On 18 April 2012 13:38, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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 18 April 2012 13:45, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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 &lt;morton.thomas(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: <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

On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Thomas Morton &lt;morton.thomas(a)googlemail.com 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 13:38, Andreas Kolbe &lt;jayen466(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: 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. 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 Wednesday, 18 April 2012 at 13:58, David Gerard wrote: 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. -- Tom Morris <http://tommorris.org/>

On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 1:55 PM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com&gt; wrote: 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 &lt;jayen466(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: 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