On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 6:58 PM, Sarah <slimvir...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I don't know anything about this case, but it does seem that paid > advocacy > is increasing, and although the community seems opposed to it as a whole, > that message isn't getting through to individual editors. It's becoming > very discouraging to have to deal with it, or to edit alongside it. >
Your concern is totally legit Sarah, but before we jump to saying paid advocacy is actually increasing, I think it would be interesting to try and think about whether it's merely that it's more prominent and open. The kind of guidelines that PR orgs and Wikimedians are encouraging, such as being transparent about a COI, could create the misperception that there is more paid advocacy. Maybe it's just that we're actually starting to see people be more open? The thing that scares me the most is the kind of edits uncovered by WikiScanner back in the day: those who are editing with a COI but who are acting in secret. The thing that I don't even want to think about when it comes to paid advocacy is how many skilled sockmasters are writing articles that look okay but are really spam? In short: I think people like Max and Roger, who make public declarations about their identities and conflicts of interest, are not the ones who scare me. We can always find those people and start a conversation with them. Steven _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
