On 21/06/06, George Chriss GChriss@psu.edu wrote:
<quote who="Erik Moeller"> > I don't know how common this is: > > # 01:30, June 19, 2006 RadioKirk blocked "Shout magazine (contribs)" > with an expiry time of indefinite (username, existing company) > # 01:02, June 19, 2006 RadioKirk blocked "Shi star entertainment > (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (username, existing > company) > # 21:04, June 18, 2006 RadioKirk blocked "ParsInternet (contribs)" > with an expiry time of indefinite (Username (name of existing > company)) > # 00:59, June 19, 2006 RadioKirk blocked "Hammond Publishing > (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (username, existing > company) > > Given that we probably want people to identify who they work for, > especially when editing articles where this is relevant, is it a good > idea to block company accounts without any edits on sight? If so, > perhaps we should at least modify the talk plage template to indicate > to the user how they can put the company information on their user > page? See > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Hammond_Publishing > for an example of the current template. > > Erik > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >
To start a bit of a different thread, are corporate accounts bad per se? Individuals posing as corporations are unacceptable, but what about corporations acting/editing under an official capacity? Corporations are not automatically "POV pushers", as they may come in good faith just as other contributors do. Bad apples would be obvious and would damage corporate reputation, thus mitigating abuse of Foundation projects.
Implementation may be as simple as linking the userpage to an official online statement from the corporation. I envision such accounts to be attractive to spokespersons interested in editing articles to remove or challenge unfair statements, without the need to create anonymous proxy accounts or to contact the OTRS team. Any additional editing would be a bonus.
A post on the Village Pump has just noticed this:
http://www.prsa.org/viewNews.cfm?pNewsID=197
"The wide world of Wikipedia, and why PR practitioners should take note"
Pretty sensible stuff.