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.

Comments

Hey

[MightyMartian]

Was there ever a more vile and sociopathic concept than "reputation management"?

Re:Hey

[DreamMaster]

Yes. "Software Patents".

Re:Hey

[Anonymous Coward]

Sales Department?

K St Lobbyist?

Weapons Dealer?

Anonymous Coward?

Re: Hey

[kenh]

Get back to me in 7 years, when your then 23 year-old daughter finds it hard to land a job because of her drunk texts and selfies on all the popular social media sites throughout high school and college years...

Or consider this, imagine you are a restaurant owner and your competitor down the street has nothing better to do than create new email accounts and post negative comments about your business every day... What is the proper response?

Reputation management serves a useful function.

list of articles deleted

[penandpaper]

the list of articles that were deleted:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Irony

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Take the plank out of thine pwn eye

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Has Slashdot investigated if there are paid downmodders to hide comments certain factions don't like? Or upmod, for that matter?

Not bad in principle

[sjbe]

Was there ever a more vile and sociopathic concept than "reputation management"?

Yes. Quite a few of them actually. Reputation management is something we all do to some degree. I don't know how you would exist in a complex society without some amount of effort directed towards maintaining your reputation in the community.

Protecting your reputation is not in principle a bad thing. Sometimes false or misleading information becomes public and can cause problems - sometimes serious ones. Nothing wrong with taking reasonable steps to guard against such things. Of course like most things you can go too far and try to hide wrongdoing but just because something is bad in some circumstances does not make it bad in all circumstances.

Re:Not bad in principle

[PopeRatzo]

Yes. Quite a few of them actually. Reputation management is something we all do to some degree. I don't know how you would exist in a complex society without some amount of effort directed towards maintaining your reputation in the community.

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.

Re:Not bad in principle

[Grishnakh]

Well, think of this example: you run a nice little restaurant in town. Along comes Yelp and Google reviews, so people can post reviews of your restaurant online. Some customers are just assholes, and you happen to get one who is completely unreasonable, says racist stuff to one of your staff, whatever. Anyway they go away angry and write a nasty and completely false review of your restaurant on Yelp.

Since bad reviews hurt business, even if the reviewer is a liar or exaggerating the facts, there's nothing wrong with you responding to this review in some way. Doing so qualifies as "reputation management", whether you do it yourself, or you have a paid "reputation manager" do it for you (who could be a 3rd-party firm, or your niece).

Re:Not bad in principle

[PopeRatzo]

Well, think of this example: you run a nice little restaurant in town. Along comes Yelp and Google reviews, so people can post reviews of your restaurant online. Some customers are just assholes, and you happen to get one who is completely unreasonable, says racist stuff to one of your staff, whatever. Anyway they go away angry and write a nasty and completely false review of your restaurant on Yelp.

One way you can deal with that is to make sure you have lots of positive reviews to drown out the nasty ones. And you get lots of positive reviews by doing positive things, like serving great food and having great service, not by hiring a bunch of people who have never been to your restaurant to write good reviews.

But you raise a good point.

Re:Not bad in principle

[meta-monkey]

But not everyone is in the public eye. Think of all the good, normal, upstanding stuff you do every day, and of course nobody notices and splashes "PopeRatzo is a great guy!" all over the internet. But you don't think and screw up one time and you could find yourself destroyed online. There are no 1000 good stories about PopeRatzo to drown out the one about the time you passed out drunk and shit yourself in a Wendy's. Reputation management is good for such cases.

For many people, their 15 minutes of fame are 15 minutes of infamy. There was the woman (whose name I will not mention so as not to further googlize her name in connection with this) who had a stupid game she played with a friend where they would take pictures of themselves next to signs doing the opposite of whatever the sign said. She wasn't thinking and did that in front of a sign asking for quiet and respect at Arlington National Cemetery. She failed to understand the privacy options on FaceBook, posted it to her friend's wall, and it went viral. Lost her job, death threats, whole works. A reputation management company helped get her life back together.

I don't think this woman was an awful person, intentionally expressing hatred for America and dead soldiers. I think she forgot context, used poor judgment, and doesn't deserve to have her life ruined over it. I'm glad she's doing better now.

Re:So what?

[hodet]

Who uses Wikipedia as a trusted source? It's value is in quick information on a number of non contentious topics. Going to Toronto and want to get some quick facts about the city? Wikipedia is great for that. I just wouldn't use it to make any important decisions, and maybe it really doesn't need to be that anyway.

Good job Wikipedia!

[grub]

I was sitting here drinking a refreshing Coca Cola when I started reading this story on my Apple iPhone 6 Plus. The level of paid shills that infested Wikipedia were getting bothersome. It was at the point that I started using my Encyclopædia Britannica (2015 edition).

Sorry if I don't get to your replies sooner, I'm taking the Prius to Chipotle for a GMO-free lunch.

Seriously?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Removing that thimble of water from that ocean is going to make a HUGE difference. Oh wait, no it won't.

Wikipedia has become another little internet fiefdom run by a bunch of backstabbing assholes who use their basement-dwelling power to rule capriciously and for personal gain.

Nobody is perfect

[sjbe]

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.