Wikipedia talk:Buy one, get one free

Market forces and volunteering

Some interesting thoughts related to the topic of market forces and volunteering can be found here:

• Goldman, Eric (August 19, 2009), "Wikipedia's Labor Squeeze and its Consequences", Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law, 8

There's also a very pertinent section "Wikipedia Compared with the Free and Open Source Software Community". — Brianhe (talk) 05:18, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Interesting essay

Thank you for writing this down, very interesting collection of observations and ideas! A couple of comments:

• Re: "There are far too many COI editors writing promotional articles such that it is unlikely that deleting promotional articles will stem the flow of promotional articles being written." Actually i disagree. It might not "stem the flow" entirely of course, but it effectively discourages it. 2 examples:
  • I read in german linkspamming forums that they have practically given up on spamming german Wikipedia and prefer linkspamming enWP, because deWP is very effective in reverting/deleting linkspam, thanks to flagged revisions. The ratio of effort/work and result is too unattractive in deWP, but OK in enWP (more unwatched articles, no flagged revisions).
  • I created a fake business and bought it an amazing online reputation" by Kashmir Hill, September 15, 2015: "Yelp was the only company that caught us, hiding both of the reviews I bought behind their “not recommended” click wall and not counting them in F.A.K.E.’s rating. It has software that screens out suspicious reviews, not including them in a company’s star-rating. If they see too many of them, they will penalize a business’s page, putting a “consumer alert” on the profile for 90 days warning visitors that they think the business is buying fake reviews. People on Fiverr who were selling reviews would often say “No Yelp” in their descriptions, saying it was hard to make those “stick.”"

Or maybe i am not disagreeing with you and you're presenting a view that you don't hold? The essay is a bit confusing about its actual position re paid editing/advocacy. --Atlasowa (talk) 11:04, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Atlasowa yes, I agree it's about de-incentivising the systemic bias. Editors should be aware that when they volunteer and WP:SOFIXIT for commercial (or promo) articles that there may be unintended consequences. When I started writing BOGOF it was to detail repeated discussions between the two factions at AfD, both exercising their freedoms - freedom from and freedom to. Editors don't give up their freedoms easily, and it's not my place to tell how other volunteers should spend their time, but the (sort of moral hazard) unintended consequences of subsidising the market and creating a vicious circle needed describing in a fair way so we have informed choice, and ultimately we take action to stem the flow. We're not there yet, so BOGOF could be tidied to clarify and gain wider support. Widefox; talk 11:51, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Another problem with BOGOF is, that it actually gives incentives to create more paid articles.

• Some PR agency creates a promotional article for a shoe-producing company A, some volunteer rewrites it. Other shoe-producing company B sees that A got a "company listing" at WP, and they have not: No WP article, no prominent google Knowledge graph snippet, no WP reuse via Siri, Bing-Cortana etc. etc. They will never ask for deletion of the WP article "shoe-producing company A", they will create their own "shoe-producing company B" WP article, and it will be promotional too. They will point to A when claiming notability (and fairness). Next are shoe-producing companies C, D, E etc. etc. worldwide. Same for other industries, startups in tech, you name it. Rewriting promotional company articles generates demand for more promotional company articles. But it does not generate more desinterested wikipedians for rewriting. See also what Andreas Kolbe wrote,

WP:SOFIXIT?

• "Citing SOFIXIT is like building a dyke made of a type of sand and telling anyone who sees water coming through that they should volunteer to remain standing there for the rest of their lives and shovel more sand on, when the more sensible way forward may be to point out that there are structural flaws in the design of the dyke that need fixing. It is well known in industry that if you end up dealing with one crisis after another, fixing the underlying systemic causes is a greater priority than attending to the individual crises. Doing the latter may make you feel you are doing great things, but it just keeps you so occupied that you cannot see the big picture." Indeed. --Atlasowa (talk) 11:45, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

For the narrow point of notability of company A vs B, WP:OTHERSTUFF covers it, which is effective and commonly cited in AfDs. Due to the promo editors being financially incentivised, any (other) loophole / wikilawyering will be used.

Without consensus of how to tackle the promo systemic bias, both factions have legitimate freedoms that won't be removed easily. For some editors, the freedom to seems an almost core belief for their volunteering, so neither faction has the upper hand as I see it currently. I consider similar to a moral hazard. Widefox; talk 11:51, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Discouragement

The phrase "strongly discouraged" appears five times on WP:COI. But from the activities of some editors, one would think that this strong discouragement consists solely of repeating "strongly discouraged" there and in {{COI}}, while editors otherwise bend over backwards to assist even the most flagrant of self-interested article creators.

As long as COI articles do exist, they may as well meet style guidelines such as boldfacing of the topic in the lead sentence, conformance with WP:TITLEFORMAT, etc. But any article like this one about dealing with COI editors (whether or not paid/disclosed) should discourage other editors from encouraging the COI editors by helping them avoid deletions for promotion, lack of notability, etc., when there really is no way around the promotional nature of the article as written or lack of notability. —Largo Plazo (talk) 19:43, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Oppose this concept

I feel the idea behind this essay is badly mistaken, and would be counterproductive were many editors to put it into practice. If I improve an allegedly promotional article (and I do, quite often) which is not likely to be deleted, then I improve the project as a whole. Whether it benefits the supposed sponsor is something I do not care about.

If an article about a notable topic is first introduced with promotional intent, even by a paid editor, and is later cleaned up to be a properly neutral article, the project has benefited, not lost. If the subject or its sponsor has also benefited, great! A win-win outcome is a powerful driver towards a virtuous cycle.

This essay depends on viewing promotionalism as largely a matter of intent. It depends on viewing an article created (or allegedly created) with a promotional purpose as irrevocably tainted. I strongly disagree.

In my view, intention should be largely irrelevant to the issue of whether something is deleted (or rewritten) as promotional. The text should stand alone. If it is a factual description, supported (or supportable for non-controversial statements) by reliable sources, and if notability is established for the topic overall, and if there is no bias caused by cherry-picking selective facts, telling only one side of a story, then any possible promotional intent should be ignored. After all, it is impossible to prove anyway. And if the result is a properly objective, neutral article, why should anyone care what the intent of the editor or any creator was or is? Promotion should be defined and demonstrated by the effect of the text, not by the presumed intent of the poster/editor. A sincere but clueless editor may create a highly promotional article without intending to -- do we leave this in place because of the sincerity of the editor? No! Conversely a very skilled promoter may realize that the best way to promote a subject is to create exactly the same article that the ideal unbiased wikipedian would. Do we delete such a thing? No! Concerning ourselves with effect rather than intent will avoid our trying to read minds, and result in better articles.

I see this essay cites WP:TNT quite a bit. I am now more than ever convinced of the validity of WP:TNTTNT and of the bankruptcy of WP:TNT in most cases. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 22:22, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

DESiegel, I know we disagree on this (in good faith), but let me expand on another reason I don't see included in this essay that SOFIXIT doesn't quite solve: the thing is that any article where we are arguing over whether WP:NOTSPAM is more important than WP:GNG is going to be a case where GNG could easily go either way depending on the person looking at the sources. Clear-cut cases of promotionalism are dealt with by G11, and clearly notable or not notable articles are unlikely to be at AfD--either because of CSD or because they are clearly notable.

Cases where something is borderline notable when created to promote but aren't quite G11 cause a very real credibility problem for Wikipedia: they likely aren't going to be maintained after they are fixed originally because the editors doing the fixing don't know enough about the subject beyond getting it into shape. When you have tech startups that have roughly the life cycle of a Mayfly, this poses a very real credibility problem where you will have companies that no longer exist having well written articles describing their current services. We obviously have out-of-date articles elsewhere, but promotional articles often are more susceptible to this kind of decay. This is in addition to the problem that G11 style promotionalism that slips through the cracks causes and to the arguments about volunteer time. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:52, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

You make an intersting point, TonyBallioni, but I think at least one of your assumptions is incorrect. You say any article where we are arguing over whether WP:NOTSPAM is more important than WP:GNG is going to be a case where GNG could easily go either way depending on the person looking at the sources But I have seen cases where clearly notable topics were put up for AfD, or even speedy deleted, just because an editor or admin wants to keep out paid editing at all costs. And sources must be searched for, they don't always appear by magic on a simple google search. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Jessicakrzywicki/Camera (band) comes to mind, as does Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Sea Oleena, Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Solution-Soft Systems, and Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2017_June_9 for Michael Mangini (record producer). I have also seen cases of allegations of COI or even paid editing that could not be supported, and I think were inaccurate. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 00:06, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Another related point is that, at least in the discussions I follow, the same WP:NOTSPAM righteous indignation reflected in WP:BOGOF directs itself against what I might term "fanboy promotionalism" as much as it is to plausible paid editing. No, promotional language added by enthusiasts doesn't have any more place in the encyclopaedia than that edited by PR flacks, but the "moral hazard" issues assumed in BOGOF don't apply in those cases, and it seems to me that in those many instances WP:AGF and WP:FIXIT rightly apply. I see quite a number of NOTSPAM-style arguments directed at plausibly "innocent" stubs and poorly-written articles on potentially notable subjects. Newimpartial (talk) 00:28, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

(replying directly to User:Newimpartial) Where's the "righteous indignation" exactly so I can fix it? I see an absence of consensus on how to address the systemic bias (which as you say may not be exclusively commercial, but amateur too), so in that vacuum we don't have standards to be held to. Widefox; talk 13:34, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Sorry that I wasn't clear, Widefox. That form of indignation isn't in the essay (which admirably confines itself to paid and COI article creation), but to the discussions in which the essay has been referenced and that it informs. Newimpartial (talk) 13:44, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I encourage folk to be more angry about the long-term effect. With the vacuum, one could take the view that we're complicit in forcing volunteers to do commercial work. The paid case is the most clear-cut and incentivised, but countering the systemic bias takes mopping. Widefox; talk 14:15, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) DESiegel, sure, people make mistakes in nominations, but AfD in my experience is very good at catching the clearcut cases of keeps (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/St. Thomas Church, Kokkamangalam for a recent NOTCLEANUP save). The MfDs you pointed to are also not really contradicting my general point here: everyone agrees with you on the nomination and there really isn't much balancing of policies being done. I think most of the articles where experienced good faith editors are balancing different inclusion guidelines and policies are like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sheryl Nields. The only thing clear cut there was that it had been commissioned. I suspect that it will very quickly grow out of date and be inaccurate because Ms. Nields is such a borderline subject, and this is even more the case for companies that are along that line. Promotionalism in these cases is a very valid deciding factor in the deletion discussion as the ultimate question of Is including this article going to help the encyclopedia? might very well be no because of that factor. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:53, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

The point DEsiegel is that this practice biases the encyclopaedia to cover things where someone has been paid to edit. Carl Fredrik ^talk 10:17, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

(copy of my comments from User talk:Kudpung):

BOGOF could be split in two and/or slimmed (an essay for each view may crystalise them better). Paid (and promo) editing is a systemic bias - both for the topics we cover, and issues inside each article. Editors should be made aware they have a choice when addressing the bias, which has consequences:

1. SOFIXIT / AFDISNOTCLEANUP: spend finite resources rescuing promo articles, hazard: subsidising the paid editor market, outcome: a vicious circle
2. BOGOF / TNT / "Kindness kills": Delete and free up finite resources, raising the bar for the bias, outcome: lack of feelgood for volunteer mopping

This issue with the dichotomy is that without consensus of how to handle promo bias, both editor factions may waste resources and goodwill defending their diametrically opposed positions. DES even if the article content is free from promo, not addressing the bias may be a vicious circle. BOGOF intends to give editors awareness. If kindness kills, I'd rather BOGOF delete. I suspect (but don't know) that editors who've dealt with a lot of promo and COI here would favour easier ways of fixing it. Widefox; talk 23:18, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

DESiegel well, it's volunteering. Personal choice. The hazard being if we subsidise the market, we increase the systemic bias. What consensus is needed for addressing the bias? Raising the bar for promotion notability (/WP:RECENTISM) seems a simpler bias correction than a more informed direct recognition and deletion as employed by DGG (and that is an easier sell considering the common misconception at AfDs that notability is both necessary and sufficient). At the extremes: volunteers having complete freedom to fix promo vs readers having complete freedom from promotion, which do you consider the more important freedom? Is the freedom to similar to a moral hazard? It isn't at all about intentions, it is about what topics we cover given finite resources and giving volunteers informed choice. If that challenges editor's core motivations, then that's a discomfort worth putting into perspective, isn't it. In any case, I can't see how knowledge is counterproductive. Put this way...

How do we feel about forming any policy based on volunteers subsidising the paid editor market?

If we acknowledge the bias, but propose no way of addressing it, are we complicit?

If any of this analysis is wrong, feel free to SOFIXIT. Widefox; talk 12:47, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Outtakes

Not

Main page: WP:NOT

Wikipedia is not:

• WP:PROMOTION, WP:NOTADVERTISING, WP:NOTNEWS
• These websites (other sites are available):
  • Yellow pages
  • LinkedIn
  • Techcrunch

Priceless

Our value is in the standards we've built-up in content, process and community. Paid editing/ should the experience, quality, and trust be perfect or allowed to be diluted or corrupted. The utopia of preserving editing for all, by all is precious, but idealistic. There is no consensus of how, or if, a long-term corrosive influence of market forces burdens editors, or how best it is best handled. There is WP:NOTPROMO, WP:NOTADVERT. WP:BURDEN and WP:NOPV.

Systemic bias

Main pages: WP:Systemic bias and WP:COI

Create one, get one free (COGOF) is when promotional articles are created (for instance by an editor with a COI), even when there is no paid editing. A similar argument applies where the promoter is rewarded. With or without article improvement, this is a systemic bias which could be countered.

Long-term

View	Short-term	Long-term
View 1	Rewrite before deletion, BOGOF useful article	++ Freedom to rewrite and keep notable topics, - pressured volunteer effort, -- burden on volunteers, -- creations determined by market, -- BOGOF
View 2	TNT unfixable, no article	+ Freedom from promotional articles, ++ minimal volunteer effort, ++ burden back on promo editors, + organic article creation, ++ no BOGOF