[Wikimedia-l] Paid editing v. paid advocacy (editing)

[Craig Franklin]

On 12 January 2014 02:58, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:

> Craig Franklin wrote:
> >I think it's actually foolish to try and split hairs over what is
> >acceptable paid editing and what is unacceptable paid editing.  The facts
> >of the matter are that paid editing is taking place right now, and it will
> >continue to take place regardless of whatever "bright lines" are drawn in
> >the sand.  The only question is whether it's done in a covert manner, or a
> >transparent manner.
> >
> >Rather than arguing over the irrelevant question of whether it is
> >desirable to have paid editing or not, we need instead to be talking
> >about how we are going to handle it.  To my view, that should be
> >requiring that anyone editing for money be upfront about their intentions
> >and their edits, and letting the community scrutinise those edits and
> >deal with them just like they'd deal with them if they came from any
> >other editor.
>
> Perhaps you're correct, though I'll note that in the recent oDesk case,
> you had both a real name and photo attached to the activities, along with
> a public profile describing (and rating!) the activities. That seems
> fairly transparent to me, yet it still resulted in an immediate departure.


I was thinking more along the lines of a centralised disclosure list where
people can say "My name is X, my user account is Y, and I am doing paid
editing on article Z".  Such a thing would of course invite a lot more
scrutiny on the articles in question, which would mean that they're less
likely to devolve into hagiography.  From what I can see this is already
working quite well and without controversy at places like dewp.  We already
have rules (on enwp at least) about promotional language, spam,
sockpuppeting, and the like; I don't see any compelling reason we need
another separate bunch of rules to deal with these situations in the
special case where someone is being paid to edit.

Cheers,
Craig