[WikiEN-l] "Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement"

[Fred Bauder]

> On 29 March 2012 09:52, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> I visited WMUK on Tuesday and chatted with Stevie Benton (the new
>> media person), Richard Symonds and Daria Cybulska about this topic.
>> The approach we could think of that could *work* is pointing out "if
>> you're caught with *what other people* think is a COI, your name and
>> your client's name are mud." Because in all our experience, even
>> sincere PR people seem biologically incapable of understanding COI,
>> but will understand generating *bad* PR.
>>
>
>  It would certainly be useful to have an agreed "approach" from our side.
> What even might work? Our natural sort of starting point would be
> FAQ-like,
> but that probably doesn't fit the bill. Neither would a simple "set of
> instructions", given that COI speaks to intention first.
>
> I noticed that in the Bell Pottinger meltdown Lord Bell switched from
> saying that the PR operatives had not actually broken the law (i.e.
> minimalist on professional ethics), to a line that WP was really just too
> complicated and fussy about it all. The latter is only convincing in the
> absence of figures on the hourly rate being charged for whitewashing.
> Almost by definition, service industries thrive on the principle that
> they
> can charge for doing a good job: we mostly prefer not to cut our own
> hair.
>
> I would guess that there is scope for presenting case studies, abstracted
> from real things that have happened onsite. There must be a whole
> spectrum
> of situations and outcomes by now.  Where the punchline is "and the media
> had a field day with the story", I think you're quite correct, it becomes
> quite convincing that whatever the client was charged was too much.
>
> Charles

There is an article which started out as Paid editing on Wikipedia and is
now Conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia It seems to be quite a
success judging from the number of links to it.

Fred