[WikiEN-l] PR consultants: perhaps Wikipedia is not the ideal promotional medium

[Fred Bauder]

I think continued monitoring of an article by a skilled PR operative
would result in an informative, well-referenced article, which notes, but
does not dwell on negative aspects. As noted, such an effort would have
to integrated with our usual editing patterns.

Here's the question: If you can't tell it's PR, is there anything wrong
with it?

Fred

> They may presume that the presence of stuff that hasn't yet been
> de-pufferied (I made that word up) means that what they write will
> stay. But the key point is lack of control. If you put something on
> Wikipedia, you cannot control the content and that is what a lot of
> people fail to understand. It becomes part of the wiki-editing
> process, which at its best produces great stuff, and at its worst
> produces some rather bad stuff.
>
> Carcharoth
>
> On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 7:18 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net>
> wrote:
>> That's right. It isn't that we don't want an article and a skilled PR
>> editor ought to be able to write an article the average editor could
>> not
>> tell was written by a PR person. The clue to bad work is lifting stuff
>> from the company's website. And, of course, the complete absence of any
>> negative information, however notorious.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>>> A PR agent should be able to learn how to write a neutral article, if
>>> they see one aspect of their role as to provide information about
>>> their client, not necessarily to directly promote them. In the fields
>>> I work in, I have frequently worked with PR staff, and about half of
>>> them have proved open to learning a new medium.  (The basic
>>> instruction I give them is to write a dull an article as possible,
>>> remove all possible adjectives, use the minimum number of words, give
>>> the name of the company only once, list nobody but the successive
>>> CEOs, provide specific sourced numbers about market share,  and give
>>> no contact information beyond the principal web site.) And when I see
>>> a promotional article for a notable company, if I have the time i
>>> neither delete nor blank it, but rewrite it according to my just those
>>> instructions.
>>>
>>> And if we had a systematic campaign to provide basic information about
>>> all companies that meet our notabiliity requirements, the way we do
>>> for populated places, it would greatly diminish the tendency for
>>> people to think they needed to write their own article.
>>>
>>> David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 5:34 AM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> This article makes my week.
>>>>
>>>> I generally feel we should blank articles more and delete them less,
>>>> but this is an area where the explicit rebuff of deletion has its
>>>> advantages.
>>>>
>>>> SJ
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 8:41 PM, Durova <nadezhda.durova at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> Excellent piece.  Especially the close about how it's a difficult
>>>>> position
>>>>> for PR professionals to report to the client that the article was
>>>>> deleted.
>>>>>
>>>>> -Durova
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 1:35 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://rushprnews.com/2010/03/31/pr-consultants-should-think-twice-before-using-wikipedia-to-promote-clients
>>>>>>
>>>>>> PR consultants should think twice before using Wikipedia to promote
>>>>>> clients
>>>>>> March 31, 2010
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Leicestershire, UK (RPRN) 03/31/10 — PR consultants are being
>>>>>> advised
>>>>>> to think twice before incorporating Wikipedia entries into campaign
>>>>>> strategies after the site started cracking down on articles
>>>>>> submitted
>>>>>> by any public relations agency it considered to be using its
>>>>>> resource
>>>>>> to promote clients.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (muwahaha. Spotted by Mathias Schindler. The article sets out
>>>>>> en:wp's
>>>>>> rationales and likely actions very well indeed.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> - d.
>>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> http://durova.blogspot.com/
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