Talk:Terms of use/Paid contributions amendment

Recurring questions

We have seen several recurring topics in the discussion below. To help organize and address these topics, we’ve created this section of the talk page to capture these topics as questions. Please add and revise questions here if you think multiple people are interested in knowing the answer. (You can also draft an answer if you think there is a clear answer based on discussions below.)

Depending on the question, we'll try to either address them here (so that newcomers to this discussion can see them), or possibly add them to the FAQ. —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• Why is this requirement part of the terms of use? Shouldn't this be handled on a per-project basis?
• Will this create problems with stalking or harassment?
• Why is it enough to disclose on a talk page or user page?
• Does this mean the Wikimedia Foundation encourages or accepts paid advocacy editing?

Past discussions

There have been previous on-wiki proposals attempting to address paid editing, paid advocacy editing, and conflicts of interest. These include:

• WikiProjekt Umgang mit bezahltem Schreiben (WikiProjekt, de:wp, ongoing)
• Wikipedia:Die Grenzen der Bezahlung (Community research, Jan-Mar 2013: "The Acceptable Limits of Professional Writing on Wikipedia", de:wp)

  Precis auf Deutsch (in English)

• Three related policy proposals, from en:wp in late 2013 (all closed, opposed):

  Wikipedia talk:Paid editing policy proposal, Wikipedia talk:No paid advocacy, Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest limit

User Comments and !Votes

This section contains brief statements of support or opposition. For more detailed discussion on these issues, please join below or share your comments in a new topic. Please see the main page for more information on the amendment approval process. Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 20:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Abstain

1. Check this out, a view from someone who relies on but doesn't contribute to Wikipedia. There are other ways to get around the issue of COI. Whether there are rules or not, people will do 'bad' things so they can profit somehow. Since they are going to do this regardless of rules and risks associated, why not develop a better way of dealing with the issue? An open source encyclopedia shouldn't be so closed minded. Crowd sourced. Innovative. Wikipedia is a bastion of open information and information society, why bother entrenching itself into outmoded ways of thinking? I know I have ideas on this - I'm a 22 y/o male with big thoughts and ideas. Are you all old fuddy duddies trying to protect a baby? Clearly you all have bad arthritis if this is how you protect Wikipedia. This website does not need your protection or arbitration anymore, it is its own engine. If you see someone pouring bad oil into the engine, A. stop them, B. drain the oil or C. set the engine up to process that type of oil.

   A: you can't stop them

   B: this takes time and legislation and legwork and motivation...

   C: this requires excitement, innovation, brainstorming, forward thinking...

   Choose any metaphor for the situation and reevaluate your solutions, folks. This one is not a difficult issue, you just need to think outside of the box. Wikipedia was not born in a box, so don't put it inside of one. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.83.208.101 (talk) 19:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

   I appreciated this comment very much. –SJ talk  21:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I think this topic will kill wikipedia [selfedit: if it is not made surreptitious]. Those who use it for diligent research won't be affected by paid edits because money is in propaganda and marketing, not pure and unrestricted information. The community can remove a paid edit as they see fit. To add such a regulation will only make people who would otherwise contribute become afraid of the 'law' (seewiki:habituation, the hundredth monkey theorem, the axiom of choice). Don't let obstinate idealism ruin a good thing. Please, I love wikipedia just as it is. Anyone with half a brain will KNOW if it's a paid edit for capital gains... and for everyone else who is brainwashed, so be it. Just don't do anything to ruin it, like making comments on a proposed amendment public. What will happen? Well, the idiots (majority) will say things, and those comments will be ludicrous. You can't change people. You can only change idiots. Sorry to be so blunt, but I use wikipedia more than any other website. (brandon) [selfedit2: it's like you people actually believe that people contribute to this site without some kind of agenda. This site is built on the idea of 'say whatever the fuck you want, but include where you got your information'. So what when you're supposed to include that you got PAID? What if you get paid for posting valid informatioN? Well, so what? Well, you'll lose credentials, because people will assume it's bullshit because someone got paid to say it and it's made obvious. I am just appalled that wikipedia would take this so seriously.(brandon) ]

Support

1. Strongly Support - After reading the many posts in favor (and their reasons), and the few posts opposing this change (and their reasons), virtually all of the opposition is based on a total fallacy - that this amendment would somehow limit the ability of people with special competence in a topic from editing or commenting on it, or that it will in any way limit the access or ability of any individual to edit or amend or comment on any article or entry... NOTHING in this amendment will stop anyone from contributing to or editing anything in all of Wikipedia or its related entities. ALL it does is require anyone receiving compensation for doing so to disclose the fact. Those who oppose this change, please read the language of the proposed change. Anyone legitimately making such contributions and/or edits should have no qualms or problems in making such disclosure, and should rather be very pleased to state their affiliation, employer or whatever might even remotely seem like a conflict of interest, to place themselves above reproach as they contribute to the community. Frankly, anyone opposed to such a benign and useful amendment to the terms of use causes themselves and their motives to be called into question, since it will cause no harm and will hopefully do some good, or at least allow for the enforcement of a minimum standard of procedural and journalistic integrity that is expected - if not always present - in any legitimate publication or organization that purports to provide fair, honest, and balanced coverage of <anything and everything>
2. Strongly support. Wikipedia is fundamentally open--the first step in deterring those with financial gain is to prohibit such actions. Enforcement is a separate topic.
3. Strongly Support! Doing this might reduce the risk of biased or partial opinions stated as facts, disguised facts or partial disclosure of facts.
4. Support -- On the grounds that sunshine is the best disinfectant.
5. Support -- I think that if people are providing information for pay that it will be slanted news towards the payer. We don't want to start the whole news channel system here where the advertisers determine what information people have available to them. Paid providers of information would be able to silence others because they would have more time and resources available (A special interest group putting 100 people on the task of slanting the information about them in the articles here making it look like there is popular support for a particular viewpoint when there is none...)
6. Support --205.211.133.128 20:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC), But I suggest a modified wording "with respect to any contribution to any Wikimedia Projects for which you or your employer receive compensation"
7. Support
8. Support - The only thing this can do for this site is make it more reliable. It would be very difficult for a highly monitored paid contributor to decieve users of wikimedia sited.
9. Support - This seems to work very well on other sites. People interested enough to read about a particular subject are usually very much on target overall, I have found. It's very difficult for 'paid trolls' to effectively deceive on a large scale basis, without the 'bs' meter going off in the mind of the reader.
10. Support this amendment: it will clarify that the editor/writer could be influenced by a third party. May not affect contect, just puts it in the open.
11. Support. I doubt that this is very enforceable and there will continue to be people who try (or manage) to take advantage of this wonderful resource for their own ends; however, as an ideological stance on transparency I completely support it. It is absurd that a company, say, Monsanto, would get the benefit-of-the-doubt protection of not being required to have their paid editors/contributors say "I work for Monsanto" based only on the premise that such a disclosure would serve as a de-facto perception of unreliability by the reader, which is the claim many of those individuals opposing this amendment are taking. -Jay A.
12. Support.
13. Support. Is perfectly reasonable and will only ensure more security and reliability in the site.
14. Strongly Support. There is nothing wrong with making money by editing WikipediA articles, and being transparent about that contributes to the reliability of this site. AlvinMGO
15. Strongly Support this and disclosure of sources on all articles and edits.
16. Support.
17. Support.
18. Strongly support even though it will be hard to enforce. Allowing hidden commercial or economic relationships is far worse than not being able to identify every violation every time. The fact of the prohibition is an important factor in maintaining the projects' integrity.
19. Strongly support- this is required to prevent corruption of information and freedoms related to that information.
20. The problem is solved, if it becomes possible, to write the truth at WP. But this is not possible since years. Political correctness is dominant. The political lobby is paid by her salary, so more powerful tools to handle human rights and democratie shall come to the terms of use. What shall a writer do, if a "political" admin reverts the text? You cant do any thing, I checked it. In the mean time I write the truth to other WPs like Stupidedia. This is not a honour to WP.
21. I support what Wikipedia is trying to do here in principle, but I don't think it's possible to enforce such a policy, or even to be able to detect a large portion of the population of violations of this policy, and that's just barely scratches the surface of the first face of this issue. Consider just one alternate face of this issue: what happens when someone is NOT being compensated, but their post is flagged due to a false positive hit on some filter or heuristic?
22. Strongly support the amendment.
23. support but agree that paid edits should be marked on the wiki page itself. the provision "a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions." comes closest but the implemented rule should be even stronger and take away the other two options because they are not transparent enough.
24. Support. Support - but the paid edits should be marked paid in some way on the wiki page itself.
25. Support. Agree with previous comment's sense that paid edits should be readily identified for readers. If not on the content page, then at least make mandatory that the talk page have the notice. That way a reader need only look at the discussion tab to see what content was contributed by paid editor(s). Stephengeis (talk) 14:23, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
26. Support. I strongly suggest reading these support posts in full, or else they could get out of hand. Open the door, get on the floor. Everyone walk the dinosaur.
27. Strongly support. Being paid to edit can very easily lead to bias. If this conflict of interest is not laid open, it may be that the bias escapes unnoticed (most likely for a limited amount of time). This would alter much of Wikpedia's reputation as an impartial source of information.
28. Strongly Support- This is a long overdue amendment. While there are those who suggest embracing these 'paid edits' and earning income from it, the whole point of Wikipedia is that it is a FREE encyclopaedia anyone can edit that is solely moderated by the community. A paid content provider would need to gain elevated 'privileges' above normal users (as they then become 'customers'). While this my not seem like a major issue in the short term, this could lead to major repercussions with regard to objectivity and eventual corporate dominance (Basically the same thing that has happened to many newspapers and 'traditional' media around the world). HOWEVER, I also believe that in addition to disclosure on one's talk page etc., the compensated Content Provider should also be required to put such edits in a different 'style' or coloring to make these edits known to the COMMON reader (who in some cases may not be 'tech savvy' enough to refer an article's or user's talk page). Just my two cents...
29. Support. But a better way would be to not stop the practice, but rather embrace it by regulating it and earning income from it, by requiring paid editors to register as a Wikipedia Paid Content Provider (WPCP). These WPCPs should pay Wikipedia a fee and be required to list all their current clients and all their Wikipedia IDs. Doing so would enable Wikipedia to place a symbol at the top of any WPCP created page that identifies the content as client provided material. Those WPCP clients should also pay Wikipedia a fee for each article posted in order to cover the cost of tracking these WPCP created articles and to enable Wikipedia to hire a bigger staff.
30. Support. Any bias in entries should be marked as such, and commercial sponsorship suggests the possibility that an entry may be biased. But should be left to the conscience of the individual editor (should editors also disclose membership of political parties, the Flat Earth Society, etc??)
31. Strongly support. As has been said before - transparency is key, and must be maintained to ensure the credibility of Wikipedia as an entity. Nothing should be hidden.
32. Strongly support. The conflict between candor and conflict of interest requires disclosure.
33. Strongly support. Transparency is key and, although some will disregard the rules, having the rule sends the message of what is appropriate and what is not.
34. Strongly support. I would also suggest extending the disclosure to memberships and affiliations even where there is no compensation involved, to minimize sock puppetry. For instance, I would find it useful to know that a contributor is a member of political party ABC, or religious organization XYZ.
35. Strongly support. Conflict of interest is an issue in all other aspects of society, why not when providing information to the pinnacle of human knowledge?
36. Why have paid editing at all? Editing should be completely democratic! -Sam Bharr [realize that what you USUALLY see on wikipedia is them begging for money. Although the founders have an admirable goal, money exists. Democracy is a subset, not an absolute. Literally, 'Complete democracy' is impossible because the word 'democracy' has meaning which prevents it from being free... not to mention how obvious it is that money and appearance rule the world. (brandon)]
37. Strongly support disclosure of compensated edits. In most cases this will reflect well on the employer, e.g. when a specialist in a field is encouraged by employer/manager to contribute an article or a clarification on company time. (1) "Refraining from Certain Activities" seems the wrong place for this. IMHO it needs a new heading, "Transparency", (2) also to be listed in the box at the top as the second item below "Under the following conditions". (3) Near the end of the FAQ under the heading "How should I disclose paid contributions in my user page?", suggest delete the indicated words: "If you work for Company Acme, and, as part of your job responsibilities, you edit Wikipedia articles >>about Company Acme<<..." (4) Recommend the disclosure be available in the edited page. I don't want to break off pursuit of a topic to check user pages, talk pages: in scholarly work the citations are at the bottom of the page; I would like comparable convenience.
38. Duh, legal limits on free speech apply only to commercial speech. Since Wiki doesn't bill itself as a giant ad for anything, this whole issue is moot. Anybody should be able to edit it with or without revealing their identity, funding, etc., and the contribution should stand if it's accurate, and that's IT. You are making much ado about nothing.
39. I strongly support a requirement that an edit made by a person paid to perform the said edit be disclosed as a "paid edit". In my opinion, further disclosure of the person affiliation is inappropriate. The act of disclosing a commercially directed edit gives the read adequate information to consider that the edit is possibly biased for commercial promotion. The only exception that I would allow is for editors potentially paid by the foundation or its agents. My reasoning for such a narrow disclosure is that all edits are potentially biased in some form. Many of these biases are intentional. If disclosure of an editor's affiliation becomes required, it seems that the foundation could foster an unintentional consequence of partisan (commercial or otherwise) debate in the wiki.
40. Strongly support. In addition to a simple statement like "I work for ABC Company", additional disclosures like "work as a full-time employee" or "free lance project" could be useful to assess degree of potential conflict of interest.
41. Stongly support - More than once I have had discussions with people who clearly defend articles related to companies that read like advertisement. I really like the idea! --Jlascar (talk) 10:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
42. Strongly support, i agree with paid editions they must be reported (cause it will exist always legal or ilegal). Firmemente de acuerdo. A favor de ediciones pagadas deben ser reportadas porque siempre existirán. --KundaliniZero (talk) 03:49, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
43. Strongly support. Philiptdotcom (talk) 03:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
44. I support the amendment. Kat Schulz
45. Strongly support but don't believe any paid editing should be allowed. As they say, "Money is the root of all evil" and you will not have objective information on Wiki if you allow paid editing. So-called paid editing in some cases is nothing more than a public relations release or advertisement. I have noticed some examples of this. Since I am a writer and editor, I can detect such cases but a student may not be able to. Dru Murray
46. As I understand the intent of the proposal, I support it. Lou Schaefer
47. Strongly support. The need and the reasons for it seem obvious. Bill Mathews
48. I strongly support the proposed change.--L3erdr (talk) 02:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC) l3erdr
49. I strongly support the proposed change for paid contributions to be disclosed. Julianharty (talk) 01:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
50. Strongly Support Paradoxos (talk)
51. Strongly Support - LovelyLillith
52. Wiki promotes and cultivates a level of trust with its readers and contributors that the content it supplies is not biased by corporate interests or advertising; because of this, people let their guard down to a certain extent, regarding discernment of the real from the sensational (or outright lies). It is one of the most-read sites on the internet and is in a unique position of earnestly trying to deliver unbiased truth. Any actual or perceived flaws in our material will only be magnified or scandalized by the discovery of information that is secretly put there by paid interests, and trust will be lost. Labeling such material for what it is gives the reader the opportunity to view it more critically and preserve Wiki's reputation.
53. Strongly Support - TheOwl
54. Strongly support- 81.182.41.24 00:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
55. Quite straightforward. If anyone doesn't want to disclose it in a more public place like the userpage or talkpage, the edit summary option is great. Rehman 00:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
56. Support disclosure, not banning. --PaulMEdwards (talk) 00:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
57. Strongly support - Last thing we need is another platform for right wing disinformation.
58. Strongly Support - Hitman731
59. Support - Wikipedia is based on the principle of transparency. Payments for editing are often perfectly acceptable. I trust the Wikipedia community to be able to discern when it matters and when not. 84.227.242.86 00:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
60. Strongly support - any paid edit which has not been declared as such, becomes blatantly shameful in case of discovery; therefore I believe that this policy should be accompanied by the explicitly retained right of WMF and/or the Community to give full visibility and emphasis to eventual discoveries, at any extent. It would then be a really good tool to make it quite risky for covert paid contributors to be discovered, a sort of matter of money for shame. --g (talk) 01:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
61. Support : maybe ask for a specific keyword to help bots recognize these edits quickly. It makes sense wrt conflicts, and does not harm.
62. Strongly support this long-overdue measure. --Orange Mike (talk) 01:39, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
63. Strongly support - any edit made by a paid contributor should be marked as such, it must be obvious.
64. Strongly support - It's simple information sharing 58.174.85.158
65. Strongly support - The argument to the contrary (that disclosure would cause undue discrimination) is not compelling. Paid edits have a higher probability for fraud. The poster's comments (and disclosure) should take steps to acknowledge and mitigate that.(scotteemac)
66. Support (strongly, strongly...etc). Situation with suspected undisclosed paid editing is getting worse. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC).
67. Strongly support - Undisclosed paid editing is corrupting. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
68. Support - Paid editing introduces a natural conflict of interest, and edits that are paid and subsequently affect a large amount of the encyclopedia may alter it in a biased way and may not be noticed until far after the event. This amendment would alleviate that by requiring notice when a paid edit occurs. NicatronTg (talk) 02:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
69. Support. Disclosure is required in many situations such as when a news story is about a parent company. With or without disclosure readers do have an opportunity to add or edit articles and this does act to limit or stop false or slanted information.
70. Strongly Support - transparency of the intention behind the addition of information will allow readers and editors to better judge the context of its addition and therefore the merit of it. Information does not exist in a vacuum and transparency allows us to better understand the intentions of a particular addition. Let us not muddy the philosophic undercurrent of this repository by letting pecuniary contrivances on it run rampant and unchecked.
71. Strongly support. Numerous article, such as this from Forbes show this amendment is a necessity.Pjposullivan (talk) 03:44, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
72. Strongly suport. I can't see a reason for hiding that information. Elucches (talk) 02:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
73. Strongly support. The whole reason I go to Wikipedia instead of just googling is that I can read a neutral, objective writeup about Concept X, without distorting hype like i'd get from the Concept X website, or distorting criticism from a 'Concept X sucks' site. Where else can you get a writeup of, say, Islam or Obama or Spontaneous Human Combustion where both sides have edited and (sortof) approved the details? osamabinlogin
74. Lucius Chiaraviglio Strongly Support. I strongly support the prohibition of undisclosed paid edits. The effect of undisclosed paid edits on our laws are proof that this is necessary to protect Wikipedia from falling to the same fate. 173.13.150.22 03:03, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
75. I don't understand the Introduction. What's the issue? "We plan to ask the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees to consider a proposed amendment in our Terms of Use to address further undisclosed paid editing." That's about a clear as mud. Who is being paid? Is Wikipedia going to start paying people? Suggestion: State the problem. Is there a problem? Are people being paid who shouldn't? Are people not being paid who should? I didn't know anybody was being paid. MarkFilipak (talk) 03:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
76. This seems sensible. I'd personally prefer an outright ban on paid editing, but this is a reasonable way of clarifying what's probably the community's consensus position on the topic. Nick-D (talk) 03:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
77. Weak support : It seems that it just specifically states what is already the net result of existing policy. I don't think it will do anything to improve compliance by the problem users, the vast majority of whom know well what they are doing is wrong (and don't care). I think it just gives admins something concrete to lean on when taking action. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 03:45, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
78. Support. If you're editing for money, your first loyalty is to your employer, not the project. Simple as that. You can argue until the end of time that this needn't make a difference, or is the paid contributor's right, or whatever, but it does make a difference, so it absolutely needs to be unambiguously disclosed. —Scs (talk) 03:46, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
79. Strongly support. This is extremely important to upholding a standard of objectivity and a neutral point of view, and is perfectly in line with a policy of transparency. Paid edits are fine, but they are certainly far more likely to be biased, nonobjective or even flat-out advertisement, and editors need to be able to see which information is more likely to be in violation of important policies so they can handle it more quickly. I cannot understand how someone could think that being more discriminating about which information is appropriate is undue discrimination. 75.140.101.66 03:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
80. Support. Most of them are unlikely to disclose this, but at least they will know they violate our rules. My very best wishes (talk) 03:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
81. Support. The proposal isn't particularly onerous anyways. Not many people will even bother to look at an editor's user page when considering whether an edit is appropriate or not. Being paid to edit a subject by a company presents an obvious lack of neutrality, which is clearly against the site's core principles. I think this is a pretty balanced way of dealing with it. Mikeman67 (talk) 03:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
82. Strongly support. Payment makes a difference. Else there would be no incentive to pay in the first place.---<(kmk)>- (talk) 04:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
83. Strong support, this is long overdue. I support making the disclosure requirement prominent, and clearly lay out when it is required. Blackhat PR firms will still try to edit, but if we can make it very clear to their clients that they are indeed blackhat, we might just make a difference. --TeaDrinker (talk) 04:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
84. Support - although I think all paid editing should be banned. Delamaran 04:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
85. Strongly Support - it's a small change with good benefits. Biligum (talk) 04:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
86. The strongest possible support - I do think that all commercial paid editing should be banned, leaving open the possibility that non-profits, including GLAMS, schools and universities, could only be lightly supervised on COIs. I do worry that a list of votes is being taken here. It should not come down to votes, but what the Board members think will best protect the movement's goals and legal position, what the law says, and what are the best arguments presented here. I do not worry that the overwhelming majority of our editors and readers are not for some limits on paid editing. But I do worry that the 1% or so of our editors who do paid editing (that could be 100s of them) will all show up to vote to protect their incomes. Smallbones (talk) 04:53, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
87. Support.
88. Strongly support. Moneyed special interests are being allowed to deceptively edit Wiki pages to cover up/change public opinion on unfair/poor corporate business practices. This undisclosed paid editing also allows for demagoguery of the worst degree in the political realm. This paid editing issue is closely related to the 2010 SCOTUS "Citizens United" decision. This decision effectively said 'Money equals free speech'.\Citizens United v FEC - SCOTUS dissenting and majority opinions Please keep 'Citizens United v. FEC' in mind when looking at the Wiki paid editing transparency issue. --PUnKeModUdE (talk) 07:30, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
89. Strongly support. Wikipedia should remain true, and possible (note: possible) corporate/religious/political/whathaveyou influence and even outright bias taints this trueness. --Marksomnian (talk) 08:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
90. Support. Pawyilee (talk) 05:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
91. Support. --Kersti (talk) 05:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
92. Support. The question of whether a particular set of compensated edits are constructive is separate from simply identifying when they are paid for. If we are fair in reviewing edits for their merit, this disclosure only helps, doesnt hinder, good editing.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:45, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
93. Support - I strongly support this important but seemingly unenforceable amendment. In addition, I believe that ALL paid editing should be banned. 68.71.70.33 06:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
94. Support. Strikes me as a sound response to the issue.
95. Support. It probably won't make a lot of difference, but it seems like a sensible thing to have in the Terms of Use. Kaldari (talk) 06:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
96. Visitor7 (talk) 06:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
97. Support. Scott Paeth (talk) 07:03, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
98. Strongly Support. Samitus mallicus (talk) 07:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
99. Support, with reservations about misuse of user-page notices. See #Temporal evasion of visible disclosures. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
100. Strongly Support. L337p4wn (talk) 08:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
101. Strongly Support. I also think that paid editing should be banned. It's awful to see criticisms of companies disappear. --Mathmensch (talk) 08:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
102. Strong support for a change long overdue. I've been an editor on English Wikipedia since 2006, and the steady increase in paid advertisements has now reached a disgusting crescendo that almost makes me ashamed to be a writer there. Frankly, I would make it a requirement that paid editors state it in the edit summary for each and every edit they make to their clients' pages. Voceditenore (talk) 09:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
103. Dafür/Support. Transparenz ist wichtig. Eine Frage zum Verfahren: Findet diese Abstimmung nur auf Englisch statt? Is this voting only in english language?--LichtStrahlen (talk) 09:30, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
104. Support. Though disclosure should be more prominent to the reader. --R2ZER0 (talk) 09:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
105. Support. Transparency is better for everyone. Additionally, I think the required notices on user pages or user talk pages should be prominently displayed, not hiding in a paragraph of text where it could be easily overlooked. Smilesplash (talk) 09:42, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
106. Support. Strongly support the idea, unsure on enforcement. --Captain-tucker (talk) 10:24, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
107. Strongest possible support Non-disclosed COI editing hurts Wikipedia/Wikimedia. To people in the Oppose section, this does not ban COI editing, but provides a way to monitor paid editing and help keep the integrity of the entire encyclopedia. Zhaofeng Li (talk) 10:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
108. Support. Nearly everything to be said about this topic has already been written; I think we should certainly do it, despite possible upcoming problems (which are there anyway). --Jussty (talk) 10:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
109. Support. We don't want people to be professionally biasing/vandalising Wikipedia without Wikimedia's knowledge! Let them do so by all means, but requiring them to effectively tell Wikimedia that they are doing it professionally helps Wikimedia keep tabs on those people so that their edits can be more closely checked for bias. Yes anyone should be able to edit, but we are also against unnecessary bias and I feel this would help with this. 146.90.158.185 11:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
110. Strongly support with further proposals. Require every such edit to be flagged in the edit summary and the user page to include a disclosure of interest; admins able to flag edits and users. New users should complete a short yes/don’t know/no questionnaire on what they intend to do, where needed link them to policy. I also fear that it will be hard to enforce, but I find a statement of policy important. But I do not see unprompted neutral unpaid factual contributions from employees to articles on their employers as a problem. PJTraill (talk) 11:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
111. strongly support. And I agree this is a very weak proposal, it would also be good to go further and require disclosure in a place where most readers will actually see it
112. strongly support: the only reason that I can think of for a paid contributor to hide their affiliation is because their edits are intended to sway the conversation in a particular direction and not to improve the accuracy of the entries being edited.
113. strongly support an outright ban on all paid contributions. This inevitably leads to bias - literally re-writing of history and current events.
114. Strongly support and possibly expand — I was literally just researching, the other day, why enwiki hadn't enacted similar-or-greater prohibitions, because my spidey-senses have recently been going off while closing a few AfDs that both paid editing and paid advocacy is increasing in occurrence. If left unchecked, it will (or has already) insidiously spill[ed] over into shaping guidelines and policies as well as other consensus-building and consensus-dependent processes, which would have the net effect of corrupting the relatively neutral and democratic nature of the wikis and eventually the foundation, much in the same way that the neutrality of The Media™ has been corrupted by paid news stories and corporate censorship and how votes were once directly bought centuries ago by the rich. The sooner this is prevented, the better, because cleaning up the mess after-the-fact is going to be difficult-if-not-impossible, as it will directly drive away honest contributors by simply drowning them out. A volunteer—admin or not—simply cannot compete against someone paid to edit 40+ hours per week to advance a specific point-of-view. --slakr 13:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

     On a related note, the very fact that, looking at the opposes directly below, I, personally, am instinctively led to question whether they're opposing based on genuine belief or because it's "in their best interest" demonstrates how toxic this can be, because all consensus-building processes could fall victim to this kind of thinking, which would inevitably cripple discussions with either overt or tacit accusations of bias and a fundamental resentment and distrust of all parties involved. This would lead to exactly what's had to happen here: someone higher-up stepping in and overruling previous-and-current discussions. This, in and of itself, is extremely counter-productive to an environment where the goal is to avoid ossification of, and strict adherence to, policies and guidelines. --slakr 14:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

115. Strongly support
116. Strongly support. One of the primary assumptions by readers is 'fair and unbiased'. Being able to check sources' potential conflicts of interest strengthens confidence in the sources. Also, this requirement provides both a clear statement to paid contributors that they are a 'special class' and must provide information, and a method for the Wikimedia Foundation to deal with issues caused by paid users who either do not disclose their status or contribute biased information.
117. Support. While it is true that unpaid contributors can also be biased, I think it reasonable to assume that those who are paid (such as a PR specialist) are likely to be more knowledgeable, harder to detect, and more persistent; it's not hard to see the relevance of this by simply looking at politics and advertising. God forbid wikipedia should become a platform for corporate PR. Though it may be difficult to enforce (and perhaps should be strengthened), I see no reason not to enact mandatory disclosure of paid editing, as a protection against unbiased information. Prohibiting paid editing does seem wise.
118. strongly support. any financial transactions relating to Wikipedia must be clearly identifiable. give the readers all the information, they will decided bias, veracity, interest, etc etc
119. Support: I think paid contributions should be increased and cited. Unfortunately, most of what I look up on wikipedia is partial or missing. I would contribute more if I had more free time and motivation. When I do contribute, it takes added time to edit and improve my writing and to properly cite multiple good sources. If people like me were paid to contribute, scientific articles could bring scientific critiques and debate to a layperson's foreground. Regardless, all conflicts of interest should be disclosed- important or not. It allows the reader to critically weight the expertise or bias of the article. (Suggestion: if you mouseover the paid user contributor, all of his/her edits could highlight so that you know what belongs to this person.) --TheNerdyPengwin 11:13 EST, 21 February 2014
120. Support - This seems like a perfectly reasonable provision to me. Paying Wikipedians for contributions is, at best, an ethically grey area. Requiring disclosure of such activities is a logical minimum step to protect our community from the fraud of dishonest editors and does not, in my opinion, constitute a breach of privacy. -Nutiketaiel (talk) 16:55, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
121. Strongly support. Wikipedia has become a wonderful resource for curious minds, but vigilance will always be necessary. Everything done by humans will be flawed, and good ethics a moving target, but keep up the great work.
122. Strongly support.
123. Support - although I would argue that the disclosure be mandatory on the article page at all times, as most end users do not read user or talk pages, but only the articles.
124. Strongly support. The basic principle of assuming good faith will be severely compromised if the idea gets around that Wikipaedia is being used as an advertising medium. And, if someone were paying me for editing articles (that'll be the day!), why should I be ashamed of this if I were editing honestly and in good faith? I can only see disclosure as problematic for editors who are deliberately violating the standards of an encyclopaedia. Лудольф (talk) 18:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
125. Strongly support: If you are paid to edit Wikipedia but you are doing so impartially, why hide it?
126. Support - I don't think that it will stop paid editing, but will instead provide a method for Wikipedia to take down some paid edits with a strong policy behind their backs
127. Strongly support: it might not solve the problem completely, but it will do little harm.
128. Strongly Support: Transparency is good thing!
129. Strongly support. I declare an interest when I feel I might be unconsciously biased just because of who or what I know, and so declare it in any discussion, yet I have never been paid to contribute to Wikipedia, it just seems like a decent honest thing to do so that other editors or readers can come with clean hands. It is quite right that someone adding something for another, paid or unpaid, should declare that interest. SimonTrew (talk) 18:52, 21 February 2014 (UTC) I have somehow got my signature wrong but I am User:SimonTrew at EN:WP and oddly enough came here because I saw the ad flyer for comments while I was editing the article at [en.wikipedia.org/quid_pro_quo English Wikipedia "Quid Pro Quo"]. Sorry to be in a hurry to write this, I do try to consider what I write, but the Wikimedia ads fly by very fast sometimes. I can only say I have contributed a few new pictures to Wikimedia Commons in the last month, created a stub article which went to "Did You Know" on the English Wikipedia main page on 24 January, tried to clear up and add content, and a great deal of trouble is caused, if not by companies or hired help adding content, the suspicion that they have, even when it is neutral content by someone with no personal interest in that company. To declare up front, sure, it is not going to happen, but it will be easier to detect. SimonTrew (talk) 18:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
130. Strongly support: Having worked in industries where independence is paramount, the idea of paid contributions with no disclosure is very disconcerting. That affects whether their contribution is viewed as objective by the communities.
131. Support the amendment. Not Sure (talk) 19:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
132. Support - As the policy is just asking for disclosure for transparency I see no reason to object. Not that I believe that anyone who is editing in a biased way will declare, but I guess this will make any cases that comes to light easier to deal with. KylieTastic (talk) 19:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
133. Support. This is a good structural piece for the agreement. By no means is it a final solution to the issue, but it doesn't purport to be one. Any other adjustments for the long term can be made as the need arises. Ultimately, this is an issue that may require more light to fully be solved, perhaps a disclaimer on the talk page of new users or on the edit page itself. This would be the framework for such a project. Wikipedia's independence is safer with this in place. Leoberacai (talk) 19:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
134. Support
135. Support - This should apply only to the Tea Party and Conservatives. This proposal should follow IRS guidelines and should not apply to progressive and liberal non-profit causes. Also should the FCC become involved with Wikipedia and help determine on the content allowed? They are starting to monitor TV, Radio stations and newspapers to make sure that they are neutral and not right-wing.
136. Support - It doesn't address all possible issues of bias and full disclosue (note section "#For which you receive compensation.3F.21" in this talk page), but it's good to address the paid edits. (And of course it should apply to all.) --Gahs (talk) 20:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
137. Support - It would prevent companies who wanted to promote a product or game from hiring someone to write a page without the readers knowledge.
138. Support. Hope a way can be found to enforce it!  :) (and so much for having an "all WikiMedia logon :( Student7 (talk) 20:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
139. Strongly support - Wikipedia is becoming so popular that some organizations that are interested in manipulating minds, such as companies, sects, superstitions etc. try to take control of minds through this supposedly impartial and non-profitable media.--Francois C (talk) 20:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
140. Strongly support
141. Strongly Support, it will hopefully lead more people to be mindful of the rules regarding COI. Perhaps the disclosure can be easily implemented in the form of a standardized template or ubx to be placed on the user's page. RA0808 (talk) 20:48, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
142. support, if you're in public office you have to disclose, being an editor is like that --Light.olive (talk) 20:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
143. Support. I also want to see a conflict of interest on the article or article talk page though. This is a great first step, but let's go further.
144. Strongly support --OhWeh (talk) 21:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
145. Support: while this may not be an infallible way to prevent COI issues, it does add to the overall transparency of edits. --Tcxspears (talk) 21:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
146. Support: This is akin to journalist who disclose a possible conflict of interest when writing a story about the parent company of the organization that they're writing for. 21:15, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
147. Strongly support. I further suggest that there should be no paid editor from outside without prior approval of EN-WP. This would help in outing paid trolls from commercial, political, religious corner who work for monetary gain without caring biased or fair jobs. Nannadeem (talk) 21:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
148. Strongly support - People will use Wikipedia to advertise and manipulate anyway, but at least this would make them more accountable. Hyperfunnel (talk) 21:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
149. Strongly support - LessayCatus (talk) 21:46, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
150. Emphatically Support - Wikipedia's information value is directly linked to the provider's objectivity. That isn't to say that the editor cannot be interested in the subject, but payment creates a conflict of interest in terms of objectivity. The payment is either going to be exclusively or almost exclusively in exchange for promoting a particular view, which will dilute or destroy objectivity.
151. Support - a clear policy should help
152. Support. Many paid editors are already declaring their affiliations. This can only help Wikipedia and for the community to provide support and more importantly control of possibly biased content. Something I noticed: Many people who are voting, they are not signing. A community vote is not a series of edits from the same person coming in from several IPs. Vote counters beware. --FocalPoint (talk) 22:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
153. Support: this amendment maintains the spirit of openness fundamental to Wikipedia. Such disclosures can help readers decide whether or not who is paying for a contribution may influence or bias its perspective.--65.199.189.6 22:19, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
154. Undisclosed paid contribution are rife with the risk of political, economic and historical spin and distortion. What makes Wikipedia a useful source of information is that people, in general, have to put their name to the contribution. If someone is being paid to contribute it should be noted so people can evaluate the potential of risk of distortions or spin. And that includes who paid the person.
155. Disclosure is good. It's also good to make clear that acknowledged and disclosed paid editing can sometimes be appropriate.
156. Support ITAC (talk) 23:15, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
157. Strongly support: it seems an obvious thing to do to keep the integrity of Wikipedia.
158. Support. Disclosure should not be used to whack someone over the head. Basically, someone with a disclosed conflict of interest should be protected when advocating for a position, as distinct from edit warring over it or actually, without adquate notice, placing POV material into articlees. They should never be dinged for "POV pushing," per se, since we expect a paid or COI editor to have a POV. Disclosure should not protect them from the consequences of disruptive behavior, of course. The wikis may decide, in a case-by-case basis, what restrictions to place on editing by COI editors. --Abd (talk) 23:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
159. Support. --Mox La Push (talk) 23:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
160. Bold text Strongly Support. Transparency is a must!
161. Support Jeepday (talk) 00:22, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Strongly Oppose -- it is easier to manage trolls, than the powerful corporate interests. Knowledge will work itself out. Free access gives access to all. If approved, it will be the beginning of the end of the spirit of wiki.
2. Strongly Oppose -- I don't not believe this is going to solve anything, and may prohibit good editors from editing articles that they have a large amount of knowledge about. --Wildboy211 (talk) 18:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
3. Oppose -- This amendment will solve nothing, as contracts will be re-written and Wikipedia edits will simply be considered a free "bonus" alongside other services provided by an agency. Every edit should be judged on merits, should be factual and present accurate information. It is not relevant if said edit is paid for by someone if it has good quality - such a disclosure would diminish value of valid entries, when the payment was in all good faith (you could pay someone with writing skills to do it for you)
4. Oppose -- Even if labeling the paid contributors is practical for maintainig a Npov, Labeling them is like accepting the situation as normal and encouraging it. This situation is supposed to be out of wikis pollicies and we must not accept them. The reputattion of this enciclopedia wouldnt be the same if it is known that a great number of edit are paid and that pollocies allow this to happen. Unmismoobjetivo (talk) 13:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
5. Strongly Oppose -- Every edit, be it from a paid or non-paid person, should be judged on its own merits. Forcing people to disclose this would make it too easy to discriminate against them and content they create, even if it is perfectly valid and in line with what others are contributing.
6. Strongly Oppose
7. i'm very choqued that this important think is not wrigting in other languages. Et je suis "strongly oppose" à cet amandeandement. Si les gens veulent être rémunéré, il sn'ont qu'à publié allieurs. Qu'ils créent un autre wiki. Il doit exister une source de savoir gratuit, c'est wikipédia. C'est un opa inacceptable sur les baleurs qui ont fondé cette encyclopédie.--Jean.jul (talk) 01:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

   Salut Jean.jul ... le projet a été traduit en français, italien, espagnol, allemand, et japonais. Tu peux voir les traductions en haut de cette page. Geoffbrigham (talk) 01:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

8. Strongly Oppose- Why limit people. The exsisting system has always worked. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
9. Oppose — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 99.22.13.158 (talk) 01:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
10. Oppose -- didn't we just have a referendum on this in a different forum? I thought that the consensus there was against, but could be wrong. I agree with the first poster above. Paid editing can be a problem, but this amendment will only hurt people who are trying to do the best, NPOV work and not catch people who won't disclose. Mscuthbert (talk) 02:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC) [addendum 10-minutes later; realizing now that that discussion was on en:wp, not on meta]
11. Strongest possible oppose. This will do nothing to stop those POV-pushers and other paid editors who do not care for the rules in the first place, and will only serve to discourage those who genuinely mean well, because those are the ones who actually try to follow the rules. We should not automatically assume that all paid contributors necessarily have a COI, because to do so will only result in pushing away the many that indeed do not, such as GLAMs and other professionals who simply wish to share their knowledge. -— Isarra ༆ 03:03, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
12. Not that I think that we should be voting on this, but this seems as good a place as any other to state my objections. First, there's no evidence presented that (a) this is sufficiently widespread to require action and (b) this is causing sufficiently widespread content problems. Second, I feel that edits should stand and fall on their own merits; we shouldn't attempt to differentiate edits as to whether they were paid or not, just whether they are helpful or unhelpful. Third, paid editing may have different effects on different projects and this is the sort of thing that should be dealt with on a project-by-project basis, not globally. JYolkowski (talk) 03:12, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
13. Strongly Oppose -- no conclusive proof that paid admins or editors are adding entries that break the rules of wikipedia.
14. Oppose - As long as it does not violate the Wikipedia:NPOV and other rules pertaining to edits, it does not make any difference. Moreover, this does discourage people from making legitimate edits, even by making others judge such edits. And, as long as the policies and Terms of Service are not violated by contributing paid edits, such edits do not make much net differences. Rishikeshan (talk) 04:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
15. Oppose. Beyond the myriad of grey situations The Signpost points out, this rule is essentially unenforceable. There would have to be proof of a violation in order for WMF to take action. Without that proof, paid editing shall continue. Regardless of money changing hands, everyday Wikipedia will be assaulted by numerous pop culture fans, POV warriors, and vandals and this change will do nothing to solve that larger problem. Chris Troutman (talk) 08:34, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
16. While the outline of the proposal as given didn't sound that bad, the one thing that worries me with such a rule change is that it might cause people to try to remove legitimate information on the basis of it being posted by someone whom they don't like (even, potentially, in completely unrelated articles -- example, Person A noticing So-and-So is the owner of a company he hates, so Person A starts reading through everything So-and-So ever posted, looking for things to make complaints against.) While there is a separate harassment rule that's supposed to combat this sort of thing, it sounds like it would be inviting more of these kinds of problems, and strife for everyone. All in all, it seems to me like as long as the citing sources rule is followed, it shouldn't really matter if someone was paid to post it or not -- any source in a Wiki article might have been created by a paid, biased person, so what difference does it make after that? --
17. Strongly Oppose -- Most articles are written by experts, but experts inevitably are employed in a way that creates a theoretical conflict of interest, even though it seems most edits seek accuracy rather than angle. Are you going to forbid Google employees from editing the Microsoft Bing page? Or the Information Retrieval page? How about the Microsoft employees? Wikipedia works because for every malevolent edit there is a curative counter-edit; leave it that way. Otherwise "Discussion" pages are just going to fill up with even more nonconstructive, unprovable flame-war about 'conflict of interest,' you're going to require people who contribute to Wikipedia to jump through even more hoops than they already do, and you're ultimately just going to drive more potential contributors away while not fixing anything in the process. 67.164.149.104 08:44, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
18. Strongly oppose. You don't have to prove your good faith, you don't have to say where you're working, you just have to say that you're paid for contributions. And that's enough.--Sammyday (talk) 13:13, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
19. Oppose -- All edits and newly made pages should be judged on their merit which includes quality of references, writing, and notability. The Tallest Tower (talk) 13:21, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
20. Strongly Oppose as underthought bad implementation -- It should be obvious from the many comments that the proposd is more heavily flawed than the existing situation and would cause things to get worse not better. I'll suggest that WP should start by following norms on guidance -- begin a WP:PAID page and have WP admins including grant holders test out following it -- and reorient thinking into NPOV and goal being 'how do we guide this towards being a good thing'. Markbassett (talk) 15:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
21. Oppose, as redundant, in addition to the following: we would be giving up, as a community, the right to collectively decide who can edit and how, by placing that decision in the hands of the foundation. Effort after effort to ban paid editing has failed, that is the will of the editorial body--this smacks of a minority trying to find any way to get around the majority because it doesn't like the will of the people. Jeremy112233 (talk) 15:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

    I would also add that this being written in English, as something that would effect all languages is extremely problematic as it takes away the right to vote of thousands of non-English Wikipedians who cannot access this discussion due to language barriers!!! Jeremy112233 (talk) 15:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

22. Oppose. Neutral and verifiable content is neutral and verifiable content. If it's not, remove it. If it is, leave it in. Should we require members of a church to identify themselves when editing articles involving that faith? Should people have to self-identify their ethnic heritage when editing articles on a historic genocide? There are so many places where bias come into play in Wikipedia that calling out one form of bias as being more damaging to the encyclopedia than others is, in my opinion, inappropriate and creates second-class content. I will say that, as a PR guy by trade who nevertheless has only edited Wikipedia for a client maybe a half-dozen times, my professional association's ethics already require me to identify when I'm speaking on somebody's behalf and I've always done so. Jmozena (talk) 15:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
23. Oppose -- This is a rule attempting to indirectly fix a perceived problem. First, where is the data indicating that paid edits are a substantial problem? Second, if the problem with paid edits is that they are not up to WikiMedia standards, that should be addressed directly with modifications to submission rules rather than targeting of certain users. Third, how could this ever be enforced? There will always be more ways to hide paid activity than there are ways to detect it. This rule will simply send the worst offenders deeper into the shadows while potentially discouraging valuable content. 67.152.152.11 15:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
24. Oppose WMF legal department is trying to enter of spying of users, breaches of privacy of user and violates the autonomy project. The lawyers from legal department of WMF are trying to guess the intentions of editing users and legal department is trying decided about possibility of editing by users. Meanwhile, it is important that the editing is NPOV, WER etc. and not whether the editor got or not to got the money. I agree also with Jeremy that lawyers of WMF takes away the right to vote of thousands of non-English Wikipedians. This proposition is the next step from legal department of WMF to exclude users from project and yourself decide on all matters not only Wikipedia, but even but even about what motives editing must have a user. The extreme arrogance ! --Piotr967 (talk) 15:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
25. Oppose. The only argument provided is to help the editors avoid their own liability: that's their concern and is no reason to adjust our policy. If there's some other, better argument to be made, make it.LlywelynII (talk) 15:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
26. Oppose - see below
27. Strongly Oppose - Go to any public discussion forum where individuals share unpopular views or views which are seen to be those of a large group; the calls of "paid shills" are vehement. Do we want this sort of crowing to exist even moreso within the wikipedia talk pages, now citing a rule? I do not think this makes any sense. The moderated anarchy of wikipedia is what keeps it useful, this serves no purpose other than making people with a financial bias (rather than the nonfinancial biases the rest of us do) wear a scarlet letter. --Dramamoose (talk) 17:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
28. Oppose -- A case of trying to swat a fly with a sledgehammer. In my own situation, I often work as a conrractor for a certain high-tech Fortune 500 corporation you all have heard of. In the past, I have helped some individuals with writing Wikipedia articles, & sometimes I have edited articles about technology they sell, although prior to their submission -- & sometimes during business hours. (For the record, my contribution has been to format them, & make them conform to Wikipedia standards. Once added to Wikipedia, my attitude towards them is that they live or die on their own merits; I do not have a yardstick for notability in that subject to know which subjects are notable.) However, I am contractually bound not to disclose this relationship. (See Nondisclosure Agreement in any encyclopedia.) So, in effect, this proposal will forbid me from contributing to any technology-related article, even to fix typos or add references. Thanks a lot, WMF. -- Llywrch (talk) 17:08, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
29. Oppose - I'm going to throw my oppose vote in here, on the basis that the Wikimedia Foundation, its founder, and its vendors who are paid with WMF donors' money, have not amply demonstrated (even as recently as 2013) that they are themselves capable of properly disclosing their financial or other professional conflicts of interest when editing Wikipedia. If the WMF, founder, and vendors can properly abide by this proposed amendment for the period of six months, then the WMF legal team can present it to the board. But if we catch multiple failures to properly disclose, then the clock re-starts for another six months. -- Thekohser (talk) 17:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
30. Oppose -- Everyone has his or her right to advocacy. Also unenforceable. Very naive idea. Alonso McLaren (talk) 17:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
31. Oppose - It's the content of the edit, not who's doing it, that matters. If a paid editor is making POV edits, there are already ways to deal with it. Furthermore, a dishonest editor wouldn't follow this proposed rule any more than the existing rules which such inappropriate editing already breaks. Indyguy (talk) 17:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
32. Strongest possible oppose - "Paid editing" is like a wolf in sheep's clothing, because it is naive to assume that such editors will have the best interests of our wikis at heart. If this amendment is implemented, it will give a green light for any business to take advantage of this "free advertising". If this proposal is implemented, it won't be long before someone proposes that we solve the cashflow problem by hosting advertisements. Eventually we will end up with some business-appointed bigwig sitting on our board. Where will it stop? If you have the time, please look at the history of the Cooperative Bank, which used to have community-focussed purposes until it let sly and subversive people lead it up the garden path, with small changes here and there (all with the "best of intentions"). The final nail in the coffin was a blundering chairman who left the bank deep in crisis. This is what will happen to us if we let profit-oriented people and organizations to get their foot in the door. Green Giant supports NonFreeWiki (talk) 17:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
33. This goes against everything I have though Wikipedia to be. It fundamentally changes the face of editing, by allowing for anyone to be paid to edit so long as they "disclose" that fact. No disclosure can make up for the complete reversal of policy and culture that this can and does permit. Therefore, I have no choice but to oppose in the strongest way possible. --Hamtechperson (talk) 18:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

    Hi Hamtechperson - To be clear, this proposed amendment does not endorse paid editing: it requires its disclosure to ensure against misrepresentation of affiliation. Wikimedia communities on their various projects are free to impose stricter standards and even ban paid editing, which a few communities have periodically discussed. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

34. Oppose - I put on my user hat to answer this. As a frequent reader of English language Wikipedia articles containing information about countries that use other languages, I assume that many of those contributors are paid editors, if for nothing other than translations. I oppose any further burdens being placed on world contributors who may shy from additional red tape. I think the monitoring system for content, references, quality, and COI works well, as is.--Bonnielou2013 (talk) 18:35, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
35. Strongly Oppose as underthought bad implementation - please see vote and comment above by Markbassett as I concur with his reasoning Abyssoft (talk) 19:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
36. Strongly Oppose - This amendment would be antithetical to Wikipedia. If the content isn't neutral or verifiable, any user can remove. It seems counterproductive to identify problematic content and then track down the editor that contributed it just to ridicule them. I think this amendment would harm Wikipedia. Paviliolive (talk) 19:24, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
37. Strongly Oppose - An ill thought legislation that may well have the exact opposite of it's intended effect. As per Markbassett and Abyssoft before me. Falerin (talk) 19:34, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
38. Oppose for two reasons: a) People may have personal preferations or interests which bias editing, believe in certain theories, technologies or trends which make them create more lexicon material regarding these themes - while perfectly out of the amendment, this is certainly kind of “self-paid” editing. b) As possibly quite a lot of people, I'm kind of a corporate man. I talk my employer, though I am not paid for this opinion, and I am very anxious not to under- or overemphasize products or technologies we promote here. For the matters of this amendment, however, I would see also these cautious remarks “paid edits enough” and either refrain from further editing or simply add my employer as a precaution although Wikipedia editing never was nor will become part of my job.--Tinne (talk) 20:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
39. Oppose Same as Sammyday : too intrusive. We're strangers among strangers, no knowing who we are is the default state, and suddenly one should disclose employer and client ? That's too much, for too narrow a purpose - paid editing is in no way the only conflict of interest one can have on WP. Esprit Fugace (talk) 20:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
40. Strongly oppose: No one seems to have thought this through. Violating privacy rights and anonymity principles in order to direct attention to conflicts of interests stemming from economic motives, as opposed to political, personal, religious, juridical etc ones.--Toter Alter Mann (talk) 21:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
41. Strongly Oppose - I feel this is just an invitation to concentrate on the editor instead of the edits, and will cause talk pages to get even more bogged down in speculation of motivations and identities. Moreover, there are legitimate reasons that people, even those whom WMF puts its trust in, not to want to identify themselves, at least that was the conclusion of WMF Legal from the Access to non-public data debate. Jztinfinity (talk) 21:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
42. Strong opposition This is exactly the discussion that failed at Wikipedia 3 separate times, for good reason. I'm amazed that it's coming up again in a different forum so soon. 0x0077BE (talk) 22:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
43. Oppose - contributions to Wikimedia projects should be judged by their merits, not the contributor's motives. --Joshua Issac (talk) 22:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
44. Oppose — Such a regulation could be easily misused to discredit editors with different views. Many editors edit pages on topics they work professionally with, or have as a hobby on a professional level. They love the topic, and just that is why they know a lot and can write a lot about the topic. I have witnessed a lot of cases (at least on my home Wikipedia) somebody got accused of positive bias because of it ("only a neutral editor without any affection to topic can write a good Wikipedia article about it"). Some of them left Wikipedia after being chased in this way, and I am sure Wikipedia is poorer without them. And such a regulation could be easily misused to get such professionals banned (if they have not fully disclosed their professional etc. affiliation) or chased even more (if they have disclosed their professional affiliation and get even more often accused of non-neutral point of view). --Mmh (talk) 22:48, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
45. Oppose We're really going to take legal action against someone who does this sort of thing? I have a clause in my employment manual at work that governs how I represent my company online; I'm supposed to disclose that "these views are my own and do not represent those of the company I work for" or something along those lines. I'm also supposed to report anything that I see online that negatively portrays my company. Work is work, life outside of work is my own. Seems like a waste of time, when all the "paid-contributor" has to do is create another account, not disclose what they're doing and away they go again... Have we ever brought legal action against someone who violates the Terms of Service on Wikipedia? If not, why does this matter? Oaktree b (talk) 22:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
46. Oppose Contributions should be valued by the content, not by motives (although I see the dependence of motive and content) --Murma174 (talk) 22:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
47. Oppose. Not in the terms of use. As a local project policy, no problem with an individual community deciding this, but I see no good rationale for being centralistic here. darkweasel94 (talk) 23:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
48. Oppose. If money was involved then some information could be bias and influenced by that money.
49. Oppose. In particular, the legal threat in the proposed amendment is odious. Edits should be considered on a case-by-case basis. I thought that "assume good faith" was the modus operandi here. Moreover, unscrupulous people with a hidden agenda will simply ignore this rule and continue to be disruptive. --When in doubt, eat potatoes (talk) 00:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Who is we?

The text starts with 'we'. Please put the names and affiliations of these people (comercial, political, religious). We need to know who is behind this idea. We need full transparency.

I previously explained below that the "we"is the WMF legal department. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 14:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I have BOLDly replaced the first "We" with "The Wikimedia Foundation Legal Department". Dodger67 (talk) 16:49, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Technically, the Executive Director would have to agree and ask the Board. That said, I'm fine with the edit for its purposes. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Expenses, bursaries, grants, etc

Certain political forces represented by people such as George Soros are currently engaging in a "new media" initiative. Soros for example recently pulled much of his funding of 'patch.com', a system of local news websites. Now, other news websites are popping up, with a similar political slant to 'patch.com'. The difference is, they all appear to be small, independent sites. They get funding from a number of grants, organizations, and private individuals, making the major sources hard to trace. As a small town news website administrator, I know first hand, that donations of this type are few and far between. Therefore I don't see how many of these seemingly independent sites can afford to pay a staff or writers, unless they are getting funding, ultimately, from political forces with deep pockets exc. I do think all paid contributions that have to do with editing of pages should list the benefactors, parent sources exc, all the way up to the private donors in my opinion.

It should be made clear how receiving expenses, grants, bursaries or similar payment from the Foundation, a chapter or other affiliated or associated organisation relates to these proposals.

For example, Wikimedia UK have just approved a grant to an editor to cover travel and related expenses to photograph public art in order to produce a featured list on the English Wikipedia (details). Would this need to be disclosed under the terms of this amendment? Thryduulf (en.wikt,en.wp,commons) 23:06, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I was supported by Wikimedia Australia a couple of years ago to take photographs of a region where there was next to nothing and I just placed them in a category https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_by_Gnangarra_sponsored_by_Wikimedia_Australia, like wise for another person https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_sponsored_by_Wikimedia_Australia who had the same. Its useful just for reporting of your activities back to the chapter to categorise photos as a result of that, I see no need beyond that for such activities. Gnangarra (talk) 23:41, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

These are good points. I don't believe incidental charges to facilitate legitimate NPOV editing are intended to be covered by the amendment. Compensation for the editing service is. I think we could address your concern by including an FAQ that clarifies this point. Would that work?

On grants, I do not see a reason not to disclose the grants if the intent of the grant is to constitute payment for the editing services. Indeed our movement grants are granted in a transparent way, and I think that principle of transparency appropriately follows any compensation for editing. Those are my preliminary views, so I'm open to different views or nuances based on the experience and insights of the community. Thanks for your helpful comments. Geoffbrigham (talk) 00:56, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Certainly on the first part, an FAQ would do the job well. Probably for the second part too, but I need to be more awake than I am now to understand it fully. Thryduulf (en.wikt,en.wp,commons) 01:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I support transparency (and a FAQ). To quote Jimbo There are some good reasons to disclose, and no real reasons (are there?) not to disclose.. However, if there is caution, it may arise from another quote of Jimbo's (talk page) It's the first step from the board in banning paid advocacy editing of all kinds. I trust that Jimbo chose his words carefully, and banning "piad advocacy editing" is not the same as banning "pad editing". I know that Jimbo has made this distinction clear in the past, but not all users have followed all of the history, so may need to be reassured on occasion.--Sphilbrick (talk) 14:39, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Without expressing a very strong opinion either way, I wanted to say that I don't see any reason not to disclose "travel and related expenses to photograph public art". There are some good reasons to disclose, and no real reasons (are there?) not to disclose. The disclosure doesn't have to be framed in a negative way (why would it be?). "These photographs were made possible by a grant from Wikimedia UK to cover travel and related expenses." Sounds positive to me, not negative, so why avoid it?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:03, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The uploads are already disclosed. There's these categories and associated templates (e.g.) used in the file description page. -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 09:51, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I certainly wasn't suggesting there was a reason not to disclose, I was just querying whether these this TOU update would make disclosure mandatory or not. Thryduulf (en.wikt,en.wp,commons) 10:08, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

AfD type discussions

I think it should also be a requirement that it get disclosed in any discussion forums where the articles future is discussed.... Gnangarra (talk) 23:23, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Gnangarra - The amendment does cover paid edits on the talk pages, so I think this scenario would be covered in many situations. Geoffbrigham (talk) 00:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I think this proposal is fair if the price is minimal for editing pages, e.g under £2.50 GBP per edit would be fair and raise revenue for the site and on top of that not discourage users from using the site altogether.

competition

I also think that a disclosure should be made when editting articles about competitors or topics that could be considered as promoting the client. For example adding a links to the "list of Encyclopedias" or topic "Free culture" when the client is WMF. Gnangarra (talk) 23:32, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Gnangarra (again): The amendment would cover such edits if the user was being compensated to make those edits. Geoffbrigham (talk) 01:00, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes it does, see the Questions section of the proposal. --NaBUru38 (talk) 18:56, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Data privacy & what constitutes compensation

Are there any data privacy concerns around requiring this kind of disclosure, especially in the EU? What about the potential facilitation of stalking, where a stalker might use the nexus of a wiki identity with an employer or affiliate to establish identity?

What if someone works in an outreach position at a university, or as an educator in some field, and contributes as part of their job but doesn't receive compensation specifically for editing? I'm thinking about the various Wikipedian in Residence people, teachers who may contribute as part of teaching students to contribute or classes using Wikipedia content as course material, health outreach personnel who make contributing health information in their native language part of their job description, etc. Are these examples where disclosure of employer etc. would be required? Nathan ^T 00:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

@Nathan: I do not think this is really a data privacy issue -- the privacy regulations usually require notice and consent, but you are allowed to disclose information about yourself. If a user's employer does not consent to being disclosed, then they should not engage in paid editing. Stalking and harassment are not allowed under the Terms of Use, and projects have additional policies on the topic (such as WP:OUTING on English Wikipedia). As to the second question, users should disclose if they receive payment for their editing. In fact, Wikipedians in Residence usually explain their affiliation on their user page (consistent with this provision), and exemplify some of the best practices for transparency and disclosure. Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 02:04, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Stephen, I think you may be missing Nathan's point regarding stalking. Yes, of course stalking is against the TOU, but that doesn't mean that certain unwholesome individuals won't do it anyway (indeed, I can think of a few examples off the top of my head where it has happened). We shouldn't make it easy for these sorts of people to find out real-life details of those they're in disputes with, as the potential for real-life consequences can be significant, TOU or otherwise. Craig Franklin (talk) 12:23, 20 February 2014 (UTC).

Wiki Projects were never conceived to host paid-for contents; we don't ask ordinary users to disclose their data, since they produce what we ask them to produce. But paid contributions are out of the Projects' scope, ideally no one should make them; if someone still wants to test it, it's at his own risk. --g (talk) 01:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Craig, thank you for clarifying. I responded to this point a little further below, in Unintended consequences of disclosure, since it was raised again. Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 01:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hypothetical (but not all that hypothetical) examples for discussion

(cross-posted, with edits and additional material, from an En-WP discussion a few months ago, here)

In considering an updated policy or TOS provision addressing paid or COI editing, we need to make sure that it addresses the types of situation that frequently come up in this area, and does so in a way that accords with how we want these situations to be handled, and with common sense. Below are some hypothetical situations—but mostly derived from actual situations I am aware of over the years—in which an editor could be accused of having a paid interest or COI. How do we want to address them? Does the proposed TOS addition do so well, or how might it be changed to do so better?

Of course, given the specific proposal at issue here, the expected answer to all these situations would be along the lines of "make the disclosure." However, each incident could be looked at from the point of view of "is it realistic that editors in this position will do that, and do we need them to?" In some instances below, the answer is probably yes; others may be more borderline.

(Note: The examples refer to "Wikipedia", but could apply with minor tweaking to most if not all projects.)

Example 1:
I am an experienced Wikipedia editor, perhaps an administrator. A friend is an author who has published several novels that are still in print. He does not have a Wikipedia article, and would like to have one. Knowing that I'm active on Wikipedia, he asks me to create an article for him. He gives me information about his background and books to include in the article. There is no question in my mind that the author meets the applicable notability guideline. May I write the article? Do I have to disclose anything if I do write the article? If my friend offers to take me to dinner to thank me for agreeing to write the article, may I accept?

Example 2:
I work at a university library. The library contains archival and manuscript collections of the personal papers of dozens of historical and literary figures, which are of interest to scholars. Our collections are underutilized, and we would like to have more visitors use them. I want to add a short paragraph to the Wikipedia article of each person whose papers our library holds, mentioning that his or her papers are at our facility and providing a link to the online finding aid. May I do so?

Example 3:
I'm the public relations manager for one of the two daily newspapers in a mid-sized city. The other newspaper has a well-written Wikipedia article, which was created several years ago. My newspaper, which has about the same circulation and level of prominence, does not have an article. The owner wishes it did. What are my options?

Example 4:
I'm the mayor of a small city. I have a Wikipedia article, but it's a couple of years old and seriously out of date. I post on the talkpage asking if someone will update my article, and I provide neutral, verifiable information to update it with, but after a few weeks, no one has does the updating. May I update it myself? If I'm not supposed to but I do anyway, what happens? What if I am the mayor's paid campaign manager, or the city's public relations manager, instead of the mayor herself?

Example 4A:
Same as example 4, except instead of a mayor, I'm the President of a Fortune 500 company, or her media assistant.

Example 5:
I'm in the marketing department at a large law firm that has an existing article. A famous lawyer joins our firm. Can I edit the article to mention this increase in our ranks? What if I am the famous lawyer myself? A member of the lawyer's family? One of the lawyer's clients?

Discussion of examples

If I'm not mistakes, there are rules already for most of the cases.

The example 1 isn't related to paid contributions. The same could be said about non-profit volunteers. Now that should be dealt with. --NaBUru38 (talk) 18:55, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

In all cases except #1, I think that common sense, our desired outcome, and the proposed changes to TOU line up. There should be disclosure.

Case 1 is the canonical "I'm just adding NPOV material and not getting anything for it" case. In practice, I'd think this case is incredibly rare. First, if you're really not getting anything for it, the proposed change in TOU doesn't affect it. I'd go so far as saying if all you got was a cup of coffee and a danish ($10 at NY prices), then you need not disclose. The dividing point on what's "too much of a 'payment'" should be common sense and handled on an individual case basis, but I'll say that a $200 dinner (again at NY prices) would be too much and would have to be disclosed. I'll also say that admins should stay as far away from paid editing as possible - they should even declare the cup of coffee. Smallbones (talk) 19:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Re: #5 - Wiki is not the same as LinkedIn. Personnel announcements belong on job sites. If a single attorney is truly notable, they will likely have their own page already, with a mention that they are employed at Fizzywig & Whatsit on that page, linking back to the firm; the firm will have a link to their website in External Links that will (or should) list their attorneys in detail. If it is something along the lines of "Johnny Comelately, prosecuting attorney on the Hoover Dam collapse trial, joined the firm in May 2014", that would seem to be acceptable. What I've seen is various attorneys (or marketing, relatives, etc.) using the pages to promote their upcoming public office campaigns by getting hits for their websites and not necessarily being of any other note, or firms sensationalizing their services or importance. Disclosure should be required for anyone or thing potentially "selling" themselves or goods to the casual reader who may not know better. LovelyLillith (talk) 23:33, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I think case #1 wouldn't even count, but I do think most or even all of these should be allowable provided the usual "verifiable sources" rule is followed.--67.164.149.104 08:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

"that the community considers problematic"

I also question this as a basis for making any kind of decision. Someone needs to do some real science on the problem and then find out what the data have to say about it: find out what percentage of articles are affected by compensated authors, how many are actually inaccurate or slanted, what the community perception actually is (based on formal survey data), etc.

I question this base for the propsal. The issue has come up on en:wp, and in discussion on Wikimedia-I there seems to be very different views on this from other language versions, specillay from the middle sized ones or smalle ones.

I am defintely against this proposal as a general amendment. It will stop many potential good contributers and make the number of contributers to dwindle even more. And on smaller verions it can mean we will come below critical mass of contributers. On sv:wp we have had no real prolem with this issue. if we think it is a potential COI that can be problematic, we ask the user if he has a special reltion to the subject he/she is contributing to.--Anders Wennersten (talk) 05:52, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Nearly all of the core content policies on en, and likely on other Wikipedias are concerned with the integrity of the information we publish. Neutrality, verifiability, BLP, sourcing, etc. Our integrity, or at minimum, the perception of it, is damaged if we do not have a solid policy regarding paid editing. The practical problem is likely less on a smaller Wiki, where there are both more neutral resources to review edits, and there is less appeal to abuse the Wiki because of lower search engine relevance. But without a policy, the reputation of all projects will be damaged. This is an even bigger risk to long term participation in my opinion, since no one neutral will care to edit a discredited Wikipedia that has begun to be viewed as a forum for corporate shills and advertisers. Gigs (talk) 16:58, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

You express a lot af percettpion I do not share. Our integrety sytands strong independ if this policy come into place. Our reputation will not be harmed, on teh co0ntrary a policy like this Will harm or reputation. And the participation rate will go drasticly if this was to be implemented in svwp. We have a strong and frutiful cohabit that produce a lot of good and neatrla aticles.--Anders Wennersten (talk) 18:21, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Please excuse my bad English, but I will try to add some comments regarding the proposal. I partly agree with Anders Wennersten, this seems to be an issue on English language version on Wikipedia, on the Norwegian Bokmål/Riksmål version the bigger problem is that a lot of articles that should be written, or expanded, are not. Will this amendment make that easier?

It also seems that most, if not all of this is covered already in our rules for neutrality, verifiability etc. Reading through parts of the Terms of Use (which I have never read before) I came across that I am not allowed to post child pornography. What about detailed blueprints for chemical weapons, or nuclear warheads? As far as I know both are bad & forbidden in all countries. It seems that the Terms of Use is very much suited for a lawyer, US-centered standpoint. We have some basic rules and as Less is more I believe we should keep to it, if at all possible.

So instead of adding this clause the whole Terms of Use should be shortened, going from covering every small possible problem to basically tell the users our few basic rules and then explain that you should behave, as if you were "in the real world", if not you will get yourself into trouble. Ulflarsen (talk) 19:06, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Anders, I take rather the opposite view. I think paid editing holds potent dangers for damage. Speaking only for myself, if I as a volunteer thought I would need regularly to engage paid contributors in POV issues, I would question why I should devote my time and energy to it. Corporate sponsorship always has the potential for overwhelming individual efforts. What's more, I don't come to Wikipedia as a reader in order to view the best advertising. Any interest I have in obtaining information gravitates naturally to neutral and trusted sources. My perception is that corporate motives are often suspect, too often and too suspect to be worth trying to disentangle the credible from the incredible. My opinion is that the most powerful interests have other forums in which to make testimonies, but Wikipedia serves a different function. We already have policies regarding conflict of interest, as we must. Paid conflicts of interest have potential to be entirely destructive if not subject to constant scrutiny. This policy (or something like it) provides a necessary regulation, a means of keeping balance even under pressure. And it will serve well to help editors see and weigh the balances in the many less obvious circumstances, such as those listed in the hypothetical examples section above.

Ulflarsen, I do appreciate that the situations faced by Wikipedia in other languages can be quite different. And I generally like the idea "less is more" in the sense that more is never better if it is unnecessary. I also yield to your point about legalism and its influence in the U.S. - all too unfortunately true. But I think this policy proposal is about a different (and equally unfortunate) influence: the power of money to shape and communicate information. This also is something we deal with daily in the U.S.; marketing and lobbying are pervasive. Beware that its influence can reach across political boundaries much more quickly and more easily than any legal or official matter. It can penetrate national borders readily; it generates political or legal issues only later, after influences have begun to be felt. I tend to view the English Wikipedia as a front line for dealing with these effects where they are most powerful. But if they are not addressed here, I believe they will affect Wikipedia throughout in other languages as well. Evensteven (talk) 19:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Anders, Ulf: thank you for your very serious, thoughtful comments - they are causing me, at least, to think very hard. Believe it or not, I also agree about the creeping influence of legalism - it is unhealthy, and I wish we had better tools to address this problem. :/ At the same time, whenever a project gets large and becomes high profile, it will face the problem of commercialism, regardless of where it is. We tried to craft this to give communities a fairly simple, minimal tool to help deal with that problem - trust me, if we'd wanted to write something much longer or more complex, we could have! We thought this approach would be inoffensive in small communities while giving a good tool to larger communities; maybe we need to recalibrate that a bit but I still think it seems like a fairly good basic approach. —LuisV (WMF) (talk) 00:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Harassment and outing

I would like WMF legal to consider the implications of harassment and outing regarding possible implementation of this policy. At the present, there is a very dangerous problem with Wikipedia of people using paid editing as a way of violating local policies regarding harassment and outing. Namely, these policies are ignored if people make the allegation that some one is in any way a paid editor. This recommendation would estentially enshrine into policy that dangerous practice by further encouraging people to target Wikipedia editors employment. Because the worst cases I have seen have involved women (and gender specific harassment), this potentially leaves open the WMF to violating the civil rights of women by creating a hostile workplace for them, whether they work for the WMF or not. Also, it encourages harassment, and successful harassment at that. The WMF supporting this is esentially the WMF supporting the harassment of volunteers and their employment. Beyond hurting the potential to recruit new editors, it will also hurt the WMF's ability to hire new employees from within the community because no sane person and quality candidate is going to want to subject themselves to potential job loss any given day because the community has been licensed by the WMF to harass editors. --LauraHale (talk) 08:25, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Or is it Wikipedia's Outing policy that is leading to the banning of editors who try to address significant conflict of interest among some of the editors here? Yes we need to find a balance between the two. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

There are always trade-offs. I agree, a balance needs to be found. Right now, the balance is skewed too far to one side, where there is complete permissiveness towards those who are editing Wikimedia projects by proxy for institutions willing to pay to manipulate the information on those projects. That permissiveness is tempered only by whatever local efforts are made at those projects, which can be difficult without the direct support of WMF. This amendment need not lead to witch hunts; on the contrary, it can serve as a guide for people so that they can take a reasonable approach to dealing with paid editors. -- Atama頭 16:39, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The situation is very similar to sockpuppets, in that it is inevitable that such investigations will sometimes require the disclosure of information that ties accounts to identities. We've been doing sock puppet investigations for years. In the case of inappropriate harassment or disclosure, we have all the normal tools of oversight and edit suppression to deal with those. Gigs (talk) 16:44, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, Gigs. And if LauraHale is right about a dangerous mix involving conflicts of interest, harassment, and outing, then that is the signal that paid editing is perceived as being so serious an issue that some have resorted to undermining important WP policies in order to address it. We need a policy like this all the more then, in order to achieve a balance in editing, and to maintain proper supports for all those important policies. Evensteven (talk) 20:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

English Wikipedia's polciy on "outing" is commonly applied in a ludicrously restrictive way. There are many ways in which this applies, but the one that is relevant here is that anyone who is paid to use Wikipedia to promote the interests of a business, person, or organisation should not be hiding the fact. If the "outign" polciy says otherwise tehn theat polciy needs revision. LauraHale asserts that this particularly affects women, but provides no eivdence for that assetion: I would be interested to see the evidence. As for "hurting the potential to recruit new editors", no, it would only hurt the potential to "recruit" new editors whose purpose is to abuse Wikipedia by secretly and covertly using it to promote. The fewer of that sort of editors we "recruit" the better. As for "potential job loss any given day because the community has been licensed by the WMF to harass editors": What? Why? How on earth does requiring people who are paid to promote the interests of a prticualr party to disclise the fact amount to a lciense "to harass editors"? And why on earth should such a paid editor be likely to lose their job because they are required to be honest and open about the fact that they are being paid to edit Wikipedia? JamesBWatson (talk) 20:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that those who wish to "abuse Wikipedia by secretly and covertly using it to promote" will continue to do so regardless of the ToU. True, the Foundation might be able to sue them if it could identify them and prove loss (both hard), but I'm not certain that it would. Indeed doing so might be "problematic" itself. Rich Farmbrough 22:19 20 February 2014 (GMT).

Unintended consequences of disclosure

LauraHale, Nathan, and others have raised this issue, and so I think it's worth clarifying a little more. It's a good question, and this amendment should not be an excuse for other users to disobey other community policies and standards.

The community's processes depend on transparency, which must be occasionally balanced against the interests of users who do not wish to disclose information about their employer or affiliation. The Terms of Use, and other project policies (like WP:OUTING), do not allow harassment or stalking. As others pointed out above, this is a similar question to enforcing sockpuppet rules, and other Wikipedias already have similar disclosure requirements for conflict of interest editing (like Spanish Wikipedia's COI policy). When there are cases where users feel harassed, then that is a bigger issue than a paid contribution disclosure, and should be dealt with more directly (or comprehensively) as necessary. But if users wish to avoid disclosing any information about their affiliation, they should also not submit paid contributions. Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 01:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I think you are too dismissive of the problems regarding uneven and highly selective enforcement of such policies, especially in the situation of a high-status "insider" versus a low-status "outsider". A simple inspection of this discussion page will show many people with a passionate attitude that paid contributors are regarded as (my phrasing) enemies-of-the-state. While I have no dog in this fight, having such contributors required to in effect paint targets on themselves does not strike me as something which will go well for them. The issue that while de jure, bad things should not happen, de facto, bad things are likely to happen, needs to be factored into considering the consequences of a policy. Basically, if there's an angry mob, feeding the mob more prey shouldn't be excused by saying it's a separate problem if the mob is hurting anyone in the first place. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 04:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

1. I think, if one doesn't want to disclose, who he is, in his main account, he simply should have a sockpuppet, where he may state that he has another account but not which one or where he doesn't state it, but doesn't vote on official pages - What's the problem?

2. I think, that stating that I am Kersti Nebelsiek (which in fact is my realname) on a hypothetical Kersti Nebelsiek article talk page would be an advantage if I want to enter the information that I am born in Giessen (Germany) on september 22 1969 and a disadvantage if I wanted to tell, that Kersti Nebelsiek is right in everything she writes on her webpage and everyone should believe her. And that is how it should be. (In fact that's kind of a joke - my webpage http://www.kersti.de/ contains mainly the ideas of mine, which I didn't read somewhere else before. Therefore they are ideas, interesting to think about, but absolutely nothing where it would be a good idea to believe it blindly!)

3. If someone has a real understandable problem to disclose his identity - maybe because he writes about a topic, where in real-live are thrown bombs - thats an exemption of this rule if you ask me.

--Kersti (talk) 05:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I think you have some right in the direction of "balance between benefits of transparency and needs of users" but that it needs to get more neutral non-demonizing in analysis and go deeper in not being easily dismissive of effort to designing a better way. That transparency is made possible including some WP:PAID guidance on how and when it should be used should be thinking also about that transparency giving value to users of both reader and editor without being a big pain and useless. Don't want to tell users that they have to go thru a long account process; see the large percentage of editors in histories are red with no profile, and I think an even larger percentage seems to be those with little personal information content in profile. And I do think that having CDC wikimedian would be a good thing and that they and we would benefit from knowing when an edit about Swine Flu is from them. Markbassett (talk) 15:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I've suggested a counter-solution below. I think email is the best way; it's not as public as user page display, which can easily enable outing, but it's archived sufficiently enough that in times of necessity we can call the right people to refer back to the paid editor to verify and resolve any problems. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 17:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Concealment and Deception

Forgive me in advance if this is a daft question, but IANAL.

Is this amendment intended only to cover deceptive practices (such as deliberately concealing or misrepresenting one's affiliation)? If it's intended to stamp out things like WikiPR's stealth editing on behalf of paying clients, then I'm all in favour of it. However, I do worry that good faith contributions by employees and volunteers for GLAM institutions may also be covered, and that's not a good thing. Can I be given some assurance that this clause isn't going to be used to swat a librarian or museum curator who thinks they're doing the right thing by uploading some pictures of items in their collection, but is not aware that they need to make a full declaration of their affiliation, with the full force of the WMF legal department? Basically, punishing deliberate deception I am fine with, punishing honest mistakes or omissions I'm not.

Also, will previous contributions be covered, or only contributions made after the date this is included in the TOU? For instance, would a GLAM employee who made edits at the behest of their employer in 2013 be required to disclose this affiliation now in 2014? Craig Franklin (talk) 12:35, 20 February 2014 (UTC).

I don't think it's a bad thing to include GLAM, and I think it's necessary in order to have a coherent policy. As with most things, we shouldn't be punishing good faith efforts that happen to break a rule, we should just tell the person about the rule and how they can not break it in the future, whether GLAM or otherwise. GLAM outreach people should educate on this topic as well, the same way they educate about all of the other intricacies of Wikipedia such as licensing. I have seen some GLAM outreach editors making pre-emptive disclosures on en:WP:COIN even without a foundation-wide policy, and I think that's a good thing. Gigs (talk) 16:39, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Common sense is common sense. If you're willing to come down hard on good faith contributors who make a mistake without any prior warning or guidance, you have a bigger problem than this amendment. You'll already be driving away contributors. -- Atama頭 16:41, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Craig Franklin, your question is completely legitimate and smart.  :) Like all provisions of the terms of use, we would work constructively with members of our community who are operating in good faith consistent with the mission and traditions of our movement. In this case, if a community member failed to comply as an oversight, we might provide a gentle reminder, for example. :) We might be less forgiving with respect to companies and firms actively hiding their paid editing from our volunteer community and doing this in knowing violation of the TOU, since such actions put an unreasonable, unacceptable burden on our volunteers who help ensure our projects meet the highest standards. I personally would see such deceitful activity as profiting unfairly from the reputation of our sites due to the hard work of our volunteers.

I am following the conversation about GLAM, and want to reflect on and discuss internally some comments made so far. But maybe I can underscore that, as presently foreseen, the disclosure requirement for GLAM participants who are paid to edit our projects would be fairly minimal: the disclosure may be on one's user page and it may simply be a reference to the program that is compensating the GLAM member for their editing. I tend to agree with Gigs that that disclosure makes sense for a few reasons, including the promotion of our GLAM initiatives. Indeed, in putting together this amendment, we studied the GLAM initiatives and found them to be a model of fair disclosure. I would of course be interested in any draft language that may address the GLAM concern, if anybody has ideas on that.

This specific proposed amendment would not be retroactive, so it would not apply to past edits. (Of course, we would have no say on violations that might run afoul of other provisions of the TOU, laws or community policies that are independent and already in place.)

Thanks for the helpful and thoughtful questions as we think through these issues. Geoffbrigham (talk) 17:57, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the "punishment" would be, over and above those actions that the community would normally take to protect the project in question. Rich Farmbrough 22:22 20 February 2014 (GMT).

In appropriate egregious cases, WMF legal could send cease and desist letters, seek injunctive relief, and even ask for damages in court. That might be appropriate, for example, when a company is intentionally violating the terms of use repeatedly, is putting unreasonable burden on our volunteer administrators and check users, and is motivated financially to circumvent community policies and hide their practices. Geoffbrigham (talk) 00:42, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Common carrier status

Would this proposal impact Wikipedia's common carrier status? Common carries must carry their content on a nondiscriminatory basis, without exercising any control over content. Hesperian 11:15, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

My preliminary analysis is that this is not problematic for this amendment. Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 21:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Rewording this amendment to benefit the 'AVERAGE USER'

While this point has been brought out throughout this debate, I think that it is important enough to warrant a section of it's own.

The proposed amendment includes the following clauses, detailing the potential 'methods of disclosure'.

      a statement on your user page,
       a statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or
       a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions.

While the proposed amendment does state the above as methods of disclosure, these would NOT be immediately obvious to the casual user of Wikipedia (of which there are many). A big chunk of the population who do use Wikipedia as their 'go-to' encyclopaedia do not have a thorough knowledge of computing (i.e- They are not 'Tech-savvy').

As such, it would be in the best interests of those users that paid benefactors be required to disclose these 'sponsored edits' in a much more prominent manner.

I would suggest something along the lines of the following

• a different formatting or style for the text comprising the SPONSORED EDIT
• a disclosure upon the page (viewable by all) that this article has section edited by a PAID CONTRIBUTOR.

In addition, as mentioned elsewhere, we really do need a strong way of enforcing this amendment. But, for a start, the amendment in itself is a good step forward. Else, if we choose to 'embrace' these undisclosed paid edits or recognize them as the norm, this would undoubtedly lead to major repercussions in the future. After all, most exploits in today's legal system didn't develop overnight, but rather through systematic abuse of loopholes and the like throughout the ages. So, on a closing note... kudos to those who proposed this amendment.

I agree with this goal. Not yet sure about details of exactly how to show it but it needs to be easily visible to everybody. This is the same as the topic below on EU "disclosure" law, which (at least in this case) is based on common sense. Alan24 (talk) 12:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps we could introduce something along the lines of an 'accuracy rating' as well (where verified wikians, who have proven themselves to be solid, true to form editors can vote on the accuracy of an article). This solution is just an early draft and would need several edits in order to be truly viable (and prevent unscrupulous editors/ corporations from beating the system and abusing it). --111.223.148.85 14:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I also believe that while this may be similar to the EU law section, this issue warrants it's own topic (separate from the legal justification for putting this). It is as mentioned above, common sense. --111.223.148.85 14:21, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Mostly no -- I agree that the edit being paid for is what should be obvious rather than the whole article be suspect, but not as an article appearance thing since (a) readers are not going to know that <diff text> means paid and there will be no easy / obvious way to discover that, and (b) the article will wind up a helter-skelter of norm words <paid word> plain <paid word> <word paid by diff company> ... and when a non-paid person redoes a section it all becomes plainword. Markbassett (talk) 15:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Paid Contributor provides a clear message than the details of who paid, which could be obscured with all manner of organization names, like The Foundation for a Better American Understanding of this Patriotic Issue.

To the critics: WHY THIS AMENDMENT IS USEFUL

The usefulness of this amendment has been a major point of contention so far. Detractors and critics point out that this amendment does not do much in the way of actually preventing or deterring such undisclosed, deceitful or paid edits. I concur. However, this does fulfill the critical requirement of acknowledging this problem and laying the groundwork to combat it. Allow me to explain. I will be using the modern legal system as an example. The exploits that lawyers often manipulate to win cases were not borne overnight. Instead they are oft build upon the framework of past cases and judicial rulings. As such, the current legal system which we are accustomed to is the result of the groundwork and precedents laid by the generations that preceded us-- from the initial beginnings to all the subsequent cases, fair and unfair rulings alike. All that we have today is the result of the mistakes of those who preceded us AND of the things that they got right.

This amendment fulfills the same purpose. It provides a foundation for us to build upon and eventually face this issue that threatens the integrity and freedom of Wikipedia. So, it's not really 'useless'. at all.

BUT, it is IMPERATIVE that we do get this right. If today's legal system or society in general are any indicators, laying the wrong foundation can have devastating consequences in the future (to cite a more humorous example-- the common acceptance of decadence and frivolity from the rich and the famous-- sure they do have their critics, but it's become the societal norm hasn't it?).

Should we allow this issue to go unchecked, it will eventually lead to:

a) Wikipedia's compromised integrity

b) loss of trust amongst the user base

c) Political and corporate dominance of Wikipedia (akin to the hardcore bias by the traditional media networks such as Television and Newspapers)

The true beauty of Wikipedia is its freedom and community governed ethics. It's an encyclopaedia by the people, for the people. Sure there may be a bit of bias here and there, but as long as it remains free and open, the rest of the community will balance it out. This discussion, in itself is proof of that. Should this fall into the hands of entities such as the corporates etc., these founding ideals will be truly lost and Wikipedia will become another political tool. And encouraging or allowing paid or sponsored edits to go unchecked it the path to promoting eventual corporate dominance of the Wiki.

Thank you for your views here. I set out some other reasons why this proposed amendment may make sense here. 14:46, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Illegal in EU

In the article [1]:

"The company in question had argued it had made its conflict of interest as a market competitor explicit through a comment on the article's talk page. However, the court struck down this argument, saying the average consumer who uses Wikipedia does not read the discussion pages. Significantly, the court did not distinguish between problematic and acceptable contributions. The judgment was explicitly based on the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, valid throughout the European Union."

so, although WMF would allow paid contributions in that way (a statement on your user page, a statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions.), according to that sentence paid contributions are illegal in EU. So, the solution is a template in the article, or would be illegal, am I right?--Temulco3 (talk) 16:51, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if illegal is the correct word, but you raise a valid point that talk page or edit summary disclosures probably do not satisfy the EU disclosure requirements. Gigs (talk) 17:01, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

As I see it, the proposed amendment only sets out a minimum requirement, while underscoring: "[a]pplicable law . . . may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure." We also address this point in this FAQ. So a company who has additional legal requirements within its jurisdiction must comply with those requirements, and, if the processes and policies of a Wikimedia project site do not permit legal compliance, that company should not engage in paid editing (as a legal matter). This would be true, as I see it, whether or not this amendment became part of the terms of use. Geoffbrigham (talk) 17:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Temulco3, I agree that the talk page and especially the edit summary disclosures are the weakest. But if the WP policy is weaker than applicable EU law, then surely the standard of the EU law prevails there? Personally, I tend to reject the edit summary disclosures as being too weak in general (and too restrictive of space for proper disclosure). The talk page disclosure I regard as minimal - almost an "ok we can try it but if it doesn't work well it will need changing". The most straightforward approach is on the user page, and that is really what I would favor. Evensteven (talk) 20:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The EU did not state that it was illegal to require disclosure. Instead, they said that posting in your talk page is not sufficient for EU rules for disclosure. Wikipedia may determine its own standard as it is not related to the EU. 107.15.113.27 22:08, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

It would be an egregious breach of faith to suggest through the ToU a practice which would leave a significant percentage (perhaps a majority) of those affected liable to lawsuits "just because we can". Rich Farmbrough 22:25 20 February 2014 (GMT).

We try to write these so that they apply globally - not just to every place, but to every user. So, for example, in the US, different rules apply to sponsored speech by corporations and by non-profits (since the FTC is not allowed to regulate non-profits). We could try to list out the different rules for every single place and combination of facts, but that would be a multi-year project. :) Instead, we tried to provide a common-sense baseline that will help communities enforce their own, appropriate rules. Hope that helps clarify. —LuisV (WMF) (talk) 00:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

We should however keep at safe distance from external competitions, we just can't be involved in such legal complications: what we ask for here is honest and not-for-profit edits, the rest should be kept far from our door. If the policy de facto allows some, it could only be in such a manner that we absolutely don't get troubles in exchange. An eventual involvement of WMF because of third parties' unfair commercial behaviours, would be terrible. When in doubt, I'd say, let's directly forbid paid editing. --g (talk) 01:30, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I think this is a completely valid view, and indeed Sue Gardner has taken a strong stand against paid advocacy. The terms of use have prohibited for more than two years misrepresentation of one's affiliation; the proposed amendment explains ways to disclose an affiliation honestly. But that same amendment underscores that "community and Foundation policies, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure." So I believe the projects are still able to ban paid advocacy editing if they choose. Geoffbrigham (talk) 14:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Two scenarios

Let's say I am Acme Widgets and I want to expand the article about my obscure little widgets company. I hire User:Contractor for that purpose.

1. User:Conractor posts in the Wikipedia Reward Board, soliciting contributions to help bring up Acme Widgets to Good Article status, offering payment in cash or barnstars or contributions to one's favorite charity. User:Subcontractor does the work, gets a lovely barnstar or $75 as compensation. What are the disclosure requirements for User:Subcontractor? As I understand these rules, User:Subcontractor is under no obligation to disclose anything, yet he is working at the behest of a company, with the contractor serving as "cutout." There is no practical difference between User:Contractor making these edits and his inducing User:Subcontractor to do those edits.

2. User:Contractor recommends text on a Talk:Acme Widgets subpage, making all required disclosure. User:Tool cuts-and-pastes the text into the article, or makes a few insubstantial changes and puts the text in the article. What is the disclosure requirement for User:Tool? As I understand it, there are none. Yet those changes go into the article just as they would if they were put there by the COI editor. Indeed, the COI editor gets praised for "following the rules."

I think that you have two gaping loopholes that you have to fill, for otherwise these TOU changes will have little effect. As it is, these TOU changes make no meaningful disclosure to the reader that the articles they are reading were stage-managed by the subject. Coretheapple (talk) 16:55, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

"you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution to any Wikimedia Projects for which you receive compensation" is a reasonable minimum. If User:Tool is being paid they will need to disclose this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

As an occasional "tool" editor for editors with a COI, I usually disclose changes I make which were suggested by a editor with a COI in the edit summary: "COI draft replacement" or "COI suggested changes implemented" or such. But ultimately, I view myself as the "owner" of those changes, accountable for what they say and the way they say it. Gigs (talk) 17:05, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

As I see it, according to these rules paid relationships have to be disclosed on whatever type of page is involved. So User:Contractor would have to disclose; as would User:Subcontractor. If User:Tool was paid, he'd also have to disclose. Core is likely worried about quid pro quo tools, i.e. you place my COI edits and I'll place yours. I don't think lawyers would be fooled by this - quid pro quo tools are paid editors and must disclose. But Wiki editors love to wikilawyer, so perhaps it can be made clear here that quid pro quo editors are considered to be paid. It's important to keep the new TOU simple and clear, but perhaps Geoff can respond to see if he thinks this addition is really needed. Smallbones (talk) 18:06, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Is it worth it to say that compensation need not be monetary? Or is that overcomplicating the issue? -- Atama頭 18:52, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I think that would help. But just to address Smallbones' point (and I appreciate his bringing this page to my attention), what I had in mind was a situation we've seen frequently, in which PR people or paid editors make extensive suggestions on talk pages, even to the point of drafting text, waiting until a willing User:Tool comes by to execute them. There is no practical difference between the PR person making these changes and finding someone to do them. The outcome, from the reader's and Wikipedia's standpoint, is the same. Coretheapple (talk) 19:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

As a non editor but frequent user of Wiki I have to agree with the above - the proposed TOU changes will make no meaningful disclosure to the reader, which appears to be the purpose of the changes. If you want to make a change that is meaningful to your readers and your public reputation, you would need to require paid edit disclosure be made on the page where the paid edits appear. Otherwise you are simply fulfilling a legal requirement and not actually addressing the issue in a meaningful way. One alternative to this would be to introduce (and make public) a procedural document that outlined a flagging and review process for people who make a paid edit disclosure on their edit summary or user page such that the disclosure and the data to which it relates would be reviewed by an objective third party. But the TOU change you propose is not strong enough in itself.

So I understand your view, but I do think the proposed amendment will serve a role, as I explain here. And the proposed amendment still always allows Wikimedia projects to put in place greater restrictions on paid editing, including even a ban on paid advocacy editing, for example. Geoffbrigham (talk) 14:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Not Strong Enough

In my opinion, this is an unacceptably weak response to the problem. The proper response would be to ban all paid editing completely. Paid editing is corruption of the data, and data corruption has no place in a public database. Period.

I generally support User:Redpossum's view immediately above, and think that the following TOU should be added (perhaps in a separate section):

All commercial editing in articles by or on behalf of a corporation or business is prohibited.

Smallbones (talk) 18:15, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Wholly in support of Smallbones. — Ineuw talk 18:28, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree somewhat, in spirit. I don't like the idea of an editor who is paid by someone else to make particular edits. It is essentially meatpuppetry, and in a way it turns that person's account into a kind of role account, where they're not editing for their own personal sake or opinions but on behalf of someone else (most often multiple people). It's not literally a role account, you should be dealing with a single person who the account represents, but some of the reasons why role accounts are forbidden or restricted will come into play.

But I can't wholly endorse this. Partially because I've worked with open and honest paid editors who've done good work at the English Wikipedia. They may represent the minority but I dislike seeing them restricted. Another problem I see is that I don't think we'd be able to get support for that. The current proposed amendment is something of a compromise between fully allowing paid editing and fully banning paid editing. The last problem I have with this is that I think that the benefit in having this amendment is that it will encourage paid editors to disclose their actions so that we know who we're dealing with, and banning paid editing won't stop it, it will just ensure that those who do it are very careful about hiding it. -- Atama頭 18:43, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I just added "in articles" (hope User:Ineuw doesn't mind). I actually have no problem with paid editors stating their views on talk pages or user pages - as long as it is disclosed. Smallbones (talk) 19:00, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I understand where you're going with this. It's much like the English Wikipedia conflict of interest guideline which considers most COI participation at talk pages to be non-controversial but warns that edits to the actual content may be. I'm worried that too many people may not grasp that concept and think that we're banning them from every aspect of the projects. In many cases it may end up as a de facto ban anyway, because if they're not allowed to edit content at all they'll move on. -- Atama頭 19:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with this simply because it's entirely plausible for someone to be paid to edit and to do so in a manner completely compliant with Wikipedia policies/guidelines. Samwalton9 (talk) 19:13, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

And I think that's so rare a case in practice in the business sector that the possible benefit of those edits is overwhelmed by the biased edits that we can avoid by just banning the whole practice. Somebody who is paid to edit legally owes his loyalty to his employer, not to Wikipedia's mission. In any case of conflict between the two, he must follow his employer's interest. So maybe he can make what appear to be NPOV edits, but if it turns around and NPOV editing go against his employer's interests, he must stop editing (and the employer would stop paying him in any case) and we'll be left with his employer's POV. Smallbones (talk) 19:55, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Smallbones, I noticed your change of heart further on :-). But I still strongly believe that a simple and absolute declaration would eliminate the kind of convolutions that take place in simple straight policy issues such as this. I know that it's an essential part of human nature and tradition to keep people occupied discussing issues forever and ever and examine them from every angle but, this has been rehashed before. This is the very kind of weakness in decision making that's being taken advantage of by commercial interests to manipulate the conversation to their advantage. I would be most content if there exist a few places on the web free and clear of commercial manipulation. Wikimedia.org is maintained by member donations and it could keep itself completely commerce free, as I believe was a fundamental intention from the beginning. What changed? — Ineuw talk 19:28, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree that a simple and absolute declaration would be better, but there is a case for trying to achieve the possible rather than the perfect. I especially agree with your statement about donations - which are being made to a charity - so cannot possibly be used to further the interests of a commercial business. If any board members are reading this, I'd like them to re-read the sentence above.

I also think that putting hidden ads and PR in articles is completely immoral (selling something by deception - but that's just my morality), unethical by the standards of recognized PR associations, and in many, many cases (90%+) illegal. That refers to articles, not talk pages. I view paid editors as falling into about 10 different categories. Some of them are the most cynical SOBs I've ever come in contact with (think about what happened poor Sarah who took $300 - and who did it to her). Some are just confused about our rules. Just clarifying our rules here will help them (I'm thinking about the coffee shop with about 15 seats in Pasadena that had an article on en:WP for about 3 years - I'm not kidding about this). Others are trying to be ethical businesspeople, but have a natural POV - we just need to set out the rules for them in a straightforward way. I don't mind these folks editing on talk pages if it is disclosed. They may even help us in combatting the worst actors. The standard objection to banning them outright is the "right of response" - what happens to a business that employs 100s of people if pure libel appears in an article and nobody notices? Actually this "right of response" thing is usually overstated - we do have methods of dealing with that, and most businesses have good access to the media even if we don't deal with it. But I can sympathize a bit. All I'll say is that these "ethical businesspeople" need to help us in the process of keeping out the other paid editors, or they'll likely get categorized in with the rest. Smallbones (talk) 20:19, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I am sufficiently suspicious of commercial interests that I tend towards the same strength of opinion as Smallbones. But I also agree with Samwalton9, and see outright prohibition as being too heavy-handed, at least to start. Besides, let's not forget that not all paid editing may be commercial in origin. See the hypothetical examples section above. Evensteven (talk) 20:37, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

donations - which are being made to a charity - so cannot possibly be used to further the interests of a commercial business. Erm.. well what about the fact that Google and Facebook both mirror Wikipedia to increase their revenue? Moreover many commercial businesses interests are furthered by Wikipedia articles, or actions of the Foundation. Rich Farmbrough 22:46 20 February 2014 (GMT).

I agree that it's not strong enough. There's nothing to prevent the foundation from prohibiting all paid editing. However, we all have to keep in mind that the Foundation is the primary victim of paid editing, as it deprecates the value of the Wikipedia brand and potentially impedes fundraising as well as the reputation of all concerned. Thus if the Foundation is willing to settle for disclosure then that is a decision that it made and it has to live with the consequences of implicitly tolerating and even sanctioning paid editing. We volunteers are here to pursue a hobby while this is their livelihood. If they want their project to be infested by paid editors, diminishing the value of their property, who are we to argue? Coretheapple (talk) 20:47, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree 100% with Smallbones. There is no earthly reaon why anyone would ever pay for an edit on Wikipedia other than they they think the edit promotes their interest, and editing to promote someone's interest is totally contrary to the whole spirit of Wikipedia. (Yes, I know the usual defence about someone working for an organisation who, as part of their job, is asked to make a few minor factual updates on the company's Wikipedia article. However, that situation can be dealt with in other ways than paid editing of Wikipedia articles, such as a request for an edit.) I have nothing but contempt for anyone who abuses Wikipedia by trying to use it to promtoe the point of view of a business, organisation, or person inorder to gain money. However, to be realistic, we are not going to get a ban on paid editing, mainly because of the fact that whenever the suggestion is raised, all the professional spammers who earn make a living by posting spam to Wikipedia come out of the woodwork and oppose the suggestion, and under the heavily flawed "consensus" model that Wikipedia uses, their corrupt views receive as much weight as the views of legitimate editors. That being so, the currently suggested, pathetically weak, proposal is a step forward, and should therefore be supported. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:06, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I also agree with Smallbones on this one. All commercial editing should be prohibited. Nobody should pay someone to edit Wikipedia, that goes against everything Wikipedia stands for. This website is for amateurs only - no professional editors. Once someone gets paid to edit, their employer will expect (sooner or later) favors and revisions. Kndimov (talk) 21:34, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

There is no earthly reason why anyone would ever pay for an edit on Wikipedia other than they they think the edit promotes their interest, and editing to promote someone's interest is totally contrary to the whole spirit of Wikipedia. Not so. You will see paid editing at en:Wikipedia now in the shape of a Typo Fixing Competition. Rich Farmbrough 22:31 20 February 2014 (GMT).

We agree with smallbones' outright ban on paid editing: it should be banned outright as paid commercial propaganda poisons the well of information with corporate lies. Think of what would occur with articles on global warming or new pharmaceutical drugs. Consider this alternative: if this paid editing is to be allowed, it should be clearly visible to any reader that these are paid edits and they should be in a different font color than the rest of the article. The article should be labeled clearly in big red letters in the title that "THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS PAID CONTENT" so every reader can be aware of the potential insertion of biased or outright false material. Now wouldn't that sort of openness make Wikipedia look to a casual observer like a cesspool of corporate lies? The more paid edits you had, the worse it would look. Your credibility would drop to zero. It would destroy Wikipedia. It would be much better to just ban paid editing outright.  :[[User:IWPCHI|IWPCHI] --IWPCHI (talk) 22:01, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I admit a flat ban is tempting but certainly "corporation or business" is too limited. It should perhaps read "corporation or business, organization, government, person, group, religion, movement or community". Even then I doubt it would be either more or less effective than our current policies on POV, notability, undue weight and significance. Rich Farmbrough 22:41 20 February 2014 (GMT).

Um. Isn't all of the above what WP:COI is for? Also, remember that this isn't just about the English Wikipedia; paid edits could be much more welcome on other projects. —SamB (talk) 00:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

"Settling"

Thus if the Foundation is willing to settle for disclosure then that is a decision that it made and it has to live with the consequences of implicitly tolerating and even sanctioning paid editing. We volunteers are here to pursue a hobby while this is their livelihood. If they want their project to be infested by paid editors, diminishing the value of their property, who are we to argue?

I pulled this out because I think it is important to understand that this proposal is not the Foundation "settling" for anything. As Sue said in her statement on paid editing, we think paid editing is a very serious problem. This proposal is not a change in position on that. But we also realize that this question is difficult and complex for the community (as the many good faith comments about small communities and GLAM suggest). Lots of people have very differing opinions on what is the best thing to do here. So we thought it would be a good idea to take a simple, straightforward approach: in the terms, make quite explicit how to disclose, so that communities can enforce their own rules more effectively, and in the FAQ, make quite clear that local legal rules may go much further. I agree it would be better to miraculously cause the community to reach consensus on a much stronger approach, but in the mean time, this is a strong step forward, not a step back.

(I also want to say that it is not "our" project - we're just stewards, caring for something much, much bigger than us. We did this because we think it is the right thing for the project, not because of any risk to WMF.) —LuisV (WMF) (talk) 00:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Paid editing by academia and paid editing by commerce are two different things. Paid editing by an academic institution should be allowed after full disclosures have been made; however paid editing by commercial interests should be banned.

Future of User Base

Do you think this will have an effect on further decreasing the user base of editors?

>implying this is a bad thing -BitterMan (talk) 18:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

There will likely be two effects here, going in opposite direction on the number of editors

• Decreasing the number of paid editors and their socks (which will be good)
• Increasing the number of non-paid independent editors, who dislike the nastiness that is very common among paid editors (also good)

Though both changes in the editor base would be good, the 1st effect (a decrease in the number of editors) will likely predominate in the short run, and the 2nd effect (an increase in the number of editors) will likely predominate in the long run. Smallbones (talk) 18:53, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure that paid editors are more likely to be nasty than unpaid CoI editors. Certainly being nasty is not an effective strategy for a CoI editor of any type - and we should ensure that it remains that way. (The situation with other editors is more variable, which is where the community fails to have a consistent standard.) Rich Farmbrough 20:00 20 February 2014 (GMT).

My experience is that the nastiest editors on Wikipedia, by far, are paid editors. Are you familiar with Mr. 2001? I think I'm limited by the rules in giving more specific examples. Smallbones (talk) 20:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I am not, is he still editing I wonder? Rich Farmbrough 22:50 20 February 2014 (GMT).

Yes, he is still editing despite being banned multiple times (including his sockpuppets) for clearly biased paid editing as well as general nastiness. Surprisingly enough, he has shown up below, using his best known name. BTW, on rereading this, it looks like I may have been trying to imply that you were Mr. 2001, which I did not mean at all to imply. Sorry if there was any confusion. Smallbones (talk) 00:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Uh... BitterMan, don't forget that the constant decrease in the population of editors is caused by many factors - in my case (and many people around me IRL, or on online social places), it's deletionism, and how it's exploited by a few users who spend their life on Wikipedia to force their views on what the world and Wikipedia should be. With that system, Wikipedia ends up being the encyclopedia of the Wikipedians, and the Wikipedians only - whoever spends the most time on it, gains the most influence and power, and decides what stays and what is deleted. I have a pretty decent knowledge of some very specific parts of a culture (that influenced a much larger culture and industry later), but I don't want to spend months (if not years) to force my way in, or use cheap tactics (recruiting an army of "contributors", only there to vote for my articles and edits - I saw it happened and work several times), so I quit. Several of friends/contacts irl and online told me a very similar story. I don't think this amendment will really hurt the user base of editors, it will just force paid editors to be more accurate and back up their claims/edits with serious source. --193.49.48.244 15:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

"We plan to ask the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees"

Who is "we"? Is this something which community members may sign? Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I wondered the same thing. --Another Believer (talk) 18:28, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I guess the "we" is the WMF legal department in the sense that the legal department is putting this before the community for comments. If, after the consultation with the community and after making adjustments in the draft per the feedback, the legal department feels it makes sense to recommend the draft to the Board, it will consult with the Executive Director. If the ED agrees, the ED with the support of the legal department will make the recommendation to the Board on the draft and refer the Board to read the consultation and the community comments before making a final decision. Geoffbrigham (talk) 20:22, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that this is the beginning of regulated information, stemming from the powers at be outside of WIki's control.

• I just came here after seeing a banner advertising the discussion. I don't quite understand what we're supposed to do now but the edit history indicates that the principal author of this amendment is Philippe (WMF). This seems to be itself a paid work account but the user page has a disclaimer: "Although I work for the Wikimedia Foundation, contributions under this account do not necessarily represent the actions or views of the Foundation unless expressly stated otherwise. For example, edits to articles or uploads of other media are done in my individual, personal capacity unless otherwise stated." So, does this amendment represent the views of that user; the community that he is paid to liaise with; or the Foundation itself? Are the edits which created this proposal compliant with the proposed terms? In other words, if Philippe is acting as our paid advocate and editing on our behalf, is his disclosure adequate? This may be a good test case ... Andrew Davidson (talk) 19:15, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

An astute observation and excellent question from Mr. Davidson. There is a certain irony (or is it hypocrisy?) for a WMF employee who is not in the Legal department, to be presenting new content that the Legal department says it is putting forward, all regarding a proposal that would require editors to declare their paid interest in subject content. Let's get this ironed out before you "we" take this any further, please. -- Thekohser (talk) 22:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

• This question definitely needs answering. If this is put to the Board, it needs to be made very clear who exactly it is coming from and who is supporting it. I am also concerned that there does not seem to be any clear path to voicing opposition to this proposal. SpinningSpark 19:53, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
  • SpinningSpark: I think the opposition path is fairly clear: start a section on this talk page. :-) Others will chime in if they agree. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:40, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

That's a very good question. What's to prevent anyone from "asking" the WMF to do anything? What evidence is there that this is going to be seriously considered or is even on the agenda? Coretheapple (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hello Coretheapple, the legal team discussed this proposal with Board members before posting. The Board will ultimately decide when this will be on their agenda, based on this discussion and the process that Geoff describes above. Thanks! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying that. Coretheapple (talk) 01:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

General support

I generally support this proposed change in the TOU, but we should take this opportunity to make the prohibitions on paid editing as strong as possible. Nothing I add below (in several individual sections) should be taken as meaning that I don't support the proposed change as is. I just think we can do better.

1st, the possibility of disclosing only on the edit summary may make following paid editing very difficult, so the following change should be made:

'"You must make that disclosure in at least two of the following:

• a statement on your user page, listing all pages where you have made paid contributions
• a statement on all talk pages accompanying any paid contributions, (strike "or")
• a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions."

Smallbones (talk) 18:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

IMO, it should at least ALWAYS have the third one. 98.24.14.97 23:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I may have some comments to do in other threads. But in general, I also support adding this restriction to the Terms of Use. --NaBUru38 (talk) 18:49, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The proposal also has my support. Accassidy (talk) 18:51, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I've seen this kind of thing in effect for particular paid editors at the English Wikipedia and it has worked pretty well, so I fully support this addition. -- Atama頭 19:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I also support the two-disclosure rule. Evensteven (talk) 20:47, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with a more stringent policy involving two out of three places of notification. This would result in making it more difficult to obfuscate paid edits. -Thunderforge (talk) 21:19, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if an anonymous reader's opinion matters here, but I support this policy. If anything, I think that paid edits to public articles should be disclosed as such in footnotes ("this content paid for by ____"), much as sources are supposed to be cited. There needs to be accountability, or at least awareness, of any use of Wikimedia projects as advertising and potential propaganda and misrepresentation platforms for corporations, businesses, governments, political parties, religious groups, etc. 209.162.56.112 19:40, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

"An anonymous reader's opinion" does matter here. Too often Wikipedia editors ignore reader's opinions. The opposition to this proposed change in ToU is a perfect example of how some editors here put their own interests above the reader's interest. Smallbones (talk) 22:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely. Pages edited by so-called paid contributors should reflect this, such as, "This page has been edited by X, e.g., University of Notre Dame Athletic Department, Committee to Re-elect the President, etc." RaqiwasSushi (talk) 20:30, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I see the page-level disclosures as problematic in that the entire page then looks as though it is advertising/lobbying or some such. What of the other contributions to the page? Besides, entire pages of this kind of material don't belong in an encyclopedia at all. We need to address paid editors and paid edits individually, in order to keep all articles neutral and content balanced. Evensteven (talk) 20:47, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

As I said below, it's neither necessary nor helpful to put a notice on a page that the content has been modified by a paid editor. If there is a dispute about whether or not content should be removed or altered because it was placed by an editor with a conflict of interest, that's what a COI tag is for and that process is already being done (and has been in place for years). The point of the tag is to warn the reader that the material they're reading is being disputed, and why. When neutral editors are satisfied that the content is okay then the tag is removed. There's no reason to put a permanent black mark on an article because a paid editor once contributed to it. I wouldn't have a problem with a new "paid editor" template being applied when a paid editor's contribution is being reviewed or disputed, but again that template should be removed once any dispute is resolved, and really a COI tag would probably work anyway. -- Atama頭 21:21, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

If paid editing is to be allowed at all (we feel it is a very bad idea) the articles that contain paid edits should be labeled clearly as such in the title in big red letters: "THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS PAID CONTENT". Also the actual paid edits themselves should be in a different color font so even a casual reader will see that there is something unusual about this content and will understand that it is paid content. It would be much easier to just ban it outright; it looks to us to be a naked attempt to monetize Wikipedia by making it more useful to what are essentially commercial advertisers. IWPCHI --IWPCHI (talk) 22:10, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

i also express my general support for this. but my view is that only the name of the payor needs to be disclosed on each paid contribution that was made. i see this as the only relevant information that we need. 76.69.126.216 22:28, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi All. Thank you for support and suggestions. Smallbones, your suggestion is an interesting one. The proposed amendment is meant to set a minimum bar by which individuals who receive compensation for their edits must meet. It does not prevent individual projects from imposing stricter standards. That said, we are interested in hearing what others think about this topic. Mpaulson (WMF) (talk) 01:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

General SUPPORT sorry I have changed my mind: agreed that notice should appear on article page, but color change or "sponsor"-name on or in article is ripe for abuse. PAID FOR BY COCA-COLA--just no. That would be abused as an advertisement. Have it so that any paid editors who edit an article will generate a tag on the article that says, :THIS ARTICLE INCLUDES CHANGES BY A PAID EDITOR. Also make it easy to find in history or talk page what that change was.24.0.133.234 01:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually, your point is brilliant, maybe far beyond what you can see:

1. The proposed solution is like using a club to kill an ant. 2. It really is just to stop the IPs of companies of editing their own stuff, which may not be harmful. 3. but it indicates the need for the commitment, interest, intent and motivation for edits.

Summarized as follows:

[Commitment: Improve culture of information]

[Interest: Accuracy]

[Intent: Improve discussion]

[Motivation:Further discussion in a significantly different direction]

I have not ever been paid for editing an article, and mostly do it for two reasons:

1. To improve accuracy in a way, that all the others editors seem to be missing

2. To show how ridiculous easy it is to show how misinformation creeps in, and people accept it as the truth.

I so not support this proposal, as it is:

Useful only for some sort of lame detective work, and does not address fundamentally the betterment of Wikipedia, or does not address it in a way that improves the wiki, my view is that it allows another justification for removing accurate information.

Effective use of signature.

There are situations where regular wikipedians get paid for certain edits over a certain period of times. It would be god if they could add the brief employer detail (or a brief information on payment) in signature. And remove that when they do regular edits. --Rahmanuddin (talk) 18:31, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Rahmanuddin. This is a good point. We had a previous internal draft that said the disclosure could be in the signature line as a parenthetical reference - something like "Joe Smith (Acme Corp.)." But some projects don't allow that practice so we ended up not including it in this draft. If you or others have views on this, I would find that interesting. Geoffbrigham (talk) 20:10, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Geoff, I recently started a discussion on the en OTRS noticeboard that I hoped would be the first step toward changing the "promotional username" policy on en. Unfortunately no OTRS volunteers have commented on it as of yet. If we can get OTRS on board, I think we can do the change. Please see that conversation because an interesting exchange regarding corporate copyright issue that could use your feedback is there. Gigs (talk) 20:47, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

This is also an interesting approach for marking individual article edits. I would consider it to be beneficial to require the signature disclosure for any paid edit. Evensteven (talk) 20:53, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

This discriminates against paid editors, when unpaid editors are perfectly capable of being just as biased

People can have any number of motives (e.g. personal affinity for a product they enjoy using, ideological support for a political candidate, etc.) that give them what might be deemed a conflict of interest in editing Wikipedia, but for some reason people make a bigger deal out of it when the person is getting paid. Why is it worse to make edits for monetary gain than for non-monetary gain? It still comes down to personal gain.

Paying someone money to post content is a form of speech, just as buying your own computer and using it to post content is a form of speech. Why discriminate against the former, while allowing the latter? What is so great about personally editing Wikipedia, rather than using your time in a way that's a better fit with your comparative advantage, and then using the proceeds to hire an editor? It's just another form of specialization and division of labor; there's nothing inherently sinister about it.

COI policy should probably be repealed in its entirety, because it boils down to an appeal to motive. People say, "Your edits are bad because you have a personal interest in the matter" when actually the edits could be perfectly good, and even superior to the edits that would have been made by a person who didn't have a personal interest in the matter. Edits should be judged on their own merits, not on the merits of the editor. Leucosticte (talk) 18:51, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't particularly think of paid editing as immoral or something. Maybe it should just simply be accepted, but fraud should of course be noted. George Slivinsky (talk) 19:05, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

To Leucosticte: You could equally say that judges in the justice system can have personal opinions and biases, so therefore they should not recuse themselves when there is a financial or other relationship-based conflict of interest. But that is not how the world works. Society recognizes financial and relationship-based conflicts of interest as a particularly intractable situation, above and beyond normal biases and personal opinions. Gigs (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

It's a little different when

Leucosticte, this proposal does not address the merits of any editor. The motivations of an editor, however, can come under scrutiny, even when there is no matter of pay. Conflict of interest needs to be declared, and accepting some form of compensation for edits creates an immediate interest that conflicts with Wikipedia's requirement of neutrality. The issue is not free speech either, as WP is not a forum for personal beliefs. As for "comparative advantages", they also do not belong in an encyclopedia, but in marketing material. Personal comparative advantages and interests and biases are addressed (and opposed) in a number of ways on WP, including WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Evensteven (talk) 21:07, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about putting information about comparative advantages in the encyclopedia, but rather about people using information about their comparative advantages to decide whether it would be a most efficient use of labor to personally edit the encyclopedia or to delegate that task to someone else, with money possibly changing hands during this process. Also, the link to RIGHTGREATWRONGS leads to a page about original research; a paid editor doesn't necessarily put forth original research, nor does an unpaid editor necessarily refrain from putting forth original research. Leucosticte (talk) 20:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Of course there are other reasons why an editor may have a conflict of interest or a bias, but that is not reason for not taking action agaisnt this reason. It's like saying "We shouldn't have a law agaisnt burgalry, because tehre are other crimes that are just as bad or even worse, and we shouldn't discriminate against burglars." JamesBWatson (talk) 21:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that is the point. Paid editing is a way of achieving a goal, where "money talks". Other methods of editing reward perseverance, technical skills, having ample time to spend, research ability of facilities, social skills, and wikilawyering. If the editing goal is cromulent with the goals of the encyclopaedia then the type of "amplifier" used is irrelevant. And the same applies if it is not. No-one should be consistently breaking NPOV without community intervention.

The question we must ask here is this: Would a pseudo-legal requirement to declare paid editing materially assist the community in preventing harm to the projects, and if so would the assistance outweigh any problems caused?

Rich Farmbrough 23:41 20 February 2014 (GMT).

Support

I was recently thinking about if it's against policies of WMF/En-WP to make edits for some sort of self-advancement when disclosure is made, actually. While paid edits themselves sound bad because the most visible implication is that neutrality will be violated, there is another side to paid contribution. Paid contributions could strengthen the neutrality policy because, for instance, I could remove marketing-style wording and false positive information on competing products and services as a CEO. Of course, this must all be disclosed and negatives cannot be added by paid editors. The only problem I see is the aforementioned potential legal issue in Europe. Would have logged in as En-WP's NuclearWizard but there's a bug in the login/IPblock feature. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.41.39.34 (talk) 18:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

No. Less regulations, more freedom.

I can't believe u even mention anything from FTC - those people are useless. It's OK if advertisers make money off of their writings. We can correct an article if it's too flagrant. Dk pdx (talk) 19:06, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Can we judge it by its own merits rather than declare it as poisonous because of its source? -- Atama頭 20:46, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

We cannot judge it unless we know the background facts. That is what disclosure is about. Advertisers do not write encyclopedias. And judging too soon is a personal mistake that one can correct. Evensteven (talk) 21:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

That's totally fair. I don't object to that one bit, in fact a discussion about what instigated this proposal is both reasonable and helpful. But to dismiss it because it was at least inspired by feedback from or policies written by the FTC is not helpful. -- Atama頭 21:15, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

OK then be fair and require ALL editors to edit under their legally accountable name. Either we need the "background facts" on all editors or we don't.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:23, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

1. What is "FTC"?
2. It may be OK if advertisers make money from their writings, but that does not automatically mean that it's OK for people to dishonestly hide the fact that their editing has the ulterior motive of promoting the intterests of a business, organisation or person, which is what this discussion is about.
3. "We can correct an article if it's too flagrant": yes, but if it isn't "too flagrant" it can slip by unnoticed. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:16, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The Federal Trade Commission is a consumer protection group and independent US agency that put forth guides on digital disclosures for advertisers, and since the Wikimedia servers are in the US, they have jurisdiction over what happens on Wikimedia servers (I assume, I'm no lawyer or other kind of expert in that area). I first got wind of this kind of thing here which may provide some helpful background information. -- Atama頭 21:27, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

To very slightly oversimplify: the FTC has jurisdiction over what US companies do anywhere. They don't have jurisdiction over WMF (because we are a non-profit).

It might help to use a "traditional" media example: if you were a US company, and bought an advertisement in a newspaper, and the advertisement violated an FTC rule, the FTC would go after you, not the newspaper. So we're not worried about the FTC coming after us in this case. Hope that helps clarify. —LuisV (WMF) (talk) 01:13, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification LuisV. -- Atama頭 02:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Definition of "compensation"?

A semantic query. I see "compensation" is defined in terms of "an exchange of money, goods, or services." This is a somewhat broad-brush definition. For instance, I presume the term "services" may include "hospitality" (as, for example, in the stringent COI guidelines used by Cochrane [2]). This raises the question of quite what counts as an "exchange". Some contributors may have such COI to rather variable extents, ranging from collective lunches at sponsored meetings (without obvious direct exchange) to much more substantial individual hospitality (where some degree of indirect exchange may effectively exist).
I suppose it could be argued that editors should be expected to declare any potential COI of this sort. But that might be both impractical and undesirable. In particular, one would scarcely want to discourage direct editing of articles by academics who only have a theoretical (borderline) COI. But where to draw the line... Perhaps a few more words are necessary as to what sort of services (or goods) are intended? MistyMorn (talk) 19:13, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi MistyMorn. Yes, I've thought a bit about this and I see your point. In the end, I think it will not be possible to find a perfectly exact formulation, which is a fault of language in general. But maybe there is a better phrase. I would be interested in hearing other phrasing proposals that might address your concerns, if you have time. Otherwise, I will continue thinking about this to see if there is a way of tightening the language. Geoffbrigham (talk) 20:05, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Hmmm, maybe other more legally-savvy contributors have some suggestions? MistyMorn (talk) 20:09, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

• I suppose a possible approach could be to provide a few well-chosen representative examples of what would and would not be considered "paid editing" in terms of received services, goods etc (though I have no idea of the legal implications of this). —MistyMorn (talk) 20:46, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I'll preface this by saying that I like the proposal here, and see it as well-worded and balanced. But I have a related question about defining "compensation". Let's say that an editor owns stock in a company. They are not in any way employed by the company or otherwise affiliated with it. If they were to edit the page about that company, they might be in a position to benefit materially if the value of the stock were to increase (or if they prevented the value from decreasing), but that isn't really "compensation" as it is defined here. My reading of the proposed language is that disclosure would not be required; is that correct? Furthermore, someone might own, for example, a mutual fund that has holdings in a company, and in good faith not even know that the company is held in the mutual fund. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:47, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

• Geoff, you could borrow "consideration" from contract law, if you think that would serve the purpose better. Gigs (talk) 20:53, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

No, please. We're talking WP policy here, not a legal document. Enforcement is by the community. Just make the policy cover the general ground. Evensteven (talk) 21:15, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually we are talking a legal document. And a very long (overly long) one at that, partly modelled on the topsy like ToS's of a thousand other websites, and only somewhat ameliorated by community involvement. Rich Farmbrough 23:46 20 February 2014 (GMT).

POV

This all starts with pure POV!

We plan to ask the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees to consider a proposed amendment in our Terms of Use to address further undisclosed paid editing. Contributing to the Wikimedia Projects to serve the interests of a paying client while concealing the paid affiliation has led to situations that the community considers problematic. Many believe that users with a potential conflict of interest should engage in transparent collaboration, requiring honest disclosure of paid contributions.

Who is "we"? To criticise anonymous edits but don't declare who is behind this all here makes all not really trsusfull. "the community considers problematic" - is this so? Who is "the" community? Where the initiators know this? "Many believe that" - "many" Who are "many"? And how many are "many". All in all pure POV. But at the end all will work this way - it is not important what we as community will sa. Mister Wales states since longer time what's here wanted. He will decide at the end - so why this transparent democracy game? Marcus Cyron (talk) 19:16, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I guess the "we" is the WMF legal department. This is a consultation similar to other community consultations that we have had, and we actually do listen to feedback and often adjust language to respond. We are attempting to summarize at a high level what we have heard in the discussions around paid editing, but of course are happy to hear different views on this. Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:58, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

And you think, the WMF is neutral? I don't think so. At the end the board will decide. And mostly Mr Wales made his point very clear. Sorry, that I now can't belive, that we as community have any chance to influence something. And at the end the problem still stays. Theres never stated at the site, who wants to change something. At the de:WP such a proposal would never has a chance. People who want to do such things have to say, who they are. And as long ou want, that other people do things openly - you have to be open by yourself at first! At the end I see only, that there were a moment bad press in the USA - and then all have to change? The important thing always was the NPOV and the free license. As long as authors work under these rules, nobody has to declare something. But the WMF treies a longer time to kill everything, the Wikimedia movement was in earlier times. From a free project, to a Freedom of the Foundations grace. And the WMF really wonders about losing authors? Really? Or is this for real the fear of losing some money for the Foundation? I would bet on the last option... Marcus Cyron (talk) 13:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree it is about POV. In striving to attain a neutral point of view (NPOV) Wikipedia has very correctly placed small obstacles in the path of those who would deliberately edit with bias. It is widely recognised that those with a conflict of interest (COI) are most likely to undermine neutrality in decision-making. In courts and committee deliberations a person with a COI is required, often under threat of penalty, to disclose a COI and in some instances is required to recuse himself from participation in a meeting. Any person editing Wikipedia who is aware of a COI should similarly declare that conflict, and if the COI is bad enough, she should not edit at all.

I support the premise that edits made under an incentive of a reward are potentially not neutral, specifically because the incentive of reward may lead an editor to purposefully introduce bias that will promote or discredit some entity. So, in the interests of maintaining NPOV, which is crucially important for the reputation of our encyclopedia, I do agree that all paid contributors should make a public statement disclosing that they are rewarded for their work by a party which they must name.

Craigallan.za (talk) 21:18, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Why not require all three types of notification?

While I can see the problems with content written for financial gain, there is also the point that corporations have a great deal of information that the outside world can benefit from. But it should be made obvious when that information comes from a corporate source. So what is the problem with requiring that a paid editor post all three types of proposed statement? That's the only way that I can think of to make their motives fully transparent. Will102 (talk) 19:30, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Will, I don't think this is an unreasonable position, but we are also trying to build a disclosure process that is flexible and can accommodate the varying needs of various types of editors, including those who are doing clearly mission-driven editing while receiving compensation (for example, as a Wikimedian in residence). It is a matter of finding the right balance to achieve the goal of the amendment, which is to help ensure greater transparency to ensure against hidden potential bias. After thinking about it for some time, I think the alternative options strike that balance, but I also would understand if others disagreed. I would be interested in learning what others thought as well. Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:40, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Will02 and I don't see how having the choice of how someone discloses that they are a paid editor will "help ensure greater transparency" because you are effectively allowing them to bury this information wherever it is least likely to be discovered; in the middle of a lengthy userpage for example. KADC "Be unreasonable." (talk) 20:40, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd say that the primary problem with that is the fact that edit summaries have only a limited number of allowable characters. If a COI notice has to be in every one of them, potentially there won't be any space left for an actually useful description of the edit. Do you really want the article on Foo, Inc. to have a lot of edit summaries such as "m /* Allegations of having too long section titles in their Wikipedia article */ (COI notice: I work at Foo, Inc.) fixed typo (althuogh -> although)"? darkweasel94 (talk) 20:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

There's a point here, simply working at Foo Inc would not constitute paid editing, one would have to be specifically paid for editing the Wikipedia in question. Deciding whether an edit constitutes paid editing requires a bright line between work and leisure, which is often in reality very fuzzy. Rich Farmbrough 20:33 20 February 2014 (GMT).

Doesn't change my point about ever requiring anything at all to be put into the edit summary. They should first of all be useful to see what was changed, not for any kind of COI declaration or anything. No, requiring one of these things is entirely sufficient. darkweasel94 (talk) 20:57, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Indeed it was a tangential point. Rich Farmbrough 21:40 20 February 2014 (GMT).

I personally would prefer to see this policy applied on the talk page for the given article. Applying it to the user page is problematic, because it does not allow the user to separate themselves from the paid work. They may have a paid contribution in some areas, and then have unpaid work in other areas not at all influenced by their compensation. The edit summary would only allow for simple notification, such as 'paid contribution'. It's not the place for detail, and could be easily overlooked without being supported on the talk page, particularly as the edit history scrolls on to other pages. The talk page seems to be the best place for this, and consistency and transparency are most important if the new policy is to have the desired effect. -- Dave Braunschweig (talk) 20:25, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Dave Braunschweig - So, if I'm reading your comment correctly, you would require disclosure on the talk page in all cases (and omit the options for the edit summary and the user page). I definitely understand your reasoning, but it may require people who work in movement organizations or on GLAM initiatives, for example, to be constantly disclosing on talk pages - which might be too burdensome. Or maybe we allow an exception for employees of movement organizations and GLAM when they disclose their employment on their user page. Interested in your thoughts (and those of others). Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 22:27, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Restricting the "transparency" of the fact that one is a paid editor to just the user page, talk page and edit summary essentially allows the paid editor to HIDE the fact that the information he or she has added to an article is paid content! It is not openness: it is treachery! That is why the EU courts have held this type of corporate chicanery to be illegal. If you're going to allow paid content, there needs to be a BIG RED LABEL in the title of the article warning everyone: "THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS PAID CONTENT" and then the paid content itself needs to be made to stand out from the rest of the article either using italics or a different font color or both. We believe that it would be easier and better to just ban paid content outright, as the potential for misuse FAR outweighs any benefit to users. IWPCHI --IWPCHI (talk) 22:23, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I can see that paid contributions can have a great benefit too. A company can make sure information about it is fair and complete. Public editors simply may not have the knowledge, and can have attitudes.George Slivinsky (talk) 17:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Can this be enforced while respecting privacy?

I appreciate Wikipedia's attempt to curb intentional propaganda. However, how can you determine with any reasonable degree of accuracy whether an edit was a vandal, paid propaganda, an individual who is honestly unaware of his/her bias, or otherwise? Once this determination is made, how deep does the investigation go and how quickly? This is a very slippery slope. On the one end, it is very easy for privacy rights to be violated on minimal evidence, on the other we have the issue of not being able to enforce this (making it essentially a joke). I don't participate a lot on discussion pages, so I do not know much detail about Wikipedia's policies operations or regulations. But this is the major issue that I see. -- Previous unsigned comment by User:66.188.168.11

Elsewhere on this page, the issue of sockpuppets was raised, and I think it's an apt comparison. This is the same dilemma, really. Can we actually enforce a policy to prevent someone from operating multiple accounts, or sneaking onto a project by using a new account in order to evade a ban or a block? If the editor in that case is careful, the painful truth is no, except for some happy accident (a checkuser uncovers a sock while investigating some other account this editor is using) they'll likely never know.

So just like the sockpuppet policies, this policy would take effect if the editor admits to being a paid editor or reveals it in some way. Just as a project may allow someone to declare an alternate account under the right conditions, editors would be allowed to be paid editors under the right conditions. Privacy rights are a concern with sockpuppets too, because it's all about identity (are you the same person as so-and-so). But I think that the English Wikipedia manages well enough to balance privacy and enforcement (for example, a checkuser doesn't disclose any personal information revealed in the course of an investigation, and doesn't link an editor's account with their IP). We could find a similar balance here. I've dealt with conflict of interest cases for years (both to help good editors with a COI and to stop the disruption of bad editors with a COI) and it's a fine line to balance privacy with identifying a potential problem, but it's possible. -- Atama頭 20:40, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

To oppose a proposal because it can't always be enforced is common in many aspects of life. However, I have yet to come across anyone anywhere saying "We should not have a law against burglary, because in every country in the world the majority of burglaries go unpunished, as the burglar is not caught". Of course we won't always know, but that is not a reason for not having the tools to deal with it in those cases wheere we do know. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

And how are you going to "deal with it"? By outing the target? The target is already out or wouldn't be a target! Which leads me to my real concern: "deal with it" really means directed harassment of some sort consequent to the outing as opposed to just creating the possibility for outing.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:30, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

How it's dealt with would be up to the individual projects. Paid editors who fail to provide disclosure could be asked to follow these guidelines, and if they refuse, may be banned and/or blocked as a result. This can be done on an individual basis (per editor/account) or a wider basis, such as when the Arbitration Committee at the English Wikipedia banned any editing coming from the Church of Scientology. And that brings up another kind of deterrent that may arise from implementing this... If a company employs paid editors that violate WMF's rules, and the media gets wind, then that could result in bad PR for the company involved. And such articles would make the project look good (for fighting back against corporate shills) at the same time. -- Atama頭 00:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

So outed paid editors should simply be banned unless they previously self-outed? This should go into the proposal. If this doesn't go in, I'd say my point about an absence of consequences remains. The "media getting wind" suggests that the problem may at least partially take care of itself without our involvement. Or do you think we should, as Wikipedia, be actively leaking user details to the media without user permission?--Brian Dell (talk) 02:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

How would this be enforced? It appears that an admission is required by the paid editor (however that is defined). I doubt anyone would be so naive as to do so, it'd be like marking "Yes" on an immigration form when asked if you intend to commit a terrorist act. This proposal seems to be little more than arse covering by Wikipedia to at least appear to comply with the laws of the land - which is fine if the legal team believes this is prudent. It certainly won't deter paid editors, and I think characterizing it as anything else beyond a pre-emptive legal defense jeopardizes the credibility of all other seriously debated rules. -- 00:10, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Yet, editors on Wikipedia identify themselves as paid editors already. The proposal may deter some from disclosing that information because they would be required to disclose information to be allowed to edit, but it may encourage others because it provides a path for them to make "approved" edits. Consider two beaches... One has a sign that says "No Swimming After Dark", and another has no sign whatsoever. The beach with a sign is implying that swimming during the daylight is allowed, and may encourage swimmers as a result. But bottom line, to say nobody would ever disclose that they are paid editors is simply incorrect because that happens already (I sometimes even collaborate with them just to check the viability of their contributions). -- Atama頭 00:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

What are the goals

There are a number of reasons that this ToU change (which I have much sympathy for) might be advanced. It is not clear, though, that the change necessarily addresses the issues it might be intended to. For example reputational issues for the projects are not well addressed (see the BP case - where much bad press was garnered, although this ToU would have been fully complied with - and indeed other cases of engineered bad press for the projects). The question of legal issues, though redounding upon the utterer of the statements rather than the Foundation or Community also seems moot. Indeed, by demanding disclosure, the Foundation may be making a rod for its own back in terms of not only record keeping, but liability for ensuring that disclosure is monitored and vetted in a sensible way (effectively the Foundation is proclaiming that all paid editing is declared).

I am very concerned that these types of rule creep miss the fundamental principles that Wikipedia and the other projects are founded upon. In this case "Is it a good edit?" If the edits are good, we should be happy, and that is an editorial decision. Where organisations or individuals have attempted to abuse the projects they should be prevented from doing so, regardless of their remunerative status (see, for example, the Scientology case). This is far better achieved by an active editing and reading community than by ToU requirements, which, frankly, are unlikely to be read by most users, less likely to be adhered to by those that create problems, and still less likely to be enforceable.

Rich Farmbrough 20:23 20 February 2014 (GMT).

A paid edit is a third-party advertisement...

in my opinion. Full disclosure should apply - though I'm inclined to think that someone has already decided and this discussion is moot.

What isn't moot is this: the moment someone is paying for something to be added, edited or removed from Wikimedia's sites then these sites are serving as paid advertising for a third party - and everything Wikimedia stands for (if it does) will have gone down the drain. Shir-El too (talk) 20:30, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I totally approve the amendment (also because some events have caused too much money to be spent in some events like photo events, with averge costs sometimes reaching more than 6 dollars per photo in some paid events where others contributed many more photos and documents at less than a few cents per document.

Organized photo events (and other organized events to collect contents) must be efficient. But visibly some have profited from the system to make profits with them; using the money collected by the community (see the recent reports in the Evalation and Learning portal about them). In my opinion, a significant part of this money should be returned to the Foundation, for illegal or unfair profits as this money was stolen (IMHO); but the problem was a lack of sufficient protection in the Terms of use, for these paid contributions. In summary we need this agreement (and possibly more to make sure that unused and unjustied money paid in advance by the Foundation will be returned to the Foundation). verdy_p (talk) 20:37, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it follows. For example suppose a paid editor corrects the names of the officers of a company, or takes a special brief to revert vandalism? Arguably it gives the company an "edge" (and one might even say an "unfair" edge) over a less fortunate rival whose CEO is named as Mr Potato Head, but it by no means advertising. Rich Farmbrough 20:40 20 February 2014 (GMT).

I think we're protected by at least three well-established policies already. We don't allow promotional language (as it's clearly spam or advertising). We don't allow advocacy because we insist on a neutral point of view. And we require notability for inclusion, so an obscure subject isn't able to get exposure by being covered in an article. Not to mention the fact that paid editors are inevitably going to be under additional scrutiny and are less likely to get away with violating any of these policies because there will be a suspicion that they're trying to advertise/advocate for their clients. -- Atama頭 20:44, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Note that unjustified payments include profiting the money to buy costly equipements that will be used for long by their buyers (but not for building and publishing open contents shared with the Wikimedia community). However, we could finance equipments for groups in poor countries, if they want to build more permanent projects, but these projects should find a way to subsist and getting usable by Wikimedia controbutors in their area. This should however not finance equipments that will be owned and will be usable only by the profiter of these payments. The money should not be used to buy cameras that will be used rarely for publishing open content to Wikimedia (or other convenient hosting sites with usable open licences).

This money can be used for example to rent rooms to organize public events, or pay an Internet connection subscription for a group whose online activity on Wikimedia will persist. But the groups asking for this money should also find a way to finance themselves more permanently. Wikimedia Foundation payments are just here to help them bootstart their project, or to help them to increase their online activities.

This money should not be used to pay the salaries of employees, and if it is used to pay thir party services, copies of their billings must be given back to the Foundation along with accounting reports (based on international accounting standards) detailing how and when money is spent, and how the equipments will be depreciated over years according to standard accounting practices (and the fiscal requirements in the country where the benefitor resides).

The Foundation should provide help about how to produce these acceptable accounting reports (and the Foundation could also host a service to help these groups manage their local accounting; or could help them finance the acquisition of standard accounting softwares. If the benefitors are individuals they could use standard personal accounting softwares to manage this money clearly separately from their own personal money; but in my opinion, money given to individuals should be managed on an accounting service hosted directly by Wikimedia, for improved security and transparency.

Transparent and detailed accounting practices can mitigate a lot the unfair use of this money for something else (including for using it to finance publicity for something else). IT would be an interestint tool to develop in Wikimedia Labs (and promote in the "Tools" section of the Learning and Evaluation Portal, just like Wikimetrics). verdy_p (talk) 21:00, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Verdy, these are interesting points, but should perhaps be in their own section, as they don't relate to Shir-El too's thread about paid editing being advertising. Rich Farmbrough 21:37 20 February 2014 (GMT).

Not a lot of use

As a Wikipedia user, I don't see how any of the three proposed disclosures (user page, talk page or edit summary) is going to enable me to identify paid-for content while I am reading an article. 86.129.17.59 20:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

... remember also that content on many talk pages is shunted off into archive after a while, at which point it becomes effectively lost except to anyone specifically looking for it. 86.129.17.59 21:11, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

We don't want to advertise paid-for content, nor should we. Presumably, the paid-for content is being vetted by neutral editors to be sure that it complies with policies and guidelines, and that in particular it's not unduly promotional. In which case, why poison the article with a notice that a paid editor was involved with it somehow? -- Atama頭 21:13, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

You want paid-for content to be disclosed, yet you don't want readers to be aware of the disclosure? That doesn't make any sense at all. 86.129.17.59 23:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree entirely with the IP editor. Atama's comment, if not disingenuous, is naive in the extreme. Even utterly blatant promotion sometimes goes undetected for years, and more subtle examples, skillfully camouflaged by professional spammers, can be very hard indeed to detect. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:30, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Then why not put a banner at the top of each Wikipedia site with a disclaimer that any page could have been edited by a paid editor, because they can easily fly under the radar. What does that achieve except to delegitimize the whole project? Am I naïve to think that I should waste my time when anything I do is potentially undone by sneaky paid advertisers? I hope you see the uselessness and damage such tags will bring. Fortunately, I know that there's no chance of ever having such silly notices (and to think that it could happen is naïve in the extreme). -- Atama頭 21:52, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

These two problems (promotion and spamming) are very real, and are part of the QA issues facing us. I don't see a convincing case that the proposed ToU (or indeed an article tag - which the IP did not suggest) will realistically help with these issues. The biggest benefit from the ToU is to the declared paid editor who can demonstrate "clean hands" - and perhaps the movement can say "we tried a ToU". But in terms of actually fixing problems, rather than making the "right noises" I have my doubts about the efficacy of this proposal. Rich Farmbrough 21:58 20 February 2014 (GMT).

I agree Rich, to an extent. Not to bring this up forever, but I'll go back to the sockpuppet issue. Having a policy against misuse of multiple accounts doesn't prevent it from happening, nor does it catch everyone who does it. And admittedly, we have better tools to catch sockpuppets than to catch paid editors (a financial checkuser sounds disturbing). But it encourages paid editors who want to work within guidelines and edit with transparency, and gives better tools to sanction paid editors who violate those guidelines and get caught. I don't think it fixes the problem but I think it can still help. -- Atama頭 22:03, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree that a provision in the terms of use is never a complete solution. But it does provide guidance and protection for those who do want to engage within the rules in good faith. Also, if there is a truly bad outside player that is maliciously hurting the projects with deceitful paid editing, we may want to consider litigation after the community discovers this player. A terms of use provision can help make a stronger case. Geoffbrigham (talk) 22:18, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

"Truly bad players" will almost certainly fall under the existing section "You agree to comply with the final decisions of dispute resolution bodies that are established by the community for the specific Project editions (such as arbitration committees); these decisions may include sanctions as set out by the policy of the specific Project edition." - though the scope for litigation might still be very curtailed, the additional term of use will make no difference. Rich Farmbrough 00:51 21 February 2014 (GMT).

(Incidentally notice how this could be reduced to "You agree to comply with the decisions of dispute resolution bodies established by the community for the specific Projects." Rich Farmbrough 00:53 21 February 2014 (GMT).)

Clarity for organisations and possible impact for organisations that pay?

This feels a bit to me like the prostitute and punter debate, and with all the focus on paid editors (prostitutes), I wonder if we are missing the other half of the problem.

Many organisations still have no idea that any of this debate is going on at Wikipedia and are not familiar with the principles here. This means they don't see what they are doing as problematic. I can think of two very recent examples where organisations assumed they had total ownership and total rights over their page until it was explained to them. I don't necessarily see this as their failure – both seemed to be acting in good faith – but ours in communicating principles. Wikipedia is the exception and not the rule – most organisations routinely pay and expect to pay everywhere else. The number of new articles on AfC created by editors who blithely name themselves after the company they are writing about also suggests the message hasn't permeated. Most of these articles are not created with any intent to deceive – self-evidently – since the user name is so blindingly obvious.

So perhaps a two-pronged publicity drive if the amendment is made, in which we address both editors and organisations. It’s never going to be easy for the marketing/PR junior at the organisation or its agency to reason with the powers that be if we only hint at what they shouldn't be doing, so there needs to be a clear and highly visible explanation from Wikipedia of the ground rules for companies and paid editors.

And even if we do spell it out, if it's a toss up between incurring the wrath of the boss who pays you or the wrath of Wikipedia that doesn't, which would you choose? Outside the current debate parameters I know, but I’d like to suggest that possible ramifications for the organisation itself might help publicise the pitfalls of undisclosed paid editing more effectively than simply focusing censure on the editors. I've no idea what is morally or legally acceptable but arguably it should be a tad stronger than the current advice and typical 'connected to the subject' banner so that it focuses minds on the potential reputational risks of paying for writing and editing. Libby norman (talk) 20:51, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree. This particular policy is targeting only the individual editor, which is fine as far as it goes. But the issues are larger, and additional policy to address the payors of the editors is needed. WP need not accept any obligations wrt organizations or any impact on them from the way they spend their money. But WP needs to defend itself against the influence of money generally to distort its goals. The issue of paid editing has potential for legal ramifications that the foundation itself must address because they will never be within the editors' ability to control. Evensteven (talk) 21:30, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

A publicity campaign to get this across to companies is a great idea. There might be some arguments that this would decrease the perceived reliability of Wikipedia, but I believe that it would increase our perceived reliability: We recognize that there is a problem and are taking steps to address the problem. This is similar to the BLP problem brought up by Sigenthaler (sp?) in 2005 (?) This actually marked a major increase in our editorship and perceived reliability. A major triumph for Wikipedia in the intermediate and long-runs. This change in the ToU would mark a similar triumph. Smallbones (talk) 21:42, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The need to help well-meaning people and organizations understand the basic rules is one reason we wanted to be explicit in the terms of use on how one should represent their affiliation. Many may not read the terms of use, but organizations who engage in paid editing are more likely to do so. I am not sure if these organizations or their clients understand that there are also potential PR and legal ramifications as well, which is why we link to FAQs that explain these risks, namely this section and this section. The prominent placement will hopefully increase awareness somewhat. And I agree that a larger publicity campaign may also be useful. Geoffbrigham (talk) 22:06, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Are anonymity & pseudonomy now lost?

Determining "compensation" seems very vague; lots of people poke at Wikipedia during working hours. Are they "being paid to edit"? Do they still have a COI about their employer even if they hate their job and don't have any respect for them? What about voluntary affiliations that don't pay, but may be as strong or stronger than a paid affiliation?

More generally, forcing people to disclose their employer is .... rather personal information, which strikes me as incompatible with the notion that our users can be anonymous (or rather pseudonomous, using usernames and keeping their real-world identities private).

If we're going to go that route, we should stop pretending we respect anonymity of our contributors and perhaps go for a true Real Names policy... which of course would crash community participation from many sectors (people at risk for harassment, people who worry they may be at risk of harassment, etc; and of course people at risk of being stalked and murdered, or arrested and tortured and executed).

I'm not sure I'd support that; while "Real Names" has done well by me (as a white male upper-middle-class knowledge worker in a liberal democracy, which is relatively safe) I don't think it's for everybody. --brion (talk) 20:56, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Real names are needed if we speak about real money. The Wikimedia can protect the privacy of its donators, but not the privacy of those to whom it gives money (or at least, the benefitor should give a proof of identity to the Foundation, by a secure mean, if this person really requires protection (e.g. an LGBT group in Russia, in Iran or in many anti-LGBT African countries where they risk jail or even death penalty for their online promotion activities; but such risk should not be considered in countries where their activities are perfectly legal and adequately protected by national laws and constitutions, such as LGBT groups or individual in the European Union, USA, Canada, Japan and some others; the protection by anonyity may be requested on a case per case basis: such cases could be discussed publicly to see if someone in a given country may request for anonymity, but even in this case that person or group should proove his identity to the Foundation that will keep it as secretely as possible, just like for donators: a public forum may ask question to the Foundation, that will forward them to the requester; the requester will reply privately to the Foundation, and then the Foundation will report the anonymized answer to the community for evaluation of the general situation; if the situation concerns lots of people, the question should be debated for the whole group of these persons without detailing them: a policy may be adopted about them, and the Foundation will apply it consistently, but securely). verdy_p (talk) 21:22, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Also there may be situations where some people ask for online anonymity to get some financements for being able to report about some emergency situations (e.g. today for news reports in Ukraine or Egypt), in specific cases where (even in "free" countries like USA) they could take a risk (imagine the situation of another people revealing things about US NSA activities : that person risks years of jail even in US for only reporting the truth to the world !). However in such situation the Foundation may not be able to offer the protection itself (being subject to US law) and could transfer the money to be given and controled by another trusted Wikimedia chapter (e.g. in Europe such as Wikimedia CH in Switzerland, or Wikimedia Sverrige in Sweden, and possibly even Wikimedia Russia for protecting US citizens).

The Foundation would have to trust these Chapters about its control on the final benefitor (located in another country where the benefitor asks for protection of his anonymty), but the Foundation will request to the chapter some aggregated acounting reports about these exceptional extra grants. After all these large chapters also have already good accounting practices. If needed, an amendment to the agreements linking the chapter and the Foundation may be signed to help secure this type of transfer relayed by the chapter protecting the anonymity of the benefitor.

And the Foundation should then inform candidate benefitors that they can choose one of these other chapters to request anonymity directly to them. The chapter would create an online account for that benefitor (with a tracking tag informing the community that the user is anonymous and protected by this chapter according to the signed agreement beween the chapter and the Foundation). verdy_p (talk) 21:34, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Verdy p as to "real names are needed if we speak about real money". Paid editors will need to give up some anonymity in order to make proper disclosures. That needs to be the price of being paid to edit, by the nature of that activity, and I don't think WP needs to apologize for that.

If an individual is paid to edit, I think it is acceptable for that person to have a separate account for that purpose. If he or she wishes also to contribute in an unpaid capacity, a separate standard anonymous account is also acceptable for that activity. If WP is unable to allow such dual accounts, then there is a question of individual rights wrt what their employers (or compensators) demand of them. If WP is unable to resolve such issues satisfactorily, then I think it would need to consider a complete ban on paid editing in order to preserve its goals, just as a practical matter. Evensteven (talk) 21:45, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Standard anonymous accounts are absolutely NOT anonymous. IP accounts are definitely not secure enough as they can be easily traced backed to the user by any one else through public logs of the wikis. What we need are standard registered accounts that are created and controled by someone whose real identity has been secured by the Foundation (or by one of its trusted chapters taking the control, for the Foundation, on how the money will be spent by that anonymous benefitor, that chapter being alone to know the identity of that benefitor for whom the Foundation cannot secure itself the anonymity, such as another Snowden reporting to the world about NSA activities and that would want protection of his anonymity by Wikimedia CH or Wikimedia Russia). Such registered account would have a tag indicating Account secured and protected by the Wikimedia Foundation in USA, or Account secured and protected by Wikimedia CH in Switzerland.

If the account is protected by a trusted chapter, ONLY the chapter will know the identity of that person. The trusted chapter takes its own responsability to control that user but NOTHING (except national laws directly applicable to that chapter) would require that chapter to reveal privately to the Foundation or publicly to the world the real identity of that user and this would be the essential part of the signed amendment linking the trusted chapter and the Foundation. Ideally, the trusted chapter would host an anonymizing proxy for that autorized user, in order to connect to the Foundation servers. The Foundation servers will know that the user comes from that trusted proxy (e.g. Wikimedia CH) but nothing else (so any US agency investigating in the logs of the Foundation will find nothing about that user whose privacy rights are protected by another country). verdy_p (talk) 21:53, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Also this possibility of offering anonymity by proxying users could be given to other partner trusted organizations (such as Reports Without Borders, whose seat is in France, or the Red Cross International Comity that actively promote the use of TOR, The Onion Routing network, to secure and protect local reporters and humanitaries working in dangerous countries, for promoting education, health and development of political rights and justice).

I think that this could be the base for cooperation with other wellknown organizations in the world defending Freedom of Speech, Human Rights, and Equality. A single organisation located in US cannot do that alone without help from partner organizations exempted from US laws, only because it is subject to US law and US law does not always protect these freedoms on a worldwide scale. verdy_p (talk) 22:22, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

So This type of protected account should not be accepted with weak passwords, and should have their password updated regularly or in case of some knows security alert. The password used should also be unique for this account. There exists excellent tools to help users secure their multiple accounts without forgetting them or have to type them in a complex way.

Another note: these trusted accounts, anonymized, protected, and possibly proxied by trusted chapters or organizations, need to have strong password protections. This type of account should not be accepted with weak passwords, and should have their password updated regularly or in case of some knows security alert. The password used should also be unique for this account. There are excellent tools to help users secure their multiple accounts without forgetting them or have to type them in a complex way.

I can cite Dashlane (sorry if this looks like advertizing, add other names if your can...) which works really well (but unfortunately still not on Windows Phone devices; it works on desktop/server Windows, Linux, MacOS; on mobile OSes it works only on Android and iOS) and that is securet only because they are NOT known even to the site proposing it (decryption of the password wallet, is performed only on the local device used by the password owner). But there are possibly others (but most of them are storing user password in clear text on their servers, and we know now that large servers can be comprimized with millions passwords stolen: avoid these other tools completely) ; for now; I've not found any equivalent to Dashlane to secure personal wallets competely out of control of central servers, and that's the only reason why I cite it. correct me if I'm wrong, but other similar tools exist nowhere else

And I think this type of tool (protecting personal wallets out of control of any central server) is now essential to protect our online privacy (such as HTTPS, or any IP-based protocol like IPSec or the whole PKI broken by the need to certify his identity to a large company you cannot really trust: all these online protocols are clearly not sufficient as they are controled by a central authority whose data can be, and has too frequently been compromized by various attacks). Today's attacks against central servers have changed scale radically: they are now regularly stealing millions of accounts (think about large online gaming platforms, lots of banks, and wellknown brands of malls; as well as lots of official governement sites), that NO company wants to warranty or indemnize. The time of centralized servers or authorities is defintely over: you cannot trust at all any large central authority as an universal proxy for protecting your privacy (even when you are not connected to the Internet and when you have switched off your mobile phone !!). In other words: everyone should use unique passwords for each site, and avoid delegating any part of the control to any central server, even if it's named Google, Yahoo or Facebook (OAuth for example will stop working soon). verdy_p (talk) 22:54, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

What if you work for $SUBJECT

I know of instances where employees of a company (not mine, I hasten to add) have been given time to edit subjects related to the company, including the company's article. It seems to me that this would be covered, as paid editing time is a form of compensation, but it's not explicitly clear. JzG (talk) 21:08, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

If I understand your hypothetical correctly, I believe you should disclose your employer. The Terms of Use already prohibits misrepresentation of affiliation; this amendment simply sets out the acceptable methods for disclosing that affiliation truthfully. In your hypothetical, the company is paying the employees during the given time. So that affiliation needs to be disclosed. The proposed amendment tells you how. I hope that helps, and feel free to correct me if I misunderstood anything. On your other point, I am not optimistic that we can craft language that clearly governs every hypothetical, but I feel the language here is probably clear enough to cover this situation. If you have better language to propose, I would definitely want to consider it. Geoffbrigham (talk) 21:52, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

My company and personal pages on Wikipedia are both junk. I have not edited because of conflict of interest concerns, and this just increases the concern. It would be nice to have clear way of addressing this issue. RonaldDuncan (talk) 21:30, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I already disclose my employer, and that I am who I am on my talk page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RonaldDuncan is this enough to be compliant with the current and new policy? RonaldDuncan (talk) 21:34, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd say that "paid editing time" is clearly compensation, but if others think it isn't clear we should make the wording clear. You would have to declare every edit IMHO. Smallbones (talk) 21:45, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

RonaldDuncan - I believe your user page is sufficient disclosure under the proposed amendment (assuming you are linking to it in your signature). Geoffbrigham (talk) 21:54, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Guy, in the instances you're aware of, do you know if the employers had control or oversight over what the editors had written? This is just personal curiosity, I don't think that fact makes that any less a form of paid editing (since even if the employer isn't telling you what to write or enforcing that you are positive, they could and there would at least be the implication that you're supposed to make edits that improve the company's image, otherwise why are they paying you). -- Atama頭 21:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

"Paid Editor" user attribute

I think a better solution would be to add a "paid editor" attribute to the user preferences with multiple text fields, one for each employer. This would allow an icon to be added automatically next to a user's signature rather than a written explanation after each entry. Clicking and/or hovering over the icon could bring up the details entered in the attributes text field. Though I personally don't feel it would be necessary to specify which employer contracted for the edit in the case of multiple employers as I suspect that would be obvious in most cases, a check-box for each employer could be presented when "save page" is pressed. This would also cover instances where paid editors are doing unpaid edits on their own (they would select "none").

Additionally, I would like to see the "paid editor" icon at the top or bottom of any page that has been contributed to by a paid editor, and clicking on this icon should bring up a list of all paid editors and their employers for easy reference. I believe this would also satisfy instances such as the "Unfair Commercial Practices Directive" example given under "Illegal in EU" topic subheading posted earlier today. KADC "Be unreasonable." (talk) 21:28, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Interesting ideas, KevinADCarter. Given our other technology priorities at WMF, I doubt we will be able to develop anything like this immediately unfortunately. This is why the proposed amendment tries to list existing possibilities within our present technology for disclosing honestly one's affiliation. That said, your proposal is creative and intriguing. Geoffbrigham (talk) 23:38, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Well it's true that if we accept "paid editors" only to bring them with more editing rights than other regular editors, we are going in the wrong way.

For me the term "paid editor" should be meant only to bring them access to editing at least equal to those with enough money, or to bring online some contents that are highly desirable but that would otherwise be missing completely if nothing else was done to bring them online (for example, due to lack of money to finance the project in small libraries, museums or cultural institutions, or because these documents also need restoration before being scanned and brought online for better conservation (e.g. old photos, endangered movie films, deteriorating books because of moisture or chemical effects in bad quality modern paper and oxydating inks...).

If is acceptable to pay even more for helping restorung the oldest and rarest endangered documents than it is to take new photos of monuments existing today.

Some articles are really complex to write as it requires deciphering lots of sources, possibly translating them, and requires lot of time to search various sources, find contacts to check various things. Some of these contacts will occur offline, in real life, or by phone, sometimes by costly postal mails or official paper procedures, and sometimes we need to pay a few pennies just to get access to a copy of a document (because this payment also helps preserving them in the public store).

The contributor may need to pay for his own transportation to te place where the document will be consulted, or the snapshot taken. All these efforts may exceed what a regular user can safely donate alone, and if he decides to work in team, the team will require coordnation and organisation that also needs some startup financial boost to start working efficiently with practical means of communication adapted to their real conditions of work for their common topic of interest.

So let's see the initial payments only like the initial seed or fertilizer that will allow later to collect and renew the experience without even needing more money: the user or grouo will already have enough interest to work efficiently that he will continue in good conditions and will interest other people ready to join them to share this topic of interest.

For this reason, payments for individual contributors or on isolated topics should not be renewed, unless the controbutor demonstrates that more work is needed and really requires more funding, and also demonstrates that the initial payment was both productful and enough efficient compared to other similar projects working with similar conditions.

The programs evaluation toolkit should then become a mandatory part of the work that needs to be completed along with the work directly related to the topic. Both works do not need to be completed simultaneously, but the delay between them should not be excessive, and indivudual workers should at least produce a report at most 2 months after the planned end of their project, or 2 months before renewing their demand, so that this report can be scrutinized (and questioned) in time without forcing the project to stop for too long (and loosing its supporters).

We want to avoid excessive bureaucracy, yes, because it also generates its own cost taken on other projects. That's why we should automate most of this bureaucracy so that it won't take lots of efforts and time to complete it. As long as it remains a few percents of the total efforts of the project, it is worth the efforts invested to do it, because it will also allow wasting lot of money in inefficient projects. In rela lige we call this "management", it is unavoidable and in fact necessaryt for full transparency and coordination of efforts, and in fine to produce MORE contents, or contents with better quality, or to interest more people by allwing the work to be split and reviewed by more people to correct undetected errors (every one makes errors, even the best experts). verdy_p (talk) 00:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Do what ever it takes to keep this site non biased

This is the best site on the web and it needs to be kept as such. I constantly use it as the first stop for any research, from electronic engineering to Eminem's shoe size. I look forward to my children using this site as a learning platform for homework or hobbies. The thought of conglomerates taking over this safe haven makes me cringe. I'm already fed up with Google, Facebook and Microsoft continuously climbing up my elementary canal trying to squeeze every drop of data or disposable income out of me.

Please. Keep this site informative and above all, with information i can trust.

P.S damn fine work, keep it up. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 90.201.240.170 (talk) 21:47, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! —LuisV (WMF) (talk) 23:49, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Most excellent comment!!! I am in total agreement of this assessment! Once the greedy mongers get a hold of this, it's all over for Wikipedia's reputation.

Previous discussions

I believe there have been recent community discussions/requests for comment on this subject in the recent past and the proposal has been roundly defeated. There should be a description of these past results on the page and an explanation of why this one is different, or why a different result is expected this time. At the very least there should be links to those pages so editors can get a complete picture of what is going on. SpinningSpark 21:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Indeed there have been: somebody with the required edit permissions (not me, I don't) left a comment at the bottom of the proposal over which this discussion is going. — RandomDSdevel (talk) 22:15, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Could maybe put them at the top of the Talk page? That's probably more appropriate than the document itself. —LuisV (WMF) (talk) 01:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm seeing references at the bottom of the page, but not any links to past discussions. SpinningSpark 11:12, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I have added the links that I know about to the top of this page. SpinningSpark 11:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is so useful because of its free editing, paid editing must injure it.

Wikipedia is a free internet encyclopaedia, collaboratively written or, edited by the volunteers that too free of cost, so that it serves the interests of anyone around the world free of cost, through the information contributed in it.

Therefore, a question automatically arises in ones mind that when the efforts of volunteers are available in Wikipedia free of cost, why should at all anyone needs to pay any such volunteer, going against Wikimedia's policy? Wikipedia does expect anyone to pay for its collaborative editing. Unnaturally, all paid editing then would influence writing in it.

Wikipedia is very popular among its users and has immense intrinsic value - that value must be realised by its users around the world, not by any paid contributor.

Therefore, any form of paid editing must be discouraged. This is applicable to all Wikimedia Projects.

S N Thakur (talk) 21:55, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Let us suppose that a conglomerate, such as Mitsubishi, or Tata Group pays someone to fix all spelling errors, and update changes in senior personnel in their group. Does this benefit or damage the Encyclopaedia? Rich Farmbrough 22:01 20 February 2014 (GMT).

Depends on what they want in return. Evensteven (talk) 04:21, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Your question sounds as if some other rich person willing to beautify your wife, paying his own money for that purpose when you are, as her husband, supposed to look after her. Does not the other person's willingness injures your dignity. I think it does injure. If at all a conglomerate, such as said Mitsubishi, or Tata Group need to better Wikipedia, better not let them interfere in wikipedia's existing policy. Let Wikipedia grow in its own way.

S N Thakur (talk) 22:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia spirit or something

… In other words, isn't this an attempted (success can be averted) step in the direction of refocusing the main service Wikipedia provides? Henceforth metaphorical description. A mass of readers visits Wikipedia. These readers differ on a scale of being more or less versed in critically perceiving information (extracting "interesting", "good", "irrelevant", "unverifiable", "senseless", "you-name-what-..." pieceworks of facts and characteristics). Certain part of "readerbase" is getting the best service out of state Wikipedia is in now. The amendment proposed means to expand the best served audience to include some part with slightly sub-par abilities, is this assuming too much?
If it isn't, I'm very much sceptical about the prospect of a gain. Instead of expansion, this could evolve into or turn out to be a shift. Meaning, pardon the strength of my opinion, that target audience is to become dumbed down. I strongly feel that the steeplechase with ineptitude of worse parts of general readers population has no hopes. Do you have any estimates on how much (percentage maybe) of poor unsuspecting readerbase you're going to protect by establishing a ban, which is randomly inspired and who know how it can be enforced (in a project that puts emphasis on freedom)?
I'm not meaning to discriminate, rather to promote readers discipline. Легат Ская (talk) 21:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

@Легат Ская: Thank you for sharing your opinion! I don't think this is an attempt to change the service we provide, or to "dumb down" Wikipedia. Most of our readers, I think, already assume that we are transparent and unbiased. This amendment specifically supports those goals. People should of course have to have critical thinking - but this will help give them information to do that. Hope that helps clarify. —LuisV (WMF) (talk) 23:46, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Luis, Editing by anonymous people is not transparent. The only way for true transparency is a real name policy. Almost no article on most topics is truly unbiased. Articles on artists or performers or sportspeople are edited by their fans (when not by their press agents.) The only way for freedom from bias is expect editing. Since both these requirements would contradict our basic principles, it is a naïve oversimplification to call WP transparent and unbiased. All we can hope to do about it is to reduce the cruder forms of COI, under our fundamental but not necessarily true assumption that on topics with a wide interest, the community as a whole is unbiased. DGG (talk) 19:05, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Need to give projects flexibility to add other options

We need to add a 4th bullet-item:

• any other method of disclosure specifically permitted by the project in which the edit takes place.

This will allow the various projects to adopt future techniques such as allowing a "paid editor" bit that links to [[User:username/paideditordisclosure]] or some such without having to go back to the Foundation to amend this document.

It would also allow specific projects to say "we don't require public disclosure, a letter to OTRS is all that is needed" or even "we don't care about paid editing, no disclosure is required."

By allowing projects who want to deviate from the "default" 3 options to go through a formal project to do so, it will prevent this policy from being seen as being "shoved down everyone's throat just because a large number of projects and/or the larger projects want it."

I would have no objection to the Commons not being allowed to take advantage of this line-item as its files are used across many projects. Davidwr/talk 22:02, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Davidwr - This is a thoughtful comment. We considered this but in the end we decided that we needed clarity, simplicity, and uniformity in the terms of use since this provision would apply in large part to outside organizations and their clients. We are looking for a simple approach with transparent instructions. To be clear, the misrepresentation of affiliation has been a violation of the terms of use for more than a couple of years. This proposed amendment simply provides guidance on how one can truthfully represent their affiliation to avoid running afoul of that provision. The proposed amendment does recognize that individual projects may impose additional requirements beyond this proposed amendment: "Community and Foundation policies, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure." Geoffbrigham (talk) 23:33, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I would like to second Davidwr's suggestion — the ToS should allow projects the option of permitting OTRS disclosure under certain circumstances, such as those that could unintentionally exclude good faith efforts via technicality, or those that might be assumed to unnecessarily compromise the personal safety of someone. This sort of exception does not require any degradation in comprehensibility — it can be easily incorporated in a minimal, straightforward fashion.   — C M B J   03:19, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I will want to discuss a bit more with my legal team, but I think I would be open to a 4th bullet that gives discretion to the project on how to disclose; that said, the project would not have the option to eliminate such a disclosure requirement (as could be explained in an FAQ). Maybe something like this: - any other similarly effective method of disclosure permitted by the project in which the edit or contribution takes place. Geoffbrigham (talk) 05:24, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

While I would prefer to give projects the ability to "opt out," I'm okay with just giving them the ability to substitute "similarly effective methods of disclosure" as long as "similarly effective" does not imply "public" disclosure of real-life identities. The personal safety issue that CMBJ raised was among the reasons I made this proposal in the first place. Davidwr/talk 20:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Concerns about personal information and safety issues were also raised by Brion VIBBER up above, under #Are anonymity & pseudonomy now lost? and one of the solutions I suggested was #Email to OTRS, so this goes hand-in-hand. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 20:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Paid contribution is antithetical to spirit of Wikipedia

I'm writing to express my outrage at the thought of paid contributions or edits to Wikipedia. This is antidemocratic and is the path of least resistance to total corruption. The world already suffers from money in the spread of information; the truth is already bought and paid for, in the spheres of advertising and print journalism, by global corporations; Wikipedia used to stand alone as a biasless defender of truth.

Hi there. I definitely hear your anger and understand it. To be clear, this proposed amendment is only a minimum requirement, and projects are free to put more restrictions of paid editing if they chose to do so. The proposed amendment specifically says: "[C]ommunity and Foundation policies, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure." Also we provide this FAQ to underscore that the provision is only a minimum requirement. I hope this helps. Geoffbrigham (talk) 23:22, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Geoff, I think a significant portion of us in the community would like to see an even stronger policy put into the terms of use. I wonder if you could outline some of the options for doing that, and what some of the limitations might be? I have seen more than one person who is interpreting this as a step to accept or normalize paid advocacy editing, which is not the intention at all, of course.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Why is a WMF board member trying to influence the Wikimedia Foundation staff in a proposal that the staff intends to submit to the board? That seems like a conflict of interest there, but at least Wales is doing it publicly, so that we can transparently see the influence. As for the conclusion that this might be a step to "accept or normalize paid advocacy editing", most of the German, Swedish, and Norwegian Wikipedia communities already support that in practice, so let's not imagine that Jimmy Wales speaks for what the broad, global Wikipedia community's "intention" is, at all. -- Thekohser (talk) 14:35, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Strongly Disagree -- PAID CONTRIBUTIONS ARE WANTED ! - Look if CDC tells someone to post about Swine Flu then that paid contribution is a VERY good thing. If an advocacy group is willing to input in a tranparent COI way about their position then that is Freedom of Speech thing and responsible. If not done, that harms the article in distorts the facts when only ignorant or opponents get to speak. Then ther are the two issues of feasibility -- if hoops are annoying to reader or editor then volunteers and responsible paid folks are excluded and you're left with only lying sockpuppets, plus if you exclude all paid contributers that would cover everyone with subject matter experetise and the wikipedia admins themselves. Markbassett (talk) 16:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Far too vague about what being paid means; likelihood of harassment of good-faith real name editors; additional bureaucracy

I have several problems with the proposal as it stands:

• It does not clearly explain how to determine whether one is being "paid to edit Wikipedia". For instance: I am a professor at a university that pays its faculty to perform teaching, research, and service. Here "service" can mean many things including taking part in campus governance as well as professional peer reviewing. I have chosen to interpret my editing on Wikipedia as part of that service, in the sense that (for instance) I disclose it in my regular performance reviews. However, my employer exerts absolutely no control about what I edit and would not care if I stopped. Does that make me a paid editor? Is that an adequate reason to force me to disclose my name?
• The language "Many believe that users with a potential conflict of interest should engage in transparent collaboration, requiring honest disclosure of paid contributions" is a non-sequitur. *Everyone*, paid or unpaid, has a potential conflict of interest of some sort or another. Why is the word "paid" part of this sentence?
• As someone who edits under my real name, I have occasionally experienced workplace harassment (such as phone calls to my department chair and, in one case, a formal complaint to the governing board of the 10-campus university system that employs me) by editors who disagreed with my edits. Is it going to become expected that every academic who wants to participate in Wikipedia must be willing to be subjected to this treatment?
• Has anyone weighed this added burden on editors to know and follow additional rules, to have their real-world identies outed, and to more easily run afoul of these new rules, against the repeated claims that we need to be more welcoming of new editors?

Basically this feels like venue-shopping to me: the discussions of the same proposals on the English Wikipedia led to a lack of consensus, so the proponents of these measures are instead taking it here where they hope fewer people will be on their guard. The fact that the proposal doesn't explicitly say "you have to provide your name" is of no help to people for whom naming their employer and looking at their interests is enough to identify them. None of the problems raised by the English Wikipedia discussions have been fixed, and indeed this proposal is worse in several respects. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:11, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

• The proposed wording on what "paid" means seems clear enough to me. Natural language, of course has its limits. If you have a better wording, please suggest it.
• Nobody has to provide their real name. Since you already provide your real name, you might consider retiring that name, and editing under a new name.
• I don't think that professors have any worries about editing articles - even on the "university's time" - unless their employer (on campus or off) has told them to edit specific articles or topics.
• The WMF clearly must do something now - as paid editors are now saying that they have some sort of right to edit on Wikipedia, and the general practice of hidden advertising is exploding across the entire web. See e.g. en:Astroturfing. "Forum shopping" has nothing to do with it. Paid editors very obviously participate in this type of discussion. Even if there are only 1% of all editors who do paid editing, we should expect 100s if not 1000s of paid editors to show up in these discussions and in effect say "Wikipedia should allow me to continue making money here." I don't take that type of "contribution" to be at all convincing, and sooner or later I think the Board will recognize that. In fact I think they already have. They've got serious questions to consider involving protecting the WMF and the movement from liability and really protecting the whole idea of Neutral Point of View. We need to let them do their job and give them our real opinions on the matter; without saying that we have to consider paid editors' opinions on an equal basis. Smallbones (talk) 00:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I find it notable that many editors like David here and myself who disclose their legal names on Wikipedia are amongst those who have reservations about this proposal. I think the benefits of this proposal are largely theoretical and drawbacks concrete and under appreciated. The proposal is not clear whether paid editing means just being contracted to edit Wikipedia specifically or includes all public relations types who on their own initiative turn their attention to Wikipedia. What's going to happen here is that the most upstanding of these people will provide maximum disclosure as to their income sources and will be rewarded for this with maximum harassment, especially from individuals who themselves hide behind anonymity.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:12, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I am an editor whose real-world name and identity are fully disclosed, and who has been subjected to a couple of different kinds of harassment because of it. Nonetheless, I wish to disagree very strongly with Brian about the absolute necessity for this rule, or an ever stronger one, if we are to retain any semblance of credibility in this world of paid placements, infomercials, and Citizens United legalized quasi-bribery. --Orange Mike (talk) 01:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Because hijacking the whole project to serve the interests of Google with the SOPA blackout did wonders for the project's credibility, I suppose. Some pro-business angles might actually restore some perception of neutrality to a project that is notorious for pushing a left/libertarian POV.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

@Smallbones: If the wording is so clear, explain why I still can't figure out (and you didn't clearly answer) whether it would apply to my own case. You said "professors don't need to worry" but that is not the same as what I would like to see: a clear statement (within the policy itself) that it does not apply to people who edit during paid time or on subjects of their paid expertise, but whose edits are neither subject to employer/client approval nor a direct financial conflict of interest (such as edits about a company one owns).

@Orangemike: I agree that edits paid for by the subjects of the edits are a big problem, but your reasoning smacks of "We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do this." Every change has a cost as well as a benefit. I fear that the cost of this change may be a significant barrier to entry for an important class of editors. Personally, I see many people involved in the push for this policy making little distinction between spammers and collateral damage and (despite using my real name here and believing my contributions to be non-promotional) it makes me feel unwelcome. Now consider that I'm an English-WP administrator with years of experience here and tens of thousands of edits, and try to imagine how much more intimidated someone with useful expertise but less time on the project might feel at seeing all this. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:19, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Against Wikipedia ideals?

Copied from content page PiRSquared17 (talk) 22:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Weird ideas. They go against the traditional Wikipedia ideals -- transparency, democracy. Why ruin anything that has worked so well, so far? smilesofasummernight Smilesofasummernight (talk) 21:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

@Smilesofasummernight: Thanks for your concern - we agree that it is very important to treasure and take care of this thing we've built together. I have two key points in response to your concerns:

1) We think the proposal is quite in keeping with ideals of transparency, since it shows exactly how to be transparent about edits.

2) It is not clear that things have worked well- organizations have abused our transparency and we hope this will help stem that problem.

Hope that helps explain - happy to discuss more if you want. —LuisV (WMF) (talk) 22:49, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

@Smilesofasummernight:, I translate this for you ;): Thanks for your concern - but we are not really interested in what you have to say. We only act here as we would be interested what you Wikimedians have to say - but for real - we do not care! So shut up, write you're articles, so we as Foundation can collect the donations at the end of the year, that pay our wage! We do at the end still what we want! :) Marcus Cyron (talk) 13:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Will this do anything?

I totally get the impetus behind this, but I don't see this as likely to change anyone's behavior, regardless of how it's wordsmithed. Nobody's going to enroll in a voluntary scarlet letter program.

First, I'd guess that the vast, vast majority of paid articles and edits go completely unnoticed, with experienced paid editors (e.g., PR folks writing Wikipedia articles for a lot of nascent clients) knowing precisely what is needed to avoid attention while delivering for their clients. They will never, ever ever comply with these rules, because why put the stench of bias all over a source of their livelihood?

Those who are really bad at it, meanwhile (e.g., employees copy-pasting their company's about page into an article), will continue to completely ignore the Terms of Use as they always have. They won't even know this is a rule before their content is speedy-deleted anyway. JDoorjam (talk) 22:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

i understand your point, this rule alone will not do much but it will lay the groundwork that enable Wikipedia to ban certain users and contents expeditiously. also, PR firms that employ deceptive methods expose their client to legal risks (ie. defamation, fraud etc). Wikipedia's objective is not to prevent crimes. The objective is to prevent them from legally deceive our users. 76.69.126.216 22:22, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, BAD things

I'll put in a section for ways this would do bad ... (Anyone with content for it does nothing can put in that section)

I Strongly Disagree -- PAID CONTRIBUTIONS ARE WANTED ! - Look if CDC tells someone to post about Swine Flu then that paid contribution is a VERY good thing. If an advocacy group is willing to input in a tranparent COI way about their position then that is Freedom of Speech thing and responsible of them, neither should be casually tossed aside, as well as making for a more informative inclusive article. If paid folks are not allowed, that harms the article as it distorts the facts when only ignorant or opponents or those who lie about associations get to speak. Then there are the two issues of feasibility -- if hoops are annoying to reader or editor then honest volunteers and responsible paid folks would get discouraged and WP is left with only lying sockpuppets. Finally if you exclude all paid contributers that would cover EVERYONE with subject matter expertise down to the wikipedia admins and grantholders themselves. So if redone in a WP way for transparency that it gives goodness (clarity, NPOV content, responsibility) to WP articles and WP community or 'paid contributions are wanted in this manner' is wanted but this approach would do BAD things. WP community goodness would be to point WP:PAID in ways understandable to readers and of benefit to editor - e.g the credibility of being CDC guy or more business of being a recognized as responsible WP paid editor. The demonizing or angry blast seems shortsighted negative things as conceived and written and would do bad things. Markbassett (talk) 17:05, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I believe it will

A few reasons why I think a provision in the terms of use is useful in this context:

• I agree that someone who wants to violate our terms will do so. But most people - including those who engage in paid editing - want to do the right thing. A terms of use provision provides prominent guidance to those members of our community and third party organizations who want to go forward in good faith. In Section 4, the terms have always prohibited misrepresented affiliations, and this provision explains how truthful affiliations are declared. It provides additional helpful guidance, I would argue, to those who want to do the right thing. To be sure, some may not read the terms of use, but I would venture a guess that those who are running businesses engaged in paid editing are more likely to read the terms of use as they try to understand the rules.
• I believe there are real risks - often unknown to outside organizations and their clients - in undisclosed editing on our projects. With its clear placement in the terms of use, this proposed amendment underscores the importance of proper affiliation disclosure. In addition, it links to an FAQ which explains potential legal and PR consequences. See this section and this section. The central placement will hopefully increase awareness.
• Also, when a bad player is caught, a terms of use provision may be helpful if we ever wanted to consider legal actions, like cease and desist letters or even litigation. A court is less likely to excuse a violation of a terms of use as opposed to a community policy, especially among professional players who intentionally are violating those terms.

Thanks, Geoffbrigham (talk) 23:04, 20 February 2014 (UTC) (PS I'm posting as a separate subsection, since I plan to link here in answering similar questions I'm seeing elsewhere.)

Thank you for clarifying (and sorry for redundantly asking the same question somewhere below, this page is quickly getting too long to read), but I disagree: As for the first point, a community policy should be sufficient, and if that community policy is too hard to find, that is really a general problem to be solved; we can't simply put all community policies into the ToU to solve that. As for your second point, I don't feel it's the WMF's obligation to tell people about the local laws that apply to them; there are a lot of potentially (somewhere in the world) illegal things that one is able to do on Wikimedia servers (just think of laws restricting free speech), but we don't put all of them into the ToU; if we do want to give people such advice, a sentence along the lines of "note that there may be local applicable laws restricting paid editing" does that without introducing new rules. The third point does appear valid, but it still doesn't (subjectively, to me) seem like a sufficiently good justification for policy centralism. darkweasel94 (talk) 23:39, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

"Tony Stark"?

Can we please have a document that doesn't have "funny" pop culture references in it? Thank you. — Scott • talk 22:15, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

@Scott Martin: Hi Hex. This was changed here. Would you prefer Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker, Tony Stark, or a non-superhero name? PiRSquared17 (talk) 22:19, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

A typical placeholder name would be fine with me. How about "Jane Doe"? It would be refreshing for it not to be a male name, for once. — Scott • talk 22:43, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Fine with me. Feel free to change it (unless WMF objects for some reason). PiRSquared17 (talk) 23:28, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The ed17 has modified this: diff. PiRSquared17 (talk) 00:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• Great. I didn't realize that non-WMF people were allowed to edit this, otherwise I would have done so myself rather than complaining about it. — Scott • talk 11:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

No objection to changing the name -- as long as it's easy to understand! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I !vote for "Peter Parker", since it's actually an employment, paid, conflict-of-interest example -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 01:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

More hypothetical examples for discussion

Following NewYorkBrad's section above. In considering an updated policy or TOS provision addressing paid editing, we need to make sure that it addresses the types of situation that may come up in this area, and does so in a way that accords with how we want these situations to be handled, and with common sense. Below are some hypothetical situations. How do we want to address them? Does the proposed TOS addition do so well, or how might it be changed to do so better?

Of course, given the specific proposal at issue here, the expected answer to all these situations would be along the lines of "make the disclosure." However, each incident could be looked at from the point of view of "is it realistic that editors in this position will do that, and do we need them to?"

These examples are taken from here, with some editing.

A. A pharmaceutical company adds information to a Wikipedia article about one of its products that is essentially identical to the sales information it distributes to medical professionals and consumers.

B. A company makes negative edits to articles about its competitors.

C. A restaurant owner posts a Wikipedia article about her restaurant containing referenced and unreferenced material, including an unreferenced mention of "delicious apple pie."

• Would it make any difference if the restaurant owner (or employee/contractor) attempted to write an unbiased article about the restaurant? (For example, a hired search engine optimization (SEO) firm might want to push a different website lower in a Google search?)
• Would it make any difference if the article were about a non-profit organization rather than a for-profit business?

D. A company edits an article about itself, but does not pitch its products or services. Rather it extols the company's public service spirit, and its environmental record, in "corporate image advertising".

E. A company's public relations firm does not add text to an article, but removes text others have written,.

F. An OTC drug company has "discovered a new disease" and researched the effect of one of its products on the disease. The company's research on this new disease has not been published in a medical journal, but was reported on in a large metropolitan newspaper which cited the company's research report. A company researcher writes and posts a Wikipedia article, citing the newspaper report but not mentioning the fact that the research was funded by the company.

Discussion of examples (2)

E. It depends what text. We have clear rules on en:wp about what can definitely be removed, a large grey area, and some clear rules about what should not be removed.

F. On en:wp would not necessarily fall under the ToU, but would fall under both CoI and MedRS. As I understand it MedRS would fail the reference, and without that the whole article would be likely to be deleted. Rich Farmbrough 23:05 20 February 2014 (GMT).

In each case IMHO the new ToU would require disclosure, which is what we want. Requiring disclosure by a non-profit (under C) might seem a bit extreme to some, but it is only disclosure that we're talking about here. The rules mentioned by Rich Farmbrough are requirements over and above the disclosure to be required by the ToU. Smallbones (talk) 18:46, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I Believe This Proposed Amendment is a Good Idea

I believe - as noted on the Content Page - that this amendment will contribute to transparency and openness. Some people have made comments suggesting that the proposed amendment is not a good idea. There are several broadly repeating themes with these arguments, all easily dismissed, and I will address these now.

Firstly, the number of Wiki contributors will not decrease, whether paid or not. In fact, if people know that WIKIMEDIA is taking further steps to ensure transparency, it is quite likely that the opposite will happen - its reputation will be enhanced and it will continue to be trusted as a source of (at least) transparent information.

Secondly, it has been suggested that the amendments won't stop bias in articles. I believe by providing transparency, readers can make more informed decisions about how they interpret the information presented. The alternative being suggested by some is to do nothing, simply because there isn't a better solution. I think this would be wrong. To at least make a well-informed start is far superior to doing nothing, because of a paralysis of ideas. Amendments can themselves be amended in time, but the idea of allowing paid contributions to continue without further efforts at transparency would be a big disappointment and damaging to Wiki's reputation.

In short, again, I support moving forward with greater transparency.

Non-hypothetical example

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tyop_Contest

Would this sort of thing get swept up in the "declaration of interest"? Rich Farmbrough 22:35 20 February 2014 (GMT).

Moved your signature up so it formats a bit nicer. Hope you don't mind. As for the question itself, I would most likely say no, it shouldn't be a problem because you're competing to make Wikipedia a more structurally sound, typographically and grammatically correct place. Besides the point, it would be a burden on the editor to say "no, you must disclose every edit or request paid editor grouping to qualify in our contest to fix Wikipedia's grammar errors". Since I am uncertain that en:WP:IAR or any Wiki-space policy supersedes the terms of use, I ask that the amendment be clarified as to exclude community projects that are not limited to an article (or articles) owned by an entity. Ellomate (talk) 23:05, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm open to this. Maybe we could find examples and draft language for the FAQ that carves out this exception. If someone wants to try penning a draft, that would be great; otherwise, I will try to get to it. Geoffbrigham (talk) 23:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

@Ellomate: The proposed policy says nothing about whether changes are improvements to Wikipedia. What weight does your opinion that this is non-problematic carry, against the clear wording of the policy itself? This is why we should be very careful what we write into policy: because it is what we actually write, not what we secretly would like it to mean, that will end up counting. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:23, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

@David: Well, I should have "disclosed" (wink wink) that I am not an administrator on any Wikipedia project, so can't say for certain. As the saying goes "the law is only as good as the people who are willing to enforce it", which is why not every rule** here is set in stone. I have confidence that a revised FAQ should clear it up, if not, an actual rewording of the amendment will. Ellomate (talk) 18:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

3rd party payors

As the operator of MyWikiBiz, I manage a small stable of paid editor affiliates who are under signed terms of non-disclosure with MyWikiBiz. Suppose I may contract with, for example purposes only, RealVu company to create a Wikipedia article about their company, or to improve an article about a product category in which they engage, such as Viewable Impressions. When I sub-contract that work to an affiliate editor, they would be required by this TOS amendment to disclose that some of their editing may be paid for by MyWikiBiz, but not required to disclose that RealVu is the end client, correct? I would be fine with that, because most of my affiliates are long-standing Wikipedia editors, so my clients would not be that much more "exposed" by the disclosure association with "MyWikiBiz" -- because the affiliates are editing dozens of other Wikipedia articles about different companies and various business-related topics, so it would be very difficult for any one company topic to be singled out as "paid". To be more specific, if RealVu hired MyWikiBiz to author content on the Viewable Impressions article, and I only told my affiliate that they are to improve the article about Viewable Impressions (without ever mentioning RealVu), there is no way for the end reader (or even the paid affiliate!) to know if MyWikiBiz had been hired by RealVu, or C3 Metrics, Comscore, or AdYapper, would they? I'm fine with that! Is Philippe Beaudette and/or the WMF Legal team that is speaking for "we" the people okay with that, too? -- Thekohser (talk) 22:40, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

After a while, what I would also do is start offering long-standing editors $5 a month for them to write on their User page, "I am paid by MyWikiBiz to publish Wikipedia content." Every month that they leave that up, they get another $5 from me -- even though I won't actually be sending them any additional paid content work. That way, every single one of their edits will come under "paid editing" suspicion and scrutiny, until that "I am Spartacus" moment finally dawns on everyone who backs this amendment, that when you're looking at scores of Wikipedia editors in good standing who appear to be "paid by MyWikiBiz", you'll pull your hair out with the realization that you can't figure out which ones are really editing for pay versus those who are just being paid to post the notice. (Brilliant in its deviousness, I know. I specialize in these diabolical plans.) -- Thekohser (talk) 22:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The obvious way to defeat this plan would be to require editors to disclose which pages they're paid to edit, which seems like a good idea regardless. For that matter, I don't see nearly as much of a problem if the MyWikiBiz subcontractor doesn't know who's ultimately paying… if they're sticking to Wikipedia policies & guidelines, as you claim they would, it shouldn't be substantially different from the Reward Board. There is still the concern that you could say "Improve the Viewable Impressions article, and, oh, I wouldn't mind if you were favourable to RealVu, wink wink, nudge nudge"… but disclosing at least the basics ("paid by X to edit Y") seems like a better situation than the present one with no disclosure requirements. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 15:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Wow, I agree with Nihiltres! Thing is, this proposed amendment to the TOS doesn't (yet) say that editors must disclose which pages they're paid to edit. Also, what if the command to the editor from the buyer is... "Please use this money to improve Wikipedia in the most time-efficient manner, in the following areas: (1) Notable companies headquartered in Doral, Florida; (2) Notable companies involved with viewable impressions." The editor would satisfy the request most efficiently by creating an article about RealVu, but he wasn't paid to create an article about RealVu, was he? -- Thekohser (talk) 16:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Under the ToU your meatpuppets would, I think (you might like to check), be required to follow EN:WP policy, which is considerably more restrictive about CoI editing. I doubt your $5 scheme would get very far, indeed it might amount to the uttering of false documents, in the event that anyone took up your generous offer. Rich Farmbrough 22:57 20 February 2014 (GMT).

There is no "policy" regarding paid editing or conflicts of interest on English Wikipedia, Rich. The $5 scheme has nothing to do with falsehood, because the editors would, in fact, be paid to publish those nine words each month on Wikipedia. Nice try, but both of your arguments are losers. -- Thekohser (talk) 02:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Under this ToU your sockpuppets and meatpuppets would be required to disclose their client (RealVu or whoever), not just who they were hired by. Their failure to do so would give us the ability to block them as they should have been blocked long ago. --Orange Mike (talk) 02:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Re-read the proposed amendment, Mike: "your employer, client, and affiliation". For my affiliates, I am their client. My client is not their client. What would you say if the client was Renaissance Books, and they've run out of employees to doctor their Wikipedia article, and they need to hire a service like mine? It would be okay in that case, correct, given your past performance for that particular employer? -- Thekohser (talk) 02:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

How would that work? If MyWikiBiz pays me to do some editing task, and gives me a brief, then my only employer is MyWikiBiz. Surely I cannot be required to disclose something that I do not know. Perhaps MyWikiBiz has been hired by a publicist, who also has a client, and so on. It would be quite naive to expect all of these commercial relationships to be spelled out to the lowest link on the chain, the wiki editor. It just isn't workable. 203.213.2.194 03:03, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. This discussion has really helped me make up my mind that acceptance of any paid editing on Wikipedia at all is a bad idea. Evensteven (talk) 04:40, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, that's one conclusion, Steven. Another more rational conclusion would be that any limitation on paid editing at all on a project that "anyone can edit" and anonymity is welcomed and "outing" is prohibited... is a bad idea. -- Thekohser (talk) 11:53, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

This is the situation I am most worried about since it seems fairly easy for the advertising/public relations industry to generate insulating layers, and the "or" part of the disclosure proposal would seem to allow paid editors to just refer to some kind of generic entity on their userpages. Yesterday I edited an article (about artificial ski slopes) that was almost certainly generated by an advertising or public relations professional (i.e. a paid editor). I can see conflicting concerns--both that the not-very-good article might not have appeared without the paid editor's involvement, but also that cleanup took other editors' time (I removed about 2/3 of the bias, and then another editor removed a little more, but it still doesn't meet wp standards IMHO). Months ago I encountered another probable instance of paid editing, presumably by some type of agent of the Skadden Arps law firm. That was a lot more sophisticated, changing a new partner's page (Peter Fitzgerald) to mention his new affiliation, but give the impression that he was still a public servant. The trouble is that the FTC doesn't have the time or resources to take action on most of these instances, especially not the sophisticated ones (frankly, the entire Skadden Arps article seems scrubbed compared to another law firm, Hunton & Williams, or maybe that one just got caught with its hands in the cookie jar, so as to speak). Then I noticed that the repeatedly scrubbed and always problematic Dalkon Shield article doesn't mention the McGuire Woods law firm involved in initial document destruction, if my memory serves me right...). Right now, I don't have lots of time to research this matter, nor can I go about correcting every massively messed up article. Still, I'm inclined to suggest that the paid editing appear both on the page being edited, and on the userpage. Oops, thought I was logged in and don't have time to figure out the link issue between wikipedia and metawiki.Jweaver28 (talk) 13:39, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

question about incorporating local policy (from Wikimedia-l)

On wikimedia-l, Nathan asked:

Is there a way to incorporate the local policy by reference into the TOU, something like "The Wikimedia Foundation requires that all users being paid to contribute follow the disclosure, conflict or related applicable policy on each project where said users contribute."? Might that be a solution to establishing a binding policy with legal weight, without superseding local intentions?

Local policies are mentioned in the amendment ("community ... policies ... may further limit paid contributions"), but the idea is that the ToU sets a minimum and local policies can only get stricter from there. Note that when drafting the current ToU, my understanding is that we decided against specifically incorporating local policy into the ToU as a result of community concern about that. Hope that helps explain it. —LuisV (WMF) (talk) 23:19, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

But well, this is exactly the problem I see. Why set minimum policies that basically coerce certain wikipedias/communities into changing their editing local policy to accommodate a set of rules that only certain people in the community agree to in the first place? There has never been a clear consensus on this, one way or the other. notafish }<';> 11:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Delphine (Notafish) -- extremely astute observation. It's as if the WMF has not carefully considered what its project communities actually desire. -- Thekohser (talk) 16:30, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Paid articles

Copied from Meta:Babel. PiRSquared17 (talk) 23:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion, no paid articles would be allowed. If a company's representative wants to describe a new product or process, I believe s/he would do best to assign the topic to one of the Wikipedia editors by phone, with a follow-up description by mail, so the editor can decide whether the topic provides useful information or just advertising.

Narrabel

P.S. I'm new here, and I hope that by clicking Save my comment will be added to the Talk page on the subject.

Thank you for sharing your opinion, Narrabel, and thank you, PiRSquared, for helping ensure that Narrabel's voice was included. Mpaulson (WMF) (talk) 00:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

No problem. Anyway, here is a reply to Narrabel: they could write a draft with a disclosed conflict-of-interest, and then have a more experienced editor with no COI review it and create it (depending on the topic's notability, the tone, and the references). PiRSquared17 (talk) 12:52, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm leaning towards oppose, help me to better understand this.

I fully support the current wording "prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud." But I don't believe this necessitates enforcing explicit disclosure of paid contributions.

Perhaps I am merely unaware of the "situations that the Wikimedia community considers problematic". I've personally both revised edits and entered discussions with editors that were either compensated for edits or editing articles with a conflict of interest. In these cases, the edits were not congruent with WP policies & guidelines, but resolving these edit disputes were not particularly more difficult than dealing with any other manner of problem editor.

It seems to me that the only thing that matters is that an edit improves the state of the content and follows policies and guidelines. If that is the case, I see no need to know whether or not an editor is being compensated for contributions.

It feels like this suggests that a paid contributor should be held to different standards than a nonpaid contributor, and I don't understand this. An edit should be judged on it's own merits, not on the circumstances of the editor nor the motives of the editor that submitted it. Until someone can provide a counterargument, I feel that questions of identity and conflicts of interest should not need to be addressed unless an editor is being reported for repeated violation of policies & guidelines.

Further, I think that such detailed arguments would be beneficial to add to this article in order to justify the need for this new addition to the terms of use. I strongly believe it is insufficient to gloss over the impetus as "problematic situations".

I'd appreciate any responses that might help me better understand the alternate viewpoint. -Verdatum (talk) 23:29, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

A good question. It is one thing (and a good thing) to remind users that the Federal Trade Commission prohibits deceptive acts or practices and then try to suggest that this compels Wikipedia to demand some, but not all, users to disclose their income sources. This is a non sequitur.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:56, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

To be clear, I don't think we're suggesting that Wikipedia is "compelled" to do anything by the FTC - the FTC's rules apply to the companies who pay for edits, not to us. We're merely pointing out that FTC rules may also apply to American companies who are paying for edits. Hope that helps clarify that point. —LuisV (WMF) (talk) 00:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Verdatum, when talking about "problematic situations," I was referring to situations like this one. I also think there are other benefits to including guidance in the terms of use, as I explain a bit more here. We'll be posting some other considerations that address your question more directly in a day or so. Geoffbrigham (talk) 00:10, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

The Morning277 affair was already against ToU, I believe. Rich Farmbrough 01:02 21 February 2014 (GMT).

That is my opinion, and, as I understand, significant and scare resources were employed by our volunteer community to investigate because the alleged paid edits were not transparent. This proposed amendment shows good faith companies how they can avoid misrepresentation of their affiliation by disclosure of that affiliation in three alternative ways. Geoffbrigham (talk) 01:40, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

That word "misrepresentation" seems to me the crux of the issue, hanging on the ancient ethical problem of when the lack of an affirmative declaration becomes implicitly misleading in context (of course, I'm sure you're well familiar with this overall issue in a legal context). Do Wikipedia contributors ethically carry some sort of implied warranty of non-conflict? non-payment? One might argue that's best-practices, but even so, does that justify making disclosure a terms-of-use requirement? -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 02:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

If there is payment anyhow, Wikipedia is no longer the "free" encyclopedia.

There should NOT be payments for contributions.

If there is a payment for contributions, an explanation of why that is paid and the rest not must be explained.

If there is any payment for a contribution, be it to an individual or to a company/firm/organization, full disclosure should be clearly provided, in the case of an individual his nationality and affiliation with third parties given, and in the case of a company any possible conflicts of interest stated, including the company ownership etc.

I have noticed already bias and straight non-neutrality in some articles, and others have the same type of information in a format that is (I believe) external to Wikipedia. For example for articles about countries, and in particular "economy of countries" there is now a graph of squares representing the share in percentage of that country's economy. This seems to me done (but I don't know if that is the case) by someone employed by (or directly by) an Anglo-American consulting firm. Then some articles are semi-protected or fully protected or simply someone has decided that no more addings are allowed, even when the article is extremely poor! If individuals are not allowed to build obejectively an article but then Wikipedia pays someone to do that instead, what is the point of allowing anyone in the first place?

I think you might be confused. The question at hand is "should editors be required, by their own admission or some other mechanism in place, to disclose their affiliations / possible conflicts of interest when they are paid to edit an article?". Wikipedia isn't the group doling out money to paid editors - it's private companies. Ellomate (talk) 23:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

You are misusing the term "free" in the same way that I would be misusing it if I said, "If slaves are allowed to edit Wikipedia, it is no longer the 'free' encyclopedia." -- Thekohser (talk) 16:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

*more* bias, please!

I cannot see this proposal making a jot of difference. I do not even care if it does. I want to read articles that lean towards polite criticism of any entities that might likely use paid editors to promote themselves or their material, *more* than I even want to read neutral articles. And if WP has legal funds available to draft the kind of stuff proposed, that those funds be used to defend critical grassroots editors - who are otherwise following WP guidelines - from institutions or their representatives getting overexcited about deletion or contradiction of their propaganda posted by suspect paid editors. Trev M (talk) 23:43, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Trev M! Thank you for your contribution to the discussion. With regard to your point about helping defend critical grassroots editors, you might be interested in reading more about our Legal Fees Assistance Program. One recent example of how this program is being used involves assistance to a Wikipedia user in Greece. Mpaulson (WMF) (talk) 00:12, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

What is "in a community ... role" exactly? Can users "in a community role" ignore Biographies of living people? Are they allowed to threaten family members of "unwelcome" editors? --80.114.178.7 23:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

something like this is sorely overdue

As a daily reader and occasional anonymous editor, let me say that absolutely the WORST thing about Wikipedia of late is the way large swathes of it are just turning into untrustworthy puff pieces, with anything negative relentlessly whitewashed. For anybody alive and active (and also various organisations and commercial entities), their Wikipedia page is likely to be converging with their Facebook page.

Not only should paid PR bullshit be stamped down on; there should also be a periodic (monthly?) press release detailing the worst offenders in attempted "reputation management", so that relentless whitewashing is actually more likely to create a "Streisand effect" and motivate editors to resist it. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.108.180.242 (talk) 23:57, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your support! I don't necessarily agree that there are "large swathes" of Wikipedia where this is a problem, but of course, it is a concern. It would be interesting to see more active discussion of the Streisand effect, though perhaps the right place for that is somewhere like the sockpuppet investigation board? -LuisV (WMF) (talk) 00:08, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

New speaker here: I agree with the above view ('sorely overdue' / 'daily reader'). Transparency and disclosure is critical especially when big money tilts the playing field.

On a side note, I wish I understood how to "comment" other than to butt into someone's discussion here through 'edit'. I donate and support wikipedia so hope they will next time show us how to comment on proposed amendments as I don't think I'm doing this the right way.

Good question and signing has affected some long term editors. First, to create a new section, just click the "Add Topic" tab at the very top of the page. To sign your comment, just type ~~~~ IF you have an account on Meta. IF you don't have an account here, it will show your IP address. I'd just type your preferred handle, e.g. MrGoodGuy and not do the ~~~~ thing. (though somebody might help to make sure the IP address doesn't get added later - Is there a technical fix for this?) BTW, thanks for your comment. Smallbones (talk) 01:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Paid?

Support.
I work for a profit corporation (already disclosed on my user page in Wikipedia). It is not specifically part of my job responsibilities to write anything on Wikipedia. However, they do pay my salary. And as an employee I sometimes know more about a product or situation than the average person. I don't think a stronger statement that could be read as prohibiting me from editing an article about one of our products or services because they pay my salary would be appropriate; neither do I think that anyone should be paid to write articles or content with a particular slant. By disclosing facts that could influence editors, we cover the situation of unintentional bias and make it easier to identify bad actors who write intentionally misleading articles or hide compensatory relationships.
I might be in favor of a slightly broader amendment covering the disclosure of other affiliations when they are related to the content being edited. For instance, when someone contributes to a page about a school that editor attended or writes about an organization for which he or she donates (time or money). This gets rather tricky because it gets into privacy issues too... should someone editing a page about a religious organization be required to state if he or she is a member or if that's his or her religion? If you write about a politician and worked for the campaign (as an unpaid volunteer) should you have to disclose that? How about if you didn't volunteer, but voted for/against that person, must that be disclosed? (Perhaps there's already something that covers that. I haven't read through all the terms recently.)
- RobinLampert (talk) 00:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your support. It is critical that we set out the rules for ethical businesspeople to follow. Among other reason, so that they don't get lumped in with all the bad actors who are out there. Your ideas about COI beyond paid editing are useful, but I'll suggest that we take care of the biggest problem now, and come back to the smaller problems later. Thanks again. Smallbones (talk) 00:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

For which you receive compensation?!

I'm concerned about the phrase "...for which you receive compensation." being a grey area. For example: someone is employed by a company, and contributes to an article that in at least some respects relates to goods or services provided by that company, but the person is not specifically paid by their employer for their editing efforts, nor are they asked to. Do we think that someone working for a certain organization is likely to have a possible bias, *however inherent and unintentional*, towards that company? *Maybe* not, but can we rule it out? No! And, if not, wouldn't we want to know? In the non-profit group with which I've been working for over a decade, we sign conflict of interest (COI) forms that relate not only to actual COI, but also to the *appearance* of COI. So, when I read content, I can likely judge whether someone has gone over the edge in terms of bias, but if the content is more subtle, it would be very worthwhile to know if I might want to be extra careful, as when even an indirectly paid person contributes in a situation of this sort, hence involving a possible implicit bias. To that end, I agree with others that the suggested location (not locations, since only one of the three is proposed to be necessary) seems insufficient. I do like the idea of hovering over a signature showing the notation, to whatever extent of linking makes sense. And, for those that want to claim the sky will fall if paid edits start undermining confidence in Wiki... oh, well, if there's that much of it, maybe we need to know. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rosebud (talk) 00:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I would be interested in any proposals on how to reword our definition of compensation to be more exact, if you have the time or desire. We do have this FAQ. Maybe someone can propose a sentence or two to add? Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 00:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I share some concerns which Rosebud has expressed. As I am working for a German university, my employer is a German state. May I write or modify an article during my office hours if this article is related to my employer? The German state and its subdivisions (states, towns) is the largest employer in Germany, and a huge number of articles is more or less related to it. Neither do I want to be forced to write my personal details on my user page, nor do I want to write such information in commit messages. --Stefan Weil (talk) 06:19, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I share the concerns Rosebud has expressed with regard to edits made by employees whose employers don't specifically ask them to do so. Two related issues: (1) What if someone is self-employed or has broad discretion in his/her activities, so he/she gets to decide for his/herself what to do in conducting business? (2) What about employers that specifically restrict employees from identifying themselves as being affiliated with the employer when contributing material to the internet, which is sometimes done to avoid the appearance of an organization endorsing a position that it doesn't officially endorse? The first issue could be addressed by having a broader "full disclosure" policy as Rosebud seems to suggest, but the second is tough. Do we want edit summaries and signature lines cluttered up with disclaimers as well as affiliations? Maybe, maybe not, but that seems like a broader issue. So, to address Geoffbrigham's request while keeping the scope of the provision narrowly focused on paid contributions, how about adding the following section to the FAQ:

What does the phrase "contribution ... for which you receive compensation" mean?

As used in this provision, this means a contribution (or edit) that was necessary in order to receive compensation. Contributions unrelated to compensation are not addressed by this provision as written.

Would this be useful? --Gahs (talk) 19:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

This is a useful conversation. Thank you. In my opinion, "necessary" may be too narrow. I want to think about this more, but, for discussion purposes, how about something like this in an FAQ:

The phrase "contribution ... for which you receive compensation" means a contribution for which someone is paying you compensation - such as money - to make on a Wikimedia project. Contributions that are made in a personal capacity without compensation are not covered by this proposed amendment. A professor who edits about areas of personal interest on her personal time without receiving compensation for those edits would not be required to disclose under the proposed amendment. An editor who is contracted for pay by a PR agency to write an article about a company of interest would be required to disclose.

Geoffbrigham (talk) 22:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

CORPORATE DOMINATION

REWRITE THE TERMS OF USE The wording is wrong. Withdraw the proposed Terms of Use and re-write it.

The wording sounds sweeping, all Wikipedia content will be swept clean, but the behavior actually being stopped is narrow.

CORPORATE SANITIZATION: The pages of large corporations on Wikipedia can be sanitized. Company employees edit the pages. In a corporation with 10,000 employees, it is easy to ask the next employee to edit the corporation's page, and the next and the next, to project the desired image.

GOODNESS, WE DON'T HAVE PAID EDITORS. The suggested change addresses "Paid contributions without disclosure", but employees are never explicitly paid to contribute to the Wikipedia, are they? And deletions are not contributions, they are removals, the opposite of a contribution.

Current wording is "any contribution . . . for which you receive compensation". A corporate employee does not have the title "Wikipedia Editor". At her corporation, she is not listed on the Wikipedia Staff nor as an employee of the Wikipedia Office, so clearly her salary, options and benefits package are not compensation for keeping the corporation's Wikipedia page sanitized.

Withdraw the proposed Terms of Use change and re-write it to include mandatory identification of any company employee making any changes on a page that anywhere mentions a company that employs her or in which her company has a controlling interest. I say a page that anywhere mentions the company because I have had problems with corporate sanitization on a whistleblower page.

PUT AN ICON ON THE EMPLOYED EDITOR PAGE ITSELF. I support an Employed Editor icon on any page that has had any editing by an employee of a company mentioned on that page. I support a User Attribute for any editor whose corporate employer is mentioned on any page she has edited. See above https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment&action=edit&section=31

CURRENT TOOLS ARE NOT ADEQUATE

The Wikipedia has grown in prominence, but, unlike mass media in cable, TV, radio and journalism, it is not corporate owned.

(In actuality, the Wikimedia Foundation is a corporation, with a $50 million budget.) -- Thekohser (talk) 03:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

(Thanks, Thekohser, we all love Wikipedia for what it is. The journey to $50 million will continue to one hundred and 500 million. The culture -- our exceptional community -- once lost, will not return. Happy journey, watch your step!)Jerry-VA (talk) 15:34, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Here are some notes on current tools one might use to deal with corporate sanitization of whistleblower pages, the company's "home page", etc. I'm sure many people here are more familiar than I with how to use them. But is this the best support we can give volunteer editors? Are tools that evolved to cool and resolve disputes between individuals entirely appropriate for growing the scope and depth of page that a company with billions in revenues and thousands of employees wishes to harmonize with its mass media image? The current Terms of Use change, which is too timid and too narrow, must be seen in these terms.

Here are some Wikipedia tools for dealing with pages that are stubbornly sanitized by corporate employees.

THE FIRST LEVEL: REQUEST FOR "OUTSIDE REVIEW" Request for comment by other editors is described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment

A page for a corporation is sanitized repeatedly. How do you request an outside review? SUMMARY: Create a flagged section on the TALK page. 1. Open talk page, create a new topic on bottom with a section title of your choice. 2. Insert a Request for Comment (RfC) "template" immediately after your title.
. . . For corporations, this is the template: Template:Rfc
. . . For other templates, see the RfC page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment 3. Summarize the issue, what is being sanitized, whatever. 4. Sign with four tildes in a row as usual.

The RfC template triggers Wikipedia website robots to post your new section to the appropriate topic list that moderators (other editors) read. Editors sign up to get RfCs in their particular area(s) of expertise on the "Feedback Request" Service page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FRS

Always make this post. For the sake of civility, all article-related disputes should be discussed on that article's TALK page, so just go ahead, and then add the Request for Comment (RfC) template (flag).

DEALING WITH CORPORATE SANITATION: THE ADMINISTRATORS' NOTICEBOARD

The next step up after requesting comments (RfC) from other volunteer editors is to Post an Incident Notice on the Administrators' Noticeboard. You'd better have some good data before you bother the community with a report here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI

You write your notice right onto the Noticeboard page, which is long.

LABEL THE CORPORATE EDITOR AS AN SPA, SINGLE-PURPOSE ACCOUNT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SPA

. . . {{subst:spa|username}} add this after the user's signature (do not replace the signature)
. . . {{subst:spa|username|UTC timestamp}} use this if the user did not add a signature

. . . For example, for an author named "Example": {{subst:spa|Example|03:07, 14 March 2011}}

This alerting label follows the author around, and should alert others reading TALK page discussion, for example. But the label does not change what the SPA person can do in Wikipedia Land in any way.

LABEL THE EDITOR AS HAVING COI, CONFLICT OF INTEREST https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:COI This is most useful if the contributions make inflated claims, bestow unwarranted praise or credit -- for example, a hotel/resort owner wishing to attract customers. But corporate editors often simply minimize or remove items that might provoke an inquiring mind to notice and pursue a dissonant view or an unsettling possibility.

The COI tag tags an entire article or article section, not an author. It produces one of those annoying boxes at the top of the article, that says: "A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. Please discuss further on the talk page. (January 2014)"

The tags are:
Template:COI for the top of the whole article
Template:COI

Examples: Template:Multiple issues Template:COI=January2014
Capitalization does not seem to matter. The word "date" appears to be optional. It is unclear where the vertical bar (pipe) symbol goes, as it is shown both within a single tag, and as a delimiter between multiple tags.

DOCUMENT CORPORATE EDITORS' BEHAVIORS

To get an editor banned (one employee down, 9,999 to go!), it pays to document: --a conflict of interest, as discussed above --repeated erasures in an article (reversions of added text, even if not the same text) --challenges to the sources you cite --lack of sources for what **they** site; e.g., claims that her knowledge is obvious and you can look it up yourself.
. . .In other words, document any request, implied or otherwise, that **you** ought to document **her** statements. --failure to respond
"You say the quote you want to incorporate can be found in this 300 page pdf, but I've looked and I can't find it. Exactly what page is it on?") Failure to cooperate with such simple requests may be interpreted as evidence of a bad faith effort to exasperate or waste the time of other editors.

ALSO RAN: THREE-REVERT BANS in EDIT WARS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:EW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_revert_rule#The_three-revert_rule Edit Warring (EW) is common with hurt egos -- page fixes are quickly put back again by an emotionally-aroused person. Corporate "ownership" and control of an article goes on forever, it is slower. Nevertheless, if you can document three reversions of your edits, each with an accompanying, civil TALK page explanation of why the info is relevant and documented, then you have "Editing War" data for other actions in defense of the page (see OUTSIDE REVIEW, and ADMINISTRATORS' NOTICEBOARD above). For sanitized corporate pages, it just may take a longer time with an opposition that may be slow, but never goes away.

The Wikipedia community's response to Edit Warring is the Three Revert Rule (3RR), which can ban a troublesome editor from erasing contributions to a page. However, erasing or "reverting" of page contributions must occur three times within 24 hours, so this is better for cooling down emotional editors than it is for stopping a standing corporate policy and the never-ending will to carry it out.

Although corporate page-sanitizers are unlikely to trip the Three Revert Rule's time limits, documenting repeated reversions (erasure of page extensions) entitles you to a listing on the ADMINISTRATORS' NOTICEBOARD for EDIT WARRING https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AN/EW

DISRUPTIVE EDITORS MAY BE BANNED 10,000 employees, banned one per month -- are current Wikipedia policies optimal? Discussion of disruptive editing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disruptive_editing

YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO GLANCE AT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SPI The Sock Puppet (SP) page, in cases where multiple individuals act in concert to control opinion and approval for a page. Corporate control is usually different -- one employee plugging away, replaced by another, keeping the page sanitary for the long haul.

This ends a survey of Wikipedia tools for dealing with pages that are stubbornly sanitized by corporate employees.

IMHO, Wikipedia's tools that evolved to fight person-to-person edit wars are so weak, so burdensome and so slow against the relentless edits of large corporations, that we are driving voluntary editors away.

People edit pages that mention their current employer. I support automatic labeling of those persons, and the pages they have touched. It is not pejorative. This is sunlight. It provides a place for the best of the corporate historians to shine, and volunteer editors will work with them to show the breadth and scope of great companies that have changed daily life and the world's trajectory. Weak tools encourage suppression. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jerry-VA (talk) 00:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Just for the record, I have come-across batches of freelance (paid)work where the request is to view a WP article history, and report the two most recent change dates in the article history. So people are being paid to monitor WP edits for someone(s). Not really "paid"-editing if they are not changing anything, but pretty close. The way that I read the proposed TOS amendments, it looked pretty good as far as warning people who get caught violating the TOS that they will have no recourse when their company name is publicly embarrassed. FCC or FTC mention was good for legal--but maybe they should throw-in SEC? SEC is pretty tough on paid posters pumping-up stocks or businesses, I'm pretty sure that it is already against the law for an SEC company to sponsor posting any info anonymously? Or pretty close to it. On the good side-maybe there are some editors who could manage to use their WP editing skills to solicit or accept editing assignments if they formed a little union or trade-guild, they could even possibly check each other's work and promote a healthy use of paid editing while creating income? 24.0.133.234 01:52, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

In French wikipedia you have exactly this hidden behaviour CORPORATE DOMINATION nearly impossible to supress !!

The only way is to discuss freely the reality and to have the possibility of asking competent judges, even of a foreign country, to solve the discussion on valuable arguments. This is time consuming !!

This is not the case in wikipedia.fr They are driving voluntary editors away

I no more contribute to wikipedia.fr for this reason !!

The dumbest discussion of all time

This is the dumbest discussion I have ever encountered. There is literally nothing in the world less important than wikipedia. It is impossible to have a conflict of interest with something that doesn't matter. WHO CARES?

Beyond that, it is self-conflicting. By definition all statements made in wikipedia are supposed to be sourced. This whole conversation is entirely ad hominem. What difference does it make WHO makes the change--the question is whether it is accurate. Let's say famous person A hires me to keep an eye on their page. I notice A's birthdate is wrong so I fix it without disclosing I'm getting paid. What are you going to do, change it back to the wrong date because I didn't say who _____I_____ am? Are you beginning to see the stupidity of this discussion?

I know of no community in the world with a more overblown sense of their own self-worth than those who devote themselves to wikipedia. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 174.54.210.227 (talk) 00:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I obviously disagree with your characterizations about Wikipedia and the value of community consultations, but you are entitled to your opinion, of course. If I may just address your hypothetical: By disclosing your affiliation, community members can review your edit to ensure against bias (like trying to make your famous person younger than she or he actually is). Your disclosure is also honest transparency and, depending on your established reputation as an editor, may even support the credibility of your edit. Geoffbrigham (talk) 00:53, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Was Jimmy Wales transparent with the community about the editing that he asked to take place on Rachel Marsden's biography in February 2008? No, he wasn't. He privately contacted OTRS by e-mail, so that the community decidedly would not be able to ensure against bias. Only Wikipedia insiders loyal to him were entrusted with ensuring against bias. Once the WMF gets its own house in order, then they may have the moral authority to impose these new ethics on the community. -- Thekohser (talk) 03:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

@Geoffbrigham - I will grant that you believe your statement regarding "may even support the credibility of your edit". But it's rather akin to a prosecutor stating that a criminal suspect voluntarily talking to the authorities in an investigation will impress them with honest transparency, and depending on established reputation of character, may even support the credibility of his/her story. Maybe it'll happen somewhere sometime in a very unusual situation - but the predominant wisdom is that a criminal suspect should shut up, as anything said can be used against him/her. Disclosing one's affiliation on Wikipedia is something like that. In a contentious situation, the occasions one gets points for honesty are far fewer than the times it is taken as a confession. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 14:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

This is an excellent explanation for why this is such a bad idea. Just like a suspect in a criminal case who is honest and admits anything may find it used against him, people editing in good faith who admit their affiliations may find their high-quality contributions opposed. Contrariwise, just as the suspect who exercises his right to remain silent won't get himself into additional trouble, this amendment won't hurt people who don't disclose their affiliations any more than they would be hurt under existing policies. JYolkowski (talk) 15:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Let's be frank with ourselves on this. The fact is, the kind of position taken by the IP is very, very common on Wikipedia. This TOU thing is a baby step to bring Wikipedia out of the Stone Age, and I suspect it is a baby step, and not something more meaningful, precisely because of the "COI don't matter" attitude coming out of Wikipedia editors. What strikes me about the COI debate, at least on Wikipedia, is how it illuminates the very worst aspects of Wikipedia: its detachment from the real world, its "ethics are defined by Wiki rules" tunnel vision, a pervasive "let's get on the gravy train" attitude, and the immaturity and lack of real-world experience of vast numbers of editors, some in senior roles. Coretheapple (talk) 01:23, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Role accounts with clear names

One of the first things that a lot of paid editors do is create an account that mentions their company name. However, on your largest project what often then happens is that some admin blocks the account and so transparency is then lost. Allowing role accounts on all projects will allow paid contributions to be automatically recorded in the edit history and effectively disclose the relationship without the user even having to create a user page.

Will the Foundation enforce some common sense at en.wp? I gather that other projects such as de.wp actually encourage such disclosure.

Forgetfulness

Even the best intentioned of COI editors will sometimes forget to identify individual posts. This could easily happen in they are interrupted by a phone call. The suggestion of role accounts with clear names will solve that, but otherwise certain of the options you give can be fantastical. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.43.203.96 (talk) 01:08, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I have for some time felt that clearly labelled "role" accounts increase transparency rather than diminish it. Certainly, you know what to expect from User:CocaColaOfficial, don't you? Craig Franklin (talk) 09:52, 21 February 2014 (UTC).

Enforceability

The TOU are not presented before every edit, especially if someone is not signed in. How are you going to ensure that people are aware of them. In some places terms of use of which people can only be aware through telepathy or through making unrealistic assumptions about the person having read them may not be enforceable. Even if you say that the rules are enforceable under the laws where the WMF bases itself, please bear in mind that ham-fisted admins may ban the user in question and then splatter their user page with claims in relation to breaking the rules that may be libelous under the user's and the admin's home legislation.

Dealing with COI content

On Wikipediocracy there is a long-running thread which records the many conflict of interest contributions that can be found on en.wp, though presumably they are just as common elsewhere. Some people say that they find such COI edit just by clicking for random articles and checking them. Is the WMF going to do anything to root out such issues by employing staff to systematically hunt for COI issues? Or is this just a figleaf so that next time there is a huge flap the WMF can just pretend to have done something about it by pointing at the TOU? (I suppose you can also make the threatening letters from your lawyers more credible. But are you going to employ lawyers in future who have not themselves edited their own articles without disclosing their COI?)

There is no policy forbidding editing with a COI; on the contrary, there is a guideline that helps editors with a COI to participate without causing controversy. I've been helping COI editors on Wikipedia for years. -- Atama頭 02:03, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

What is the evidence that paid edits were being made?

Does Wikipedia have any evidence that paid edits were being made? The discussion here has presented both sides of the debate and that's good, but how is this issue out here all of a sudden? I'm new to Wikipedia editing but I'm not new to reading articles on Wikipedia and trusting the information here. Basically, is this just suspicion or speculation or fact? I'd like to know if there are any cases that confirms that Wikipedia edits were being compensated by third-parties.

Thanks. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bhetki (talk) 01:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

We know because editors on Wikipedia have admitted to being paid to edit articles. Some for the better, most not. Also, there are numerous places where you can see where you can find requests to edit Wikipedia for cash, and any number of news articles discussing the issue. Just do a web search for "Wikipedia paid editing". To start you off, read this article from CNET. To really get freaked out, look at Wiki-PR which is a business designed solely to edit Wikipedia for cash. -- Atama頭 02:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

For that matter, look a few paragraphs above this discussion, where the notorious Gregory Kohs admits to having an entire "stable" (terminology customarily used in discussions of prostitutes and their pimps) of paid undisclosed COI editors, and brags that he thinks he has ways of evading this block that will technically (in his notoriously limited moral interpretation of ethics) not violate the amended ToU. --Orange Mike (talk) 02:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Why is it "admits", Mike? I was simply stating a fact, and if anything, it's one to be proud of -- I've organized on a formal contractual basis a team of truly outstanding Wikipedia editors who comply with all content policies. I don't know why your mind is in the gutter with the prostitutes, but my Google search for "stable of editors" returns 26,800 results, while "stable of writers" returns 221,000 (more than twice as many hits as your "stable of prostitutes"). You also used forms of "notorious" twice in a very short paragraph -- it's doubtful your writing style would make the cut for inclusion in the MyWikiBiz guild. -- Thekohser (talk) 02:53, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Orangemike, "a stable of" is common terminology for a group who is directed or trained by a common person or organization, used in everyday writing in the real world. In news articles of the past few days, one can read about Lee Blessing’s play Chesapeake presents a stable of colorful characters..., a stable of iconic figures such as Mario, Donkey Kong and Samus..., the reigning MVP’s effort in 2013 spearheaded a stable of running backs..., and so on. The claim that it is "customarily used in discussions of prostitutes and their pimps" is a demonstrable falsehood, so if you plan to continue participating in these discussions, please be less vulgar towards other participants. Thank you. Tarc (talk) 13:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Well said. — Scott • talk 13:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Bhetki, I can understand your confusion about why (if paid editing has been around since at least 2006 on Wikipedia) this push for a change in the Terms of Service is so urgent. The main reason probably is that the Wikimedia Foundation was recently highly embarrassed by one of its own employees taking money on the side for client-related Wikipedia content, without her actively disclosing that the work was compensated. Once the WMF gets shamed, then they want to spread the shame out to its "community". -- Thekohser (talk) 02:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hey Greg. What's your opinion of what (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CorporateM) CorporateM is doing on Wikipedia: disclosing all of his clients on his user page? CorporateM and I have had our differences (sort of like saying "the Hatfields have had differences with the McCoys") but I have to give him credit for doing this. Don't get me wrong: I think that his business should be shut down tight, but as long as it exists, at least he is disclosing his clients to other editors. Coretheapple (talk) 05:21, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I think you mean "he is disclosing some of his clients". He's been asked some fairly direct questions on Wikipediocracy about his relationship with or connection between himself and Colin Warwick (User:Woz2) on the one hand, and Brian Halligan and HubSpot on the other. He refuses to answer. That said, you are talking to the inventor of the proposal that paid Wikipedia editors be allowed to edit whatever they'd like, as long as they follow content policy, and as long as they disclose who their clients are. That was how I launched MyWikiBiz in July 2006 -- every client would be fully disclosed. Jimmy Wales instantly had a fit about that, blocked my account, and started calling me on my cell phone. As I've said numerous times, once the WMF and Wales can get their own house in order, and see to it that the vendors they pay donors' money to are also following these rules of disclosure, then I'll be happy to obey their rules, too. But it has to start with them. No justice, no peace. -- Thekohser (talk) 11:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

CorporateM doesn't have to respond to every conspiracy theory conjured on Wikipediocracy. CorporateM posted to the thread, you guys refused to listen or assume good faith, and then you guys came up with more and more conspiracy theories. That's the sort of thread that one can legitimately quit. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Yep, I think Michaelsuarez has a valid point. Glad you agree with user page disclosure. Once we conquer disclosure to other editors, the next mountain to climb is disclosure to readers. Or better still, just ban paid editing completely. Greg we've discussed the Wales situation on the latter's talk page frequently and I don't think it has much bearing on whether disclosure is a good idea. Coretheapple (talk) 15:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

evidence of edits under influence indirectly paid, which will never change

In french version of wikipedia, it is very easy to see articles of wikipedia biased, more or less indirectly paid, by retired workers of firms, even inside wikipedia, who block and supress some modifications, which point out difficulties or even proved informations that are not good for theses firms !! Some articles are trusted by theses persons, and it is impossible to change the optimist presentation of theses articles, as for example on heat pumps, geothermy, motors, nuclear problems, EDF, etc.. .

You can write edits with many equations difficult to understand to 99% of readers, but if you explain the pratical consequences of theses equations in simple terms, your writing is supressed, by members of wikipedia, which are not paid directly but under strong influence of these firms, sometimes as retired. Thus, being not directly paid, they will continue to supress many edits that are not good for their firms.

An example for heat pumps and geothermy in French, it is impossible to explain simply how to verify if the dimensions are sufficient, without being supressed, when many have paid for not working geothermal heat pumps of too smal underground size  !! In diffusivity it is not possible to explain the elementary meaning of the equations which are useful in geothermy !! The same is true for Pantone system, with big errors impossible to supress !! Thus it is nearly impossible to supress theses bias, even inside members of wikipedia, under influence of indirectly paid writers .

The only way is to discuss freely the reality and to have the possibility of asking competent judges, even of a foreign country, to solve the discussion on valuable arguments. This is not the case in wikipedia.fr

I no more contribute to wikipedia.fr for this reason !!

Proposed amendment is culture specific

The proposed amendment is in no way guaranteed to alter anyone's behaviour, and potentially could do so for the worse by inhibiting more honest contributions. Protection of the consumer is already done by local laws, especially by those US laws mentioned in the description. As well, appropriate standards of behaviour are already covered in the TOU as they stand. In terms of deciding whether a contribution is valid, I do not think knowing whether or not it is a paid contribution is helpful. The only reason I can think that this amendment would be useful is that it corresponds well with the current practices that exist in the US. For this reason I object to it - US culture is particularly litigious, and overly concerned with money. There are many reasons why someone would be editing an article with bias or less than ideal intent - why single out paid employment? I realise that Wikipedia is based in the US, but I don't see why this particular view of the world should start to impact Wikipedia.

I once tried to work on articles about Venezuela. It was clear that one editor was "professional." He had around him a "team" that might not have been paid, but they all acted off the same sheet. Nothing was allowed that was detrimental to the Ultimate Leader no matter how reliably substantiated it might be. I don't know how you could have got him to reveal the fact that he was paid. This sort of thing is probably endemic in third world countries, though more accurate articles were available on Iran and North Korea!

Not too sure what is meant by "culture specific." Are there cultures who venerate people who masquerade under "amateur" but are really professional? The policies will be language specific, once enforced. Do the English, Canadians, New Zealanders, etc. like liars? I am not aware of this cultural difference. Student7 (talk) 20:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Such a black hole we have fallen into without notice or alarm

Agin paid comments.

Are knowledgeable contributions such a bad thing?

I don't ever write anything except this comment at wikipedia, and I've mostly stopped reading anything but very (very) mainstream topics because they're full of errors and omissions. Sometimes I imagine a professor has issued an assignment at a college and a few of the students, in order to satisfy the requirements of the course, have completely rewritten a significant part of geography or world history.

My point is this: it's not necessarily a bad thing if people knowledgeable about a certain subject (i.e. compensated individuals) write the articles. To the contrary, shouldn't we encourage it?

Create an incentive system to give people a reason to disclose their compensation if you must. Why not offer "brand leader" status or something similar, while maintaining independent quality controls? Make it a requirement that they research and write a second, unrelated article. For every article on Samsung's newest phone, force Samsung to edit a page on Alexander the Great.

I guarantee you'll run out of history before Samsung runs out of phones...

Wikipedia needs to operate like a combination of the Associated Press (if they were actually unbiased and checked their facts like they claim) and a well-oiled corporate hierarchy machine.

-wikipedia needs to operate like 'a well-oiled corporate hierarchy machine'? what are you smoking?

Hypocrites

No doubt you people will have no problem ignoring this rule if it helps your interests, and likewise will accuse people of breaking it whether they do or not when they're critical of you. Sickening.

\Wikipedia runs on the assumption that most people are truthful. Doesn't it? All open source/information efforts do. Yes, there will be abusers but we can't let them ruin it. --Cahpcc (talk) 19:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

It's all so confusing. I guess before I could make a decision I'd have to have an answer: Is this good for The Tribe?

Concern

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but I have a concern. "To ensure compliance with these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution to any Wikimedia Projects for which you receive compensation."

So does this mean that lets say I work for the US Government. Do I have to disclose that if I contribute to any wikimedia content that involves the US Government? That seems extreme. While I can see why it would be beneficial, I would prefer this be limited to people who are being paid to edit. Theres a difference between someone editing because they are being paid to present a viewpoint, and someone who is editing because they have knowledge and experience of something. Sephiroth storm (talk) 05:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sephiroth, I don't believe you need to disclose that you work for the US Government if you are not getting paid for editing. That is, if your job description does not include editing and your supervisors do not instruct you to edit, you are not "receive[ing] compensation" "with respect to [the] contribution." Thanks for the question. Geoffbrigham (talk) 05:35, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

How does this apply to MediaWiki? What about small gifts

I like what you're trying to do with this. I think paid editing policies should be up to individual communities, but lying about motivations is not ok. However I'm concerned about some potential edge cases: Lots of people are paid to work on MediaWiki, many are paid by either the WMF or WM-DE to do so, but there are also occasionally some folks who make commits to mediawiki as part of their job, well working for somebody entirely separate from the Wikimedia movement. Well I would like to know who is paying whom for very active contributors (More out of curiosity then anything else. Paid contributing is much less of a COI here than in an encyclopedia), I think it is an utterly unreasonable requirement for the one-off contributorwho is upstreaming a bug fix from some third party company that uses our software.

For myself personally, once upon a time a Wikimedia contributor mailed me cookies in exchange for helping to fix a bug. Although I probably would have fixed the bug anyways, cookies are nonetheless a "good" I received in exchange for contributing, but I never publicly declared that I received said cookies. If this policy was in place back then, would I be in violation of it? What about people who hold wiki contents that have physical prizes? Would those be in violation of this as those are "declared", but often not in edit-summary, talk page, or user page. What if person A improves some article that person B likes, in exchange for person B converting some video of person A to ogg/webm (Exchange of favours between wiki friends). Arguably the two wiki-friends are exchanging services for contributions. Bawolff (talk) 05:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Also, what about micropayments? What if I have a Flickr button on my user page? What about reward boards? Say I'm paid for writing an article by an editor whose name is not public but I happen to know it; am I then legally required to disclose it? (What about a bounty board btw? Is a donation given to a charity of my choosing a "service"?) What if I am interested in some sensitive topic, and willing to pay editors to work on it, but can't risk being publicly linked to that topic?

Clearly a lot of thought went into this proposal, and I think it strikes the right balance as far as PR editors are concerned, but it casts its net too wide. Requiring all paid editors to disclose that they are paid is all right; requiring them to disclose the identity of the one who is paying could be a serious privacy concern in some cases. --Tgr (talk) 08:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Could do better

I spent quite some time reading through this. The honest truth I gather is that this whole debate is a waste of our time. Only an insignificant number of "paid editors" (however completely ill defined that is) will react to these changes, because they change nothing about the actual rules of the game - as opposed to the fantasy society their rationale seems based on. If anything, it increases insecurity for honest well-meaning people who fall on borderline cases such as paid activists in situations that require discretion, university professors and GLAM workers, and a bunch of other cases whose contribution is both valuable and already too challenging. Just stop reacting to every media scandal by trying to save face through the increasing lawyerization of Wikimedia projects. Get real, focus your efforts on delivering understanding, improving interface and policy in projects that address specific issues related to this, and bring on better tech to monitor COIs and guide "paid editors". Good night, --Solstag (talk) 05:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Solstag. Thanks for your comment. I'm thinking about an FAQ that addresses your issue about university professors and GLAM to ensure greater clarity. If you have any ideas, please let me know. I think in a few days, we will start taking some of the feedback and make some adjustments in the language and add a couple of clarifying FAQs. Take care. Geoffbrigham (talk) 14:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Temporal evasion of visible disclosures

Having people post affiliation notices in edit summaries or on article talk pages when they make relevant edits makes sense. The edit summary is immediately available for whatever edit is involved, and the talk-page posting should be locatable in its history within a short time around the relevant article edit.

But there's a hole in this disclosure policy for anyone posting their affiliations on their user pages: Such affiliations are always temporary. Some paid jobs are probably only for hours, and every employee eventually leaves employer, one way or another. If I get paid by Company Acme to tweak their article, why can't I post this affliation before I start, do the editing, then remove the notice after their last payment hits my account, since I no longer work for them? Yes, it'll show up in my user-page history, but who's going to research a user page's entire history to ensure that what they've edited has never been at someone's behest?

What about someone who edits today and gets paid six months later? Or gets a nice vacation in Hawaii this March with a promise to "fix" an article in June? Perhaps we should amend this policy to insist on such affiliations being made as soon as they're established and left permanently visible on the user page, not just in its history, perhaps with time periods helpfully identified. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:55, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

It's all for show

Hi everyone,

Over the last few hours people asked me to re-share my mail from January regarding paid editing and to even elaborate on it : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-January/069717.html

I won't elaborate on that.

This amendment is all for show. This is the kind of amendment that is not enforceable. It's only use is that some board of trustees will be able to get in front of the press and vigorously claim "Paid editing is bad!".

Will it prevent people to edit without disclosing anything? No.

Will it encourage companies to embrace our values and improve articles in fields they're experts in? No.

Will it prevent biased volunteers to edit? No.

So if we look at what our main issues are (increasing the number of editors, increasing quality) I don't see any way where this amendment will help us in any of this cases. And this is an issue we've had for 7 to 9 years, our projects didn't collapse. I'm really not sure why it is needed to have such amendment now.

So, I don't care if this amendment is approved in the end, or not, as it will be useless and non-enforceable. Instead I'll keep on working with other people on proposing real solutions.

Though I do have a quick question for the legal team, is it ok for a hosting organization to enforce rules that have an editorial inpact on the services it hosts? I mean, lawyers have been trying for years to sue Wikimedia organizations and prove that WMF has some level of editorial control over Wikipedia. If WMF is the one deciding how a specific set of editors must behave when editing, couldn't they use that to prove that WMF does, indeend, have some editorial power? Much alike an editor-in-chief chooses who's published in its paper and how they're credited.

Best Schiste (talk) 08:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Schiste. Thanks for your comments. I actually think the amendment may have a positive effect, and I summarize some of the reasons here. Your question on hosting liability is a smart one. Hosting companies can set out general rules in their terms of use, even when those rules affect the content of the site. Also this proposed amendment simply explains how to disclose an affiliation without any regulation on the content itself. (The terms already prohibit misrepresentation of an affiliation.) The proposed amendment thus would not affect our hosting liability exemption. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 14:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I've read the FAQ and I fail to find the "positive" outcome. However I can clearly see the possible harm to our project. The projects where created on the belief that anyone could help improve our knowledge. I still do believe that strongly. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone, no exclusion.

Our job, as a community was to make sure the edits where ok. Now we're shifting toward making sure the editors are ok.

How can we be surprized that we're loosing contributors when we have that stance? Do you believe that asking people that are "paid editing" to display their affiliations is going to :

• Stabilize infrastructure
• Increase participation
• Improve quality
• Increase reach
• Encourage innovation

I don't believe it will. Actually it's a rather conservative move that will make some companies, that would be ready to participate in good faith, feel targeted and "marked" and hinder their wish to participate. Thus preventing new contributors to join our projects and not increasing the quality of the projects. It will, and the question has been asked on my Facebook feed once already, make researchers and GLAM partners ponder weither they should or not display their affiliation. And, I'm sure you know it, incertainity, fear and doubt are the thing you try to avoid when negociating partnerships.

So, at best this change will actually not change anything as paid editing will still happen under the hood and no one will be able to check everyone's affiliation. And at worse we'll lose potential partners, or make the work of volunteers negotiating those partnerships harder, and make it even harder to innovate with companies to find new ways to increase our reach, participation and quality. But perhaps our core values (everyone can edit) and the movement strategic orientation (the five points above) have changed. If so, sorry I missed those changes. Schiste (talk) 15:35, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

If anyone has any doubts about what the WMF leadership's ulterior motive is in trying to pass this "disclosure" amendment, it's not about bringing paid editors into a status of transparent contributions. It is about banning paid editors, regardless of the quality of their content. It's a shame to me that Jimbo still doesn't understand how to leverage paid editors to the advantage of all parties. He'd rather perpetually maintain this "us versus them" perspective that just leads us further into the battleground, and away from true knowledge. -- Thekohser (talk) 19:48, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

---

(From an anonymous user, not to be confused AT ALL with the group "anonymous" - disambiguation.)

I agree with your suggestion, however most successful marketing involves options. The more option you make for users, the more you open the marketplace, whether or not it's even a market for financial transactions. I do NOT AT ALL want to see Wikipedia become commercialized, even considering that fact that I was raised in a corporate family with many corporations. Some things are just NOT FOR SALE at ANY PRICE, as they are too priceless as a result of their originality and/or for the premise for which it stands.

I contribute to wiki on several levels (I have limited it to 10 +1 items here):

1) as a professional editor 2) as an English major with a degree in English and experience in formal and informal professional journalism (creative, technical, fiction and non-fiction) - both of these fields differ in political and professional opinions, and I am very well versed in both areas, also having formally studied Middle English at Worcester College, Oxford University, England. 3) as a researcher (in multiple languages) 4) as a specialist/professional in several fields (corporate jet pilot, helicopter pilot, professional auto-racing (IMSA), 100-ton boat captain, motorcycle racing, law enforcement, Arabian horse owner and professional animal trainer, and many other contributions, by which I have been formally trained and/or educated 5) as a writer 6) as a student and analyst of law and policy (domestic and international) 7) as an educator 8) as a scientific analyst 9) as a psychologist and sociologist 10) as an investor and financial specialist And for mainly the reason that I am a FREE AMERICAN CITIZEN, and this is one of the VERY FEW PLATFORMS LEFT TO CONTRIBUTE FOR FREE, and without registration!!!

If someone does consider your suggestion, I hope they incorporate my suggestion of having options for any tagging, including the option to stay anonymous, or semi-anonymous, as I prefer privacy to social recognition or attention. I generally keep the majority of my research private, as it also contain proprietary work in relation to publishing rights and other research and investing. I LOVE contributing to HELP PEOPLE LEARN AND BETTER UNDERSTAND intricate issues and technical processes. I don't ask for anything in return. It's not "what I do" ... it's "who I am." As I don't engage in any social media, such as Facebook, LinkedIn or other "social platforms", I do PREFER TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS and as private as possible. I'm working on improving my computer, database, programming and internet skills and knowledge every day, so I occasionally contribute to technical fields, but primarily as a basic grammar, spelling and word use editor.

I am studying for my HAM operator's license, as well as computer/internet security, so you will see an increase in technical contributions in these fields, as time allows.

I'd love to see more options, including resources with direct contact for technical page editing and other similar applications such as a "LiveWikiHelp" page, with live contacts, as I do not contribute on a regular basis.

How can anyone miss that paid editing is a commercial transaction by definition? The compensator remunerates the editor for a job of editing, meaning that the compensation is the leverage applied to see that the job is accomplished. The compensator is defined as the one who initially wants the job done and pursues some avenue towards that end, no matter how many layers of service-providers the chain goes through. That means that the money (somewhere there is always money in the chain) buys the edit. The more one has money, the more influence to get the type of edits one want. Paid editing is editing by proxy. The ability of large corporations to find amounts of money that most individuals would find overwhelming is crystal clear. Moreover, the amount of money spent directly correlates to the amount of influence the spenders have on the whole organization: all of Wikipedia. If you don't think so, look at the situation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS network, how full of commercials and promotions it has become over time, with increasing trend in the same direction.

Americans in particular are way too apt to adopt a business/corporate image for any cooperative activity, saying editing communities and groups of potential editors form some kind of editing "market". The truth is that there are many possible ways for people to work together. The experience of many is also that corporate ways do not suit them, do not appeal, and sometimes in fact repel them. Validating the use of money for editing imposes commercial and corporate values. Some may like that, but others will not. Historically, professionals have written encyclopedias all along, and ways were found to make it commercially possible. That can be done here, too. But if it is, Wikipedia will not be what is has been. For one thing, I will expect to get paid, or I will quit. But that's not what I want (to get paid). I want to be involved in a volunteer activity, and to contribute freely, with others who want the same. Those are my values. Those have been Wikipedia's values. I hope we continue to have a good match. Evensteven (talk) 23:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh. You may note that I signed my contribution. Who are you anyway? No user handle? Not even an IP? Just how far does anonymity apply here already? There's a reason for signing. Evensteven (talk) 00:08, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

identification

hello everybody! oui bien sur le contributeur qui agit pour le compte d un interet particulier et est remunere pour cela doit pouvoir etre distingué de celui qui agit, en principe, dans le seul interet de la diffusion de la connaissance. Cette distinction devrait pouvoir etre faite au premier coup d oeil, peut etre par un ajout automatique d un symbole particulier au nom d utilisateur ? En effet dans la proposition actuelle il faut se rendre sur la page utilisateur pour avoir connaissance du caractere "mercenaire" de la contribution. Un meme contributeur, salarie d un grand groupe, par exemple, pouvant intervenir tantot dans le cadre de son travail, tantot pour son propre compte, il conviendrait que ce signe distinctif attache au nom d utilisateur puisse etre mis ou retire à chaque contribution. Tout ceci dans une quete d ideal, bien sur, puisque il est bien certain qu il s agit là d un domaine ou les faux nez sont nombreux --Zanatan (talk) 08:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

google - Une distinction peut-être avec un nom d'utilisateur distinct qui est basé sur le nom de société lorsque la société a une édition personne serait à première vue être plus compréhensible. Je voudrais également possible pour une personne d'utiliser leur nom d'utilisateur et l'écran d'édition ont une case à cocher de payer pour cette ou payés dans le champ si un signal sur les articles qui ils se sont payés seraient spécifiques et ne disparaîtra pas comme un profil de données peut changer.

- - A distinction perhaps with a separate username that is based on corporation name when the corporation has a person editing would at first glance be most understandable. I would also want it possible for a person to use their username and the edit screen have a checkbox of paid for this or paid in field so a signal on which articles they got paid would be specific and not go away like a Profile data may change. Markbassett (talk) 17:30, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Would this change in wording have made a difference when Bell Pottinger were covertly subverting the wikipedia?

Bell Pottinger is a public relations firm that got caught covertly promising potential clients that they could sanitize the wikipedia's articles about those subjects. Investigative reporters, pretending to be potential clients, recorded the firm's management bragging about their successful subversion of the wikipedia article about Dahabshill.

Bell Pottinger would have gotten away with this instance of subversion -- if they hadn't bragged about it. Presumably there are an unknown number of articles where Bell Pottinger succeeded in their stealth subversion.

Bell Pottinger had bragged that they had skilled teams who knew how to appear to be good faith wikipedia volunteers, who would slowly subvert the target articles in ways the en.wiki community wouldn't notice

When Bell Pottinger were caught, red-handed, they claimed they hadn't introduced any material that was untrue. This claim was nonsense. They claimed the individual with ties to Dahabshiil who was sent to Guantanamo was a former Dahabshill employee, and his arrest and detention had nothing to do with his work for Dahabshiil. In fact he was a current employee, and it was the internet use his job required that first drew the attention of security officials. Once he was at Guantanamo he was asked to "prove a negative" if he wanted to win his release -- to prove he had never used his Dahabshiil connections to transfer funds for terrorists.

How could they assert the individual held in Guantanamo was a former employee, when the information on the public record asserted the opposite? Presumably because their client told them he was a former employee.

Won't all paid editor face this conflict? Won't complying with NPOV always be in conflict with taking the clients version of events at face value?

I think we can safely assume the untruths the Bell Pottinger stealth editors introduced were not good faith mistakes. I think their promises, and their practice of deliberatily obfuscating their connection with their clients is sufficient to believe all their edits were made in bad faith.

What if we catch some of their shills? I am guessing a firm determined to subvert the wikipedia would hire replaceable third parties to make the actual edits. This supplies some plausible deniability.

I've made contributions to smaller, non-WMF wikis. Many other wikis ask contributors to register a real-world identity. Personally, I would have no problem abandoning allowing contributions from anonymous IP addresses. I would have no problem confidentially registering my real-world identity. OK, easily spoofed, but it would help eliminate some vandalism, sockpuppetry, and covert subversion by shills. Geo Swan (talk) 09:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Diskussion in anderen Sprachen / discussion in other languages

Im Artikel steht: "Übersetzungen in die deutsche, französische, spanische, italienische und japanische Sprache sind ebenfalls verfügbar; die Gemeinschaft wird ermutigt, den Änderungsvorschlag auch in andere Sprachen zu übersetzen und zu besprechen." Wo findet die Diskussion in den anderen Sprachen statt?

The article mentions the discussion in other languages - where can i find these discussions? --LichtStrahlen (talk) 09:23, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Moin LichtStrahlen, wie immer bei LCA-Konsultationsverfahren kann der jeweilige Textvorschlag auf der jeweils verlinkten zentralen Diskussionsseite - in diesem Fall diese Seite - in allen gaengigen Sprachen debattiert werde. Das ermoeglicht einerseits die thematischen Faeden zusammenzuhalten und erleichtert andererseits den Uebersetzern die Mitwirkung. Beste Gruesse, --Jan (WMF) (talk) 09:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Bitte einfügen, wer WIR ist: WMF legal department/ein Vorschlag der WMF Rechtsabteilung. --Wir sind (talk) 09:44, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Die Frage stellte ich schon weiter oben unter der Überschrift "POV". Offenbar handelt es sich um die Rechtsabteilung der Foundation, die hier die Grundwerte der Wikipedia mit Füßen tritt. Wie immer nach schlechter Presse in den USA kommt bei Herrn Wales, der um Spendengelder fürchtet, Aktionismus auf. Noch schlimmer - das geht das weiter an die Gardner'sche Foundation, die nich nie gezeigt hat, daß es sie scheren würde, was denn die Community geht. Wer diese ominösen Leute sind, die angeblich laut dem Antragstext so viele Probleme haben und sehen, wird ja nie erklärt. Aber man will hier ja eh nicht wrklich Feedback. Zumindest kein der eigenen Initiative widersprechendes. Typisches Foundation-Fegenblatt. Marcus Cyron (talk) 13:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Da würde ich nicht so sicher sein, das das "Legal Team" eigentlich ganz allein auf die Idee gekommen ist, so eine Sache in die ToU rein zu bringen. Just sayin'. notafish }<';> 16:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Unter "Geltendes Recht" ist bitte welches Recht zu verstehen? Dceonline (talk) 10:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Natürlich US-Recht. Die WMF kümmert doch eh kein anderes, es sei denn, es könnte dach mal teuer werden. Marcus Cyron (talk) 13:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Nicht ganz. Der Entwurf nennt auch europäische Gesetze, welche die Diskussion betreffen. Es gibt aber offensichtlich keinen europäischen Präzedenzfall, etwa ein Statement von einer europäischen Kartellbehörde. Ich habe den Eindruck, der Entwurf betrifft uns ebenso wie die Amerikaner. - Dragon Legacy (talk) 14:49, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Dies ist ein Erweiterungsvorschlag der Rechtsabteilung fuer die Nutzungsbedingungen. Mithin sollte klar sein, dass "wir" auf das Anwaltsteam referiert und die anwendbaren Rechtsordnungen die im zu erweiternden Dokument angegebenen sind ("Sie für Ihre sämtlichen Beiträge, Bearbeitungen und Weiternutzungshandlungen nach dem Recht der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika sowie anderen anwendbaren Rechtsordnungen (darunter gegebenenfalls denjenigen des Landes, in dem Sie leben oder Inhalte betrachten bzw. bearbeiten), verantwortlich sind.") Gruss, --Jan (WMF) (talk) 15:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Take the issue of false flag operators seriously, please

As the US Supreme Court decision in Citizens United should make clear to all of us, firms are now in a position to dominate our culture completely; this state of affairs is an inevitable result of corporate personhood. In view of this situation, it is incumbent upon us to be prepared for all of our institutions to be attacked.

Because Wikipedia has become a large and popular entity, it has become a target, and the proposed changes to its terms of use are a step in the right direction, because they demand transparency. Sure, the proposed changes can be criticized for not going far enough or for being too easy to circumvent. But I believe that one single aspect of the picture is persuasive on its face: the corporatocracy has the wherewithal to accomplish the subversion of Wikipedia, notwithstanding their fewer numbers, and they have already commenced the attempt. In the face of this reality, we now must work out whether any project of the kind Wikipedia represents can survive.

One significant aspect that hangs in the balance is Wikipedia's credibility, both as a source of information and as a venue for people (such as myself) to bring a world of knowledge to the world of humankind. A tainted Wikipedia, a Wikipedia that cannot be trusted, can attract neither readers nor contributors.

• I suggest that paid-for content be rendered in a contrasting color of type (say, purple).

• Alternatively, surround such content by banners labeled "Paid Content" (similar to those thick inserts in Scientific American or National Geographic), and charge the patron a fee.

• Also, if an editor is acting as an paid agent, he should have restrictions on his ability to alter existing content.

One might argue, "How do you justify saddling a person with these special burdens?" I do so by forming a distinction between contributors working for free, as most of us have done from early times, and those who are using Wikipedia as a vehicle for their revenue stream, that is, paid agents. There is arguably a presumption that the latter category is less trustworthy merely because of the existence of pecuniary interest (or rather that their trustworthiness redounds to their paymaster instead of to the wikiworld). ArthurOgawa (talk) 10:13, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

How would we enforce this?

I don't see amendment being added into terms of use — alone — do any use. But in detail... what do you think of these three categories below?

-1: Rationale behind it being enforced

We could simply put an additional box into the article creation page (?action=edit for pages that don't exist) which asks to disclose motivations and affiliations. It could help somewhat. What benefit is there in formally requiring to do this where the identity of the author is simply not verifiable, it's not really possible to force him to admit COI if he really doesn't want? —Gryllida 10:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

0: Impact of these groups (1-3)

Which one of these groups makes a larger load onto Wikimedia projects? —Gryllida 10:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

1: "It looks like xe has COI but xe doesn't admit it"

Someone makes an article and says 'no' in response to all questions to disclose affiliation. Xir name is googleable and while identity can't be verified, xe doesn't admit COI. How do we react? —Gryllida 10:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

2: "I can't see xir COI anywhere but xe is just dense, xe probably actually does have COI (although I'll keep working under assumption of good faith)"

Someone makes an article and says 'no' in response to all questions to disclose affiliation. Xir name is not googleable, xe doesn't admit COI, but is difficultly dense asking us to please write an article for him plz????!. How do we react? —Gryllida 10:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

3: "Xe has COI but xe did not disclose it initially, we wasted several hours of effort to work on that article"

Would we block people who admitted COI after creating an article? If yes, how long after creating article? Would I be blocked if I did it a day after I wrote an article? 2 days after? 1 month after? —Gryllida 10:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Grylida -Thanks for your interesting posting and idea on the article creation page. I do set out some reasons how I see this proposed amendment to be helpful here. I think you raise some interesting potential scenarios relevant to community enforcement. I do think - as with all our terms and community policies - we use reason and good sense in enforcement, especially in gray areas. As a practical matter, no policy can capture every possibility, but historically our community has generally exercised good judgment in the enforcement of the policies. I will be interested in monitoring this discussion to see what others say as well. Geoffbrigham (talk) 15:53, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Enforcement is key

I did take a stance on this issue recently in The Daily Dot. I think that the change in policy may have positive effect, however the decisive factor will not, obviously, be how it is phrased, but rather how it is going to be enforced. I can imagine, for instance, permanent bans in the cases of undisclosed paid activities, as well as paid editions tagging/flagging (similarly to bots), or requiring special kinds of accounts (so that the whole community would review such edits much more easily). I think that all in all we are not going to eliminate bad faith paid editing, but perhaps we are going to allow some good faith paid edits in, provided that there are strong tools of community control over this input. Pundit (talk) 10:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I completely agree, but I wonder how effective bans are in practice. For example, Katy Perry had a troll on YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr (and likely anywhere else she has an account) that simply created a new account every time something was eventually done to block the current one. You can't ban IP addresses because you can unfairly freeze out libraries, free WiFi locations, etc., not to mention spoofed IP addresses through anonymous servers. E-mail bans only work for the five minutes it takes to sign up for a new Hotmail account and create a new Wikipedia profile. The real troublemakers probably contribute anonymously which is one reason why I'd like to see "anonymous" (i.e. non-account) edits done away with entirely.

Whatever the enforcement, those worst offenders who are unscrupulous enough to maliciously edit falsehoods into articles for pay are likely going to be more tenacious than some (I presume) angry teenager and will keep coming back every time something is done to get rid of them. Unfortunately, I think this self-identifying paid edit policy is only going to be followed by those who aren't a concern, but all things considered, an official policy addressing this issue is better than nothing. KADC "Be unreasonable." (talk) 12:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the observations. I agree that the proposed amendment is not a 100% solution, but I do set out a few reasons why the amendment might help here. Geoffbrigham (talk) 14:40, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

BAD Idea

today they pay for this tomorrow they'll bankroll something else,,,,,,,,,,keep Wikipedia clean!!

What you wanna say? Marcus Cyron (talk) 13:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I interpret this as support for the proposed amendment. Let me know if I have that wrong. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 14:36, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

NIPPON(JAPANESE) no yuutu Write JAPANESE ro-ma ji

Taihen jyuuyou na naiyou to kakareteiruga , Wagakuni deha eigo ga tukaenai hito mo ooku , Honyaku kinou de yomanakereba narazu giron ga muzukasii. Nihongo de narubeku okonattehosii to kanjiru. Wagakuni deha koukou de eigo wo narauga , Hazukasinagara eigo wo dekinai kodomo ga ooi. Kentei siken mo sakan dehanaku. kentei siken wo motteinai hito mo ooi. Tada , eigo ga syabererukara atamagayoi wakedeha nai. Watasimo itunohinika Eigo wo dekiruyouni ganbaritai. Nihongo wo honyaku surutoki no tyuui de aru. sumimasen.--ぐれ猫 (talk) 10:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Google Translate is not working for me on this, so, if somebody can translate for me, that would be great. Geoffbrigham (talk) 14:36, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh hah, probably because GTranslate doesn't recognize ローマ字 (romaji) as a legitimate language. I'll try to parse it through this before sending it through GTranslate. No guarantees this will work though. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 16:48, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Machine translation: "It is Written and very important for internal use, but people who can not use English even more in Japan, discussion is difficult and must be read in Honyaku yesterday. You feel it wants as much as possible be done in Japanese. Learning English at a high school in Japan, but the child can not be a shy English is covered. Watashi-ken also test rather than actively. People who do not have a certification examination also covered. However, the head is not good English because speak. I also want to do my best to be able to when the Nohinika English. It is Ji~yuu physician Nyakusuru when Carved Japanese. I am sorry."

This concept goes against the core principles of Wikipedia and how it works, and should work Openly

Everybody should be shocked and disappointed by the blatant corrupt nature of this concept. This is like "reverse" [reverse psychology] in that Wikipedia wants to encourage a sort of [bribery] but won't ask for it directly preferring to use the [Newspeak] term "undisclosed paid editing". Basically Wikipedia wants to create a business model based on [Undercover marketing]. They want Wikipedia to be the world's largest knowledge-base of [Disinformation]. They don't want the contributors to be open and accountable, but underhanded and surreptitious. This may just be a simplistic way to assure future funding by being sponsored by corporations and government intelligence-stealing institutions to update, manipulate and manage Wikipedia articles en masse, especially when they know that as time goes by the [Truth] always comes out. For example, there are certain parties that don't want the truth to come out on sensitive Wikipedia articles like Sandy Hook ( http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/02/20/school-safety-expert-sandy-hook-was-a-scripted-event-at-least-two-years-in-planning/ ), etc. I think the media should take up this article and raise awareness about this other side of the internet being restricted, corrupted and taken over by the dark side. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 1.121.173.201 (talk • contribs) 13:36, 21 February 2014‎ (UTC)

Hi there. I'm not sure if I fully understand you, so please correct me if I have it wrong. But, to be clear, our terms of use prohibit anybody from misrepresenting their affiliation, and that has been the case for a couple of years or so. This proposed amendment explains how one can honestly represent their affiliation in the context of paid editing. The amendment is not an endorsement of paid editing. Indeed, the amendment only sets out a minimum standard and our various communities on the different projects could impose stricter standards or even a ban. If I did not address your concern, feel free to let me know. Geoffbrigham (talk) 14:35, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Spouses

Does the proposed amendment include spouses and other family members? For example, if I make an edit that directly benefits my wife's employer, am I required to disclose that, even though I receive no direct compensation from the employer? There was one case where Jimmy Wales requested some edits that were to the benefit of his wife's employer. He didn't disclose that the edits were prompted by Freud Communications, but he did at least disclose that he would not make the edits directly himself, because of "a potential conflict of interest". Could we get some clarification about whether editing to the benefit of one's spouse or a family member is a "potential" or an "actual" conflict of interest, and thus should it be included in the proposal, or not -- or whether a comment about it in "FAQ" form is preferred? -- Thekohser (talk) 14:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Also, extra for experts in seeing how Wikipedia actually works. (Note the author of that comment.) -- Thekohser (talk) 14:49, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Paid contributions

Any contribution to Wikipedia, in the form of an article, should state clearly, on the Wiki page where the article begins, whether it is a paid contribution and who has paid for it. Otherwise how else can a reader know there is not some of advertising involved? I am shocked that full and transparent disclosure does not happen already. All edits should make similar disclosure. Perhaps there should be a tab at the head of the article leading to a page stating whether it is a paid contribution and if so by whom, and who has made any edits, with similar disclosure of interest. Transparency of this kind is of the utmost importance if Wikipedia is to have any integrity as a source of information. It would be quite wrong if much of Wikipedia became a covert advertorial, which it would without it. P123cat1 (talk) 17:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Language barriers

I find it very problematic that this discussion purports to cover all language Wikipedias, and yet this is only available in English and presumably only accessible by the English Wikipedian community vis a vis language barriers. I find this highly problematic as editors of all languages should be able to weigh in on such an important issue. If this is not fixed, I hope that the Wikimedia Foundation very strongly considers this as a problem within this discussion when it comes to any future decision based on this discussion. Jeremy112233 (talk) 15:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Jeremy - Actually this proposed amendment was translated into German, Italian, Spanish, French and Japanese before the consultation. The community is translating it into other languages as well. You can find the translations at the box near the top on the main page labelled "Other languages." Geoffbrigham (talk) 15:40, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, we have an ongoing German conversation above. Therefore, Jeremy112233 (and Piotr967, too :), I don't really see a principled reason why that could not take place in other languages as well. Regards, --Jan (WMF) (talk) 15:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd also like to see this advertising at the top banners of the actual Wikipedia sites, not just Wikimedia, to ensure the widest amount of viewpoints possible. Great job on starting to spread this to other languages though! Jeremy112233 (talk) 19:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Ability to Automate Identification of Paid Contributors

I believe that Paid Contributors ought to be required to make a note of such on their user account information page, through a checkbox or, alternatively, be required to use a specific wording in the edit summary, in which they indicate that they are a paid contributor.

I believe that this is necessary, so that the modifications by Paid Contributors can receive special attention by moderators. Without a common means by which Paid Contributors must report themselves, then it is more likely that biased content will be able to sneak into Wikipedia's content.

Moreover, if Paid Contributors are forced to identify themselves through a common means, then it will be easier to ban accounts of Paid Contributors who submit biased content which violates Wikipedia's TOS.

Ultimately, the ability to have a computer program very easily identify Paid Contributors will keep options open, allowing Wikipedia more options, in the future, with which this situation might be dealt with.

You and I may be thinking the same way on this. Rather than discourage paid-edits, just make them transparent and obvious. I can think of a lot of paid edits that would helpful rather than deceptive. ... like a movie star's agent correcting a birth date or similar. Or a computer company uploading product-shots.

--Cahpcc (talk) 19:24, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

More hypothetical examples, involving Commons and OTRS

While I believe the main concern is text editing of articles, the amendment clearly applies to all projects. I have a couple questions regarding photos provided.

Situation 1. The subject of an article realizes that there is no photo of the subject in the article, and arranges to send in a photo, with permission. The actual addition of the photo to the article is often done by an independent editor, but the literal upload of the photo is a contribution to a project. I assume this situation doesn't require disclosure, but it is set-up for the next situation.

Situation 2. The subject of an article realizes that there is no photo of the subject in the article, and asks his or her assistant to upload in a photo, along with permission. In this situation, the assistant is paid by the subject (or their common employer). Do we want to declare this as an example of paid editing, requiring disclosure?

Situation 3. Same as situation 2, except the assistant doesn't upload the photo, the assistant sends it in to Photosubmissions and I upload it for them. (For those unfamiliar with OTRS, this is a common occurrence, happening the order of a hundred times a year. ) Is the act of emailing Photosubmissions a contribution as defined in the amendment? Does it require disclosure? If I upload the photo for them, do I have to declare anything?

Situation 4. An art museum decides to licensee some of its collection, and a paid employee of the museum arranges to upload the photos to Commons. Does this require disclosure? Suppose the employee uploads to Commons, and places the photos in articles. Is this different.?--Sphilbrick (talk) 15:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sphilbrick. Your examples force reflection.  :) I would be interested in how you would answer under the proposed amendment and where you think disclosure does not make sense. If you think disclosure would be required but it does not make sense, would you have any language changes for the proposed amendment or suggested FAQs to clarify the scope? I'm not punting this, but genuinely asking. I will continue to think about this and will likely benefit greatly from your perspective. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion of Examples (3)

Photos are indeed different but I do believe that the same basic ToU will work as well. Commons may want to set a specific policy on this but I believe our current rules and practices cover almost everything. For examples 1-3, presumably a copyright statement is already required, releasing the photo. That could be viewed, in effect an adequate disclosure. If Commons thought that a more specific disclosure was needed they could require something else (but of course not retroactively). For situation 4, I'm sure there is already something recorded that shows the museum agrees to the upload.

I don't think there would be any problem with anybody (paid or not) uploading public domain photos. I think the only real problem with photos would be when they are biased, e.g. photo-shopped to show something that didn't happen, or perhaps an image of a political cartoon. I'd think that any Commons policy should focus on these, and the rest of the situations could be handled easily by saying "ToU apply for all photo uploads, but are adequately covered by other required disclosures." Smallbones (talk) 19:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Short response: my current thinking is that Commons should be treated differently. (See collapsed discussion for complications.) My argument is that while it is quite understandable that paid edits to articles should be, at a minimum flagged, and in some circumstances, prohibited, I don’t think the same rule applies to Commons content. I not only accept photos from pros, I encourage them. If an art museum wants to freely licensee their collection and a paid employee is involved, I want to applaud them. I do not miss that inclusion of a photo in an article, not just the decision to include or exclude, but the choice of photos, their captions and placement all contribute to the POV of an article, which we want to be neutral. However, I think there is a clean demarcation between the selection of photos in an article, and the addition of a photo to Commons. The first is an editorial function, and if compensated, should be acknowledged, per TOU. The second action may or may not be compensated, but I don't think that identification is critical.--Sphilbrick (talk) 21:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

My opinion is, in cases like this, what reason would there be not to disclose? Why would they not want to be known that it's someone connected with the subject/the institute that is doing the uploading? If you want to applaud them, is it really an onus on them to let you know who you are to applaud? - Andre Engels (talk) 23:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

additional thoughts
I first thought about photos. Commons has more than photos, but in the context of this issue, I felt comfortable treating video, animations and sounds the same way as photos. Then I remembered that text, in the form of pdf's are often uploaded to Commons, and I paused. However, I then decided that the distinction is not between text and images, but between the compilation of an article about a subject (which includes a lot of text, can include images and pdf texts, and other items). I decided that the compilation is the editorial process, and it is that process that must meet NPOV, and that process where paid editing must be identified. If someone upload a pdf of text they created, it will probably be deleted (unless they and the text are famous) but if it passes the rules for inclusion, it sits by itself as a file until and unless some editor makes the judgment to include it in an article. It is the second step where I want to know if the editor is paid. I don’t think I care about the payment status of the creator or uploader. I then thought about the fact that it is possible to lie or mislead with images. Suppose there is a famous text, and one side wants to minimize the importance. If they pay someone to take photos in a way to minimize the size of the crowd, isn't this as serious a problem, as the paid advocate using text to say that the crowd wasn't that large? Of course, but the difference is that if the paid, biased photographer uploads the photos to Commons, it is not automatic that they will be used. There may be better photos with a different message. Even if not, it is the editorial judgment of the article writer to determine whether photos should be included, and if the only photos are misleading the editorial decision ought to be to exclude photos. I note that the amendment refers to " any Wikimedia Projects" . I'll start by suggesting it be changed to " any Wikimedia content Projects", then if my arguments above carry weight it may be appropriate to exclude Commons. I propose the modifier "content" because I can think of several examples of contributions to "backstage" projects which could be paid, but not problematic. (It is possible that no one intended that Backstage Projects be included. However, this page defines projects, and I don't think any casual user would know why the TOU refers to some projects but not others. I can imagine several situations where someone might be paid to contribute to a Backstage project (e.g Wikimania conference planners) and I don't think disclosure is needed. I know little about Wikidata, but I have a long-term hope that I can persuade ESPN or some other stat company to provide sports statistics. If that ever happens, I would see it as analogous to the Commons situation: a paid editor choosing to incorporate such data in an article should disclose, but a provider of the raw data may not need to. Finally, to give my own views on the situations I listed, I think that the paid assistant uploading a photo, the OTRS agent uploading on behalf of a paid assistant, and the art gallery employee uploading photos should all be allowed to without disclosure of their compensation arrangement. The art gallery employee should be urged to leave the placement of the photos in article to other (unpaid)editors, or disclose if they want to be involved in the placement.

Question

Since transparency is so important is why the foundation no orders disclose true personal data of user (e.g., surname). Knowledge of who the person maybe be useful for the assessment of conflict of interest. Probably more useful than knowledge who pay of user. --Piotr967 (talk) 16:08, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Piotr967 - I understand your perspective, but I think our culture and concern about harassment would likely not permit such explicit identification. The proposed amendment seeks to find a balance on this point Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good

Having read the discussion, I strongly support the amendment. Given Wikipedia's vast influence, and the incentives for manipulating it, I'm surprised this policy hasn't already been adopted. Policies like this are widespread in, for example, medical research journals, and do some good, though they are not a panacea. Nothing is perfect, and we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. As some have said, enforcement is key, but I think most of the enforcement will not come formally through the legal system, but informally through the consensus-driven Wikipedia community itself. Having this amendment as part of the terms of use will give Wikipedians an additional powerful tool to use against biased editing and attempts to use Wikipedia as an advertising platform. Now paid editors will have to try extra hard to be balanced, or their edits will be discounted by other users who know they are paid, and if they don't disclose it and are later caught, they will be subject to opprobrium, warnings and possible banning for repeat offenses. A professor has worried if he would be in violation for not disclosing his university affiliation. A reasonable answer, which I think most Wikipedians would support, is No. If he were merely editing an article on a topic of his professional expertise no disclosure would be called for. If he were editing article that takes a point of view, or seems to, on his own university, he would still not be a "paid editor" in the sense of the amendment, but it would be proper and prudent for him to disclose his affiliation under existing Wikipedia conflict-of-interest guidelines. Another user wonders whether the disclosure requirement will compromise the anonymity of Wikipedians who don't edit under their own name. It indeed may, but if one is making paid edits, one ought not also to have the right to hide one's affiliation, even if disclosing it makes it possible to guess one's identity. The existing policy against sockpuppets already represents a limitation on absolute anonymity.CharlesHBennett (talk) 16:13, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Oppose - From PR Perspective

As a senior manager of a PR company, I have been monitoring the situation with paid editing for a while. This dates back to the Wiki-PR issues last year. I am not a registered user (until now), but because of my job I need to understand it in depth and advise clients. I have major concerns about what this will do. The new proposal in effect is singling out COI, which is a great start. However where it seems to go wrong is focus in heavily on paid editing, which in my personal opinion is overkill. Paid editing isn't the problem, the COI laws are. People with ANY conflict of interest can do as they please as far as I'm concerned on Wikipedia, which causes huge problems for everyone in the community. Answer me this - how many times have you seen an edit war due to COI's bickering, without declaring they have a COI? Then compare this figure with how many times you've personally had problems with a paid editor. COI in general will be much higher.

Now for the reality check. I've read this page thoroughly and there are some great views. However, there are others who simply do not understand 'the real world'. Changing the terms of use on a website will not stop corporations from doing as they please. Let's look over the last few years as an example. One of the largest british newspapers closed its doors after allegedly phone tapping everyone from celebrities to kidnapped children (see News International phone hacking scandal) in order to be first to a story. Then theres the banks from the financial crisis of 2007, who pretty much pushed the entire world into recession for their own profits. The small companies aren't the problem or minor celebs, it's these companies who need convincing.

I feel from Wikipedia's perspective they could learn a lot from the saying 'keep your friends close, and your enemies closer'. At the moment there is a them and us attitude or at least seems to be. The PR industry and paid editing firms need to be consulted on this, maybe even behind closed doors so honest discussions can take place. Without the criticism of the entire community.

If Wikipedia moves forward with this, I would like to make a prediction. One off edits from accounts or IP addresses on pages will increase. For the simple reason this will scare the living daylights out of people and small time companies/paid editors who don't want to be caught will feel thats the only way. Unless the larger companies are embraced who carry out paid editing, this will become an even 'darker art'. You'll see more 'freelance wikipedia editors' popping up, and more will do this on the side to earn some cash from credible accounts. I don't understand how that will help anyone. It'll just make certain pages and paid editing situations much harder to manage or monitor as users will do everything in their power to avoid been associated as a paid editor. Currently, its easy to spot a paid editor, if this moves forward I predict you won't see more paid editors due to declarations, they'll simply become invisible.

Onto the proposal itself, I'm concerned about how the community as a whole will react to this. Paid editors have already mentioned that certain edits and pages they've worked on are 'watched or stalked' by certain editors. I think by focusing on COI and not just the paid editing side of things, would result in a more open community with less editing wars and controversy. Not only this, Mr. Wales supported the way BP added to their Wikipedia page. How was this form of editing received in the press? Not very well if you ask me, they got pulled apart for trying to edit their environmental record.

I think this needs some work before it becomes feasible.

As it is , I already look at any article e about an organization, commercial or non-profit, with the intention of removing bias and promotionalism whether from the organizations;s PR department, an outside paid editor, or a fan.

Question 2

Would e.g. the research worker will be able to edit the articles of Wiki from your field only as paid user? Because he gets a salary also for the popularization of science. How the foundation officials want to decide whether the scientist is reading the article due of his mission or for the money. --Piotr967 (talk) 16:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't think this proposed amendment would apply unless it was part of the researcher's work responsibilities to edit Wikipedia. Maybe we could maybe include some FAQ that makes clear that editing on general subject areas of interest by professors and researchers would not be covered. Would that make sense? I would be interested in people's views on that. Geoffbrigham (talk) 17:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

There are researchers in industry, also. In some fields, such as some areas of electronics, a good part of our best content comes from there. But it does not matter who adds the material; it matters what the material is that they add. An unaffiliated person adding sponsored medical research without realizing it can do as much harm as someone from the company. DGG (talk) 18:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Email to OTRS

Can this also be an option added to the list of three things a contributor may do to disclose his affiliation with an organization? In my opinion, the three options so presented might be a bit... intrusive and rather public. Once you've put your name down anywhere on Wikipedia, it's hard to erase it even if you or the organization are no longer affiliated with each other, and in the worst case scenario, where either you, the affiliation with, or the organization itself goes down in flames, and you no longer want to be associated with the organization, you have no choice but to be remembered as such. Even if they might have some unreasonable policy about projecting a public image on Wikipedia. It's also quite a risk exposing your real life details related to an organization, makes it easier to narrow down who you might be. I'd much prefer the careful judgment of the OTRS people, or if they allow so the English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee to handle these situations, and they know best how to handle sensitive data. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 16:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Also, I noticed that from Special:CentralNotice that this banner is set to run only for four days. Can we extend it a little to say maybe a week to get some further feedback? I just feel four days for busy people isn't enough time for reviewing and responding to this large change in the Terms of Use. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 16:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

English Wikipedia's official stance on paid editing has always been a bit murky, and there's no true consensus on allowing or disallowing the practice as far as I know. Of course, this revision to the terms of use may as well force the issue on Wikipedia and the community to actually revisit the issue. Here are some links to some discussions: Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Paid editing, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Paid editing, Wikipedia:Paid editing, and Wikipedia:Paid editing. Food for thought. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 16:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

While I think some editors have raised thoughtful concerns about the privacy implication, I do not see OTRS as a solution (speaking as an OTRS agent). I think the goal of the amendment is to make it transparent when an edit comes from an editor who is being paid to edit. If that editor files a report with OTRS, and I handle it, what am I supposed to do? Monitor every edit made henceforth by that editor to see if it is acceptable? That's not workable. The non-public nature of OTRS is workable when it comes to licenses, but I do not see how it works when it comes to edits. On the other hand, perhaps I have missed something, can you explain what you believe should happen if John Doe declares to OTRS than he is a paid editor, and then edits? --Sphilbrick (talk) 17:35, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

This change is merely to ensure that the section of the Terms of Use concerning misrepresentation are enforced, right? First, email to OTRS would link back the paid contributor to his employer(s), to ensure no fraud was committed. Second, Wikipedia policies about blocks cases of strong abuse like COI/promotional editing already permit blocking of such accounts based on behavioral evidence. But if there was ever a need to investigate a user account for abuse, particularly with NPOV, then the OTRS ticket could be referenced as relevant info by an OTRS agent should the disclosure become necessary/mandatory, for any situation. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 18:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Unenforceable

How can you really know which contributions are paid, which are not? To me it seems like the failed "budget cap" in Formula One, which seems to be a good idea but utterly unenforceable. Alonso McLaren (talk) 17:15, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I have raised a few considerations on the purpose and need for the proposed amendment here. Your comment is a fair point but you raise an issue that, in different contexts, is true with many provisions in a terms of use to some degree or another. Also, our community is able to investigate, and we have examples where our community has enforced provisions of sock puppetry, for example, which is a tool for undisclosed paid editing at times. Legal options like cease and desist orders or even litigation in egregious cases are theoretically possible. As I noted above, this provision is also to help provide guidance to good faith editors - it is not only a negative tool to facilitate enforcement when bad players are caught, but it is a positive tool to provide guidance to editors who want to know the rules. I hope that helps answer your question. Cheers. Geoffbrigham (talk) 17:49, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

It is unenforceable against any reasonably competent editor, for we will not be able to be certain they're a paid editor unless they tell us, though we may suspect it. In the enWP, we can't even ask them a question if they're a paid editor, or at least we cannot insist they answer. It will remove the incompetent, the nature of whose work is obvious, but we can remove them just as well on the basis of the content they add. It therefore privileges deceit, as long as it isn't stupid deceit. DGG (talk) 18:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Excellent point DGG; my own opinion is that we should be improving our ability to see non-neutral additions to pages, paid or not, in order to truly solve the problem of NPOV issues. Jeremy112233 (talk) 19:24, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Misrepresentation - how to determine intention to deceive?

What if say I created a roleplay group on YouTube and wanted to "disclose" my affiliation as being part of some larger "company"? How do we determine, enforce, or judge anyone's intentions, as far as deception or misrepresentation goes? Is this just for play, or something else? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 17:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi TeleComNasSprVen - I'm afraid I don't fully understand your question. Can you explain a bit more please? To be clear, if you are not being compensated for making edits, you do not need to disclose under the proposed amendment. Geoffbrigham (talk) 17:40, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

My mistake then. But if someone falsely claims to have been paid to edit (even though they haven't - for whatever reason - like say in a bet a with a friend) and/or then falsely claims affiliation, perhaps to a "company" they made up, what is the recourse on that? Should they still be allowed to edit? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 18:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Under the present terms of use, you are not allowed to misrepresent your affiliation ... and that has been the case for years. The community would decide what would be the best approach to address the situation - it might be a warning, a suspension, or a ban, I imagine. Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

freedom of the press

This measure must not be approved. Freedom of the press is the most beneficial advantage on which we can all agree. To curtail this freedom would be a loss. The EU directive is poor guidance. We have, on this wiki site, the most simple and uncomplicated policy: "contributions may be mercilessly edited". This is the guarantor of wiki. We should be loathe to modify it.

I don't think you understand the proposal; there is no loss of freedom. The proposal is asking users to disclose when making an edit/contribution that they are compensated for, not limiting the ability to edit or make a contribution. --Tcxspears (talk) 21:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Editing while at work

Not to be a wise guy, but if somebody (not me, of course) edits while at work, doesn't that constitute "paid editing?" For example, Jane Smith works at Oscar Meyer and sometimes edits from work. However, Jane's edits are not on behalf of Oscar Meyer, and furthermore the subject matter in which Jane edits is not about, nor related to, Oscar Meyer. In that sense, I'll wager that there are many, many "paid editors" out there (but not me, of course) and wonder if the verbiage should address this. (On the other hand I don't believe it constitutes a conflict of interest, which I understand is the actual concern.) -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:53, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Gyrfrog. In this scenario, the proposed amendment would not apply because you are not being compensated for the editing. If others feel confused about this point, we can add a new FAQ making this even clearer. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

That's how I read it too. You have to be paid _for_ the editing. But, there could be a lot of deniability about that e.g. "Yes, I'm a paid staffer of Congressman X but I was editing as a personal supporter." --Cahpcc (talk) 19:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

As someone who mainly IP-edits, in this case I think that requiring paid editors to log-in when (paid)-editing would be key. That could also prevent sabotaging competitors, (although against the proposed TOS-see identity), with purposely bad or foolish-looking edits being mis-attributed. I'm assuming that it would be OK for an editor to maintain a personal screen name/or IP edit, AND use a paid-identity? Also in the TOS-having it clearly marked on the user page, I like but it would have to be an identical notice in the same place so that readers could find it with one-click and not have to hunt for it (like upper left or right-hand corner so a quick look-see could tell you "yes" or "no". 24.0.133.234 19:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

What about non-paid people with an agenda?

Pay is just one way that a person may have a conflict of interest on a Wikimedia project. Strong personal opinions (be they e.g. scientific, religious, political) lead to at least as much problems of the very same fundamental nature: a conflict between one's own agenda and Wikimedia's interest in building neutral information resources.

Inhowfar is the failure to disclose a paid agenda in particular any worse (from a neutrality viewpoint) than any other strong agenda that diverges from and clashes with WMF's goals?

Singling out paid editing in particular as the "core problematic aspect" of agenda editing is entirely wrong-headed imho. Whatever the agenda, any strong agenda which diverges from the community's sole interest in building neutral resources should have to be disclosed. Either that, or the project may as well continue to judge edits by their own merit. --89.0.243.30 18:08, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

To be honest, I prefer that Wikipedia judge a user by their contributions and not the motives behind it. Sure, motives may be one factor to take into account when judging whether their contributions could be deemed 'helpful' or 'unhelpful' towards building the encyclopedia, but it should not be the determining factor to judge user contributions by, let alone the decision to completely ban that user from editing at all on the site for failure of disclosing such motives. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 18:30, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

That's a valid opinion, but beside the point I was making. My issue is with singling out pay as the "motor" for a non-neutral agenda over other, potentially equally strong or even stronger root causes for non-neutral agendas.

Also, nobody is suggesting that contributions by paid editors be dismissed out of hand or that paid editors be banned outright. However, disclosing any non-neutral agenda (paid or otherwise) is definitely helpful for evaluating an editor's contributions and can actually help ease the tensions which inevitably arise from suspicions of agenda editing. --89.0.243.30 18:40, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I also have a beef with STUDENT editors. They are mandated to edit in some cases-not really voluntary there! EDITED BY STUDENT EDITOR should appear on the article page too.24.0.133.234 19:49, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

The basic question seems to be "other stuff is a problem, why don't we fix everything at the same time?" It would be nice if we could fix everything at once, but that's just not the way the real world works. Let's fix the really important stuff first. Which brings up the other main question - "How far is the failure to disclose a paid agenda in particular any worse (from a neutrality viewpoint) than any other strong agenda that diverges from and clashes with WMF's goals?"

That's easy to answer: many businesses can afford to have several people monitoring "their" articles on Wikipedia, whereas our usual editors are volunteers. The paid editors will dominate unless they have to disclose their paid status. The result of undisclosed paid editing will be biased articles on anything to do with business (and much that has only a tenuous connection with business) and a systematic bias in the articles we cover. PR people can argue forever trying to prove that black is white, and they do -not just on Wikipedia! They cannot honestly participate in an open discussion of an issue - the must (by law) present their employer's interest. None of the usual give-and-take expected from Wikipedia editors can be expected with them. If a firm wants to pay enough editors on Wikipedia, they can in effect say anything they want here, and volunteers can't do anything about it. Smallbones (talk) 20:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

The basic question seems to be "other stuff is a problem, why don't we fix everything at the same time?" - Nope, that is not my point at all. My point is that focusing solely on pay as an agenda-driving factor diverts attention away from the fact that agenda itself is the core problem. Many strong editing agendas have nothing to do with pay, and by focusing only on pay as a problematic motivating factor, we're doing the project a huge disservice by tacitly giving those other agendas more of a pass. Every type of conflict of interest should be declared openly and should be treated with the exact same caution as paid editing. --78.35.248.252 21:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi 78.35.248.252 - Your point is reasonable. Wikimedia projects however are able to tailor their conflict of interests requirements to their projects and needs, so other motivating factors can be addressed as appropriate on those projects. There is something about money however that does challenge neutrality, and we feel it is important and prevalent enough to address this one factor comprehensively in the terms. That said, I hear your reasoning. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 22:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hypothetical question on limits

If we implement this proposal, what is going to stop "Big Business Ltd" from hiring a team of IT-qualified but poorly-paid people in a developing country and instructing them to keep a vigilant eye on all of the multiple articles on "Big Business", making sure that their employer always looks good, with shifts to ensure there are editors available at all times?

• What if those editors repeatedly do not comply?. Green Giant supports NonFreeWiki (talk) 21:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

What stops them now? DGG (talk) 18:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Nothing, but what in this proposal would change anything about that? --89.0.243.30 18:44, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't have to fix every issue to be useful. If there's a way to improve this proposal to make it more effective, I'm all for it. But just because it isn't perfect, that doesn't mean it won't be better than what we have now (which is a total failure to address paid editing). -- Atama頭 19:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

@DGG: - I wasn't implying that it doesn't already happen, because I'm pretty sure it does already. The question was mean't to ask about what happens after the amendment is adopted and we get non-compliance. The sections below the actual amendment don't say anything about how we tackle non-compliance if we adopt the proposal. Instead it appears to be simply an acknowledgement of the existing situation, which would give such businesses a much freer hand to influence our content because they will point to this amendment as their justification. I would support the proposal IF it presented a clear explanation for HOW we are going to deal with infringements when this amendment is adopted. By that I mean what else, apart from blocking/banning editors, blocking IP's i.e. will there be legal action, and if so, what lengths will the WMF go to in order to ensure compliance? Green Giant supports NonFreeWiki (talk) 20:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

@Atama: - In addition to my reply to DGG, the proposal is a small but very serious change of policy and it simply isn't good enough to say "OK, we'll let you do paid editing as long as you tell us" without a statement of what will happen if such editors do not abide by this requirement. All it says at the moment is that such editing might be limited by "applicable law, or community and Foundation policies", instead of saying that it "will be limited". Green Giant supports NonFreeWiki (talk) 20:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for these comments. We of course cannot provide a precise accounting of the law in various jurisdictions, but the purpose of the proposed amendment is to give fair warning that paid editing may be restricted by the law - a situation that I don't believe many understand. This FAQ tried to give that notice. We also make clear that this proposed amendment is only a minimum requirement, and that projects may further restrict or ban paid editing (but that is the decision of the projects so we cannot be more definitive in the terms). So, as I see it, I would not read the proposed amendment as endorsement of paid editing. If you think we can state this a different way please let me know. Much appreciated. Geoffbrigham (talk) 21:39, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Could there be a "paid edit" template-message on the main article page?

I teach information literacy in the public schools, including detection of bias in a resource.

(Unlike many of my colleagues, I don't discourage the use of Wikipedia.)

It would be very helpful if a student could easily know that an article may have bias from a paid contributor. A template-message of caution, maybe?

It is asking too much of my students to require them to click on all the personal pages of all the contributors to determine if some are paid.

The template-message could be at the top of the article or, less-instrusively, it could possibly be a smaller icon on the section that he or she edited. A little icon of coins which hyper-link to the company/person who paid them to do the edit? --Cahpcc (talk) 18:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

We already have this. It's called a COI template, which would apply to articles that were modified by paid editors. It is put on an article when there are concerns that an editor with a conflict of interest may have introduced problems into an article (bias, inappropriate links, etc.) and removed when the article is evaluated by independent editors who fix any observed problems and then verify the suitability of its content, usually accompanied by a discussion on the article's talk page. This is nothing new, it's something that has been in usage on the English Wikipedia project at least for a number of years. If you wanted a newer template specifically for paid editing, I don't see why not, you could simply copy and slightly modify the wording of the COI template.

If you're looking for a permanent mark that warns you that the page may have some kind of subtle bias introduced by a paid editor that is not apparent to a casual reader, then no, that can't happen. Such a template would be meaningless, because any article in any project could potentially have that issue. You'd be better off with a general disclaimer, and we technically have that implication already when we declare that these projects are places where "anyone can edit". -- Atama頭 19:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I think that Cahpcc raises a very good point, and yet I think that Atama does as well. Lack of disclosure to readers is the primary problem with paid editing, but yes, that in itself poses problems. In the past I've even drafted possible template messages, but I haven't pushed the issue because such warnings are just too problematic in themselves. That is why paid editing itself is invidious and ought not to be countenanced by the Foundation. Jimbo Wales has suggested on his talk page that this TOU change is the first step toward the end of paid editing, but I think it's the first step toward acceptance and perpetuation. Coretheapple (talk) 22:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Is the right information being disclosed?

I believe I understand what the proposal intends to address, but I'm not convinced that the most appropriate and useful information is being disclosed. If I need to do a quick lookup, I'm unlikely to also check the edit history, talk page, and individual editor talk pages to see whether some particular datum was entered by a "commercial" editor. If I'm concerned about whether a particular piece of information is legitimate or if it's corporate spin, this policy doesn't seem to do much to simplify the task of sorting one from the other.

What would be more useful to me would be a way to identify which edits are paid. If I'm reading a page on XYZ Corporation, I don't want to have to sort through the talk page and the list of editors and their individual talk pages to fully determine whether someone from XYZ Corporation might have put a little boosterism on their page -- or whether someone from ABC Corporation got on there to boost negative information about XYZ. It seems more to the point to me to directly identify the paid edits, perhaps in a similar manner to cites and footnotes. Trdsf (talk) 19:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Trdsf, I hear your point. I think it is somewhat of a balancing act to be honest. The reason for the disclosure requirement is primarily to allow our community to identify any potential conflict of interest and challenge or edit out point of view (POV) contributions. Readers can do the same, but your point is well taken that it is more difficult. However, I can see practical issues in labeling paid edits on the article page, especially when part of a paid edit could be subject to further non-paid edits in the future. It could get confusing quickly. I don't think the proposed amendment is a perfect solution to the issue you are solving, but IMHO it is a step forward. Geoffbrigham (talk) 22:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

WIKIPEDIA will not ban IP's who edit information to take fact out and put dis-info in. This amendment could mean nothing.

These people are paid or automated by AI. Monsanto has admitted to paying people 10 cents a post to spread positive propaganda about how you should eat GMO that's cells are full of pesticides. There are many articles on wiki that cant be edited because in a matter of seconds they are restored back even when the new info is important, new and cited with government studies or very well respected private researchers. An example of this is anything related to disease and conspiracy. Cancer is one, lyme disease is another. Both are great examples of this issue dive deep my friend and connect the dots.

please respect my opinion and let this stay.

This experimental fact is true also in french wikipedia :

There are many articles on wiki that cant be edited because in a matter of seconds they are restored back even when the new info is important, new and cited with government studies or very well respected private researchers

paid or not directly paid, (retired conditioned by a life in their firm for example, or quasi religious thinking ) will not change this reality !!!

The only way is the possibility to appeal to independant specialized competent judges, even in a foreign country, who explain in details their judgements, in particular in the discussion .

Otherwise wikipedia remains with many errors never corrected, because many edit are supressed without any possibility to discuss what has been written with scientific proofs.

Translation : Traduction de mes différentes remarques:

Sur wikipedia France ce constat est très vrai :

Il y a beaucoup d'articles qui ne peuvent pas être édité ou amélioré, parce que en quelques secondes ils sont supprimés et restaurés à l'état d'avant, même s'il s'agit d'informations nouvelles et importantes, avec références scientifiques publiées dans des revues prestigieuses.

Payé ou non payés directement, comme des retraités conditionnés par une vie dans leur entreprise, ou des modes de pensée fanatiques, cela ne va pas changer ce comportement réel.

La seule solution est de pouvoir demander de faire appel à des juges indépendants spécialisés, compétents, même dans un pays étranger, qui expliquent leur jugement en détail en particulier dans la discussion. La discussion actuellement n'est pas une discussion sur les preuves et aucun appel n'est possible.

Par exemple je peux écrire plein d'équations incompréhensibles à 99% des lecteurs sans suppression, mais si j'explique de façon simple élémentaire, leurs conséquences pratiques qui dérangent des industriels, alors la suppression est rapide et sans appel, avec le contôleur wikipedia avouant même qu'il n'a pas lu, qu'il n'y comprend rien, et qui, en juge suprême, se moque totalement de vos protestations  !!

exemple diffusivité thermique avec ce censureur qui a laissé une belle bourde, vu qu'il n'y comprend rien du tout.

Pareille suppression et censure pour la géothermie qui a besoin de ces explications détaillées sur la diffusivité pour expliquer simplement comment on dimensionne les puits géothermiques de pompes à chaleur, qui en France sont souvent sous dimensionnés avec de véritables arnaques industrielles fort chères qui détruisent la confiance envers tous les installateurs de chauffage. Tout cela a été censuré par Lefringant sans possibilité du moindre appel considérant avec soin les faits réels. De plus d'autres explications détaillées sur géothermie ont été supprimées par un IP 86.220.42.198 sans aucune raison à part qu'il cherche à bloquer toute information utile des lecteurs !! et rien n'a été rétabli !!

géothermie est un théatre de combat intense d'édition à voir les suppressions !!

Pareil pour Moteur Pantone avec une énorme erreur interdite de corriger depuis 3 ans !! Titlutin est clairement récompensé !! Son travail de patrouille régulier est appréciable

Raz le bol et donc je ne contribue plus à wikipedia !!

J'ai demandé la suppression de mon compte mais alors j'ai découvert qu'on est inscrit à perpétuité à wikipedia !!

Aussi je ne me sers plus de mon compte, seule mon IP volatile sert .

PaidOpedia©

Why not just send all paid-editors to a somewhat mirror site where they paid-edit to their ♥'s content then see how it looks in a few years?24.0.133.234 20:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Other Wikimedia projects

What we are missing currently is input about the other Wikimedia projects which are affected by this change to the Terms of Use. While Wikipedia definitely is the Wikimedia Foundation's flagship project, it is definitely not the only wiki out there, maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation's servers in Sampa, Florida. This may have other, more adverse effects for the policy changes on other Wikimedia wikis and projects not accounted for, such as Wikisource, Wikiversity, and Wikivoyage. And these projects do not have the same mission as Wikipedia, they may or may not care about NPOV, and in fact some of them may even encourage POV as a way to facilitate discussions and forays into further knowledge. One of the more important issues raised in this talkpage is the future of the GLAM-affiliated participating organizations, whose contributors could be adversely affected by this change, if they happen to be unluckily caught between it and a Non-disclosure agreement (see diff by Llywrch). Wikisource may depend on contributions and donations from various organizations to store its material, just as organizations on Wikimedia Commons may choose to have their people release their content under the CC-BY-SA agreement. Wikiversity has several participating organizations dedicated to research, which could also be commercial and/or promotional. Wikivoyage absolutely gets its content from quite a number of travel agencies, with some negotiation between editors on how best to be fair, an altogether different but related standard from notability.

We need to examine the impacts of this change across Wikimedia projects more closely, not just on Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation's flagship project. The Terms of Use affects everybody, and we should give them a chance in order to hear what they have to say. This change, while not explicitly banning paid editing altogether, definitely works to discourage it. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 20:15, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

What is the purpose of this change? Eliminating POV may be an ideal, but that does not always work in the best interests of other projects. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 20:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you TeleComNasSprVen. Do you know how to bring this discussion to the attention of non-Wikipedia projects? My perspective is that undisclosed paid editing is potentially legally problematic, even if the project does not have a NPOV policy similar to Wikipedia. For example, in Wikivoyage, an undisclosed paid edit may be in violation of astroturfing or fair advertising laws. I hope that the minimal level of disclosure that is required by this amendment would not pose a problem for the usual activity on Wikisource, Wikiversity, or Wikivoyage, but I do appreciate any more insight you have on on the topic. Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 20:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

The question isn't if it presents new problems. The question is if it solves any, because it clearly comes with costs, namely the loss of some anonymity. On Commons (the project I am most active on) I would see no problem with an undisclosed paid contributor uploading photos relating to their company. It's hard to undermine NPOV using only media files. While I've never contributed to Wikisource, I imagine that it's similar there. I don't see your point wrt violating the law; it is of course always the contributor's duty to also follow any laws that apply to them, what does that have to do with the ToU - unless of course you believe that the WMF is violating any laws under certain circumstances? darkweasel94 (talk) 23:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

To me, it seems that paid editing is allowed just so long as it is instantly revealed as such, so I see no way that the amendment could harm any of the Wikimedia projects... KaiQ 23:35, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Goals of the change: COI versus fraud

I'm seeing two different goals that this proposed change is trying to accomplish here. I think we need to distinguish them, because it is important for the views expressed by the editors found here: the first is the reduction of COI in Wikipedia by discouraging (and alternatively banning altogether) paid editing and paid editors of any kind; the second, subtle in the eyes of Wikimedians, but expressly stated purpose of the Wikimedia Foundation LCA team for this change is the reduction of fraud attempts. I understand that attempts at fraud are close to illegality and why the legal team would want to avoid that, but it seems that through the implicit tone of the comments made here, they are also trying to change the cultures of their projects into banning COI and biased articles altogether from the Wikimedia Foundation servers. Of course, this benefits the Wikimedia Foundation's flagship project Wikipedia, whose core policy is in fact NPOV, but in the context of other wiki projects also under the Terms of Use of the Foundation, it may have adverse consequences, as noted under #Other Wikimedia projects up above. This is undoubtedly the easiest approach to taking care of both, but why also put other projects at risk for potential harm? Has anyone thought of satisfying the requirements of the Terms of Use, according to Foundation's LCA, whose goal is to prevent "misrepresentation" and "fraud", without also affecting COI and POV policies everywhere else? The Foundation has pledged to support all of its projects in all endeavors, but here it seems to be favoring one over the other...

Let me be more clear on this: I think the Foundation's efforts at reducing potential fraud are praiseworthy, but this attempt also has the side effect, intended or unintended, of enforcing or making global a policy specific to Wikipedia (NPOV), which is not praiseworthy. Perhaps a better solution could be found, and we have merely not thought hard enough. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 20:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Fraud (aka hoaxes, falsification, etc.) will always occur on Wikipedia. That's why there's a Project:Verifiability policy. Why not shame companies and other organizations that attempt to manipulate their Wikipedia articles, e.g. by notifying the press and then linking to the resulting press article? For example, this was done at National_Institute_on_Drug_Abuse#External_links ("Feds Mess with Wikipedia Entry, Again"). Leucosticte (talk) 20:40, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi TeleComNasSprVen - Thanks for your posting, which I found useful. I would be interested in what language changes you would proposed to address your concerns or conceptually what would you include in the TOU to prevent the type of fraud you are talking about. Thanks for your time ... much appreciated. Geoffbrigham (talk) 21:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

To me, it seems that paid editing is allowed just so long as it is instantly revealed as such, so I see no way that the amendment could harm any of the Wikimedia projects... KaiQ 23:35, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Paid-for content should be prohibited in Wikipedia

Seems pretty obvious to me. Of course we all understand that prohibiting it will not guarantee to prevent it, but the same is true for every rule, law, etc. ever devised. 86.176.214.222 20:46, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Not to me. How about an archive or library wanting to put some material into Wikipedia? Sounds good to me. But they'll have to have someone doing it for them. Usually that will be a paid employee. Which apparently is obviously not allowed. - Andre Engels (talk) 22:30, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I didn't know such a thing ever happened or was conceivably likely. By "paid-for content" I mean content paid for by commercial interests, lobbyists, etc. to promote themselves or further their own agenda. 86.176.214.222 22:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Andre, aren't you being a bit facetious here? You know very well that there is a difference between an employee who also edits and someone who is specifically paid to edit to tone down criticism etc. --78.35.248.252 23:13, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

To me, it seems that paid editing is allowed just so long as it is instantly revealed as such... KaiQ 23:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Add obligatory disclosure for volunteers, too

I think that volunteers, for example government volunteers, should add their disclosure, too, as their edits could be motivated by opportunity for personal advancement in political party.

This idea is great, as it doesn't reject experts to edit articles in their field of expertise. It just asks them to disclose their affiliation in order to improve NPOV policy effectiveness.

Unfortunately, if there are no laws which can control undisclosed edits, I am afraid that this idea is useless.

88.207.29.155 22:45, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Simply

--99.144.140.221 22:53, 21 February 2014 (UTC)To the question of Use Terms of Use/Paid... the "undisclosed" part of this is the troublesome part to me. This seems to be a de facto ad. As such, I would think it should be clearly noted that it is paid. As to content, we as readers then can take this information and acknowledge it. However, since the bulk of this will come from industries, one can assume that they will NOT admit to negatives, albeit in mild form. So, as stated, with "undisclosed" editing, I oppose this.--99.144.140.221 22:53, 21 February 2014 (UTC)VinDec28052

A point of principle of what the Terms of Use are meant for

I wish to raise a point of principle in opposition to this amendment. (I haven't yet entirely decided whether I really oppose this proposal, but simply want to share my thoughts.)

Currently, most of what is in the Terms of Use is essentially common sense and fairly standard for a (US-based) website. Don't harass others, don't do things that will get the WMF sued out of existence, don't break the law, don't put too much load on our servers. The only exception to that is the section on licensing, which is why (a summary of) that part is repeated before every "save page" link.

This amendment, however, isn't any such thing. It's a surprising clause. In some countries (such as Germany, § 305c BGB), surprising clauses in general terms of use are actually void. I don't know if that law is applicable here, but that's beside the point: I think morally it isn't a good idea to put things into terms of use that aren't, really implied by common sense anyway.

What exactly is the reason you are trying to do this globally, not locally with the consent of each community? Is it only so that you can say "you didn't just break community policies, you broke our terms of use"? I'm fairly sure that even if that is what you want to do, you can simply put a list of the projects that have found a consensus for it into the Terms of Use or an accompanying page which you refer to in the ToU. It seems unusually centralistic to force this on all projects, including projects that are still in the stage of being happy to have any content at all, and that don't yet need or want to care about these issues. darkweasel94 (talk) 22:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I understand the concern about surprise, but I don't think this is a "surprising" clause in any meaningful sense. As we mention in the FAQ, in many places local laws may require much stronger disclosure; and the reaction of many casual readers to last year's WikiPR situation indicates that many (if not most!) of our readers already assume that disclosure is required (or that paid editing is prohibited altogether). If there is any surprise here, for most people it is likely to be that the ToU requirements are fairly mild.

I also don't think this is a correct assessment of the relevant laws, but even if the correct legal standard were "surprise" I don't think this would be a problem, so I won't get into much detail on the relevant legal standards.

(I think the question about trying to do this elsewhere has been covered in a variety of places above, and I'm trying to put together a FAQ on that, so I will not repeat those answers here.) —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 23:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Add a fourth way to disclose

I believe this amendment lacks a very obvious way to disclose the kind of COI mentioned in it - which is in the edit itself, i.e. adding relevant information to the page itself.

Of course, on Wikipedia that wouldn't work, because that project doesn't want such notices in its articles. I am thinking of contests such as Wiki Loves Monuments. If a user wins a prize there, they technically fall under this amendment because they've received something for uploading a file to Commons. Fortunately, the WLM wizard adds a "this file was uploaded as part of WLM" template, which should be sufficient. Otherwise you'll be "criminalizing" everyone who wins a prize there but forgets to note that fact on the file talk page. That is clearly not what anybody wants to do. darkweasel94 (talk) 00:11, 22 February 2014 (UTC)