On 3/11/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

On 11/03/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:

...

Comments, questions, and suggestions are very welcome. From the discussion here, I know this isn't the only possible solution to the problem, so if you feel like this is going off in completely the wrong direction, I'd encourage (and probably contribute to) alternate

approaches.

It's not quite accurate - not on en: but on other Wikipedias, they're often push-started by people paid to write articles, e.g. by the institute of the local language. I can see this sort of paid writing not being a COI if the person is careful not to edit anything related to their sponsor. I mention this as a real-life example that happens now with no-one having any objection to it.

• d.

COI wouldn't be limited to "related to their sponsor"; a person can be paid to trash a busines competitor or opponent in some other field of active competition. COI is not limited to self-promotion.

On 12/03/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:

I really don't like this. The only people who will be affected will be those who bothered to have a conscience and find out that there even was a rule. These rampant PR companies that we're apparently so worried about will simply disregard it - if they even know it exists.

Ah, yeah, this is a strong point against it.

- d.

On 3/11/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:

Sometimes it is useful to have a clear stick to beat people with. Rather than trying to figure out exactly which line they have been playing on the edge of they have crossed over.

Hard to disagree with the stick approach. But thats only if its clear what their being beaten over the head for: Being paid? (in which case we just might never know). Or violating the rules? In which case those rules would be the ones cited, not WP:PAY. PAY has to be advisory, to get people to do what the MS guy did which was to fully disclose.

Maybe it would be better to think of PAY as an accusative sort of thing: "Your consistent bucking of our rules suggests you are probably a paid shill. We will muster our formidable resources to determine if this is true." "How dare you accuse me of being a shill!" "If the shoe fits buddy."

-Stevertigo

Hi, folks. Thanks for the many interesting comments on this. Unfortunately I just got pulled into a new client project, so I don't have time to reply to them all in the detail they deserve, but I'm going to try to address the broad themes. Apologies in advance for the monster post, but I'm hoping that putting it all together is less irksome than 6 or 8 semi-overlapping replies in various threads.

My basic notion is that rather than being open to paid editing and see where it goes (which is the general spirit of Wikipedia) we should forbid it generally and make specific exceptions where we see a clear need to let it happen. For you router geeks, it's "default deny" rather than "default allow". I know this is the opposite of the way we normally do things, but I think there are important reasons to go against the grain.

The first one is that for-pay editing will introduce a new sort of systemic bias. We're already biased toward the kinds of things that first-world, computer-savvy people are interested in. Allowing paid editing will introduce a new bias, which is toward information that people can profit from having the public believe. Given that advertising, marketing, and PR account for $500 billion annually in the US alone, there is a lot of information like that.

The second is that I believe it will be a substantial net loss of volunteer time. We already spend a fair bit of time cleaning up after vandals and spammers, and a lot of energy is wasted on arguing with kooks. Any information or resources that commercial interests have to offer can happily be put on the talk page, where a neutral editor can use it to fashion an article. I think any additional value gained from paid conflict-of-interest edits will be outweighed by the cleanup and eternal argument that professional PR and advertising people will generate.

Third, even the suspicion of distorted coverage will harm Wikipedia's image. This is a lesson that journalists, academics, and politicians all get to learn on a regular basis, one scandal at a time. We should take a page from their books and adopt firm rules to forbid even the appearance of systematic distortion of our articles.

Fourth, we have a one-time opportunity to prevent the emergence of people who make a full-time living from spamming Wikipedia. All of the major Internet-borne waves of spam only really took off when people started to do it professionally. Once they had a foothold, they had a platform that let them stay just far enough in ahead in the arms race to survive and keep up their Porche payments. By adopting a firm stance against paid editing now, we remove the gray area that will spawn our own Sanford Wallace or Scott Richter.

Fifth, eliminating the gray area will save a lot of headache for all concerned. That $500 billion a year is spent on professional POV warriors. The good ones are just as tenacious and tricky as lawyers, except they aren't constrained by any certifying body or serious professional code of ethics. I say this with no disrespect; I have friends who do sales, PR, and marketing for a living, and it's amazing to watch them work. But they will not get what we are about here, not when they are being paid not to get it. Any gray area will be room for endless argument and struggle.

And the biggest reason I have a bee in my bonnet about this is that that given modest funding, I believe I could successfully game the system sufficiently to justify high client fees. Per WP:BEANS, I'll keep quiet about how, but as somebody who does a fair bit of vandal patrol and keeps an eye on contentious articles, I'm pretty sure it's doable and sustainable. This is the only way I can think of to keep the market small enough to avoid that.

Now I know people have a few specific objections, all very reasonable. Let me quickly reply to them:

From charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com: "We need to get corporations on our side, not to be in a perpetual state of war with them."

I don't think it has to be war. Most companies understand and respect the ethical barriers that constrain journalists. If we draw a similar line while providing them with similar opportunities to give us information so that we can tell their side of the story fairly, they will accept that. There will be exceptions, and we will deal with them like we do with other transgressors: first with velvet, then with steel.

From Steve Bennett: "There is a world of difference between someone attempting to expand or improve a subject field, for remuneration, and someone repeatedly working on the perceived bias of one particular article."

I agree, and I think that if we are especially clever, we can find specific exemptions that allow the former while forbidding the latter without any room for gaming. The mechanism I proposed is having all money go through the Wikimedia Foundation, letting them serve as what journalists call the Chinese Wall, preventing conflict of interest from flowing along with the money.

From Jeff Raymond: "Right, so why be so firm about trying to discourage [paid editing]?"

For the same reason that journalistic codes of ethics forbid anything that might hint of a conflict of interest, even when it is innocently given and innocently received. Because it is the top edge of a very slippery slope, and because even the appearance of a potential problem reduces public trust.

From Steve Bennett again: "The only people who will be affected will be those who bothered to have a conscience and find out that there even was a rule."

I disagree. I think that's a false dichotomy.

On one end of the spectrum, we have people who have a solid understanding of fairness and NPOV, people who are incorruptibly scrupulous about avoiding conflicts of interest. On the other end, we have the bottom-feeders and scoundrels. You're right that a no-pay rule harms the first set (because they could be trusted anyhow) and doesn't have much effect on the second set (because they are irredeemably bad).

But this is really aimed at the vast number of people in the middle. They come in all sorts: people who haven't thought it through; people who could use a few bucks; people who could be fooled by an Almeda University into seeing us as the POV warriors; people who will fool themselves if there's money to be made; people who think something is ok as long as there isn't a rule against it; and especially, people who tell themselves, "I'm just doing my job."

By consulting at a variety of companies and meeting people at conferences, I get to talk to a lot of people about why they do what they do. I'm convinced that most people fall into that middle. I don't want them to have to wrestle with the subtleties of NPOV and COI when somebody is paying them to not worry about it. I want them to have a clear, easy-to-understand rule: don't do it. And I want it just as clear for the people tempted to pay them.

And from a few people: "I don't like X about your proposal."

Then please do fix it! Even if you don't like the idea much, it's in all of our interests to have the best possible proposals on each side. I'll certainly be helping on both sides, and I'd love to see as much input as possible both on the no-pay one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Paid_editing

and on the pay-is-ok one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Paid_editors

Thanks,

William

P.S. My sincere thanks to the people who waded all the way through this.