When presented with the factually-detailed and carefully-researched analysis by the ever mild-mannered Andreas Kolbe, the great Jimmy Wales takes to Twitter to respond that Kolbe has "achieved nothing in life". https://twitter.com/jimmy_wale... Keepin' it classy, as ever, huh Jimbo?
Only the idiots seem to be saying "meh". If you go back to the original blog post, you'll see in the Comments that it's now been shown that the #1, #2, #3, and #5 most-active editors on the Cards For Humanity article in Wikipedia were designers of the game itself. If the "meh" revelation garnered over 100 comments on Slashdot, imagine what the "darkly hinted" worse findings are going to do. Trust me, there are much worse than this in the database, already documented; and probably several more still waiting to be discovered.
Virtually every single WMF employee has a disclaimer that says the edits they make from their personal account are just that -- personal -- and not reflective of the Wikimedia Foundation. And, I repeat that your proposal (that direct editing of Wikipedia articles in exchange for payment is acceptable, as long as the payment is disclosed that the text respects other rules) is in complete defiance of Jimmy Wales' "Bright Line Rule". I encourage you to discuss with Jimbo (on his Wikipedia Talk page) how your proposal is more useful than his Bright Line Rule. (For the record, I agree with you -- disclosed paid editing shouldn't be a problem, and that's exactly how I launched MyWikiBiz. Jimbo blocked my account within a couple of weeks.)
Yurik, you say you work for the Wikimedia Foundation, but you don't know how to read their own Form 990, nor do you have any awareness of how they are spending their non-program expenses and investing in extremely low-interest shelters like Treasury bonds and certificates of deposit? Why are you asking me for this information, rather than going to your boss or to Sue Gardner for an explanation? (But, to put you on the right track, I'll give you these hints -- note how "Assets" has increased $11 million, year over year? That's the storing of money for a rainy day. Most charities when they are trying to build an endowment, exercise a specific capital campaign for that purpose. They don't lie to donors and say "Your donation helps keep the servers running", when in fact the donation is being used to support federal government debt. Also, note how the WMF is paying Sue Gardner $105 an hour; her buddy Barry Newstead gets paid $102 an hour; Zach Exley gets $101 an hour; the CFO gets $94 an hour; the General Counsel gets $87 an hour; and Cyn Skyberg pulls down a cool $82 an hour. Even Erik Moeller, despite his radical beliefs about children and pornography, earns $72 an hour, supported by gifts from the donors. But, I have to give him credit -- at least his job demands keeping an eye on the server load occasionally.) Good luck learning more about how your employer is wasting the donors' money. Perhaps you will soon join the legions of former WMF employees who walk out after only short stints with the Foundation, presumably disgusted by the mismanagement.
Please name me any other 501(c)(3) that as a policy keeps anonymous the names of all their donors of over $5,000. Typically, big charitable donors get a sense of enjoyment from the publicity related to their large donation. Most would be turned off if they were told that their donation would be kept anonymous. Mysidia, are you a heavy editor of Wikipedia, by any chance? Because your suggestion sounds like the "not familiar with how the real world works" perspective that I often see from devout Wikipedians.
No, how about an organization that dropped Bell Pottinger as their PR agency, after Jimbo Wales blasted Bell Pottinger for "ethical blindness"; then the organization hired a new PR firm, which quickly went about puffing up the organization's Wikipedia article without disclosing who they were or that they were hired to promote the organization? Let me know if that's an acceptable situation as far as you're concerned.
Stay tuned, Animats. Stay tuned. One donor hired a new PR firm to puff up their Wikipedia article with thousands of bytes of content, because their previous PR firm was Bell Pottinger, and they felt compelled to get rid of them. (You may recall the highly-publicized interaction between Jimmy Wales and Bell Pottinger -- http://www.independent.co.uk/n... )
Also, if you think that the Wikimedia Foundation doesn't pay close attention to the articles about their donors, I have a bridge that I'd like to sell you, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde...
According the Wikimedia Foundation's most recent Form 990 (which I am sure Yurik hasn't read), less than 51% of donation dollars are actually applied toward the program services that any 501(c)(3) is obliged to support, to fulfill the charitable mission of the organization. That is an abysmal program efficiency ratio (most good charities strive for ratios of 80% or 90% or higher), so please don't lie to us about the money being spent on internet/development/building/conferences. Only half of the money is being spent on mission-fulfilling endeavors. Also, it is a lie to say that "volonteers" (sic) independently decide on Wikipedia's content. What is WP:Office actions, otherwise?
Can you show where Dillon followed Wikipedia's "WP:COI" guidelines, especially the part that encourages self-disclosure by conflicted editors? I doubt it.
Clearly there is some reading comprehension problem afoot. The blog post clearly says that Cards Against Humanity is "an example of a 'mid-grade' violator of conflict-of-interest norms on Wikipedia". The high-test violators will be trotted out in future installments. You'll see how paid PR managers have carefully manipulated the content of some donors' articles. So, please save your "big fucking deal" for a time in the future where you're a better reader. (And, you mean "Appropriate", not "Ironic". If Kohs is an expert at paid editing of Wikipedia, who better to analyze the evidence pointing toward paid editing on Wikipedia?)
I believe you'll see over time (in the forthcoming series) that the real insinuation is whether the Wikimedia Foundation is correct to keep the gifts from donors who especially brazenly violate Wikipedia's community norms (and potentially, Terms of Use).
Please discuss this with Jimmy Wales and Geoff Brigham at the Wikimedia Foundation. They disagree with you, and the recently terminated employee Sarah Stierch is concrete evidence of this.
Does Slashdot have a policy against conflict-of-interest contributions? (Full disclosure: I wrote the blog piece in question. I did not issue the notice here on Slashdot.
Note that the author made clear that the Cards Against Humanity editing was merely "a 'mid-grade' violator of conflict-of-interest norms". And note that he said that more reports would emerge in this series, which would suggest that there are worse offenders waiting in store. Yet, we see the typical low-grade reading comprehension folks who jump to words like "butthurt" and "doubt... anything to worry about". It is no wonder Wikipedia is trusted by so many people, considering how many people can't read a short blog post and come away with accurate conclusions!
I guess you missed the part where it's shown that User:Jsdillon never disclosed his conflict of interest as the co-creator of Cards Against Humanity, when he created (then later edited) the Wikipedia article about Cards Against Humanity. So, this is neither manufactured nor astroturfed... but nice try, Jimbo.
It's not a rule. It's not a policy. It's not even a guideline. It's just something that Jimmy Wales calls a "rule" and therefore many minions who follow him believe it is. If you follow the talk page of Jimbo Wales, you would see that he frowns nearly as "frownily" on employees who edit about their employer as he does on "paid advocates" who write perfectly neutral, factual, sourced content about their clients. If you think that I'm vouching for the sanctity of this "rule" of Jimbo's, then you've completely misunderstood me. It is impossible to have any such prohibitions on certain classes of editors on a project that so militantly cherishes editor anonymity.
And, we learn that the person in question was never "so called" as an employee of IBM. The blog post was factual, and you appear to have a reading comprehension issue.
Sirwired, are you saying that a paid employee of a company that writes about that company on Wikipedia is not a "paid advocate"? How about a junior copywriter in the public relations department? How about a senior vice president for marketing? I think you're on a slippery slope when you try to make an exception for "front-line employees". Jimbo has clearly said, "The idea that we should ever accept paid advocates directly editing Wikipedia is not ever going to be ok. Consider this to be policy as of right now." And he said, "No editing of Wikipedia article space by paid advocates. There is absolutely no reason to ever do this - the talk pages, notice boards, wikiprojects, and OTRS provide ample opportunity for ethical engagement of Wikipedia. This is easy. The most common opposition to this comes from corrupt interests." You should take a look at this Wikipediocracy thread, then let us know which of those editors were "front-line" employees (exempt from any bright line rule) and which were PR and communications professionals: http://wikipediocracy.com/foru... I believe you'll soon see that "front-line" employees are just as likely (if not more likely) to cruft up Wikipedia with promotional content as purely "paid advocates" are.
I grew up with a set of 1961 World Books, which were then replaced by a brand new 1977 set. I think I'm not "obviously" too young, but I'll accept your compliment regardless. Your point is a bit misguided, because the Wikimedia Foundation is a tax-exempt non-profit with a duty of care to wisely spend the tax-deductible money that donors send their way, on the assumption that the money will be spend to help preserve and improve the free encyclopedia. Right now, very little of the dollars are even being spent properly on anything at all, much less on things that will improve the encyclopedia. For example, several million have have been spent over the past two years on a WYSIWYG editor interface called "VisualEditor". It is an utter failure. When it was installed on the English Wikipedia, the community revolted and wrote a patch to ignore the install, which forced the Foundation to throw up its hands and remove the extension. Money down the drain. Your notion that donating $50 to "WP" (it's not really going to "WP", but to the paychecks of "WMF" bloated staff) is an "excellent value" is like saying stiffing the waitress at your local diner and instead giving the tip to the owner of the restaurant is a better way to express how much you enjoyed the meal there.
Which one are you talking about, H0p3? Which of the "so called IBM employees" doesn't appear to have ever been an IBM employee. At Wikipediocracy, they will quickly correct or retract incorrect info in a blog post, unlike the spotty record on Wikipedia.
But the so-called "bright-line" rule appears to apply to people specifically being paid to edit Wikipedia....and there's no rule against doing so, as long as they aren't doing at the direction of their employer.
This is where you are wrong. If you quiz Jimmy Wales, who imagines himself the Sole Founder of Wikipedia, his "bright line rule" also applies to employees of companies seeking to edit about their own employer or about their competitors. They are not supposed to touch the article directly at all -- they are supposed to suggest their edits on the Talk page of the article. Now, that being said, most Wikipedians in good standing think this is a bizarre and unworkable rule that the Soul Founder dreamed up (and can't even properly follow himself). But, there are enough loyal (and dim-witted) followers of Wales who think that this rule actually exists, and that it's important enough to enforce -- maliciously, if necessary.
You send money to a "non-profit" tax-exempt organization that (according to their own Form 990's) can only muster spending about 52% of donors' money on actual program services, with the rest going into wasteful overhead and a "rainy day" slush fund that earns about 1% interest per year? Such a pitiful waste of money that the Wikimedia Foundation really does not need.
Slashdot Mirror
When presented with the factually-detailed and carefully-researched analysis by the ever mild-mannered Andreas Kolbe, the great Jimmy Wales takes to Twitter to respond that Kolbe has "achieved nothing in life". https://twitter.com/jimmy_wale... Keepin' it classy, as ever, huh Jimbo?
Only the idiots seem to be saying "meh". If you go back to the original blog post, you'll see in the Comments that it's now been shown that the #1, #2, #3, and #5 most-active editors on the Cards For Humanity article in Wikipedia were designers of the game itself. If the "meh" revelation garnered over 100 comments on Slashdot, imagine what the "darkly hinted" worse findings are going to do. Trust me, there are much worse than this in the database, already documented; and probably several more still waiting to be discovered.
Virtually every single WMF employee has a disclaimer that says the edits they make from their personal account are just that -- personal -- and not reflective of the Wikimedia Foundation. And, I repeat that your proposal (that direct editing of Wikipedia articles in exchange for payment is acceptable, as long as the payment is disclosed that the text respects other rules) is in complete defiance of Jimmy Wales' "Bright Line Rule". I encourage you to discuss with Jimbo (on his Wikipedia Talk page) how your proposal is more useful than his Bright Line Rule. (For the record, I agree with you -- disclosed paid editing shouldn't be a problem, and that's exactly how I launched MyWikiBiz. Jimbo blocked my account within a couple of weeks.)
Oh, that will work! In that case, I would like to announce my donation to the Wikimedia Foundation, in the amount of $666.
Yurik, you say you work for the Wikimedia Foundation, but you don't know how to read their own Form 990, nor do you have any awareness of how they are spending their non-program expenses and investing in extremely low-interest shelters like Treasury bonds and certificates of deposit? Why are you asking me for this information, rather than going to your boss or to Sue Gardner for an explanation? (But, to put you on the right track, I'll give you these hints -- note how "Assets" has increased $11 million, year over year? That's the storing of money for a rainy day. Most charities when they are trying to build an endowment, exercise a specific capital campaign for that purpose. They don't lie to donors and say "Your donation helps keep the servers running", when in fact the donation is being used to support federal government debt. Also, note how the WMF is paying Sue Gardner $105 an hour; her buddy Barry Newstead gets paid $102 an hour; Zach Exley gets $101 an hour; the CFO gets $94 an hour; the General Counsel gets $87 an hour; and Cyn Skyberg pulls down a cool $82 an hour. Even Erik Moeller, despite his radical beliefs about children and pornography, earns $72 an hour, supported by gifts from the donors. But, I have to give him credit -- at least his job demands keeping an eye on the server load occasionally.) Good luck learning more about how your employer is wasting the donors' money. Perhaps you will soon join the legions of former WMF employees who walk out after only short stints with the Foundation, presumably disgusted by the mismanagement.
Please name me any other 501(c)(3) that as a policy keeps anonymous the names of all their donors of over $5,000. Typically, big charitable donors get a sense of enjoyment from the publicity related to their large donation. Most would be turned off if they were told that their donation would be kept anonymous. Mysidia, are you a heavy editor of Wikipedia, by any chance? Because your suggestion sounds like the "not familiar with how the real world works" perspective that I often see from devout Wikipedians.
No, how about an organization that dropped Bell Pottinger as their PR agency, after Jimbo Wales blasted Bell Pottinger for "ethical blindness"; then the organization hired a new PR firm, which quickly went about puffing up the organization's Wikipedia article without disclosing who they were or that they were hired to promote the organization? Let me know if that's an acceptable situation as far as you're concerned.
A better (worse) example is needed.
Stay tuned, Animats. Stay tuned. One donor hired a new PR firm to puff up their Wikipedia article with thousands of bytes of content, because their previous PR firm was Bell Pottinger, and they felt compelled to get rid of them. (You may recall the highly-publicized interaction between Jimmy Wales and Bell Pottinger -- http://www.independent.co.uk/n... )
Also, if you think that the Wikimedia Foundation doesn't pay close attention to the articles about their donors, I have a bridge that I'd like to sell you, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde...
According the Wikimedia Foundation's most recent Form 990 (which I am sure Yurik hasn't read), less than 51% of donation dollars are actually applied toward the program services that any 501(c)(3) is obliged to support, to fulfill the charitable mission of the organization. That is an abysmal program efficiency ratio (most good charities strive for ratios of 80% or 90% or higher), so please don't lie to us about the money being spent on internet/development/building/conferences. Only half of the money is being spent on mission-fulfilling endeavors. Also, it is a lie to say that "volonteers" (sic) independently decide on Wikipedia's content. What is WP:Office actions, otherwise?
Strange as it may seem, I wasn't banned from Wikipedia for paid editing. That is a well-worn myth... but it's still a myth.
Can you show where Dillon followed Wikipedia's "WP:COI" guidelines, especially the part that encourages self-disclosure by conflicted editors? I doubt it.
Clearly there is some reading comprehension problem afoot. The blog post clearly says that Cards Against Humanity is "an example of a 'mid-grade' violator of conflict-of-interest norms on Wikipedia". The high-test violators will be trotted out in future installments. You'll see how paid PR managers have carefully manipulated the content of some donors' articles. So, please save your "big fucking deal" for a time in the future where you're a better reader. (And, you mean "Appropriate", not "Ironic". If Kohs is an expert at paid editing of Wikipedia, who better to analyze the evidence pointing toward paid editing on Wikipedia?)
I believe you'll see over time (in the forthcoming series) that the real insinuation is whether the Wikimedia Foundation is correct to keep the gifts from donors who especially brazenly violate Wikipedia's community norms (and potentially, Terms of Use).
Please discuss this with Jimmy Wales and Geoff Brigham at the Wikimedia Foundation. They disagree with you, and the recently terminated employee Sarah Stierch is concrete evidence of this.
Does Slashdot have a policy against conflict-of-interest contributions? (Full disclosure: I wrote the blog piece in question. I did not issue the notice here on Slashdot.
Note that the author made clear that the Cards Against Humanity editing was merely "a 'mid-grade' violator of conflict-of-interest norms". And note that he said that more reports would emerge in this series, which would suggest that there are worse offenders waiting in store. Yet, we see the typical low-grade reading comprehension folks who jump to words like "butthurt" and "doubt... anything to worry about". It is no wonder Wikipedia is trusted by so many people, considering how many people can't read a short blog post and come away with accurate conclusions!
I guess you missed the part where it's shown that User:Jsdillon never disclosed his conflict of interest as the co-creator of Cards Against Humanity, when he created (then later edited) the Wikipedia article about Cards Against Humanity. So, this is neither manufactured nor astroturfed... but nice try, Jimbo.
It's not a rule. It's not a policy. It's not even a guideline. It's just something that Jimmy Wales calls a "rule" and therefore many minions who follow him believe it is. If you follow the talk page of Jimbo Wales, you would see that he frowns nearly as "frownily" on employees who edit about their employer as he does on "paid advocates" who write perfectly neutral, factual, sourced content about their clients. If you think that I'm vouching for the sanctity of this "rule" of Jimbo's, then you've completely misunderstood me. It is impossible to have any such prohibitions on certain classes of editors on a project that so militantly cherishes editor anonymity.
And, we learn that the person in question was never "so called" as an employee of IBM. The blog post was factual, and you appear to have a reading comprehension issue.
Sirwired, are you saying that a paid employee of a company that writes about that company on Wikipedia is not a "paid advocate"? How about a junior copywriter in the public relations department? How about a senior vice president for marketing? I think you're on a slippery slope when you try to make an exception for "front-line employees". Jimbo has clearly said, "The idea that we should ever accept paid advocates directly editing Wikipedia is not ever going to be ok. Consider this to be policy as of right now." And he said, "No editing of Wikipedia article space by paid advocates. There is absolutely no reason to ever do this - the talk pages, notice boards, wikiprojects, and OTRS provide ample opportunity for ethical engagement of Wikipedia. This is easy. The most common opposition to this comes from corrupt interests." You should take a look at this Wikipediocracy thread, then let us know which of those editors were "front-line" employees (exempt from any bright line rule) and which were PR and communications professionals: http://wikipediocracy.com/foru... I believe you'll soon see that "front-line" employees are just as likely (if not more likely) to cruft up Wikipedia with promotional content as purely "paid advocates" are.
I grew up with a set of 1961 World Books, which were then replaced by a brand new 1977 set. I think I'm not "obviously" too young, but I'll accept your compliment regardless. Your point is a bit misguided, because the Wikimedia Foundation is a tax-exempt non-profit with a duty of care to wisely spend the tax-deductible money that donors send their way, on the assumption that the money will be spend to help preserve and improve the free encyclopedia. Right now, very little of the dollars are even being spent properly on anything at all, much less on things that will improve the encyclopedia. For example, several million have have been spent over the past two years on a WYSIWYG editor interface called "VisualEditor". It is an utter failure. When it was installed on the English Wikipedia, the community revolted and wrote a patch to ignore the install, which forced the Foundation to throw up its hands and remove the extension. Money down the drain. Your notion that donating $50 to "WP" (it's not really going to "WP", but to the paychecks of "WMF" bloated staff) is an "excellent value" is like saying stiffing the waitress at your local diner and instead giving the tip to the owner of the restaurant is a better way to express how much you enjoyed the meal there.
Which one are you talking about, H0p3? Which of the "so called IBM employees" doesn't appear to have ever been an IBM employee. At Wikipediocracy, they will quickly correct or retract incorrect info in a blog post, unlike the spotty record on Wikipedia.
But the so-called "bright-line" rule appears to apply to people specifically being paid to edit Wikipedia. ...and there's no rule against doing so, as long as they aren't doing at the direction of their employer.
This is where you are wrong. If you quiz Jimmy Wales, who imagines himself the Sole Founder of Wikipedia, his "bright line rule" also applies to employees of companies seeking to edit about their own employer or about their competitors. They are not supposed to touch the article directly at all -- they are supposed to suggest their edits on the Talk page of the article. Now, that being said, most Wikipedians in good standing think this is a bizarre and unworkable rule that the Soul Founder dreamed up (and can't even properly follow himself). But, there are enough loyal (and dim-witted) followers of Wales who think that this rule actually exists, and that it's important enough to enforce -- maliciously, if necessary.
You send money to a "non-profit" tax-exempt organization that (according to their own Form 990's) can only muster spending about 52% of donors' money on actual program services, with the rest going into wasteful overhead and a "rainy day" slush fund that earns about 1% interest per year? Such a pitiful waste of money that the Wikimedia Foundation really does not need.