It is approximately a year ago when there was the first translated article on Wikipedia that was paid for. The idea then was to create a translation service that works on that basis - I also put up a basic website that was never finished (because time was not due). Then there already were voices against such a way of earning money, but since it was only an article about a city things calmed down.
Some days ago there was a report about mywikibiz.com around and people reacted quite irritated ... a person creating articles for companies on Wikipedia being even paid for it? Many would say: that is impossible ... where is NPOV going ... well: this user already added some articles and they were not deleted, because they were OK. Now knowing he does it against payment, does that make the article any worse or better? No, the contents remains the same. The difference is: this person made a work out of his hobby and it seems as if he is good.
So where's the real problem? That he earns money because he needs to live from something? Well ... anyone of us does that ... in many different ways ...
The real problem is that people are not used yet to this thought ... someone earning money by working on Open Content ... but don't we have software developers that are paid for developing Open Source software and we happily use it because id does not cost anything? Well do we really expect that people maybe work the whole day on free projects and live from nothing? Or should everyone of us really use only the free time to do this?
The thing is: nobody will ever be able to stop such an initiative. If you really want to get your article there, you get it there. Isn't it better to know who it wrote and why it was written? Isn't it better to co-operate and make sure things go the right way? I would not wonder if there are already many people being paid to add certain kinds of articles and we just don't know about it. Now that Greg's work is publicly known (no, I don't know him - I only wrote him an e-mail telling him about wikitranslations) people react scandalised ... they refuse to understand: creating Open Content agains payment will be a job of the future ...
Now some of you are worrying about NPOV on Wikipedia - why? There are all the other editors that will, like always, chek the article, edit it if necessary. Once an article is published under GFDL on Wikipedia it can be edited and changed.
Do also consider one thing: it is not said that it is positive to have an article on Wikipedia about a person or a business. All facts that are known can be added. It could well be that companies will then read about the problems they eventually had some years ago and that by now everybody forgot - by having an encyclopaedic NPOV article all notes on history, if positive or negative, can and will be mentioned.
Consider also that not all companies can be included in Wikipedia. There are guidlines to follow. A small company next door is normally not to be inserted into Wikipedia. Most companies do not correspond to the Wikipedia guidelines for the insertion of companies. Therefore, some time ago, yellowikis was created. There you will have space for any kind of business to be inserted - it is a GFDL directory that anyone can edit. And it is getting more and more known. Once it is on a good level being present on Yellowikis, which is known as a business directory anybody can edit, means just as much as being present on Wikipedia - the only difference will be: companies that wrote history due to their inventions or due to their international high level presence like Siemens, Ferrari, Nokia just to name some, will have entries in Wikipedia and Yellowikis.
This blog was written from scratch with various interruptions - it may well be that I am going to add or change some parts.
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7 comments:
There are two problems with this model:
The cost model -
In every communications model which provides free distribution of content over the internet, companies evolve which utilize this free system for commercial gain. Where they are not opposed, they destroy the usefulness of the communications model. The usual example is Usenet, which is nearly completely useless now due to overwhelming spam.
Where they are opposed, the cost to the free communications system is extreme. For example, to leave this comment on your blog I must be a registered blogger and pass a captcha test to prove I am not a bot leaving spam messages in your comment section. This costs a large amount in server time (to generate and test the captcha images) and it costs in who can actually be involved in the conversation. And, of course, the more virulent spammers are writing ever-better bots to read captcha images, which result in ever-more-expensive tools to keep them out.
For Wikimedia, all of these costs are paid for with very small donations given by regular users all over the world. We have volunteer developers, but their time could be spent making the system run better rather than fighting spammers. And our people who donate do not wish their donations to be used to advertise companies/politicians/products by paying for the storage and transmission of advertisements.
The neutrality problem -
And do not doubt that companies such as MyWikiBiz are spammers. They are paid to place articles on Wikipedia. But they are also paid to make sure the articles are never negative, that they are not neutral, to remove certain information or to insert it, and so on. I have seen companies place negative information into competitor's articles, or create negative articles about individuals who they view as opponents. They are not harmless.
Further, if you extrapolate what you suggest - allowing companies to create articles they are paid to create (or to alter those they are paid to alter) - Wikipedia will become a host primarily of advertisements.
There would be nothing wrong, for example, if a national political party paid a company to create bio articles of all their candidates. Surely you are aware that the U.S.A.'s Democratic and Republican parties each have tens of thousands of candidates across the country in this year's elections at Federal, State, and Municipal levels? Trying to police so many political articles for Neutral Point of View in just this one country would be a mammoth task for volunteers.
The conclusion -
It is extremely unlikely that Wikipedia would be able to police and prevent the use of the site by public relations firms.
However, where a public relations firm is identified as creating or altering a company or person's article on Wikipedia for pay, a bright and embarrasing template stating that the article has been used for advertising in violation of the Wikipedia's policies and guidelines should be added. This will be a negative publicity risk respectable companies will not wish to accept.
This will not prevent corporations from continuing to attempt to use Wikipedia for their personal profit at the expense of the project. But it may reduce or slow the harm.
Amgine
There are two problems with this model:
The cost model -
In every communications model which provides free distribution of content over the internet, companies evolve which utilize this free system for commercial gain. Where they are not opposed, they destroy the usefulness of the communications model. The usual example is Usenet, which is nearly completely useless now due to overwhelming spam.
Where they are opposed, the cost to the free communications system is extreme. For example, to leave this comment on your blog I must be a registered blogger and pass a captcha test to prove I am not a bot leaving spam messages in your comment section. This costs a large amount in server time (to generate and test the captcha images) and it costs in who can actually be involved in the conversation. And, of course, the more virulent spammers are writing ever-better bots to read captcha images, which result in ever-more-expensive tools to keep them out.
For Wikimedia, all of these costs are paid for with very small donations given by regular users all over the world. We have volunteer developers, but their time could be spent making the system run better rather than fighting spammers. And our people who donate do not wish their donations to be used to advertise companies/politicians/products by paying for the storage and transmission of advertisements.
The neutrality problem -
And do not doubt that companies such as MyWikiBiz are spammers. They are paid to place articles on Wikipedia. But they are also paid to make sure the articles are never negative, that they are not neutral, to remove certain information or to insert it, and so on. I have seen companies place negative information into competitor's articles, or create negative articles about individuals who they view as opponents. They are not harmless.
Further, if you extrapolate what you suggest - allowing companies to create articles they are paid to create (or to alter those they are paid to alter) - Wikipedia will become a host primarily of advertisements.
There would be nothing wrong, for example, if a national political party paid a company to create bio articles of all their candidates. Surely you are aware that the U.S.A.'s Democratic and Republican parties each have tens of thousands of candidates across the country in this year's elections at Federal, State, and Municipal levels? Trying to police so many political articles for Neutral Point of View in just this one country would be a mammoth task for volunteers.
The conclusion -
It is extremely unlikely that Wikipedia would be able to police and prevent the use of the site by public relations firms.
However, where a public relations firm is identified as creating or altering a company or person's article on Wikipedia for pay, a bright and embarrasing template stating that the article has been used for advertising in violation of the Wikipedia's policies and guidelines should be added. This will be a negative publicity risk respectable companies will not wish to accept.
This will not prevent corporations from continuing to attempt to use Wikipedia for their personal profit at the expense of the project. But it may reduce or slow the harm.
Amgine
These points are quite clear and also acceptable but ...
How can you state that an article written by a company about another company is against policies if it complies to the policies about inserting companies in Wikipedia? I suppose a template stating that this article was created by User:abc being paid for would be ok (as long as it is not changed by anyone), but not stating that it is publicity violating the policies - reading the guideline now there is no note about "articles for payment may not be inserted". The article is not written by the company itself, but by a person that simply states facts (at least it should be like this) - of course if they would write "the best etc." which would be POV that is different, but if he/she writes that the company was created in 19... and since then offers maybe a unique product, stating some other things like patents owned etc. that is ok - I mean a company offering such services publicly creating a mess on Wikipedia shovels its own grave and will not get further customers if they are known to be spammers. If instead they create valuable articles this will help the project and their customers. Of course you will find spammers around, but spammers will not tell you what they are doing - they will simply spam. The modification of these articles should then be only allowed by registered users - there's nothing wrong with that I'd say.
When it comes to contributions: well, I know what contribution in money and time means quite well. I invest a lot in open projects - not only Wikipedia, Wiktionary etc. but also others. How much do you think an hour of mine is worth in money?
What I still don't understand is: as much as I understand a company must comply to certain criteria to be included in Wikipedia (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CORP ) - and many articles of companies are deleted because they simply do not comply with the criteria ... but reading your comment it seems as if any company could get its page in Wikipedia and that seems strange to me.
I am particularly interested in the tourism area and I just had a look on some known names - Best Western for example is in Wikipedia and that is OK I'd say - but I would never dream of inserting a local hotel in Wikipedia because it does not make sense - if there maybe was "the first hotel on the Amalfi Coast ever" - so that it is of historical relevance ... well, that would be worth an article, because there would be books etc. about it, it would be relevant to the history of tourism on the coast ... but for the rest? Isn't it the same for companies? I mean: there is for example a paper mill in Amalfi, which is a typical product, but that one is not the historical one (the historical one does not exist anymore) so maybe there could be an article about the hand made paper from Amalfi stating which one was the first paper mill to produce it maybe stating that there is only one more paper mill working the traditional way mentioning the name ... but then that's it. So if someone paid someone else to create an article about that hand made paper what would be with that? It is the same ... only that the subject is not a company, but a typical product? A typical product that anyway deserves its place on Wikipedia?
I just read the note of the com com activity report - and I think the solution presented there is fine for now ... because if the article is OK it can be inserted - if not: changes are needed or maybe it simply does not comply to the criteria for insertion in wikipedia.
Hmmm ... very thoughtful ... I think this whole discussion will only lead people not to show what they are doing making it more difficult for Wikipedia editors to see who does what.
There is one problem with the notion that companies who operate for profit are evil. They are not all evil. When a comparison is made with companies who add SPAM and a company who adds content that conforms to the notions of a quality article, it is a comparison between apples and pears. They are not the same.
When a journalist writes about Wikipedia, he gets paid for it. Profound information is written that way, information that pleases us and pisses others off (eg the Nature article comparing Wikipedia with Encyclopaedia Brittanica).
At this moment, many of the articles are doctored by people with a POV interest. This lead to the embarassing block of the US congress. If anything, it proves that we do care about the quality of our content.
With people, organisations being open about their involvement in our project(s), they explicitly inform us about there intentions. They explicitly HAVE to be the best boy of the class because that is what keeps them in business.
Sorry Amgine, I think your's is a knee jerk reaction. There is a great deal of room to improve our content and I am certain there have been a lot of articles written by organisations. Well written articles that are as NPOV, informative as what our individual volunteers write.
Moreover, for many of our other projects the involvement of organisations will and does prove beneficial. WiktionaryZ is one project that is proud to have organisations that partner in it's development. If anything having partners is a reaction to the lack of involvement in the development of functionality of the Wikimedia Foundation for other projects than Wikipedia.
Thanks,
GerardM
GerardM -
I'm afraid I take issue with your statement "yours is a knee-jerk reaction." This is an issue I work with daily, and my opinion is based on literally thousands of hours working with such issues. I believe it would be very difficult to find more than a small handful of users who have worked as extensively with companies regarding this particular topic within the English language Wikipedia.
You might also wish to examine the edits of MyWikiBiz, and its sock puppets, before you make such accusations. I have done so, and found problematic edits which violated Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Have you done so?
Sabine -
I do like your conceptualization. If corporations could limit themselves to neutral, well-researched articles I would not have any issue with the idea. None of the companies I have researched have done so, but then I would not be investigating them if they had so there may be legitimate companies doing this kind of editing on Wikipedia now.
The guideline states that company should not write about itself, or its products, or its clients. The reasoning is that experience with such shows how difficult it is to maintain a neutral stance in writing about the people who pay you.
Gerard mentions the edits from the US Congress IPs; he may forget that I did much of the research which was involved in the Senate IP research. This was fairly simple, however, compared to tracking down some of the edits being made by political campaigns and by political action committees. Such articles are, in my opinion, prime targets for attention from public relations firms because they are paid to produce publicity - even negative publicity.
I do appreciate your position that a company which is allowed to operate openly will be more identifiable due to the scrutiny which their edits will receive. This, for example, was the case with MyWikiBiz. However, the company also operated one or more sockpuppets, and it appears the accounts may also have been "public accounts", in which more than one person has the password in order to hide responsibility for making any one edit. This is a likely scenario for most firms whose duty is to improve the image of another company for pay: their motivation is not to improve the Wikipedia, but to improve their client's status.
My suggestion that an article should be tagged with a template stating it was created by a PR firm for pay is not going to end such behaviour. It will hopefully reduce its prevalence, and point out that the community does not consider this to be a normal or preferred way to gain an article in the Wikipedia.
Unfortunately, the current standards for notability are very low, and becoming lower. My online nick clearly exceeds the minimum standards, as does my name in real life. In fact, just my work with Wikimedia in the past 4 years has gained me enough mentions in press and books to be listed. Even very small businesses which are clearly not encyclopedic in nature are being included, and Wikipedia is becoming steadily more of an online directory in violation of its own policies and guidelines.
And so vigilance regarding this particular form of spam - commercial organizations selling space on Wikipedia to third parties - is a specific good, and one which I support based on my own experiences.
In your comment you paint an adverserial relation between yourself and companies. Being immersed in this "battle" it is hard to see a bigger picture. With companies coming out and informing us that they want to / intent to provide a service, we have the opportunity to set the basic guidelines. One obvious rule would be "NOT SOCKPUPPETS". Another would be, if you go rogue, your articles will be put up for deletion.
My point, and that is why your's is imho a knee jerk reaction, is that we have an opportunity to deal with this phenomena in a positive way. Just seeing it as a continuation of the past is not taking the opportunity that is there.
Oh and indeed, I am not that active on the English Wikipedia. I am of the opinion that the other projects are discriminated against because of the over exposure of this magnificent resource.
I am curious to learn more about the sockpuppets of MyWikiBiz. If Amgine refers to the personal account of "Thekohser", then I'll be the first to admit (and already have), that "MyWikiBiz" and "Thekohser" represent one and the same person. However, my edits from one account to the other were potentially in support of one another PRIOR to the launch of the business, and prior to my full understanding of the pitfalls of editing articles about one's self. (Even Jimbo Wales fell prone to that little mistake about a dozen times.)
The big issue here is that MyWikiBiz attempted to launch its business in the bright sunlight of full disclosure, but certain members of the community's response was very reactionary, non-cooperative, and one might even say hypocritical. ( E.g., why are there 184 outbound links to Wikia.com from Wikipedia? Why is there a Reward Board?) The supposed current "solution" is for paid editors to post within their own domains, and then ask "independent" editors to post the content to Wikipedia, if they themselves feel that it is neutral POV. If everyone thinks that's a great solution, then that's what we will (and are currently) doing. None of our articles will be posted directly to the Wikipedia mainspace by a paid employee of MyWikiBiz.com. If you think that "solves" any of the inherent potential problems of poorly-written, biased, advertising-oriented articles, then that's like saying the way to prevent drowning is to never go in the water.
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