[Foundation-l] Paid editing, was Re: Ban and moderate

[Milos Rancic]

On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 08:02, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:
> So, to take a random example that I have not looked at, what would a
> public relations firm hired by the maker of Lipitor be trying to
> accomplish? And what is the result if they are skillful in terms of
> having collaborative editing skills? Is this now, or could it develop, as
> a specialized profession?

What I find to be easy to explain to any reasonable PR person is to
read the rules and not to go outside of them. The vast majority of PR
needs in relation to Wikipedia (and some other Wikimedia projects,
most notably Wikinews) is visibility, not PR crisis management.

>From my experience, it was easy to explain to them that Wikipedia
shouldn't and can't be used for spreading false information and POV in
any way. Usually, I tell them to send to me the text and then I mark
problematic parts. Sometimes, texts need just basic redaction,
sometimes they are PR junk. But, at the end, they are usually much
better than regular articles at Wikipedia: those texts have sources
for every claim. Yes, I had one negative experience, but I had five or
more good.

Note that PR agencies (and freelancers) are the most useful (not PR
departments of various companies). After one set of explanations, they
learn how to do it next time, for another client.

It is already regular practice that PR courses are covering marketing
on Wikipedia as important part of online PR. The courses are not
giving the most of necessary details for editing Wikipedia, but they
explain importance of Wikipedia in contemporary PR.

I would like to see a couple of PR agencies dealing exclusively and
openly with Wikimedia projects, as contractors of other companies and
PR agencies. They would learn our rules and they would be the filter
for PR junk and unreasonable wishes of companies inside of the PR
crisis.

> Is this different from an agent of Meg Whitman, Fruit Loops, the Anglican
> Church, the government of Iceland? Or are they all just another anonymous
> editor?
>
> Does disclosure of conflict of interest actually make sense?

Not so strictly speaking, it is highly likely that a random inhabitant
of Iceland is in COI with texts related to Iceland. 300.000 of
monoethnic inhabitants don't give much of diversity. Strictly
speaking, any adherent of Anglicanism, any member of Democratic Party
of USA and any inhabitant of Serbia are in COI if articles are about
Anglican Church, DP and Serbia, respectively.

I think that COI should be redefined. It is better to have them
visible. It is our consistency which matters. COI exists disclosed or
not.