[WikiEN-l] PR people and COIs (was: Is Slate an attack site?)

[David Gerard]

On 12/10/2007, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/10/2007, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

> > It's great advice. And paid PR people are not OK. But, frankly,
> > they're not OK in the same way sockpuppets aren't OK. It's not that
> > you're not allowed to do it, it's just that you're not allowed to do
> > it so badly that we notice and go "Oh for fuck's sake."

> Heh.
> "You're not allowed to do it so blatantly that I notice, because then
> I'd have to stop you. Also, don't tell me about it, because then I'd
> have to stop you. You know I don't approve, right? Just don't make a
> noise, I'm trying to work."
> Wikipedia users and over-enthusiastic thirteen-year-olds: not so
> different after all.


Indeed. This, I think, is why Durova does her outreach work to search
engine optimisers. These people have boundless commercial energy; we
can at least turn it to the good of the projects and of the
Foundation's mission. Show them how to do well by doing good.
Similarly, PR people have a place on the article talk pages, dealing
in a teflon-coated manner with the rotten tomatoes as well as the
gentle queries of regular editors, supplying actual useful resources
and information.

(Also, look at the press on the WikiScanner. Wikipedia came across as
imperfect but basically a useful and noble endeavour; the people who'd
edited discovered that "conflict of interest" isn't "what I can
justify to myself" or "what's on the Wikipedia guideline page" but
"what the public and press will lynch me for" - and the last of those
turned out to be a fair bit harsher than the second. We don't *need*
to make a big fuss ourselves. 'Cos we're nice and all.)


- d.