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

[Craig Franklin]

Detail ;-).  Probably the language of the project that the paid edits are
occurring on, I'd imagine.

Cheers,
Craig


On 12 January 2014 21:58, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hoi,
> In what language does this "disclosure" have to be ??
> Thanks,
>      Gerard
>
>
> On 12 January 2014 12:29, Craig Franklin <cfranklin at halonetwork.net>wrote:
>
>> 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
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