(: I think that Legal could at least describe in general terms what they are currently doing and have plans to do in the near future.
If it turns out that the answers are "we aren't doing much and we aren't planning to do more", then yes, asking the higher-ups to do something about this sounds like a good idea. By the way, I think the timing for this discussion is good, because WMF should be in the early stages of formulating the 2017-2018 annual plan.
Happy new year!
Pine
On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 3:53 PM, Jytdog at Wikipedia jytdogtemp1@gmail.com wrote:
Pine, thanks for your reply, but Legal will not do anything like this unless they are instructed by management. That is why I directed my question to the board and management.
I've asked at Jimbo's talk page (bad timing, archived over the holidays, will repost) and at Katherine's WP talk page.
Am very interested to hear from the board and/or WMF management on this.
Jytdog
Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 10:50:07 -0800 From: Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Wikimedia Legal legal@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Where is WMF with pursuing companies that offer paid editing services Message-ID: <CAF=dyJhC8UqxkOY9FG9diGyobdgbbQaK_+M=m9E5Bo3aysPAOw@mail.gmail. com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Forwarding to Legal. I'm aware of the general problem of undisclosed COI editing, and agree that there should be some enforcement of this, particularly given that WMF wants to use Wikipedia's NPOV and RS policies as part of WMF's marketing. I also wonder if WMF might be able to recover the costs of enforcement expenses somehow, perhaps by including a
statement
in the TOS that says that people and their employers who engage in
certain
types of undisclosed COI editing must (1) reimburse WMF for attorney
fees,
court fees, and other related costs of investigations and enforcement,
and
(2) forfeit all revenue from their related activities to WMF. My guess is that significant financial penalties would be a bigger deterrent than name-and-shame and cease-and-desist letters.
Pine
Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 03:50:03 -0500 From: Jytdog at Wikipedia jytdogtemp1@gmail.com To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Where is WMF with pursuing companies that offer paid editing services Message-ID: <CAAOzcj3cLaJOhvV6LvtqPTtULdj+9Ccanmht7EJQVLv+Lqa=Ww@mail. gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
I am interested to learn if WMF management or the board has discussed taking legal action against companies that offer services to edit
Wikipedia
and that have no on-Wiki presence disclosing their edits (in en-WP at least) per the Terms of Use. We all know the companies and their
websites,
where they use the Wikipedia name, etc. I have looked and never found disclosure by any of those companies in en-WP. I have looked and found
no
public evidence of WMF legal engaging with these companies, other than Wiki-PR.
Some en-Wiki editors recently identified a long-term paid editor and brought the matter to ANI: thread is here https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia: Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=757170150# Earflaps_-_accusations_of_being_an_undisclosed_paid_ editor_and_a_sock_puppet. This brought this whole thing to mind, and is something I have been
wanting
to ask about.
Three questions:
Has this been discussed, and if so, what has/have the outcomes been?
Also, is there budget for WMF legal to take action against such
companies?
If not, would you all please consider that?
Thanks.
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