http://www.e-cbd.com/zakazukhazoo/how-to-promote-your-company-in-wikipedia/
This gets things mostly right.
(spotted by Mathias Schindler)
- d.
2008/7/1 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
http://www.e-cbd.com/zakazukhazoo/how-to-promote-your-company-in-wikipedia/
This gets things mostly right.
I find it leaves out the truism that if people that own or work for the company have to create the article themselves, it's very unlikely to be truly notable. (Irrespective of whatever the policy says today).
There's a lot to be said for organic growth and shamefacedly poking you or your company in the wikipedia is in no way organic.
- d.
Yeah, it makes some good points, and for *most* situations, what Ian said is correct. Lesson #2 — Understand the Community and Know the Rules^Number 1 Point^ --Thedjatclubrock
On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 6:10 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/7/1 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
http://www.e-cbd.com/zakazukhazoo/how-to-promote-your-company-in-wikipedia/
This gets things mostly right.
I find it leaves out the truism that if people that own or work for the company have to create the article themselves, it's very unlikely to be truly notable. (Irrespective of whatever the policy says today).
There's a lot to be said for organic growth and shamefacedly poking you or your company in the wikipedia is in no way organic.
- d.
-- -Ian Woollard
We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly imperfect world things would be a lot better.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
What is however true is that if they write it themselves, it usually is not a very good article, and tends to leave out a lot of the things that do make for demonstrated notability. Most commonly, it doesn't include links to the trade magazine and newspaper article that do exist, it uses vague adjectives instead of factual information on market share and prominence in the industry, and emphasizes a list of the officers of the company down to the junior vice-presidents.
Good PR people can, however, be taught to write for an encyclopedia. It's just that they never had to do so before--they're new at it, without the experience of people who work on Wikipedia on a range of topics. The key advice in that posting was to start by writing on different subjects of personal interest to get the feel of things.
On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 8:44 PM, Thedjatclubrock Enwiki tdjacr.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Yeah, it makes some good points, and for *most* situations, what Ian said is correct. Lesson #2 — Understand the Community and Know the Rules^Number 1 Point^ --Thedjatclubrock
On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 6:10 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
2008/7/1 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
http://www.e-cbd.com/zakazukhazoo/how-to-promote-your-company-in-wikipedia/
This gets things mostly right.
I find it leaves out the truism that if people that own or work for the company have to create the article themselves, it's very unlikely to be truly notable. (Irrespective of whatever the policy says today).
There's a lot to be said for organic growth and shamefacedly poking you or your company in the wikipedia is in no way organic.
- d.
-- -Ian Woollard
We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly imperfect world things would be a lot better.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Ian Woollard wrote:
2008/7/1 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
http://www.e-cbd.com/zakazukhazoo/how-to-promote-your-company-in-wikipedia/
This gets things mostly right.
I find it leaves out the truism that if people that own or work for the company have to create the article themselves, it's very unlikely to be truly notable. (Irrespective of whatever the policy says today).
There's a lot to be said for organic growth and shamefacedly poking you or your company in the wikipedia is in no way organic.
Wikipedia has thousands of articles about towns written by people who live in them, languages by people who speak them and academic fields by people who work in them. I don't see any bright line between that, and writing about a company you work for, in terms of notability. Many articles in Wikipedia are written by people with first-hand experience in the subject in question. I think if you want a definition of notability, you have to look elsewhere.
-- Tim Starling
On 02/07/2008, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Wikipedia has thousands of articles about towns written by people who live in them, languages by people who speak them and academic fields by people who work in them. I don't see any bright line between that, and writing about a company you work for, in terms of notability.
The bright line is money. My town doesn't pay me. My language doesn't pay me. My company does pay me. That's not conducive to truth or accuracy or referencing reliable sources.
-- Tim Starling
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/07/2008, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Wikipedia has thousands of articles about towns written by people who live in them, languages by people who speak them and academic fields by people who work in them. I don't see any bright line between that, and writing about a company you work for, in terms of notability.
The bright line is money. My town doesn't pay me. My language doesn't pay me. My company does pay me. That's not conducive to truth or accuracy or referencing reliable sources.
-- Tim Starling
-- -Ian Woollard
We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly imperfect world things would be a lot better.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
And if your town did pay you (for example, if you were employed in some way by it), you shouldn't be writing about it. I believe you've found the exact correct dividing line. I may live in Denver, but I have no particular interest in promoting it, and no one's paying me to do so, so me writing about it would not involve any particular conflict of interest. I may speak English, but again, I won't get paid more if English is somehow promoted, so there's no possibility of a conflict of interest if I edit the article on the language. On the other hand, I would certainly refrain from editing the article on my employer (aside from simple stuff like reverts of obvious vandalism), because whether real or not, there would be a possible conflict of interest in that scenario. Better to let others who aren't involved write that article, there are many others I can write instead. If I were to own my own business, or became notable enough for there to be an article on me personally, I would similarly refrain from editing or creating any such article, because there simply wouldn't be the objectivity there that we all should strive for.
Ian Woollard wrote:
On 02/07/2008, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Wikipedia has thousands of articles about towns written by people who live in them, languages by people who speak them and academic fields by people who work in them. I don't see any bright line between that, and writing about a company you work for, in terms of notability.
The bright line is money. My town doesn't pay me. My language doesn't pay me. My company does pay me. That's not conducive to truth or accuracy or referencing reliable sources.
So should I cease writing on my academic specialty? It is directly in my monetary and professional interest if my area (which is fairly small) gets more publicity, and Wikipedia can probably help with that. However, it *also* happens to be the area I'm most professionally qualified to edit in (being vaguely close to receiving a PhD in it), and I also have a genuine desire (apart from self-interest) to increase the coverage and accuracy of information on the subject---I picked it, after all, because I find it interesting. (I've also edited articles on universities that pay me money, and countries of which I'm a citizen.)
But I'm not quite sure on which side of the bright line this falls.
-Mark
On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 10:49 PM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Ian Woollard wrote:
On 02/07/2008, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Wikipedia has thousands of articles about towns written by people who live in them, languages by people who speak them and academic fields by people who work in them. I don't see any bright line between that, and writing about a company you work for, in terms of notability.
The bright line is money. My town doesn't pay me. My language doesn't pay me. My company does pay me. That's not conducive to truth or accuracy or referencing reliable sources.
So should I cease writing on my academic specialty? It is directly in my monetary and professional interest if my area (which is fairly small) gets more publicity, and Wikipedia can probably help with that. However, it *also* happens to be the area I'm most professionally qualified to edit in (being vaguely close to receiving a PhD in it), and I also have a genuine desire (apart from self-interest) to increase the coverage and accuracy of information on the subject---I picked it, after all, because I find it interesting. (I've also edited articles on universities that pay me money, and countries of which I'm a citizen.)
But I'm not quite sure on which side of the bright line this falls.
-Mark
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I would tend to say your subject doesn't -directly- pay you. There may be some indirect benefits to me if the town I live in does well, but the chances of biased editing on my part causing any real tangible gain to me is so tremendously slight that any conflict of interest effectively does not exist. On the other hand, my company -directly issues my paychecks-. This is the bright line. Editing an article on your subject would not be a COI. Editing an article on the university that employs you would be, I'd discourage that. Editing articles on the country you're a citizen of, well, again, that would be such a slight and indirect possibility of benefit that there's no COI.
2008/7/1 Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com:
I find it leaves out the truism that if people that own or work for the company have to create the article themselves, it's very unlikely to be truly notable. (Irrespective of whatever the policy says today).
There's a lot to be said for organic growth and shamefacedly poking you or your company in the wikipedia is in no way organic.
Oh, I don't know, "organic" traditionally involves shovelling a lot of crap...
*ahem*
More seriously, they're going to do it anyway, whether we tell them to or not. We may as well encourage people to tell them how to do it effectively and without causing trouble or producing actively bad material.
(This sounds impressively like the celibacy-sex-education debate, doesn't it! We don't want them to, but they're going to, so let's make sure they do it safely...)
On 02/07/2008, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
2008/7/1 Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com:
I find it leaves out the truism that if people that own or work for the company have to create the article themselves, it's very unlikely to be truly notable. (Irrespective of whatever the policy says today).
There's a lot to be said for organic growth and shamefacedly poking you or your company in the wikipedia is in no way organic.
More seriously, they're going to do it anyway, whether we tell them to or not. We may as well encourage people to tell them how to do it effectively and without causing trouble or producing actively bad material.
My point about organic growth is that if an article isn't linked in, then in a hypertext environment like the wikipedia, it shouldn't be there. And there's a lot of companies sitting there, unlinked, because every time they linked themselves, somebody went 'who cares' or 'link spam' and unlinked them. That doesn't happen with truly notable companies though.
I think any guidelines should start from another article, whereas right now it starts from the company. Just adding in data along the lines of 'there exists a company called X that makes Y, and Z said they were really good!' into the wikipedia is ultimately useless.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
Ian Woollard wrote:
My point about organic growth is that if an article isn't linked in, then in a hypertext environment like the wikipedia, it shouldn't be there. And there's a lot of companies sitting there, unlinked, because every time they linked themselves, somebody went 'who cares' or 'link spam' and unlinked them.
Then add the links, and quit worrying about those ignorant fools that obsess about link spam.
That doesn't happen with truly notable companies though.
<fact>
I think any guidelines should start from another article, whereas right now it starts from the company. Just adding in data along the lines of 'there exists a company called X that makes Y, and Z said they were really good!' into the wikipedia is ultimately useless.
If the X and Y are substantially on the mark that part of the article should not be removed only because of a badly written Z. At worst one should remove Z's comments. Better would be to introduce neutrality with offsetting information, but that requires work.
Ec
Andrew Gray wrote:
More seriously, they're going to do it anyway, whether we tell them to or not. We may as well encourage people to tell them how to do it effectively and without causing trouble or producing actively bad material.
It would be somewhat more effective if we didn't accuse everyone of acting in bad faith and advertising, as well. Nearly *every* article I've created on a company, none of which I've been personally involved with at all, and all of which are fairly large companies whose articles I've referenced to third-party print sources, has been tagged with something or other suggesting it be deleted. This sort of resistance to having articles on companies is one reason, I suspect, that our coverage of the area is so embarrassingly bad.
It could be helped by the new-page patrollers being a little more discerning and looking specifically for crappy, unreferenced, promotional type articles on companies, rather than just tagging every article on a company indiscriminately.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
It would be somewhat more effective if we didn't accuse everyone of acting in bad faith and advertising, as well. Nearly *every* article I've created on a company, none of which I've been personally involved with at all, and all of which are fairly large companies whose articles I've referenced to third-party print sources, has been tagged with something or other suggesting it be deleted. This sort of resistance to having articles on companies is one reason, I suspect, that our coverage of the area is so embarrassingly bad.
It could be helped by the new-page patrollers being a little more discerning and looking specifically for crappy, unreferenced, promotional type articles on companies, rather than just tagging every article on a company indiscriminately.
It seems that those interested in a "bright line" are more interested in quick fixes than real solution about how to deal with companies. They've taken their anti-corporate biases and admittedly bad experiences with the advertising industry, and blown them out of all proportion into a prejudicial view that anything from corporations is evil. What real experience have these critics ever had with corporations? Do they ever read the financial pages of the newspaper? Have they ever looked at the public reports which these companies are legally required to produce? When your only exposure to a company is its advertising campaigns you are bound to have a very distorted view of the company. There has to be more to our treatment of companies than ivory-tower idealism. The lowly cubicle jockey writing about his company is unlikely to have his personal fortunes thereby advanced, and the CEO has better things to do with his time.
Strong biased attitudes on either side of the fence help to perpetrate myths about companies. Maybe a food product company understates the amount of salt in its product contrary to objective consumer testing. We do better to highlight such discrepancies (with verifiable sources from both sides) than to dwell on fatuous arguments to the effect that a company is not notable if we only have its side of the story. If some statement is company propaganda we identify it as such, and welcome alternative views instead of pretending that by suppressing information we are doing a great service to neutrality.
Those blinded by their own bright lines need to stop deceiving themselves.
Ec
Andrew Gray wrote:
More seriously, they're going to do it anyway, whether we tell them to or not. We may as well encourage people to tell them how to do it effectively and without causing trouble or producing actively bad material.
(This sounds impressively like the celibacy-sex-education debate, doesn't it! We don't want them to, but they're going to, so let's make sure they do it safely...)
Writers will be loath to declare a conflict of interest when that declaration unleashes a shitstorm of criticism. Many will try to be as objective as they can be under the circumstances. If the result misses the mark it is a wiki after all, and anyone can edit it into neutrality.
Parents who want their kids to be open about their sex lives need to restrain the urge to condemn every sexual encounter as being in league with the devil. If we want openness on the part of employees writing about their employers we need to restrain those who perpetrate the ignorant lie that there is necessarily a conflict of interest.
Ec
2008/7/1 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
http://www.e-cbd.com/zakazukhazoo/how-to-promote-your-company-in-wikipedia/
This gets things mostly right.
(spotted by Mathias Schindler)
If anybody wants to see what seems to be on the ragged edge of COI.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Gabriel_Murphy_...)
So far as anyone can tell the article is entirely written by the guy himself.
WP:COI: 'Conflict of interest is not a reason to delete an article...'.
- d.
On 1 Jul 2008, at 20:48, David Gerard wrote:
http://www.e-cbd.com/zakazukhazoo/how-to-promote-your-company-in-wikipedia/
This gets things mostly right.
(spotted by Mathias Schindler)
- d.
Except the bit which says you can create an article about your own company. That inevitably leads to hate mail from the Wikipedia enforcers and speedy deletion, even if you have reams of independent sources.
This is because paranoia trumps facts, and neutrality trumps accuracy.