On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 2:39 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 17 April 2014 15:23, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
After he was hired, Zack continued to use that account -- more
responsibly,
yes -- but he neither corrected the false statement on its user page,
or
disclose his connection to it.
That is untrue; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zackexley
Interesting, but not especially relevant. What path could a reader or editor of the Zack Exley article follow to learn about that connection?
Disclosing on the Zack Exley user page isn't sufficient to meet basic transparency.
Actually, it meets the requirements of the project.
I disagree. One directional links is not sufficient.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOCK#Alternative_account_notificatio...
"Except when doing so would defeat the purpose of having a legitimate alternative account, editors using alternative accounts should provide links between the accounts. ... Links on both the main and alternative account user pages"
The "links between the accounts" language has been in place since December 2004, when it started out as only a recommendation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry&oldid...
It's not perfect, but we have administrators who don't even give that much disclosure to their own alternate accounts (or that they edit without logging in), and nobody's getting the pitchforks out for them.
Pitchforks come out regularly when the community feels that the accounts should have been linked, and an autobio is often a trigger. Thankfully admins dont often write auto-bios.
If there are enwp admins who are still, in 2014, using undisclosed accounts they havent told arbcom about, they should be very careful and have a very good reason.
btw, there are 345 hits for "Use of multiple accounts" prefix:Wikipedia: on enwp, and 18,000 without quotes. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&profile=adva...
Many of them are arbcom cases ;-)
If you don't like the edits made by the account, work on-wiki to address the issues. You know how to start an AfD for any articles you think are about non-notable subjects, you know how to un-peacock an article.
Tags have been added to [[Zack Exley]].
And I have started two AFDs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/New_Organizing... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Judith_Freeman
If one really wants to push the COI envelope, one could say that users who are former employees of an organization shouldn't be editing articles related directly to the organization or its employees (salaried or contract), though. Indeed, one of the biggest COI issues we have on English Wikipedia is former employees trying to use our articles to "bring problems to light" about organizations.
The disclosure was made. Incidentally, that's all that would need to be done even at the farthest reaches of the proposed terms of use amendment.
The paid contributions terms of use amendment doesnt cover self-promotion, which is the larger proportion of COI problems.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment#Pr...
The language of the amendment is pretty loose. It talks about 'you' and 'your user page', without stating which page(s) are being referred to. It should say 'the user page(see FAQ section 123) of all accounts you contribute with', otherwise it is encouraging throw away accounts for each paid contribution.
It also doesnt clearly state how the amendment will apply to paid contributions from before the amendment being approved. IMO it should; the community will probably extract that information anyway if there is a hint of problems, as they have always done, so this amendment may give a false sense of security if it says it only applies to post-amendment payments.