On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 2:39 AM, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 17 April 2014 15:23, Pete Forsyth
<peteforsyth(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Erik Moeller
<erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Pete Forsyth
<peteforsyth(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
After he was hired, Zack continued to use that
account -- more
responsibly,
> yes -- but he neither corrected the false statement on its user page,
or
disclose
his connection to it.
That is untrue; see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Zackexley
Interesting, but not especially relevant. What path could a reader or
editor of the Zack Exley article follow to learn about that connection?
Disclosing on the Zack Exley user page isn't sufficient to meet basic
transparency.
Actually, it meets the requirements of the project.
I disagree. One directional links is not sufficient.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOCK#Alternative_account_notificati…
"Except when doing so would defeat the purpose of having a legitimate
alternative account, editors using alternative accounts should provide
links between the accounts.
...
Links on both the main and alternative account user pages"
The "links between the accounts" language has been in place since
December 2004, when it started out as only a recommendation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry&oldi…
It's not perfect, but
we have administrators who don't even give that much disclosure to their
own alternate accounts (or that they edit without logging in), and nobody's
getting the pitchforks out for them.
Pitchforks come out regularly when the community feels that the
accounts should have been linked, and an autobio is often a trigger.
Thankfully admins dont often write auto-bios.
If there are enwp admins who are still, in 2014, using undisclosed
accounts they havent told arbcom about, they should be very careful
and have a very good reason.
btw, there are 345 hits for "Use of multiple accounts"
prefix:Wikipedia: on enwp, and 18,000 without quotes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&profile=adv…
Many of them are arbcom cases ;-)
If you don't like the edits made by the account,
work on-wiki to address
the issues. You know how to start an AfD for any articles you think are
about non-notable subjects, you know how to un-peacock an article.
Tags have been added to [[Zack Exley]].
And I have started two AFDs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/New_Organizin…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Judith_Freeman
If one really wants to push the COI envelope, one
could say that users who
are former employees of an organization shouldn't be editing articles
related directly to the organization or its employees (salaried or
contract), though. Indeed, one of the biggest COI issues we have on English
Wikipedia is former employees trying to use our articles to "bring problems
to light" about organizations.
The disclosure was made. Incidentally, that's all that would need to be
done even at the farthest reaches of the proposed terms of use amendment.
The paid contributions terms of use amendment doesnt cover
self-promotion, which is the larger proportion of COI problems.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment#P…
The language of the amendment is pretty loose.
It talks about 'you' and 'your user page', without stating which
page(s) are being referred to. It should say 'the user page(see FAQ
section 123) of all accounts you contribute with', otherwise it is
encouraging throw away accounts for each paid contribution.
It also doesnt clearly state how the amendment will apply to paid
contributions from before the amendment being approved. IMO it
should; the community will probably extract that information anyway if
there is a hint of problems, as they have always done, so this
amendment may give a false sense of security if it says it only
applies to post-amendment payments.
--
John Vandenberg