[WikiEN-l] preventing COI edits by corporations

[Ray Saintonge]

xaosflux wrote:
> Exatly, many corporations provide proxied Internet access to their
> staff.  Any of their employee's who know about wikipedia are bound to
> come across their companies article and want to change it one way or
> the other.  Some of these people may by nature of their occupation be
> subject matter experts on the article and related subjects, in the
> example below it could bring in [[beer]] or [[Brewing (beer)]]
> experts.  If we want to come up with some sort of templated response
> to them it shouldn't be one that discourages them from editing so
> much as one that stresses the importance of [[WP:NPOV]] and [[WP:V]].
>   
My aversion to templates aside, one always has to "beer" in mind that 
many of the most loyal employees of a company edit with an authority, 
eloquence and common sense that reminds one of a typical British 
football fan's support of his favourite team.  The offerings of these 
employees may show considerable contrast from the company's public 
relations strategy.  Companies that are reasonably cluefull about PR 
know to avoid certain losing strategies.

A brewmaster working for a major company may be in the best position to 
explain how his company distinguishes between the different styles of 
beer produced by the company.  One should not presume a conflict of 
interest in a topic where there is no conflict at all in the first 
place.  If a food manufacturing company claims a certain level of sodium 
in one of its products it is important to show that that is its claim 
and the source of that claim can be as ephemeral as the paper label on a 
can, but if independent testing shows a much higher level of sodium that 
should be reported too.

Any of these issues need to be approached with a more sophisticated 
analysis than has heretofore been the case.  We could start scanning the 
labels on cans, and before anyone gets the idea that such an act would 
be copyright infringement, I would bring their attention to position in 
law that it is expression rather than fact and ideas that are copyright.

Ec

> From: "David Gerard" 
>> On 12/09/2007, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>>     
>>> Bear in mind that it's quite likely that many of these edits are
>>> not by people authorized to speak for the company, but rather by
>>> loyal employees without management sanction.
>>>       
>> Yes. It's important to assume cluelessness rather than malice.
>>
>> (Besides, if it weren't cluelessness, they'd be smart enough to
>> create a login.)