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Wikipedia Blocks Hundreds of Accounts Doing Paid Editing
jan_jes writes: After weeks of investigation, Wikipedia has blocked 381 user accounts for "black hat" editing. The reason for the ban is that the accounts were engaged in undisclosed paid advocacy — the practice of accepting or charging money to promote external interests on Wikipedia without revealing their affiliation, in violation of Wikimedia's Terms of Use. In addition to blocking the 381 "sockpuppet" account, the editors deleted 210 articles created by these accounts.
"Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, and its open model makes it a rich and reliable resource for the world."
Or, in reality, a handful of basement dwellers sit on the edit history or every article and straight up harass you for making additions or corrections, because they are "wiki".
It's about as reliable as any web forum or blog at this point, maybe worse because it's as famous as google at this point. It's good to see them cutting out the blatant paid posters, but that's not even the bulk of the issue with wikipedia. It's the little closed circle of editors who believe they own the content and the rest of us peons aren't allowed to join the party.
Case in point, the last time I bothered modifying an article on a subject that I'm quite knowledgeable on. Modified an article to add some relevant information and provided sources and citations.
I was promptly banned from making edits and my changes were reverted. Ok great, whatever right? Well if I bothered to tell you which article I'm referring to, you could go look right now and see the content I added is now back, same source, same citations. The only difference is one of the super special wiki-gods didn't like that I, a lowly peon, posted it, so they banned me, then re-added everything they removed under their own name.
This is wikipedia in a nutshell.
Yes, but most of us do our "reputation management" by, you know, behaving properly rather than going around trying to erase any record of our misdeeds.
Reputation management, the way it's practiced by the "New Media Strategies" type of outfits, is basically organized lying.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yes, but most of us do our "reputation management" by, you know, behaving properly rather than going around trying to erase any record of our misdeeds.
You can behave properly all you want and still get screwed by false information or malicious deeds. A service that helps people combat this sort of problem is fine. Some people are just assholes and will try to ruin your reputation out of spite or just because they can. Ask any restaurant if they get nothing but fair and honest reviews on Yelp. Even if people aren't actively trying to ruin you, nobody is perfect and minor mistakes can sometimes cause major problems - problems far out of scale with the deeds.