• Thermal profiling -- Legit article edited by banned editor. No problems.
• Dalberg Global Development Advisors -- under consideration for delist as a Good Article.
• Broncolor -- Warning boxes added, but has some good info.
• Click4Carbon -- Proposed deletion.
• Clement Bowman -- Warning boxes added, but no one has suggested deletion yet.
• Marketing Performance Measurement and Management -- not flagged at this time. Could use a look.
• Dave Levine -- in AfD
• Sextoy.com -- Speedy deleted as spam.

So the problems are being cleaned up by the standard mechanisms. However. it's a considerable amount of effort to clean up after this one paid editor. That in itself is a good reason to strongly discourage paid editing. --John Nagle (talk) 04:03, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

There are more. These ones are from Elance writer Tayzen

• CozyCot, created by User:Yaromunna from this advert [3]
• Viva Properties by User:Cinagua from this one [4]
• User:Cinagua/Technology Sales Leads is currently being created by Cinagua from this one [5]
• In a few days time (I'm assuming), there will be an article from Cinagua (or a sock) on Jon S Davis from this one [6]

It seems possible that some of the other articles from Cinagua are also paid articles - I haven't gone through all of elance writer Tayzen's jobs yet though so I don't know. Note that I'm not implying that these are bad articles, shouldn't be articles or that any policies have been broken or that these new articles should be deleted. As Jon S Davis notes in his advert, he will meet WP:NOTE and CozyCot has won some award for at least 2 years (not so sure on the news coverage though) and so might pass WP:NOTE. I guess there's a range: bad articles for cash, non-notable articles for cash but also notable articles for cash and (hopefully) good articles for cash. Ha! (talk) 07:31, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Please exterminate User:Cinagua/Technology Sales Leads immediately. It's fundamentally promotional. Alexius08 (talk) 10:59, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

That's a user page - it's being used to develop the article and so isn't an article yet. An editor has a right to put whatever they want (within policy) into an article they're developing on their user space. Ha! (talk) 01:11, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

"So the problems are being cleaned up by the standard mechanisms." is exactly the reason not to create additional policy or guidelines. Ω (talk) 14:36, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, no. People are going looking for these articles precisely because the topic of paid editing has been brought to the forefront now. Dekimasuよ! 14:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

The point though is that, where there are problems, there are existing mechanisms to deal with them (and to deal with them quite well, it appears). Ω (talk) 15:05, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

While we have mechanisms for deleting spam, we also need to stop the spammers. --John Nagle (talk) 16:19, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Carrying on Ω's point, there are loads of these articles about Wikipedia, and they're by no means created by paid editors. There's spam all over the shop and that spam gets cleaned up. You're targeting a minority by just taking out the paid contributions, and the collateral damage is something people don't seem to be taking into account. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 22:28, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Saying that paid editing is accepted in wikipedia will just open the flood gates as commercial shops will get start getting opened to mass-write spamish articles. Also, lots of freelance writers jumping in the bandwagon, and lots of companies openly making requests in freelance job sites. And freelance editors might not get paid if the article gets deleted or neutralized, or if criticism appears, so Indian writers who make this for a living are going to be much more combative than the regular spammers we have had until now. Just notice the efforts made by the blacklist guys to stop SEOs who get paid by the position of their links in google, and how those SEOs mass-spam over multiple articles and wikis, and what would happen if we said that placing your links in wikipedia for SEO purposes is ok, and the awesome wikilawyering at the backlist and whitelist pages about paid spamming being ok. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:50, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Below are the rest of Elance user Tayzen's jobs (in addition to the list above). I've matched them up with the adverts that commissioned them and added them to the list at WP:Requests_for_comment/Paid_editing#Statement_by_Ha! and added the details to User:Ha!/paid editing adverts. The most interesting one in my opinion is the NoClaimsDiscount links. I'm not sure they would be cleaned up by standard mechanisms: User:Cinagua/Technology Sales Leads, User:Cinagua/Kaki West, 30 links to noclaimsdiscount.co.uk inserted into various articles by socks or some kind of collaboration between editors, NoClaimsDiscount.co.uk, User:Cinagua/Law of importance, Dustin James Leighton, User:Cinagua/El Diablo Tranquilo. Ha! (talk) 01:11, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

There's some more fun stuff at WT:WPSPAM#Paid editing roundup. MER-C 14:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Paid editing and reward board and barnstars

I found it interesting to offer challenges there for rewards of barnstars related to the challenge. Is this considered the same thing as being a paid editor? Its not money but it is an award. Are we just refering to finiancial editing? Ottawa4ever (talk) 01:37, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

We already had that once: User:Sharkface217/Award Center. Based upon discussion the page was deleted over accuracy and fanaticism concerns. Excirial ^{(Contact me,Contribs)} 11:15, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but wP:reward is still used in this way to post requests (sometimes challenges) with barnstars not money as the reward. Ottawa4ever (talk) 12:57, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

What about how all edits might be paid for, not just articles?

As I commented on the main body of this Request for Comment, the issue in most people's minds is whether paid editing of articles should be allowed. This misses the broader and more pernicious situation of people being paid to edit wikipedia space, policy pages, paid to push a POV in discussions or influence policy, or even admins being paid to push a particular policy viewpoint or even being paid to block and unblock other users.

Whereas we know that paid editing is going on right now on articles (as some users, even administrators, openly admit to it), we must remain vigilant about people being paid to make policy related edits. For instance, how do we know that the multitude of editors pushing for the acceptance of paid editing in fact are not being paid themselves to advocate this position? Erich Mendacio (talk) 17:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Paying users to influence policy or community decisions, or mistreat other users, is a moral issue tantamount to paying a person to vote a certain way; it should be strictly prohibited with strict enforcement. Nevertheless paid editing of articles is good. There is no slippery slope. Dcoetzee 21:37, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Having written an article, every editor in WP normally keeps track of it and defends it if challenged. It's part of editing, an inherent part of the fact that other people can edit also and can challenge. Are we saying an unpaid editor with COI can defend his article and !vote to keep it at afd, but a paid editor cannot? If anything, some of the unpaid fans and zealots with COI seem by far more aggressive at it than anyone is likely to be for mere money, especially amounts of money on the order of $50. There unfortunately is a slippery slope. And as for using admin powers, no admin should use them with any degree of COI--including money. I doubt that money is the worst of it here either. DGG (talk) 03:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not arguing with that, I think any user is entitled to participate in discussions involving their own contributions, as long as they're open about the conflicts. What's more questionable is participating in deletion discussions of articles they have had no prior involvement in with a conflict of interest - this is very close to what we call meatpuppets now. Dcoetzee 07:55, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid that once we allow paid editing, businesses will have many users being paid to totally slant discussions, especially AfD, etc. They may also start using numbers to change policies to their advantage. hmwithτ 21:20, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

And then they'll hire assassins to take out the development team and hijack the servers! The slippery slope argument is a fallacy here. By taking a hard stand against this nefarious sort of tactic, we will root out meatpuppets and discredit their employers, as we always have. Dcoetzee 23:40, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

So much of Wikipedia depends on "Assume Good Faith" that I can't imagine most of the non-article discussion pages working with paid editors making "paid votes." I'm specifically referring to pages like DYK, Good Article Candidates, Featured Article Candidates, WP:TFAR, deletion review, and policy pages. All of this has to be done in good faith, which means not paid. Smallbones (talk) 11:50, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

This is why the progression from paid article edits to paid discussion/voting edits is not a slippery slope: Because the paid authors of articles will inherently participate on other aspects of wikipedia in order to legitimize or bolster their article work. Another propsect is that an entity with a lot of money will be able to generate a great number of paid supporters or voters in any discussion it chooses to influence. With many policy discussions or polls having only a handful of voices, the paid participants can easily overwhelm the process. Watch out for this happening in RFA (Request for admininstratorship) as well. Erich Mendacio (talk) 01:57, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Moving this RFC forward

The main page has reached saturation, nothing more will be gained from further editors adding views because the page has reached an unnavigable point. We need to move this RFC forward. Prehaps by archiving some of the older, less supported views? Whether that happens or not, something needs to be done so that it doesnt become (more) stagnant. Seddσn ^talk|^WikimediaUK 11:29, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I added a helpful template to echo your point, Sed - though maybe setting the page to music and performing at any of the major contemporary music festivals is another path worth considering. The rather unlikely alternative route involves admitting that inviting 70+ comments (and subsequent comments on the comments, of course) on a situation, without any governance structure empowered to make any sort of change is a bit of a.... um.... well I wouldn't like to say without at least 12 other commentators having their say first.... :-) Privatemusings (talk) 11:52, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The RfC might well be closeable -- it requires clear consensus to overturn stated policy, and Jimbo has averred the rule is, as far as he is concerned, stated policy. It is further clear that there is no consensus at all -- the positions are close enough in count in !votes that no change will get the 2/3+ consensus usually desired (76 support Rootology, 58 support Jimbo, and a large number of views get 20+ supporting comments). In such a case, the status quo remains in force as stated by Jimbo. Move to close the RfC. Suggest that an RfC on establishing a "paypedia" be mooted for suggestions. Collect (talk) 12:30, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The only way that the status quo will be changed is through a straw poll. An RFC is just that, garnering views on a situation. Concensus on wikipedia cannot be gained through such methods successfully. What we have learnt is what we all already knew and it is this:

1. There are clearly significant numbers of people who oppose paid editting

2. There are clearly significant numbers people who support paid editting

Now we must decide what to do with this knowledge. Seddσn ^talk|^WikimediaUK 13:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I propose that we create an informational page at Wikipedia:Paid editing (currently a redirect to a section of COI). This page will summarize the major points of the status quo as it stands today, which pretty much everybody agrees on:

• Paid editing, by any user, is neither forbidden nor encouraged.
• Avoid biased editing (paid advocacy). Do not omit significant negative information. By following Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, the article has a better chance of long-term survival.
• When doing paid editing, comply with Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and declare your employers and contracts on your user page.
• Using administrator tools or participating in policy discussions for money is strictly forbidden.
• Make sure your employer knows that your contributions may be edited or removed by other users, sometimes very quickly. Do not game the system to prevent this.
• Do not copy material from your employer's website, unless they have donated the material as described at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. Simply telling you that you can use it is not sufficient.

How's that? Dcoetzee 23:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Dcoetzee, I support what you wrote. Just one detaily observation: I'm not sure that it's gramatically possible to "comply" with a "guideline." We need to remember that WP:COI is a guideline, not a policy; it is not written to be proscriptive. I'd change that word "comply" to "follow" or "proceed in accordance with" etc.

In general, I want to remark that I've mostly stayed away from this discussion, because so much of it does not seem to be informed by a sufficiently broad perception of how people or companies would want to approach paid Wikipedia consulting. There are so many unquestioned assumptions running through this discussion that it's tough to find a productive thread to follow.

In my experience, there are a number of people/organizations that are concerned about uncited mis-information on Wikipedia articles concerning them, and who generally value Wikipedia and want to proceed in good faith and in compliance with any guidelines etc. If we can't find a way to say "yes" and provide some direction to such entities, and to the consultants who they engage, I think Wikipedia's in a lot of trouble.

A while back, somebody suggested that maybe RFC is not the best format for a productive discussion. I'd be interested in alternative suggestions. -Pete (talk) 00:29, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Building Wikipedia:Paid editing makes a lot of sense. It's already happening and by painting the issues in only black/white terms people who ethicly want to comply by Wikipedia as well as by their boss(es) would be happier knowing the basic overview of the concerns. Pointing to some of the more sensible ideas may help as well. I'm particularly moved by the cases of charity/non-profit workers who were compelled by their clients/staff to fix articles and misinformation but were treated the same as someone introducing promotional material. A kind word in the right direction with guidance would have at least helped them understand the bitey reaction they get for helping Wikipedia. -- Banjeboi 13:56, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I've created Wikipedia:Paid editing. Please have a look, I'd appreciate any feedback, and respond either on the talk page or on the last thread of this page. :-) Dcoetzee 15:39, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Dcoetzee, I disagree with "the major point(s) of the status quo as it stands today, which pretty much everybody agrees on: * Paid editing, by any user, is neither forbidden nor encouraged." There is so much in WP:COI and WP:NOT that goes against this in spirit (if not in letter), not to mention Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Paid_editing#Statement_by_Jimbo_Wales that I think you have to accept that the status quo is "Paid editing - in at least some forms - is forbidden by policy."

That said, I encourage you to build WP:Paid editing as long as you recognize that once you get this proposed change in policy tegether, that you have to convince a large majority of editors in order to change the policy. I'd also like you to sort out the different types of "paid editors" and to consider the problem in the macro sense (or at the Foundation level): Would donations drop if we accepted paid editors? Would the non-profit status of the Foundation be at risk? (probably not if the Foundation didn't accept donations from the companies covered by paid editors) And most importantly, would the project's credibility suffer from the change? (it almost certainly would). Smallbones (talk) 19:43, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

These are all excellent points, i must point out though that in many forms paid editing is already going on although to what degrees and what volume we may never know. IMHO, it's akin to ascribing the motivations to why anyone edits. Can we always or even mostly be able to look at an edit and determine X edit comes from Y motivation? I'll also suggest we have a huge pile of WP:CSB here as Wikipedia by it's very nature of requiring a minimal level of education and access is inherently classist. Whom am I therefore to deny someone working out of poverty and otherwise making good edits that opportunity? -- Banjeboi 19:52, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

What is possible and what is not possible

1. We can prohibit paid editing, but we can not prevent it.
   1. If we want to prohibit it, we need to decide on a/ the sanctions b/ how hard we will look for it c/ whether we should try to have outside brokers not accept jobs targeted to us d/ what shall we do if an acceptable article does get contributed with paid editing -- do we reject it as we do for banned users?
   2. If we want to permit it, a/ do we require declaration of the editor and the client, b/do we have any special supervision (as for school projects) c/how much advocacy for the article do we permit
2. We can prohibit editing for a company one already works for,but we can not prevent it either.
   1. If we do prohibit it , e need to decide on a/ the sanctions b/ how hard we will look for it c/ what shall we do if an acceptable article does get contributed with company editing -- do we reject it as we do for banned user?
   2. If we want to permit it, a/ do we require declaration of the editor and the client, b/what do we have any special supervision (as for school projects) c/how much advocacy for the article do we permit?
3. If a company asks its regular PR agency to do it, where do we classify them?
4. Should we work with (or against) whoever shows up for editing, or try to work with the PR director of the organization? DGG (talk) 14:22, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

One productive point that came out of this discussion were that conflicts and affiliations should not be hidden, but should be required as information on user talk pages. Under current policies, users are strongly encouraged not to list affiliations on their talk pages or in their usernames, which makes understanding COIs much harder. Rather than saying "don't create a username including your company's name" we can encourage making affiliations as visible as possible, and then helping editors understand what is and isn't appropriate. Contributions that look possibly acceptable but did not have a declaration of conflict by the author should be more readily reverted - it is a useful indicator of bad faith. +sj+ 10:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment We already prohibit many COI edits, and when people are caught they are ignored, educated, chastised, blocked, brought to arbcom, or otherwise sanctioned or not by the community. All such sanctions or non-sanctions are case-by-case, but the usually have the weight of precedent behind them. The main difference between a paid and unpaid COI edit is the paid edit's conflict is blatantly obvious to anyone know knows money is changing hands. Hiding a conflict of interest in edits affected by WP:COI is very much frowned upon and usually eliminates any assumption of good faith. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:49, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

New informational page at Wikipedia:Paid editing

I have taken the liberty of creating an information page at Wikipedia:Paid editing that attempts to summarize the main points of agreement in this debate. I'd like to promote it, or some refinement, as a potential path forward. Please have a look. (Because there used to be a guideline at this title, it has some existing old discussion on the discussion page which I archived.) Dcoetzee 15:38, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

A Proposal:

For how to manage paid editing if it does become allowed, see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Paid_Editing_proposal:_Wikipedia_.22tax.22_on_paid_editors.3F. Erich Mendacio (talk) 02:33, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Note: The editor above has been indefinitely banned by the community, and is not permitted to edit Wikipedia pages. -Pete (talk) 18:39, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Paid Editing

Although there are more than enough editors lobbying there particular points of view here I wanted to throw mine out there as well. I personally see no reason not to allow paid editing as long as they follow the guidlines, WP:NPOV in particular. I do think that it puts us on a slippery slope that we will need to watch closely, even perhaps requiring users who do this to register like the way we require bots to be pre-approved before running amok. This way their edits can be monitored to ensure they are not acting inappropriately. Perhaps WP itself could take "donations" in exchange for getting a certain page to say FA status. This would be a good fundraiser for WP and get some more articles to GA status or better.--Kumioko (talk) 19:19, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Research Study?

Could it be possible to do a double-blind experiment to see if a random sample of paid editors (corporate or otherwise) hold any discernible POV as compared to the editing of a sample of unpaid editors (edit warriors or otherwise)? What I'm thinking goes something like this:

• User W may know the names of the users and whether they are paid or not.
• Users TheRestOfTheAlphabet review the edits (i.e., are the participants in the study).
• Users X, Y, and Z analyze the data for the two groups, without knowing which group was paid.

I realize that this probably isn't a feasible idea in practice; but if it is, it would be very helpful for our purposes. —Animum (talk) 16:22, 23 June 2009 (UTC), slightly modified at 16:25, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Just editors or...

I'm sorry I haven't read the entire discussion, but my thought - I think supporters of paid editing have a point, but my concern is paid editors who are actually admins. Now, typically (from my experience here in Wikipedia) if users are biased or crazy, a disinterested admin usually intervenes to fix things. I can see huge potential issues if an admin has a vested interest in pushing a POV (and is backed by $100,000). In low visibility articles, I see this as being even more serious. I would say - keep admins/ 'crats out of paid-editing at all costs (don't know how though) but for simple users, I don't see why it should be a big deal to get paid. In fact, paid editing may improve quality of writing... Just my thought. Cribananda (talk) 02:19, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

List Wikipedia:Paid editing at top of page?

I'm getting a fair amount of participation from both sides of the issue on Wikipedia:Paid editing, and I believe this page represents the best path to a compromise resolution at the moment. As such I suggest (at my peril) promoting it at the top of the RFC page. Any objections? Dcoetzee 21:59, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the discussion we're having over there feels more like it's aiming somewhere productive; having aired out issues here, I think we're better off now seeking consensus around a single document. However -- and this may seem like a quibble, but I think it's important -- I wouldn't call what we're doing a "compromise." Rather, we're proceeding from our mutual concerns about the future of the encyclopedia, and trying to craft a nuanced document that reflects (and provides a framework for addressing) all relevant concerns. I'd say it's a much more collegial process than the word "compromise" connotes. Anyway, thanks Dcoetzee for moving things in that direction -- I think it's helping. -Pete (talk) 22:48, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. :-) I have struck that term. Dcoetzee 23:06, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Paid Editing

I suppose it depends on how it's used and why. It would also depend on who was paying: an explicit individual or the organization in general. There is a chance that it would also risk attracting the wrong people to becoming editors. Vltava 68 01:22, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Section of indef blocked account moved to talk page

Statement by Wexperts

Following closely the course of this debate, we, a group of veteran Wikipedia users, decided that it is necessary to organize as a team, under this naming, in order to support our voice and our rights. Me, Wicked Pundit, I am the spokesperson of the team; if the talk turns to first person singular, it's me as the organizer of this discussion's flow. We intend to keep these user accounts only as channels of communication, not for general editing purposes.

A first question would be why we chose this way to present our views. We witnessed how the users against paid editing had free hand in doing what we call "state-sponsored vandalism", even as this debate was unfolding with no clear consensus. Legitimate content was put together with questionable content and deleted altogether as some sort of punishment, all that mattered was whether that user was supposedly paid or not. No sign of possible discussion about the quality of the content. This, while people keep getting Wikipedia-related jobs across the net, probably changing here the user accounts. Our view, as detailed below, is that it doesn't matter what kind of interest sparked the urge to edit, since an interest must exist there anyway. It matters the content created, not the editing reason or the user who edited.

Regarding the issue of paid editing, here follows the statement we prepared:

An important issue raised by the manner Wikipedia works is that many subjects that would be entitled to be covered there are absent or poorly presented. Wikipedia is created by voluntary work, hence it depends on the voluntary users whether and when a certain subject would be covered. The context is complicated by the increasing amount of knowledge necessary for editing and for understanding the "Wikipedia common sense", thus impeding the outsiders' attempts to write there without a previous training.

Given the status of this online encyclopedia, as expected, subjects not yet covered consider themselves disadvantaged, unfairly treated. The expected outcome, hiring users to cover absent topics, generated an amount of debate among Wikipedia community. Currently, Wikipedia does not have a clear regulation on paid contributions of content, the issue being discussed with pro and con arguments.

The main argument of those opposing paid editing is that the respective user could not maintain a neutral point of view. An argument rebuffed by those who support it by the fact that the very impulse to spend time editing there is a certain interest in certain topics. We would add here that, as we could see from our experience, the desired neutral point of view is not something preexisting, but obtained and discovered through discussions between the users engaged in editing a certain area, working to reach a consensus about the correct rendering of an article. The broad experience earned through participation in such debates would be what we call the "Wikipedia common sense". It is not possible to have free road in pursuing a certain point of view, since each user is under the watchful eye of the other users and nobody owns anything there, there is no private property in Wikipedia world. We consider that the idea of somebody embodying or owning a certain human neutral point of view could be applied only in certain religious contexts.

In our case, when we receive offers of paid wiki editing, if the respective topic is not yet covered there, we assess whether it would pass the notability threshold of Wikipedia. If it does not pass, we tell to the client about what is missing and is expected there. If it passes or if it already exists there in a poor state, we present a plan and we will assess a reasonable sum of money for our work on writing about the respective topic. We explain to the client about the choices we consider in rendering the text. In order to be efficient, the paid editing on Wikipedia supposes a long-term foresight. Each article is under the scrutiny of the entire community, determining the subsequent self-regulating process towards a balanced presentation, including all the legitimate points of view about the respective topic. Wexperts (talk) 07:24, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

Comments:

1. Though you wish to support paid editing, the statement you have just made is likely to have the opposite effect. I have above been supporting the possibility of paid editing, and you have just made it very much more difficult for me to do so. COI editing, paid on unpaid, is only acceptable if you lets editors here and readers of the encyclopedia know your COI. This requires a frank, open, and honest statement of who you are, and who you are editing in behalf of. There are many reasons to support anonymous editing--it is one of our important principles, but these do not apply if one is acting as a paid editor. You do not need protection against retaliation, for you are only doing your job. You do not need the freedom to have people not associate your edits with your real life identity, because you are doing a job for pay, and your success will depend upon what can be attributed to you. If you are honest, you will want people to see what you re doing. Now, you say you are representing a group of editors: who are they? I ask only for your Wikipedia identities, for we still do have the principle of anonymity for all, though I certainly advocate that this should no longer apply to those editing for pay or on behalf of an organization. I do have the right to ask for your Wikipedia identities, because we do have rules that only individuals can edit, and that one must normally declare multiple accounts.

We have treated the articles by the last editor(s) fairly. About 1/3 of them were satisfactory, and they were kept. Another 1/3 were about subjects which might possibly be notable, but where the article contained inadequate sourced information. And 1/3 were about subjects which would never meet our standards. If you think any have been judged wrongly, Deletion Review is available, or you could try what we normally advise those whose articles are rejected, just writing a better article. If you think that you can write satisfactory articles for pay, what have you written. If you think you can write with an adequately NPOV, prove it. You will get fair treatment--the same skepticism we give every articles where wee think there is conflict of interest, but the willingness to accept it if it does prove to meet our rules.

You have seen a wide range of different views above. Our community is not single-minded or dogmatic -- if anything, we have an excessive amount of disagreement. Any article anyone writes will get a fair hearing. I cannot promise you always a correct decision, for there is a good deal of variability in the results of AfD, and we do not always reach correct decisions, but I can certainly promise you an open hearing, and at least strong advocacy from me for any article I think acceptable. I personally am extremely open to the need for more articles of companies and other organizations, and so are others. If you think our standards are too restrictive, I welcome you to our perennial disputes for changing them.

This is not a place where it is necessary to hire a specialist to get an article. If the subject is obviously notable, people will help. We are quite used to naive beginners, and if you examine discussions of rejected articles, you will see good faith efforts to help those that are rescuable. (Indeed, some people here think we may be overdoing it.) I personally have rewritten many articles on businesses and organizations, and so have many others. Of course, this may interfere with your paid work, because we have thousands of active editors who do it for local status or a test of their skills, or the desire to contribute to a really big project beyond what any one person could do. The good complicated articles you see in Wikipedia are not usually the product of a good single editor, but the product of many people making small contributions, and helped by a few people organizing the resulting material. A key way status here here is obtained is by writing good articles, and people are usually very eager to help, if the subject looks like it will repay the effort. This is not like a law court, where one needs a professional to say things in the complicated way that is acceptable.

A specialist in writing Wikipedia articles can nonetheless help. I have worked with PR staff from several publishers and universities. Some have been able to learn how to write here, and to learn not to try to do articles on what is not going to be considered notable. Some have not. If you can in fact do good work, I agree there is a place for you. We have for many subjects insufficient people interested in writing, and some of these are the sort of organizations that are likely to hire you. But most people here think you will be unlikely to do good work. Show them differently. Prove it. Let's see the articles. Let's see that you persuaded the subjects to release a good photo under a free license. Let's see you can find acceptable references. I assure you many ideological objections to the practice of editing for pay will disappear very fast if there are many excellent articles to your credit. I've challenged you. Your turn now. DGG (talk) 01:57, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Blocking of Wexperts

I don't see how it's helpful to block Wexperts. Given that this is a request for comment about paid editing it would seem wise to invite the comments of paid editors. A warning to only use one account per person, to limit edits to only one person (the "spokesperson"), to limit edits to the RfC or some other alternative that attempted to allow them to leave a comment would be better than one that prohibited them from dong so. Ha! (talk) 19:22, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Disagree. Good block. It is a clear violation. Cirt (talk) 20:30, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Which violation of which policy? Ha! (talk) 22:24, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I think Cirt will be found to be correct, but it is unfortunate that the comments were removed from the RFC (to just above). The comments are somewhat over-the-top, but (if they weren't trollling) the text is vital reading for everyone contributing to this debate. Wikipedia has become a very attractive target for those wanting to spam and self-promote, and regardless of whether Wexperts is a troll, I believe the comments are a good indication of what we can expect. Johnuniq (talk) 01:43, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

If it's a clear violation it should be trivially easy to state how the policy was violated. I can see a potential for a violation in the future if the statement is interpreted in one particular way (multiple people using one account) but I can't see the violation that had already occurred, which is why a warning along the lines suggested above would have been better. The block sends an unfortunate message; if you're a paid editor then you will be blocked if you attempt to comment in this RfC. Ha! (talk) 14:11, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Excellent points. This is yet another bias in the RFC: it started with an apple-pie statement about why should we deny great editing just because the editor has a patron, and now someone claiming to be a paid editor is indef blocked, and their statement removed. Why? Johnuniq (talk) 23:11, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Role accounts and shared accounts are not permitted, nor are sock puppets permitted to edit policies, etc. Let the users, with their normal account names, stand behind their statements.   Will Beback  talk  23:42, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. Ha! (talk) 01:09, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Endorsements of comments?

Please see this attempt at properly placing what appear to be endorsements of the original poster's statement; yet, they are located under a "Comment" about the statement. Should some attempt be made to suss out whether or not these belong under Rootology's main Statement? -- Thekohser 17:12, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Executive Summary

I have read all the comments, all the positions, and all the related discussions on this. Let me summarize community consensus:

1. All Wikipedia editors are volunteers for the Wikimedia Foundation.
2. If someone pays or otherwise compensates a Wikipedia editor for their volunteer work, there is essentially nothing the community can do about it if the compensation is not revealed.
3. COI and NPOV are a concern for people who are compensated by third parties for editing Wikipedia articles. We can use these two policies and guidelines to sort out problems as the arise on a case-by-case basis.
4. Modest compensation has been used in the past to encourage editing (Prizes for article-improvement drives, Wikipedia-Takes-Manhattan, etc.)
5. Starting businesses to profit off of one's experience dealing with Wikipedia editing, markup, or meta-community discussions strikes many as unseemly and contrary to the goals of this free-culture enterprise. A few groups doing this have already been blocked. In other words, Wikipedia subcontracting is frowned upon.
6. This issue is likely to become bigger as time goes on.

To this end, I recommend we start a guideline/policy proposal: WP:COMPENSATION to begin the process of incorporating the points that we all can agree upon (mostly along the lines I outline above). This needs to be broader than the narrow scope provided at Wikipedia:Paid editing which ignores the fact that there are models of compensation that have been, in the past, accepted. That's not to say that we won't change our minds as a community and reject all such "modest compensation" proposals in the future, but we need to acknowledge the position of many of the people commenting here (including, for example, Jimbo Wales) who point out that there are practical problems to blanket condemnation of all forms of quid-pro-quo compensation.

The goal of the guideline/policy should be reiterating the goals of Wikipedia, mentioning COI and NPOV as specific concerns, pointing out models of compensation that have been tolerated in the past, pointing out models of compensation that have been rejected in the past, and leaving room for future development of the guideline/policy as Wikipedia gains even larger profiles in our global capitalist environment. It's time to move forward.

ScienceApologist (talk) 16:45, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The above "Executive Summary" does not necessarily summarize community consensus; it summarizes ScienceApologist's interpretation of community consensus. I am concerned that it fails to reflect reality with the first statement of supposed fact, that "All Wikipedia editors are volunteers." Some Wikipedia editors are editing solely for compensation. I know this for a fact. Maybe "consensus" means we steamroll over facts that are known only to a small number of people? -- Thekohser 17:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

All Wikipedia Editors are volunteers for the Wikimedia foundation, ultimately, whether they are getting paid by third-party sources or not. Even those who are paid by the Wikimedia Foundation are acting as volunteers when they edit Wikipedia articles. And believe me, I know that there are people who are editing solely for compensation. I know them personally. However, they are still, ultimately, volunteers for the Wikimedia Foundation when they do this. This is similar to an arrangement that 3M had with the Science Museum of Minnesota where they would pay some of their workers to do demonstrations of science experiments at the museum. The workers were volunteers for the Science Museum when they were doing the demos, but they were doing it solely for the compensation provided by the third-party company which was their employer (and, some might say, client). ScienceApologist (talk) 17:32, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The summary clearly says that if someone is paid and doesn't reveal it then the community doesn't know about it. All known editors are volunteers (with some minor exceptions like Wikimedia employees). If there are paid editors and if they'd like to make their status known to the community then we can judge how prevalent and accepted the practice is. We can only make policies based on what is known to the community.   Will Beback  talk  17:33, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I believe Science Apologist's comment "All Wikipedia editors are volunteers for the Wikimedia Foundation" is meant to define the relationship between the editors & the WMF. And if we accept this definition, it does raise some issues about this relationship -- as well as questions which need to be debated & answered. -- llywrch (talk) 18:05, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

non-profit foundation and IRS, contributors

One missing point in all the above discussion is that the Wikipedia Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation. It has a clause in the charter stating that its assets (e.g. computers and probably software) cannot be appropriated for the profit of ANY person. Letting individuals or corporations benefit from Wikipedia articles (without compensating benefit to the foundation's charitable purpose) would be against the charter. Theoretically the IRS might even step in and revoke the non-profit status of the foundation. (BTW I'm not a lawyer). This probably wouldn't happen, but only because - if it got even close to being an IRS issue - monetary contributors to the foundation would stop contributing. Who would want to make a charitable contribution to somebody else's money-making business? Smallbones (talk) 22:37, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

You don't know how dangerously close you're coming to The Big Secret. Be careful, my friend. Somebody has been using Wikipedia as their personal money-making business, and I'm not talking about $79-a-pop paid editing revenues. You'd never suspect the guy, but it's been right here under our noses for over eight years. Again, my advice is caution. Your words may stray toward treason. -- Thekohser 02:48, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Can you explain yourself please?   Will Beback  talk  03:33, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm too afraid. Those who even dare to suggest are subject to disappear from the list of "editors in good standing". But there is a reporter, the legend goes, who is slowly cracking the case, working a little on the inside, but mostly on the outside. He has this radical policy, though, of verifying all sources before publishing, so it's taking him longer than it would take a Wikipedian PROD a stub. I'm not going to say this mythical reporter's name, but it rhymes with Beth Minkelstein. But, you didn't hear that from me! -- Thekohser 04:40, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Here is my understanding of what Thekohser is talking about. User Seth Finkelstein seems concerned about Wikipedia in general and Jimbo in particular (personal attack removed). A straight forward person such as myself cannot understand the motivation of Seth or Thekohser, however one huge concern by many of the self-appointed righteous crusade is that Jimbo is paid large amounts for speaking engagements. Apparently it is shocking that someone could setup Wikipedia and make money by speaking (of course Jimbo has just been pursuing a dream for years, with no idea how it would end up, but the anti-Jimbo claim is that it's due to Wikipedians that Jimbo is sufficiently famous to attract large fees, so Jimbo should work full time for nothing, or should disappear). I find the arguments against Jimbo to be pathetic, although one day someone will do valuable psychological research on the anti-Jimbo phenomena. Only a great speaker with something to say is paid significant fees. (talk) 11:03, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget the rent -- the rent! They say Wikia "matched the best offer". Now Jimbo's company is the Foundation's landlord, too. The thousands upon thousands of click-ready links from Wikipedia to Wikia were not enough. (Rent checks are typically larger than Google AdSense checks.) And also, don't forget the Form 990s filed with "no business relationship" between the trustees of WMF, even though 60% of them were employed by Wikia, Inc. Oh, dear. I have to go. I can hear them. They're coming for me! I must get away from the keyboard befor XX (signal loss) *^*^*^NO CARRIER DETECTED^*^*^* -- Thekohser 12:22, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Johnuniq, speaking for myself, I've written extensively on my concerns about Wikipedia, and my motivations (I'll skip links, as you definitely know where to find my articles, so I won't be accused of self-promotion). If you cannot understand my motivations, regrets, I don't think I can explain more to you. My objection is not that Jimbo makes money _per se_, but the exploitative nature of it - for example, bluntly, why is it acceptable for him to charge "above $75,000" speaking fees, while inveighing against minor compensation for the people who actually write and maintain the site? No matter how one slices and rationalizes it, if you cannot at least see how a "straight forward person" could have a legitimate concern there, I'm at a loss. That fee for one speaking engagement is probably more than the entire yearly income of the vast majority of Wikipedia editors. Whatever one thinks of it, it should be clear it's not altruism. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 18:52, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe you should be refactoring other editors posts Seth. Regardless of what the Shankbone article states, the external link was clearly labeled as "one opinion". Please don't do that again. — Ched :  ?  19:17, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Thekohser's comments in this section are distinctly not a "proposal in his own section in the RFC" and are an attempt to hijack the discussion away from the (very different) point Smallbones was making and instead "use the RfC as a platform for continuation of feuding" against Jimbo and Wikipedia. As such they are a direct violation of the conditions at User talk:Thekohser#ArbCom: Suspension of your community ban (item 6, Paid-editing RfC) and should be removed in their entirety. Ha! (talk) 19:36, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Whatever Wales gets paid, it's clearly not for editing Wikipedia. Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs) has only logged 300 edits to the mainspace in the last three year. So this point is off-topic.   Will Beback  talk  19:41, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Brands & stuff

Does it really need a PR person to tell one that public perception of a thing is often more important than what that thing really is? It's all about brands. The public perception of Wikipedia -- its brand -- is that it is a free, non-partial source of information, made by the people for the people, free from the pernicious influence of Big Money. That is its major strength. (That and the fact that it often comes on top of Google searches.) Does one really want to change that?

Allowing paid editing will benefit many brands, to the detriment of one brand that most people here probably care most about -- "Wikipedia".

As I see it, the whole question of paid editing boils down to three issues: the issue of quality, the issue of perception, and the issue of slippery slope.

Let me elaborate.

1. The issue of quality. Many arguments in favour of paid editing are, essentially, that paid editing needs not be of worse quality than impartial editing. That, however, is not true. Almost anyone can tell a piece of promotional writing -- even if it is coached in "neutral" terms, and apparently masquerades as a piece of genuine encyclopedic prose (complete with all the "ref" tags etc.) Please believe me, nobody is fooled. The quality of most of these articles currently in existence (yes, there are plenty) is indeed atrocious. And if this is sanctioned officially, the brand "Wikipedia" will definitely lose in credibility, as a consequence.
2. The issue of perception. The question of public perception of Wikipedia is as important as the question of the actual quality of Wikipedia's encyclopedic content. As long as the public believes it to be an impartial source of information (even if sometimes vandalism-ridden), things are right. But if the story of paid editing hits the press, public support will evaporate.
3. The issue of slippery slope. Sure, there may be honest paid editors who are willing to abide by Wikipedia's policies and to produce good encyclopedic content, even when paid by companies. But where is this going to end? If you allow paid editing for somebody, you allow if for everybody. No one can hold a monopoly on the business of writing Wikipedia articles, can they? And, believe me, after all the honest NPOV-abiding paid editors there will come many who are more willing to bend the rules a bit ... to disregard an occasional (respectable) negative source ... to phrase the things in a slightly more positive (but referenced) way ... to put a more positive spin on things ... and so on. And after those, hordes and hordes of blatant spammers will come -- and who is to stop them???

89.52.129.93 (talk) 22:28, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Great points, and thanks for demonstrating yet again that anonymous editing often provides very valuable work. Johnuniq (talk) 01:30, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Where does one stop? An abstract study

Where would one draw the line? An abstract study.

Imagine several editors, called below A, B, C etc. Their activities may or may not be compatible with Wikipedia's goals. Where does one draw the line?

• Editor A is interested in a particular topic. He or she contributes to articles relating to that topic, including articles on companies active in that area. Always careful to source information from reliable sources. If writing about companies, always includes both positive and negative information, if sourced from reliable sources.
• Editor B is interested in the same topic. Often writes on companies active in that area. Obviously contributes more heavily to the topics relating to products of a particular company; but no NPOV violations.
• Editor C, same interest. Appears to edit (many) more articles relating to a particular company. Never adds negative information relating to that company. Everything (s)he writes is properly sourced, though.
• Editor D, same interest. Only edits articles relating to products of one single company, and only includes positive information. Doesn't appear to put a spin on things, though (no peacock terms etc.); everything apparently properly sourced.
• Editor E, same interest. Appears to put a subtle spin on thing, occasionally including various vague peacock terms ("largest company", "first to provide complete solutions" etc.) but most of these can be sourced, even if the sources are not always perfect. Occasionally removes negative references, but no major problems (no sockpuppetry, no edit-warring etc.)
• Editor F, same interest. Obvious interest in a particular company, but nothing one can put one's finger on. No unsourced additions, apparently. No removal of sourced information apparently. Yet everything seems to put a positive spin on that company.
• Editor G, same interest. Obviously interested in a particular company and its products. Only includes positive information about that company, not always sourced. Sometimes removes negative information, even if sourced. Never writes anything positive about competitors. No major edit-warring (or stops after warnings.
• Editor H, same interest. Obvious promotion for a particular company. Sometimes removes well-sourced negative information about company. Sometimes writes (possibly sourced) negative information about competitors. In any case, does not appear to be fair.
• Editor I, same interest. Quite obvious promotion. Adds blatant advertising. Removes negative information. Removes information about competitors. Is tendentious.
• Editor J, same interest. No attempt to abide by Wikipedia rules. Engages in sockpuppetry, edit-warring, other abuses to promote a particular commercial entity.

89.52.129.93 (talk) 23:19, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Editor E to Editor J; all of them seems to be uncivil to me. Alexius08 (talk) 12:13, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Yellow Light

Compare a traffic light with 2 colors (Red, Green) with another that also has a third color: Yellow. It seems that the proper balance is to have a YELLOW - proceed with caution.

Let's re-examine Editor F above

RECAP - interested in the same topic, often writes on companies active in that area, contributes more heavily to topics relating to products of a particular company. No NPOV violations, nothing one can put one's finger on, no unsourced additions, no removal of sourced information. "Yet everything seems to put a positive spin on that company."

Is this person the same as Editors E and G thru J? Is this person, as declared above, uncivil? The Wiki policy's heading, as of this writing, says "Do not ignore the positions and conclusions of others" yet this "in a nutshell" item is not supported on the page.

possibly exaggerated example: while writing about sweet cereals, does a citation of a blindfold test showing that cereal SW1 is sweeter than SW2 violate NPOV? Perhaps not, if the article is about sweet cereals. Does one need to talk about cavities and calories? Why can't one ignore this, if their goal is to tell people about SW1 which they buy and ignore any benefits about SW2? If no negatives are given regarding SW2, which also has cavity and calory issues, and one doesn't delete fellow Wiki edits regarding these matters, is this person to be banned?

Having said the above, consider the following as a
possible explanation to Editor F.

• Brother, now retired, worked for 3 companies – A, B and C – in that industry, but for one of them, C, 70% of those years.
• Editor F had a summer-internship at company C 30 years ago and has some stock in the company.
• Editor F is a hobbyist and owns 7 products made by company C.
• Editor F has a brother-in-law who, after being out of work for 9 months, was recently hired by company C.
• Editor F has seen many edit wars and wants no part of it, but will "soldier on" regarding certain of company C's products.
• Editor F was a debating champion in college and is now a featured speaker in a hobbyist club subsidized by the industry, but with 40% coming from company C.

Do you want to lose this person if company C has a contest for which Editor F hopes to do a "practice run" by editing an article on Product_SIM, one of company C's products?
Do those who say delete it if we find out feel better if the contest submission by Editor F will be be on Product_PLEX, a different product, i.e. Editor F is not even going to be "paid" for writing the Wiki article about Product_SIM? Dad7 (talk) 23:07, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

The question is not "how good can the good paid editors be", but rather "how bad can the bad paid editors be"?

This seems to have escaped everybody's attention. The question is not really "how good can all those good, well-intentioned paid contributors be," but rather "how bad can the bad editors be, if paid editing is allowed".

I'm sure there's a plenty of well-intentioned editors who are willing to engage in paid jobs, with the understanding that the end result of their labours will be completely Wikipedia-neutral, in line with all the policies and guidelines, indeed completely indistinguishable from other (NPOV) Wikipedia articles.

That is, however, not the problem. The question everyone should ask themselves is not "how much will that rule [allowing paid contributions] allow somebody to make good contributions and still make money", but rather "how much will that rule allow somebody to make nefarious contributions, and be protected by the rules."

Some of the arguments here seem to have centered on examples of some who were paid, yet made good contributions nonetheless. With all due respect, that is not the problem. I have the highest regard for Greg's contributions, but one should not point to the examples of the best contributors, or the best editors. One should rather consider the worst. And I am very much afraid that if paid editing is allowed, it's the worst (not the kind of Greg) who will have their day in the end.

89.52.129.93 (talk) 00:05, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Three excellent posts! Thanks. I hadn't quite formulated this idea, but there was something rattling in my mind that I now see is what you have outlined. There is already astonishing good faith shown to bad editors, and any hint of a rule that paid editing might be ok would allow endless wikilawyering with blocks overturned, etc. Johnuniq (talk) 01:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Well said. Your post echoes my own sentiments in reply to one of the statements by someone claiming they made good edits (for the apparent purpose of showing that that paid editing isn't a problem). As I stated in response:

"You are generalizing from one anecdotal example (your own self-proclaimed proper conduct in paid editing) to apparently reach a conclusion on the topic as a whole. Even if, arguendo, you wrote truly neutrally and would refuse to compromise your own standards, so what? You give 100 people the opportunity to steal and get away with it, some percentage will decline. It is axiomatic that with paid editing the motivation to satisfy the client—to provide the product they have paid for—will take a backseat to the integrity of the encyclopedia in many cases. That is how humans work. That is how business works. That is how psychology works. You are (again self-proclaimed) the lawyer who doesn't engage in deep pocket litigation or dilatory tactics; the butcher who puts no filler in his sausage; the bank that doesn't manipulate numbers, the chemical company that doesn't pollute. It happens and when it does it's great, but generalizing from it is a logical dead end."--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:50, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

i understand what you're concerned is, but a paid editor is not necesarily a bad editor, and even a bad paid editor cannot be worse than a bad unpaid volunteer editor. a paid editors incentives cannot be that much ebtter than the passonate and dedicated POV warrior who is so convinced that he or she si right that they treat other volunteers like crap and end up being blocked or the subject sof ArbComm cases because of this edgregious behavoir. regardless of motivation, an editor who is ruthless or disrepsctful of Wikipedias laws and guidelines wil be a bad editor and will be seventually forced to revorm or be blocked. paid editors will not be immune from the usual supervisory of the administrators and the other nnonpaid editors and theirs edits can be just as easily reverted or edited as everyones elses. while they might eb more tenacious, if they stard breaking the rules that cna be easily blocked or violated in ArbCom Smith Jones (talk) 03:19, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, all that is true but it is all besides the point. It is not that we don't have policies in place., or that our current policies can't handle the occassional paid editor. It is what happens when we change the culture by sanctioning paid editing, and business are set up, and people become professional at it, and they come in droves; and they bring to bear professional resources to assist their efforts, and people leave because of the psychologicla effect of volunteering where others are being paid, and others don't join up for similar reasons, and people are motivated to become mole admins so they can work from the inside out, and on and on. In other words, comparing paid editors to POV warriors as to a one-to-one weighing speaks not at all to what I see as the problem. The problem is about what happens next.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:57, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

i believe is grasp your point now. if you are meaning corerectly, than that means that the paid editors, if officlally sanctioned, will appear in numbers far greater than current POV warriors and other iniquitous forces and overwhelm wikipedias currently strong means of restrianing POV-pushing super-trolling? in that caase, that does make sense, but then again there is no way to actually know for sure that paid editors will be that mbig of a problem. I dont know if you realize this, but in a lot of areas relating to politics, religion, altnerative medicine, et cetera there have been almost reltentless attempts by POV-pushers to reshape the article and ignores policies in the articles which with they are editing.

Now, there have been stressful and it has led to Arbitration Communication Cases, blocks, permanent bannations, and other administrative crackdowns intended to readminister resouces and limit the effect of POV-pushers, but at the end of it Wikipedias policies DID INDEED prevail and the POV-pushers were forced to play by the rules. I am a veteran of those dipsutes and i saw first hand houw these poeple work and how Wikipedias community and its editors and amdinistrators were able to stop these iniquitous people and force them to play by the rules and policies. And these people were absolutely ruthless and lawless. By contrast, a paid editor will be a well-trainedprofessional, an intellectual or a the employee of a scientitfic eresearch facility or a bureau working for a larger company in the effects of media realtions and media rights. They will have a greater appreciation for the respect of both govenrmetns law and the LAws of Wikipedia and they will in large part carry themselves with dignity and professionalism or risk having both them and their entire companys paid editing privileges revoked.

now if paid editing is instituted, we can control these people. before this, paid editors and ordinary POV-pushers were one oand the same, we have no way of knowing for sure if someone is merely crazy or being paid to behave in the way of iniquity and rules-violating iniquity. Now if we can legalize paid editing, it can be regulated by the Wikipedia Foundation and our administrative and bureaucratic superstructure. It can be regulated by our administrators and our brureaucrats, with special rules intende to make sure that they follow the other rules and if they play unfairly or if they cheat, lie, or wikilawyher us, they can be forced out the same as any other editor, paid or unpaid Smith Jones (talk) 16:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Smith Jones makes a good point here: zealous true believers will always be a worse problem than the most devious paid editor: those being paid to push a message will always reach a point where the money's not worth it, while the true believer is motivated by The Truth(TM), & anything short of success is not an option. The LaRouchies & Scientologists were a constant source of trouble long before Gregory Kohs thought about making money from Wikipedia. The bad editors, like bad weather & forgetfulness, will always be with us. The point of allowing paid editting is that once it is above ground it can be regulated & controlled to some degree (& valued Wikipedians may even be able to earn a living from their avocation); even if it is banned it will continue, & like any shadowy activity no one will truly benefit from it but the unethical. -- llywrch (talk) 20:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

The WP:COI and most of the core policies were shaped with the heavy involvement of a "true believer", User:Jossi, who may also have been paid to edit too. If paid editing is allowed, then paid editors will be active in writing the rules governing it. It is not a situation where "we" will regulate "them". It'll be a constant fight over how to drawn the lines of acceptable behavior. And expect similar fights in any policy page that prevents the editor from writing the article with the employer's prefered content. I can't see how Wikipedia would receive a net benefit from that scenario.   Will Beback  talk  07:41, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

You make a good point there, Will, & as I've noted elsewhere I'm by no means 100% for paid editting. (More along the lines of "If it can be done without destroying Wikipedia, I'm not interested, but I'm willing to permit someone else to do it.") However, the pressure to regulate it may conceivably come from those who would pay for it because of chronic scamming: folks who promise results on eLance, say, & while some deliver some simply take the money & run -- & in all cases, none of the paid editors warned their customers that their article could be deleted because its subject is not notable. No one will bother to follow a code of ethics for behavior which is not allowed. -- llywrch (talk) 17:44, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Are we sort of dividing into two camps here: the optimists who think it could be problematic but We can find ways to handle it, vs. pessimists who find existing problems over teh top. Yes, I know the joke about 2 kinds of people. Novickas (talk) 18:04, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

im not so sure about that, Novicks!!

however, Will does mekae a good point. However, i am not comfortgable with calling out another user ike User:Jossi or User:Thekohser for being a paid editor withou t their consenet sbecause they can be a little aggressive or unwaranted. And I can see the problem with leting paid editors shape the policies. One thing that I would recomend is to have the Wikimedia Foundation shape the policeis and rules governing paid editing. Since it will require an hereteofore unpreceded level of outside invetervetniion by paid editing firms or journalistic institutionalizations, we could use the effect of Wikimedias' lawyers and top-level administrators in setting a broad set of guidelines to govern paid editors so that the community can work within these constraints in screating laws. In this situation, the Wikipedia community, paid editors included, will cede some necessary control over polcies to the Wikiimedia foundation in exchange for stability instead of the prophecized "constant fight over how to drawn the lines of acceptable behavior". SInce it is unlikely that paid editors will be able to infiltrate Mr. Wales's mind or that of his colleagues at the Wikimeida Foundation, the laws that they will originate will be more straightofward and realistic than the ones that paid editors will create. And if a piade ditor company refuses to obey these laws, we can always come back and revoke their privielges to edit Wikipedia by way of administrative regulations such as blocks, banns, or blockings. The way it is now, paid editors run amok, veiled by the presence of nonpaid but insane editors who are true believers in a specific ideology and a contempt for the regulations of Wikipedia presciently. Smith Jones (talk) 18:18, 15 July 2009 (UTC)