[Wikimedia-l] COI versus OUTING

[John Vandenberg]

This happens all the time. It sounds like their attempt to alter the
content was thwarted. If not, alert a few admins privately, or send more
specific info to the functionaries-en mailing list so they can keep a
watchful eye on the articles in question.

And talk to the offender and explain what they did contravenes Wikipedia
guidelines.

In my opinion you should report it to an ethics board privately, if you
believe they did (intend to) break the industries ethical guidelines. Even
if they acted improperly, by intimidating someone, you need to follow
appropriate protocols. Two wrongs dont make a right.

It sounds like you can inform press without breaking any confidences. Tell
them the account name or IP and let them independently guess who it is.

John Vandenberg.
sent from Galaxy Note
On Jan 22, 2013 12:09 AM, "James Heilman" <jmh649 at gmail.com> wrote:

> A not really hypothetical question:
>
> Let say one is the director of marketing at a 16 billion dollar company and
> decides to come to Wikipedia in an attempt to alter its coverage of one of
> your companies key products (which has been hit fairly hard lately by the
> evidence). One also invites 50 of your best friends (most of which are on
> your pay role to join you in this effort).
>
> Let say you are trying to do it anonymously but both you and your
> associates send out a whole bunch of intimidating emails to a long standing
> editor. Than this long standing editor without any real difficulty figures
> out who you are (as you sort of did email him). You than "vanish" from
> Wikipedia.
>
> What if this long standing editor decided to either hand the story over to
> the press or write something up for publication in a peer review journal as
> said editor does not stand for intimidation easily? And this long standing
> editor believes that the world / patients might be better off if
> this behavior become more widely known. How would the Wikimedia community
> apply the above two policies / guidelines (WP:COI and WP:OUTING)?
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>
> The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
> www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
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