PR people who edited Wikipedia get crucified. Counterattack: reduce trust in Wikipedia.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120417113527.htm
Paper: http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/PRJournal/
The paper's message appears to be "Wikipedia's rules need to change". (Also, "Jimmy Wsles is a big meanie head.") The paper doesn't address the problem that the media and general public get upset and turn PR editing into a PR problem even when it's within existing rules.
(Aside: I've evidently been skimming too many hard science papers - that "peer reviewed" paper reads like an undergraduate essay.)
- d.
On 18 April 2012 12:48, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
PR people who edited Wikipedia get crucified. Counterattack: reduce trust in Wikipedia.
<snip>
Paper: http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/PRJournal/
"When the talk pages were used to request edits, it was found to typically
take days for a response and 24% never received one."
Some spin? So responses were days rather than hours. And there was a response in 76% of cases.
Charles
They say you have to wait 2-5 days for a response after requesting changes as though that is a bad thing. I'm very impressed with that response time. How many commercial encyclopaedias can do better? On Apr 18, 2012 12:48 PM, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
PR people who edited Wikipedia get crucified. Counterattack: reduce trust in Wikipedia.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120417113527.htm
Paper: http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/PRJournal/
The paper's message appears to be "Wikipedia's rules need to change". (Also, "Jimmy Wsles is a big meanie head.") The paper doesn't address the problem that the media and general public get upset and turn PR editing into a PR problem even when it's within existing rules.
(Aside: I've evidently been skimming too many hard science papers - that "peer reviewed" paper reads like an undergraduate essay.)
- d.
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On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:02 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
They say you have to wait 2-5 days for a response after requesting changes as though that is a bad thing. I'm very impressed with that response time. How many commercial encyclopaedias can do better?
I hope you're joking here. :)
Just in case you weren't: commercial encyclopedias have a sophisticated editorial and legal process in place to ensure they do not print defamatory content. Sometimes subjects are sent a draft before publication, and are given an opportunity to make an input.
Wikipedia has none of that. What it does have is a history of articles littered with malice, bias and inaccuracy (witness its history of arbitration cases).
I was struck by the following passage in the paper:
---o0o---
Although another one of the five pillars is that Wikipedia does not have firm rules – Wales recently stated, “This is not complicated. There is a very simple “bright line” rule that constitutes best practice: do not edit Wikipedia directly if you are a paid advocate. Respect the community by interacting with us appropriately” (Wales, 2012a, para 2).
This directly conflicts with the Wikipedia FAQ/Article subjects (2012) page that specifically asks public relations professionals to remove vandalism, fix minor errors in spelling, grammar, usage or facts, provide references for existing content, and add or update facts with references such as number of employees or event details.
---o0o---
On that, at least, they're correct.
Andreas
On 18 April 2012 13:38, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:02 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com
wrote:
They say you have to wait 2-5 days for a response after requesting
changes
as though that is a bad thing. I'm very impressed with that response
time.
How many commercial encyclopaedias can do better?
I hope you're joking here. :)
Just in case you weren't: commercial encyclopedias have a sophisticated editorial and legal process in place to ensure they do not print defamatory content. Sometimes subjects are sent a draft before publication, and are given an opportunity to make an input.
Having dealt with such things before...
That process takes* much much longer* than 2-5 days.
And unless the problem is exceptional most encyclopedias will continue and ongoing print run until their next update without modification.
Tom
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:42 PM, Thomas Morton <morton.thomas@googlemail.com
wrote:
On 18 April 2012 13:38, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:02 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com
wrote:
They say you have to wait 2-5 days for a response after requesting
changes
as though that is a bad thing. I'm very impressed with that response
time.
How many commercial encyclopaedias can do better?
I hope you're joking here. :)
Just in case you weren't: commercial encyclopedias have a sophisticated editorial and legal process in place to ensure they do not print
defamatory
content. Sometimes subjects are sent a draft before publication, and are given an opportunity to make an input.
Having dealt with such things before...
That process takes* much much longer* than 2-5 days.
Yes, but it takes place *before* publication. :P
On 18 April 2012 13:45, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:42 PM, Thomas Morton < morton.thomas@googlemail.com
wrote:
On 18 April 2012 13:38, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:02 PM, Thomas Dalton <
thomas.dalton@gmail.com
wrote:
They say you have to wait 2-5 days for a response after requesting
changes
as though that is a bad thing. I'm very impressed with that response
time.
How many commercial encyclopaedias can do better?
I hope you're joking here. :)
Just in case you weren't: commercial encyclopedias have a sophisticated editorial and legal process in place to ensure they do not print
defamatory
content. Sometimes subjects are sent a draft before publication, and
are
given an opportunity to make an input.
Having dealt with such things before...
That process takes* much much longer* than 2-5 days.
Yes, but it takes place *before* publication. :P
Not at all.
My specific experience was while consulting on another matter for a firm; they were surprised to find their name had been noted in connection with some years-before legal action (quite a disturbing one) in a prominent printed encyclopaedia.
I helped them get in touch and resolve the issue.
It took about a week for initial contact to prove successful - the material was reviewed, taking another two weeks, and "amended internally". The next years print run was currently happening, and they were unable to modify the problem.
So all in all it took about 18 months for a correction to be published.
I happen to know of several other examples where incorrect material is still being published years after the point has been brought up.
Whilst you will get some material sent out for review I don't believe it accounts for much of the content. And, as such, is something of misdirection on the issue.
I'm not arguing Wikipedia is the solution. But the argument that printed encyclopaedias are better at this I know to be false.
Tom
On 18 April 2012 13:53, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
I'm not arguing Wikipedia is the solution. But the argument that printed encyclopaedias are better at this I know to be false.
More generally, arguments that make a comparison between an idealised fantasy Britannica and a real-life WIkipedia are likely to be bad ones and should be avoided.
- d.
On 18 April 2012 13:53, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
<snip>
My specific experience was while consulting on another matter for a firm; they were surprised to find their name had been noted in connection with some years-before legal action (quite a disturbing one) in a prominent printed encyclopaedia.
<snip>
So all in all it took about 18 months for a correction to be published.
Interesting, indeed.
To be fair about the time-criticality: it does matter in that mirror sites will refresh their WP dumps on some basis that probably isn't daily. OTOH we do offer the OTRS route also for complaints, and that presumably offers a better triage.
Charles
To be fair about the time-criticality: it does matter in that mirror sites will refresh their WP dumps on some basis that probably isn't daily. OTOH we do offer the OTRS route also for complaints, and that presumably offers a better triage.
Charles
Unfortunately not. There is a significant backlog in the OTRS queues - in the region of months.
Tom
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Thomas Morton <morton.thomas@googlemail.com
wrote:
That process takes* much much longer* than 2-5 days.
Yes, but it takes place *before* publication. :P
Not at all.
My specific experience was while consulting on another matter for a firm; they were surprised to find their name had been noted in connection with some years-before legal action (quite a disturbing one) in a prominent printed encyclopaedia.
I helped them get in touch and resolve the issue.
It took about a week for initial contact to prove successful - the material was reviewed, taking another two weeks, and "amended internally". The next years print run was currently happening, and they were unable to modify the problem.
So all in all it took about 18 months for a correction to be published.
I happen to know of several other examples where incorrect material is still being published years after the point has been brought up.
Whilst you will get some material sent out for review I don't believe it accounts for much of the content. And, as such, is something of misdirection on the issue.
I'm not arguing Wikipedia is the solution. But the argument that printed encyclopaedias are better at this I know to be false.
Tom
Well, it is still true that in a conventional encyclopedia, everything goes through vigorous professional fact checking *before* publication. We have nothing to compare to that. Not even Pending Changes. Surely that is a very, very significant difference indeed?
As a result, the kinds of inaccuracies we have in Wikipedia can be in a whole different league than the sort of error you might find in Britannica; there is often active malice at work, as opposed to the occasional cock-up, and you are talking about the no. 1 Google link for a person or company, rather than something appearing on page 582 of a dusty tome that few people own, let alone read.
Andreas
On 18 April 2012 14:13, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Well, it is still true that in a conventional encyclopedia, everything goes through vigorous professional fact checking *before* publication. We have nothing to compare to that. Not even Pending Changes. Surely that is a very, very significant difference indeed?
The attempt to equate Wikipedia with a traditional encyclopedia breaks down in several places.
As a result, the kinds of inaccuracies we have in Wikipedia can be in a whole different league than the sort of error you might find in Britannica; there is often active malice at work, as opposed to the occasional cock-up, and you are talking about the no. 1 Google link for a person or company, rather than something appearing on page 582 of a dusty tome that few people own, let alone read.
If the context is "media" rather than "pedia", you have to compare WP with what newspapers do. And we know the arguments: newspapers will publish corrections; they are reluctant to do so even with glaring factual mistakes (which are very frequent); they almost never publish corrections with the same prominence as the original; and there is an argument that modifying the original article online would be "wrong" (per the New York Times). It makes it clear that the "journal of record" model has deficiencies also: those in that business are not interested in annotation of errors.
Those who work around here are generally aware of WP's deficiencies. I think pre-moderation (per the EB) isn't what we need, but extending existing techniques to BLPs in a broader way probably is. This thread has been fairly effectively diverted by Tom D's aside. In the broader context, there is no competing "media" model that serves the "pedia" function in an obviously better way. Given the range of options available to us, "lo-bandwith pedia" is probably a worse choice than salami-slicing the BLP difficulties.
(One day we may decide enWP needs a separate community to patrol BLPs, effectively forking the wiki. I wouldn't rule this out, say when we hit 5 million articles, but the results might not be so very different. I wonder if Wikidata would be able to underpin a better model, in time.)
Charles
On 18 April 2012 13:38, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:02 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com
wrote:
They say you have to wait 2-5 days for a response after requesting
changes
as though that is a bad thing. I'm very impressed with that response
time.
How many commercial encyclopaedias can do better?
I hope you're joking here. :)
Just in case you weren't: commercial encyclopedias have a sophisticated editorial and legal process in place to ensure they do not print defamatory content. Sometimes subjects are sent a draft before publication, and are given an opportunity to make an input.
Wikipedia has none of that. What it does have is a history of articles littered with malice, bias and inaccuracy (witness its history of arbitration cases).
Yes, but note that PR folk are not just employed to deal with defamatory material. In fact in the case of defamation it's more probably a lawyer's work. They are professionals in verbal massage of material. This is what they can charge money for.
I was struck by the following passage in the paper:
---o0o---
Although another one of the five pillars is that Wikipedia does not have firm rules – Wales recently stated, “This is not complicated. There is a very simple “bright line” rule that constitutes best practice: do not edit Wikipedia directly if you are a paid advocate. Respect the community by interacting with us appropriately” (Wales, 2012a, para 2).
This directly conflicts with the Wikipedia FAQ/Article subjects (2012) page that specifically asks public relations professionals to remove vandalism, fix minor errors in spelling, grammar, usage or facts, provide references for existing content, and add or update facts with references such as number of employees or event details.
---o0o---
On that, at least, they're correct.
Yes indeed. Jimbo neither makes policy nor enforces it, of course. What we have here is an ongoing "loop" in being able to read WP:COI properly. I believe the guideline on COI to be the best available take on this issue. However - and it's a big however - we are learning that the limitation on COI to a "universal" statement makes it harder for those with particular types of COI to understand. This applies both to paid editing, and to "activist" editing (I think you will have no trouble understanding this, Andreas ...), as well as autobiography.
The COI guideline is supposed to be "best advice", and in a nutshell it says "really don't" edit in certain ways when you are too close to a topic. Now, in the non-nutshell, discursive version it of course says that who you are and what you believe and how you might be rewarded for editing are not the issue: if you are a POV pusher that is the problem we have with you, not anything else. It is not "illegal" in our terms to do certain things when you have a _potential_ conflict of interest.
But the real-life situation is that someone paid to edit has a boss and/or paymaster. Jimbo knows what he is doing here with sending out a soundbite, rather than citing the page. The boss can understand the soundbite, and is almost certainly not going to bother to understand the page.
Charles
On 18 April 2012 13:55, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
But the real-life situation is that someone paid to edit has a boss and/or paymaster. Jimbo knows what he is doing here with sending out a soundbite, rather than citing the page. The boss can understand the soundbite, and is almost certainly not going to bother to understand the page.
Also note that in my experience, it is pretty much impossible to get across even to nice PR people that they have a really bloody obvious COI. I have spent much time trying. I would guess that this is because getting their POV in is, in point of fact, what they get money for.
- d.
On Wednesday, 18 April 2012 at 13:58, David Gerard wrote:
Also note that in my experience, it is pretty much impossible to get across even to nice PR people that they have a really bloody obvious COI. I have spent much time trying. I would guess that this is because getting their POV in is, in point of fact, what they get money for.
So, recently, I've been advising a PR/social media company (unpaid) about their article, which was deleted for lack of notability.
They are perfectly well-aware of their COI and so on: that's why they've contacted me.
The stance I've taken with them is basically to ask them to find at least five reliable sources that meet the GNG, I'll have a look at them and if I think they do, I'll open a DRV on the deletion, listing the five sources. In the DRV, I'll make it quite clear that I've communicated with them, what the nature of the relationship is (no commercial relationship, I just happen to know a lady who works at the company personally) and they provided me the sources, but I won't open a DRV unless I agree that the sources meet the GNG. I hope that's a way to do it with some integrity.
Being that I'm pretty damn cynical of PR companies, and when I read about how PR companies want to edit Wikipedia "ethically", my initial bullshit detector goes off the charts. But in this instance, I think it's certainly possible.
User:Fluffernutter gave a talk about paid editing last year at Wikimania, comparing it with needle exchange programmes. Much as my gut feeling is "god no, don't give an inch to PR people even if they are claiming to act 'ethically'!", I have a funny feeling we're going to need to do something very soon.
On 18 April 2012 14:24, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:
User:Fluffernutter gave a talk about paid editing last year at Wikimania, comparing it with needle exchange programmes. Much as my gut feeling is "god no, don't give an inch to PR people even if they are claiming to act 'ethically'!", I have a funny feeling we're going to need to do something very soon.
As these things usually do, the ones who behave will be put through increasingly onerous requirements, the ones who don't will continue as they were and the ones who do will then be regarded the same way as the ones who don't. Ah well.
- d.
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:55 PM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Yes indeed. Jimbo neither makes policy nor enforces it, of course. What we have here is an ongoing "loop" in being able to read WP:COI properly. I believe the guideline on COI to be the best available take on this issue. However - and it's a big however - we are learning that the limitation on COI to a "universal" statement makes it harder for those with particular types of COI to understand. This applies both to paid editing, and to "activist" editing (I think you will have no trouble understanding this, Andreas ...), as well as autobiography.
That is one of the points the authors of the study picked up on, too:
---o0o---
There are problems with the “bright line” rule. By not allowing public relations/communications professionals to directly edit removes the possibility of a timely correction or update of information, ultimately denying the public a right to accurate information. Also, by disallowing public relations/communications professionals to make edits while allowing competitors, activists and anyone else who wants to chime in, is simply asking of misinformation. If direct editing is not a possibility, an option must be provided that can quickly and accurately update Wikipedia articles; as this study found, no such process currently exists.
---o0o---
Unfortunately, they do have a point.
Positive bias and advertorials *can* be odious, but activist editing with a negative bent has traditionally been the greater problem in Wikipedia, in my view, and is the type of bias the Wikipedia system has traditionally favoured. Not doing harm is, in my view, more important than preventing the opposite.
Andreas
On 18 April 2012 14:44, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:55 PM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
Yes indeed. Jimbo neither makes policy nor enforces it, of course. What
we
have here is an ongoing "loop" in being able to read WP:COI properly. I believe the guideline on COI to be the best available take on this issue. However - and it's a big however - we are learning that the limitation on COI to a "universal" statement makes it harder for those with particular types of COI to understand. This applies both to paid editing, and to "activist" editing (I think you will have no trouble understanding this, Andreas ...), as well as autobiography.
That is one of the points the authors of the study picked up on, too:
---o0o---
There are problems with the “bright line” rule. By not allowing public relations/communications professionals to directly edit removes the possibility of a timely correction or update of information, ultimately denying the public a right to accurate information. Also, by disallowing public relations/communications professionals to make edits while allowing competitors, activists and anyone else who wants to chime in, is simply asking of misinformation. If direct editing is not a possibility, an option must be provided that can quickly and accurately update Wikipedia articles; as this study found, no such process currently exists.
---o0o---
Unfortunately, they do have a point.
Positive bias and advertorials *can* be odious, but activist editing with a negative bent has traditionally been the greater problem in Wikipedia, in my view, and is the type of bias the Wikipedia system has traditionally favoured. Not doing harm is, in my view, more important than preventing the opposite.
Andreas
It would be interesting to study what sort of edits are being talked about.
From my dealings with PR-style edit requests there is a fairly broad form
ranging from:
- desire to remove sourced negative material (whitewashing) - correction of serious innacuracies/POV (i.e. defamation or other) - simple information updates/corrections (like: circulation in 2012 is 41,000, you currently use the 2010 figures). - desire to add PR-style gushy material
Of those I'd consider only #2 important to address quickly and seriously. Finding a way to filter major problems would be good. OTRS isn't (currently) a good way, IMO.
Tom
On 18 April 2012 14:44, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Positive bias and advertorials *can* be odious, but activist editing with a negative bent has traditionally been the greater problem in Wikipedia, in my view, and is the type of bias the Wikipedia system has traditionally favoured. Not doing harm is, in my view, more important than preventing the opposite.
This was pretty much the line being pushed by Jossi Fresco and TerryO when
the COI guideline was being put together at the end of 2006. And it still has its advocates, of course. Who are more convincing when they don't have an obvious COI (some do and some don't, I should hasten to add).
I actually think our content is better than it was then; but the world in general cares much, much more. I don't think what I know about paid editing of biographies with the positive slant supports the idea that we should simply "lift restrictions" (whatever that means). My feeling is that the debate with the PR industry, which is hugely resourced, has not yet got into an intelligent footing at all. I think they send untrained folk to edit here, roughly speaking.
And we know how those seeing WP as a potential market operate with thin-end-of-the-wedge tactics. (Which is another useful insight into Jimbo's line.)
Charles
On 18 April 2012 12:48, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
PR people who edited Wikipedia get crucified. Counterattack: reduce trust in Wikipedia. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120417113527.htm Paper: http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/PRJournal/
On the CREWE Facebook page, Andrew Lih from WIkipedia has asked Dr diStaso to correct her claims. His request:
‘Thanks, but doesn’t that mean the correct conclusion should be: “60% of respondents who identified an article about their client found at least one error”? That’s very different than: “60% of Wikipedia articles about PR clients had factual errors” even more different than: “60% of Wikipedia articles had factual errors” Doesn’t this warrant a significant correction?’
Dr diStaso has, instead, reinforced the wrong impression in quotes given to ABC News today:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/04/wikipedia-survey-shows-60-per...
I've asked her as well to please take the opportunity to urgently correct the impression her work is giving. I'm sure there will be no problem with this.
- d.