User talk:MyWikiBiz/Discussions
QUOTE(Durova @ Jul 24 2007, 02:53 AM) * If you'd like, pretend you're my editor at SEL: what issues would you assign me in my next two or three articles? What would you want to learn from a Wikipedia administrator who has 15,000+ site edits? I promise my next pieces will be shorter than the last one.
I agree that it is nice to have this forum discussion going well, without the introduction of spiteful animosity. In the spirit of that, I would like to have Durova consider this topic for one of her upcoming articles -- in all seriousness.
Explain to us why it is acceptable or even preferred for Wikipedia administrators to delete contributions that they alone determine to be "spam".
In other words, the current situation has administrators who are in many (if not most) cases anonymous actors who have editorial control over other editors who are in some cases (my case, in particular, as [removed]) fully disclosed as real, identifiable people. As [removed], I offered to write encyclopedic content for Wikipedia on behalf of paying corporate customers. For example, clients of mine might have included Norman Technologies, Arch Coal, or the Family & Workplace Connection -- all of which have been cited multiple times in mainstream media, and therefore passed WP:CORP notability requirements. Yet, in all three cases, the articles were removed by administrators, often led by a select corps of admins who reign under an anonymous cloak, as you yourself do. Arch Coal was rightfully restored by the community (overruling Jimmy Wales himself), but the other articles remain extinct. I can see the need for Wikipedia to remove true "spam" -- self-promotional content or links to entities that do not pass WP:CORP. However, who are anonymous administrators to say that paid content is equally unacceptable -- even about notable entities -- when the world has no way of verifying that administrators are themselves not operating under a biased agenda?
Tell me this -- why is there no article whatsoever for [2 sites removed] in Wikipedia (despite many, many media mentions), but there is at least a redirect for Openserving and Wikasari (two non-starting, unimportant side-projects of Jimmy Wales') to the Wikia article? Why are there thousands of money-making outbound links from Wikipedia to Jimmy Wales' Wikia.com site? And why are there tens of thousands of money-making outbound links from Wikipedia to Amazon.com (a financial investor in Jimmy Wales' Wikia enterprise), when neutral ISBN-formatted links could do the job just as well?
If Wikipedia is really serious about shutting out corporate spam from its website encyclopedia, why was so much effort expended fighting MyWikiBiz (gross revenues under $2,000) and its publicly-disclosed effort to write neutral, sourced, encyclopedic content; while at the same time Jimmy Wales continues to use Wikipedia as an enormous traffic-engine for his private commercial ventures? An old saying about a mote and a beam comes to my mind, but I'll let you write an article to clear things up for us.
(Sorry, a little sarcasm slipped in there at the end.)
I sincerely want to understand how fully-disclosed, paid editing -- editing that would further be subject to revision by the community -- is harmful to Wikipedia.
Greg
This post has been edited by Jill: Today, 01:32 PM Reason for edit: edited links and removed self promotional site names as per forum rules Go to the top of the page
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jehochman
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post Yesterday, 11:00 PM Post #2
Jonathan Hochman
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Welcome, Greg. bye1.gif
I think the objection at Wikipedia to paid editing is that it often results in articles which fall short of site standards. Volunteers then need to clean up those articles to make them acceptable. The volunteers are concerned that the flow of paid articles would create a lot of extra burdens. Additionally, there is an inherent unfairness in a for profit entity selling the services of volunteers. Wikipedia prefers that people without direct financial motivation write the articles.
If you check the edit history you'll see that Jason Calacanis' business Mahalo.com created a page the day they launched. I'm not sure if it was an employee, a fan or a friend, but the article was pretty bad. On a lark I decided to work on it and got the article up to standards and had it run on the front page of Wikipedia in the Did You Know? section. A notable business usually will attract volunteers who are interested in the topic.
In my own consulting practice I won't do any sort of editing for clients, because that's against the rules, but also because there's other work that's much more profitable. If you want to compile some good news references and a first draft article, I'll be happy to post it for you, assuming it qualifies, just to prove that there is no grudge against your company.
Another possibility to consider is whether you could license content on Centiare in such a way that people, unconnected with the company, could copy it into Wikipedia once the article was in good shape.
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thekohser
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post Today, 12:30 AM Post #3
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Group: Members Posts: 4 Joined: Yesterday, 11:38 AM User's local time: Aug 8 2007, 09:53 PM Member No.: 18,179
Look out, it's dissection time!
QUOTE(jehochman @ Aug 7 2007, 11:00 PM) * Welcome, Greg. bye1.gif
Thank you for the welcome.
QUOTE I think the objection at Wikipedia to paid editing is that it often results in articles which fall short of site standards. Volunteers then need to clean up those articles to make them acceptable. The volunteers are concerned that the flow of paid articles would create a lot of extra burdens.
Do you really think that a company with letterhead, a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania entity registration, ability to accept credit card transactions, a founder with a Masters and C.Phil in History, and a couple of years of Wikipedia experience would really be expected to write articles about corporations that would "fall short of site standards"? If anything, these articles should exceed site standards and give the volunteers a nice head start on adding further to the articles. Hardly a "burden" to be helped along in finishing the encyclopedia. By the way, did you know that the list of Fortune 1000 companies is only about 85% complete on Wikipedia, even now? Pokemon characters seem about complete, though. Please, don't tell me about site standards. What kind of self-respecting encyclopedia with nearly 2 million articles still has jack squat about 150 of the thousand largest companies in the United States?
QUOTE Additionally, there is an inherent unfairness in a for profit entity selling the services of volunteers. Wikipedia prefers that people without direct financial motivation write the articles.
Please, don't wear the handicap of vounteerism as a badge of honor. The Hoover Dam and the Notre Dame de Paris weren't built by volunteers. Besides, you're writing a revisionist history when you say that "Wikipedia prefers" volunteer editing. Nothing of the sort is laid out in the Wikimedia Foundation's charter. It's the encyclopedia anyone can edit, not that "any volunteer can edit". I'll remind you that WP:COI was cooked up after I had launched my business. And, if what you say is true, why does the Wikipedia community continue to endorse paid editing at the Reward Board?
QUOTE If you check the edit history you'll see that Jason Calacanis' business Mahalo.com created a page the day they launched. I'm not sure if it was an employee, a fan or a friend, but the article was pretty bad. On a lark I decided to work on it and got the article up to standards and had it run on the front page of Wikipedia in the Did You Know? section. A notable business usually will attract volunteers who are interested in the topic.
See, that's half the problem. You don't know who created the Mahalo article. With MyWikiBiz, it was clear and disclosed who authored the content. So, it could be judged in the disinfecting sunlight of full disclosure. Which would you rather have? "Underground moles" editing for their companies, or paid encyclopedists whose sustained business depends on conforming to WP:CORP and WP:RS and WP:NPOV? Furthermore, your assurance that notable businesses attract volunteers just doesn't hold water. Until I got busy in September 2006, there was no article about Arch Coal -- America's second-largest supplier of coal, holding about 12% of the country's entire coal reserves. Pretty important, wouldn't you say? No article. And, as I said, about 150 of the Fortune 1000 are still waiting for their eager volunteers in shining armor to make them famous in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is coming up on its seventh anniversary. How much longer might it take for the Fortune 1000 to be complete? Or, are editors too busy documenting every Simpsons episode since Season One?
QUOTE In my own consulting practice I won't do any sort of editing for clients, because that's against the rules, but also because there's other work that's much more profitable. If you want to compile some good news references and a first draft article, I'll be happy to post it for you, assuming it qualifies, just to prove that there is no grudge against your company.
Another possibility to consider is whether you could license content on Centiare in such a way that people, unconnected with the company, could copy it into Wikipedia once the article was in good shape.
Jonathan, are you kidding me? You're kidding me, right? When MyWikiBiz was defamed and libeled by Jimmy Wales in early October 2006, he was breaking his own agreement with MyWikiBiz that we could edit all the GFDL content that we wanted, just as long as we posted it on our own website, then non-paid, unaffiliated Wikipedians could copy it into Wikipedia if it passed their own judgment as a good article. That is EXACTLY what happened with our article about Arch Coal (en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arch_Coal&limit=500&action=history see for yourself, posted to Wikipedia by User:J.smith), but Jimbo and his admin sycophants went bonkers and not only deleted it, but called it "a travesty of NPOV", which was highly insulting to J.smith (a known long-time contributor of merit). Fortunately, the community quickly overruled Jimbo and had to question what exactly he saw wrong with the original stub, and Jimbo in his usual way, hemmed and hawed and just repeated that it was a "PR puff piece", which was again confusing to several respected independent editors. Not surprisingly, in the conflagration, Jimbo also blocked my User account and then libeled my business on my User page, which I was no longer allowed to edit, as it was protected by the sycophants from my sockpuppet attempts to remove the libelous diatribe -- really a "class act", don't you think? It became next to impossible to do business any more, what with Jimbo's curse on my enterprise. Only after the business was dried up did Jimbo finally "courtesy blank" my User page -- the one that HE himself made so offensive. And they call that "courtesy". "As a courtesy, I will put away this hammer with which I've been beating you over the head for the past 5 months." Thanks, Jimbo.
So, Jonathan can you begin to see why I sound like a frothing maniac when I hear respectful critics such as yourself, kindly telling me that they'll be happy to review my content and post it on my behalf, if it meets your exacting standards? I feel like saying, "That is what I was doing, you nimrod -- look where it got me!" But, since I like you, I won't say that.
If I may make a prediction, it will not be long before either User:Durova, User:Calton, or User:JzG arrives here (maybe all three), to discredit the description I have painstakingly laid out for you above. As a courtesy, I won't even bother to do battle with them on this forum.
Gregory Kohs [Edited out numerous live links per Forum Rules.
Also please create a signature if you would like to link to your own site(s).]
This post has been edited by Randy: Today, 09:29 AM Go to the top of the page
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Randy
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post Today, 09:38 AM Post #4
They call me Mr. Root
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Gregory,
Pardon me for being blunt, but considering Jonathan is offering you help and is in the unique position of being able to Deliver I believe it would gain you more by not to railing against him and start any name calling.
The Wiki has their rules, just as we do here. Some of which I just had to enforce because of your above post. If you don't like their rules nothing forces you to do anything with their service. You're always free to create your own similar resource that functions under rules You control.
When you're making use of a service someone else makes available, for free even, you necessarily subject yourself to someone elses authority. This is especially true when you try to build a business with an integral part being that you have to use such 3rd party services.
Frustrating? Yes, sometimes it is. But that's the way the world works.
When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity. ~Albert Einstein Go to the top of the page
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post Today, 02:26 PM Post #5
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Group: Members Posts: 4 Joined: Yesterday, 11:38 AM User's local time: Aug 8 2007, 09:53 PM Member No.: 18,179
QUOTE(Randy @ Aug 8 2007, 09:38 AM) *
Gregory,
Pardon me for being blunt, but considering Jonathan is offering you help and is in the unique position of being able to Deliver I believe it would gain you more by not to railing against him and start any name calling.
The Wiki has their rules, just as we do here. Some of which I just had to enforce because of your above post. If you don't like their rules nothing forces you to do anything with their service. You're always free to create your own similar resource that functions under rules You control.
When you're making use of a service someone else makes available, for free even, you necessarily subject yourself to someone elses authority. This is especially true when you try to build a business with an integral part being that you have to use such 3rd party services.
Frustrating? Yes, sometimes it is. But that's the way the world works.
Pardon me for being skeptical, but how is Jonathan in a unique position to deliver help to me?
Above, I've carefully demonstrated how the MyWikiBiz business didn't violate any of the Wikimedia Foundation's "rules" when I established it. After new rules were created to counteract what was perceived to be a new threat to Wikipedia, I went to considerable lengths to work within a new rule structure that permitted me to publish GFDL content on my own site, which could then be scraped into Wikipedia by impartial editors. This is what Jimmy Wales advised me to do! Then, they changed the rules again, to say that even that was not acceptable. Continually changing the rules of a non-profit Foundation in order to drive out outside business agencies, all while maintaining internal architectures that serve to financially benefit members of the Foundation's board (hint: 4,000+ external links from Wikipedia to ad-supported, for-profit Wikia.com), is not "the way the world works". It's closer to racketeering.
I'm getting the feeling that you don't fully understand the situation, Randy. So, let me make an analogy that might help you (and other readers) to see what happened to me.
Suppose a local public library had a general director (let's call him Whimbo Jales) who also owned a taxi service. The library has a motto of, "The free library anybody can visit." People love that motto, so they donate lots of tax-deductible money and books to the library. Now, suppose about 3 or 4 taxis came to the library each day, dropping off little old ladies who like to read the books in the library, chat with others about their garden club, and even sell some Avon to people they know there. The taxis are operated by different for-profit corporations, including Phlimbo's Taxi Company.
Well, one day, one of Phlimbo's competitors, White Hat Transportation, offers a special deal to old ladies who want to go to the library. They get cab service to the library for half-price! Yay, White Hat!
But Phlimbo immediately realizes that this is going to hurt his own taxi company's revenue stream, and meanwhile, younger library users might start noticing an influx of more old ladies at the library, and they'll be potentially annoyed with their elderly chit-chat and Avon transactions -- even though these had been going on for years at the library. After all, this is "the free library anybody can visit". Yet, Phlimbo decides that he's going to make a new rule for the library property. All taxi services that are not managed by library board members must pick up and drop off their passengers at the far end of a 300-foot parking lot, making it very inconvenient for the old ladies who ride in any taxi other than Phlimbo's Taxi. Then, after a couple of weeks, Phlimbo decides that the rival taxis are actually unfairly exploiting his library's name and reputation by offering library-specific fares. So, he sends White Hat a letter (on Phlimbo's Taxi Company letterhead!) saying that White Hat must stop any mention of the library in its fare promotions. Then, not satisfied even with that, Phlimbo hangs a big sign on the front window of the library, saying "Riders of White Hat Transportation are strongly advised that they are taking a serious risk, since walking the entire distance of the parking lot is dangerous to pedestrians! Additionally, drivers of White Hat Transportation are no longer allowed in this library, since they are putting our elderly visitors at risk!" Lastly, Phlimbo supports some of his library volunteers who have gotten into the habit of being rude to any of the old ladies who come in from White Hat cabs, carrying Avon bags. They call them "PR puff pieces", for some reason -- maybe because of their puffy white hairdos.
That, my friend, is not how the world should work, but that's how Wikipedia's world works.
The proper rebuttal to this analogy is, "Libraries are not intended to be Avon counters!" True enough, but as I mentioned, the old ladies also read books (read Wikipedia articles), chat about their garden club (talk on each other's User_Talk pages), and only a small component of their population and their time is actually spent selling Avon -- and they only transact with people in the library who come up to them asking, "Do you know anything about cosmetics?" (adding an external link to their corporate website from a Wikipedia article about a relevant subject matter).
People... a paid-to-create article in Wikipedia about Arch Coal doesn't distract, harm, or annoy any of the millions of users who are not searching for Arch Coal or "coal companies" or coal within Wikipedia. Similarly, a paid-to-create article in Wikipedia about Arch Coal probably serves, aids, and educates any of the dozens of users who are searching for Arch Coal or "coal companies" or coal within Wikipedia. Instead, Jimmy Wales and the wiki-sycophants decided that it would be better to have an empty page in the "Arch Coal" space, than to have a well-written article seed that had been paid for by Arch Coal.
To me, that doesn't make much sense. It may to you, but not to me. Go to the top of the page
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jehochman
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post Today, 04:56 PM Post #6
Jonathan Hochman
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Group: Moderator Posts: 1,486 Joined: 28-November 05 User's local time: Aug 8 2007, 09:53 PM From: Connecticut - Land of Steady Habits Member No.: 9,569
Arch Coal's representative is free to go to the appropriate WikiProject and provide a draft of an article along with references to independent sources of information about the company. If it's a puff piece, the project will may ignore it, but if the piece is well written they would probably review, edit and copy it into the encyclopedia. Naturally, if their representative was active in the project and doing things to help out, they would probably receive a warm welcome.
Durova and I have been discussing what we can do to make people more aware of the white hat methods available for adding information and correcting inaccuracies. Our initial thoughts are that there should be a central place to list the articles that people have submitted to make sure that somebody reviews them. We have even discussed a system where SEO types could use a "take a penny, leave a penny" model to help each other, while maintaining arms length neutrality.
You see, Greg, the problem is conflict of interest. When somebody is very close to a subject, or is paid by somebody close to a subject, that person probably isn't objective when they write about that subject. In order to protect the encyclopedia from spam and vanity cruft, we have rules that discourage people from writing about themselves.
In fact, I believe that all social media works this way. Who likes to come to HighRankings and see a post where the poster goes on about how smart they are? That would be so boring. If you go to a cocktail party and meet somebody who only talks about themselves, you probably run away from them at the first opportunity, yes?
The whole idea of social media is to get other people to talk about a company, product or service and become evangelists for their great ideas. Trying to plant stories, also called astroturfing, isn't especially productive and can backfire, badly, if discovered.
This post has been edited by jehochman: Today, 05:12 PM Reason for edit: copy edit
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Jill
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post Today, 07:21 PM Post #7
High Rankings Advisor
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Group: Admin Posts: 24,077 Joined: 21-July 03 User's local time: Aug 8 2007, 09:53 PM From: Ashland, MA Member No.: 2
Sorry, this forum isn't a complaint dept.
Closing this thread.
