Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-04-03/Disinformation report

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An eye-opening article! Wikipedia is being diddled by big banks -- and likely other big other things. In one sense it's a compliment to the importance of Wikipedia that big banks would go to such trouble to burnish their articles. Smallchief (talk)

Thanks Smallchief. Yes, big corporations in general, and others, have gotten the idea that they can burnish their reputations on Wikipedia - and what's wrong with taking advantage of free advertising? they might say. Well, where to start ...? Actually though, I was a bit surprised that there wasn't more strong evidence here on paid editing and I think I need to do more articles of this type to figure where the biggest part of the paid editing problem lies. Big banks do have a fairly bad reputation in general throughout society, especially during economic downturns. But the companies in this list are highly regulated and know that they will be put under the microscope every so often. Or maybe the method - just looking how often there's been socking in the articles about them in the past that's been caught - isn't all that powerful. Well, the only way to tell what's going on is to continue looking.

One problem at looking at a "whole sector" is that it takes lots of time. In the past I've looked at a couple of individuals, or one company at a time. That gives me time to examine many individual edits, check each sockpuppet investigation, etc. With 30 companies, that's just too time consuming the way I'm working on it now. But I do plan on looking at other sectors (over time). If anybody wants to tell me what type of company, or what type of articles, they think are the most socked, please let me know and I'll take a look. This article could have used some comparison companies. The best comparisons that are already available are 2 articles I've done of 8-9 "companies" each: Russian oligarchs and the Adani Group's owners and subsidiaries. Something broader (more normal?) than that is needed. Please let me know if you have any suggestions, e.g. auto manufacturers, retail stores, food processors. Any help appreciated. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:55, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

One industry that might prove problematic would be technology. On one hand, there are doubtlessly cases of paid editors burnishing the reputation of given companies. (Twitter would be a prime example.) On the other, there are likewise doubtlessly cases of employees altruistically adding information to their products. I'll admit that around 15 years ago I helped one employer to craft an article on one of their products, but once it was posted I had little to nothing further to do with it. (I had a peek at it a few years back to see how it had changed.) Does that make me a sock puppet for that company? I hope not, especially as I'm as likely to add unfavorable information about that company & its products as favorable. And because I'm far more likely to edit articles on subjects unrelated to what I do for a living than to repeat that exercise. -- llywrch (talk) 20:31, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

• This report is, I believe, quite accurate. We have, however, also experienced extreme hesitation on the part of legitimate editors with expertise in financial and business areas because they have every reason to believe that they'll be accused of being socks should they work on articles that have been skewed by socks and/or UPEs. There has definitely been a history of such accusations; we must guard against the "well, these accounts all seem to be interested in banks, so they must be socks" mentality in order to attract knowledgeable editors to the financial and business topic areas. Risker (talk) 04:17, 4 April 2023 (UTC)