On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 11:39 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> On 16 November 2012 09:54, Andreas Kolbe <jayen...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Charles, I really am a bit mystified here. First of all, I would echo > Tom's > > point about the insider fallacy. In quality management terms, the people > > Wikipedia writes about are customers, just as readers are. That's quality > > management ABC, and I can't imagine why you would contest that. > > Well, ask the management of "The Sun" whether the celebs they write > about are the "customers", and they'll have a good belly-laugh. Since > I'm not interested in the "tabloid" side of WP I know what you are > saying here, but I don't think you are expressing the point. Everyone > knows that WP operates on universal principles rather than things you > find in management books. > Let's just say then that both readers and subjects have certain rightful expectations of Wikipedia, and how well Wikipedia fulfils them is a measure of the quality of Wikipedia's service. > Secondly, even the WMUK/CIPR guideline allows that there is a way for PR > > companies to contribute: by using the talk page and noticeboards. At > least > > those PR professionals who comply with that guideline deserve to receive > > efficient service, and there can be no intimation that what they do is in > > any way improper, and had better be done by a lawyer. And if all they do > is > > use talk pages and noticeboards, then they don't have to be able to edit > > within NPOV to have a right to be at the WP table. Just turning up on a > talk > > page is enough. Do you disagree? > > About the lawyer: I think I have been misunderstood here. I meant that > a lawyer probably has had enough training and background to deal with > the actual issues of representing a client on WP. I was not suggesting > that anyone should be using a lawyer to make legal threats and so on. > > Since I was involved in the CIPR guideline draft I know what it says. > > I think we (the WP community) should show a courteous face to all who > come to talk pages and elsewhere on the site needing help. > > > Thirdly, as Andy has pointed out, PR professionals and employees are not > > actually at present forbidden from editing Wikipedia. > > I was heavily involved in drafting the COI guideline in 2006, so I > know what it says (or used to say, at least). > > >Until four weeks ago, > > people who clicked "Contact us" to report an article problem were > presented > > with one invitation after another to just go and fix the article > themselves. > > And the number of articles edited by organisations' staff is legion. I > > sometimes think a quarter of Wikipedia wouldn't exist if it weren't for > > conflict-of-interest edits. They're everywhere. Pick any article on a > minor > > company, musician or publication, and chances are you'll find the > subject or > > staff members in the edit history. > > I think your estimate assumes too much. It would be more helpful to > understand how big the problematic sector really is. > > > People have PR departments, or hire PR agents, to manage their > reputation. > > That's just how it is. If they come to Wikipedia with a justified > complaint, > > Wikipedia should have a process in place that does not require them to > edit > > the article themselves, but provides them with a reasonable level of > > service, and gets things done when that's the right thing to do. There > > should be no quibbling that PR professionals have no right to complain in > > Wikipedia. > > The "right to complain" on behalf of someone else is an innovation, I > think. And this is where I have a problem. Arrogating to ones' self > the right to complain not just about the content (which surely anyone > can do) but as representative of a particular interest is > questionable. Historically lobbyists had to wait in the lobby? > > > I don't think that's what you're saying, as you say you are well aware of > > the need to improved the relationship between Wikipedia and PR > > professionals, but just what you *are* saying to Tom then escapes me at > the > > moment. > > As I said, my example of lawyers was more to do with fitness to do the > job actually required than about role. > Okay, I see what you're saying now. Lawyers are perhaps more used to situations where they have to tell a client, You can't do that, or You can't do it that way. > I have had a couple of interesting conversations with people outside > the community about training PR folk to the point where they could > more fruitfully do the job of defending clients on WP. What was > interesting was that my estimate of how much training it would take > was at odds with the estimate I was being given of how long the > trainees' companies would be prepared to allow them to take off the > job. Time is money, in that sector. But we have to face this as a > practical issue, if WMUK (for example) is to move to doing workshops > with the PR sector. My actual problem comes down to this: if we are > required to teach a quick-and-dirty approach to WP editing to PR pros > who then expect simple steps to give good results, there may be > disappointment. > The supreme irony here is that Wikipedia set out to be open, in contrast to the ivory tower of academe. Yet over the space of a decade, Wikipedia has become so involved, and its policy so impenetrable and contradictory, that people are now making a living from guiding others through it. > The conflation of WP and "social media" in the PR Week online piece > shows the trouble here. WP predates social media as people now > understand it, and is fundamentally more complicated. We have to make > that point clearly in order to get progress here, and if what we get > back is based on, say, Facebook as comparison, we are not in serious > communication with the other side. > > Charles > Wikipedia has one thing in common with social media: just like anyone can register a Facebook or Twitter account and write what they like about whoever they like or dislike, anyone can edit Wikipedia – and that really does include anyone, regardless of fitness or motivation. Andreas
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