Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest/Archive 17

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Archive 15

Edit warring, and getting the RfC started

Latest comment: 10 years ago153 comments17 people in discussion

Guys, please stop edit warring on the project page (WP:COI) ... you may get yourself blocked (but not by me) and get the page full-protected and reverted (but not by me). I get that both sides would like for everyone to go into the upcoming RfC thinking that the default position is whatever your own default position is, but that's not going to happen; I'm going to make a comment at the top of the upcoming RfC that the closers (just me, at the moment) think that that question is one of the main questions to be tackled in the RfC. It would be easy to make a case, and I hope the voters will do a good job of making the case, that the default position is 1. the TOU, or 2. the TOU plus m:Terms of use/FAQ on paid contributions without disclosure (which softens the TOU considerably by citing English Wikipedia policy), or 3. long-standing and stable Wikipedia policy pages (WP:CIVILITY, WP:OUTING and WP:BLPEDIT were mentioned in the RfCs last November), or 4. something else. I get that this project page, our WP:COI guideline, isn't a policy and has been considerably less stable, but this page isn't the only page on Wikipedia that is impacted by the TOU. My preference would be that things slow down and no one gets blocked, but if things stay heated, my second preference would be that someone go ahead and start the RfC. In that case, don't worry about getting it perfect. I'd like to see a quick straw poll on how to structure the RfC, but if that doesn't happen, I'll go ahead and encourage people to add any proposals or questions they consider relevant for the first 10 days or so (that would be easier on the voters than the 7 simultaneous RfCs we had in November). So if you don't like the way the RfC is worded, add a proposal to the RfC with your preferred wording. If that creates a mess, I'll help clean it up. - Dank (push to talk) 09:35, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

My hope is that folks will stop injecting things into the guideline first and then seeking consensus for their removal. That's not how we work on this project.--v/r - T P 17:03, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Would it help things if we took the TOU requirements, codified them into a separate local policy, marked it as policy, and moved forward from there as a starting point? Gigs (talk) 17:22, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

We already have, see WP:TOU.--v/r - T P 17:54, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree that an RfC could help straighten everything up here, but the key will be to widely publicize it and have a very large participation. A banner announcing the RfC would be extremely helpful. Since the Meta RfC had 1,300 participants, 1,100 favoring disclosure, nobody is going to consider an RfC with 100 or even 200 participants sufficient to overturn the TOU. We're not likely to have 1,000 participants, but we should aim for at least 500, which would likely drive the format that we choose.

For example, changing the text in the middle of the RfC, would have to be disallowed. We couldn't go back and inform 250 editors that their !votes need to be recast or reviewed. Comments should be included, of course, but we'd have to discourage very lengthy comments. Ultimately, with some exceptions, it will likely be a straight count of !votes that determines the outcome.

Gigs is right that having the current TOU confirmed as a local policy would be the logical starting point. I'd add into it the method needed to change this policy over a limited time - say the next year. 7 simultaneous conflicting RfCs can't be allowed.

The only (more later) Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:03, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm all for having the current TOU confirmed/ratified as local policy. That might be the starting point for all of this. The RFC should state that alternate policies are acceptable if passed by the local project. We don't want folks ratifying something under the mistaken belief that they have no other options. Setting a minimum number of participants seems like a 'get out of jail free' card if the RFC doesn't go your way. I'm not aware of any EnWP RFC that had 500 participants. The 1,000+ at Meta were not neccessarily EnWP editors. The TOU only requires a local project consensus, that's what those 1,000+ supported, to have a local policy.--v/r - T P 20:26, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

No, the 1000+ were supporting the original proposal, which did not contain that provision. It was separately discussed, did not get much support[1] but was adopted anyway. Coretheapple (talk) 20:42, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Tell you what, you go ahead and defy any consensus that forms as a result of the RFC and see what happens, I don't need to argue the point.--v/r - T P 20:46, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

??? Coretheapple (talk) 20:57, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

The more the better ... although, these RfCs (on COI, protection policy, hat-wearing, etc.) work better when they "feel" small and less impersonal, when people are willing to talk about their experiences and their goals. That can generate empathy (and really, I've been on both sides of this one and I don't think it's hard to feel some empathy when you know some of the things that people on both sides are fighting for). We may not get anything like a meeting of the minds in this RfC; it might take years, though I hope not.

Anyway ... if I can get some direction from a straw poll on how to run the RfC, I'll do that (I can't file it because I want to close it). If some kind of process before the RfC does a good job of generating a range of proposals that cover what different people are looking for, we'll go with that. Otherwise, I'll structure it as I said, allowing new proposals for the first 10 days ... we won't need to go back and notify everyone of the new proposals, because people will be asked right at the top of the RfC to check back after the first 10 days and vote on any new proposals that have come in. I'm probably going to limit it to 30 days, too, unless a miracle happens and there's strong movement towards consensus at the 30-day point. (I don't think consensus after the 3rd or 4th big RfC would be miraculous at all, I think we'll probably get it right eventually. Just not right away. The trick, for the voters and for me, will be to figure out how to get something useful each time, how to maintain momentum and encourage good stuff to happen between the RfCs.)

Comparing meta numbers with English Wikipedia numbers feels a little apples-and-oranges to me, though I don't fault the Foundation at all for using that discussion as a preliminary to making a change in the TOU; that's a perfectly reasonable way to do it. - Dank (push to talk) 20:40, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Yep, I agree with you about the feel thing. That's why I shared my personal experience and I've been hounded and harassed ever since. You're not going to get people to be open about it, I sure as hell would retract everything I said, if people see how hostile the couple of active editors on this page are to COIs. So, sorry, but that's idealistic thinking. If I could do it all over again, I'd totally not say a damn word. That's what the behaviors that these folks are cultivating. COI editing is going underground. What we need is someone like User:BD2142 to set up the straw poll being that they are impartial.--v/r - T P 20:50, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I did ask BD2412, he's tied up for now. - Dank (push to talk) 21:12, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps User:Dennis Brown could advise then?--v/r - T P 21:18, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I think Dennis would be great, any objections? I'll ask him. - Dank (push to talk) 21:29, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

One or two people have gone over the line with respect to your past actions, true. However, at this point, both you and them are just milking it for all it's worth. Your "hounding and harassment" appear to be on this talk page and your user talk page. Oh heavens me! That must be so distressing! If I weren't completely jaded at this point, the hypocrisy would be overwhelming. Hipocrite (talk) 21:07, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Dank asked for personal experiences. I doubt they will be forthcoming with the hostility that those who are forthcoming receive.--v/r - T P 21:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, all of those moral paid editors, who would only come forward with their personal experiences if only they could be certain of sunshine and rainbows and their glorious ascension to "moral," if only they were to come clean! Sorry if I don't think any exist. Hipocrite (talk) 21:27, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, I think you've both put a finger on the problem: people (including me) have gotten jaded over time, after doing a lot of work on, for instance, pages created by new editors who appear right from the start to have some kind of promotional interest. No matter what you do to reach out, they generally aren't listening. OTOH, around three quarters of the voters from last November had reservations about the various suggestions to crack down on paid editing or COI editing. So we've got one big pile of people with strong feelings, and another big pile of people who are inclined to be skeptical about anything the first pile has to say, based on their experiences or thoughts about paid editing in general. It's not a pretty picture. I'm pessimistic in the short run, but optimistic in the long run (at least here ... I don't have much experience with Meta, and I don't know their processes). Here, things usually work out eventually ... sometimes after years, but eventually. - Dank (push to talk) 21:29, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Had TP not pinged me, I wouldn't have seen this. I'm not even sure of the new TOU, I avoided the discussion. Our COI policies and the way editors treat COI is so messed up, I unwatched all the pages some time ago. I'm not up to speed with what is going on here and perhaps not the best person to help, I have no idea. I am probably more familiar than most with COI tactics and methods (namely, the underground socking) but I'm not sure what is being asked of me. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 21:34, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I just posted on your talk page. - Dank (push to talk) 21:53, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

To sum up for here, I would truly like to help, but due to other obligations, I have to decline. Thank you for the kindness in considering me, I am really humbled by it. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 22:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree with TP that having an RfC focused on "having the current TOU confirmed/ratified as local policy. " would be tight and productive, and I also agree with his caveats about setting it up (making clear that we can make our own, if we reject). Jytdog (talk) 22:18, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to take credit, Smallbones suggested it the RFC first. Perhaps a subpage to develop this RFC would be helpful but I'm not sure what a good RFC title would be? "Terms of Use Ratification RFC" seems to suggest a goal rather than a topic.--v/r - T P 22:33, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I suggest having an initial discussion focused solely on the paid contribution disclosure policy: does the requirement to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation for any paid contribution, as described in the Wikimedia Foundation terms of use have consensus support in the English Wikipedia editing community? Or does the community wish to develop proposals for either stronger or weaker requirements in an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy? (Note based on this edit, the WMF has specified that pre-existing policies are superseded unless a consensus is obtained to replace the policy in the Terms of Use.) This narrows down the choices to three: stay with the default requirements, discuss stronger requirements, or discuss weaker requirements. If one of the latter two options gains consensus, then further discussion can be held to build a proposal for an alternative disclosure policy. isaacl (talk) 23:56, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

That may get confusing. Let's say those in favor of strong requirements had 40% of the !vote but those favoring the ToU or weaker requirements had 30% each. Does that mean the RFC closes in favor of stronger requirements or do the two lower options add up to 60%? Similarly the other way, 40% for weaker requirements but 30% for the other two, do we then ratify or not? I think what is best here is to go with a binary proposal and then branch out from there. Do we accept the ToU or do we want our own (whether weaker or stronger)?--v/r - T P 00:28, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

strongly agree with smallbones and TP. Jytdog (talk) 00:36, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it is important to establish if there is a potential for consensus on an alternative paid disclosure policy. If not, then it may be more productive to discuss other areas. Accordingly, I believe we should determine if there is a consensus agreement on which way the requirements should be modified. If there is none, then I suspect it will be difficult to reach a consensus on an alternative policy. isaacl (talk) 00:42, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

If desired, we can determine this with (up to) two discussions, held sequentially, each presenting a single question: first, is there a consensus for a stronger paid disclosure policy? If not, then is there a consensus for a weaker paid disclosure policy? isaacl (talk) 00:45, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

yes if consensus on the simple binary was "reject" then we would very much need to have a followup. one thing at a time.... Jytdog (talk) 00:55, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

As controversial as previous RFCs have been, I think we need to stay very focused and ask small questions at a time. Increment to the full answer by taking each bite separately. "Do we want to make the ToU disclosure clause policy, or do we want to use the alternate policy option to propose a stronger/weaker policy?"--v/r - T P 01:39, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I am having some difficulty grasping the problem here. After reading and re-reading the new TOU on paid editing disclosure, the questions re a weaker, stronger or adopting the default policy are relatively simple. The weaker policy--no disclosure-- adopted by the Commons is really the only alternative on the weaker side. Since the default allows a choice of disclosure--user page, talk page or edit summary--I can't imagine any form of disclosure weaker that those three options except the no disclosure option. On the stronger side, one can postulate all kinds of bizarre disclosure requirements, but only two plausible options come to mind. 1) All paid editors must disclose on user pages, article talk page and in edit summaries for all paid edits. 2) The community creates some sort of "disclosure forum" where paid editors openly out themselves--a black list of sorts.

Since the TOU does not address consequences of "failure to disclose" or the scrutiny that "paid editor" content should undergo, those are questions that the community must eventually address. However, the Rfc under consideration should keep the questions simple and clearly within the immediate impact of the new TOU on the community. Right now, the new TOU is policy. Paid editors must disclose on user, talk or in edit summaries. Does the community want a weaker policy--no disclosure? or does the community want a stronger policy (a simple question that if answered in the affirmative would require additional work to define what "stronger" might be)? If we begin to confuse these question with the consequences for "failure to disclose" or the processes to deal with "paid editor content", then any resolution of the simple questions will be doomed. --Mike Cline (talk) 01:50, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The long standing community consensus has been that disclosure is strongly encouraged. Essentially, we have more patience for those who disclose and those who don't get blocked quicker when they are found out. Whether the community wants to continue this, as I very much doubt that 'no disclosure' is at all an option, or if they want to adopt the ToU, or even something stronger, is what we need to discuss. But we ought to take it one chunk at a time.--v/r - T P 01:59, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

TP, I completely agree with you that deciding on the exact disclosure requirement--weaker (unlikely), default or stronger is the first question. I don't really want to predict where the community will go with the question. But I do think that there's some underestimating the impact of the new TOU. In the new TOU, who is a "paid editor" and what "paid editing" is is fairly clear. I suspect that the actual number of "paid editors" under the TOU definition is relatively high, especially when any employee of an advocacy organization who edits on subjects related to the advocacy mission of the organization is considered a "paid editor". I also expect that there are relatively few "paid editors" associated with commercial organizations because the community has collectively treated those types of editors as evil, while if not embracing, pretty much giving "paid editors" associated with advocacy organizations a free pass. Regardless of whatever "paid editor" disclosure policy is adopted by the community, I believe it will impact a much larger portion of the editor corps than suspected, especially if it is enforced fairly across all types of paid editing. --Mike Cline (talk) 02:18, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Probably true, Mike. I'd like to see a well thought out policy that avoids draconian rules though. We need to approach this with our eyes open but our minds focused on the goal and not overreach. The goal is a NPOV encyclopedia.--v/r - T P 02:43, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

As has been stated above, the current paid contribution disclosure policy specifies that "any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation" must be accompanied with a disclosure, or generally disclosed on your user page. Thus edits by an employee of an advocacy organization editing a topic related to the organization's mission for which the employee is not receiving compensation does not fall under the scope of the policy. However, if the community wanted to emphasize this, then it would be a potential example of the community wanting an explicitly weaker policy than the default policy. isaacl (talk) 07:08, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

1st I have to repeat that the number of participants in the RfC will be the key. We could theoretically put ourselves in the position that 100 !votes against disclosure might be used to overturn the 1,100 !votes for disclosure on the Meta RfC. I hope nobody would want that to happen. The way to avoid that is to have the RfC run a sufficient time (say 18 days min), and widely publicized. I'm almost sure the WMF would agree to have a limited banner notification to avoid the above scenario. Back to "The only (more later)" ... The only problem I see with having an RfC on making the ToU our local policy (which everybody seems to want), is what would happen if it didn't gain consensus? Obvious we should go back to the current policy ... which is the TOU. So the TOU seems to become policy win or lose. Certainly an odd setup for an RfC. Why don't we skip that step and go straight to the disagreement - which talking about hasn't helped for several years. Let's have 2 competing proposals and ask folks to decide between the two, participating on both RfCs. I'll suggest the following for the 2 proposals.

Start with the TOU and make identifiable changes to it, so that editors will be able to easily judge the difference between the two.
put in a section on how RfCs on paid editing will be conducted over the next year to avoid the 7 RfCs at one time problem
be ready to go on Monday morning or earlier.

I can open up a user page to anybody who wishes to strengthen to policy above the TOU to write the 1st proposal. I will kick off any game players who try to disrupt it, but otherwise it will be totally open. I'll suggest that TP do the same for the 2nd proposal, but won't tell him how to do it. Smallbones_(smalltalk)

I think we've all agreed above that the first question is whether we want to adopt the ToU or have our own. We'll reserve whether it needs to be stronger or weaker once that question is answered. As to the rest, I think we should leave it for the uninvolved and completely disinterested closers to decide.--v/r - T P 02:45, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The problem with the two step model - noting that it is probably the best choice anyway - is it can lead to a result which doesn't match what the majority really want. Let's say the community is broken up into 30% who want stronger or to stay the same, 30% want weaker or to stay the same, and 40% who want the ToU as it stands. After the first round, the majority (60%) will have voted for change, so we then ask "weaker or stronger". This forces the 40% to choose one or the other, even though neither option was what they wanted, and even though they were the biggest group. Which creates a problem. This is the sort of situation where preferential voting is the best option, but then we don't talk in terms of voting, so much as in terms of consensus, so I guess that isn't an option. - Bilby (talk) 03:01, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this is exactly the issue with combining together both those who want a weaker policy and those who want a stronger one. We can ask for editors to state their first and second choices, if desired, but I think it is a reasonable to assume that those who want a weaker policy would prefer the default policy to a stronger one, and similarly those who want a stronger policy would prefer the default one to a weaker one.

If, say, 30% want a weaker policy, and 30% want a stronger policy, then under the reasonable assumption that the first group would prefer the default policy over a stronger policy, and the second group would prefer the default policy over a weaker policy, then the actual preferred consensus position is the default policy. So combining the two groups together and starting a discussion on an alternative disclosure policy is not a productive use of time, since a consensus is not achievable with this split. If we think a weaker policy is unlikely to be desired, let's start with the question if the default policy is desired, or a stronger policy? I think is the best approach to "one bite at a time": determine if a stronger policy is desired or not. Combining two groups of dissenters is taking two bites.

In my proposal, the question would be: Do you support the current paid contribution disclosure policy, or would you support creating a proposed alternative that enacts stronger requirements? If the second option is preferred, then we would start a discussion on the details of the proposal. Once an agreement was reached on a proposal, then we would hold an RfC between the current policy, and the proposed one. isaacl (talk) 06:57, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Do you mean weaker than the existing consensus of "disclosure encouraged" or do you mean weaker than the ToU. It is conceivable that the community might want something weaker than the ToU, as several other editors have spoken up for. The proposal you're suggesting is not neutral. If a binary question is not an option, then the proposal should be as Bilby has described.--v/r - T P 07:14, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Based on the FAQ, the WMF has clarified that a pre-existing policy must receive a new consensus to be put in place as an alternative paid disclosure policy. That being said, we can certainly word the binary question differently if the community prefers, or pose all three possibilities together (as I had originally suggested), asking for editors to state their preferences in order. For example, a binary question could be, do you support the paid contribution disclosure policy as stated in the Terms of Use, or would you support a stronger paid contribution disclosure policy? (On a side note, I would have preferred keeping my reply to Smallbones separate, in order to make it clear my response was targeted at the questions he raised.) isaacl (talk) 07:24, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I only did it because I felt the way you did it was a bit confusing and hard to respond to. Anyway, the binary proposal you're suggesting predisposes that the community would prefer a stronger policy. Furthermore, it is a bit of a loaded question and is going to result in response bias. Neither option allows for established community practice and consensus and both options force the community away from established practice & consensus. Essentially, you've decided the community needs to change and are only allowing them to pick which change they want. The community needs to decide for itself if it's going to change from established practice. One option needs to be to ratify the preexisting guidelines, one needs to be to ratify the ToU, and the third needs to be to make something else.--v/r - T P 07:36, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I apologize for not clarifying my earlier suggestion; I was just trying to address your concern regarding having a binary question. Because the pre-existing guideline covers more than just a paid contribution disclosure policy, my thought was that we should limit the question to this specifically. However, we can split out the question into four options:

disclosure is strongly encouraged, but not mandatory (contained within pre-existing guideline)
disclosure is required following the policy described in the terms of use
a weaker disclosure policy is desired (details to be established in a further discussion)
a stronger disclosure policy is desired (details to be established in a further discussion)

Editors can be asked then to rank the choices in their order of preference. Personally I believe having the choices available together makes it easier to interpret the results. isaacl (talk) 07:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I think that's the way to go, except that I would not ask editors to rank their choices in order of preference. They can simply choose, as in any ordinary RfC, and if they are on the fence, they can say so. Coretheapple (talk) 13:45, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Re putting the TOU amendments in a policy and then "ratifying" it. I don't see why that it is necessary. It will just make everything more protracted. Coretheapple (talk) 13:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Consensus is about agreeing to something that everyone can live with as an improvement. There is a continuum of views and it is useful to capture this in discussion. No one is forced to express this continuum, but everyone should be encouraged to do so and not feel they are locked into only one choice.

Regarding the next step if a consensus supports an unspecified weaker or stronger policy, it is necessary to work out the details of that policy. When the details are determined, then the policy can be presented for consensus. By separating the two, the process of building up the best alternative policy wont't be hampered by objections to the alternative policy in principle, and the discussion can maintain its focus. This should speed up the process, rather than slow it down. Circular discussion is the biggest bottleneck in most of these discussions. isaacl (talk) 15:26, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm with you on the two-step process; it's the ranking that concerns me. Though I admit that with such few choices it can't complicate things too much. Coretheapple (talk) 15:52, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I can agree to all of that, but I don't think the third option is necessary. There is not a remote chance of anyone feeling a policy weaker than "strongly encouraged to disclose" is a solution. Option #1 suitably settles the matter.--v/r - T P 17:06, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't look to me like any proposed process is going to get consensus here, in which case the current TOU stands as our policy. Just to be absolutely clear, I will oppose any process that doesn't take major steps to avoid the scenario I described above, where 100 !votes against disclosure could overturn the 1,100 !votes for disclosure at meta. It doesn't have to be a "perfect solution" but major steps have to be taken. So far all I've heard in response sounds like vague mumbling to me.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough above when I proposed the "stronger" vs. "weaker" RfC above. If there was no consensus for either, the current policy, the TOU, would stand. In the highly unlikely case that both the stronger and weaker versions reached consensus, then the TOU should also stand as policy. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:30, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Oppose all you like. The WMF said that only a local project consensus was necessary. They didn't set a minimum number of participants and the English Wikipedia is the only project that has a chance, even a remote chance, of meeting your threshold. Besides, it doesn't matter what you accept, it matters what the community accepts. Policy is built on community practice, not the other way around.--v/r - T P 17:06, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Smallbones, I just skimmed the first 300 support votes at Meta, and recognized 4 or 5 of the signatures. Almost all of the votes either aren't signed or are signed by IPs or people with blank userpages. I don't understand Meta's process, I have no competence in judging consensus on other wikis, and I've never heard it claimed that that's part of the job of a closer on the English Wikipedia. - Dank (push to talk) 20:10, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Break 1

My concern with a "ratify the TOU" RfC is that it tends to communicate that the TOU isn't already policy. RfCs to affirm the status quo are rare and I think that's likely to mislead editors. Because we have failed to adopt a policy on paid editing in the past, the TOU is current policy. Given our history of no-consensus on much of anything with regard to COI and paid editing, I'm leaning the same way as Smallbones, it would take a hell of a consensus to overturn the TOU on this matter. Another factor to consider is that it seems that editing activity by regulars is lower during the US Summer, don't have data to back that up, but it feels empty around here this time of year.

Regarding making a policy "stronger" than the TOU, that's a sort of red herring, or at best, is a separate issue. The TOU does not prescribe procedures or penalties, but it implies that it must be followed in order to use the site. I feel like our focus should be on how to handle apparent violations of the TOU; on implementation. Rehashing the same old discussions that never have even had local wiki consensus in the past is a waste of time. Gigs (talk) 17:02, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Removing the option of ratifying the ToU is making a decision on behalf of the community. Do you have the authority to do that? Even Jimbo's fiats have been met with controversy. If there is no consensus, than the ToU stays. If there is a consensus for something weaker than we go with something weaker. The main purpose of this RFC, or any RFC, is to give the wider community a chance to weigh in, as is appropriate, on matters of policy and guidelines.--v/r - T P 17:11, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The community (or some subset of it) has spoken, we have no consensus on these matters. We should only start an RfC like that if we realistically think the outcome will be something different from the past. To go through the motions with an inevitable outcome seems very pointless to me. Gigs (talk) 17:22, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The three of you have spoken and edited it into the guideline w/o wider community input and then edit warred to keep it in. No, an RFC is neccessary. I opened one and closed it in good faith with the implicit understanding from those on your side of the discussion that this matter would be addressed. If not, I am happy to go back and start the RFC myself on this issue. You're testing my good faith by changing the rules. User:Jytdog, is this how you feel as well?--v/r - T P 18:05, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I haven't edited the guideline recently and I speak only for myself. I'm not saying we don't need to have an RfC, we do, I just think it might be more productive to focus it on implementation details instead of debating the core issues of the TOU, which I believe will inevitably result in no-consensus, as it always has in the past. Gigs (talk) 18:12, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The dispute, as has been raised above by as many people opposing the ToU as supporting it, is whether or not we are to adopt it without commenting. That needs to be settled by an RFC. How many English Wikipedians are even aware of the change on the Terms of Use? Wider community input is needed.--v/r - T P 18:16, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

If you believe it's important for moving the conversation forward then I am not totally opposed. See new section below. Gigs (talk) 18:30, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Gigs: I agree with you on the first point, but not on the second. It's true that RfCs in the past were dominated by the paid editing fan club. Jimbo addressed that once by [2]pointing out that "every discussion that arises brings in paid advocates making lots of noise and engaging in bad argumentation to cloud the issue." But in the discussion at Meta,[3], 790 editors supported - and this was the original proposal, without the local option, 266 endorsed "support but should be stronger," 47 said "support but should NOT be the any stronger" and 286 opposed. So I think that the idea of making it stronger is by no means impossible or a red herring. But it has to be a large turnout or else yes, it will be dominated by the paid editors and their advocates. Coretheapple (talk) 17:14, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

My point with that comment was that we can make the TOU "stronger or weaker" depending on how we choose to handle apparent violations of it, without debating the core of it. So assume the TOU is policy, and everyone accepts that; now we have to decide what to do about it. That's a discussion we will have to have, and I think it's there that we should address the question of "stronger or weaker". Gigs (talk) 17:27, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that makes sense. Coretheapple (talk) 19:19, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

RfC Preamble

If we do decide to go forward with a "confirming" RfC for the TOU (which I am somewhat opposed to), we should collaborate on a preamble that so that we can avoid biasing the RfC. I will make a first pass below, please edit it directly and do not consider it part of my comments. Gigs (talk) 18:29, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The recently adopted Wikimedia Foundation Terms of Use forbids paid editing unless such paid editing is disclosed on the user's talk page, the article's talk page, or in the edit summary. The terms of use allow for individual projects to supersede these requirements with their own set of requirements. Since we currently do not have such a policy, the terms of use apply by default and are effectively our current policy. Should we develop our own set of requirements, which may be weaker or stronger?

@Gigs But that same goal would be accomplished, with greater clarity and more expeditiously, by using Isaac's formulation:

disclosure is strongly encouraged, but not mandatory (contained within pre-existing guideline)
disclosure is required following the policy described in the terms of use
a weaker disclosure policy is desired (details to be established in a further discussion)
a stronger disclosure policy is desired (details to be established in a further discussion)

I don't see the point of an intermediate step. (and yes I recognized you're opposed to it, so I guess I'm really supporting your point of view)

--Coretheapple (talk) 18:47, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I'd drop the first. At this point in time, it doesn't matter what our previous guideline was - the policy is that disclosure is mandatory. In effect, that list has the same thing twice, proposing a weaker policy in both the first and third points. - Bilby (talk) 18:54, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

That's true. The first point is already history. Coretheapple (talk) 18:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Again, this was implicit in the request to close the previous RFC. The question needs to be asked, does the EnWP want to continue doing business as we always have? There is no need for a question of a "weaker disclosure policy" because the previous consensus, the existing guideline, already addresses that.--v/r - T P 19:09, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

But this guideline's disclosure provisions are obsolete. The TOU is in effect. Therefore, going back to the guideline is weakening the policy now in place. You keep on refusing to recognize that the reality has changed. Coretheapple (talk) 19:22, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

No, they arn't obsolete. They are existing community practice. Policies and guidelines represent community practice. Community practice doesn't change when you edit war a guideline to whatever you want. Until community practice changes, the existing guideline before your changes are not obselete and need to be an option.--v/r - T P 19:34, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh please. For the umpteenth time, the Foundation, after due deliberations, unilaterally enacted a change in its Terms of Use, thereby imposing a policy that supercedes our COI disclosure rules. (And no, someone else added the TOU reference, but why let the facts stand in the way of a bad argument?) Coretheapple (talk) 19:39, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue this. The agreement that we would ask the community was the reason I retracted the previous RFC. If you and Gigs are going to disrupt the previous agreement above with about a half dozen editors, then I'll consider the agreement void and simply start the RFC over. This isn't up for debate, the wider community is going to discuss whether or not we are going to adopt the policy. The only reason the previous RFC was halted is to discussion how to do it and how to phrase it. There is nothing else to discuss. I will proceed without you if you continue to be disruptive.--v/r - T P 19:43, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Believe me, threatening to post a poorly drafted RfC if you don't get your way (whatever that "way" is, as I can't make sense of what you're saying except "I don't like it") doesn't make me quake in my boots. The more idiotic Wikipedia behaves, the more likely it is that the Foundation will reconsider the weakness of its TOU change and impose a meaningful rule. In any event, whatever you do, no matter how moronic or disruptive an RfC might be, the TOU will be in effect until it is explicitly overruled by community consensus. Coretheapple (talk) 19:47, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Funny, the participants above, including me, seem to be moving toward a consensus on the RFC fairly well. Then Smallbones starts ranting about minimum participation that he will accept and you run in here saying that the community doesn't even get to decide whether or not we adopt the ToU, only that we decide whether to make it stronger. Hate to break it to you, but consensus favors asking whether we adopt the new ToU first. See above where Jytdog, Smallbones, Dank, isaacl, Mike Cline, Bilby, and myself all agreed that the first question was whether there was consensus of the EnWP community that the ToU was going to be accepted community practice & policy. You and Gigs are the only two arguing that it shouldn't be the first question. Sorry, but that would make you in the minority here. 7-2.--v/r - T P 19:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Well you know, people express opinions and they express more opinions. There's no block of concrete here where people are chiseling their thoughts. In my opinion, having a two-stage process, first "ratifying" the TOU as policy, makes no sense. But if they want to have a two-stage process they definitely will. However, only you can light the whole forest on fire by reviving your horrid RfC, and if you choose to do that I will bring marshmallows. Coretheapple (talk) 20:12, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

There are many things in group discussions (including Wikipedia ones) that make no sense to me, but we have to manage with the cards we are dealt. An initial gauging of consensus should help make later discussions more productive, since they can be focused on a narrower scope of options. isaacl (talk) 20:24, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Isaac, I note that your name was invoked, as was Bilby. I generally favor your approach, and I checked the discussion and found that Bilby has qualms about the two-stage approach. So as before I am just flummoxed here. TParis, just to simplify all the confusion, why don't you tell us what your demands are and what the consequences will be if we don't do what you want. Coretheapple (talk) 20:32, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

My only demand is that you calm your moral crusade against COIs and let the rest of us get back to practical business.--v/r - T P 20:37, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh so this is personal. Surprise surprise. Coretheapple (talk) 20:39, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Actually, the TOU 'allows paid editing (that is otherwise consistent with law), when the editor discloses certain information on the user's talk page, the article's talk page, or in the edit summary. The information needed includes client/employer, but not the editor's personal name or amount of compensation . . .' Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:05, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it was made very clear that running the poll in a "first we vote if it should be "stronger or weaker" or "the same," and then, if it's "stronger or weaker" we vote on "stronger or weaker," fails so miserably at preference revealing as to be the single worst way of doing things. Alternatively, we could present three options, and then hold a run off, or just assume that "weaker" and "the same," do not prefer stronger, and require a consensus given all three alternatives. Hipocrite (talk) 19:23, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

There's no question that a choice between "stronger or weaker" and "the same" won't work. But Isaac's alternative, perhaps tweaked, makes sense. Coretheapple (talk) 19:27, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

If no one minds, I will try to draft something up later today; naturally feedback will be welcome. To clarify, the options of a stronger or weaker disclosure policy are with respect to the two aspects covered in terms of service: the criteria for requiring disclosure, and the method of disclosing. As the terms of service does not cover enforcement, I suggest this matter be postponed to a later discussion.

Note by presenting the array of options and gathering information on everyone's relative preferences, we can determine what approach will satisfy the most people, and so a "no consensus" result is not an issue. By the nature of the options, I think a loop where the group prefers A over B over C over A is unlikely, but even in this case, there are ways to break the loop and determine which choice has consensus support. isaacl (talk) 20:10, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Isaacl, that'd be great.--v/r - T P 20:47, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Just making sure that this is not an actual RfC on changing the policy, rather it's a straw vote or an RfC on how to conduct the actual RfC- have I got that right? I do hope on the actual RfC that we could put something in place that requires a certain number of !votes to over-ride the current policy (the ToU) - say 150. I'm sure that it would be quite embarrassing for the WMF Board to announce - there were 40 votes to overturn the RfC that had 1,104 votes to put this policy in place so that (take your pick)

a - we've had to annul the "new policy" which only had 40 votes to remove the disclosure requirement, or
b - remember all that stuff we said about paid editors being require to disclose - just forget about it - 40 people disagreed.

So why not put something in the straw vote on - would you agree that the actual RfC needs to be passed with at least 150 !votes to become effective?

Would you also agree that we should publicize the straw vote as much as possible/

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:13, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

First I have to confess that I don't understand the entirety of Isaac's post of 20:10, 25 June 2014. It's possible that my brain is all shot to pieces after coping with all the bullhockey on this page, but I don't understand the "loop" business. I trust he does, however, and I do agree with the general approach he laid out previously. In other words, an RfC to determine whether the community wants to keep, toss out or strengthen the TOU amendment. If the third choice, then I guess another RfC would be necessary on how to strengthen it. Isaac, have I fairly recapitulated your approach? Smallbones, does that sound OK by you? I agree that there would have to be a large turnout, though the anarchist in me favors a small turnout, chaos, and a resulting stronger intervention by the Foundation.Coretheapple (talk) 23:15, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

As you previously referred to, I have proposed listing four options and asking for editors to provide their feedback on their order of preferences for these options.

If I understood Bilby's comment correctly, he was concerned about a first question that lumped together both those who want a weaker policy and those who want a stronger policy. The proposed initial discussion has been revised accordingly.

Whatever format is used for the next discussion, it's likely everyone will find it deficient in some way. I hope that all interested parties can look past that and agree that it's the best we can manage to agree upon, and is good enough to continue on.

A rational individual would not have a loop in their preferences: they would prefer option A over B over C, for example, and so transitively they prefer A over C. But when combining together the individual preferences of a group, it is possible that in a head-to-head comparison, the group prefers A over B, B over C, and C over A. In this case, there is no option that is preferred over all others (in voting theory terms, there is no Condorcet winner). The best compromise can be determined, though, by setting aside the preferences of as few persons as possible, so the most people are satisfied by the result (there are various procedures to do this, and web sites that can help with running through the algorithms). Thus a consensus view can be derived from knowing the preferences of all the participants. isaacl (talk) 23:37, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

OK, thanks, but did I fairly sum it up? I know I dumbed it down a little. Coretheapple (talk) 23:39, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

@Isaacl: I don't think it's neccessary to ask about a "weaker policy". The established consensus of "encouraged disclosure" should do suitably. The only folks asking for a weaker policy option are the proponents of a stronger option. No one is supporting a weaker option. The 3 options should be: Established Consensus, ToU, or something stronger.--v/r - T P 23:44, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Isaac, I think it would be fair to give me a straight answer. Is your proposed RfC just something that will be used to format a real RfC, or can it actually change the current policy, the ToU? Do you think it would be fair to have a real RfC where only 2 of the 3 choices could actually be put in as a new policy. You need to be clear on what's happening here. Also, do you have any plan to increase the turnout, so that we won't run into the case of 40 people voting to change a policy supported by 1,104 people (and then calling it a consensus!)

To TP - you are constantly mis-stating basic facts, we have a policy, the ToU, which is based on the largest RfC in history, resulting in a clear consensus, 80% in favor of disclosure. Remember that. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:05, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Which contains an exemption for a local policy and does not include any mention of a threshold - only local consensus. Remember that.--v/r - T P 01:46, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

The "no disclosure" (the weakest alternative to the TOU) option most definitely should be listed. The current "strongly encouraged" approach does not accomplish squat and allows COI zealots to cajole and brow beat editors into disclosure. Taking the potential "no required disclosure" option (the obvious weakest option) biases the RFC. To claim that the "strongly discouraged" disclosure position represents community consensus in light of the TOU change and voluminous discussion that help generate it is also a very biased statement. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:18, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Col. I wasn't aware that anyone was supportive of that position. I personally fall into the strongly encouraged category which I think also implies that there is no disclosure required. I only suggested we didn't need a "no disclosure" option because I was under the assumption that those who agreed that we needed an RFC also felt it was between the COI guideline, the ToU, or stronger requirements. My mistake.--v/r - T P 01:41, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

The idea is to gauge consensus through discussion to determine which of the following approaches would satisfy the most interested parties: proceed with the paid contribution disclosure policy from the Terms of Use, proceed with the paid contribution disclosure policy described on this page (WP:COI) prior to the release of the updated Terms of Use, proceed with a discussion to develop an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy that is different from the first two and specifies weaker conditions for disclosure or methods of disclosure, or proceed with a discussion to develop an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy that specifies stronger conditions for disclosure or methods of disclosure.

If either of the first two options gain consensus, then discussion can proceed to address other questions, such as enforcement of violations, or conditions limiting editing (which are not addressed by the paid contribution disclosure policy). If either of the latter two options gain consensus, then a discussion can proceed to develop the best consensus proposal for a new alternative paid contribution disclosure policy. Once this proposal is ready, a discussion can take place to validate that the specific proposal has consensus support from all interested parties.

The question I am trying to address is how to ensure the paid contribution disclosure policy has demonstrable consensus support, so the conversation can move onto other important considerations. I think getting an initial idea of how the community wishes to proceed is the best way to narrow the scope of further discussions so they can remain focused and be less easily derailed. This meets my yardstick of trying to do what the community wants as easily as possible, but I do not know if this meets your thoughts on what is fair.

I do not control how widely advertised this discussion will be; as with any discussion, everyone is encouraged to get valued contributors to join in and provide their thoughts, by all neutral means that are in accordance with Wikipedia policy and convention.

You may have noticed a common theme in my suggestions: I'd like to get everyone listening to each other and avoiding repetition, which discourages participation. We should be able to get together and say, what would we like to do? OK, now, what would be the best way to do that? With that being determined, are we sure this is still what we'd like to do? Although there are many disadvantages to written online discussion, one advantage is that what you've written stays there to be seen later. I think this should used to better effect: we can iteratively refine proposals and list their pros and cons, succinctly and in one place, which will make it easier to attract a broader cross-section of opinion. isaacl (talk) 00:49, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

So you are just suggesting a straw poll now - correct me if I'm wrong.

You are wrong if you think that we can't take steps together to increase participation, e.g. jointly request a banner notification.

I do get the impression you want to talk this to death. Let's just get 3 options (including the ToU as the default option), make sure we can get adequate participation on go for it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:07, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I did not say steps cannot be taken to increase participation; I said you should indeed take those steps. I highly encourage it!

I did not intent to write any more replies before drafting some proposed text, but you explicitly asked for a response, so I gave it. I apologize if I repeated myself; I attempted to provide the answers you were looking for. isaacl (talk) 01:33, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

OK, let me know when the real RfC starts and I'll request the banner notification on behalf of all the organizers of the RfC. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:54, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I think a banner notification is a bad idea. Those banners are most prevalent to IPs and users with a COI are more likely to see them like that. Centralized discussions, AN and VP notifications, and maybe a watchlist notice would serve better to poll the EnWP community. We could perhaps even draft a talk page message and spam it out to all of the participants of the other RFCs.--v/r - T P 02:02, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Yeah the banner idea is very good, and will maximize participation. Coretheapple (talk) 02:46, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

It's certainly fine with me. But it reaches more than the core EnWP community and will attract COI editors. I thought that would be something you two would be opposed to.--v/r - T P 04:04, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

RfC suggestion

If people want to hold an RfC, we can do one of two things.

(1) Create a dedicated proposed-policy page that offers three choices:

The Wikimedia Foundation's new disclosure provision in its terms of use: "You must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation." Disclosure can be on a user page, article talk pages, or in edit summaries.

Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest guideline: "Editors with a COI, including paid editors, are encouraged to disclose their interest on their user pages and on the talk page of the article in question."

Disclosure is neither encouraged nor required.
Editors should choose one to support. It should be made clear that, in the absence of consensus for an alternative, the terms of use (#1) is the default policy.

(2) Realistically, people are unlikely to support #3 and it could split the vote. And #1 is policy anyway, so there's no need to include it, in the sense that people supporting or opposing makes no real difference. A cleaner approach, therefore, is to create a dedicated proposed-policy page that offers one option and ask whether people support it as our alternative paid-editing disclosure policy.

"Editors with a COI, including paid editors, are encouraged to disclose their interest on their user pages and on the talk page of the article in question."
Explain that, in the absence of consensus, the Foundation's new disclosure provision is the default policy.

Smallbones, we can't insist on a minimum number of participants. The terms-of-use discussion was very confusing and had nothing to do with enwiki, so we can't use it as a baseline by arguing that it had a certain amount of support, and therefore so must this. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:09, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know, SlimVirgin. I'm fine with either your way or Isaacl's way. I'd only like to see wider community input.--v/r - T P 02:23, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I think this is a nonstarter. It offers only the TOU or something weaker, and is so worded that it would tend the skew the results in favor of overturning the TOU and preserving the status quo ante. Also, I thought that the discussion on Meta, though lengthy, was quite simple in the alternatives that it offered (same as, stronger, weaker). Coretheapple (talk) 02:52, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Nonstarter, completely one sided. The choices are a) keep the current policy, b) throw out the current policy, or c) throw out the current policy and stomp on it.

I think the meta RfC had a lot to do with enwp, e.g. it was clear that the large majority of participants were native English speakers, and even that the "no disclosure" supporters tended to be non-native English speakers. In short, it's the same basic community. I'm not insisting on specific numbers (unless that's what it'll take to get people to push for very wide participation) but I think that a banner notification is definitely needed. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:29, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Can you explain why you think this would skew anything? I don't see it. The question is simply whether people want the terms of use, or the disclosure provision that was in the COI guideline, as policy. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:23, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

It was just explained to you. It's obvious. You're arbitrarily omitting the choice of a stronger policy, which received substantial support in the vote at Meta, almost as much as "oppose." The purpose is to gauge community sentiment on an alternate policy, and the Foundation explicitly contemplated that the alternate policy might be stronger if that's what people want.[4] Another alternative, of course, is to have no RfC at all. That's fine with me. Opponents of the TOU want an RfC, so we're trying to come up with one that's fair. Coretheapple (talk) 13:38, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Draft proposal for discussion

I have written up an initial draft at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Paid contribution disclosure policy RfC 1. I'm not terribly opinionated about whether the discussion should be called a straw poll or an RfC; I think Dank wanted it to be a relatively quick straw poll, but personally I think the most important matter is to get discussion flowing. Yes, the draft is long. If there are areas that you think do not need to be as detailed, and instead the pointers to the original texts can be relied upon, please provide your feedback.

As I mentioned above, this proposal is pretty much guaranteed to not match anyone's ideal version. But it has the advantage of being drafted by someone who is mostly agnostic to the outcome, and who only wants the discussion to be as productive as possible. So please try to be as flexible as you can and accommodating of the proposal. isaacl (talk) 02:59, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it looks good.--v/r - T P 03:14, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

It's nicely written, but I think it's going to end up with a confusing response. There are too many options, and the A, B, C, for first, second, third choice is going to lead to no consensus. RfCs have to be kept as simple as possible. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:20, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

It's not the first place where people have stated their order of preference for choices (the arbitration committee, for example, does it frequently). If participants can be encouraged to provide their full range of preferences, then we will have all the data required to determine the best choice that will satisfy the most persons, as I discussed above with Coretheapple. isaacl (talk) 03:25, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I've opened and closed a lot of RfCs, and the problem lies with assuming that people will do what you ask them to do. People regularly don't read the instructions, or do but ignore them anyway. Or they offer their choices, but get confused. The more potential there is for getting things wrong, the more wrong things will get. Also, offering preferences doesn't necessarily lead to more people getting what they want. It can just as easily lead to an option that no one really wanted. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:31, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Two issues, I guess. The first is that opinions B and C are largely the same - there has been no suggestion of reducing the requirements from encouraging disclosure to not encouraging disclose, so it could be simplified by removing C. (There's a small possibility that someone would want less that the ToU but more that the old guideline, but that feels like overcomplicating the issue). The second is that it reads as if we're voting to accept the ToU, accept our guideline, or develop something stronger. The problem being that this is not the case. We are voting to override the ToU or not to override it, the former either by choosing to use our old guideline or by strengthening the ToU. My feeling is that it needs to be clear that the ToU has precedence. - Bilby (talk) 03:35, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

As we've been going around and around with this line of thought, I'd like to sidestep the question of how we got here, and focus on where we want to go. What does the community want? Once we have the answer to that, this guideline can be updated accordingly. isaacl (talk) 03:44, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it is something we should sidestep. We are voting to override the current policy (the ToU) or leave it as is. This needs to be clear. Right now, our old guideline is void in regard to disclosure. - Bilby (talk) 03:52, 26 June 2014 (UTC).

The ToU has current authority you mean? I'm not sure precedence is the right term. In any case, Mike Cline is actually a proponent of weaker restrictions than just "encourage disclosure". You might take up the issue of removing C with him.--v/r - T P 04:01, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I completely agree that people will not do the expected, and not read instructions. I welcome any suggestions to try to maximize the chances that we will be able to collect everyone's full range of preferences. So far this is the best format I've thought of that covers the full range of choices where each choice leads to a consensus on a policy. Regarding an option that no one really wanted, as previously mentioned, the Condorcet method uses everyone's preferences to determine the option that most people prefer over the others. isaacl (talk) 03:41, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it's confusing, people won't know how their !votes will be counted, some people might think that the policy could change right away from this RfC - when we know it can't. And then - what will we actually do with the results? I think the best way is just to have an actual RfC, putting a specific stronger and a specific weaker policy and the current policy (ToU) with all three to be !voted on. If no consensus on any of them, the current policy (ToU) stands. Let's not make this difficult. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:41, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I discussed the next steps earlier, in accordance with your inquiry; I'm sorry for not being sufficiently clear. If there is a specific point of clarification I can make concisely, please let me know. isaacl (talk) 03:47, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Similar to the discussion on meta regarding the Terms of Use, we can add a FAQ to help address questions. isaacl (talk) 03:49, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Smallbones, why wouldn't the outcome become policy right away? Also, I object to inventing an even stronger option, then having the COI as the weakest, so that the terms of use can be the thing in the middle that everyone picks. Please, let's not try to skew this. The terms of use is currently the strongest option.

We just need one question: do people support the current COI disclosure provision as the alternative disclosure policy? That is very simple. If yes (usually two-thirds), it becomes policy. If fewer than two-thirds support it, the TOU kick in. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:02, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

If you notice the RfC, there is no policy written anywhere. It's all about preferences this and preferences that. I've asked several times as directly as I know how, and nobody has said that a policy could come out of this. I finally said something like "As I understand this it is a straw vote or and RfC to hold an actual RfC. Correct me if I'm wrong" And nobody corrected me.

If there is a proposal to weaken the current policy (ToU), there should also be a proposal to strengthen it. Is there some rule that I'm not aware of that people who think the laws on undisclosed advertising should be respected are not to be considered equals? If we just consider whether the current ToU should be policy, you're setting up the strange RfC where if the ToU "win" they will be policy and if they "lose" the current policy, the ToU, will win. Can we really do that? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:21, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

It isn't solely up to me to say if this should be labelled a straw poll or RfC. Dank requested a straw poll; I think an RfC discussion is fine. It is up to everyone here to decide.

Options A and B are to select a policy to adopt. So if consensus is for one of them, then the guideline can be updated with that policy. isaacl (talk) 04:41, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm following. Maybe this discussion has gone off the rails a bit. Okay:

We ought not to hold an RfC about holding an RfC. That's madness.
We ought not to hold one that gives lots of options and preferences. That will lead to no consensus.
We ought not to hold one that invents the possibility of an even-stronger disclosure provision, with the terms of use as the middle option, because people are often drawn to the middle option. That would be cheating. That's what supermarkets do: expensive one that almost no one wants, cheap one that's rubbish, middle one that everyone will buy.
We ought not to (and have no right to) insist on a minimum number of participants. But I think we'll get lots of participants anyway, so that's a misplaced concern.

The point is not to ask whether the TOU is policy. The point is to ask whether the disclosure provisions in the current COI should be policy. We need only that one question. Less than two-thirds majority for the alternative = TOU default. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:32, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

It's certainly gone off the rails if there are 3 choices given but only 2 could become policy. Completely unequal treatment in a very confusing format that has never been used before. At this point, I'll suggest

A standard format RfC, i.e. only one RfC at a time with only one choice of policy, the alternative just being that we keep the current policy (now the ToU). Other possible policies could have their own RfC's afterwards.
taking every step possible to publicize the RfC and increase participation
The first RfC should be on whether to strengthen the ToU. Why the strengthen option, which a lot of people have been dissing here? Well RfCs are supposed to have consequences. At the meta RfC only 20% did not want disclosure, the opinions of the 80% varied but it was clear that many, many of them wanted a stronger option. Let's narrow down what the 80% want, rather than focus on what the small minority wanted.
Whether or not the first RfC results in a policy being adopted, the "weaken" option can have its own RfC next. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 11:43, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

With all due respect to Isaac, I think that he's making his suggestion seem a bit more complicated than it is. It's basically the same approach as was taken at Meta, which was a simple choice and not an especially complicated discussion. It needs some fixing, but it can work. At Meta it was "Support, Support and make stronger, Support but NOT stronger, Oppose." A surprising number supported "support and stronger" so in fairness we should have that choice if we are going to have an RfC on this issue. As for whether adding "stronger" in a three-question RfC would be "cheating": well, I don't think it is. But those are the choices, and if being fair is "cheating" then my view is, don't have the RfC at all. I don't want one. There's no reason why we have to have one. But if we do, it should be to gauge community sentiment, and that can be done simply. Coretheapple (talk) 13:52, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

@Isaac, I generally agree with Bilby's comments above. Also, I don't believe it is necessary to have the "your preferences" section, or the extra sentences under C and D. I've been wavering about whether C is necessary, and right now I'm on the fence. If it's a red herring, then maybe it shouldn't be there at all. But given the surprising sentiment at Meta, I think D is essential. Coretheapple (talk) 14:14, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

People's opinions have to go somewhere, regardless of the name of the section. In the interest of clarity, it's important to remove ambiguity on what "stronger" (or "weaker") means. I believe the original choices at the Meta discussion were abstain, support, and oppose; participants chose to add other sections. The key purpose in providing a range of options that cover the whole spectrum and in encouraging participants to state all options they can support is so the result can be shown to clearly represent a consensus opinion; any dissenters cannot say their viewpoints were not available as a choice or not considered. I can revise the draft to highlight the chronology of events, namely, the modified Terms of Service coming into effect.

Perhaps some opinions from other disinterested parties should be solicited, to provide new input? isaacl (talk) 18:29, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

To disclose or not to disclose, that is the question

The comment above In any case, Mike Cline is actually a proponent of weaker restrictions than just "encourage disclosure". You might take up the issue of removing C with him. is actually incorrect. I am not a proponent of any particular disclosure/non-disclosure policy. I can live with anything the community decides, as long as it is an unequivocal disclosure policy. “Paid editors”, as defined by the new TOU, should be either required to disclose or not required to. If disclosure is required, then the community can decide how onerous the disclosure process is and what are the consequences for failure to disclose. The WMF has already created for us a disclosure methodology in the new TOU. The community could adopt that and save itself a lot of work. Because the WMF gave projects to option to develop alternatives, the “no disclosure” requirement is a viable alternative. Any disclosure methodology adopted by the community that is “stronger” than the TOU is also an alternative, but that is merely a stronger methodology of documenting disclosure, not a stronger disclosure requirement. “Paid editor” disclosure needs to be a binary requirement. Black or White. Disclosure is required or it isn’t. The only question this RFC needs to answer is whether or not “paid editors” are required to disclose or not. I strongly object to the current COI guidance which suggests “strongly encouraged to disclose” because that is not unequivocal and any element of it shouldn’t be part of this RFC. It is not a weaker disclosure requirement because while it may be good advice, it is not good policy nor is it a disclosure requirement. It’s the type of confusing and ill-conceived policy/guideline that no one but Wikipedia policy wonks understand and that allows COI zealots to target disfavored classes of paid editors, hound and cajole them into disclosure while giving a pass to their favored classes of paid editors. If I were forming the RFC questions they would read something like this:

A: The Wikipedia community should require paid editor disclosure in accordance with the language in the TOU and adopt guidelines and processes to implement those terms. (This would ratify the current TOU as community policy and pave the way to develop whatever additional guidelines or processes we might need to enforce this policy without creating more onerous disclosure methodology than that specified in the TOU.)
B: The Wikipedia community should require paid editor disclosure in accordance with the language in the TOU, but adopt more stringent disclosure guidelines and processes above and beyond those specified in the TOU. (This would ratify the current TOU as community policy and pave the way to develop whatever additional guidelines or processes we might need to enforce this policy and allow the creation of different/more onerous disclosure methodology than that specified in the TOU.)
C: The Wikipedia community should not require paid editor disclosure. (The community may instead provide advice to all classes of paid editors on why disclosure is useful, but such advice would not be policy and should not be used in any way to force disclosure.)

--Mike Cline (talk) 20:12, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Brief note on lack of progress

Several commentors above have referred to the community's repeated failure to come to a consensus on issues related to COI/paid editing, and the discussions above are a great example of that happening yet again. There are many strong opinions, and generally WP's foundational emphasis on trying to come to consensus gets thrown out the window when these issues are explicitly discussed. We are no where near a consensus even on shape and language of an RfC. I have suggested a few times that we all stand aside and ask Dank to lead the community through an RfC on the new ToU and into the larger issues. I would of course be open to somebody else who is experienced in leading the community in difficult discussions, but Dank is optimally positioned, as Dank closed all the (failed) policy proposals from last winter and offered to do this, at that time. That's still my suggestion for what it is worth. Jytdog (talk) 12:01, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

(ec) I don't think there's support on Wikipedia for much involvement from a closer before the close. Besides ... people are supposed to discuss things first, which you guys are doing, and if you can't arrive at consensus, then hold a discussion of some kind, a poll or short RfC, on the question of how to word the big RfC. (Of course, if that goes on too long, it may tire voters out even before they get to the big RfC ... I'd limit it to one or two weeks.) As a bonus, that would give me a chance to write a closing statement for the short discussion that summarizes the points from the seven discussions in November, particularly the policy-related ones. (I didn't do that when I closed in November because it wasn't necessary then. It seems to be necessary now.) I appreciate the effort you guys are putting into this, and it's paying off, as far as it goes. - Dank (push to talk) 12:19, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I think some common themes are emerging. I think there is general consensus (in terms of the interested parties can support, rather than this is everyone's first choice) in having an RfC that determines if the previous version of the conflict of interest guidelines has consensus support, and having one to see if there is consensus to generate a stronger set of criteria for disclosure. So how about proceeding with the idea of having a couple of RfCs for each of these questions, and then judging the overall consensus on the result of both of them together? isaacl (talk) 12:39, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

@Issacl - I think you are making this more complicated than it really is. The first question to be addressed is really simple--to disclose or not to disclose. All the details that must follow the answer to that question must be shelved until the question is answered. Although there are limited details to follow associated with the not to disclose position, there are essentially an unlimited number of things that might follow the "to disclose" position. I would ask the participants in this discussion to weighin in on whether or not they can take a position on the simple questions I posed above without knowing ALL the potential details necessary to implement the position. If we have to layout every possible scenario and detail before we decide to disclose or not to disclose, then any progress is doomed. I will also point out that the old guideline is absolutely irrelevant in moving forward. The new TOU (to disclose) is current project policy by default. If we chose "not to disclose", our follow on work is more about advice to "paid editors" than policy. If we chose "to disclose", our follow on work will be all about building the disclosure methodology and associated processes that we desire to implement. Is there anyone in this discussion that objects to the simple "to disclose or not to disclose" questions above? --Mike Cline (talk) 13:42, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, that is the first question I listed. Some editors have expressed the desire to state this in terms of the previous guideline. I'm all for simpler questions, but there have been a lot of desires expressed, and I'm just trying to balance them. isaacl (talk) 14:00, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Your work pulling this together is appreciated. Lets see if there are any major objections to answering these simple questions first. If there aren't then, I'd modify your draft RFC with these questions, eliminate any of the distracting follow-on options and proceed with the RFC. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:13, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

FYI, I've added my questions to the draft Rfc as an alternative to yours so that people can see the differences in one place. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:23, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I was thinking of distilling the choices into two questions—I would take more care with crafting the wording, but here's a quick draft:

Do you support replacing the paid contribution disclosure policy in the Terms of Use with a policy that does not require disclosure, though it is strongly encouraged?
Do you support replacing the paid contribution disclosure policy in the Terms of Use with a policy that specifies more stringent conditions requiring greater disclosure?

However, I can work with having all three options available in one question as well; I would try to make them as concise as possible. isaacl (talk) 16:24, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

@Isaacl, one of problems we have, which is very common in crowd sourced environments, is the inability to ask objective questions and get objective answers from a large contingent of people. People, who invariably have their own, biased and in their view supportable positions about the subject at hand, when confronted with poorly worded questions, tend to answer those questions in a way that just generate more questions without actually answering the question. Although I understand the intent of the two questions posed. The first one is flawed. If there is no requirement to disclose, there is no requirement to disclose. Categorizing “strongly encouraged to disclose” as a policy (enforceable?) is a mistake. It is not enforceable policy, if indeed there is no requirement to disclose. I would eliminate the reference to “encouraged to disclose” from the question. The second question is very straight forward, however the lack of a third question (adopting the default TOU position) leaves this opportunity. If any given community member chooses to not support either of the positions, then what is their position? You can only presume that they are supporting the default TOU, a presumption that may actually be wrong. If I were closing an RFC addressing these issues, I would much rather see very objective statements of policy alternatives that could be supported or opposed with straightforward objective positions that left little question as to what a person’s position was. Concise does not necessarily mean short. In this case it means, clear, objective, and to the point, leaving little room for misinterpretation. We know what the questions are, let’s ask them unequivocally and objectively. Let's make life easy for Dank. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:14, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I might think a certain approach is objective, but others have different views, and obviously I can't make a categorical statement that one way is more objective than another. Rest assured I understood your previous concerns, so please don't feel compelled to repeat them for my behalf. I think you can see from my lengthy draft that I agree that concise doesn't necessarily mean short, and from my previous statements that I would also like to avoid misinterpretation. I appreciate you may feel certain wording continues to exhibit shortcomings; there will be more opportunity to further refine it further, as long as we can get some agreement on general approach. Let's see what other people think. In the end, the wording may not be a complete match with anyone's ideal, but hopefully it will be close enough to be able to establish a clear consensus on what the community wants. isaacl (talk) 19:33, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I do object when people say that there is no consensus on the issue of paid editing. We just had the largest RfC in history with an overwhelming majority saying that paid editors must disclose their status and their paid edits. Saying that there is no consensus on this issue shows an astounding disrespect to the folks who participated there.

There is no consensus on how to format an RfC on showing the consensus in more detailed matters on paid editing. It seems that some people want a confusing method that has never been used before that might result in the current policy (the ToU) being reversed, but couldn't result in a strengthening of the policy. And some don't want to take steps to ensure wide participation in the RfC.

The only issue on formatting the RfC is how to avoid multiple confusing RfCs going on at the same time, as happened last year. It almost looks like some people think they can "win" an RfC by tactical means that split the community into tiny slivers and wearing down the community with multiple RfCs. All we really need is one basic RfC, well publicized, for the basic consensus to be shown. I've suggested a simple way we can have 2 basic RfCs going at the same time, but folks want to make that more complicated and confusing. No way can I accept that.

So it looks like we should only have one simple RfC going on at once. Respecting the current consensus, I suggest that it should be on the question of whether to strengthen the limits on paid editors.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:21, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

If people are regularly saying there's no consensus, then there's almost certainly no consensus. And "an overwhelming majority" does not equate to consensus; that's a fundamental tenet of Wikipedia. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:38, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Despite Jytdog using one of my talking points to support his argument, I disagree that we aren't making progress toward an RfC. Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Paid_contribution_disclosure_policy_RfC_1 is a decent start, I see it as a clearer version of what TParis' original RfC attempted to ask. I do share some of SV's concerns with it, but I think it's a suitable starting point. We need to collaborate on making an RfC, which means coming together and editing a proposal together instead of just kicking the ball back and forth in discussion, and I think we are slowly heading that way. Gigs (talk) 14:46, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I do object when people say that there is no consensus on the issue of paid editing. We just had the largest RfC in history with an overwhelming majority saying that paid editors must disclose their status and their paid edits. Saying that there is no consensus on this issue shows an astounding disrespect to the folks who participated there.

~75% is not an overwhelming majority and it's definitely not a consensus, especially since the vast majority of people participating where just one-time posters with little input other than their "vote". A major reason that Wikipedia operates on consensus(and not majority) is to respect the minority viewpoint as well, certainly the people who opposed the TOU do not feel "disrespected" by saying that a consensus does not exist given that they did not "consent" to this policy.AioftheStorm (talk) 17:10, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

1,103/1389=79.4%. If you want to approximate, 80% is a good number, but not 75%. If you don't accept 80% of the largest RfC in history saying that they want paid editing disclosed, then you have no idea what a consensus is. Pure disrespect as far as I'm concerned. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:16, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I didn't bother to calculate the percentages because I don't care to know accurately to %5 because consensus is explicitly not based off vote count. You do not have a consensus if editors have legitimate concerns which are unaddressed as is the case here. And besides, discussions are not transferable across Wikiprojects, unless you want us to adopt Commons new policy based off their discussions.AioftheStorm (talk) 04:52, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

@Smallbones, I am not quite sure what you are objecting too. My particular options A and B (I suspect) represent the consensus you seem to say already exists and option C does not. However, the Commons community decision to elect option C as their policy seems to suggest that total consensus for options A or B doesn't exist. I actually don't care what the community chooses, or whether or not it reflects past community consensus on disclosure. Until we put the question to the community, we won't know where it stands. This has got to be about the future of our paid editor policy, not the past. The 1st question to ask is "to disclose or not to disclose". We have no clue as to what potential RfCs might be needed until that question is answered. But if we ask biased, leading questions, based on one editors view of consensus, then we only confuse and obfuscate the real issues here. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:00, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

An RfC on a specific version of A (more restrictions), running at the same time as an RfC on a specific version of C (no disclosure) - with B - the current policy (ToU) being the default option in case both fail to get consensus would be fine with me.

What I do object to is a vague version of A vs. a specific version of C, where C could be passed as policy immediately, but A would require a second RfC. That would be disrespectful of the consensus.

Perhaps the best option is:

Just run a single RfC on a specific version of A that could be made policy immediately on achieving consensus. We could ask the participants to give more specific information by placing their !votes under specific headings, e.g. Support, but more restrictions should be added, Support as proposed, Support but would be ok with the current ToU, Support-other, Oppose, prefer the current ToU. Oppose, there should be no restrictions, Oppose-other.
Take all steps needed to get a big turnout.

That will get you all the information you need to pick the choices on the next RfC, if one is needed. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:39, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure you get this. Meta had an RFC - we did not. Meta had an RFC on a general policy to cover all Wiki projects, we have not had this RFC. We are going to discuss how to implement the ToU which might include invoking the exemption clause. It is not 'overturning' or 'overriding' the ToU or the consensus of the RFC to implement the exemption that is written in the ToU itself. Meta had 1,000+ participants. The English Wikipedia did not. We are here to discuss a local policy, not come up with a consensus on a new WMF ToU. It took 1,000 !votes from the entire WMF project base to create that consensus. We have a smaller pool and our policy isn't going to be as broad in governance. It is no disrespect at all to implement their policy, perhaps even the exemption, as written.--v/r - T P 00:53, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Smallbones, if it's a sticking point regarding what to ask in an RfC, an example of a more stringent disclosure provision than the ToU requires might be helpful. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:45, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Some of this has been mentioned above: Personal name disclosure; amount or nature of compensation disclosure; disclosure on the User talk page and the article talk page and the edit summary and in the user name, or some different combination thereof, eg, the article talk page and the edit summary, but not the user page, etc; some type of disclosure (note) on the face of the article; no disclosure, as long as you do not edit an article/policy/guideline directly, otherwise disclosures; separate disclosure requirements for different accounts. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:42, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

There are any number of possibilities, including a limit of one declared COI account in any one article. I raised that possibility earlier. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 15:00, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Limiting the numbers of COI accounts is likely to have severe disadvantages, I fear. bobrayner (talk) 16:58, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

The issue came up at an article where there were multiple COI users, all now blocked. I don't think it hurts to say that only one COI user is allowed to participate per article on behalf of the subject. Nonconflicted users can be swamped if there is a determined effort. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 15:18, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps a more realistic alternative is 1 conflicted account per article at a time with the provision that there may be no paid accounts if any previous paid accounts had to be blocked because of inappropriate behavior - username only blocks excluded.--v/r - T P 01:02, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, something like that. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 02:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Not at all; I'll just declare that I'm being paid by each of the Fortune 100, then ~~ransom~~ offer them my services. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:55, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I had a similar notion. Great minds think alike. bobrayner (talk) 19:03, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Closing this discussion

Latest comment: 10 years ago23 comments10 people in discussion

I asked twice at AN for closers and I've followed up on suggestions for closers; at the moment, it's still just me, but I'll welcome new closers at any time. Till then ... this discussion seems to be winding down, and I'll be closing this talk page discussions soon-ish and making suggestions on getting the RfC started. Any further thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 14:29, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Sure. In examining the possibilities there is one other that you should consider as closer (which is suggested by the large number of non participants here, and the no consensus stuff in our past). Do nothing. Live in it awhile. Let the usual accretion of experience with it build up over time, so choices become clearer. The sky has not and will not fall because of the TOU, and the passage of time works wonders in working things out. Patience is a virtue, as they say. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:17, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't think the time is ripe yet for an external closure yet; given the summer period and the various holidays in the United States and Canada, I'm assuming activity is slowing a bit. I'm still hopeful that the interested parties can come to a consensus. With a couple of notable dissenters, I think most people's expressed views on an initial RfC can roughly align with the suggested options from Mike Cline. SlimVirgin and Smallbones, I understand your points of view and your opinions on this matter. Can others who have not expressed their views on this newest proposal please chime in? isaacl (talk) 21:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Isaacl, I thought you came in here as a neutral 3rd party to try to find some way in finding a fair and practical way of moving an RfC forward. Your 3rd or 4th proposal to require a strengthened policy to go thru 2 RfC before being accepted as policy, but only requiring one RfC to totally eliminate the disclosure policy is just amazingly one-sided. You need to come up with something that passes the smell test. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:08, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The same basic procedure remains the same from the initial draft; the options have been modified to try to slim them down for simplicity. As I mentioned before, we should be able to get together and say, what would we like to do? OK, now, what would be the best way to do that? With that being determined, are we sure this is still what we'd like to do? If it is true that the policy in the current Terms of Use enjoys overwhelming support, well, let's establish that now, so we can stop discussing that question. If we find out it doesn't have consensus support, then let's discuss what policy can gain consensus. isaacl (talk) 04:24, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, the option for more requirements on disclosure describes them as "stringent" or "onerous". There's no need to use such words with negative connotations. No one who is advocating more requirements describes the requirements as "stringent" or "onerous". If an adjective is even needed, then use "more", "further" or "stronger." --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 22:11, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Certainly more work can be done to refine the wording. If you could offer an opinion on the general approach, though, it would be appreciated. (On a side note, personally, for me "stringent" doesn't necessarily have negative connotations, though "onerous" does. "More" doesn't necessarily mean the requirements will be stricter, and "stronger" lacks clarity. However, I'll keep working on ideas.) isaacl (talk) 22:21, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@Alanscotwalker. There’s no doubt that your approach—wait and see—has worked well in Wikipedia since its inception, but I wonder if it is the best approach here. If indeed, the new TOU on paid editor disclosure is policy (apparently no one disputes that), then I wonder. As an administrator on EN:WP, am I now free to demand disclosure of paid editors whom I believe fall under the “paid editor” definition in the TOU. Where are such demands made? What if a suspected “paid editor” refuses to disclose their organizational relationships? Can I block said editors indefinitely based on their suspected “paid editor” status? If I did that, where could they appeal and on what grounds? Would I defend my decisions based on the WMF TOU or some other policy? Would the WP community support my decisions or suggest that WP policy on “paid editor” disclosure was not consistent with the TOU and my decisions were not supportable with WP policy?

I don’t know or really care how @Dank might close this discussion. But what I think is essential is that the WP community is given the opportunity to explicitly choose whether a “paid editor” (as defined by the TOU) disclosure is required or not required. If it is required, then we have a lot of work to do to ensure that there are processes to ensure “paid editors” do indeed disclose, and those that don’t are duly dealt with. If it is not required, then there’s work to do to ensure we focus on good content, not editor relationships. I would strongly encourage @Dank, or any other closer to close this discussion in a manner that moves the ball. Let’s ask the community the question in light of the new TOU—Is disclosure of paid editor status (as defined by the TOU) required or not required? --Mike Cline (talk) 00:01, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

OK but I assume such an admin will do what they always (should) do, decide what and whether action is appropriate to improve the project (citing WP:TOU) or not (admins know where to talk to users and they tell people how to appeal blocks), and bring it to AN, if there is a sticky problem, and I assume Wikipedians will do what they always do, scream and holler, or back up the admin, or just go on. Of course, in that scenario there will be a real live case, with real facts, so everyone does not have to speculate about the future unknowns. It's kind of a common law approach where you refine real case by real case. If we have to build everything in a day, and have certainty about everything yesterday, than yes it's a bit trying. But try to envision where you might be going without such experience, if the past is guide for these RfC's you will likely get a no consensus ball of 100,000 words, and then we are still where we are, right here, with the TOU. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:06, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

@Alanscottwalker. What you describe is indeed the way of Wikipedia. But I question whether it applies in this circumstance. The WMF, through their change in the TOU, has indeed said that "paid editors" must disclose their status in one of three ways. Absent a consensus based alternative to that POLICY, that is by default, Wikipedia policy. Any legitimate actions by an administrator to enforce such policy, should by default, be embraced by the community. On what basis could it be opposed? Right now, no one can propose any disclosure and enforcement processes as an alternative to the WMF TOU mandated methodology, because the community hasn't ratified that "paid editor" disclosure is required or not required. If indeed an RFC results in a "no consensus" finding on that question, we will have a somewhat chaotic situation where a WMF mandated TOU requirement can be ignored or rigorously enforced on a whim. Is that the best way forward? --Mike Cline (talk) 01:32, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The difference is that previously policy gets built based on community practices that slowly build over time. This is being pushed by fiat of the WMF (with global WMF community input). Trying to implement something without a precedent is a suicide pact. Look at BLP - we still lose admins over misunderstandings of how to apply it. Look at the Chelsea Manning case for an example. That was pushed by fiat (Jimbo), and has since been heavily modified by the community, and we still deal with constant arguments about it's application. Whereas established practices like WP:N and WP:V are uncontroversial (for the most part).--v/r - T P 01:34, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

TParis, just to correct that misunderstanding, BLP was never a top-down policy. It was created and written by editors right from the start. The Foundation supported the concept of it (at a later date and perhaps from the beginning, I can't remember), but I'm not aware of any input from them. This TOU/paid editing policy is the only one I can think of that is completely top-down. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:56, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I've striken it out for now until I find whatever gave me the impression it was Jimbo's idea.--v/r - T P 03:06, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Note that last fall English Wikipedians banned accounts along these lines, well before the new TOU. So, it's not unheard of on English Wikipedia. [5]. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:04, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

No, those accounts were banned for other behaviors like WP:NPOV and WP:SOCK.--v/r - T P 03:03, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The approved proposal referenced disregard for the WP:COI disclosure guidelines and WP:COI is discussed more often than anything else in that discussion. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:47, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Note that there is no RfC outstanding here. It is just a discussion, so there is no need for closers. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:08, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Right, I'm confused about that too. There's no need for this discussion to be closed. What we need to do is post a very simple RfC, wait 30 days, then ask on WP:AN/RFC for someone to close it. It's a simple process that happens all the time. Smallbones, how about you and I put our heads together and come up with a decent question or two? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:20, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay, that's 3 comments in a row (including " I don’t know or really care how @Dank might close this discussion") that suggest that my involvement here is premature. I'm certainly not complaining. We've had a problem over the last couple of years with finding closers, before or after the end of difficult, community-wide RfCs, and that has interfered with the functioning of these difficult RfCs. If someone knows a good way to tackle this problem, I'm all ears. Anyway ... when I suggested closing the discussion, comments had slowed down, without any clear direction. There's plenty of activity here now, so ... call me if I can be of service, guys. - Dank (push to talk) 13:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I keep running into the same problem with the wording below - by describing it as "our current COI guideline" it feels a bit misleading, in that our "current" guideline is the Terms of Use, unless we agree to an alternative. So the choice is not between the Terms of Use and our current guideline, but the Terms of Use and our guideline as it existed before June 15 when the new ToU came into effect. I'd prefer to see this worded as a choice between the ToU and the old COI provisions, rather than the ToU and the current COI provisions. - Bilby (talk) 05:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Smallbones and SlimVirgin that there is no need to close this discussion, and with Bilby concerning the wording. Coretheapple (talk) 12:55, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Quoting the ToU, re the RfC suggestion below: "Applicable law, or community and Foundation policies and guidelines, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure.

"A Wikimedia Project community may adopt an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy."

First note that nothing is said about adopting an "alternative paid contribution disclosure guideline." At a minimum you'd have to promote WP:COI to a policy - and the wording might read very differently as a policy.

2nd note that policies and guidelines can supplement the ToU - i.e. "may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure." Nothing says that strengthening the restrictions on paid editing has to be done by an alternative policy. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:33, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, I'm feeling guilty about having started this section ... on reflection, it was very premature to talk about closing a discussion. I guess it was just a mind-burp. - Dank (push to talk) 21:03, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Other updates may be required

Latest comment: 10 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

FYI I was pointing out relevant info to a potential paid editor and noticed some other pages may need updating, e.g. Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations and Wikipedia:Best practices for editors with close associations and Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide. Helen Online 09:09, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Done, thanks for pointing that out. Jytdog (talk) 02:37, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

RfC suggestion 2

Latest comment: 10 years ago85 comments14 people in discussion

Version 1

Rough draft without links to be worded more carefully

The Wikimedia Foundation recently changed its Terms of Use to require that paid editors disclose who their employers or clients are. The disclosure provision is policy on all projects unless and until each project ratifies an alternative policy, which can be stronger or weaker than the Terms of Use. The Foundation requires that alternative policies be listed at meta:Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies.

This RfC asks two questions: (1) whether you support or oppose the Foundation's disclosure provision as policy for the English Wikipedia; or (2) whether you instead support or oppose the disclosure provision in the conflict-of-interest guideline as our policy. The two provisions are similar. The difference is that the Foundation requires disclosure of "employer, client, and affiliation," using the word must, while the COI guideline is less specific and uses the word should.

Seems a little to involved. The new TOU statement is to the point, the COI guideline is muddled. Why not first query whether editors favor adopting the mandatory disclosure called for in the new TOU?--Ubikwit^連絡_{見学/迷惑} 06:26, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I guess what I meant was to see whether the community wants to ratify the TOU as policy, because the only reason for a discussion otherwise is to implement an alternative. Since the TOU is policy as it stands, the procedure should simply focus on assessing whether there is substantial opposition to the TOU. That would seem unlikely, so ratifying the TOU would put the matter to rest. --Ubikwit^連絡_{見学/迷惑} 13:32, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

But do keep in mind that there is no need for the community to "ratify" the TOU. It is policy, as you point out, and nothing further need be done. Coretheapple (talk) 14:48, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely. My suggestion is aimed at simply settling the issue regarding those whom seem to find the ToU objectionable. As Smallbones mentions below, what really needs to be done is to make the guideline conformant to the ToU at this stage. Objections to the ToU seems to be impeding that.--Ubikwit^連絡_{見学/迷惑} 16:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

True, but we do keep in mind that no action is required of us by the Foundation. Coretheapple (talk) 16:30, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Version 1 continued

Question 1

1. The Foundation's Terms of Use disclosure provision is currently policy:

These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways:
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.

Do you support or oppose this as policy? (Note: The Foundation has said this is policy unless and until an alternative policy is ratified, no matter how many support or oppose it. This question is asked merely to judge where consensus lies.)

Support

Oppose

As has been pointed out, there is no "policy", only a Guideline, a policy would have to be establish after rejecting the TOU. I don't see that happening, so ratifying the TOU is a way to closure.--Ubikwit^連絡_{見学/迷惑} 13:36, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

A meaningless and improper question if no alternative is presented in the context of opposing or supporting the TOU. One can oppose the TOU because one thinks it's too strong or too weak. Coretheapple (talk) 13:08, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
I can't see having an RfC where if the supports prevail - then the ToU apply, and if the opposes prevail - then the current policy (the ToU) apply. Likely folks would read something else into this and it would simply become a source of confusion. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:54, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Version 1 continued

Question 2

2. Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest guideline disclosure provision says the following about disclosure (this is the current advice in the guideline and was in force until superseded by the new Terms of Use on 15 June 2014):

If you are receiving or expect to receive monetary or other benefits or considerations from editing Wikipedia as a representative of an organization (as an employee or contractor; as an employee or contractor of a firm hired by that organization for public relations purposes; as owner, officer or other stakeholder; or by having some other form of close financial relationship with a topic you wish to write about), then ... you should provide full disclosure of your connection, when using talkpages, making edit requests, and similar.

Do you support this as the English Wikipedia's alternative paid-editing disclosure policy? If yes, these words will be moved to a new policy page and listed at meta:Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies, as required by the Foundation. This will not affect the rest of the confict-of-interest guideline, which will remain a guideline.

Support

Oppose

Signing this to make clear that it's a draft, not an RfC. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:59, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Question 2 does not say with sufficient clarity that a "support" of this alternative would overturn the TOU. Also, as I mentioned before, it's unfair and unbalanced by not giving strengthening of the policy as an alternative. Since there is no requirement to hold a "referendum" or "plebiscite" on the TOU, since this is purely done to appease those who hate the TOU, if we're going to have an RfC with this kind of significance we should have one that provides more than "same" or "weaker" as the choices. Coretheapple (talk) 13:12, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
"you should provide full disclosure" does not sound like a policy (and a policy is required to overturn the ToU) so it should read "you must provide full disclosure." Also I don't believe that it is correct to say that the ToU superseded the guideline. The guideline is still in force, there are simply aspects of it that were made stronger by the ToU. It should be clear that the guideline should be made completely consistent with the TOU, as all guidelines should be consistent with all policies, but that's a matter about changing the guideline. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:04, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Version 2

The Wikimedia Foundation changed its Terms of Use (ToU) on 15 June 2014 to require that paid editors disclose the names of their employers or clients with respect to their paid contributions:

These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways:
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.

The Foundation stated that the ToU disclosure provision would remain policy on all projects unless and until each project ratified an alternative policy, which can be stronger or weaker than the ToU. The Foundation requires that alternative policies be listed at Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies.

This RfC asks two questions: (1) whether you support or oppose a stronger alternative policy; or (2) whether you support or oppose the weaker disclosure provision in the conflict-of-interest guideline.

If neither option (1 or 2) gains consensus, the ToU disclosure provision will remain policy.

Proposal 1

Commercial contributors are Wikipedia editors who are paid by businesses to write or edit on Wikipedia.
This definition includes, but is not limited to, employees, owners, and contractors of the following firms:

commercial businesses, when they are writing or editing about that business, its competitors, clients, or products.

public relations firms, when they are writing or editing about a client or related firms or topics.

commercial editing services, which advertise that they will write, edit, or monitor Wikipedia articles for a fee, or which advertise for Wikipedia editors to write or consult on such topics, when the employees, owners or contractors of the editing service are editing on topics related to the service's clients.

Commercial contributors must disclose their employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which they receive, or expect to receive, compensation, or which may otherwise be considered part of their job. They must make that disclosure in both the following ways:

a statement on their user page, listing every business that has paid them to edit and every article that they've edited for pay after July 1, 2014.

a statement including their employer, client, and affiliation in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions.

Commercial contributors may not edit Wikipedia articles, but may comment on talk pages.
Applicable law, or community and Foundation policies and guidelines, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid
contributions or require more detailed disclosure. Nothing in this policy supersedes or weakens the restrictions contained in Section 4 of the Terms of Use under the heading Paid contributions disclosure. Rather, the restrictions in this policy are in addition to those in the Terms of Use.

Do you support or oppose this as policy? If yes, these words will be moved to a new policy page.

Support

Oppose

Proposal 2

Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest (COI) guideline's paid-editing disclosure provision says paid editors should disclose their COI, rather than must, and does not request or require that they offer names of employers or clients. (This was in force until superseded by the new Terms of Use).

If the following applies to you:
you are receiving, or expect to receive, monetary or other benefits or considerations from editing Wikipedia as a representative of an organization (as an employee or contractor; as an employee or contractor of a firm hired by that organization for public-relations purposes; as owner, officer or other stakeholder; or by having some other form of close financial relationship with a topic you wish to write about),
then you should provide full disclosure of your connection, when using talkpages, making edit requests, and similar.

Do you support or oppose this as policy? If yes, these words will be moved to a new policy page and listed at Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies. (This will not affect the rest of the COI guideline, which will remain a guideline.)

Support

Oppose

Signing this to make clear that it's a draft, not an RfC. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:15, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Version 2 discussion

I agree that there's no need to ask that the TOU be ratified. I added that only because several people requested it. So I've redrafted, adding the new TOU to the top, with space for two questions: one stronger, one weaker. I assume we want the weaker one to be the current COI guideline. We could draft a weaker one still – no disclosure encouraged or required – but that would probably be a waste of time.
So the question is what a stronger disclosure policy would be than requiring names of employer/client. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:48, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Extended content

I know that things are getting cumbersome, perhaps necessarily, but what you just did "disconnected" comments people made from the specific things they were commenting on. I think it might be better if you could revert back to the old version, collapse the whole thing, and then put in your new version. How does that sound to you? I'm having some trouble following the evolution of this thing. Coretheapple (talk) 16:52, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

~~No strike that, it's not too bad. But I'm still getting dizzy. Maybe it's the heat. Coretheapple (talk) 16:53, 1 July 2014 (UTC)~~

I think it's clear enough which comment refers to which part of the draft. I'm just trying to get us to the point where we agree on a structure, then we can fill in more careful wording if needed. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:56, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

No, on the contrary, you've made it incomprehensible. I'm un-striking-out my objection. Look, you've got me and the others commenting on questions that don't exist anymore. Please revert and collapse, and then add your new suggestion. There is just no other way to do it and have a comprehensible discussion. Coretheapple (talk) 17:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

For example, when I say "A meaningless and improper question" I'm referring to an older version of Question 1 that you deleted. Coretheapple (talk) 17:03, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay, give me a few minutes. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:04, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Sure, and if it will simplify matters you can remove our little exchange here. thanks Coretheapple (talk) 17:07, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Done. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:15, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

You have the text of the ToU but where is the text of the existing COI guideline before changes? The part that says "strongly encouraged"?--v/r - T P 17:46, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Very strongly discouraged was about not editing articles directly. The disclosure provision was should before the recent changes (and still). See, for example, this version from January:

"If either of the following applies to you ... blah, blah ... then you are very strongly discouraged from directly editing Wikipedia in areas where those external relationships could reasonably be said to undermine your ability to remain neutral. If you have a financial connection to a topic – including, but not limited to, as an owner, employee, contractor or other stakeholder – you are advised to refrain from editing affected articles directly.
"You may use the article talk pages ... blah, blah ... You should provide full disclosure of your connection, when using talkpages, making edit requests, and similar. ..."

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:25, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Ahh, thank you for pointing out my confusion.--v/r - T P 18:59, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I've added a proposed policy under Question 1. I do not think that folks who do not want to strengthen the current policy should dictate what should be in the stronger policy. Folks who wish to discus changes to this proposal should go to User:Smallbones/Comcon.

I did add something to Question2 "This policy removes the requirement that paid editors disclose their paid edits." which is the intent stated in several comments. But that intent was only given in the proposed policy by "you should provide full disclosure of your connection, when using talkpages, making edit requests, and similar," which is a remarkably subtle way of saying "no disclosure is required." Indeed, many people could read it as saying that disclosure is required.

Another thing that must be settled before we go ahead with this is that we should clearly state that "All possible measures will be taken to publicize this RfC." (no mumbling allowed). Otherwise this will look like an attempt to get 40 paid editors together to overturn a policy supported by 1,103 folks at meta. Even giving the impression we were trying to do that would be insulting those folks and invalidate the RfC as far as I'm concerned. What do folks here have against getting the broadest possible participation here? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:07, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, we should publicize it widely (CENT, watchlists, etc), but I think attracting comments will not be a problem. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:18, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Smallbones, there's a problem with proposal 1. It's identical to the Terms of Use, except for "Commercial contributors may not edit Wikipedia articles, but may comment on talk pages." Two problems with that: (1) it's not connected to disclosure; and (2) it has no hope of gaining consensus. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:28, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Proposal 1 differs from the terms of use in several ways

It only addresses commercial editors, who we all know are the problem, rather than the general run of paid editors
It requires them to disclose in 2 ways (not "1 of 3 ways"), so that we can keep track of what they are doing
It keeps them off article pages

Since the ToU were presented in the RfC as "Paid contributions and disclosure" I don't feel that there is anything out-of-bounds here, just a strengthening the rules for a subset of the paid contributors

This is just a narrower version of the Bright-line rule which had wide acceptance, if not complete consensus. I'd be very, very surprised if it doesn't have majority support and likely a full consensus now. Of course, many people were very surprised at the 80% of !votes for the new ToU, but they shouldn't be. Who wants to let commercial editors ruin the encyclopedia with their ads?

Thanks for saying that we should widely publicize this. Banner notification is the obvious way to go. Most editors avoid the drama that gets accessed via CENT and the narrower ways of publicizing RfCs. They would just rather edit - but they do care about this issue. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:54, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Just so we're clear, you've insisted on using a Wikipedia wide banner for this discussion. These banners also show to logged-out users. I think that would attract a large number of unregistered COI editors. I've said so two other places. I'm perfectly okay with a banner, but I've also listed other avenues that would not attract COI editors such as watchlist notices, CENT, the village pump, and wikiprojects. As you still intend to use a Wikipedia banner, which again I am perfectly okay with, I just want to know that you have no plans to claim COI editors bludgeoned the process afterwards. You were given thrice, now, warning of what a Wikipedia banner would attract.--v/r - T P 23:15, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

We should be attracting COI editors as this discussion will directly affect them. My only problem with site-wide banners is the potential to attract hordes of people not involved with the community and who the outcome of the RFC will have no effect on coming in and "casting their vote" without reading the RFC or contributing anything to the discussion. That said I think a watchlist notice or site-wide banner would be best just for their ability to gather a broad range of the community.AioftheStorm (talk) 01:07, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Smallbones, proposal 1 doesn't work well. It isn't clear enough as written, "commercial businesses" isn't explained (and it would exclude lots of paying groups that need to disclose too), and it includes not crossing the bright line, which isn't about disclosure and won't gain consensus. This is an RfC to develop an alternative disclosure policy, nothing else. Bright line and disclosure are separate issues – we could have weak disclosure and strong bright line, and strong disclosure and no bright line – so bright line is best dealt with in its own RfC.
Regarding banner notification, there are site notices for the logged-in (edtitors) or logged-out (readers). The latter wouldn't be appropriate for this RfC because the distinctions won't be clear enough to people not involved. (If you want to hold a later RfC about bright line, you could seek consensus to do that with a site notice that includes the logged-out.) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:36, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm still not sure I follow this. Are you saying that the ToU are to be integrated into the RfC by default with respect to mandatory disclosure and that the aim is a stronger disclosure policy? I still see the term "should" being used above instead of "must", so it's a bit confusing.

It might be helpful to explicity define the "bright line rule" and the default disclosure policy (i.e., ToU) at the top of the RfC so that people can easily compare and contrast those to the proposals you intend to put forth.--Ubikwit^連絡_{見学/迷惑} 06:14, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

To address SlimVirgin's point, in the line that says "Commercial contributors are Wikipedia editors who are paid by businesses..." I would broaden that to mean "Paid advocacy contributors are Wikipedia editors who are paid by corporations, organizations, governments, individuals and others that wish to use Wikipedia for promotion." I would use similar language to broaden the remainder of that question. By the way, I just wanted to alert everybody to the phenomenon known as "July 4" in the U.S., so the contributions of myself and others is likely to become sporadic in the days ahead. Coretheapple (talk) 15:44, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Version 2, for instance, says "The Foundation stated that the ToU disclosure provision would remain policy on all projects". I've searched for the word "policy" in the TOU and the FAQ on paid editing, and the word "policy" is only used in sentences like "A Wikimedia Project community may adopt an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy". ~~Can someone direct me to where someone speaking for the Foundation has asserted that the new Terms of Use constitutes or creates a new "policy" on all the projects?~~ To be clear ... I'm not pushing back against the Foundation here; if that's what they want to say, then we should report that. - Dank (push to talk) 11:32, 2 July 2014 (UTC) (And before someone says "it's the same thing", I'm not personally aware that this has been asserted by anyone before ... though I wouldn't be the guy to ask, I generally stick to the English Wikipedia and stay away from the foundation-l mailing list. But I'm aware from policy discussions that we would sometimes ask the legal department for an opinion on things like child protection, prohibiting non-admins from seeing deleted material, and the "no legal threats" policy ... and we certainly didn't get a response of "Oh don't worry about that, we've got it covered in the Terms of Use" ... they were adamant that we had to deal with those things directly on Wikipedia. And, they're right of course ... the community has dealt with tension between the TOU and policy in completely different ways than it has dealt with tensions between two policies, and Wikipedians often cite policy and rarely cite the Terms of Use. ~~So, unless someone shows me that someone speaking for the Foundation has said something different, I have to assume that they didn't intend "Terms of Use" and "policy" to mean the same thing.~~) - Dank (push to talk) 12:13, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not an attorney, but I believe that the ToU are the equivalent of a Constitution, as it is in effect a contract between WMF and users of Wikipedia.

Community created policies are the equivalent of subordinate statutes. Anything in the ToU is automatically a superordinate policy, and any community based policy would generally have to be conformant to the ToU. This is the only case I've head of where there is an opt out clause if an alternative policy is explicitly adopted by the community.--Ubikwit^連絡_{見学/迷惑} 12:55, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedians have always reacted more strongly and more often to policy pages than to the TOU. Foundation people are well aware of this, and have insisted in the past that some things be written directly into policy. ~~If they had meant for all or some of the new TOU to be a Wikipedia"policy", then they would have said "policy". Did they?~~ - Dank (push to talk) 13:01, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Read again, for example, "A Wikimedia Project community may adopt an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy" If you have to adopt an alternative policy to contravene the TOU than it must already be in force in the policy's place, which is of course course what a terms of use is and consistent with the fact that WP:TOU is English Wikipedia policy. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:12, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Many policies on the English Wikipedia started as alternatives to other things, such as guidelines; the fact that they were conceived as alternatives doesn't mean that the thing they replaced was an English Wikipedia policy. And, in my experience, when Foundation people have wanted something to be a policy on English Wikipedia (per my examples), they've had no difficulty saying so; they haven't assumed everyone would get that from the word "alternative". And: why is anyone trying to guess what they meant? I don't buy that it's difficult to figure out here, but if I'm wrong, we can just ask Tretikov (the new ED). - Dank (push to talk) 13:27, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

As I said, when the TOU disclosure policy was adopted for all Wikimedia projects of which this is one, and during the time it was under discussion and board consideration, English Wikipedia already had WP:TOU in its policy. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:51, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

@Dank, it is an interesting question, but one that Alan addresses well from a practical standpoint. But there is also: Wikipedia:Terms_of_use and Wikipedia:Wikimedia policy. The TOU may not be explicit in saying it is project policy, but there's ample implicit wording to believe it is. --Mike Cline (talk) 13:28, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I have no objection at all if Version 2 says "This is now policy on the English Wikipedia per Wikipedia:Terms_of_use and Wikipedia:Wikimedia policy", because that says what you mean by "policy". Otherwise, my experience with policy discussions tells me that voters are going to misunderstand what you're saying ... if all they see is the word "policy", they're thinking of some page on Wikipedia (that already exists or that someone has said is supposed to exist) that they can read and edit and argue over and compare with other policy pages, a page whose history reflects the positions of the community. The Foundation didn't say that ... and it's not at all a given that they even want that. (Btw, I'm just using Version 2 as an example, I have no preference.) - Dank (push to talk) 14:14, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I think you raised a valid point. We need to be precise. But yes, as discussed, it is policy. Coretheapple (talk) 15:27, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah ... sorry about that, I wasn't clear at all. I agree with you guys that per Mike's links, the word "policy" properly has to include the TOU. What I was trying to say is that it seems significant how careful the Foundation was to avoid asking us to create a policy page, to the point of avoiding even the mention of the word "policy", except in the context of an alternative policy (probably because they know that "policy" conjures up the idea of "policy page" around here). It seems significant because it's the opposite of what they've asked for in the past. All I'm saying is ... in text where we're trying to represent their position, if they were extra careful for some reason, then we should be careful too. - Dank (push to talk) 16:11, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I agree with you on that. Interesting point about not being asked to create a policy page. Maybe it was an oversight. No disrespect to the Foundation, and I'm no lawyer, but the discussions here bear out that it was not exactly a model of clarity and careful drafting. Coretheapple (talk) 16:18, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Version 3

This version contains one proposal only, for the sake of clarity.

Preamble

The Wikimedia Foundation changed its Terms of Use (ToU) on 15 June 2014 to require that paid editors disclose the names of their employers or clients with respect to their paid contributions. The Foundation states that the ToU disclosure provision will remain the default policy on all projects unless and until each project ratifies an alternative disclosure policy, which can be stronger or weaker than the ToU. The Foundation requires that alternative policies be listed at Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies.

The Terms of Use paid-editor disclosure provision is:

These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways:
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.

Proposal

This RfC asks whether editors prefer instead to promote to policy the disclosure provision in Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest (COI) guideline. This says paid editors should disclose their COI, rather than must, and does not request or require that they offer names of employers or clients. (This was in force until superseded by the new Terms of Use).

If the following applies to you:
you are receiving, or expect to receive, monetary or other benefits or considerations from editing Wikipedia as a representative of an organization (as an employee or contractor; as an employee or contractor of a firm hired by that organization for public-relations purposes; as owner, officer or other stakeholder; or by having some other form of close financial relationship with a topic you wish to write about),
then you should provide full disclosure of your connection, when using talkpages, making edit requests, and similar.

Do you support or oppose this as policy? If yes, these words will be moved to a new policy page and listed at Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies. (This will not affect the rest of the COI guideline, which will remain a guideline.) If this proposal does not gain consensus, the Terms of Use disclosure provision will remain the default policy.

Support

Oppose

Signing this to make clear that it's a draft, not an RfC. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:09, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Version 3 discussion

Support I have reservations, but SlimVirgin has put enough work into this that my minor issues arn't important.--v/r - T P 23:12, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Support: I am supporting this version of the question so as to move things along. Although the intent of the question is straight forward, anyone who supports adopting "strongly encouraged to disclose" as the project's disclosure policy misunderstands the definition of "policy". It would be much simpler to say "disclosure is not required." That is a policy statement, free from subjective advice that can be used to cajole and browbeat disfavored classes of editors into disclosure, even though it is not required by policy. One cannot promote advice to policy unless such advice is unequivocal. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Support: it is clean, simple, and well worded.AioftheStorm (talk) 02:34, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Oppose This is worded in a manner that guts the ToU. If it is solely a question of disclosure, then simply changing "must" in the ToU statement to "should" might represent a more accurate scope if "disclosure" is the sole target of the RfC. Also, has it been confirmed with someone in the legal department at WMF whether the wording of the RfC proposal would be conformant with the relevant laws? How broad is a scope is there for modifying the ToU vis-a-vis disclosure? Is it the case, as CorporateM states above, that
A disclosure is required by law
If so, then obviously it is not a question of "must" or "should" but of "what".

It seems that the wording has to be further developed, based on the ToU and much more nuanced than what there was in the old guideline.--Ubikwit^連絡_{見学/迷惑} 09:14, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Agree that something along the lines of "Applicable law may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure" is needed. Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:30, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

No one has yet to actually point to a law. Several FCC guidelines have been mentioned but not laws. And no lawyers are present either.--v/r - T P 17:28, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Why are people ivoting in this draft discussion? As to the draft, what's the point of a characterization of a purported difference between 'should' and 'must'? Moreover, this part is misstated, "does not request or require, etc", because the actual language is "provide full disclosure of your connection", so that sentence would need to be changed, at the least, to just say what the language is, not what it is not. Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:20, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not clear as to what you are questioning regarding the distinction between "must" (mandatory) and "should" (optional). The ToU states "must", the guideline "should".--Ubikwit^連絡_{見学/迷惑} 09:28, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Just that if a rule says you should do something, what's optional about it? Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:33, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

It's ambiguous, leaving room for interpretation.--Ubikwit^連絡_{見学/迷惑} 10:03, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Then perhaps that draft prefatory clause needs to read: ". . .,rather than must or may." In addition, to the other things mentioned. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:08, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

To me it is clear that "should" means you are not required to make any disclosures but other editors may have legitimate reasons for objecting to your editing. "Must" means lack of disclosure is a breach of policy. Thincat (talk) 11:22, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

What are they objecting to, other than you should make a disclosure. If you do not do something you should, that is also a breach of policy (particularly where the rule says you should). Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:37, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, objecting to the editing behaviour but unable to (legitimately) object that there has been a breach of policy. I think other people are drawing a distinction between the words in a way that you are not. In the world of IT here is pretty much the standard definition of the differences though that in no way governs us. Also, I (thinking there is a difference) recently made an edit here and it was reverted here and discussed here with all three of us thinking there is an important difference. Thincat (talk) 12:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

As the dominant and primary meaning of the word in the English language is in reference to obligation than it is just foolish to expect it to mean some secondary and adjunct meaning, especially in the context of a rule meant for everyone. But even if you are able to lawyer about it, when other Wikipedians are going, in policy, 'you should do something', not doing it is expressly breaching what they want you to do. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:56, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I think a lot of the issue came from this being a guideline, rather than a policy, as much as from different understandings of what "should" means. Which raises a question. If a policy says that you "should" disclose, is that really significantly different from a policy that says that you "must" disclose? We haven't generally been enforcing the guideline before, (in part because it was just a guideline), and we are now enforcing the ToU (based on at least one block made under it), but if the old guideline becomes policy does it then become enforceable as well? - Bilby (talk) 14:12, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Oppose Two issues. (1) in the preamble "paid editors" should be "people who are paid to make edits" (or similar). (2) No stipulation at all is made for edits to articles (only for edits to talkpages, making edit requests, and similar). I realise this is simply a slight miswording but it seems to me this draft is very much missing out on the "with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation" aspect. Very many thanks to SlimVirgin for working on this (I am personally very pleased you are doing so). Thincat (talk) 11:03, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
- Agreed about "paid editors", since those words mean something completely different to non-Wikipedians. - Dank (push to talk) 13:50, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

- For consistency with the TOU, we ought to be using the term "paid contributions" instead of "paid editor". The former links a compensated (indirectly or directly) editor to specific contributions while the later merely states the editor is being compensated. I've irreoneously used "paid editor" above when all along it should have been "paid contributions". Do paid contributions require disclosure or not? That still remains the first question we need to answer.--Mike Cline (talk) 14:15, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose Confusing, as "should" and "must" are essentially identical, and fails to offer stronger alternative. Smallbones' is fine. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 14:09, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Version 4

This version contains one proposal only, for the sake of clarity. It is similar to Slimvirgin’s proposal in many ways but asks a much more succinct question that should result in clear alternatives or next steps for the community once answered.

Preamble

The Wikimedia Foundation changed its Terms of Use (ToU) on 15 June 2014 to require that paid editors disclose the names of their employers or clients with respect to their paid contributions. The Foundation states that the ToU disclosure provision will remain the default policy on all projects unless and until each project ratifies an alternative disclosure policy, which can be stronger or weaker than the ToU. The Foundation requires that alternative policies be listed at Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies.

The Terms of Use paid-editor disclosure provision is:

These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways:
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.

Proposal

This RfC asks whether editors prefer to adopt the Wikimedia TOU as its paid contributions disclosure policy. This requires editors making paid contributions to disclose their COI in accordance with the methodologies outlined in the TOU.

Do you support or oppose adopting the TOU language as community policy? If yes, Wikipedia:Terms of use (no change required) will reflect the Wikimedia TOU as our “paid contribution disclosure policy”. Our COI guideline, which will remain a guideline, may also be updated to reference this policy, any procedural issues necessary to implement and enforce this policy, and any best practices or advice relevant to editors making paid contributions.) If this you oppose adopting the TOU paid contribution disclosure required as Wikipedia community policy, then please indicate as concisely as possible which of the following policy alternatives the community should pursue in later discussion:

Alternative 1: Wikipedia should adopt no disclosure requirements for editors making paid contributions.
Alternative 2: Wikipedia should adopt a stronger disclosure requirement than outlined in the TOU for editors making paid contributions.

Support
Oppose (if oppose, please concisely state your preferred alternative disclosure requirement)

Signing this to make clear that it's a draft, not an RfC. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Version 4 discussion

Support as proposer knowing full well that those editors desiring a stronger disclosure policy will fear the potential result of this question. But I am confident that if the question the RFC asks is answered by the community, who ever closes the RFC will have little trouble in making whatever recommendations are necessary to implement the communities' decision. This will clearly and concisely move the ball forward. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Support. Far better than Version 3, per nominator's rationale except that I believe his expectations concerning persons desiring a stronger disclosure policy are misplaced. Version 3 was flawed by providing two alternatives that were essentially identical, except that one featured "softer" wording. I feel that would have confused editors and skewed the outcome. It also failed to provide a fair means of airing the views of editors desiring a stronger result. This proposal is simple but fair. Props to Mike Cline for this straightforward and common sense solution. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 15:50, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Comment This is definitely concise and much better, but I think it should incorporate language to the effect that Alternative 1 effectively means overturning the ToU. That is a point that I believe deserves a little more weight. It should be emphasized that the ToU is policy and is already on the books. Moreover, I don't believe we've answered the real world legal question as to whether applicable laws in fact require disclosure. If they do, implementing a policy saying that the community doesn't require it would be mute--or so it would seem.--Ubikwit^連絡_{見学/迷惑} 16:01, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

There may indeed some real world legal questions that the WMF might have to address, but I doubt they are applicable just to Wikipedia. There is precedent for a "no disclosure policy" emanating from the TOU change that appears to have passed WMF scrutiny: Commons Paid Disclosure Policy. If there are nuanced legal distinctions between paid contributions of imagery versus encyclopedic content then we will have to hope that the WMF makes those nuances clear to the community. Otherwise, as we are not here to make legal judgments, we need to proceed with the question. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:23, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

If the community decides on a "no disclosure" policy, then that's that. There is nothing in the TOU that prohibits such an outcome. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 16:45, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that, as this is a vastly more complex site than the Commons. At any rate, it is something that WMF would weigh in on, as necessary.

Since this is basically an RfC that will acknowledge and ratify the new ToU or adopt one of two alternatives, this proposed text would be representative of the overall scenario, with minor elaborations and adjustmens to the wording for ease of understanding and clarification.--Ubikwit^連絡_{見学/迷惑} 18:54, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

If the WMF wishes to weigh in on the outcome, it can. We tend to our knitting, they tend to theirs. The sky won't fall under any particular scenario. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 20:49, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I want to avoid any awkwardness that might result if the closers see it one way and the Foundation sees it another ... they're unlikely to allow people they don't know to amend their ToU if they're in violent disagreement. So if the vote is close, and the closers think it's going against the Foundation's ToU, my first step will be to contact Tretikov for an opinion and see if the closers can find some common ground with the Foundation. I'm really hoping it's not such a close call, of course. - Dank (push to talk) 21:11, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Dank, can you say what you mean here by your "first step"? (Has it been agreed who will close it?) Also, the Terms of Use say that if we choose an alternative, that alternative becomes the policy. We don't need further permission from the Foundation so long as we have consensus. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:38, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

I mistyped the ping there, and as I understand it, pings only work if a new sig is added after each correction, so pinging Dank again. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:41, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Sure, I meant that in that unlikely event, the first thing would be to contact the WMF (Tretikov or designated contact), the second thing would be to consider their input (not on the issues, but on whatever was driving us to different conclusions on whether consensus had been reached) when talking with the other closers. I'm really hoping, of course, that the outcome will be clearly one way or the other ... not just for my sake, but because policy doesn't work well unless a lot of WPians support it. No one has discussed who will close yet; I asked twice at WP:AN for volunteers and got one response from a guy who had to back out. It wouldn't offend me a bit if people would prefer I not close, I've got plenty to keep me busy, but I'm available if I can help. On your last question ... that's my understanding too, and I certainly hope the Foundation will honor that, I think we're all going into this RfC assuming that if we just operate in the usual way, they'll respect the outcome. That's one reason I'm offering to close this one ... I can't say that I have any pull with the Foundation, but a lot of people who now work with the Foundation have worked with me over the years ... hopefully that will count for something if I have to make a tough call. OTOH, as I said ... they're unlikely to allow people they don't know to amend their ToU if they really don't see it the same way, so I don't want to go in with guns blazing, I think a better approach would be to ask for their viewpoint, if we're in disagreement. - Dank (push to talk) 01:37, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Dank, thanks. I'm wondering if you might be too involved to close it? (I'm not sure about that, but you've commented a fair bit here.) Regarding asking the Foundation for input before the close, the Terms of Use say that its provision is the default until an alternative is chosen. The alternative must be "approved by the relevant Project community and listed in the alternative disclosure policy page." That page says we must follow the project's "standard consensus-based process for establishing core policies." So what's what we should do. We shouldn't ask the Foundation for any form of permission, so long as we follow the standard procedure.

The standard procedure is to post a proposed policy, open an RfC for 30 days, advertise on CENT and watchlists if desired, then ask an uninvolved editor (perhaps three) at WP:AN/RFC to close it.

The crucial thing is that we avoid asking anything that will strongly incline toward a certain outcome. For example, asking an unclear question that is guaranteed not to gain consensus. Asking for only a very strong or a very weak altermative, which will not gain consensus. Notifying non-logged-in users who won't understand the implications. The RfC must be clean and precise, with wide notification to editors, but not beyond. (If Smallbones wants to hold a second RfC about the bright line with notification to non-logged-in readers, that's a separate issue, because you don't need to know anything about the community to say yes or no to that, but for the disclosure issue you do.) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:28, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Dank's asked procedural questions and clarifications; personally I don't feel it is indicative of an involvement with the subject. At this point, I think starting with a single basic question with a narrow scope is going to satisfy the most people. For better or worse, though, I suspect a broader audience for the question will produce a better basis for a clear consensus. isaacl (talk) 03:22, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

That's all very reasonable, SV. I don't have a position on disclosing paid editing (certainly not one that trumps my commitment to policy and consensus-finding), and I hope that came through in the discussions when I was closing the COI RfCs in November. For you or for anyone who has concerns about me, maybe we can handle that on my talk page. ~~If there are no questions, I'll wait till the 30 days runs and then we'll see who's available to close.~~ - Dank (push to talk) 03:36, 4 July 2014 (UTC) Slept on it, changed my mind. The methods I use to try to close big RfCs aren't the right methods for this problem; for one thing, they require that both sides be generally on board with the methods, and this problem is too divisive and the community is too divided for my usual approaches to work here. Sorry guys. - Dank (push to talk) 11:10, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Oppose Three options are given. Option 1 has 10 sentences and a quote and a full explanation of what it means with a full argument on why it should be adopted, options 2 and 3 have 1 sentence each and don't make any argument for adoption at all. In fact, if I were not reading this carefully, I could have easily missed the alternate options.--v/r - T P 17:32, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose. I don't understand Version 4. It says there is one proposal, but then offers three, none of them the current provision in the COI guideline (the status quo ante). First, there is no point in asking whether people want the ToU. If they say no, it will make no difference. The only thing that will make a difference is if they support an alternative to it; the Foundation has said the ToU is policy until an alternative gains consensus. The alternatives Version 4 offers are (a) an unspecified stronger provision, and (b) no disclosure at all. Neither is likely to gain consensus; therefore the ToU will remain the default.
If the RfC is structured to achieve no consensus, i.e. the maintenance of the default ToU, there is no point in holding an RfC. The only question that might gain consensus is "do you want what we had before the ToU kicked in?" That is Version 3. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:34, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

It seems like only COI contributors are in favor of the non-disclosure text of the old (and superseded Guideline), so it seems that the purpose you see for proposing the RfC is to rollback the ToU. The old Guideline was muddled (I've already said that) and it doesn't mandate disclosure. The muddled wording of the old Guideline is obsolete, thankfully. We can thank the ToU and its drafters for that. So the only question that should be posed in the COI is do we want stronger or weaker disclosure rules than the ToU, which is policy now. Pretending that the entire set of problematic circumstances that resulted in the WMF having to address the issue didn't happen seems somewhat off track.

My view is obviously that disclosure is necessary and mandatory, anything less than that would put us back in the same situation before the problems occurred in the first place. The RfC should not be worded in such a manner as to present the ToU as being in error and the old Guideline correct. That is most definitely not the case, or there wouldn't have been problems in the first place, but I digress.--Ubikwit^連絡_{見学/迷惑} 11:46, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, what you don't seem to understand is that Alternative 1 in fact is a reiteration of the current guideline. Disclosure is only requested, not mandated, and as a guideline and not policy it is widely ignored and there are no repercussions if COI editors violate the rules. They do it every day, with no sanctions. No one has ever blocked solely on the grounds of "violated COI guideline." Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 14:04, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Expand coverage Instead of These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. I would suggest
- The intent of the Terms of Use with regard to Conflict of Interest is to prevent deceptive activities of any sort on any article in which an editor has any financial or other benefit, direct or indirect, not disclosed fully to the community.
The fact is that we should not diminish the WMF requirements, IMO, but extend them to cover all COI editors who do not openly state their interests. Collect (talk) 13:24, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

How do freelance or self-employed paid editors fit under ToU disclosure requirements?

Latest comment: 10 years ago18 comments9 people in discussion

Complicated issue. ToU says: "you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation." What about "individuals" here? There are two main things I could see happening in the real world. First one, an individual sets up a company (Sole proprietorship or a simple Limited liability company) and does business through that; second one, individual contracts directly and personally with clients that pay him or her. (There is a third wrinkle, where a company like Wiki-PR chooses to contract with an editor rather than hiring him/her per se, but in my mind that situation is clearly enough "employer" that I don't anticipate big debate there). But as to the other cases, I think that the disclosure should be: employer = self (or name of incorporated company); client = client; affiliation = none beyond the first two (if the client is truly arms' length to the individual -- if not then the affiliation to the client should also be disclosed). I think others have different opinions on this. If so, shall we seek the intention of the WMF to get clarification? NOTE - My intention (for what it is worth) is that this is a question about the ToU as is - not a discussion about how to change it. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 17:51, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

A bit of clarification; there is at least one case I can think of where I am not sure if the subject of the article even knew I was hired to improve their page. It is not accurate to say I have an affiliation with them, rather than a private non-notable BLP that as far as I know may not even want the article-subject knowing. There are also more confusing cases where rather than accept a prospective client, I advise them that the page should be deleted and facilitate that in a professional capacity, but am not actually being financially compensated (pro bono work basically). I have also disclosed in other cases where whether I have a COI or am being financially compensated is ambiguous and it would require personal information to explain.

To what extent splitting hairs and trying to cover every possible scenario is a worthwhile exercise is up for debate, but it seems the TOU is basically an anti-Wiki-PR statement, whereas many prolific volunteers will also from time-to-time take a few bucks on the side and also need to disclose in the same manner. The FTC's language "financial connection" is actually broader and less prone to loopholes as the TOU language, because it more clearly applies to marketing pros and others that may not be directly compensated for their edits, but do so out of interest in making their clients happy as 1% of an overall marketing program.

Anyways, I plan to bow out of the discussion at this point to avoid over-burdening it with my own vested interest, but please ping me if my presence is requested for some specific reason. I don't think these issues are as important as they may seem, basically because they are technicalities that represent nuanced differences between the spirit and intention of the TOU and the exact, precise, definitive meaning of it. CorporateM (Talk) 19:55, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

I have appreciated your contributions, CorporateM.Jytdog (talk) 21:01, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm in the same boat CorporateM. I seriously doubt Dennis Lo has a clue he even has a Wikipedia article - let alone I was involved in any way.--v/r - T P 20:06, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Jytdog, I don't know what others think, but it seems to me that saying "I'm self-employed" would be a sufficient disclosure of "your employer". I don't think that the name of an actual, identifiable human should be necessary. You'd say, for example, that you were self-employed and that your client was the Queen of England, or that you were self-employed, that your own client was Mallory Middleman, and that Mallory's client was the subject's archnemesis (or whatever facts fit the situation). I don't think that it would be necessary to say "I am employed by Bob Smith, aka Jytdog".

Even if you feel comfortable assuming complete honesty, this system seems a bit easy to game: you could take a page from the self-published authors and create a "company" (or at least a doing business as name), that "employs" you, and then tell any non-corporate clients to do the same. So it'll never be WhatamIdoing, an individual, hired by Jytdog, an individual, to clean out the backlog of interest. Instead, it will always be WhatamIdoing, employee of "Strict Compliance, Inc", hired by some unnamed person over at "Clean Hands Company". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

"I am self-employed" makes sense to me. I had understood there was some concern with having to name the actual company which in the case of a self-owned company would be self-outing. I like your suggestion. thanks! Jytdog (talk) 23:56, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

You would only have to say who the client is if you're self-employed. The client is the employer for the purpose of those edits. It would have been better had the Terms of Use said "employer or client," and we still need to know what's meant by "and affiliation." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:35, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

From a strict letter-of-the-rules interpretation, the question is what qualifies as identifying your employer: must it be the name of the employer? If saying "me" is good enough for an independent contractor, what about a two-person partnership? Is there a point where a description of the employer needs to be replaced by an actual name? But stepping back a bit, I assume the underlying intent is to identify who is directing the edit, and the relationship between that entity and the article's subject. Unfortunately, in a world where there can be many layers between the editor and the person ultimately requesting the edit, it's hard to craft directives that will be useful in all cases. isaacl (talk) 00:45, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes. One can identify the client by interest instead of name, or name if that discloses the interest. As for affiliation, as mentioned above, that's where a third party facilitates the relationship and their interest. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:28, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Can you elaborate, Alan? The conjunction of "employer, client and affiliation" is meaningless to me. (Note that it says and, not or, but even with or, I still wouldn't know what affiliation meant in relation to paid editing, if it's not an employer or client relationship). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:33, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Sure. Some paid contributors will be self employed. Some interested party will want edits; they will hire third party (eg., PR firm) to find and instruct the editor; the self employed editor is then affiliated with the third party for the edits wanted. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:41, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

That makes the hiring company (the PR firm) the client/employer. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:47, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

The point is to cover all those relationships. If the TOU just said employer, the self employed will say -- not my employer; if the TOU just said client, the payee would say - not my client, it's PR firm's client; so, the TOU needs affiliation also, to capture that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:04, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

The rule has its shortcomings, but the "employer, client, affiliation" language is reasonably specific. Any rule can and will be gamed, including this one. It could ten times as long and there might still be loopholes. I'm not sure there's much point in this discussion. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 03:00, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

I didn't follow these discussions closely, but I have assumed that "affiliation" is meant to be a bit of a catchall, to cover things like "I'm employed by Biggie PR, our client is Big Bank, and the reason that I'm editing this seemingly unconnected article about Popular Charity is because Big Bank is one of the sponsors for their upcoming splashy fundraiser, and they're paying to have the article updated as part of their PR support for the fundraiser". WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:14, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes. That's consistent with the Faq Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:48, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

thanks all! that was productive from my view. Jytdog (talk) 20:19, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Totally agree ... all these threads have been productive. What we need is a rule that only you guys can participate in the RfC :) The Meta poll and the RfCs last November didn't have this much engagement. (And I should have read all that stuff before I offered to close ... I was a bit slow on the uptake from the start.) - Dank (push to talk) 23:38, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Has anybody complied with the ToU?

Latest comment: 10 years ago13 comments8 people in discussion

Is anybody aware of paid editors who have actually disclosed employer, client, and affiliation as per the new ToU? In the discussion of the new ToU I had advocated for a kind of registry to be created so that the community had a way to see what was going on, in terms of paid editing - so it would be simple to audit compliance. Related question - does anybody have ideas what one would search for, and how, to see what is going on in terms of disclosed paid editing? thanks Jytdog (talk) 21:00, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

A cursory search shows ToU disclosure at User:Redshield89. Bravo! What makes his disclosure especially nice is that he complied with the ToU before it was adopted. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 21:18, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

This is not directly on point, but interesting. The same search indicates that User:Pioneer-12 was sitebanned for not complying with another provision of the TOU. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 21:43, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Not particularly relevant or germane, since that user was blocked in 2005 under a completely different TOU. Risker (talk) 03:42, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm aware of one user being blocked under the ToU since it came into force. I'm not particularly aware of anyone making declarations. - Bilby (talk) 02:54, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Bilby, all blocks are because of behaviour that abrogates one element or another of the TOU. There's a heck of a lot more about the terms of use than just this one small point. If you're going to make such a statement, please at least be correct that the account was blocked for violations of the "undisclosed paid editing" provisions of the TOU, and identify the account, too. A link to its contributions would be sufficient. Risker (talk) 01:56, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

In an abundance of caution, I've recently made an "anti-declaration" regarding paid editing as part of a COI-declaration on edits to a page that's closely connected to an organization that I have received compensation from in the past and expect to receive compensation from in the future. It's an "anti-declaration" because I am not being paid to edit Wikipedia. It was probably unnecessary but as this policy is still new and the practical, enforced line-in-the-sand between what must be declared and what does not need to be declared is still being worked out I chose to err on the side of caution. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:57, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Chris Troutman disclosed a past affiliation in a way that is in line with what the new ToU would expect at COIN today in a way that I thought was rather laudable. I have a declaration on my own userpage regarding UCB, though I should probably make it more explicit and it's not really related to what people think of when they think 'paid editing,' anyway. Various paid editors have disclosed their affiliations pretty explicitly on their talk pages in the past, before the ToU came in to effect - two that come to mind are WWB and @CorporateM: (though I do wish CorporateM would couple his disclosure with disclosure of his real life identity/real life business, particularly given the fact that he has explicitly and repeatedly outed himself on Wikipedia under his username.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:04, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand your last point Kevin. I had understood that CorporateM was trying not to identify himself, and so far as I know the COI rules don't require a RL identifier. Can you elaborate? Coretheapple (talk) 01:15, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

They definitely don't require an RL identifier, I just think that it's more in-line with the spirit of Wikipedia to freely link the public name under which you do business with your Wikipedia account. Given that CorporateM has repeatedly, explicitly, and intentionally linked his real name and business's name with his user account on-wiki, I wish he'd just complete the disclosure. Given his stated wishes I'm not going to complete the linkage here... but anyone who desired to would be able to link his real name to his onwiki identity without being in danger of violating WP:OUTING. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:23, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I use to disclose more - it was a naive mistake. Bait for bad-faith editors for off-wiki trolling, legal threats and in one case a threat to post my home address online as an intimidation technique. The general PR community is more willing to disclose excessively because they have not been around long enough to know better and because they do not contribute to hundreds of articles on a volunteer basis. It is not in-line with Wikipedia's principles to disclose a real-life identity - it's in-line for us to be protected from these kinds of issues through anonymity if we choose. Excessive disclosure serves no benefit to the community and exposes me to substantial personal harm/risk from malicious users. CorporateM (Talk) 02:22, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

From my perspective, the reason fuller disclosure is more desirable is so that Wikipedians can scrutinize the websites etc of paid editors to see how well their public sales-mode tone matches up with their on-wiki attitude. To use a really extreme example - and to be clear I don't have an issue with you and definitely have an issue with Jordan French - if we had only been going by French's on-wiki tone and not the tone of Wiki-PR's website, he would've sounded like a completely reasonable paid editor (a lot of his on-wiki posts were significantly more conservative than even I am about paid editing.) But looking at his website destroyed that idea. I think that overt paid editors should welcome the extra scrutiny from Wikipedia's editing community that doing stuff like disclosing your website etc provides - and I also suspect that (especially in your case) any malicious editors would have about as easy a time trying to dox you even if you don't publicly disclose your website etc. To me at least trying to conceal the connection between stuff like the copy used on your business's website and the account you use to conduct paid edits smells fishy, even when it's not. (Sorry for using you as an example if it bugged you - you just strike me as a really unusual case in that I'm relatively certain you aren't doing anything terribly blackhat, anyone who wanted to could find your real-life identity in three minutes using prominent on-wiki posts that you haven't tried to hide, but at the same time you make a surface attempt to conceal your identity.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:32, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

It is pov-laden to say that I "conceal" my identity, whereas I already disclose more information than many. It is acceptable after all to have a red-linked user page.

I could posture an opposite example, where the ethics proclamations on my website could unduly bias an editor in my favor, whereas I was genuinely looking for a reasonable degree of scrutiny. Or a website can create a false impression that a firm is ethical, leading to false assumptions about their content. Or in other cases, it can prevent PR firms from atoning for past sins. I once saw a Bell Pottinger staffer get mis-treated, though as far as I know that specific employee may have not even worked at the firm in the pre-bust era. In other cases, even unethical firms may raise valid points. I have to think that an editor's time is better spent looking at articles and sources, than forming judgement's based on the editor's website.

I know you were just using me as an example and I feel I am once again becoming overbearing. All interesting discussion topics though, albeit a bit hopeless trying to get consensus around, which is why it is a good thing that WMF intervened in the way they did. As before, ping me if you need me, but I feel I have blabbed too much already with some (surprisingly/apparently) unpopular opinions. CorporateM (Talk) 05:24, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Can we please stop making single-handed edits to this guideline?

Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is just no need to add "as required by the ToU" to every single policy and guideline on Wikipedia where it could potentially apply. Please quit it with this nonsense - it serves only to threaten others and not to inform. This behavior has been challenged several times, please stop it.--v/r - T P 18:16, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

The problem with the new Terms of Use

Latest comment: 10 years ago18 comments9 people in discussion

The chief complaint with the terms of use are right here. Smallbones is harassing another user with zero evidence of paid editing or a conflict of interest at all. A look at User:TDJankins edits shows an interest in the topic area, but no concentrated effort at all in the area of testing. This looks more like an expert in the field than a COI but the terms of use are being used to make baseless accusations against a good faith editor and no effort on Smallbones part to WP:AGF. This is what the atmosphere is going to be if the terms of use are not addressed by the community.--v/r - T P 21:30, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

This whole thing got started because I deleted TDJankins test prep advertising which other contributors the GMAT page have also noticed. First he tried to intimidate me by sending this message about being banned or blocked for deleting his posts: Welcome to Wikipedia. You have recently twice deleted the preparations section from the GMAT page. Continued destructive edits may result in you being blocked or banned.--TDJankins (talk) 18:37, 1 July 2014 (UTC) He then accused me of working for GMAC (starting this whole process) on the evidence that I spelled "cite" as "site". If you look at my edits you'll see that they have nothing to do with promoting GMAC. All of my edits are focused on deleting advertising. I think that if you look at the edits/additions on the GMAT page made by TDJankins you'll see that they are all promoting test prep companies (the princeton review, Sean Berry, and Optimus Prep keep getting put back on the page). I don't know the motivation for these additions. This person does not seem like a GMAT expert especially when siting Princeton review as a credible source and not adding any factual GMAT information to the page except for opinions about the effectiveness of test prep. I am new to wikipedia so have only edited one thing. I hope that doesn't count against me. My goal is to help improve the GMAT page.Deleteasaur (talk) 14:18, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for coming to my defense. I'm not ready to comment on the shortcomings of the TOU and at least hope that this is an isolated incident solely attributable to the levels of competence and aggression of Smallbones. Thank you very much for your time in looking at the larger issue.--TDJankins (talk) 22:44, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

This looks more like an expert in the field than a COI but the terms of use are being used to make baseless accusations against a good faith editor and no effort on Smallbones part to WP:AGF. I don't wish to comment on the behavior of any given party in the referenced dispute, but rather make this observation. "Paid Contribution Disclosure" requirements are not mitigated one bit from whether contributions were made AGF or not, or made by a subject matter expert or not. Paid contribution disclosure is required when the nexus of editor compensation, organization and article edits come together. If you are making "paid contributions", then you must disclose, even if those contributions are made in absolute good faith, meet every WP content requirement, and represent the best encyclopedia writing possible. I agree with TParis that getting the boundaries of "paid contributions" and the consequences of the new TOU clear in the community are essential to forestall tension filled, ambiguous and uncivil ANI discussions in the future. --Mike Cline (talk) 23:06, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

User:TDJankins made the accusations, or "concerns" as he put it, at Wikipedia:ANI#Destructive_edits_by_new_user_Deleteasaur_and_unregistered_user_65.220.37.9.3B_possibly_company_editing_its_own_page. User:Deleteasaur had (just slightly more subtly) at Talk:GMAT accused TDJankins of putting in adverts for The Princeton Review at GMAT.I just checked out the accusations. The Princeton Review has absolutely, nowhere-to-hide, been edited by TPR employees (before the TOU change) and reads like an advert. GMAT is almost as bad I don't feel any obligation to ignore the accusations others have made. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:51, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

What TParis seems to be suggesting is that even though Smallbones is a longstanding good-faith editor, he should not be cut any slack and that the rules should apply to him strictly. Well, I agree with that. Every editor, whether he has 30K contributors like me or administrators like TParis, need to be held to the same standard. If he is "harassing" anyone (which I don't see by a long shot), than fie on him! However, the place for this discussion is on the ANI page. I don't see any point discussing it here. Though the TOU is cited in that discussion, this is precisely the kind of issue that comes up all the time on multiple noticeboards, and ascribing it to the cancer of TOU, without which all would be sweetness and birds cheeping, is disingenuous. Coretheapple (talk) 17:33, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

The difference is that Smallbones had no evidence at all. He didn't even make an attempt to show evidence. Per WP:NPA, "Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence. Serious accusations require serious evidence. Evidence often takes the form of diffs and links presented on wiki." It is relevant because it demonstrates how the Terms of Use will be used on this project.--v/r - T P 17:46, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Let's assume, arguendo, that what you say is true, and Smallbones is the greatest villain since Bluebeard. So what? AN/I is the scene of more drama than Stratford-on-Avon. People are constantly citing this policy or that guideline, or no policy or no guideline. If this ToU is overturned, it will be likely replaced by the status quo ante, which was a constant source of drama already, despite its ambiguous and permissive wording. We're not entering the dark age of disputation, we're in it. Coretheapple (talk) 17:55, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I never said Smallbones was a villian. What I said about him is right here. The previous status quo wasn't perfect, but at least it didn't run foul of other policies such as WP:HARASS and WP:OUTING. What we need is less rules and more processes. What we need is more formal structures in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cooperation and more advertising that it exists. We need COI editors to find it.--v/r - T P 18:20, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Look, all the ToU does is require disclosure. All the bad "side effects" that you are ascribing to it are questions of editor behavior, not the ToU. The first sentence is important: "These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud." Then, following on that, it requires that editors purge themselves of such ills by saying when they have a conflict of interest. I've wikilinked the term because I think that in this discussion we've lost sight of the fact that COI is not something that Wikipedia editors dreamed up, but is an established concern that is dealt with in every single institution in the U.S., sometimes with extreme penalties. No real-world COI policy permits or encourages "outing" (a/k/a "ratting out") or "harassment," but this is the Internet, and people are constantly complaining about each other, and will do so no matter what the TOU says. What you're doing is elevating (and in my opinion, exaggerating) the potential impact on editor behavior of this TOU, which is a very weak counterpart to the kind of reasonable COI rules that are prevalent everywhere. Coretheapple (talk) 18:29, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Real world policies of course do not endorse harassment, but by consequence of an absence of anonymity, identifying a conflict of interest situation involves identifying a specific person. Corporate policies typically require employees to raise conflict of interest scenarios with which they become familiar to the appropriate contacts. So naming someone with a conflict of interest is indeed permitted and (on paper) mandatory, but generally to either a manager or human resources. isaacl (talk) 19:34, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Personalizing these particular disputes at the expense of the big-picture problems addressed by the ToU is probably less than productive.--Ubikwit^連絡_{見学/迷惑} 22:02, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

While I agree that discussing the specifics of this case here is not productive, I do think it is a good time to reiterate a general problem that the new TOU creates. Previously we have been able to ignore spurious claims of paid editing because there was nothing against paid editing in our polices. Now we cannot ignore this, and if users bring up other users at ANI then it has to be discussed. Users will start grilling other users with questions like "Why would anyone spend 5 hours a day for weeks editing railway articles if they weren't being paid to do it?". Dedicated niche editors will feel like their work isn't appreciated and stigmatized by devoting unusual amounts of time and energy on topics most consider uninteresting. Indeed I think most Wikipedia editors would be unable to generally justify the amount of time they spend editing Wikipedia, and an unjustifiably large amount of time spent editing articles on certain topics will undoubtedly be the main form of "evidence" used by editors to accuse other editors of being paid to edit. People accusing others as being "shills" occurs all over the internet and is extremely unproductive, but with the new TOU we will actually have to entertain these ridiculous, paranoid claims, and all this for a policy that—being unenforceable— does us no practical good.AioftheStorm (talk) 00:30, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
- Once the well-known troll "Mr. 2001" tried, with total seriousness, to claim that I had a COI with the author of a book about the long-deceased dancer Joan McCracken. Heaven knows, that went far. There are many reasons to tamper with this weak ToU amendment, but a quest to stamp out editor misbehavior is not one of them and is bound to fail. Coretheapple (talk) 01:21, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
- I agree Aiof. The ToU is not an exemption to other behavioral policies such as WP:HARASS, WP:OUTING, WP:CONSENSUS and WP:TE.--v/r - TP 17:45, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
  - And nobody is even remotely claiming that it should be. Are you familiar with the term "bogeyman"? Coretheapple (talk) 22:37, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
Another incident of an attempt to out a user based on the new Terms of Use. Keep in mind here that an administrator has refused to enforce the new ToU, several users have said it is unworkable, and others are calling for a block of the OP for violating the OUTING policy now.--v/r - T P 17:24, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. It boomeranged, and the OP is getting his rump kicked, indicating that efforts to use the TOU or the COI guideline or, for that matter, phony "harassment" claims to get someone sanctioned will fall flat at ANI. People are constantly citing "policies" that they misapply as a stick against other users. We don't abolish the underlying policies as a result. Coretheapple (talk) 22:31, 10 July 2014 (UTC)