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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 12:00 PM 4/4/2010, William Pietri wrote:
>If there is gray area, it is the PR person's job to maximally exploit
>that without ever getting caught. It's our job to minimize the gray area.

Well, that's one kind of PR. This negative view of PR is common, and 
justified because that's exactly what polticial consultants do and 
other kinds of PR people who don't trust that the truth is enough to 
promote their product or position.

But if you look at what PR educators teach, it's the opposite. It's 
taught that if you deceive your audience, there will be a backlash 
when they find out. Good PR tries to educate the public about the 
product or cause. It relies on their intelligence, though it must 
also understand their ignorance and their habits. The kind of PR that 
has the reputation mentioned is the kind that relies on and exploits 
ignorance, and prefers ignorance because it seems easier to 
manipulate, as it often is. A good PR person who finds that his or 
her employer wants the latter kind of PR will sensibly find another 
client or job, because it's unstable. Of course, high pay is always 
tempting.... but that applies to all temptations to lie and cheat in 
order to make a profit, it's not confined to PR.

>I think the reason people feel that we can generally detect PR spin in
>the wiki environment is that PR people aren't used to dealing with us.

Except for the sophisticated ones, before which Wikipedia is a piece 
of cake. I have recently come to look more carefully at the 
Mantanmoreland case, and what I find is that Wikipedia is *still* 
being used as a tool in a very-well-financed campaign, quite 
successfully. I've found the edits, which are blatantly POV, but 
still stand, because the editor, banned and editing through IP, knows 
how to frame them so that they will fly under the radar and do their 
work unnoticed, except by WordBomb and friends, and, for the most 
part, non-banned editors who recognize the real situation have been 
banned or are heavily discouraged, because they will be reverted if 
they try. As they are, even within the last few days.

I'm not banned (from this) and I could make the edits, but I know 
what will happen if I do, even though I have had no involvement in 
the topic area. I would be banned, based on recent ArbComm opinion 
about my work. Even though I'd merely be removing material that is 
contrary to source and contrary to policy. PR content. It's actually 
fairly clumsy PR, but good enough is good enough.

Turns out it takes very little to pull the wool over the eyes of the 
community. Only the stupid or ignorant PR people get caught.