You are right Kevin, and I think that the blog post has drawn the wrong conclusions by failing to see one piece of telling evidence on an unrelated posting on that site.
At the job link at https://www.odesk.com/jobs/~01fb1fd477c79e30b0 (again, uploaded to https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8j_w_yHF5ymdHQzTkJkRkY5TWM/edit?usp=sharin...) one can see that the client is in the United States in the -8 GMT time zone (Indianapolis being in the -5 GMT time zone). This obviously does not match for the bar article.
On the right-hand side, you will see that they have posted two jobs, but have hired only one client. At the bottom you will see "Client's Work History and Feedback (1)" and only this job is available there. When you go to Sarah's profile, and click on "Wikipedia Page for Individual" it says the job is private, hence why the "Client's Work History and Feedback" on the aforementioned job only shows one job. So it would appear that Sarah has been hired by this client for both their jobs.
At 13:15 on 7 October, Sarah posted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leadership_Challenge. This is most likely the article for the job at https://www.odesk.com/jobs/~01fb1fd477c79e30b0 -- and the client went out of his way to contact Sarah to apply for this job, as you can see from "Client" in the initiator column (as explained at https://www.odesk.com/community/node/29357)
Then in December, the client who was obviously happy with her work from October, commissioned Sarah to write https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Posner_(academic) (the author of the book from the October article) and paid her $300. From that article, one can see that Posner is in Santa Clara, California, which is -8 GMT, which of course ties up with the -8 GMT column in the October job listing on the right hand side.
My apologies in presenting the Indianapolis article; it's surprising that the bar article which reads like an advert is legit, whilst the articles which look legit (yet still very weak sourcewise) are likely the problematic articles.
Sarah, when you read this, again I don't give a rats if you are paid-editing, more power to you actually. Unfortunately in this instance you haven't done so in what one would deem to be an ethical way based upon what the community expects, and which has been reinforced over and over, especially in recent months. So there will obviously be those who want to cast you out because paid-editing is evil and should not be tolerated. But hopefully cooler heads will prevail all round, not only in your case. I would well advise you to be totally upfront in any explanation, including anything that may be done via Sarah Stierch Consulting either currently or in the past. You obviously see a need for paid-editing, and it is a shame that you had to, as Dariusz mentions, resort to the "black market" and blackhat what you are/were doing. Open your profiles up for public view, quickly correct anything that you should have done to begin with, and publicly commit yourself to doing such editing the ethical way. Then all talk of "Bright Line Policy", etc can be put to rest, and not just in your case, and then discussion on solid policies, etc as Dariusz also mentions can occur, and you would be better placed to advocate in that regard.
Cheers,
Russavia
On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 3:29 PM, Kevin Gorman kgorman@gmail.com wrote:
Sarah used to be a DJ in Indianapolis. I don't find it very surprising that she'd write an article about a nightclub in Indianapolis. That would probably also explain the use of unusual sources - surely someone who used to DJ in Indy is more familiar with local music sources there than most people would be.
Kevin Gorman
On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 11:20 PM, Oliver Keyes ironholds@gmail.com wrote:
As an apparent "Wikimedia insider"; I think that if the allegations are substantiated they need to be addressed. I don't mean to run interference on that. I mean to try and undercut any attempt to turn a subject worth discussing substantively into an excuse to crow. My objection is not that you raised this allegation, it's that you insist on posting four hundred word screeds about how hard-done by you are and how this demands that people accept you were right all along. If you actually care about the substance of the discussion, stop doing that. If you don't, just stop.
On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 11:10 PM, Russavia <russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com
wrote:
Steven,
Did it occur to you that the reason the account is anonymised is that one would likely not want it to be found out? It also beyond the realms of imagination that "Wikipediocracy trolls" would create an account on 6 January 2012 as a joe-job account, and sit on it all this time and then have Odder (who is certainly no friend of Wikipediocracy) find out about it, and let him beat them to the punch.
But here's a little more evidence for you. From that screenshot, you will notice in September Sarah earned $96 from a job which is described as "Wikipedia Writer Editor". The information for that job is found at https://www.odesk.com/jobs/~01fb1fd477c79e30b0 (and I have taken the liberty of uploading it at
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8j_w_yHF5ymdHQzTkJkRkY5TWM/edit?usp=sharin...
)
From this we can ascertain the following:
- The job was posted on 3 September 2013
- The client is in the United States
- Sarah was one of 9 applicants for the job, applying on 4 September 2013
- The client was interviewing 2 applicants, and they ended up hiring
Sarah
- On 4 October 2013 (a Friday), the client last viewed this job -- the
little question mark pop-up says "This is when the client last viewed or interacted with the applicants for this job." - in all likelihood this is when the information was provided to Sarah.
From Sarah's contributions between this period we can see that she was involved in creating and editing articles relating to Turkey, Algeria, Guatemala, creating articles such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A9nie_Luce, etc
On 6 October 2013 (-8 GMT), after editing articles on places/people in Moldova and Ukraine, at 12:14 she made this edit (
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stephen_III_of_Moldavia&diff=...
). At 13:53, a little under 2 hours later, Sarah posted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melody_Inn_(nightclub). Again, this is a somewhat puff piece article, out of sync with what she was editing at the time, with sourcing that one wouldn't really expect in an article. The wording at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melody_Inn_(nightclub)#Music
is especially telling. Then
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1935&diff=prev&oldid=5760...
is done straight afterwards. That it was posted a little under 2 hours after her edit to the Stephen III of Moldavia article would correlate with the 2 hours that she billed the client for cleaning the article up to make it presentable, receiving $96. Then it was back to normal editing. Not bad for 2 hours editing on a Sunday afternoon, eh?
And surely you can understand why people would post this information publicly. Already on this very list I have been attacked by no less than 4 Wikimedia insiders (yourself included) who are clearly trying to run deflection and interference. Emailing the WMF and Sue privately, so that it can be quietly ignored, or swept under the carpet; this is the experience of many people in the past, so why waste one's time. And anyway, doesn't the public, including the media whom I have also taken the liberty of advising that this issue exists, have a right to know that such things are happening on a project that prides itself on how transparent it is.
Steven, does this smell like trolling and an elaborate "set up Sarah" joe-job? People can continue to bury their heads in the sand, attack me for trolling, run interference, and believe in vast conspiracies and other such nonsense. I will look at this logically, and taken in with information that Odder provided, it's couldn't be clearer.
What isn't so clear is how Sue and Jimmy will respond......
On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Steven Walling <steven.walling@gmail.com
wrote:
On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 3:42 PM, Russavia <russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Odder has published a fantastic blog piece at
http://twkozlowski.net/paid-editing-thrives-in-the-heart-of-wikipedia/in
which it is revealed that a WMF employee is engaged in undeclared paid editing on English Wikipedia, and charging what it appears to be $300
per
article.
I have cc'ed both Sue and Jimmy in on this email, but also sending to
this
list as I know they, and other WMF employees, do use this list, and I
think
it would be pertinent that they respond publicly to the issues raised
here.
It is ever so more important given that the undeclared paid editing occurred AFTER the whole Wiki-PR debacle (Sue's press release, WMF's cease-and-desist, and of course the resultant media attention).
What do Jimmy and Sue believe should occur given that such editing
violates
Wikipedia policies and also Jimmy's so-called Bright Line Rule. In
relation
to Jimmy's line, many are still clueless as to what exactly this
Bright
Line is (it's not very bright), and how it should be applied in
practice,
so Jimmy, if you are out there, your comment is requested on that.
Cheers,
Russavia
I'm with David and Nathan here.
The "evidence" presented is an anonymized oDesk account and a
screenshot.
Screenshots are very easily doctored, and Wikipediocracy trolls have
many
reasons to attack a Wikimedian like Sarah. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd go so far as to set up a fake account using her picture and information.
If you really cared about solving this, you could try emailing Sarah,
her
superiors, and Sue directly. Considering many staff don't follow high volume lists like Wikimedia-l, especially on the weekend, it's not
exactly
the best way to get a response from the WMF. It is, however, a great
way
to
stir up bullshit drama.
I'll hold out for Sarah's comment, if she feels comfortable. Otherwise smells like trolling.
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