User talk:FT2/Commercial and paid editing

g'day all :-) - this 'what a policy page might look like' type draft is interesting... I think the tone is off in a few places - is it ok to edit? Also I have a quick question in this quieter corner of the wiki.... if a company (for example one of the 'virgin' ones) ran a competition to improve wiki coverage of an event (say the 'V Festival') in return for prizes (say 'tickets') - is that cool? Would such a policy apply to those who wish to enter? This isn't either a rhetorical or hypothetical question really, btw :-) Privatemusings (talk) 09:58, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

A policy like this would have to be a communal decision. A lot weighs on it, and potentially it could change the wiki a lot - possibly for the better (clarity, clean act up)... possibly for the worse. It's got a "genie out of the bottle" quality to it as well, unless done on a trial basis. So I'm not comfortable saying "this would work" as one might with other policies. rather, this is what a policy might look like, in the sense of what we might require from a person who as part of their paid work, edits Wikipedia on behalf of another.

Such a person might be valuable - we relish professors writing on their academic areas, enthusiasts writing on the topics they love... perhaps a high quality paid editor would be able to learn what an appropriate tone and level of information was for a topic. Perhaps not. But if someone seriously wants to edit Wikipedia, and it's commercial, we can say that the things in this draft are the sorts of things that they need to professionally educate themselves about and comply with, at absolute minumum.

It might be that there is some kind of standard we award, "Recognized Wikipedia commercial editor". Such an award might be granted by the community, on reviewing say 20 paid articles the editor has written and agreeing they are writing appropriately, and could be withdrawn on consensus the editor is not writing appropriately to a high standard in future. That recognition in turn would be a sales feature the editor could advertize, namely that their historical work and involvement has been reviewed and deemed apt by the Wikipedia community, so their writings for a client will likely be appropriate, to standard, and more likely to be acceptable. If an award like this was available, market forces would push serious PR and commercial writers to get it, push paid writing towards editors the community has agreed capable of it, and it then becomes a professional item they would not wish to lose. If you can't beat market forces - make them work for you! :)

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 20:07, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed! - what do you think about the propriety (or not) of the competition I mentioned though? 'Ok' with caveats, or very much 'not ok' atm? Privatemusings (talk) 22:10, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion

Now that Wikipedia:Paid editing (policy) and Wikipedia:Paid editing (guideline) are both[1] tagged[2] as failed proposals, perhaps it is a good time to restart some discussion here. I think this draft is a very good start.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     12:16, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

How To Declare a COI

This draft should include some help about how to disclose a COI on Wikipedia. For example:

1. When should you disclose?
2. How should you disclose?
3. What must you disclose?
4. What must you not disclose? (ie: WP:ADVERTISING)
5. What articles must you disclose your COI on?
6. What articles must you not disclose your COI on?
7. What articles may you choose to disclose your COI or not?

etc. Thanks.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     14:39, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Moved discussion to Wikipedia talk:Paid editing (guideline) ...     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     14:18, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Contributions

I'm often a COI contributor and would like very much to contribute to this. I've been writing Wikis with a COI for almost four years now and educated dozens of marketers on appropriate behavior on Wikipedia. This article is very similar to my own statement of ethics and related to a blog post I wrote on Why Wikipedia Needs Marketers where I was pointed here by FT2.

This is an issue near and dear to my heart; one I live and breathe every day. I have so much to contribute on this topic, I don't even know where to start. You can see on my Talk Page that despite being a COI editor the community appreciates and thanks me for my contributions. I've made exceptional contributions to Wikis on big companies like Edelman and Xilinx, former politician Matthew S. Collier as well as smaller but notable companies like Apriso, 8coupons and NetBase Solutions, Inc.. I often uphold my ethics by consulting clients not to touch controversial content, remove factual content that's unfavorable or create Wikis that lack notability.

I have so much to contribute on this topic, I'm not sure where to start. Is this draft ok to edit/add to? Would my contributions be welcome? Do you want someone from the other side of the pond or do you feel the volunteer community should write this?

King4057 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:25, 1 December 2011 (UTC).

Living persons

This policy should also include changes made by people with a WP article. If one has a Wikipedia article about themselves one should be able to edit it under the same provisions as for edits by company representatives. There often are complaints from people who find their WP article full of inaccuracies and get reverted if they change it under their own name (leaving these people only the option of making edits under an anonymous account if they can't get consensus on the talk page). S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 22:04, 6 December 2011 (UTC)