I'm just getting ready for C4 to pick me up, take me to their office and interview me for tonight's news re: the Microsoft-Wikipedia issue. If someone could record it and throw us an MPEG afterwards, that would be most helpful!
Now to get tarted up for the camera ...
- d.
On 26/01/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'm just getting ready for C4 to pick me up, take me to their office and interview me for tonight's news re: the Microsoft-Wikipedia issue. If someone could record it and throw us an MPEG afterwards, that would be most helpful!
News is 7-7:30pm. C4 apparently do video streaming off their site as well.
Now to get tarted up for the camera ...
Suit looks like it was hit by a truck, so leather jacket and Rollins shirt it is!
- d.
Is the new 4 On Demand (4od) service for the news too? Might be able to catch it tomorrow on that.
Good luck indeed!
On 1/26/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
News is 7-7:30pm. C4 apparently do video streaming off their site as well.
Damn, I'm going out tonight... I'll miss it. Hopefully I can get a copy of someone...
Break a leg!
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On 26/01/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 26/01/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'm just getting ready for C4 to pick me up, take me to their office and interview me for tonight's news re: the Microsoft-Wikipedia issue. If someone could record it and throw us an MPEG afterwards, that would be most helpful!
News is 7-7:30pm. C4 apparently do video streaming off their site as well.
Sit down, camera rolls.
"Okay. What was Microsoft's crime?" "Well, I wouldn't call it a *crime* ..."
Talked about how it was a conflict of interest and that's bad, how "I said this can only damage their good name and then it damaged their good name". What OOXML is (the Office 2007 file format) and why it's greatly contentious (competition from OpenDocument and OpenOfficeorg). How Doug Mahugh is on the talk page now and that's good and Rick Jelliffe will hopefully contribute his expertise and that's good. So that's the current problem pretty much dealt with.
They have no idea how much will be used tonight, "between five seconds and five minutes." It depends whether e.g. John Reid says something particularly stupid in the next hour ;-)
The issue now, the real problem, is how Wikipedia deals with this sort of thing in the future. We have procedures for actual legal problems, but not yet for this sort of editorial problem. Something where companies with issues with content can say so, and where the regular volunteers will take an interest and look into improving articles based on that.
We don't have that yet. I said we'd probably work out something over the weekend.
So, regular editors. How do we set up a page or forum where companies and people written about can express editorial concerns (rather than e.g. legal ones), such that they know people will at least look over them with thought and improve the articles from there?
This was a MAJOR news story and it came completely out of the blue. But it is an ongoing problem for Wikipedia - we don't want companies fearful of dealing with us in case they get the sort of bad press this issue got Microsoft and Doug Mahugh. How can we get better at this, quickly?
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
So, regular editors. How do we set up a page or forum where companies and people written about can express editorial concerns (rather than e.g. legal ones), such that they know people will at least look over them with thought and improve the articles from there?
Apologies if this posts twice...
Dare I play the devil's advocate here and say that we should allow this sort of thing?
Hear me out: all we need to do is say that we do not condone, promote, discourage, or prohibit paid editing by firms, but make it explicitly clear that such edits are, at best, treated as any other, and, at worse, watched closer than other edits by the general community. All edits must still conform to [[WP:V]], [[WP:NPOV]], must be licensed via the GFDL, and may be rejected completely if [[WP:C|consensus]] is as such, regardless.
It's an interesting situation. On one hand, we have a pile of posts on the en mailer talking about the necessity for accuracy and citation. On the other hand, we're quite militant about not letting third parties commission other third parties to provide information that may not be as easy for Joe Sixpack to grab and add to an article.
And yes, I know, MyWikiBiz, etc - I'm not convinced it was handled properly, but this isn't the thread for that discussion - but I'm not sure we shouldn't be tolerant of this sort of thing. After all, Microsoft merely got caught - it's likely happening anyway without our knowledge.
-Jeff
On 26/01/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Dare I play the devil's advocate here and say that we should allow this sort of thing?
I see your point, but I'm imagining what the sort of minds who filled our pages with linkspam till we had to switch on nofollow, and who are now whining that we must switch it off again *because* we owe them a living, would do with such a permission, however sensibly worded.
It's hard to get a clue across to people who think their income depends on not getting the clue in question.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 26/01/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Dare I play the devil's advocate here and say that we should allow this sort of thing?
I see your point, but I'm imagining what the sort of minds who filled our pages with linkspam till we had to switch on nofollow, and who are now whining that we must switch it off again *because* we owe them a living, would do with such a permission, however sensibly worded.
And that's fair as well. I do think that we're being naive with the way we handle this sort of "conflict of interest." The situation you describe helps no one, the situation with Microsoft, at least in theory, helps everyone. I still think it's better to approach it from the vantagepoint that we can get a very strong benefit than to assume that anything that could be construed as a COI is inherently bad, which is the attitude that I get.
I had an off-wiki conversation with someone about a similar issue earlier, so it's interesting that it comes up again here. At the end of the day, shouldn't we worry more about the quality of the contributions in terms of benefit to the encyclopedia (even the poorly written ones) as opposed to who's contributing it? If paying someone $100 to add information to a stubby, but necessary, article improves the quality of the encyclopedia, why are we standing in the way?
-Jeff
On 1/26/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
On 26/01/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Dare I play the devil's advocate here and say that we should allow this sort of thing?
I see your point, but I'm imagining what the sort of minds who filled our pages with linkspam till we had to switch on nofollow, and who are now whining that we must switch it off again *because* we owe them a living, would do with such a permission, however sensibly worded.
And that's fair as well. I do think that we're being naive with the way we handle this sort of "conflict of interest." The situation you describe helps no one, the situation with Microsoft, at least in theory, helps everyone. I still think it's better to approach it from the vantagepoint that we can get a very strong benefit than to assume that anything that could be construed as a COI is inherently bad, which is the attitude that I get.
I had an off-wiki conversation with someone about a similar issue earlier, so it's interesting that it comes up again here. At the end of the day, shouldn't we worry more about the quality of the contributions in terms of benefit to the encyclopedia (even the poorly written ones) as opposed to who's contributing it? If paying someone $100 to add information to a stubby, but necessary, article improves the quality of the encyclopedia, why are we standing in the way?
I am still of two minds on the paying-for-edits issue, but I don't believe it's going to change soon.
I was thinking of something different over the weekend. A Wikipedia Article Subjects Noticeboard, where people or organizations could post things which they object to (short of what the Office would *have* to deal with) and editors can watch and respond to normally.
I was thinking that the process could be something like "First, please post a comment on the article talk page with a detailed explanation of what you object to and why, and identifying who you are and what your official standing is. Then, add an entry to the top of the list below with template {{Subjectnotice|articlename}}, add some comments, and sign it... Please do so from a logged in account so that people can respond on your talk page as well as the article talk page."
I haven't created the template (I have no idea how they work).
Does anyone think this is a bad idea? Positive comments?
On 26/01/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
I was thinking of something different over the weekend. A Wikipedia Article Subjects Noticeboard, where people or organizations could post things which they object to (short of what the Office would *have* to deal with) and editors can watch and respond to normally.
That's the sort of idea I was thinking of.
Would enough regular editors actually respond? That's the only thing I'm wondering about.
I was thinking that the process could be something like "First, please post a comment on the article talk page with a detailed explanation of what you object to and why, and identifying who you are and what your official standing is. Then, add an entry to the top of the list below with template {{Subjectnotice|articlename}}, add some comments, and sign it... Please do so from a logged in account so that people can respond on your talk page as well as the article talk page." I haven't created the template (I have no idea how they work). Does anyone think this is a bad idea? Positive comments?
It sounds n00b-hostile. What's the lightest-weight process from both sides that would do the job?
- d.
On 1/26/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 26/01/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
I was thinking of something different over the weekend. A Wikipedia Article Subjects Noticeboard, where people or organizations could post things which they object to (short of what the Office would *have* to deal with) and editors can watch and respond to normally.
That's the sort of idea I was thinking of.
Would enough regular editors actually respond? That's the only thing I'm wondering about.
I think it would be less frustrating than a lot of other admin stuff people do. I'd watch the page. I can't speak for others, though.
I was thinking that the process could be something like "First, please post a comment on the article talk page with a detailed explanation of what you object to and why, and identifying who you are and what your official standing is. Then, add an entry to the top of the list below with template {{Subjectnotice|articlename}}, add some comments, and sign it... Please do so from a logged in account so that people can respond on your talk page as well as the article talk page." I haven't created the template (I have no idea how they work). Does anyone think this is a bad idea? Positive comments?
It sounds n00b-hostile. What's the lightest-weight process from both sides that would do the job?
Good point. Making a process optimized for the WP experts is not the point...
What do people think the easiest consistent process is which we could do which would allow article subjects with little WP experience to find out what to do, and do it, to make such a notification? Let's brainstorm...
We can disconnect the subject notifying us from WP process tracking it once notified. So they can be different mechanisms.
Ask them to put a comment in the talk page with a {{SubjectObjection}} tag, which adds the talk page to a category? Can we explain that easily enough?
Create a mailing list for it and publicize the address?
On 1/26/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
I think it would be less frustrating than a lot of other admin stuff people do. I'd watch the page. I can't speak for others, though.
If it were companies like microsoft who are likey to have well thought out complaints it probably wouldn't be too bad.
Unfortunely it would be not be. It would mostly be small companies either going Waaa you deleted our article or complaining that we don't say how brilliant product X is. Did you ever see this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:NewsMax_Media#Proposed_article_text
How much time do you want to spend dealing with people who think that is NPOV?
On 26/01/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Unfortunely it would be not be. It would mostly be small companies either going Waaa you deleted our article or complaining that we don't say how brilliant product X is. Did you ever see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:NewsMax_Media#Proposed_article_text How much time do you want to spend dealing with people who think that is NPOV?
Oh yeah. Unfortunately, I don't think we have the option, as a top 10 web site, not to. We do in fact need *something*, something that'll work. That's why I posted to this list asking - doing nothing about this isn't an option any longer.
- d.
On 1/26/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 26/01/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Unfortunely it would be not be. It would mostly be small companies either going Waaa you deleted our article or complaining that we don't say how brilliant product X is. Did you ever see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:NewsMax_Media#Proposed_article_text How much time do you want to spend dealing with people who think that is NPOV?
Oh yeah. Unfortunately, I don't think we have the option, as a top 10 web site, not to. We do in fact need *something*, something that'll work. That's why I posted to this list asking - doing nothing about this isn't an option any longer.
- d.
An open noticeboard is ah risky. An OTRS style thing could work if you could find a way to recruit beyond the usual suspects (say hang out at RFA for a few weeks and try and recruit anyone who passes or indeed fails if you like the look of them).
Wider than we need to get the message out to companies and goverments (did you get asked about the NIDA edits btw?) the first port of call for complaints should be the talk page.
On 27/01/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Wider than we need to get the message out to companies and goverments (did you get asked about the NIDA edits btw?) the first port of call for complaints should be the talk page.
NIDA? Oh dear. No. Do please tell.
(Nor did I hear about the Alcoa edits until a friend in Perth told me on my blog.)
- d.
On 1/27/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 27/01/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Wider than we need to get the message out to companies and goverments (did you get asked about the NIDA edits btw?) the first port of call for complaints should be the talk page.
NIDA? Oh dear. No. Do please tell.
Edited our entry about them.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0107/2460.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_on_Drug_Abuse#NIDA_and_Wikip...
On 27/01/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/27/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 27/01/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Wider than we need to get the message out to companies and goverments (did you get asked about the NIDA edits btw?) the first port of call for complaints should be the talk page.
NIDA? Oh dear. No. Do please tell.
Edited our entry about them. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0107/2460.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_on_Drug_Abuse#NIDA_and_Wikip...
And here I was thinking you meant the [[National Institute of Dramatic Art]] ...
- d.
On 27/01/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
And here I was thinking you meant the [[National Institute of Dramatic Art]] ...
That's what I was thinking. Lots of arty actor types whining about how their acting school is better than WAAPA. Nothing new there.
~Mark
On 1/26/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Wider than we need to get the message out to companies and goverments (did you get asked about the NIDA edits btw?) the first port of call for complaints should be the talk page.
That's an obvious answer, but doesn't address how *we* find the complaint...
Without a tag or category, or a central mechanisms, there's no way that I can think of for the volunteers to know a request was filed.
On 1/27/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/26/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Wider than we need to get the message out to companies and goverments (did you get asked about the NIDA edits btw?) the first port of call for complaints should be the talk page.
That's an obvious answer, but doesn't address how *we* find the complaint...
Without a tag or category, or a central mechanisms, there's no way that I can think of for the volunteers to know a request was filed.
Issue a press release fast (while there is still media interest) anounceing the email address for companies to complain to.
On 1/26/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/27/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/26/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Wider than we need to get the message out to companies and goverments (did you get asked about the NIDA edits btw?) the first port of call for complaints should be the talk page.
That's an obvious answer, but doesn't address how *we* find the complaint...
Without a tag or category, or a central mechanisms, there's no way that I can think of for the volunteers to know a request was filed.
Issue a press release fast (while there is still media interest) anounceing the email address for companies to complain to.
Hmm. Who in the foundation would need to approve doing this?
On 27/01/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/26/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/27/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Without a tag or category, or a central mechanisms, there's no way that I can think of for the volunteers to know a request was filed.
Issue a press release fast (while there is still media interest) anounceing the email address for companies to complain to.
Hmm. Who in the foundation would need to approve doing this?
I just forwarded Geni's suggestion to the comcom list, which is probably a start ;-)
- d.
On 27/01/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/27/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Without a tag or category, or a central mechanisms, there's no way that I can think of for the volunteers to know a request was filed.
Issue a press release fast (while there is still media interest) anounceing the email address for companies to complain to.
You're volunteering to man it? How much sewage will you swim through for Wikipedia? ;-)
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 26/01/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
I was thinking of something different over the weekend. A Wikipedia Article Subjects Noticeboard, where people or organizations could post things which they object to (short of what the Office would *have* to deal with) and editors can watch and respond to normally.
That's the sort of idea I was thinking of.
Would enough regular editors actually respond? That's the only thing I'm wondering about.
I don't dislike it, but I do fear established editors with anti-pay-for-edits axes to grind trying to deny things left and right. Then there's the whole inclusionist/deletionist thing, and I see some messes.
-Jeff
On 1/26/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
On 26/01/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
I was thinking of something different over the weekend. A Wikipedia Article Subjects Noticeboard, where people or organizations could post things which they object to (short of what the Office would *have* to deal with) and editors can watch and respond to normally.
That's the sort of idea I was thinking of.
Would enough regular editors actually respond? That's the only thing I'm wondering about.
I don't dislike it, but I do fear established editors with anti-pay-for-edits axes to grind trying to deny things left and right. Then there's the whole inclusionist/deletionist thing, and I see some messes.
We can fight those battles if they come up, but I think that what this does is give a process to make the issues completely transparently visible, where everyone can see what's going on and comment if they care.
Better that, and find out what's going on, than having it happen in the shadows.
On 1/26/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Would enough regular editors actually respond? That's the only thing I'm wondering about.
I would. Look at how many people respond to WP:DESK. I don't think we will have any problem with staffing the page.
On 27/01/07, ยท Firefoxman enwpmail@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/26/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Would enough regular editors actually respond? That's the only thing I'm wondering about.
I would. Look at how many people respond to WP:DESK. I don't think we will have any problem with staffing the page.
That does give me hope. Although near 100% of questions there are sincere and worth answering, as opposed to the amount of unjustifiable whining that will come through this hypothetical channel ;-) I wonder what its burnout rate will be ...
- d.
On 1/27/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
That does give me hope. Although near 100% of questions there are sincere and worth answering, as opposed to the amount of unjustifiable whining that will come through this hypothetical channel ;-) I wonder what its burnout rate will be ...
That is why I suggested grabbing people fresh from RFA. We can't do this with the usual suspects and we need a way to introduce people the foundation rather than wikipedia side of things.
On 27/01/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/27/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
That does give me hope. Although near 100% of questions there are sincere and worth answering, as opposed to the amount of unjustifiable whining that will come through this hypothetical channel ;-) I wonder what its burnout rate will be ...
That is why I suggested grabbing people fresh from RFA. We can't do this with the usual suspects and we need a way to introduce people the foundation rather than wikipedia side of things.
That's thoroughly evil. I like it.
- d.
On 1/26/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Then, add an entry to the top of the list below with template {{Subjectnotice|articlename}}, add some comments, and sign it...
Are there any alternatives to templates for stuff like this? Don't we have a special feature that allows HTML INPUT elements that can be used for stuff like this now? I've seen it around though I don't know how it works. But it's gotta be frustrating for people completely new to wiki who have to cut and paste templates into textareaas. Then again, it's certainly better than the pre-template days.
On 1/26/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
I had an off-wiki conversation with someone about a similar issue earlier, so it's interesting that it comes up again here. At the end of the day, shouldn't we worry more about the quality of the contributions in terms of benefit to the encyclopedia (even the poorly written ones) as opposed to who's contributing it?
Yes. Quality of contribution should not be determined by who is contributing. This is not a new stance; this has been a rule of thumb since the first trolls were allowed to stay and continue editing.
If paying someone $100 to add information to a stubby, but necessary, article improves the quality of the encyclopedia, why are we standing in the way?
I don't know. Something about it feeling wrong, driving people from writing about what is important to writing about what is supported by patrons. I do think that edits themselves should be allowed or not based on their quality -- something that would rule out many would-be paid contributions.
SJ
On 1/26/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
This was a MAJOR news story and it came completely out of the blue. But it is an ongoing problem for Wikipedia - we don't want companies fearful of dealing with us in case they get the sort of bad press this issue got Microsoft and Doug Mahugh. How can we get better at this, quickly?
- d.
Check out this article:
http://www.tmcnet.com/news/2007/01/26/2285485.htm
Apparently Mathias Schindler has been in contact with MS, giving a different line.
For what it's worth, I don't see that Microsoft did anything obviously wrong. At this point, we definitely need a clear and responsive system for coordinating paid editing. We've recognized for a while now that paid editing will happen. It will definitely be in our best interest to set up a system to facilitate it and give a sense of fairness to entities like MS who want to do things above-the-board.
-Sage
For what it's worth, I don't see that Microsoft did anything obviously wrong. At this point, we definitely need a clear and responsive system for coordinating paid editing. We've recognized for a while now that paid editing will happen. It will definitely be in our best interest to set up a system to facilitate it and give a sense of fairness to entities like MS who want to do things above-the-board.
-Sage
I don't know about that... I would steer clear of all paid editing in any way, shape, or form. It just creates problems when the article is edited or deleted and a company is outraged because they paid good money for that very article. --Mets501
On 1/26/07, Mets501 mets501wiki@gmail.com wrote:
For what it's worth, I don't see that Microsoft did anything obviously wrong. At this point, we definitely need a clear and responsive system for coordinating paid editing. We've recognized for a while now that paid editing will happen. It will definitely be in our best interest to set up a system to facilitate it and give a sense of fairness to entities like MS who want to do things above-the-board.
-Sage
I don't know about that... I would steer clear of all paid editing in any way, shape, or form. It just creates problems when the article is edited or deleted and a company is outraged because they paid good money for that very article. --Mets501
The argument has been made many times, but I'll make it again. The people at Microsoft knew what they were getting into by trying to hire an independent writer to improve articles: edits are only likely to stick around if they bring Wikipedia articles closer to the ideal of verifiable, neutral, well written information. It's only in a group/individual/company's best interest to pay for editing if getting closer to neutral point of view is beneficial for them; obviously it is beneficial to us.
If introducing bias is what they want to do through paid editing, they aren't likely to use official channels even if they are available. But if we did have a system for coordinating and monitoring such activity, it would put that much more social obligation on (financially powerful) groups who feel wronged by Wikipedia content to respect our editorial policies. If there is no recourse but secret paid editing, then they are already going against us; there is little to discourage the further step of attempting to whitewash their articles
-Sage
On 26/01/07, Sage Ross ragesoss+wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Check out this article: http://www.tmcnet.com/news/2007/01/26/2285485.htm Apparently Mathias Schindler has been in contact with MS, giving a different line.
Yeah - that's my first reaction, compared with Mathias' - and my - second reaction. I'd file that article under "conflict is news."
For what it's worth, I don't see that Microsoft did anything obviously wrong. At this point, we definitely need a clear and responsive system for coordinating paid editing. We've recognized for a while now that paid editing will happen. It will definitely be in our best interest to set up a system to facilitate it and give a sense of fairness to entities like MS who want to do things above-the-board.
Yeah. When I first heard about this, I (and half the blogosphere and the tech press and then the mainstream press) reacted "WHAT ON EARTH." Then Mathias contacted Doug and Rick, and cc'd me in and I responded too. As I said, I think this particular issue is pretty much resolved - Doug is monitoring the talk page, there's a LOT of editor eyes on it now and it'll be a much better article in a few weeks.
The issue is what happens for all the other cases.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
The issue now, the real problem, is how Wikipedia deals with this sort of thing in the future. We have procedures for actual legal problems, but not yet for this sort of editorial problem. Something where companies with issues with content can say so, and where the regular volunteers will take an interest and look into improving articles based on that.
We don't have that yet. I said we'd probably work out something over the weekend.
So, regular editors. How do we set up a page or forum where companies and people written about can express editorial concerns (rather than e.g. legal ones), such that they know people will at least look over them with thought and improve the articles from there?
This was a MAJOR news story and it came completely out of the blue. But it is an ongoing problem for Wikipedia - we don't want companies fearful of dealing with us in case they get the sort of bad press this issue got Microsoft and Doug Mahugh. How can we get better at this, quickly?
Handled correctly this could be a PR benefit for WP.
Not long ago I expressed my opinion that our view toward Conflicts of Interest was not a workable one. I'm also of the view that any severe action against editors who are paid to clean up a company's article, will only drive such activities underground.
I think that we need to establish a right of defence or rebuttal (or whatever we want to call it). This would allow anyone who is directly affected by the article a place to defend his point of view. This could probably be done in a template that is linked from the page in question. The person or company affected would have the exclusive right to make substantive edits to that template. The result would be a section that is the person's view on the issue; if they want to make a radical departure from the truth that would be their right within that context. If the subject tries to put the same information in the main body of the article that would be subject to the usual meat-grinder rules.
I'm sure that we will have a few of our own dinosaurs complaining that they should have the right to edit everything, and that having such pages would be tremendously unwiki, but I think that giving any person the opportunity to defend himself should improve Wikipedia's image as one of fairness.
A few simple rules may be necessary for these persons. 1. The writer must be the person himself or have the right to speak on behalf of the person 2. The writer must be registered and properly identified. 3. All that he writes is subject to GFDL 4. The financial arrangements between the writer and the person are not our concern. 5. We reserve the right to limit the length of submissions to prevent long-winded rants.
Ec
On 1/28/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Handled correctly this could be a PR benefit for WP.
Not long ago I expressed my opinion that our view toward Conflicts of Interest was not a workable one. I'm also of the view that any severe action against editors who are paid to clean up a company's article, will only drive such activities underground.
I think that we need to establish a right of defence or rebuttal (or whatever we want to call it). This would allow anyone who is directly affected by the article a place to defend his point of view. This could probably be done in a template that is linked from the page in question. The person or company affected would have the exclusive right to make substantive edits to that template. The result would be a section that is the person's view on the issue; if they want to make a radical departure from the truth that would be their right within that context. If the subject tries to put the same information in the main body of the article that would be subject to the usual meat-grinder rules.
I'm sure that we will have a few of our own dinosaurs complaining that they should have the right to edit everything, and that having such pages would be tremendously unwiki, but I think that giving any person the opportunity to defend himself should improve Wikipedia's image as one of fairness.
A few simple rules may be necessary for these persons. 1. The writer must be the person himself or have the right to speak on behalf of the person 2. The writer must be registered and properly identified. 3. All that he writes is subject to GFDL 4. The financial arrangements between the writer and the person are not our concern. 5. We reserve the right to limit the length of submissions to prevent long-winded rants.
No thankyou people can buy their own webhosting space. In any case it risks lessening the requirment on the rest of us to be NPOV.
Aditionaly who is going to speak for Carthage?
Ec wrote:
I think that we need to establish a right of defence or rebuttal (or whatever we want to call it). This would allow anyone who is directly affected by the article a place to defend his point of view.
This is an excellent, excellent idea.
I'm reminded of another entity we love to hate: credit reporting agencies. One of the reasons we (justifiably) love to hate them is that they provide little or no mechanism to challenge the information they hold about us. Wikipedia should not be anything like a credit reporting agency.
Did they use any in the broadcast? I've been searching their site, but there doesn't appear to be any report on MS or WP.
On 1/26/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'm just getting ready for C4 to pick me up, take me to their office and interview me for tonight's news re: the Microsoft-Wikipedia issue. If someone could record it and throw us an MPEG afterwards, that would be most helpful!
Now to get tarted up for the camera ...
- d.
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On 26/01/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Did they use any in the broadcast? I've been searching their site, but there doesn't appear to be any report on MS or WP.
I half-watched the 1900 broadcast and didn't see anything.