On 5 April 2014 08:09, Peter Southwood peter.southwood@telkomsa.net wrote:
Will you be expecting every supporter of a political party, every member of a religious group, every national of a country, every supporter of a football team and so on ad nauseam... to declare COI when editing a related article? These groups are often more biased then grunt employees. Wikipedia content is largely contributed by enthusiasts with either a strong bias or partial information (leading to unintentional bias). It is the strength and the wakness of crowdsourcing. Live with it or lose many of your contributors. This whole pogrom against paid editors is a waste of effort as it is virtually unenforceable without an invasion of privacy that the NSA would reject as over the top. Judge the contributor by the quality of their work, not by who their connections may be, or require every contributor to register their true and validated identity and all affiliations, financial or otherwise.. I oppose double standards favouring unpaid fanatics against well intentioned professionals
Hi Peter,
No, the groups you mention are not covered by this proposal.
As for "invasion of privacy", this seems tangential. The proposal is for Wikimedia employees and similar to be transparent about the fact of their status. On the surface at least, this is not something one would expect to be kept a secret on Wikimedia projects.
Thanks, Fae