Hi.
Go Fish Digital is a company that whitewashes Wikipedia. From its own site:
The primary platforms that define your online reputation include: [...]
- Wikipedia
[...]
With Online Reputation Management, we work hard to make all of the positive information easy to find. At the same time, we use many different strategies and tactics to diminish the visibility of negative content, or in some cases, remove it from the web altogether. The end result is a positive online reputation because when people search your name or brand, they immediately find positive content.
Source: https://gofishdigital.com/online-reputation-management
Wikimedia Foundation Inc. has been working with this company on search engine optimization: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T198970. I have a few questions about this work.
How was this vendor chosen? Which other vendors were considered?
Why is this work being undertaken? At least the English Wikipedia has some of the best search engine results placement of any site on the Web, so I'm curious to know who's prioritizing Wikipedia's search engine optimization and for what reason.
How is it appropriate for Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to work with a company that is, by its own admission, whitewashing Wikipedia? Doesn't this give Go Fish Digital a ton of legitimization by now being able to say it works directly with Wikimedia Foundation Inc. ("with Wikipedia")?
Is it appropriate to give a company that sells whitewashing Wikipedia services access to private user data, as was done in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T192893 and https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193052? The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. legal department apparently approved this access, but I'm curious to know why, given the company's role in selling an "Online Reputation Management" product. This looks bad to me.
MZMcBride
There, is at least, one user that works for Go Fish Digital with a sockpuppet account in English Wikipedia and has denied conflict of interest or paid editing disclosure even if he was asked too, since some user was suspicious. Should I send this privately? I don't want to incur in spurious ousting/doxxing.
Best,
Mario
On Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 12:24 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Hi.
Go Fish Digital is a company that whitewashes Wikipedia. From its own site:
The primary platforms that define your online reputation include: [...]
- Wikipedia
[...]
With Online Reputation Management, we work hard to make all of the positive information easy to find. At the same time, we use many different strategies and tactics to diminish the visibility of negative content, or in some cases, remove it from the web altogether. The end result is a positive online reputation because when people search your name or brand, they immediately find positive content.
Source: https://gofishdigital.com/online-reputation-management
Wikimedia Foundation Inc. has been working with this company on search engine optimization: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T198970. I have a few questions about this work.
How was this vendor chosen? Which other vendors were considered?
Why is this work being undertaken? At least the English Wikipedia has some of the best search engine results placement of any site on the Web, so I'm curious to know who's prioritizing Wikipedia's search engine optimization and for what reason.
How is it appropriate for Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to work with a company that is, by its own admission, whitewashing Wikipedia? Doesn't this give Go Fish Digital a ton of legitimization by now being able to say it works directly with Wikimedia Foundation Inc. ("with Wikipedia")?
Is it appropriate to give a company that sells whitewashing Wikipedia services access to private user data, as was done in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T192893 and https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193052? The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. legal department apparently approved this access, but I'm curious to know why, given the company's role in selling an "Online Reputation Management" product. This looks bad to me.
MZMcBride
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@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Actually, it took just a couple of hours to find:
* Two obvious Go Fish Digital sockpuppets. * One article with high amount of evidence of COI / paid editing. * A few other articles with possible COI / paid editing. * Possible links to multiple big sockpuppet farms that were already blocked.
Since this involves a lot of research outside Wikipedia itself, as well as personal details of Go Fish Digital employees, I'll wait for guidance about how can this be disclosed. Also, with this evidence, it seems clear to me that legal should be involved as soon as possible and consider stop sharing Wikipedia data with this company.
Best,
Mario
On Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 6:42 PM, Mario Gómez mariogomwiki@gmail.com wrote:
There, is at least, one user that works for Go Fish Digital with a sockpuppet account in English Wikipedia and has denied conflict of interest or paid editing disclosure even if he was asked too, since some user was suspicious. Should I send this privately? I don't want to incur in spurious ousting/doxxing.
Best,
Mario
On Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 12:24 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Hi.
Go Fish Digital is a company that whitewashes Wikipedia. From its own site:
The primary platforms that define your online reputation include: [...]
- Wikipedia
[...]
With Online Reputation Management, we work hard to make all of the positive information easy to find. At the same time, we use many different strategies and tactics to diminish the visibility of negative content, or in some cases, remove it from the web altogether. The end result is a positive online reputation because when people search your name or brand, they immediately find positive content.
Source: https://gofishdigital.com/online-reputation-management
Wikimedia Foundation Inc. has been working with this company on search engine optimization: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T198970. I have a few questions about this work.
How was this vendor chosen? Which other vendors were considered?
Why is this work being undertaken? At least the English Wikipedia has some of the best search engine results placement of any site on the Web, so I'm curious to know who's prioritizing Wikipedia's search engine optimization and for what reason.
How is it appropriate for Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to work with a company that is, by its own admission, whitewashing Wikipedia? Doesn't this give Go Fish Digital a ton of legitimization by now being able to say it works directly with Wikimedia Foundation Inc. ("with Wikipedia")?
Is it appropriate to give a company that sells whitewashing Wikipedia services access to private user data, as was done in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T192893 and https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193052? The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. legal department apparently approved this access, but I'm curious to know why, given the company's role in selling an "Online Reputation Management" product. This looks bad to me.
MZMcBride
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik i/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik i/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I concur, this seems to be a clear violation of our TOS.
Vito
2018-07-22 20:34 GMT+02:00 Mario Gómez mariogomwiki@gmail.com:
Actually, it took just a couple of hours to find:
- Two obvious Go Fish Digital sockpuppets.
- One article with high amount of evidence of COI / paid editing.
- A few other articles with possible COI / paid editing.
- Possible links to multiple big sockpuppet farms that were already
blocked.
Since this involves a lot of research outside Wikipedia itself, as well as personal details of Go Fish Digital employees, I'll wait for guidance about how can this be disclosed. Also, with this evidence, it seems clear to me that legal should be involved as soon as possible and consider stop sharing Wikipedia data with this company.
Best,
Mario
On Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 6:42 PM, Mario Gómez mariogomwiki@gmail.com wrote:
There, is at least, one user that works for Go Fish Digital with a sockpuppet account in English Wikipedia and has denied conflict of
interest
or paid editing disclosure even if he was asked too, since some user was suspicious. Should I send this privately? I don't want to incur in
spurious
ousting/doxxing.
Best,
Mario
On Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 12:24 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Hi.
Go Fish Digital is a company that whitewashes Wikipedia. From its own site:
The primary platforms that define your online reputation include: [...]
- Wikipedia
[...]
With Online Reputation Management, we work hard to make all of the positive information easy to find. At the same time, we use many different strategies and tactics to diminish the visibility of negative content, or in some cases, remove it from the web altogether. The end result is a positive online reputation because when people search your name or brand, they immediately find positive content.
Source: https://gofishdigital.com/online-reputation-management
Wikimedia Foundation Inc. has been working with this company on search engine optimization: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T198970. I
have
a few questions about this work.
How was this vendor chosen? Which other vendors were considered?
Why is this work being undertaken? At least the English Wikipedia has
some
of the best search engine results placement of any site on the Web, so
I'm
curious to know who's prioritizing Wikipedia's search engine
optimization
and for what reason.
How is it appropriate for Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to work with a
company
that is, by its own admission, whitewashing Wikipedia? Doesn't this give Go Fish Digital a ton of legitimization by now being able to say it
works
directly with Wikimedia Foundation Inc. ("with Wikipedia")?
Is it appropriate to give a company that sells whitewashing Wikipedia services access to private user data, as was done in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T192893 and https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193052? The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. legal department apparently approved this access, but I'm curious to
know
why, given the company's role in selling an "Online Reputation
Management"
product. This looks bad to me.
MZMcBride
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik i/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik i/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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I'd like to distinguish between *monitoring* Wikipedia for changes that could affect PR, which is fine (so long as they don't put unreasonable loads on WMF's technical infrastructure), and *editing* Wikipedia in a way that breaks any number of community rules and/or the WMF TOS. If they were monitoring without editing, or were editing in ways that were compliant with our policies around disclosure and handling COI, that might be manageable. However, if the reports in this thread are true (I have not personally verified them), then that's a big problem. I am adding Legal to this thread, but in general my view is that they WMF pays almost no attention to enforcing the TOS regarding COI issues, and I don't know whether they will do anything about it in this situation. :( I wish that they would get energized about COI enforcement.
I sent initial research notes to functionaries-en@ with evidence of potential undisclosed COI by Go Fish Digital employee(s). The actual scale of it would require quite more research as well as CheckUser.
Best,
Mario
On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 12:23 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I'd like to distinguish between *monitoring* Wikipedia for changes that could affect PR, which is fine (so long as they don't put unreasonable loads on WMF's technical infrastructure), and *editing* Wikipedia in a way that breaks any number of community rules and/or the WMF TOS. If they were monitoring without editing, or were editing in ways that were compliant with our policies around disclosure and handling COI, that might be manageable. However, if the reports in this thread are true (I have not personally verified them), then that's a big problem. I am adding Legal to this thread, but in general my view is that they WMF pays almost no attention to enforcing the TOS regarding COI issues, and I don't know whether they will do anything about it in this situation. :( I wish that they would get energized about COI enforcement.
Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User: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@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Mario Gómez wrote:
There, is at least, one user that works for Go Fish Digital with a sockpuppet account in English Wikipedia and has denied conflict of interest or paid editing disclosure even if he was asked too, since some user was suspicious. Should I send this privately? I don't want to incur in spurious ousting/doxxing.
Just to be clear on my end, I don't have any firsthand knowledge of Go Fish Digital's Wikipedia editing, I'm only aware of what the company advertises as a service or product to customers on its Web site, which appears to be directly incompatible with Wikimedia's values.
It appears someone at Go Fish Digital or related to them is ch[ao]mping at the bit to be able to advertise its relationship with Wikipedia, according to https://members.nctech.org/list/member/go-fish-digital-7132:
[...] Our clients range from large corporations like GEICO, the New York Times and Marriott to startups you haven't heard of (yet). ((Hopefully you'll be able to add Wikipedia here shortly)). [...]
MZMcBride
Just a quick note that the Foundation will be replying to this soon. However the people involved were participating in Wikimania and currently traveling - so it may take us a few days to collect the information necessary for an informed response. Thank you everyone for your patience.
-greg
_______________ Sent from my iPhone - a more detailed response may be sent later.
On Jul 23, 2018, at 2:44 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Mario Gómez wrote:
There, is at least, one user that works for Go Fish Digital with a sockpuppet account in English Wikipedia and has denied conflict of interest or paid editing disclosure even if he was asked too, since some user was suspicious. Should I send this privately? I don't want to incur in spurious ousting/doxxing.
Just to be clear on my end, I don't have any firsthand knowledge of Go Fish Digital's Wikipedia editing, I'm only aware of what the company advertises as a service or product to customers on its Web site, which appears to be directly incompatible with Wikimedia's values.
It appears someone at Go Fish Digital or related to them is ch[ao]mping at the bit to be able to advertise its relationship with Wikipedia, according to https://members.nctech.org/list/member/go-fish-digital-7132:
[...] Our clients range from large corporations like GEICO, the New York Times and Marriott to startups you haven't heard of (yet). ((Hopefully you'll be able to add Wikipedia here shortly)). [...]
MZMcBride
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@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On 23 July 2018 at 14:50, Gregory Varnum gregory.varnum@gmail.com wrote:
Just a quick note that the Foundation will be replying to this soon. However the people involved were participating in Wikimania and currently traveling - so it may take us a few days to collect the information necessary for an informed response. Thank you everyone for your patience.
-greg
How much longer do you anticipate this taking?
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org