Thanks for this Jacob. Would you please address Legal's approach to the following scenario: a company advertises Wikipedia editing services for clients, and there is no disclosure of paid editing by an editor employed by or affiliated with the company on Wikipedia. (In other words, a company is obviously not following the Terms of Use). In my view, this is a situation where I would think that Legal should start a discussion with that company, and if those discussions fail to yield a change in behavior, Legal should then make a public statement indicating this, perhaps on the page you recently posted under a section entitled something like: "Companies that advertise Wikipedia editing services that have no disclosures on Wikipedia". If a company starts to disclose then of course the listing could be modified. This is something that editors ~could~ do, but as the ToU are issued by the WMF, it would seem more appropriate for WMF to do. But I am interested to hear Legal's perspective. Thanks On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 9:17 PM, Jacob Rogers &lt;jrogers(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: longer advice see _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Okay I have been bold and started a list of the known banned socks of companies involved in undisclosed paid editing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Doc_James/Paid_Editing_Companies I have also started the discussion of the policy implications of such a list here and will not work further on the list further until the policy discussions are complete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Harassment# Socks_of_undisclosed_paid_WP_editing_companies Best James On Thu, Jan 19, 2017 at 6:52 AM, James Heilman &lt;jmh649(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: than they no the that explain and please please , -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 9:17 PM, Jacob Rogers &lt;jrogers(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: Hi all, As I mentioned in my email earlier this month, we've put together a longer statement regarding paid editing and how we see the balance of the communities' role and the role that WMF legal can play in these cases. We tried to address the concerns that people have raised to us, and explain when it's helpful to contact us to assist on a case. Of note, it does explain what actions we can take even in cases that don't involve the WMF trademarks. You can find it here: Wikimedia Foundation statement on paid editing and outing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikimedia_Foundation_statement_on_paid_editing_and_outing> Best, Jacob -- Jacob Rogers Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation NOTICE: This message might have confidential or legally privileged information in it. If you have received this message by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>. _______________________________________________ ArbCom-l mailing list ArbCom-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/arbcom-l

Pine, We quite rarely receive requests to look into suspicions of paid editing based on private information. We have historically been reluctant to act on them for a number of reasons: it's very prone to error, it's often an incredible amount of work, and we open ourselves up personally to legal risk by doing so. I believe there was some discussion on this onwiki around six months ago, I will try to dig up a link. – Molly (GorillaWarfare)

Thanks, Molly. I encouraged people interested in understanding the different views on the topic as it relates to Wikipedia English (and perhaps other wikis) to read this discussion. Sydney Sydney Poore User:FloNight Co-founder Kentucky Wikimedians, Co-founder WikiWomen User Group, Co-founder WikiConference North America Board member of Wiki Project Med Foundation, Member of Simple Annual Plan Grant Committee On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 2:11 PM, GorillaWarfare < gorillawarfarewikipedia(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: editing act _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Without getting into the details of the situation, Pine, I'll simply point out that the budget for the legal team of an international corporation like Burger King is going to be significantly larger than the entire budget of the Wikimedia Foundation, and punishing organizations that have figured out a way to trigger a voice-activated software program to obtain information that is likely to come from Wikipedia articles doesn't really seem to be within scope. I do not see why you would advocate spending the WMF's tiny Legal Department budget like this, instead of on copyright reform, or assisting in prosecuting those harassing members of our community, or preventing others from claiming they are directly related to the Wikimedia Foundation or its projects; all of these are entirely on-mission. There's nothing there to sue them for, anyway - it's open-licensed content that anyone can use in any way they see fit, including for commercial purposes. Indeed, that's exactly what Google does on its own search results, every day, all day - and it's exactly why the Burger King "trick" works, too. They're taking advantage of the Google interface, knowing that it is most likely to search Wikipedia for the information requested. But there's not as much vitriol directed at Google, because after all it was Google bumping Wikipedia up in its search result algorithms that has (in large part) driven the popularity of the Wikipedia projects. There's not even a genuine attribution issue; as I recall, Alexa says "From Wikipedia" at either the beginning or the end of its report. In other words, I'm hard-pressed to see why you would want the WMF to take legal action against a company that is using Wikipedia as intended. Okay, it's not my favourite way of using it....but this is exactly how it's intended to be used. I regularly see links to Wikipedia articles in mainstream media, not to mention twitter and facebook news reports. Just think if someone says "OK Google, what is Neurocysticercosis?" or "OK Google, who's Charlie Murphy?" to reflect two news stories I learned about today. I got to the Wikipedia articles on both of those subjects by following links in online reports by commercial news outlets. Risker/Anne On 13 April 2017 at 00:01, Pine W &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: emerging their _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

I tend to think along James' lines more than Risker's. Responding to Risker: It seems to me that the key point that you're missing is that Burger King altered Wikipedia content in order to execute this campaign. This wasn't a simple case of an organization reusing existing Wikipedia content; the organization appears to have altered Wikipedia content to suit their purposes regardless of an obvious conflict of interest with Wikipedia's purpose of being an educational resource rather than an advertising platform. It seems to me that entities of varying sizes -- from a start-up brand that wants to make itself look important by having a Wikipedia article, to large corporations and government officials -- will continue to alter Wikipedia content in ways that are inappropriate and do a disservice to our readers (including advertising, inserting "alternative facts" for medical and political content, and eliminating negative information that certain people and organizations find inconvenient) and cost editors' and administrators' collective time and attention, until there is a financial price that is put on this kind of behavior that is large enough to deter them. I don't see why we should stand idly by as our products' quality and trustworthiness are degraded and our resources are diverted. I'm hoping that WMF's enforcement actions in this domain would more than pay for themselves through financial penalties that WMF extracts from the wrongdoers. Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Hi there, I agree that we should take action and make it real hard for any corporation financially to achieve this result. Legal action is one thing, but the first thing to be done is to ensure that all affairs of the type are detected and publicly outed, on the very articles if there is large media coverage. I would be in favor of a banner over the article stating the article has been targeted for promotional purposes by the company. Maybe we should start a whole independent wikipedia project proposing a « conflict of interest rating » just as wikirating does it for financial markets. James, I dont believe this can be done at chapter level (at the current state of things) : it must be addressed by the WMF and the communities. Regards (I’ve just added sourced chunks of the controversies on the French wiki by the way, maybe we could ask the community to do it in every language?) Nattes à chat King wasn't a that large Wikipedia readers people administrators' put wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

A far better (and less WP:BITEy) outcome would be to get then to

but they didnt spam, nor did they introduce any false hoods, or remove controversial content, they just put a description of the Whopper for the opening sentence. As Andy said rather than biting and creating arguments amongst ourselves would it not be better to have used the opportunity to benefit the community in a positive way. On 14 April 2017 at 18:44, David Gerard &lt;dgerard(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: wrote: -- GN. President Wikimedia Australia WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra Photo Gallery: http://gnangarra.redbubble.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 5:23 AM, Gnangarra &lt;gnangarra(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: the I agree with James on this one. They "described" their product in a very flattering way, unnecessarily introducing marketing jargon ("known as America's favorite", "00% beef with no preservatives", "no fillers", "daily sliced" etc.). It is spam and in the future, near rather than far, we need to start seriously thinking how we can combat such content attacks/hijacking. There are some similarities to our work with anti-harassment, but I hope we'll be able to develop a more dedicated approach to this problem, that the Burger King manifestation is only a single example of. dj _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

The damage has been done. Theverge.com claims to have done such a modification on Wikipedia, to quote them "as did we, in a test yesterday". We will probably see more of this.

I'm just a bit agog at the idea that this article became "advertising" when Burger King made the connection using Google Home. Since its very first edit, it has been an advertisement for this product. It may not have been intended that way, but that is the reality. Now it's almost 4200 words long - probably the longest writing on this single product anywhere outside of the Burger King home offices - and we're pretending that it isn't an ad. I know it is terribly disillusioning, but an awful lot of our articles are advertisements. There have always been LOTS of paid editors on English Wikipedia. It has never meant that the editor was editing primarily in a promotional manner - in many cases they were facilitating the ability for others to include promotional materials, and I've spotted what in retrospect were obvious paid edits going back to 2001. There are people who I've identified as likely paid editors who were instrumental in our early discussions about notability. There were people who "worked with" external organizations to get access to their commercial repositories of images and information - with huge financial benefits to the owners of those repositories; sometimes this was innocent, with the editors trying to gain access to hard-to-find material, but the end result was the same. The article is an advertisement. It was one from its first edit (which included product prices) and it is one today. It's good copy, but it's still an ad. I'll guarantee this isn't the first or last time that a paid editor made significant changes to the article. And it's just like thousands and thousands of other articles that turn consumer products into "encyclopedic content". A 300-word discussion of Burger King's most notable product would be appropriate in the main article, or even in a daughter article about Burger King's products. But as it stands, we have literally hundreds of thousands of words about various Burger King products: lists, articles about individual products, summaries, advertising campaigns, etc. These are all advertisements. Don't blame Burger King for leveraging exactly what we're doing ourselves. Risker/Anne On 14 April 2017 at 12:39, Gabriel Thullen &lt;gabriel(a)thullen.com&gt; wrote: this mixing thing, ads the editor will vandalized create yesterday". wrote: for very _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 5:23 AM, Gnangarra &lt;gnangarra(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: the I agree with James on this one. They "described" their product in a very flattering way, unnecessarily introducing marketing jargon ("known as America's favorite", "00% beef with no preservatives", "no fillers", "daily sliced" etc.). It is spam and in the future, near rather than far, we need to start seriously thinking how we can combat such content attacks/hijacking. There are some similarities to our work with anti-harassment, but I hope we'll be able to develop a more dedicated approach to this problem, that the Burger King manifestation is only a single example of. dj _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

James, Which parts of those statements to you consider factually inaccurate, and which parts do you consider misleading in some other way? Cheers, Peter -----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of James Heilman Sent: Friday, April 14, 2017 5:32 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [arbcom-l] Where is WMF with pursuing companies that offer paid editing services Wikipedia is not for sale. We are not simply another advertising venue available to the corporations of the world. We have mechanisms for corporations to suggest changes to our content and it is called the talk page. Lets look at the changes likely made by Burger King staff in more detail: In this edit this sentence "The Whopper is a burger, consisting of a flame-grilled patty made with 100% beef with no preservatives, no fillers and is topped with daily sliced tomatoes and onions, fresh lettuce, pickles, ketchup and mayo, served on a soft sesame seed bun." <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Whopper&type=revision&diff=773836335&oldid=773833110> was added not once but twice. And than was added again following its first removal. In this edit this sentence "The Whopper, also known as America’s favorite burger, has a flame-[[grilling|grilled]] patty made with 100% beef with no preservatives, no fillers and is topped with daily sliced tomatoes and onions, fresh lettuce, pickles, ketchup and mayo, served on a soft sesame seed bun. Whopper and America’s Favorite Burger are trademarks of Burger King Corporation. <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Whopper&diff=773807497&oldid=773585358>" was added. One of the accounts did not disclosed their relationship to the company in question. And yes this is spam, so they did spam Wikipedia. See [[WP:PEACOCK]] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#Puffery> and [[WP:NPOV]] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars>, the latter of which is pillar number 2. This is not the first time the marketing department at a multi billion dollar company has tried to adjust our content for the company's / shareholder's gains. A few years back a couple of the heads of marketing at Medtronic <https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/08/wikipedia-editors-for-pay/393926/>, along with a number of physicians one of whom they had paid more than a quarter of a million dollars, tried to remove the best available evidence regarding vertebroplasty, a procedure which medicare spent at the time more than a billion dollars a year on. Half a dozen paid editors working together can easily get a majority in many of our decision making processes. Our readers deserve a Wikipedia which is written independently of the subject mater in question. Our readers have been harmed by undisclosed paid editing in the past. These are individuals typically less savvy and less wealthy than the executives at a large corporation. I am sorry but our readers are the ones that deserve our attention and our protection. We already have the Wifione case <http://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/03/manipulating-wikipedia-promote-bogus-business-school-316133.html> were Wikipedia was used to promote an unethical Indian university and therefore we played a role in misleading the students who applied. We must do better. James On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 5:23 AM, Gnangarra &lt;gnangarra(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

So the Americas favorite burger should have been "America's Favorite Burger(tm)". Agreed. Cheers, Peter -----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of FRED BAUDER Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2017 8:21 AM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [arbcom-l] Where is WMF with pursuing companies that offer paid editing services "The Whopper, also known as America’s favorite burger, " is a problem as it implies that the Whopper is the favorite burger of the American public. Perhaps it is, but that is a trademark, not the result of a survey. The other stuff, "a flame-[[grilling|grilled]] patty made with 100% beef with no preservatives, no fillers and is topped with daily sliced tomatoes and onions, fresh lettuce, pickles, ketchup and mayo, served on a soft sesame seed bun." happens to be factually true and cannot be said of the products of, say, McDonalds where the "fixings" arrive in delivery trucks. Fred Bauder On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 08:06:50 +0200 "Peter Southwood" &lt;peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net&gt; wrote: 773807497&oldid=773585358>" _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Paid editors have been adding content to Wikipedia for a long time. Some of them might even be doing so in accordance with the rules and guidelines, but that is not what makes this case stand out. The PR agency did a total of three edits, and the third one managed to pass under the radar. They deliberately inserted text with minor grammatical errors to bait an editor into fixing it up while at the same time leaving it as an introductory sentence. The TV ad came out one week later. What disturbs me is that Wikipedia is being instrumentalized by these big corporations, and we do not need to debate whether the text is factually exact, if it is sourced, or if it is too peacocky. Most of us are volunteer editors, and we must make sure that we do not have to waste our time rooting out these malicious edits. The PR company wrote the text to make it look like it was put there by some ordinary "grammatically challenged" fanboy. A contributor reverts the edit the first time around, saying rightly that it was too promotional, then fixes up the grammatical errors the second time around. Other contributors would no longer touch the article seeing that a community member is already watching over it. We will have the check out the introductory sentences in hundreds of articles. When somebody asks Google Home "what is xyz..." in their own voice, Google will very obligingly spew out the Wikipedia article. IMHA, that is the real issue here. These paid editors are quite willing to turn Wikipedia into the worlds biggest high-tech distributor of junk mail. Gabe On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 8:36 AM, Peter Southwood < peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net&gt; wrote: companies public. products _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

So the Americas favorite burger should have been "America's Favorite Burger(tm)". Agreed. Cheers, Peter -----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of FRED BAUDER Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2017 8:21 AM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [arbcom-l] Where is WMF with pursuing companies that offer paid editing services "The Whopper, also known as America’s favorite burger, " is a problem as it implies that the Whopper is the favorite burger of the American public. Perhaps it is, but that is a trademark, not the result of a survey. The other stuff, "a flame-[[grilling|grilled]] patty made with 100% beef with no preservatives, no fillers and is topped with daily sliced tomatoes and onions, fresh lettuce, pickles, ketchup and mayo, served on a soft sesame seed bun." happens to be factually true and cannot be said of the products of, say, McDonalds where the "fixings" arrive in delivery trucks. Fred Bauder On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 08:06:50 +0200 "Peter Southwood" &lt;peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net&gt; wrote: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Whopper&diff=773807497&o… _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

I'm bumping this thread in the hope that there will be official comments from WMF regarding their willingness to take a more assertive legal approach to addressing and deterring promotionalism and other inappropriate changes to Wikipedia content by people and organizations who have conflicts of interest, whether or not those conflicts are disclosed. Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

surrounding Aside from the conversation on this list, I'm aware of the discussion on Jimbo's talk page. If WMF Legal or the WMF Board wants to take the position that it would like to see a community RfC or some other such discussion, I imagine that such can be arranged, and I can see how that might be beneficial. Of course, anyone is free to initiate such an on-wiki discussion. I'm not sure why you would be telling other people to whom they can initiate requests and the conditions under which they can be made. I already have a dim view of WMF's customer service; please don't dig the hole any deeper. Many others, I am sure, would rightly complain if the Foundation That is possible if WMF were to do something particularly novel, so your sense of caution here is well taken. I would hope that WMF would discuss its plans with the community and have a conversation before actually initiating novel actions. I have mixed views on this. Wikimedia-l is not a quiet back room with only a few people around, but it's true that a consensus here among a small number of people who speak up in a particular discussion demonstrates a lower level of consensus than an RfC with hundreds of participants. It's not clear to me that there is consensus on which tools are appropriate for which exact circumstances, and some discussions happen in multiple venues. thing to do would be to further the conversation on wiki and have a proper I don't think that there is a single definition of a "proper" community conversation. I have no objection to having an on-wiki RfC (and I can see how a sophisticated and well-attended one might produce detailed guidance that would be helpful), but neither do I want this thread to be trivialized. Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

I've proposed asking wikimedians at large what they think should be done about paid advocacy editing, as item number 5 on my periodic survey proposal composed of all the unresolved questions over the last quarter on this list at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:James_Salsman# Periodic_survey_prototype On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 2:50 PM Pine W &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: the position I official only for venues. proper _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

We currently have some mean to fight paid editing, terms of services are "easy to violate" thus giving us a straightforward way to take action. But too often I see something like: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16826370 obvious paid editors left totally free to do their job without even attracting some attention on them. Vito 2017-04-23 13:58 GMT+02:00 Peter Southwood &lt;peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net&gt;et>: harm companies wrote: 04/23/17 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

The terms of use as explained on meta apply to all projects unless an alternative is in place. So sister projects do have similar restrictions on undisclosed paid editing. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use#4._Refraining_from_Certain_ Activities Different projects of course have varied degrees of enforcement of the TOU. Italian WP did delete the article in question a couple of times https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/AvaTrade James On Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 5:47 AM, Gabriel Thullen &lt;gabriel(a)thullen.com&gt; wrote: has contributors are Q16826370 peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net On community positions wrote: be an most can made. dig so conversation which multiple have a guidance https://meta.wikimedia.org/ unsubscribe> mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>