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Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-07-04/Op-ed

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Very thoughtful and well written, Wikipedia needs to do more to stop undisclosed payed editing. The actions against Jytdog are entirely out of line with the aim of writing an unbiased encyclopaedia. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 19:22, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

Also for everyone who is interested in this question, you can go to the RfC at Wikipedia_talk:Harassment#Can_other_site_accounts_ever_be_linked_to. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 19:23, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
agree w/ Carl, the article by DocJames expresses my opinion as well, unfortunately Jytdog paid w/ his editing privileges for reasons that I do not find logical in regards to COI...please voice your opinion at the RfC above,thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:10, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

I know that, being an op-ed, this article is intended to advocate for the particular point of view held by its author, but I'd like to bring up a few points that Doc James either doesn't mention or that he presents differently here than others have done in the other discussions going on about this.

  1. "The functionaries have gained a head start in the discussion through their use of private channels." It should be pointed out that because formal oversight blocks can only be reviewed by oversighters or Arbcom, it is standard practice, when placing one, to alert the oversight-l mailing list of it so other oversighters can review by default. In this case, GorillaWarfare made that notification to the list and the oversight team did not find the block to be contrary to policy. So yes, a "private channel" was used, but I object to the way the phrasing used in this article implies that this was unusual or pre-focused on the discussion that was opened on the harassment policy talk. It wasn't; it was a standard quality-assurance practice of the OS team and no one even noticed the policy discussion until the better part of a day after the "check my block" thread began. I was the first functionary in that oversight-l thread to mention that a policy discussion had begun, and I did that in the wee hours (UTC) of June 28th, when the on-wiki thread had already been going for six or so hours and been contributed to by half a dozen non-functionary community members - and I only noticed it at that point because I had the talk page on my watchlist due to having spent years in discussions there about outing.
  2. The clause in question has been in the policy in one form or another since early 2015. Though it is visible at this RfC (which was actually answering the question "Should the policy extend harassment to include posting ANY other accounts on ANY other websites?" rather than "Should we amend policy to say that posting links to accounts on other websites is allowable on a case-by-case basic?" - two related but not synonymous points imo) and in the diff that Doc James links to, I feel it would have been proper for Doc James to note here that he was the person who added that sentence to the policy.
  3. the majority of the functionaries have decided that their interpretation of WP:OUTING trumps that of everyone else. To the contrary, the argument being made by many functionaries in the now-open RfC is that existing policy, both local and global, have long contradicted the single sentence Doc James put into WP:HARASS claiming to authorize such off-wiki account linking, and that this single policy claiming otherwise places editors in danger of unknowingly violating both global and local policies. Here, for instance, is my own long comment analyzing the different levels of policy that govern when and how we can post off-wiki information about other users (tl;dr: even if enwiki were to reach local consensus that outing personal information is 100% a-ok, global oversight policy, which all projects are obligated to follow and which cannot be overruled by local policy, authorizes the suppression of such information)
  4. "[...]If accusations must be made, they should be raised, with evidence, on the user-talk page." Those accused also deserve the right to defend or justify themselves openly and transparently. It is rather avoiding the point to claim that this justifies the on-wiki posting of private information; the community (and its policies) has long held that private, legally problematic, or identifying information is an exemption to the requirement to post evidence publicly. This is, for example, why Checkusers are the only ones who hold the ability to view editors' IPs (and why, even in cases of confirmed sockpuppetry, they will not release the IP that underlays a registered account), and why Arbcom and the Oversight team have non-publicly-viewable mailing lists to discuss cases that involve this type of information (even in instances where off-wiki evidence was critical to the making of a public decision, like the Eastern European Mailing List arbcom case, the holders of this private information will not list that evidence publicly, but rather make reference to it by some type of non-revealing identifier such as a timestamp instead).
  5. Most of the functionaries who have weighed in appear to believe that posting a link to a public Wikipedia-related Elance job offer should not be allowed and is a potentially blockable offense. Actually, most of the functionaries who have participated in the RfC have not expressed an opinion about whether linking to an Elance job is allowable, because that's not the question asked in the RfC. The RfC's question - and the question pretty much all participants in the RfC, both for and against, appear to be actually answering - is quite explicitly "Can other site accounts ever be linked to". Those are very different questions, given that - to take Doc James's example of Elance - an Elance job listing describes a job (and is usually posted by someone who does not have a Wikipedia account), while an Elance account usually contains a real name, a location, and often a photo of a person who, by definition if they are taking Wikipedia jobs, has a Wikipedia account. It does not help us reach a clear eventual result on the RfC when articles such as this one misrepresent what question people are being asked to answer.
  6. By extension are we going to say that linking to pubmed, a well-known database of biomedical abstracts, is disallowed because such links could have the real names, employment, or location of Wikipedia editors which those editors may not have disclosed previously on our sites? No, and this question has been asked by Doc James and answered by a number of different people multiple times, in multiple threads, in the policy talk discussions.
  7. But public-relations work is, as the very name implies, public, not private. Indeed, the work is not private. The personal information of the people doing the work - things like phone number, physical location, educational and employment history, all of which are often provided off-wiki in an employment context but inappropriate in the context of a "personal takedown" on Wikipedia - however, is. There is no exemption to the oversight team's obligation to protect such private information about our users "because they're being jerks". There's not even one for "because they violated policy/the ToU, so they've sacrificed their right to our protection" - the policy that governs those releases specifies that such a release of this information "to the public" must occur only when it is a "necessary and incidental consequence of blocking a sockpuppet or other abusive account." I should note for clarity here that the "Access to nonpublic information" policy governs the release of such information by those of us who have privileged access to it - oversighters, checkusers, etc - rather than the communities in general; nevertheless, that policy would come into play if, for example, someone advocating Doc James's interpretation of harassment policy demanded an oversighter undo a suppression of private information about a paid editor on the basis of it not being justified because they had previously violated paid editing policy. The number of cases I can think of where public posting of something like someone's real name and physical location is actually necessary to blocking their account (or even just stopping their behavior) is vanishingly small; I can think of perhaps two such cases in my entire history on Wikipedia, and I'm not entirely sure either of those even required such personal disclosures.

A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:04, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

It is not to late for those who have weighted in to address the question being asked. The question began with "Can other site accounts ever be linked to" and than moved on to discussing a specific example. As this is an example of linking to another account, if consensus is that other accounts can never be linked to than that would mean this one also cannot be linked to.
If the community deems that this sort of account can be linked to in this manner than by extension other site accounts can occasionally for this specific reason be linked to.
We are simply not talking about "nonpublic information". We are talking about public information on other parts of the internet that people have released to aid them with undisclosed paid editing of Wikipedia. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:23, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Is this appropriate for a project that champions transparency and freedom of expression? --Andreas JN466 20:31, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
People keep addressing the question being asked, @Doc James: at which point you either a) change the question, b) obfuscate the point with hyperbole, or c) talk about something completely not even brought up. Signpost team, I'm surprised you allowed such a piece to run while the RfC is open, without any indication of running a companion piece with the alternative, non-steamrolled view. You know, actual journalism. This is simply open canvassing and it's no better than the PR people claiming to be fought. Keegan (talk) 21:15, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Feel free to write something up User:Keegan. The functionaries have been discussing the issue via private channels. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:23, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Again, obfuscating the point that you are opening and blatantly violating a behavioral guideline to advance your position. I don't see anyone else doing that. Keegan (talk) 21:50, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
What I am doing is informing a large number of Wikipedians of an important ongoing discussion. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:33, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
I needed a good laugh. Keegan (talk) 15:17, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
I find it funnier that almost all "No" votes in the RfC (including the first seven, who all seem to have arrived together) are from people with access to the functionaries mailing list. Andreas JN466 17:12, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Really? You're surprised that the people responsible for enforcing this have shown up to the conversation? Insinuations about mailing lists are nothing compared to the Signpost participating in violating community behavioral guidelines on canvassing. Keegan (talk) 17:32, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
It's an op-ed expressing an opinion on a matter of considerable public and community interest, which is precisely what op-eds are for. It's posted openly—not stealthily—in a single place, and to a completely neutral audience. Per the four WP:CANVAS criteria, it would compare positively to a post on the functionaries list raising an alarm. At any rate, you and any like-minded colleagues are cordially invited to submit an op-ed outlining your reasoning for the next Signpost issue, due to appear almost two weeks before the RfC is scheduled to conclude. Andreas JN466 19:03, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
(ec) You'll find that pretty much all of those comments were made by people who were already participating in the discussion. The same can be said about the "Yes" votes as well. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 17:36, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
I checked and didn't find that. Of the 17 functionaries voting "No", 6 had participated on the talk page previously, 11 hadn't. (Of the first seven, in case you were referring to them only, five had.) Andreas JN466 19:03, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Given there's accusations of canvassing: As a former arbitrator, I unsurprisingly have all our major policy pages on my watchlist, including WP:HARASS. Can't speak for anyone else but my contributions to this debate are because my watchlist flagged that the discussion was occurring and because I have a view on the topic. My view is not more or less important than anyone else's. But nor is it the product of any off-wiki canvassing of functionaries. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:13, 6 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Of the first seven, I counted six or seven who had already commented somewhere on the page. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 14:08, 6 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
@DoRD: The first seven No votes from functionaries include Guerillero's (voting with his alternate "on the road" account, In actu) and Kelapstick's. Correct me if I am wrong, but I cannot see a single edit by In actu or Guerillero to WT:Harassment prior to his RfC vote, nor can I see any such edit by Kelapstick prior to their vote. Nor has either of them ever edited the policy page itself.
I am not accusing you of anything nefarious. You have a mailing list, and it is only natural that the topic would come up there. But you have to be aware that you are voting as a block. Last I looked, not a single functionary had voted Yes, while 17 had voted No. --Andreas JN466 07:00, 8 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Am surprised that the oversight team's unanimous opposition to "case by case" outing is seen as a negative in the debate. The people who most commonly have to actually clean up outing attempts and deal with the editors who justifiably feel threatened or harassed by them, are very likely to have a view that outing should be opposed. Bear in mind the "case by case" clause in the policy doesn't just relate to outing paid editors - all sorts of people face outing attempts and most people who do the outing consider it justified in their particular "case." Of course they get blocked and/or their edits removed; but the damage is generally done and en-WP editing is made that much more unpleasant for others as a result. Undisclosed paid editing is bad for the editing environment. Outing via amateur sleuthing is bad for the editing environment. We can't fix one by endorsing the other. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:26, 8 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Euryalus I agree that the "case-by-case" wording needs to be replaced with something more sensible. In my reply below to Piotrus, who provides another salient example (that of academics who mention articles they have started on Wikipedia in their academic writing), I've suggested an alternative wording that makes it clear that we are talking about editors who voluntarily make statements about their Wikipedia editing as part of their public professional (or academic) self-representation. Rather than getting hung up on the case-by-case wording, please let's work together to come up with a wording that is right. --Andreas JN466 07:37, 8 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Unfortunately, the RfC was very poorly constructed. I think it is entirely reasonable for functionaries to oppose language that says "case-by-case". But the RfC !votes also come across as opposing investigation of Elance/Upwork (ie, undisclosed paid editing), an area where there appears to be a significant divide between functionaries and a significant portion of the community. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:42, 9 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
It sure would be helpful to know which functionaries are mainly opposing the case-by-case wording, and which are fundamentally opposed to onwiki discussion of information people have voluntarily disclosed in unambiguously public and professional contexts. --Andreas JN466 02:26, 11 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
I'm unsure whether you mean there that you want me to provide such a list. I base what I said on each user's RfC comments. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:25, 11 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
You know, I was thinking the same thing. This seems like blatant canvassing for one side of an active RfC using a highly seen method. Op-ed or not, to post this while the RfC was ongoing seems like a thinly veiled attempt to sway opinion towards the side of the RfC Doc James supports. --Majora (talk) 21:21, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
(edit conflict) @Fluffernutter: Re 7., why are you talking about posting anyone's location, phone number, etc.? LinkedIn or Elance profiles don't include phone numbers (at least I've never seen one on LinkedIn); and while they may include a city, they don't include addresses, either. To me it seems absolutely absurd to suppress professional profiles that are explicitly posted for broad public consumption as "private" on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is part of the world, not some sort of alternative universe. --Andreas JN466 20:28, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
@Jayen466: I'm talking about the type of situation where an Elance profile lists the person's town of residence, or a LinkedIn profile shows their phone number or current employer (remember, we're talking largely about freelancers doing this type of paid editing, and many of them have unrelated day jobs). People provide those type of personal details on job sites intending them to be used in the context of professional contacts; they don't expect someone to make a post on Wikipedia pointing to where John Doe, who worked on article X, says he lives in Anytown, USA and works for United Widgets Incorporated, at which point other people on Wikipedia google those things and scramble all over everything John Doe has said about himself elsewhere, trying to find a way to impeach his contributions. Sure, sometimes an Elance profile won't give that kind of detail, but given the frequency with which they do, I'm pretty not-ok with policy giving a blanket authorization to link to them.

The overarching point I've been trying to make in these discussions is that when we talk about linking to an offsite account, we need also to consider what type of content and details have been posted by the person to that offsite place, because by providing the link you're encouraging people to click it and read what the account behind it has done/said; it's not enough to say "well, it's just a resume, people distribute resumes all the time" or "oh, it's just a reddit account, those are anonymous" and ignore that a resume usually includes significantly more personal (and sometimes private) detail than most people would be comfortable sharing on a website where all edits are permanently and publicly stored (and where it's being linked to in a threatening or retaliatory context), and a reddit account, exactly because it's pseydonymous, often includes comments or posts on topics that would be incredibly TMI or personal if they were connected to a specific individual (for instance, by someone on Wikipedia saying "here's this editor's profile on reddit [link]"). A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:44, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

I think your argument is absurd. If someone publicly advertises Wikipedia jobs or professional Wikipedia services, then that information should be public everywhere except Wikipedia, the one site directly affected by it, where that info suddenly becomes "private"? If I didn't know better, I'd conclude you are deliberately trying to create loopholes for people so they do not ever have to comply with the disclosure policy and the Foundation's terms of use.
I'd probably agree with you where genuinely private accounts on social media are concerned, but paid Wikipedia writers' professional advertisements? Remember that freelance writers and marketing people have the simple option of complying with policy and the WMF terms of use, by voluntarily making the disclosures required of them. In my opinion, you've completely lost perspective. --Andreas JN466 21:08, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
To the contrary to your point about me trying to keep people from having to disclose, I have long been on record begging my admin and functionary colleagues to do more to enforce the existing paid editing disclosure requirements and the sanctions that would result from paid editors' failure to disclose (see, for instance, my unsuccessful attempt to get Arbcom to accept that we have a policy governing it, here, and my involvement in the current RfC, suggesting again that either Arbcom or the OS team should take ownership of these investigations). I have had a shocking (maybe just to me?) lack of success in convincing my colleagues that this is an important issue that we need to help the community deal with and that if we don't do it the community will be even more inclined to roll their own solutions that don't handle private information privately - but at no point in this series of failed attempts to get others on board has it made sense to me that the solution to the functionaries' inaction is to just go ahead and out paid editors' (offline) identities. The two are unrelated in my view - we can enforce the ToU requirements perfectly well without publicly pointing out to John Doe that he is John Doe and lives on Main Street. He already knows who he is; I don't need to remind him. What I do need to do is point out to him that we have a disclosure requirement, and that if the terms of it apply to him he is obligated to follow it under penalty of losing his editing privileges. His offline identity needn't come into that process, whether it ends with him disclosing his status as a paid editor (which would involve him choosing whether to disclose his connections or just stop editing) or in my reporting him to ANI, oversight-l, or arbcom-l for violating the ToU. At worst, I may need to say onwiki that I have evidence clearly linking this account with that particular paid editing job but that I cannot post it publicly since it contains identifying information; if anyone demands to see my proof, I can forward that evidence privately to them (not a great solution, but better than posting it on ANI or something) or to oversight-l or arbcom-l (either of which would be the logical venue for handling things like that, if my colleagues, particularly the arbs, had not largely disclaimed any responsibility for doing so). A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:36, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
@Fluffernutter: Professional advertisements and profiles on LinkedIn, Elance and so on are not "private information". The individuals concerned do not post them in a private capacity, but in a public professional capacity, just like their participation here takes place not in a private, but a professional capacity. There is no wiggle room here, as there would be with a social media post that mentions professional activity in passing. The professional profiles and advertisements of PR writers are unambiguously part of their public, not private, lives. It serves neither our volunteers nor our readers to attempt to invent novel definitions of plain English words – "public" and "private" – in order to suggest otherwise. Andreas JN466 10:22, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
User:Fluffernutter please stop calling it private information, calling it that makes it sound like the functionaries are taking about something other than what they are talking about. When you say "private information" what you appear to mean is all information about a person that exists off of Wikipedia that has not been released on WP by the person in question. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:45, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Uh...yes? I am in fact saying that the policy - in a spot you're not even arguing is incorrect - says "Posting another editor's personal information is harassment, unless that person had voluntarily posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia. Personal information includes legal name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, other contact information, or photograph, whether any such information is accurate or not.", and that that means posting a link involving those things if they haven't already been shared on WP by the person in question is a violation of the policy that prohibits posting other users' personal information. If the link you feel you need to post about someone else contains nothing related to their employer (i.e. who's paying them to edit), their real name, their physical location, their email address, etc, then a) sure, you may be cool as far as "outing" but b) what exactly do you think it's proving about the person's editing for pay? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:55, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
I guess that's why this op-ed is called "Two policies in conflict?" The passage you cite predates the paid-contributions disclosure policy. It was not written to protect professional PR writers contributing to Wikipedia in a paid professional capacity from having to make the disclosures today's policy demands of them. It's in need of updating. Andreas JN466 10:48, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

I believe we need to do more to protect those like the thousands of students who were harmed when our content was corrupted in this case of paid editing[1]

Jytdog was in good faith attempting to address undisclosed paid promotional editing such as this. He make a mistake in that the link he added to the person's talk page was simply not needed as the case was so obvious. That this minor infraction and one he has given assurances he will not repeat has resulted in an indef block is unfortunate for our project. It also sends a chill through those working in a difficult area who already get plenty of threats due to the work they do.

During the Rorschach ink blot controversy a fellow editor who disagreed with my position dug through my imagine uploads and wrote a letter of complaint to my licensing body claiming that because one of my images was of a patients who had a congenital condition that is occasionally associated with intellectual disability that the person in question could not have given informed consent. The patient was in fact a highly educated professional. I forwarded this to arbcom around the time it happened and more important got a lawyer. The editor was never blocked. That was actual harassment.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:11, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

Do we know that Jytdog has actually said to ArbCom that he does not intend to repeat the mistake again? If that is the case, it makes no sense that the block would not have been lifted. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:22, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
User:Tryptofish Yes I know for certainty that Jytdog has said this to abrcom. Agree it makes no sense that he remains blocked. Maybe they just need more time, I do not know. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:25, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
@GorillaWarfare: are you at liberty to respond to this? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:35, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
As I said earlier on Doc James' talk page when he noted that ArbCom has not unblocked Jytdog, ArbCom has not declined the appeal, and ArbCom appeal discussions take time. I am not sure why he's saying "Maybe they just need more time, I do not know." here when I've told him that that's precisely the case. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:17, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Thank you. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:19, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
The discussion is here. As you said arbcom has not declined to unblock. They have however also not unblocked. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:41, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Arbcom has not declined to unblock. But at any one moment there are a million things Arbcom has "not declined" to do. It may have been more straightforward to say "Arbcom is considering a block appeal." -- Euryalus (talk) 01:56, 6 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

I remember when Jytdog said I was wrong for suggesting that a supposedly neutral editor's claim that a fake literature review of the effect of neonicotinoids on bees commissioned and paid for by Bayer Cropscience by researchers-for-hire was a high-quality source suggested bias and reeked of the epitome of paid advocacy, disclosed or otherwise. That still seems like a mistake to me, but on balance I thought he generally upheld the reliable source criteria well, and would like to petition for his unblocking. EllenCT (talk) 21:57, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

I'd be very willing to support such a petition. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 22:36, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
It is outside the remit of the community to petition for the lifting of {{oversightblock}}s just like it is outside the remit of the community to petition for the lifting of {{checkuserblock}}s or {{arbcomblock}}s. Any admin that undoes any of these types of blocks, even on the consensus of the community, is looking at a desysop. Why don't we all just wait for the result of the appeal? --Majora (talk) 22:39, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Nothing is outside the remit of the community. We can petition towards whatever we want — and it is fully possible that with strong support that Arbcom can be requested to step down. I'm not saying that this is anywhere near necessary, but the community makes up Wikipedia — and in the end can influence any judgement, regardless who made it. It might not result in something as simple as just removing the block, but we shouldn't pretend that Arbcom is immune to scrutiny. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 10:04, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Oh don't be naive. Of course we can "petition towards whatever we want." I can petition to be made steward for a day. Doesn't mean it is going to happen. And bullshit on forcing ArbCom to step down. 100% grade A bullshit. The next ACE elections are in December. That is when the community votes on ArbCom. Not on some petition that is thrown together because people don't like an ArbCom decision. News flash. People rarely like ArbCom decisions. And this was not an ArbCom decision anyways. This was an Oversight decision. You going to petition that all oversighters step down too? The only reason ArbCom is even involved is because that is where oversight blocks get appealed to. So why don't we, again, just wait instead of reaching for our pitchforks and torches. --Majora (talk) 01:32, 6 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

There will always be a conflict between the concept of producing a high-quality encyclopedia and the concept of permitting anonymous editing. This was less of a problem in past years, because initially the goal was not really to produce a high-quality encyclopedia, but a rough-and-ready encyclopedia that would have at least some minimal usefulness. But regardless of our original modest intentions, the public--even parts of the public such as the Library of Congress devoted to archiving proven reliable information about authors--are using us as a source. Journalist do, courts do. Studies have shown that in at least some field this is not ridiculous, because our quality in those fields compares with more traditionally reliable sources. In other fields it does not. These fields are ones that attract inexperienced editors, and also those fields which attract people having a conflict of interest. While we never will be able in our system to deal adequately with advocates of a cause (unless they are greatly outnumbered, the increasing and most currently significant problem is the financially motivated editing of articles on commercial and non-commercial organizations, and the people associated with them. Those of my colleague who have said otherwise are probably not familiar with the current inflow of such articles. I think there is a purpose in a non-anoymous open content free encyclopedia as a complement to WP, but there is no plausible way WP itself is likely to develop into this, nor would I even advocate that, for there is also a need for the sort of encyclopedia that we do have here.

But I think it has been shown both by experience and by our current practice that we need to make some compromises with the concept of anonymity in order to maintain the quality that is expected of us. We do have our terms of use, even if we lack mechanisms for enforcing them. We do have ways of communicating private information to those who are authorized to deal with it,and we do have ways of taking this into account in dealing with particularly troublesome editors. The actual question is whether we ought to compromise it further. My experience from years of patrolling new pages and drafts and articles for deletion is that we need to do two additional things.One,which I think nobody disagrees with, is to find a better way to communicate to well intentioned new editors what is expected of them. The difficulty is to deal with those not so well-intentioned. We can in fact deal with them, once we figure out who they are--that's the difficulty that brings us to this discussion. The current method pretty much relies upon (occasionally) people making obvious and transparent errors that reveal their status and intentions, and (much more often) guesswork. It's easy to say we should judge by the article, but the flood of promotional articles in some areas is so great that even disinterested volunteers often copy the style, thinking that it's what we want, and we have a unfortunate record of finding false positives and discouraging or driving away potentially good editors. There are paid editors who boast outside WP about their success in evading the terms of use and avoiding detection--some of this is probably mere puffery, and they remain here because of our lack of ability to question those producing what are likely to be paid articles. It's been claimed there are no cases where its needed--such a claim can have no basis, because we only know what we have actually detected.

I am not clear just what rules we should have, and I therefore have not made any specific proposals. It would be easier to find workable rules that would not overly offend the anonymity-absolutists if we did not regard this as a taboo subject where any questioning of the rules is denounced as subversive of our values. (It should be obvious from discussions elsewhere that I am writing in a personal capacity, and that few of my colleagues at arb com or functionaries see the issue the way I do--I certainly welcome Fluffernutter's ability to see the need for at least some changes. And to respond to a question elsewhere, while the matter is unresolved I will enforce the rules in the conventional manner.) DGG ( talk ) 22:08, 4 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

  • It is not now, has never been, and never will be more difficult to focus on content rather than on the motivations of individual editors, including financial ones. A quality edit is a quality edit, even if the editor earned a few dollars, advocated for a preferred political candidate, or provided important information about a poorly-understood environmental risk. Likewise, it's really quite easy to identify self-promotion, slander, and claptrap. I've largely gutted any number of badly-written articles. In some cases, it was obvious that money was changing hands directly or indirectly; usernames of of naive PR people used to make their loyalties all too clear. Other times, it's not at all obvious if the problem is created by a gobsmacked theme park fan, spouse of an employee, or shareholder in a corporation. It does not matter, because the guiding principles of Wikipedia have, for as long as I have been editing, been more than enough to help me decide what should stay and what should go. No one needs to be accused of thoughtcrime because a bad edit is a bad edit, even if the editor has absolutely no bias whatsoever. It would take less time to edit articles if there were no policy whatsoever of payment.~TPW 01:24, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
And how would it take less time in editing if we had no paid editing policy? It would take less time at COI, to be sure--but I don't spend time there, but in screening articles, and it would take very much less time in doing that if we accepted no paid editing at all, because about half the junk would be gone. DGG ( talk ) 02:55, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Paid editing also makes up a large portion of the copyright issues we are picking up.[2] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:35, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
  • There is one fatal flaw, highlighted by the Jytdog example. There is no concrete admission that the accounts on WP are the same as the accounts on outside websites. Per DUCK test, we are either faced with a new editor with little understanding of our process and policy or we are facing a false-flag attempt to create an orchestrated response. it would take very little effort to find a random "ACME Pharmaceutical" mid-level manager, create a matching Wikpedia profile and make an edit to bring scrutiny such as deleting a reference to a competitor product. WP, in its almost DSM classifiable response, would not only revert that tiny action, they are likely to flesh out the competitor product as if the competitor commissioned it. Paid editing/COI is not just removed, it also receives a backlash from members of the community. Congressional staff editing and the Grant Schapps affair are examples of the community response. Agents provocateurs are not a new construct and severely limits the usefulness of tying a Wikipedia account to an external account. If they are a newbie and the linking is correct, they likely don't have any authority to speak for their employer and such a public connection jeopardizes their livelihood over a misunderstanding of policy. If they are not connected to the outside account and it's coincidence, posting the link is not "evidence" and is still an aspersion. Lastly, if it is an "agent provocateur," the link and accusation just libeled a living person in the real world who may never have edited Wikipedia. There are doxers and harassers that would not hesitate to call that persons employer with the false accusation presented on Wikipedia. It's happened before. The other aspect is the collateral damage of linking someone's hobby to their workplace. Even if the COI edit doesn't bother their company, their editing history might. That history may not be a conflict on Wikipedia but it may be a conflict for their employer that leads to termination or worse. If Edward Snowden edited the NSA article, would it be a violation to tie his Wikipedia username and editing history to his real world identity simply because of his COI? I think many would rightly fear the exhaustive search and intrusion into his editing history would grreatly outweigh his COI edits to a single article. The bottom line is that chasing paid editors is important to those wishing to eradicate it but there are boundaries that should not be crossed. Publicly linking a Wikipedia account to a real life person outside of Wikipedia is one of those boundaries. Even editor provided links, not acknowledged at both ends, should be looked at sceptically. --DHeyward (talk) 07:36, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
DH, nobody is suggesting that making it possible to check the identity of apparently compromised editors would replace our practice of editing suspiciously COI edits for NPOV; rather, it's a supplement to aid detection and increase accuracy. And in looking at COI, we do tend to look at related articles. There have been attempts to edit competitors articles negatively, but a minuscule number as compared to the direct positive advertising. DGG ( talk ) 05:44, 6 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
At least since 2010, enforcement of the rules against "outing" have been unreasonably focused on imaginary secrecy. By that I don't mean whether something is known or not, but whether it is known on Wikipedia by "legitimate" means. So if someone ever made an edit referring to a real-world identity, you can flaunt that in their face wherever they go and whatever they do; but if they haven't, you can't present whatever evidence makes you think you know it. I think this has been wrong from the start. The purpose of WP:OUTING should be, not to preserve "secrecy" per se, but to ban unwarranted "opposition research". In other words, it is harassment to point out that an editor is this or that offline when they're trying to argue a point about an article, just as it's harassment to make stupid comments based on their sex, religion etc. In this view, you could make some of these deductions in specialized, preferably noindexed forums like the COI noticeboard, but not in the regular wiki arguing about regular issues.
Now Wikipedia has a mechanism for presenting conflicts of interest among paid or affiliated editors ... it's just that it sucks. The mechanism is you get a banned editor to blog about it on Wikipediocracy, some IP raises commentary about it on Jimbo Wales' talk page, a mob gets riled up and the admins, faster than thought (I mean that literally) take action against the person targeted. This is just about as bad a mechanism as we could have come up with though. Wnt (talk) 21:22, 5 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

A few thoughts:

  • Doc James was not successful in writing the 'question' for his RFC at WT:HARRASSMENT. It does not seem to ask the question that he truly wanted to have answered. It might be appropriate for him to close that (for those who haven't read WP:RFC for a few years, if ever: the original creator of an RFC can normally withdraw an RFC as soon as he's got the answers he needs), wait a while, and start a new one that actually asks the question he's interested in.
  • If we wanted to discuss COI (for example) without OUTING problems, then we could find a way to do that. For example, the regulars at WP:COIN and other interested editors could create a private mailing list for the purpose of sharing and discussing "evidence". That would give editors a place to send their "evidence" so that it could be handled appropriately and still kept off-wiki. (These policies usually recommend sending such information to the checkusers mailing list, but this advice somehow doesn't seem to be believed).
  • If we wanted to dramatically reduce COI editing, then there is actually a fairly simple solution: We just need to create, and enforce, much, much higher notability standards for businesses, organizations, and products.
    WP:CORP has said (for years) that you can write an article about your business, org, or product if you can scrape together two (2) newspaper articles about it, at least one of which must not be your own local neighborhood newspaper. (As a side note, I'm amazed how often established editors(!) complain about that very minor restriction, and insist that their favorite school/restaurant/business/non-profit/academic organization must get an article even though the only publication that ever wrote anything about it is the newspaper owned by their next-door neighbor.)
    But if we really wanted to reduce the flood of COI marketing, we would go in the opposite direction, and say that if you want anything more than a barebones list entry on a List of non-profits in My City or List of windows manufacturers (or whatever), then you need to have coverage amounting to a minimum of a thousand words, from at least four unrelated publishers, and spanning multiple years. And then we could start something like {{subst:BLPprod}} project for such subjects, and specify that if the article doesn't actually cite sources that comply with the minimum requirements within a month or two, then we'll delete it (without prejudice to re-creation in a compliant form, of course). I think that a system like this would discourage the promotional COI stuff. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:18, 6 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
  • WAID, two points: (1) there's nothing in WP:RFC that suggests it's okay for someone who opens a contentious RfC to decide unilaterally to close it early; and (2) that something is a local or regional newspaper doesn't mean that it's probably owned by a business owner's next-door neighbour, or that, if it were, that would make more difference than if the business owner lived next door to the editor of the New York Times. Having said that, I agree that we should raise notability standards for companies. SarahSV (talk) 00:25, 7 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
    • I encourage you to read the very first words under WP:RFC#Ending RFCs: "There are several ways that RfCs end: 1. The question may be withdrawn by the poster (e.g., if the community's response became obvious very quickly)." There are no exceptions for "contentious RfCs"; in fact, when "contentious" means "the OP discovers that everyone thinks he's completely wrong", then we actually do want those RfCs closed as soon as possible, so that people can do something other than join the dogpile. Ditto for "the OP screwed up the question so badly that the answers have nothing to do with what he actually wanted to find out".
      You're probably right that not all small-town or neighborhood newspapers pay more attention to the people they know than to people they don't. However, I can't think of a single newspaper where that's not been true in my (more than trivial) experience. Perhaps it's just the small American papers that have this very human quality? Or maybe there's a reason that we've had editors declare those papers to be "reliable" (in the sense of getting their facts straight) for years, but also "indiscriminate" (in the sense of not being a good indicator of "attention by the world at large", to quote the nutshell at WP:N, precisely because they do tend engage in neighborly promotion and civic boosterism). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:54, 7 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

While writing for the Wikimedia Research Newsletter, which is published first on meta, but then republished by Signpost, on occasion I have might have identified a number of researchers/educators, connecting the dots between, for example, a teacher who has described in their academic article that "students in my class have edited articles X and Y", their course wiki page, and the course creator's (i.e. said teacher's) Wikipedia userpage, even through said userpage may not even exist. In my review I would not hesitate to clearly state that "John Smith, whose course page was at... and who seems to edit as User:XXX....", even through said user page mage not mention their real name, link to their course page, nor would their research article mention their user name. I have never thought this may be outing, as it seems to me that by engaging in certain actions like teaching a course on Wikipedia and publishing an article about it people are abandoning their anonymity, by pretty much saying in a public forum intended for dissemination that "I created this Wikipedia article", which in turns means for anyone with basic wiki skills "this is my Wikipedia username". I do think that similar "connections" are habitually made by other reviewers, as well as on blogs by Wiki Education Foundation and such (ex. [3] mentions a real name of a user who does not use it on her userpage on Wikipedia, even trough she links to said article). In [4], we again see the real name of a user who does not reveal their name of their userpage, through they link to their course page where said name is present, through that page was not created by them, but by a Wiki Ed helper. Isn't Wiki Ed "outing" teachers? Could a reviewer like myself out somebody by reviewing their paper and mentioning their user account (or should I just link their wiki course pages, and let people see who created it or is listed there as the instructor...? Seems stupid, really). And how what Wiki Ed / I have been doing is different from what is discussed here? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 18:53, 6 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Piotrus and Doc James: This is another good example of "personal information" that should not be considered private. In both cases, we are talking about editors who voluntarily make statements about their Wikipedia editing as part of their public professional (or academic) self-representation. I'd suggest that when we get rid of the "case-by-case" wording, we replace it with wording similar to this.
Note too that this is completely different from someone casually mentioning in passing their profession or employer in a social media context. WP:Harassment should distinguish between a casual social-media mention someone has made on the internet in their capacity as a private person (not appropriate to link on-wiki, but something to be ignored or taken to email), and someone's public professional self-representation. --Andreas JN466 07:23, 8 July 2016 (UTC) fixed template error --Andreas JN466 07:40, 8 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
  • My hunch is that editors actively trying to address paid editing and COI issues at COIN and elsewhere like Jytdog, DGG and a handful of others including my efforts, may have a different perspective, almost a local consensus. Consensus is too strong as opinions range and every person has to fend for themselves. More like heroic efforts of close combat in no man's land between the entrenched lines of editors and paid editors. My message across the scorched earth to the majority of editors is "it looks different from here", my message to the other side is "reinforcements are coming". Do we really want to light a last cigarette for our man in the middle? What's reasonable? Addressing undisclosed paid editing is not what you think it is. In this arms race, there shouldn't be a need for bravery. We need new tools, and support from the community and WMF. Bad content can be rewritten, but addressing the systemic bias of COI saps precious resources (plug for my analysis at WP:BOGOF) and is better addressed through procedures and automation rather than heroics of exposing or content saving. Without a workable framework we have nothing to address the systemic bias of COI from reputational damage. Unifying the incompatible anyone? Do we progress on Capability Maturity Model rather than Capability Immaturity Model ? Widefox; talk 09:57, 7 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
I think that Widefox's analysis is an excellent one. Ultimately, the privacy protectors and the COI preventers need to realize that we are all on the same team. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:49, 7 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
I agree completely. Those of us who regularly patrol new articles all see these perfectly formatted articles with lots of references that were created by a "new" editor in just a single or only a few edits. If you have lots of time or are bored, you can check those references and almost invariably find that they either don't mention the subject at all, or only in passing. An A7 won't work, so we have to spend (waste) valuable time at AfD. --Randykitty (talk) 15:20, 7 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
This seems to be veering into the territory I discussed in my Op-Ed last year (see WP:CORPSPAM). I just swung by here after dropping a few prods which are almost certainly paid-for promos, half if not all of them will get challenged and will end up on AfD. This is a bit OT here, but yes, we do need to do something to stop all this spam. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:21, 8 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
I have noticed this as well. Looking at COI, improving the article and even trying to delete it is a huge effort. And add to that a bunch of people on AfD who tend to have a glance at the references and say "Keep passes GNG". It then becomes a race to actually refute why each and every single reference is not a reliable source. From what I have seen, the number of editors who diligently scrutinise the references is quite small and is stretched thin across all AfDs while the editors who are not stringent are more in number. The amount of time and effort all of this wastes is immense. (Btw, the PROD process is useless, based on my personal experience. I just use AfD now). I'm thinking of a solution in the lines of creating a list of AfDs which will be tagged as maybe "Undisclosed paid editing" or "Suspected COI". A list of these AfDs can then be maintained at WT:COIN which encourages interested editors to voice their opinion. I am thinking something along these lines and I will post more later. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 15:32, 8 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

My thoughts on all this. Montanabw(talk) 19:59, 8 July 2016 (UTC):Reply

  1. I DO think that undisclosed paid editors need to be blocked as fast as possible (the expression "slap the shit out of the little boogers" comes to mind), but public outing is not the way to do it.
  2. Jytdog crossed a line and the block was appropriate. That said, this current block probably did factor in that he has designated himself a self-appointed cop on any number of issues and so the WP:JERK factor probably was involved. Here he finally was hoist by his own petard.
  3. Just because people can be outed does not mean they should be -- for any reason. If someone limits the information they post on wikipedia, even if what they do post can lead others to their RL identity, what they post on-wiki should be the limits of what is discussed on-wiki.
  4. There should be a private area to the oversighters or some other trusted entity where concerns about paid editors, sockpuppets and the like could be discussed without on-wiki outing. In the context of an SPI, sometimes the evidence of socking comes close to the "outing" line (such as people editing logged out and disclosing an IP, which has busted many a sock...but also acquitted more than a few cases too)
  5. I actually like part of the idea Lemongirl942 suggests of an "undisclosed paid editing" tag for AfD that would be independent grounds for deletion than simple WP:N. This would of course, require a discussion of the intersection of notability and COI, and if the sanction for paid editing is article deletion independent of any notability. (And also, if that "salts" the article title forever, or only is WP:TNT of the paid editor's version, similar to a copyvio blanking and revdel, thus allowing a non-paid, non-COI editor to re-create the article subject to WP:N standards only).
  6. COI and paid editing are not quite the same thing, and that also needs to be distinguished. We already have a good COI tag for articles ( {{COI}} and {{NPOV}} is also useful) but neither are notability concerns. COI has a lot of appropriately strong cautions, particularly for people such as employees working for a company editing articles about that company, but if you are not being paid to edit a particular article, it is a very different situation from the examples such as writers-for-hire a Elance.

All of the above just being my random thoughts. But at the end of the day, the penalty has to fit the crime. A paid editor should be blocked and indeffed from editing wikipedia. But even a paid editor does not deserve to be outed or harassed offline. Montanabw(talk) 19:59, 8 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

  • I agree with Montanabw that the block was appropriate, and note that this op-ed fails to point out that he was previously indefinitely blocked for revealing personal information. In discussing paid editing, it's a mistake to overgeneralize on the basis of problematic conduct by one editor, especially when that editor has a history of misconduct not just confined to outing. Coretheapple (talk) 14:42, 9 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
    • I think it's unfair to criticize an editor who cannot defend himself. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:00, 9 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
      • Not criticism at all. Jytdog is central to this op-ed, and his actions being discussed here since the very first comment at the top of this page. James refers to him as "a long-standing editor on medical topics who also works in the area of conflict of interest." He goes on to say in his 4 July comment above that "Jytdog was in good faith attempting to address undisclosed paid promotional editing such as this. He make a mistake in that the link he added to the person's talk page was simply not needed as the case was so obvious. That this minor infraction and one he has given assurances he will not repeat has resulted in an indef block is unfortunate for our project. It also sends a chill through those working in a difficult area who already get plenty of threats due to the work they do." Yet he fails to point out that Jytdog was permablocked for the same thing previously, and also failed to point out that he was topic-banned by Arbcom based on a finding of "edit warring, has belittled other editors, and has engaged in non-civil conduct." Obviously if an editor has been previously sanctioned for the same conduct, and has a record of incivility sufficient to warrant a topic ban, he is going to be treated differently than an editor with a clean record. This omission skews the op-ed. Coretheapple (talk) 13:31, 11 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
          • Well, a case could be made that Doc James writes the op-ed from one perspective, and you would have written an op-ed from a different perspective. That's doesn't make either one of you right. What you are really saying is that you disagree with Doc James' use of the words "good faith", and I think that does indeed amount to a criticism. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:25, 11 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
            • He was actually commenting above. Sounds to me like you want to suppress discussion of this op-ed, which directly concerns one user's block. Coretheapple (talk) 22:39, 11 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
              • Suppress discussion? Seriously? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:45, 11 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
                • As serious as you are in suggesting that a discussion of a user's block not discuss that user's block. If that wasn't your intent, why did you say that you didn't believe that the blocked account should be "criticized"? Coretheapple (talk) 22:50, 11 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
                  • You went way beyond discussing the block. I'm saying that it's unfair to treat history that was not involved in the block, as though it was. I never said that you should not discuss the block itself. But that's not a license to list everything you dislike about someone who isn't here to respond, essentially to engage in grave-dancing. And I'm most definitely not suppressing anyone's ability to say anything. You seem to be saying all kinds of stuff without any difficulty. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:02, 11 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
        • How do you propose to deal with this Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Sweat_Cosmetics then? This is a current undisclosed paid editing case. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 13:38, 11 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
          • Brianhe gave you a good answer at COIN. Now, if your question is, how to deal with off-wiki evidence (if you have any) I don't know the answer as I don't have time to go looking for off-wiki COI evidence and the subject has never come up. In this case it's not necessary. This is a promotion-only account. If there are further issues I'd suggest going to ANI, as COIN is pretty useless. I've added a comment to that effect at the COIN discussion. Coretheapple (talk) 14:19, 11 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
  • Discriminate against suspected articles/creators? We need a counter bias. Raise the bar GNG/NCORP/NPRODUCT/AfC for suspected ones (e.g. double the height). There's no doubt workable procedures when undisclosed paid editing is suspected. Known patterns of paid article creation can be numbered and then the WP:BURDEN pushed back on the paid creator by moving from article space to AfC where it can sit until disclosure and/or sourcing has exceeded the double height. Per User:Lemongirl942 PROD will always be contested. Instead of AfD, the inverted process AfC process would work. Challenging the creator and article must be atomic, so that they are coupled together and analysed together, and not contestable like PROD. Just slowing down article creation will be a good bias against paid editors making it less of a productive job by stretching the job completion date. A non-contestable check-sourcing-is-it-coi-bias to take articles only edited by few editors. Non-paid COI is different but if nothing disclosed (as usual) indistinguishable. This isn't the first casualty (and I don't know both details), but it reminds me of the recent failed RfA due to COI - essay here User:Brianhe/What's wrong with undisclosed paid editing. Widefox; talk 17:10, 9 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

Slippery slope argument.

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Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Come on, User:Doc James. You know better than to use a slippery slope argument, don't you? "By extension are we going to say that linking to pubmed, a well-known database of biomedical abstracts, is disallowed because such links could have the real names, employment, or location of Wikipedia editors which those editors may not have disclosed previously on our sites?" Please stop torpedoing your own reputation by continuing to defend and associate with this bullying. --Elvey(t•c) 09:04, 23 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

It is called being a realist and not burying our heads in the sand. We need to stop pretending that the rest of the Internet does not exist. Editing Wikipedia is a multi million dollar business that harms our readers. So yes I am willing to put my reputation on the line to try to address this problem / defend of our readers. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:10, 31 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
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