Wikipedia talk:Wikimedia Strategy 2017/Cycle 2/Engaging in the Knowledge Ecosystem

What impact would we have on the world if we follow this theme?

People take time to understand this theme so it will be better but take a lot of time Krish Charan RJ (talk) 13:09, 19 May 2017 (UTC) This theme will cater to a large population of people and will also help many learners to comprehend subjects in an easy manner. Many don't have the financial condition to study the subjects they want so this will be a great help to them. (Riya94 (talk) 08:04, 20 May 2017 (UTC))

It will be a great movement.the sea of knowledge is great .we want to build a healthy ecosystem of knowledge. Rahul Rajagopal (talk) 06:26, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

In given four Sub-Themes (Education, Institutions, Educators, Existing programs) of above Knowledge Ecosystem Theme includes all section of knowledge ecosystem. These Sub-Themes can have impact on the world mainly young generation and people who love to gain and upgrade knowledge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pandeyasish (talk • contribs) 07:14, 30 May 2017 (UTC) können

First i would like to point out the danger of working with such renowend institutions to the democratic process of Wikipedia, which i deem its greatest treasure. Many of these istitutiones only superficially follow the goal of amplifying knowledge. On a closer look they are industrydriven and serve the cause to sustain the established societal system with all its injusticies. However i do agree with the importance of creating a wiki-learning-infrastructure, something like a wikiversity. But i must insist on the pillars of wikipedian success: independence enabeling objectivity, buttom-up mechanics empowering individuals to take part in a community and freedom of usage helping human beings finding their own path. Now to answer the question on the impact on the world: If this theme is uncarefully pursued it may verry well even have a negative impact by leading even more people into mental dependency and condemning them to swimm along the masses unconciously unhappy. On the otherhand it has enourmos potential to enable people to find and pursue their true purpose and by that lending humanity a hand to reach its harmonic destiny. With kind regards and high hopes Leowikardo Leowikardo (talk) 21:47, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

It's a little unclear about what is meant exactly by this theme. I have already mentioned under other themes (Community & Knowledge) the value of connecting with educators and academic institutions to meet those other goals, but in this way I don't think this Ecosystem theme is a "goal" in of itself so much as a support action to achieve those other goals. On the other hand, if the concept is that Wikipedia become like an online university, well there are already many organisations jostling to be a free online education provider (an important goal, but others are already tackling it), so I don't think this direction is the right path for Wikipedia. By all means Wikipedia should partner and interact with these other organisations so they can use and contribute to Wikipedia's content, but I see wikipedia's place as being a repository of reliable *facts* that people can look up, while a school or university is trying to teach people *skills.* Both are important within the knowledge ecosystem, however it involves a different approach and a different type of user. Powertothepeople (talk) 01:58, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

I think you need to think about Ecosystems in terms of the existence of other organisations that hold/disseminate information and how we we should engage with them. For example, we don't have a WikiMaps project because we leave that space to OpenStreetMap, whose licensing makes their maps acceptable to Wikipedia. At the moment, we do not allow external links in article bodies (other than within citations); that is, we see Wikipedia as a closed eco-system. Should we do that? Should we say to other knowledge providers, let's be friends and interlink with one another, or do we try to duplicate what they already do? As a concrete example of working together, Trove (the Australian repository of all things library) generates Wikipedia citations for most of the items in its inventory, making it just a copy-and-paste to cite Trove items within Wikipedia. Some websites prevent being their pages being archived or put content behind search screens so it is not easy to cite or archive them; they are very unfriendly as far as Wikipedia is concerned. As a concrete example, I prefer to cite the Brisbane Times (whose web pages I can archive at the Internet Archive) over the Brisbane Courier Mail (which resists being archived). Some websites are CC licensed, most are copyright. I think under this Ecosystems banner we need to think about how we persuade more organisations to be more "open knowledge" friendly, whether that be CC licensing, being archivable, mproviding Wipedia citations, or whatever. Kerry (talk) 04:44, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

One relevant effect that I suspect is being overlooked, but recognizing it & supporting it plays to our strength: we are transitioning a lot of information to a digital or electronic format that might otherwise not be available in that format. This has a long-term importance, as people will increasingly rely on electronic sources of information over print -- & especially those in handwriting. And there is a cost to transitioning this information, however small, which means some areas of knowledge won't be transitioned & risks being lost. This loss is due to economic advantage: for example, there is more money to be made from putting financial records into electronic form than the works of Gertrude Stein. And it is inevitable that some of it will be lost despite our best efforts; some will be too difficult to access or collect before accident or malice destroys it; there is the issue of systemic bias; nevertheless much is can be saved if we are alerted to the risk. A comprehensive survey & detailed report about where Wikipedia is weak in coverage would address this -- & would be welcomed. Up to now, these studies have been haphazard & subjective. Contracting with recognized experts to identify & explain where Wikipedia is weak would be closer to an ideal report, & repeating this survey after on a regular basis after collecting constructive feedback would get us even closer. -- llywrch (talk) 20:58, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

• The free knowledge ecosystem or the open movement can fundamentally transform society and its socioeconomic system. The impact & importance of strengthening the broader structure Wikipedia is embedded in and giving hand to our allies can not be overstated. We should propagate the model in appropriate, effective and gradual ways. We can not allow this to fail and it is our responsibility as its forerunner and as humanity's one and only "global brain"-encyclopedia. We are part of the knowledge society and employ methods, ideals and ways of openness − transparency, open knowledge, open-source, commons-based peer production, crowdsourcing and public online participation. Yes, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. However we also need to recognize the structure we're part of, our nature, model, functioning, philosophy and ways. In addition Wikipedia is a new kind of encyclopedia and it's only one of the Wikimedia projects. Open science, open access, open ecology, open art, open government, open data, etc. are all related to us.

While as of right now we are here to simply accumulate encyclopedic knowledge (with some related structures towards this goal having formed around it) in the future society might make informed, science-based decisions in ICT-enabled participative ways after crowdsourcing knowledge and data and carry decisions out in collaborative and non-profit-incentivized ways. To say it in Buckminster Fuller's terms we are "creat[ing] a new model and [slowly] make the old one obsolete".

For this as well as improvements of, extensions to and new uses of Wikipedia we need to work together with other partners in the ecosystem we're embedded in.

And as Wikimedia is (one of) its strongest nodes (e.g. in terms of members, reach and voice) we need to contribute towards its cohesion, unity, impact, cooperation, mutual assistance, coordination and organization. There simply is no other organization that could do it better than WMF/us. And it's often said that Wikipedia somewhat embodies the original and transformative spirit of the Internet − for good reason. It doesn't (directly) have to do with Wikimedia, but as Jimmy is Wikipedia's cofounder and as some wiki ways/tools will be used there WikiTribune is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about (the community certainly was engaged in a special way). I hope that the WMF & community can start more new projects and help make other projects a success. Some things that could be done include new software written by a FOSS community organized by the WMF and crowdfunded by making use of some new and existing appropriate channels that combines Wikipedia data with OpenStreetMap for personalized tourism for example. Or a website for open source'd ideas with inbuilt issue management. I'm not entirely sure how such collaborations could look like and these were just two examples (implement that latter idea and you'll see thousands!). Or a new conference organized mainly by WMF but for the whole ecosystem etc etc

We will all benefit from it. --Fixuture (talk) 00:43, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

How important is this theme relative to the other 4 themes? Why?

Because it should be for all Hispanics. I only go in Spanish. We need more Mexicans in the Ecosystem. CARS FOR ME (talk) 09:18, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

This is an Ecosystem of Knowledge and In all other theme in which promoting worldwide volunteer contribution (Healthy, inclusive communities, include), The augmented age (Advancing with technology) through machine learning, this ecosystem provide platform to world wide knowledge sharing and expert of sub-themes can contributors and experts of all over the world give effort to make knowledge trustful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pandeyasish (talk • contribs) 08:41, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

It encourages the new gen to help the world, and as our youngsters are very much into gadgets, why not use it for a better cause? Supdocious (talk) 10:56, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Also, it is an all rounder promoter more than just focusing on one thing. Supdocious (talk) 10:57, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

I have prioritised this theme as fourth (after Community, Knowledge, Technology) because I see it as a "support" theme rather than a primary goal in it's own right. Wikipedia is only of value to the 'ecosystem' if its Knowledge is of high enough quality. And to create quality Knowledge we need a healthy Community. I also consider Technology to be a "support" theme, as it's primary value is to provide features that help improve quality of the content and community for the above reasons. That brings me to the Ecosystem - Wikipedia is already part of the knowledge ecosystem, and will naturally become more firmly embedded once Knowledge and Community issues are fixed. Therefore it does require top prioritisation at this stage. However, all these themes do overlap. Partnerships with leading educational institutions can lead to an increase in volunteers and quality content. Chicken or the egg? Powertothepeople (talk) 01:59, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Focus requires tradeoffs. If we increase our effort in this area in the next 15 years, is there anything we’re doing today that we would need to stop doing?

I do not think so, as it should be easy enough to do both. Valer millen (talk) 15:14, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

There's the risk of attempting too much change at once, and spreading Wikipedia resources too thin. Better to do one thing well than lots of things poorly. Powertothepeople (talk) 02:01, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Potential conflicts of interest when working with governments and other organisations. Powertothepeople (talk) 02:01, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

What else is important to add to this theme to make it stronger?

• The encyclopedist in me wants some historic and bibliographic background for the term "global knowledge ecosystem" used in this theme. Why did the authors of this theme choose the term "global knowledge ecosystem" and what does it imply? I think of Christian Vandendorpe's 2015 article on Wikipedia in the journal Scholarly and Research Communication:

Wikipedia is also a part of the ecosystem of knowledge, since it helps to build "a consensus of rational opinion over the widest possible field," which is the goal of science, according to John Ziman (1968, p. 3). An ecosystem is a network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment. [...] Moreover, the field of knowledge is itself expanding at an accelerated pace and humankind's thirst for knowledge, which is part of our genetic program, tends to be more intense as answers become more easily available. According to Barry Allen, knowledge is our destiny: "We have no option anymore about preferring and cultivating knowledge, or the soil, or life in cities. These are for us the circumstances of the now-global sapiens ecology, and they define the ultimate context for understanding knowledge" (2004, p. 215). A collaborative encyclopedia appears well suited to this new ecosystem.

— Vandendorpe, Christian (October 2015). "Wikipedia and the ecosystem of knowledge". Scholarly and Research Communication. 6 (3): 1–10.

Here's the last sentence of Barry Allen's book that Vandendorpe cited in the preceding quotation:

The question is whether the only thing left for civilization to collapse into is our extinction as a species on the earth. Unless one believes that a god will intervene, I think we have found the ultimate context for understanding knowledge. It is an ecological context of artifactual performance. It is a context not of science, discourse, or formal rationality, but of the global sapiens ecology, an artifactual ecology made to work by the accomplishments of knowledge.

— Allen, Barry (2004). Knowledge and civilization. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. p. 285. ISBN 0813341345. OCLC 52542619.

Thanks, Biogeographist (talk) 03:50, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

• Well, thinking about leading instituions in academic, the arts, etc, I think we need a good answer to "what's in it for them?" I do GLAM liaison and am a retired academic, so I have some experience in this area. Most academics are living with "publish or perish", so thinking they will take time out of their working life to write on Wikipedia (or sister projects) is a bit naive. Unless academic institutions will take Wikipedia contributions into account in recruitment, promotions and grant applications, I can't see it likely that working academics are going to be very interested. Retired academics are probably a more achieveable target. Indeed, a lot of older academics keep working beyond their financial need to do so, because they don't know what they'd do with themselves in retirement! Having said that, Wikipedians (as a group) seem to be anti-academics (I stopped mentioning my academic past on my user page for that reason) and Wikipedia does not operate in a way academics understand so Wikipedian tends to chew them up and spit them out (I've had a lot of academics tell me that they did try to contribute to Wikipedia because they saw somethint wrong, but they were reverted and then when they argued why they believed they were correct, generally mentioning there many years of research and many publications in that topic, they got abused for saying that).

For GLAMs etc, it is easier to make the argument that Wikpedia has the "eyeballs" and exposing their collections through Wikipedia as citations, images, etc exposes their institution in an additional way to their own activities. Most of them understand that, but resourcing is still an issue. If I could say to a GLAM "make your material available and I'll bring in a vast team of people to scan it and upload it or cite it in Wikipedia, etc", then my job as liaison would be much easier. But the reality is that I don't have a "team to bring", on the contrary there is a shortage of volunteers for this kind of work. To expose their content through Wikipedia will generally need the GLAM themselves to provide a lot of the human horsepower. This is a problem with using volunteers, it's hard to motivate them to tackle large projects, particularly if they have a lot of boring work involved. I've categorised about 4.5K images from a local archive on Wikimedia Commons (it was weeks of work and mostly deadly boring, I'd think twice before volunteering to do again, and I really wonder if even 10% of them would ever be used - lots of black-and-white photos of people and things which probably aren't notable etc). I think to do big projects in GLAM or other key partners we do need to have a way to apply for funds to pay people to do the boring stuff.

A worthwhile group pursuing might be the University of the Third Age, there's a lot of retired expertise there. Kerry (talk) 07:45, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree entirely with the comments made by Kerry Raymond. As a recently retired academic, I decided to fix some of the many errors in articles in the marketing/ advertising area. I did not have any information about my background on my user page, but it must have been clear from the edits made that I had considerable expertise in the area. Within a matter of days, several editors informed me that editors with subject matter expertise should refrain from editing in their subject area and only edit in other fields. On one of the main pages, I tried to correct some errors of fact, conceptual errors and fabricated information, only to find that they were reverted within minutes. As a "newbie" at the time, I was under the misapprehension that if I provided solid arguments for my changes, I could counter the reversions. But after lengthy debate, I was simply informed that "some content just doesn't belong on WP." I gave up because I did not want to get into an edit war, and so the inaccurate material remained in the article. About five months later, the inaccurate material was removed because it was part of a copyright violation. It had been in the article for almost 8 years by the time it was finally removed. I did not let this incident deter me, and continued working away - totally overhauling/ expanding 17 articles in the marketing area, and adding substantive new sections to an additional 13 articles - all acommplished within four months. Around this time, I appear to have come to the attention of a cartel of editors, who formed the view that the mere mention of a brand name or commercial organisation constitutes spam. This outfit began following me around, checking my history and deleting all manner of content - illustrative examples, links, references, further reading suggestions and indeed anything that they construed as spam generally by adding the edit summary, "looking very spammy". None of the deleted material met Wikipedia's definition of spam and in almost every case, users on the talk page, had expressly requested that illustrative examples be added to these articles to highlight the practical applications of the concepts and theories. But the cartel was not interested in any of this. I tried to debate with the cartel - but their only response was "well there are four of us who like it this way, feel free to go and find support for your position." I asked them to desist following me about - all to no avail. However, as a newbie, I have no real connections on WP, so that was the end of that. After my initial burst of activity, I am now like so many other editors who have been burned or bullied, not entirely willing to quit, but reduced to making wiki-tweaks - adding an image or two here and there, fixing up some spelling and grammar, refining and polishing expression, adding a few wiki links and adding high quality references to pre-existing material. I no longer add substantive content, nor address the overall article structure because it is simply a high risk activity and attracts those whose mission is to delete and harrass. I have, however, posted many detailed suggestions for improvements to articles on the article's talk page, and in most cases suggesting an overall structure with headings, sub-headings and suggested references for each section - but I will have to leave it to other editors to flesh out the content. (Talk pages are like a safety zone, because that material can rarely be deleted.) It's a shame because I have the time, willingness and expertise to fix articles in the marketing area, which have been plagued with problems for many, many years. Wikipedia has developed a bizarre operating culture which tolerates mediocrity, supports bullying and militates against people with expertise. BronHiggs (talk) 00:30, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

@BronHiggs: I have never experienced bullying in my four years of editing. Boldly editing is an established guideline on Wikipedia, and if you feel that other editors are preventing you from editing boldly, some dispute resolution would seem to be in order. There are a number of options for resolving content disputes with outside help. There are also options for resolving disputes over editor conduct. You say you "have no real connections" on Wikipedia, but personal connections are not required (nor should they be) for dispute resolution. Arbitration is the last step in the dispute resolution process if none of the preceding steps work for you.

Wikipedia may be the largest collaborative initiative in history and influences what people the world over know or think they know. Its distinctive feature is the nonexpert, nonprofessional, noncertified, nonformal production of knowledge with credible content. Academics like to sneer at those characteristics, even as more and more of us acknowledge Wikipedia, support it, and use it in teaching. And why should we not warm to it? The rules of Wikipedia discourse are modeled after an ideal academy's. Arguments, not personal attacks or status, carry the day. It may be the most scientific encyclopedia ever: Wikipedia is as self-correcting as anything in science. Purposeful bias, departing tendentiously from dominant beliefs of the academic community, does not prevail. Peer control is high; procedures are many and fanatically enforced. There are no back channels. Every editorial act is recorded and archived and remains on the record forever. Since its inception, Wikipedia has promoted itself as an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and some three hundred thousand editors contribute each month. [...] Why, then, does Wikipedia work? In theory, it should not. In practice, it seems to be a new paradigm of organization, whose breezy anticredentialism tosses traditional hierarchies of knowledge production to the wind.

— Allen, Barry (January 2017). "Review of 'Common knowledge?: an ethnography of Wikipedia'". Common Knowledge. 23 (1): 104. doi:10.1215/0961754X-3692492.

Best wishes, Biogeographist (talk) 01:33, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

If you have never experienced bullying, then you are indeed fortunate. From what I have read in the mainstream press, bullying is commonplace and is one of the main reasons why new editors do not remain with Wikipedia. The character that is currently following me around and aggressively tagging, deleting and commenting has a very long history of bullying and tendentious editing. However, all that happens is that he is blocked for 24-48 hours. This has no long term effect. He never appears to modify his behaviour - if anything, the disruptive behaviour deteriorates because because he acquires expertise in responding to complaints and gaming the system. He is also part of a cartel, which means that he can send his mates into to pick up the threads and continue the harrassment, presumably when he gets a bit too close to the point where an allegation of harrassment might work. He has been following me for 5 months now, and I have tried many things - taking some time out from editing, editing low level pages/ non contentious articles as well as confining myself to little more than page beautification such as adding images and polishing up expression. However, no matter what I do, I cannot shake him off. It is almost unbearable. But, I was always taught that the only way to handle bullies is to stand up to them. I have documented all his activities - and it amounts to a very substantial list of what I perceive to be unjustified reversions across multiple pages- with only the vaguest of edit summaries. BronHiggs (talk) 04:27, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

One benefit of this theme is that it actively taps into existing organisations that might already have strong friendly communities (something wikipedia is perhaps struggling with), and physical venues in which to do 'hack-a-thon' style working sessions. A physical venue for a working group will potentially bypass some of the problems wikipedia currently has within the online community. It would be more 'fun' than sitting at home on the computer by yourself, and could be organised as a short intense event or project. It could also help address diversity issues by specifically targeting for collaboration education organisations that represent minority groups. However, if the problems already existing in wikipedia's online community and content editing system aren't fixed there is the risk of this backfiring when a group of people do their part only to have their work rejected. Powertothepeople (talk) 02:05, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Who else will be working in this area and how might we partner with them?

Obviously this Is a major"come together" and merits support from Major Contribtors. Saludos.mucha suerte para todos.Blueberry6014 (talk) 16:39, 15 May 2017 (UTC)blueberry6014 Blueberry6014 (talk) 16:39, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Education is the basic need of a developing country. When we see at africa thay might be in dream when they will awake they will find themselves in hell. Because without education you cannot survive in society. So wo should give donation for the education for backward country — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sunnyrapper (talk • contribs) 16:03, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I would suggest a broader list of micro non-profits, organizations without a profit motive, such as Partners in health, American Refuge Committee, to discuss what the education needs of developing nations is based on first hand knowledge. I would say build a wiki of the needs presented by different micro organizations and and also the resources that they have to help. James_Shelton32 (talk)

I posit that AI and Big data will alongside crowd sourced information gathering, be the predominant way research will be outsourced. 'Education is dead. Topical research and information that is actionable or profitable will mean that students of the future will prove their worth by the merit of what they contribute not what they memorize and mimic. Educators are too expensive, isolated and out of sync with reality; one that moves too quickly for the classic institutional models to explain, or even understand. A resume that shows all relative content creation, curation and organization, linked to a bitcoin wallet, is the best way to expand research and involve students in the expansion of AI. Information can be mined and sorted, but, topical curation, click-bait and trolling are education's definitive future model. Wikipedia needs to create partners out of it's user base and have more incentive to contribute both to the wiki and expand the ecosystem. Every child that learns something new here, should have that page automatically saved to an account and Big data and AI can sort the information for each individual. That way we can all develop an index of what we know and have it become more relative over time using the power of "extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions."

It is true that "People's environments change even more quickly than they themselves do. Everything from the weather to their relationship with their mother can change the way people think and act. All of those variables are unpredictable. How they will impact a person is even less predictable. If put in the exact same situation tomorrow, they may make a completely different decision. This means that a statistical prediction is only valid in sterile laboratory conditions, which suddenly isn't as useful as it seemed before." This inevitable institutional objection to the predictive analytical process, is mitigated by the evolution of the artificial society and the nature of emergence.Anocratic (talk) 20:50, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

References

• The 'ecosystem' is vast so there are countless potential partners! Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseWare, FutureLearn, university of the 3rd age, publicly funded government bodies (in countries where governments aren't corrupt), hackathons, etc. Powertothepeople (talk) 02:14, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

• Minority rights organisations: Wikipedia can actively address diversity issues by reaching out to organisations that stand for underrepresented groups. Working-party events could be planned to coincide with special dates - black history month, science week, women's history month, LGBT history month, and also localised celebrations or topics (e.g. in Australia we have Mabo day, anzac day, australia day, etc). For example, at the moment Wikipedia has a Women in Red initative which is trying to fix the underrepresentation of womens pages on wikipedia. A working group could be created on a university campus with a student feminist organisation, students of feminist theory, etc who come together during women's history month to work on the project. Or be really niche : contact a women's filmmaking organisation to create pages recognising notable female filmmakers and their work. Powertothepeople (talk) 02:14, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

• Government organisations may have funds for a team of wikipedia professional editors to create high quality pages rather than always relying on volunteers. For example, the Australian government (or associated entity) may fund ANZAC related pages to be created/updated in advance of ANZAC Day; Screen Australia might fund Australian film and filmmaker pages; the Australian Institute of Sports might fund pages of Australian sportspeople who trained there; etc. Of course it would be crucial to implement this in such a way that content maintains neutrality requirements and it is not influenced by those funding it. This could speed up the rate at which quality content is created on Wikipedia. Powertothepeople (talk) 02:14, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

• Research institutions - many are already aware of an issue related to dissemination of the research knowledge to professionals and the greater public,[1][2] and wikipedia could help with this. Powertothepeople (talk) 02:14, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Other

Focusing on everything

Focusing a little bit on everything will make things go slow. How will we manage to move towards our goal faster in this way? Supdocious (talk) 10:59, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Encyclopedia for everything or Encyclopedia for Science, Nature, Geography and the Arts (but not for business)?

Wikipedia should decide whether it really wants articles about business operations - marketing, management, advertising, human resource management etc. There is a great deal of hostility towards the business of business. Many editors appear to assume that the aim of business-related articles is to engage in spam or to promote products and services and regularly revert content which they construe as spam or promotional. Some editors go around tagging any article about advertising and promotion with "promotional in tone" type tags simply because the article is about promotional subject matter, rather than because it is written in a promotional manner or a promotional tone. I noticed recently that one Admin denied a request from an advertising agency for a name change, despite the fact that the company had formally changed its name from the XYZ advertising agency to the XYZ communications agency. In the view of this Admin, anyone who was in the "business of promotion" did not deserve any special treatment and furthermore, he stated that he intended to monitor the article to ensure that its name was never changed. Over and over again, I have seen this type of hostility to articles and edits about business activities as if business is some kind of dirty word. If this type of hostility is what Wikipedia really wants, then perhaps it is time for WP to pull the plug on articles about business operations. However, if WP does want to continue to provide these business-related articles, then editors need to lighten up a bit. BronHiggs (talk) 08:48, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

There definitely is a "flaw" and "catch 22" in wikipedia in this regard:

1) There is no simple way for someone to flag incorrect information - people must edit the page to make changes, but they are not allowed to edit it if they are connected to the article due to concerns about conflict of interest. I know people who have wanted to do simple things like correct a simple factual error - for example wikipedia says they studied at a university they didn't actually study at (which is something there is no online evidence of one way or the other, but the subject has a copy of their qualification from a different university they can show to anyone) - and there is no way for them to correct this within Wikipedia's current set up. I believe Wikipedia should address this in a few ways: a) an 'update request' form linked to each page where anyone can submit more information for consideration, and Wikipedia editors to review the requests and make any necessary changes, (b) an inhouse professional research/edit team to specifically deal with business pages as it's not really fair to expect volunteers to "work" on something that benefits businesses, (c) businesses & private individuals who want their pages created /corrected / updated/ maintained pay a fee to wikipedia to pay for the inhouse research team. N.B. the research/editing team would have editorial independence and remain neutral, they are not "promoting" the business, simply ensuring that the information is correct and thorough according to best practices.

2) It is normal for text books, academic writing, etc to have different style guides depending on the sector and topic matter. I believe marketing would be an area that needs to have a different style guide (or set of rules) so case studies and examples can be given to exemplify knowledge without mistakenly being labelled "promotional." I too have noticed a problem in social science content areas when other editors take a more technical writing approach which doesn't suit the content but is argued to be more "neutral".

Side note - this discussion might be better under the "knowledge" theme rather than engaging the knowledge "ecosystem"? Powertothepeople (talk) 02:43, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

@Powertothepeople: Your first point above seems to be covered by Wikipedia:Simple COI request, so perhaps that "flaw" could be addressed by making the Wikipedia:Simple COI request procedure more visible? You say that "it's not really fair to expect volunteers to 'work' on something that benefits businesses"; but it's not fair (or appropriate) to "expect" volunteers to work on anything. Even when we (appropriately) don't expect volunteers to work on something, it may happen that there is someone who wants to work on it. It is not only the businesses that benefit from having accurate information in the Wikipedia article about them; everyone who wants to read that article benefits from having accurate information in it (and it is likely this latter fact that would motivate volunteers). Biogeographist (talk) 01:02, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

{{reply to|Biogeographist]] Yes, it does need to be more visable. I'm a fairly new editor and had no knowledge of the COI request. A key problem with wikipedia documentation is that it is only clear to those who already know it. It's about clear as mud to everyone else. Regarding "fairness" of volunteerism - obviously it is up to volunteers to decide what they are and aren't willing to do themselves. I was merely pointing out that most volunteers are happy to do something for the benefit of the community, but feel less happy about volunteering for the benefit of corporations who profit from their work. Wikipedia already has a huge backlog of articles that need to be created and updated, more than the volunteers can handle, and it also costs money for wikipedia to run itself (always asking for donations), so it would, in my opinion, make sense for businesses who want to ensure their page is updated as a priority to pay for such a service. If a business puts in a COI request but volunteers would rather work on other pages, then the business is still in the same place as if there were no COI request (information is not updated). There is nothing to compel volunteers to do the work. However if there is a paid service, then there are professional editors whose job it is to update the page. Problem solved. Powertothepeople (talk) 02:12, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I am not talking about articles for specific business entitities, rather articles about concepts and theories in business operations e.g. Marketing; Advertising management; Marketing Research or Brand awareness. There is a lot of hostility to all manner of edits on such pages. For example, on the talk page, users might ask for practical examples of theories, but when added, other editors will systematically delete any commercial example because it is treated as spam. I don't consider myself to have a conflict of interest even though I have been trained in both management and marketing. BronHiggs (talk) 02:31, 9 June 2017 (UTC)