[Wikimedia-l] WMF employee writing articles for $300

Mon Jan 6 08:58:22 UTC 2014

You are right Kevin, and I think that the blog post has drawn the
wrong conclusions by failing to see one piece of telling evidence on
an unrelated posting on that site.

At the job link at https://www.odesk.com/jobs/~01fb1fd477c79e30b0
(again, uploaded to
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8j_w_yHF5ymdHQzTkJkRkY5TWM/edit?usp=sharing)
one can see that the client is in the United States in the -8 GMT time
zone (Indianapolis being in the -5 GMT time zone). This obviously does
not match for the bar article.

On the right-hand side, you will see that they have posted two jobs,
but have hired only one client. At the bottom you will see "Client's
Work History and Feedback (1)" and only this job is available there.
When you go to Sarah's profile, and click on "Wikipedia Page for
Individual" it says the job is private, hence why the "Client's Work
History and Feedback" on the aforementioned job only shows one job. So
it would appear that Sarah has been hired by this client for both
their jobs.

At 13:15 on 7 October, Sarah posted
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leadership_Challenge. This is most
likely the article for the job at
https://www.odesk.com/jobs/~01fb1fd477c79e30b0 -- and the client went
out of his way to contact Sarah to apply for this job, as you can see
from "Client" in the initiator column (as explained at
https://www.odesk.com/community/node/29357)

Then in December, the client who was obviously happy with her work
from October, commissioned Sarah to write
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Posner_(academic) (the author of
the book from the October article) and paid her $300. From that
article, one can see that Posner is in Santa Clara, California, which
is -8 GMT, which of course ties up with the -8 GMT column in the
October job listing on the right hand side.

My apologies in presenting the Indianapolis article; it's surprising
that the bar article which reads like an advert is legit, whilst the
articles which look legit (yet still very weak sourcewise) are likely
the problematic articles.

Sarah, when you read this, again I don't give a rats if you are
paid-editing, more power to you actually. Unfortunately in this
instance you haven't done so in what one would deem to be an ethical
way based upon what the community expects, and which has been
reinforced over and over, especially in recent months. So there will
obviously be those who want to cast you out because paid-editing is
evil and should not be tolerated. But hopefully cooler heads will
prevail all round, not only in your case. I would well advise you to
be totally upfront in any explanation, including anything that may be
done via Sarah Stierch Consulting either currently or in the past. You
obviously see a need for paid-editing, and it is a shame that you had
to, as Dariusz mentions, resort to the "black market" and blackhat
what you are/were doing. Open your profiles up for public view,
quickly correct anything that you should have done to begin with, and
publicly commit yourself to doing such editing the ethical way. Then
all talk of "Bright Line Policy", etc can be put to rest, and not just
in your case, and then discussion on solid policies, etc as Dariusz
also mentions can occur, and you would be better placed to advocate in
that regard.

Cheers,

Russavia

On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 3:29 PM, Kevin Gorman <kgorman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sarah used to be a DJ in Indianapolis.  I don't find it very surprising
> that she'd write an article about a nightclub in Indianapolis. That would
> probably also explain the use of unusual sources - surely someone who used
> to DJ in Indy is more familiar with local music sources there than most
> people would be.
>
> ----
> Kevin Gorman
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 11:20 PM, Oliver Keyes <ironholds at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> As an apparent "Wikimedia insider"; I think that if the allegations are
>> substantiated they need to be addressed. I don't mean to run interference
>> on that. I mean to try and undercut any attempt to turn a subject worth
>> discussing substantively into an excuse to crow. My objection is not that
>> you raised this allegation, it's that you insist on posting four hundred
>> word screeds about how hard-done by you are and how this demands that
>> people accept you were right all along. If you actually care about the
>> substance of the discussion, stop doing that. If you don't, just stop.
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 11:10 PM, Russavia <russavia.wikipedia at gmail.com
>> >wrote:
>>
>> > Steven,
>> >
>> > Did it occur to you that the reason the account is anonymised is that
>> > one would likely not want it to be found out? It also beyond the
>> > realms of imagination that "Wikipediocracy trolls" would create an
>> > account on 6 January 2012 as a joe-job account, and sit on it all this
>> > time and then have Odder (who is certainly no friend of
>> > Wikipediocracy) find out about it, and let him beat them to the punch.
>> >
>> > But here's a little more evidence for you. From that screenshot, you
>> > will notice in September Sarah earned $96 from a job which is
>> > described as "Wikipedia Writer Editor". The information for that job
>> > is found at https://www.odesk.com/jobs/~01fb1fd477c79e30b0 (and I have
>> > taken the liberty of uploading it at
>> >
>> >
>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8j_w_yHF5ymdHQzTkJkRkY5TWM/edit?usp=sharing
>> > )
>> >
>> > From this we can ascertain the following:
>> >
>> > * The job was posted on 3 September 2013
>> > * The client is in the United States
>> > * Sarah was one of 9 applicants for the job, applying on 4 September 2013
>> > * The client was interviewing 2 applicants, and they ended up hiring
>> Sarah
>> > * On 4 October 2013 (a Friday), the client last viewed this job -- the
>> > little question mark pop-up says "This is when the client last viewed
>> > or interacted with the applicants for this job." - in all likelihood
>> > this is when the information was provided to Sarah.
>> >
>> > From Sarah's contributions between this period we can see that she was
>> > involved in creating and editing articles relating to Turkey, Algeria,
>> > Guatemala, creating articles such as
>> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugénie_Luce, etc
>> >
>> > On 6 October 2013 (-8 GMT), after editing articles on places/people in
>> > Moldova and Ukraine, at 12:14 she made this edit
>> > (
>> >
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stephen_III_of_Moldavia&diff=prev&oldid=576031919
>> > ).
>> > At 13:53, a little under 2 hours later, Sarah posted
>> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melody_Inn_(nightclub). Again, this is a
>> > somewhat puff piece article, out of sync with what she was editing at
>> > the time, with sourcing that one wouldn't really expect in an article.
>> > The wording at
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melody_Inn_(nightclub)#Music
>> > is especially telling. Then
>> >
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1935&diff=prev&oldid=576044989
>> > is done straight afterwards. That it was posted a little under 2 hours
>> > after her edit to the Stephen III of Moldavia article would correlate
>> > with the 2 hours that she billed the client for cleaning the article
>> > up to make it presentable, receiving $96. Then it was back to normal
>> > editing. Not bad for 2 hours editing on a Sunday afternoon, eh?
>> >
>> > And surely you can understand why people would post this information
>> > publicly. Already on this very list I have been attacked by no less
>> > than 4 Wikimedia insiders (yourself included) who are clearly trying
>> > to run deflection and interference. Emailing the WMF and Sue
>> > privately, so that it can be quietly ignored, or swept under the
>> > carpet; this is the experience of many people in the past, so why
>> > waste one's time. And anyway, doesn't the public, including the media
>> > whom I have also taken the liberty of advising that this issue exists,
>> > have a right to know that such things are happening on a project that
>> > prides itself on how transparent it is.
>> >
>> > Steven, does this smell like trolling and an elaborate "set up Sarah"
>> > joe-job? People can continue to bury their heads in the sand, attack
>> > me for trolling, run interference, and believe in vast conspiracies
>> > and other such nonsense. I will look at this logically, and taken in
>> > with information that Odder provided, it's couldn't be clearer.
>> >
>> > What isn't so clear is how Sue and Jimmy will respond......
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Steven Walling <steven.walling at gmail.com
>> >
>> > wrote:
>> > > On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 3:42 PM, Russavia <russavia.wikipedia at gmail.com
>> > >wrote:
>> > >
>> > >> Odder has published a fantastic blog piece at
>> > >>
>> http://twkozlowski.net/paid-editing-thrives-in-the-heart-of-wikipedia/in
>> > >> which it is revealed that a WMF employee is engaged in undeclared paid
>> > >> editing on English Wikipedia, and charging what it appears to be $300
>> > per
>> > >> article.
>> > >>
>> > >> I have cc'ed both Sue and Jimmy in on this email, but also sending to
>> > this
>> > >> list as I know they, and other WMF employees, do use this list, and I
>> > think
>> > >> it would be pertinent that they respond publicly to the issues raised
>> > here.
>> > >> It is ever so more important given that the undeclared paid editing
>> > >> occurred AFTER the whole Wiki-PR debacle (Sue's press release, WMF's
>> > >> cease-and-desist, and of course the resultant media attention).
>> > >>
>> > >> What do Jimmy and Sue believe should occur given that such editing
>> > violates
>> > >> Wikipedia policies and also Jimmy's so-called Bright Line Rule. In
>> > relation
>> > >> to Jimmy's line, many are still clueless as to what exactly this
>> Bright
>> > >> Line is (it's not very bright), and how it should be applied in
>> > practice,
>> > >> so Jimmy, if you are out there, your comment is requested on that.
>> > >>
>> > >> Cheers,
>> > >>
>> > >> Russavia
>> > >>
>> > >
>> > > I'm with David and Nathan here.
>> > >
>> > > The "evidence" presented is an anonymized oDesk account and a
>> screenshot.
>> > > Screenshots are very easily doctored, and Wikipediocracy trolls have
>> many
>> > > reasons to attack a Wikimedian like Sarah. I wouldn't be surprised if
>> > > they'd go so far as to set up a fake account using her picture and
>> > > information.
>> > >
>> > > If you really cared about solving this, you could try emailing Sarah,
>> her
>> > > superiors, and Sue directly. Considering many staff don't follow high
>> > > volume lists like Wikimedia-l, especially on the weekend, it's not
>> > exactly
>> > > the best way to get a response from the WMF. It is, however, a great
>> way
>> > to
>> > > stir up bullshit drama.
>> > >
>> > > I'll hold out for Sarah's comment, if she feels comfortable. Otherwise
>> > > smells like trolling.
>> > >
>> > > Steven
>> > > _______________________________________________
>> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> > > Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
>> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> > Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
>> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>> >
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
>> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>