Wikipedia talk:Paid editing (guideline)/Archive 10

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"...and he spoke to them in parables ..."

If I donate blood, I am providing a community service, on a volunteer basis, without any monetary remuneration (although, I must admit, the little sugar cookies the physician gives me afterward is somewhat of a motivation :)

If Sally is offered money by a medical research organization, for donating the same blood, does her receipt of payment discourage me from donating my blood?

Go one step further. Is her blood any less valuable to the one who needs it, than is mine?

Go one step further. Sally needs that money for her blood, for one reason or another. Perhaps she has mouths to feed at home; perhaps her husband told her to do something constructive to bring home money for the household instead of spending all her time volunteering her time for free.

...But the reason Sally accepts payment for her blood is really non-essential.

Take another step. Does Sally's transaction adversely affect my commitment to donating blood? And if it does, what does that say about me? Does her getting paid to donate blood make me wish to donate any less? And would it were, what does that say about me? Do I get less satisfaction from knowing that I've contributed to the "expansion of all human blood", for the betterment of humankind? And if my satisfaction is diminished, what does that say about me?

Take another step. Do not the organizations who offer payment in exchange for blood, actually have a positive effect of producing more - not less - blood for others to use?

Will some people only donate blood out of a "bad" motive? Of course. One will donate his blood, only to get his check and feed his habit. Another donates blood so she can get her check and pay for that college textbook she couldn't afford because she waited too long to fill out her Work-Study application and doesn't dare tell Dad that. A third donates her blood so she can have "Friday night booze money".

But does the motivation really matter, in the end? More importantly: Does the existence of paid-for blood tarnish the integrity of volunteered-blood - or does it degrade the institution of blood donation as a whole?

Understand this parable and you understand why this entire dispute of paid v. non-paid editing misses the point; is ridiculous; won't stop it from happening (short of enforcing the old-Communist-China-type of stranglehold on the Project); is a moot point; isn't worth spending enormous amounts brain cells arguing over ... and is really, IMHO, a reflection of delusion.

Wikipedia isn't the real world. It's a WEBSITE, people! for crying out loud! Lest we forget, Wikipedia is only what it is because of the profit-motive of companies like ... well ... Google, for starters. If it weren't for the Google algorithms which enable Wikipedia to be on page 1 of the most trafficked commercial website in the world for virtually every search term imaginable, few would even know Wikipedia existed. The claim that Wikipedia is only as successful as it is due to the tireless efforts of volunteers isn't wholly accurate and really, truth be told, plays the martyr. Wikipedia is as successful as it is precisely because of the success of for-profit, commercial establishments like the Googles of the Cyberworld.

It thus would not have gotten anywhere close to the reputation it now enjoys, would not have gotten anywhere close to the number of admins, editors, bureaucrats et al it has now, to even have an RFC that could eat up a Meg.

I'm opposed to paid editing. But I'm also a realist and a pragmatist. In our quest to uphold the sanctity of Wikipedia, let's not forget that we live in the real world and that world is governed, in large part, by monied interests and it's just the way it is and absolute, principled resistance to this fact is futile.

Artemis84 (talk) 04:42, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

In brief, yes, a significant increase in paid editing does matter because it would affect the culture here. Your talk about Google and commerce misses the point: the reason Wikipedia is near the top of most search results is that Wikipedia provides great value as a result of the extraordinary efforts of its volunteers. Sure, some parasitism is inevitable, but if it goes unchecked, volunteers will justly feel exploited and are likely to move elsewhere. Johnuniq (talk) 05:35, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I think that's an incorrect parable. Editing Wikipedia articles is not like donating blood. When you donate blood, you simply sit there while somewthing is taken, and then you leave. You have no further involvement in the blood donation, and you do not particiapte in decisions over how the blood will be used.

I think that a better analogy is an amateur sports league, in which the players are the members who also set the league rules. What if a team decides to start hiring professional athletes, and to also use those athlete/members to change the rules to give professionals an advantage over amateurs? If that happened, how long would the volunteer amateurs, who may have limited time for practice, continue to participate? How much integrity would the league be perceived to have if the so-called "amatuers" were actually being paid? Would the games still be seen as fair?   Will Beback  talk  09:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking of an analogy myself. A friend of mine is a reporter for the AP. His ethics, when it comes to journalistic practice, are above reproach. If he were to be paid by a party which played a role in a story he were writing (even if they just took him out to dinner), it would be a serious breach of ethics. Of course, those are "professional" ethics, and we're all amateurs, but they are professional in the sense of someone who takes their work seriously (a doctor does not abandon their professional ethics when they volunteer their labor, for example). Professional ethics do not come from being paid, they come from wanting, in the case of the AP, to be taken seriously as a news organization. If we want to be taken seriously as a source of information, we should follow suit.

As for the issue of enforceability, I would make two points. First, a strongly worded policy is a deterrent against more problematic editing. It is not impossible to enforce, it is simply hard to enforce. At present, companies risk bad press if they are caught paying people to edit. They would love an ambiguous policy to point to. Second, there is the issue of trust. There's trust that most editors are going to follow most policies most of the time. Yes, there's going to be the odd vandal, conflict of interest editor, or troublemaker. But a policy should set out clear expectations for what an editor should do, even if some do not follow it.

The Google example is telling. They sell advertising to pay the bills (and make a tidy profit). Google also does not take money to change search rankings. In fact, that was one of the key factors which made Google a success: editorial independence. They refuse to take money to alter search rankings, and will actively delist websites which are trying to manipulate the system [1]. They would make money hand over fist to sell Google ranks, of course, since they are the number one search engine at this point. At least at first. Many search engines have done precisely that, and thereafter failed. What people want from a search engine is websites related to their search term, not just advertisements related to their search term (Google users get those too, of course, but separated and labeled). It is their (independent) search algorithm which brings people back to their Google. They give that up, someone else will take over. Users want a search engine they can trust is not slipping them ads, and they want an encyclopedia that to the best of its ability maintains editorial independence. --TeaDrinker (talk) 01:23, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

"Paid editor" label

I didn't have the time to read all that was written by now in this talk page and in other related pages, however, from what I saw, it's mostly theory, I couldn't find anything relevant about what is already happening in relation with this subject. Personally, I keep experiencing the tribulations of being labeled " paid editor", although I did not even do this. Two months ago, when the paid editing issue was brought to surface, my account got a "paid editor" label. I detailed then the relation I previously had on non-paid subjects with people accused of "paid editing". And, after some discussions in real life about this issue, I also presented my views on it, in favor of legalizing this kind of editing and treating it as any other kind of editing, hoping for a clear discussion about this issue. However, it looked like I stumbled upon some hardliners with no intention to discuss, even, to my surprise, I was blocked indefinitely for a stupid reason. This, ironically, while those guys that spilled their problem on me, were free to edit. It looked like my blocking was just to shut me up and forestall a real life discussion. Then I presented my problem at wikien-l, I was also covered in an article of a group working in this field. An user run a chekuser, found nothing wrong and unblocked me. In a normal approach, the accusations of suckpuppeting would have been dismissed from the very beginning, even a first glance would have showed that some of "my sockpuppets" have my invite on their talk page. Well, now I have again the sockpuppet suspect tag on my user account, brought by a an user with strong views against paid editing. He did not bring any new developments from the last checkuser, only continuing the bullying. Take a look at this discussion. I'm not sure what was that for, probably trying to play with me both roles of "bad cop" and "good cop".

The question is: is this kind of "extrajudicial" behavior now accepted at Wikipedia when it's about "paid editing" label? Is this area of "paid editing" becoming a safe haven for endorsed bullying, a kind of Guantanamo base of Wikipedia? When I tried to talk about the issue, I was so easily blocked indefinitely for an untrue reason, then changed to a flimsy reason that certainly did not deserve an indefinite block. Now, it's this guy who tells me that paid editing is an "illicit activity" at Wikipedia, who labels the paid work as spam without even seeing it, playing with me the tough guy.

This vacuum of regulation on this issue produces such results; from my point of view, these are the real problems brought by now by this public discussion. In theory, it is required to disclose if it's paid editing or not, in reality, it is impossible to do this, they get their accounts blocked and their work deleted only because it was paid. Plus, the collateral victims, who just get the label and start a brand new extrajudicial life.

See also Gregory Kohs' statement. BTW, if he is allowed to edit for money with undisclosed accounts, then this is a community accepted precedent permitting the others to do the same thing legally, in order to have a fair approach.

Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 11:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

How can we regulate what undisclosed accounts do secretly? The fact that we have difficutly enforcing a rule doesn't mean the rule doesn't exist. I would seek blocks or bans of any editors who are engaged in outright paid editing of the type described in this page.   Will Beback  talk  18:06, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

(following edit conflict, hi Will)Nobody likes to be labeled, and it looks like some of what you want to do would be perfectly acceptable to many Wikipedians. What's not acceptable to me is folks who want to hide their paid edits, and then fight to the death over any changes to them. The current proposed policy has a couple of safe harbors, could you use those to do the type of editing that you want to do? If not what changes would you suggest?

I should say that the current WP:Reward board doesn't seem to be working very well, or at least not very often. Why doesn't this work so well? I'll suggest 2 reasons: a) potential payers don't know about it, and b) they don't seem to be willing to pay more than $50, whereas on e-lance they are paying $250. If somebody posted a $250 reward on the board, and editors were able to write NPOV articles to get that money, I'd guess the article would be written in a day to very high quality standards.

Can you suggest anything where what you want to do could be fit in with what others want to do here, that would make a Paid Policy work for both groups? I really look forward to an answer to this question. Smallbones (talk) 18:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Both of you present the nondisclosure as a guilt, while its cause is in front of your eyes, that's what Desiphral just wrote. The image of the paid editing review is made by users like Triplestop who consider from the start that this is an illicit activity and all paid editing is spam. The focus in on the reason for editing, no on the edit itself. To my knowledge, in all other contexts of Wikipedia it is emphasized the assumption of good faith, the focus on the edit not on the editor, on who they are, why they edit or what personal opinion they have. This makes possible a certain enforcement of civility and a focus on the quality of the articles. But this is not the case for the context of paid editing. "You are a paid editor" and end of the story. It should be clarified what real role, if any, plays this notion of "paid/not paid" in the evaluation of the edits. At this moment, this user information, unlike other information, is singled out and, if it's on the "yes" side, it casts a question mark upon the edits, permitting questioning the respective edits without objective reasons, circumventing the assumption of good faith and the other rules of civility. This is a loophole that can be safely and legally used at Wikipedia to cast a desired question mark and to attack someone, even in the absence of objective facts. Citing from the proposed policy: "other editors may assign less weight to or discount paid opinions in the same manner they would discount the opinion of a sockpuppet"... One must be an idiot to work in such conditions.

The normal approach would be to consider the "paid editing" variable as a personal information of anecdotal value and to focus on the quality of the edits. Given the labeling and the unfair approach yielded by the "paid editor" anathema, the current normal behavior of the paid editor is to not boast about the "yes" side of this variable (which anyway has no current regulation on Wikipedia, this project page itself has the proposed word in its nutshell), in order to be a normal user benefiting of a normal approach.

Regarding Smallbones's questions about the specific meeting places of supply and demand, my opinion is that they should be left to the will of the free market. Cinagua (talk) 20:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

This is why it is hard to assume good faith, you are just making attacks and circumventing the issue and using sockpuppet accounts. "Good faith" means yourfaith that what you are doing is good, which clearly isn't the case if you need 100 sockpuppet accounts. Did I ever say all paid editing is spam? NO. The only paid editors I am interested in are the ones who are spamming, sockpuppeteering and ban evading. Triplestop x3 22:06, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

“ I am a noted professional in my industry, and want to create a personal Wikipedia page.

However, my CV is lengthy, so distilling it to highlight important matter requires an intuitive, PR-savvy writer.

”

And if that isn't spam then I don't know what is. Triplestop x3 22:11, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem with Desiphral is the ban evasion and sockpuppeteering. No matter who does it, its still not alright. Triplestop x3 19:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

This is not a great place to appeal blocks, nor comment on individual editors. If it is not germane to this policy proposal, I suggest removing it to user talk or appropriate dispute resolution pages. If the facts of the case are in dispute, I suggest it is not a good case for an example of acceptable or unacceptable behaviour re this policy proposal. Let's stay focused on the proposal. --TeaDrinker (talk) 00:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. If we get more people wanting a debate, perhaps we could make a subpage ("General discussion"?) and move all sections not focused on fixing the proposed policy to that page. Johnuniq (talk) 00:45, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Desiphral has 29 confirmed + 3 likely sockpuppets (all blocked) – see the SPI (thanks Triplestop). Johnuniq (talk) 02:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Getting back to editing the project page?

It's nice to see a discussion, but changes on the project page, with discussion on those changes, might be better. Of course it might be perfect now - No, didn't think so. Are there sections that folks really like, or really hate? I would like to get more editors involved, some different views to explore how more editors could be satisfied. Really all I personally want is a limited policy that would be clear to everybody, that would stop the worst abuses of paid editing. Smallbones (talk) 02:58, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Clarification

I think i understand the current state of rules, but wanted to clarify a potential scenario:

If at the next inter-faculty meeting of my university, I was to volunteer to rewrite the uni's wikipage, would that be paid editing? I'm on a salary, so any editing would not be directly paid for, but as i am salaried and on flexi-time, even work from home is theoretically paid for. Is it banned, or allowed if declared? What if i didn't inform the faculty until after the fact? Seemed most like the intern example, without the "i'm just an intern" excuse :-). Just wondering, thanks.YobMod 22:07, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course this is just a proposed policy, but even without this I'd say it's a conflict of interest and should be declared. But that doesn't mean you can't write it. Maybe the "graduate student" exception could be enlarged to all academics? I don't know, but reading this pp as written, I'd say you'd need to declare as a paid editor, but can still edit. Smallbones (talk) 04:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

After rereading:if there was any advocacy it's clearing forbidden by the pp. The key words are probably " (if) the editor's employer has some control over the editing process." Would the faculty boo you, or would you be denied a promotion if you repeated the news of the conviction of the rector for __ and ___ (from a reliable source)? Sounds likely - so definitely a paid editor. Smallbones (talk) 04:18, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Oki doke. I'll give it a miss then. Paid editors seem pretty hated from the arguements i see in the archive. Thanks for the input!YobMod 09:26, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Quote from Jimbo

The quote from Jimbo at the top needs a ref, but before I add it I thought I'd check what people think. I favor keeping the quote and adding a note (and a "Notes" section). The note would link to the edit by Jimbo, and would briefly discuss how Jimbo decided to give up use of the block tool. However, I am also aware that quite a few people think that we may as well pick an arbitrary editor and quote their opinion – what is special about Jimbo? Any thoughts? Johnuniq (talk) 10:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I think a notes section would be fine, if there are other notes to add in (stylistically, we can probably find a better way if that's the only note needed). I don't think the link to his giving up blocking as relevant. I take his quote to empower editors to block paid editors, not a claim that he and he alone may do so. I would have no qualms about blocking an editor I believed was behaving inappropriately. As for his powers, I think this is the wrong place to discuss his role in governance. Like it or not, he has the authority to make things stick (even while not himself blocking people). I don't see it as integral to the proposal, however. --TeaDrinker (talk) 01:42, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I take your point that mentioning Jimbo's block relinquishment is not relevant. When I went to add a reference, I noticed that Jimbo's name is actually a link to the RFC statement, so a reference is not required. Following is the wikitext I was planning to add, in case anyone feels it is needed: <ref>In June 2009, Wales made a statement at an WP:RFC on paid editing.</ref> Johnuniq (talk) 04:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Just take a look at WP:IAR. Jimbo's quote, "IAR is policy, always has been" is included there. So why not here? There seems to be precedent for it. -- Atama頭 23:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Missing the point

I see considerable productive discussion above which touches on several significant things, and many have brought up good points. However, I also clearly see considerable amounts of talking past each other as well. I think I see why this is happening.

Without doubt paid editing is something that, even if unanimously condemned, could not be eliminated by the community without a complete reworking of the participatory nature of the project. So it would be impractical at best for our policies to suggest such a complete universal restriction. However, the argument that it doesn't matter, so long as the editor abides by other policies, does not answer the question of what this policy should say. That argument conditions on here is a otherwise good editor, who has been found to be editing for pay, then asking what should we do?. This is far from the best conditioning argument. It extends only to those who (i) are otherwise good editors who (ii) edit for pay and who (ii) get caught doing (ii). This is not where damage to the project usually comes from.

The most important conditioning argument is, there is a large universe of potential paid editors whose contributions would be problematic (indeed I have participated in areas where I was virtually certain it was already happening). Acknowledging this, what should our policies state to best benefit the project?

Those advocating cracking down on paid editing probably are internalizing the idea that we should not be encouraging paid editing, but are likely phrasing it differently. Those appealing to Content rulz are correct but are missing the fact that the policy will pertain to every potential editor, including all potential problematic ones, not just one preselected good editor. This is what I meant by talking past each other.

The reason why I was so incredulous before about how "lenient" the current guideline is that the major problem is not what to do with otherwise good editors. (The policy should indeed address that too, but that should be relatively easy.) The major problem is how to avoid increasing the burden on the project that problematic paid editors might introduce. This is why the final paid editing policy, whatever it might be, should discourage paid editing, perhaps strongly, not to presume guilt on any one particular editor but to (1) minimize the encouragement to the universe of problematic editors (see WP:BEANS), and to (2) give the community some teeth in it's ability to stop disruption quickly and sans drama when done by an editor whose paid status is subsequently discovered.

We can revisit this from the POV of a new editor who wants to edit for pay. This editor should recognize that what they are doing is frowned upon, but not expressly forbidden. The editor's options thus become

1. disclose. This means they will put themselves under significant scrutiny. That can be a hassle but perhaps it should be documented somewhere that it might also lead to a better article under their care, due to the many eyes intently watching.
2. have second thoughts. For an otherwise good editor this is indeed a loss but it should be notes that many editors under this scope will simply not become good editors. To get rid of a lot of problematic editors and some editors who might be good but are wary of their ability to abide by policy seems a net positive.
3. not disclose but be diligent. But for being paid, these are exactly the kind of editors we want.
4. not disclose but be undiligent/disruptive. These editors will be handled just as other, presumably nonpaid, such editors are. The goal of the policy is to minimize this number. The caveat is, an editor deemed problematic/disruptive by a substantial part of the (involved) community who is then found to have been editing for pay, should be shown an absolute minimum of leniency. A permanent irrevocable topic ban (say) at least. This type of behavior should not be tolerated. Full stop.

One point which is necessary to make this work. Undisclosed paid editing should be deemed (borrowing from US traffic law lingo) a "secondary offense", one that which by itself is not actionable (except for the perhaps uncomfortable consequences of additional scrutiny), but one that when in conjunction with another offense can dramatically change the intervention.

In summary, the policy should lay down an exceptionally bright and clear line in the sand and be crystal clear as to the consequences of crossing it. It should not, indeed really can not, forbid walking up to the line, but should be clear that to do so is to do so at one's own risk. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 19:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

However, the argument that it doesn't matter, so long as the editor abides by other policies, does not answer the question of what this policy should say. - It answers. It says that this policy should not exist.

About the rest of your post, I don't understand the point very well. We both agree that most paid editing is disruptive, but again I don't understand why "an editor deemed problematic/disruptive by a substantial part of the (involved) community who is then found to have been editing for pay, should be shown an absolute minimum of leniency." -why should we be more lenient with a disruptive editor which was not paid? --Cyclopia^talk 19:36, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Now it's my turn not to understand :P. I don't get the first part of your reply. As to the second part, we have a long history of giving second/third/fourth/etc chances to run-of-the-mill disruptive editors; throwing the book at them right away has been deemed overly Draconian, probably because the community believes in second chances. But once an editor has revealed their paid status, it would be hard to put that cat back in the bag, as there would be no way to verify the ceasing of such status. So the trust factor would be forever breached. Remember too that this is designed to benefit the project: demonstrating some teeth will be a good disincentive to other cases where their first priority is not the improvement of the project.

Also, this question is far better viewed the inverse way, it is less lenient on additionally paid for editing editors, that is, the status quo is the baseline against which this policy is measured. To reverse the perspective, to appear to question the enabling of disruptive but pro bono editing is somewhat prejudicial.

Remember, this is something we wish to discourage, not because we should (or can) prevent it, but because the project benefits by discouraging it. Making disruptive paid for editing just another form of disruption does nothing additional to dissuade this disruption, when there is by definition even more incentive to be disruptive in the first place. The dissuasion/discouragement should be accordingly proportional. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 21:09, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to rephrase my first part :)

You said: "However, the argument that it doesn't matter, so long as the editor abides by other policies, does not answer the question of what this policy should say." It is easy to see what it should say following this argument: Nothing. Or, if you prefer, the policy should consist of a 0-byte file with no name. :P (Seriously, maybe I didn't understand you)

As for the rest, now I understand your points and I say that I mostly agree. But they require no policy, they only require a sensible guideline and application of our current COI policies. See below. --Cyclopia^talk 10:23, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

In other words, this policy/guideline should make it absolutely clear that the existing NPOV, COI, edit-warring, and other such policies/guidelines must be scrupulously followed, and that paid editing will result in WP:AGF having much less weight in deciding how to handle the person should they break those policies? I could support that. Anomie⚔ 21:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

If all what the policy would say is what Anomie above proposes, I'm all for it. At this point it wouldn't be a policy, but more of a guideline simply giving sensible advice on how to deal with such cases within our policies. --Cyclopia^talk 10:23, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Of course a policy isn't needed, because it's longstanding policy that one must edit for a neutral point of view and should not attempt to misrepresent the proportion of verifiable information out there. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and doesn't need redundant policies to protect it from a threat that, if it's even a threat at all, is sufficiently addressed by what other editors are doing already - checking one another's work. A guideline that points this out is a great idea because it makes it easier for any erstwhile paid editors to be pointed to the relevant policies and guidelines, which will make them better editors or keep them from being surprised when they're blocked or banned for behavior which is unacceptable whether or not you're paid to do it.--otherlleft 01:57, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see how a "policy" would be redundant, but at the same time a "guideline" would be a great idea. They are almost the same thing, but with a slightly different status. In general, editors are expected to follow both what is in policy as well as what is in the guidelines.--Reinoutr (talk) 09:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

WP has guidelines that help to explain the application of policies. For example, WP:RS. If WP:RS were a policy then it'd be redundant with WP:V.   Will Beback  talk  21:27, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

What would we do if an editor banned from Wikipedia for paid editing and contentious behavior then started sub-contracting out the paid editing to other Wikipedians, who then do the dirty work for him, even knowing that he was banned? This may be an example of exactly that. -- Orderly Conductor (talk) 04:36, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The reward board has been going for a long time, though I don't know how successful it really is. I don't see that anybody is breaking any current or proposed rules here (Is theKoser sp? really completely banned?). At least it is out in the open, done according to a Wikipedia selected method, and can be monitored. BTW the reward board would be a lot more successful if they paid more than $15 per article. Get it up to $100, and I might even participate. Smallbones (talk) 04:45, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Realistically editors are not banned for being a paid editor but for breaching other policies/guidelines. Ergo a meat or sockpuppet of theirs, once revealed would also be blocked/banned. -- Banjeboi 18:48, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Request for suggestions

Any ideas about what to do about this article, evidently written because of this offsite request? Stub it down to something neutral? There are more, of course.--chaser (talk) 06:45, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd put NPOV, unsourced and COI tags, make it as neutral as possible if you feel to, and make the community aware of it and its author on the appropriate noticeboard. --Cyclopia^talk 09:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

So where do we stand?

I know the community RfC was generally in favor of allowing responsible paid editing (although not everyone agreed it was possible to write an neutral article and be paid at the same time). I also know Jimbo spoke out very strongly against it. So besides having no official guideline/policy, where does the community stand on this matter?

Hypothetically speaking, let's say a regular editor is approached by a company (perhaps owned by a friend) asking him/her for help getting an article on Wikipedia and offered compensation in exchange for his/her time. The editor verifies the company passes notability and writes a neutral article. Obviously, if the editor says nothing no one will ever know, but let's say he/she discloses the compensation on the article's talk page and WP:COIN. By making this disclosure is he/she risking community wrath?

Or take another scenario where an editor decides he/she wants to write about a favorite business. If he/she just writes the article, obviously there is no issue, but let's say he/she approaches the company first and asks if it is willing to compensate him/her. If this editor makes the proper disclosure, is he/she risking a block/ban?

Thoughts? --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:07, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

You're incorrect in your premise. A great many people spoke specifically against the usual notion of a paid editor. A person who discloses their paid editor status will probably be subject to a great deal of extra scrutiny. They may be asked not to make the edits to the relevant article(s) at all. Certainly if an editor came to me to ask if they should edit, my advice would be to avoid the apparent conflict of interest and make suggestions of changes on the talk page. If they made the edits anyway, if there were an apparent conflict of interest, I would probably seek community consensus to appropriately protect the encyclopedia, which may include a block. If an editor were discovered to have made edits for pay, without disclosing their status as a paid editor, where there is a clear conflict of interest, that's simply unacceptable to most people. They would probably be blocked. Indeed, such a person might well expose the company who hired them to negative press, as has happened before. It is simply a really bad idea to do things secretly. --TeaDrinker (talk) 06:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I should have been more clear... what I meant by "generally in favor" was that more people endorsed the "it's not really different than other COIs" type statements than the "ban anyone who has been paid for any article" type statements. Obviously, there wasn't a true consensus as to what should be done or it would have become an official guideline. I didn't mean to imply there was one.

As I thought would be clear from my examples, my intention here is to discover what these means in practical terms. If we are being honest, we all know undisclosed paid editors exist on Wikipedia (but probably in small numbers.) If one is just going to get blocked/banned if he/she comes discloses his/her COI, what possible motivation is there to make that disclosure? Maybe that is the way we want it - at least this way we avoid the PR embarrassment of having a policy that says paid editing is OK.

Obviously, paid editing is a tricky situation. I really don't know what the "correct" answer is here. I am just interested in where we currently stand from a practical standpoint. If a newbie shows up and writes good articles that are later discovered as freelance work, what will most likely happen? What if instead of a newbie, we are talking about a long-time contributor who was only paid for a small percentage of his/her recent work? --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:09, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, blocks and bans are for the protection of the encyclopedia, not as punishment. The first step would not be a block, if someone came forward and said they had been paid. If they came forward with "muhahaha you can't catch me," then sure. But if they come forward for advice, I think we can give them advice--avoid conflicts of interest. If they choose to ignore advice, we can get a sense of the community, and if they ignore that, sure, block away. But we have no control over the news media, who may make their own judgement. That's a point that is worth noting as well. --TeaDrinker (talk) 06:03, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Administrators

I'd like to suggest that Administrators be expressly forbidden from any and all Paid editing, with defined sanctions and penalties. The WP:COI issues involved would be very risky, and very difficult to mitigate. While this is mentioned now in the drafts, it is not clear enough. We only have the text "Using administrator tools for compensation is strictly forbidden". That doesn't go far enough. Administrators should be strictly forbidden from any and all paid or commercial editing. Period.

It may be fair to have an amnesty period, where current admins can fess up and declare their past COIs without fear of reprisal. If an administrator then wishes to do commercial editing, they must first turn in their admin bit and then redeclare their COI as a normal editor.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     03:04, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the current wording came from Wikipedia_talk:Paid_editing_(guideline)/Archive_7#Administrator_tools_statement. If I read that correctly it's roughly the same issue as all paid editing in that it's unlikely to know i someone is paid unless they cause problems or reveal themselves. Likewise being paid for a specific action may be a violation of trust but there is nothing "on the books" besides WP:ADMIN which is clear enough that "Administrators are also expected to observe a high standard of conduct.", etc. I don't think there will be support for this as there are examples where an admin could technically break such a rule while not the spirit, paid Wikipedia foundation member or consultant, etc or a paid editor who does non-controversial admin actions. I think the main point is that if an admin is asked to make an edit with the tools that they wouldn't make if they weren't being paid then their judgement is questionable and that's already covered.Wroted (talk) 11:54, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Unless the edit is merely one of direction. For example there if there is no difference between how they edit an article on Inflation having offered a bounty, and how they edit an article on My favourite software company Inc having been paid, then they are more or less harmless. Rich Farmbrough, 18:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC).