Talk:Terms of use/Paid contributions amendment

Archives 2014-02-26 2014-03-07 2014-03-11

Background

This active discussion period of the Terms of Use amendment has been closed by the legal team (see message above). Additional comments or discussion is, as always, welcome underneath this box but will not be considered part of the main comment period.

We have seen several recurring topics in the discussItalic text below. To help organize and address these topics, we’ve created this section of the talk page to capture these topics as questions. Please add and revise questions here if you think multiple people are interested in knowing the answer. (You can also draft an answer if you think there is a clear answer based on discussions below.) Depending on the question, we'll try to either address them here (so that newcomers to this discussion can see them), or possibly add them to the FAQ. —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

WHAT THIS PAGE IS ABOUT: This page is for anyone to discuss a proposed change to our site policy. This proposal is that if someone gets paid to put material they write into Wikipedia for money or other gains, or because it is part of their work, they should have to disclose it when they edit, for transparency and quality control purposes. As a user and reader, you and anyone else are unaffected. You will never have to pay for enjoying and using Wikipedia in full, every part of it, as much as you like - ever. You will never have to pay to read and use Wikipedia - ever. This proposal is intended to help us improve quality by requiring a transparent disclosure by editors in some circumstances.   WHAT HAPPENS FOR ALL READERS AND USERS There would be no change at all: Wikipedia remains free to enjoy and use, always, forever, and regardless. FOR UNPAID HOBBYIST AND VOLUNTEER EDITORS There would be no change at all. FOR PEOPLE WHO EDIT WIKIPEDIA AS PART OF THEIR WORK OR PROFESSION IT IS PROPOSED THAT EDITORS WHO ARE PAID TO EDIT BY AN ORGANIZATION, CLIENT, OR OTHER PERSON, WILL HAVE TO BE OPEN ABOUT THIS TO EVERYONE USING WIKIPEDIA, AND NOT HIDE IT, SO OTHER EDITORS CAN CHECK IT FOR ACCURACY QUICKER AND MORE CAREFULLY Nothing else would change if this passes: no articles would get deleted, and nobody would be made to stop editing. Wikipedia and its many charitable sister projects are part of a charity, the Wikimedia Foundation. The Foundation does not get its funding from corporate sponsors and marketing deals. It is funded instead by public donations, small donations by millions of people worldwide, the vast majority from the mass public who read and use it, and occasional larger donations on "arms length" terms (without any rights of control) from companies such as Google and charitable organizations, so that it can remain fully independent from corporate pressures. Of those who support Wikipedia, some donate what they can, as they feel able, to help Wikipedia and its sister sites continue to be accessible in other parts of the world, in hundreds of editions covering over 200 languages, especially in developing and poor areas where textbooks may be missing, education may be slight, or important knowledge may be censored or misunderstood, and to run and maintain its internet websites. Some can't or don't. But in either case, and whatever the outcome of this discussion may be, everyone on the planet will always be warmly welcomed to enjoy, read and use any of the content held, which is provided free to you and everyone - and by its governing constitution will always be free to enjoy.

Recurring questions and answers

These are some draft Q&As in response to issues raised repeatedly below. —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 01:05, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Why have you proposed this new requirement?

A large number of readers and editors have expressed concern about paid advocacy editing and its impact on Wikimedia’s contributors and reputation. In light of this concern, we prepared this amendment to the Terms of Use to explain a minimum standard of disclosure for paid edits. We feel it is an important and useful step forward on this issue because:

• The current Terms of Use prohibit misrepresented affiliations. This proposal helps support that existing requirement by explaining how to consistently and properly represent employment or affiliation.
• The proposal gives community members an additional tool to address potential conflict of interest situations, by helping them identify and scrutinize edits that may have a higher risk of neutral point of view problems.
• The proposal gives each project a consistent, enforceable baseline they can use to craft their own policies that are responsive to local conditions and needs.
• In the rare case where the Foundation needs to intervene legally against companies that have aggressively flouted the terms and community policies, this proposal would make the legal case even stronger.
• The proposal offers new and existing good faith editors a guideline to understand how to best edit when local projects permit paid editing. Disclosure and transparency are widely considered appropriate, both within the Wikimedia community and the PR industry. See, for example, the plain and simple guide to conflicts at English Wikipedia, or the CIPR guide (which we do not necessarily endorse).

Does the Wikimedia Foundation encourage or accept paid advocacy editing?

This question and answer have been moved to the main page, but please continue to discuss or share suggestions. Thanks! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 22:31, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

WMF feels that paid advocacy editing is a significant problem that threatens the trust of Wikimedia’s readers, as our Executive Director said in her statement on paid advocacy editing. This proposal does not change that position. However, it is hard to solve the problem of paid advocacy editing without accidentally discouraging good-faith editors, like the various GLAM (gallery, library, archive, and museum) projects. Because of this difficulty, this amendment takes a simple approach: requiring straightforward disclosure of information. This does not mean that paid-advocacy editing is acceptable! Instead, we think that the best way to attack the complex problem while still encouraging new good faith contributions is to combine this pro-transparency requirement with per-project policies that use this new information to make nuanced, difficult case-by-case judgments. We hope that this will lead to the best outcome by combining each Wikimedian's ability to handle nuance and complexity with the resources of the Foundation (when that is absolutely necessary). Also the proposed amendment makes clear that "community and Foundation policies, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure." This provision gives the community discretion to further limit paid editing, including paid advocacy editing, according to the needs of the specific project. That is, the proposed amendment is a minimal requirement, but the community may impose greater restrictions or bans.

won't some people tell others to stop using— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.187.88.108 (talk) 00:49, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

i prefer to see this ---> amend this --> change that---> editor control etc. finally stop!! -- commit wikipedia in all its fundamental branches to become one company and let the company Lawyers finalize the usual laws of official conduct...have a go at it...good Luck wikipedia Q!!!!!Blondeignore (talk) 21:28, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

How will this provision affect teachers, professors, and employees of galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (“GLAM”)?

This question and answer have been moved to the main page, but please continue to discuss or share suggestions. Thanks! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 22:31, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

The intent of these requirements is not to discourage teachers, professors, or those working at galleries, libraries, archives, and museums ("GLAM") institutions from making contributions in good faith. Disclosure is only required when contributors are compensated by their employer or client specifically for edits and uploads to a Wikimedia project. For example, if a professor at University X is paid directly by University X to write about that university on Wikipedia, the professor needs to disclose that the contribution is compensated. There is a direct quid pro quo exchange: money for edits. If that professor is simply paid a salary for teaching and conducting research, and is only encouraged by her university to contribute to projects about topics of general interest without more specific instruction, that professor does not need to disclose there affiliation with the university. The same is true with GLAM employees. Disclosure is only necessary where compensation has been promised or received in exchange for a particular contribution. A museum employee who is contributing to projects about topics of his general interest without more specific instruction from the museum need not disclose his affiliation with the museum. At the same time, when required, a simple disclosure that one is a paid Wikipedian in Residence with a particular museum, for example, would be sufficient disclosure for purposes of the proposed amendment.

Worries about Wikipedia's answer to GLAM question

Suppose that a professor or GLAM employee is employed in public relations for the university or GLAM institution. If they make edits on Wikimedia as part of carrying out their job of public relations for their institution, surely they should disclose this, regardless of whether their employer has specifically compensated them for contributing to a Wikimedia project. It seems like a better way to carve out these individuals would be to distinguish those who are employed to promote their institution and are editing Wikipedia for this reason from those who are editing for other reasons. ~ Kirsten

Hi Kirsten - Thanks for the comment. I'm having a little problem in trying to express your thoughts as actual language in the proposed amendment. If you could give me an idea of how you would express your idea in the proposed amendment, that would be great. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 12:48, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Geoff, how about "...you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution to any Wikimedia Projects for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation, and when such contributions arise from the performance of the normal duties of your job whether you are paid or are a volunteer. ..." This also addresses volunteers who are often deemed unpaid employees; it is just as bad for part- and full-time volunteers to tout an organization, its products or its services if they do not disclose their affiliation with that organization. Fest3er (talk) 08:50, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

What's the definition of a "volunteer"? If the person is physically present at a GLAM organisation on a regular basis (for instance, a group of veteran soldiers putting together an exhibit for a military museum) at what point can one speak of "the normal duties of your job". Ask one of these folks what is their job and they'll likely tell you "retired!" unless they're at the museum nearly full-time. If the entity is something more virtual, such as a website, the lines blur further; "volunteer" admins of a wiki writing about their own site can make a worse mess than a GLAM curator writing about their own museum. Compare w:Antique Boat Museum and w:Uncyclopedia; at least the operators of the former appear literate. Then there's the whole "unpaid corporate internship" rip-off, where for-profit companies try to get inexperienced new grads to work for free (complete with unpaid overtime) as a way to "buy" an employment reference. If there's a way to abuse the system, someone will find it. 2001:5C0:1400:A:0:0:0:121 00:51, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

• This apparent exemption for GLAMs demonstrates why the proposed amendment is a very poor idea. There is no grounds on which to exempt GLAMs; the articles generated are sometimes even more promotional than what is seen for many businesses. Much as I respect that they are trying to share knowledge, they're also competing for a share of the funding pie, and "reach" and "online presence" are factors considered by many potential major donors. Granting GLAMs an exemption from the proposed amendment is essentially saying "but it isn't applicable to organizations we like, only to ones that we don't like". It's absurd to support an amendment whose purpose is to highlight potential biases, and then bias the amendment itself with exemptions for one's "friends". Either it applies to everyone, or it shouldn't be approved. Risker (talk) 04:42, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

And what about sanctioned editing on company time

Many tech companies encourage or allow employees to improve science or general interest pages on company time (where neither topic nor change is specified by employer). Is that covered by the GLAM exemption? --Vilding1 (talk)

Yes. The employees are being asked to write on topics of general interest, without any direction about what those topics should be, and without any additional compensation paid to do it on Wikipedia. Geoffbrigham (talk) 12:50, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

This seems too subtle and open to interpretation. If a company is allowed to "encourage to improve" then a company's culture defines what "improve" means. There exists informal peer-to-peer enforcement of culture within every organization, and that culture determines what "improve" translates into. For tech companies, tech employees will likely choose scientific articles and focus on objective content. But what about the marketing department -- they will consider "improve" to translate into "bend the article in favor of benefit to our organization" without being explicitly told what to do. Consider also general employees of influence based organizations such as the RIAA. For them, the culture of the organization puts heavy bias on any edit made by an employee, "improve" will be carried out as "bias towards our interests".. ditto for employees in the marketing department of an oil conglomerate encouraged to "improve" articles.. they will choose, by themselves, ones related to energy and global warming and will inject bias related to their company and position. They aren't being told specific articles, nor specific content.. but they will certainly have strong bias that manipulates people towards that company's interests! Kshalle (talk) 16:10, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Why does "additional compensation to do it on wikipedia" have relevance? A company that encourages its marketing people to "write on topics of general interest" will gladly have them cover all the available social media, in order to bias people towards that company's interests. It's irrelevant whether they specify "target only wikipedia" versus "target the top media sites".. the bias they inject into wikipedia is the same, whether they name wikipedia explicitly or not. Kshalle (talk) 16:10, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Just to clarify - is this an answer about tech companies specifically, or are you saying that employees of any company encouraged to improve a topic (e.g. science, or politics, or manufacturing etc.) or general interest pages on company time (where neither topic nor change is specified by employer) are covered by the exemption? Hchc2009 (talk) 13:39, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Hchc2009, in my perspective, the distinction is that disclosure is not necessary if you edit a general interest topic without direction from your employer, but disclosure is necessary if your employer directs how and what you edit. This is the difference between an employee who just happens to be on the clock when making independent edits, versus someone in the marketing department of a company. This is not particular to tech companies or GLAM institutions, per se, but a clarification that disclosure is not necessary when compensation is not connected to an edit. It's a difficult distinction to make, so thanks for helping us clarify! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:57, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

The driver of the amendment seems to be a desire to prevent targeted biased edits, while not discouraging good intentioned edits. The difficulty appears to lie in finding language that distinguishes the two kinds of edits. The current proposal is to use compensation as a proxy for bias. If explicit instruction is linked to compensation, then the idea is that the resulting contributions will be biased and should be flagged. However, this proxy -- explicit instruction linked to compensation -- misses a large body of drivers of the kind of bias that are wished to be prevented. For example, there must be a person who issues the explicit instructions.. if they simply do the edits themselves, then it sidesteps the amendment, but wikipedia ends up with exactly the same bias! This person could be CEO, or hold some other position that is not explicitly public relations driven. They could just be a regular employee of an advocacy organization such as Energy industry advocacy groups, political organizations, and so on. They could hold a public relations or marketing or sales position, and not be given explicit instructions, and not give others explicit instructions, but generate themselves the same bias nonetheless.Kshalle (talk) 04:57, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Given this difficulty with the explicit-instruction-for-pay approach, it seems that the best policy is simply to require any person making edits during paid time to add their employer to their login information and a disclosure that they are editing during paid time. This shouldn't be a drawback for any employee or company that has good intentions.Kshalle (talk) 04:57, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

To assist in the prevention of bias, also give people who make the edits an easier way to prevent bias. For example, create a policy that gives precedence to people who edit outside of organizational time. When a dispute arises, the edit by the non-paid/non-organization-member person is given priority over the paid edits, especially when "rollback" wars erupt, with edits going back and forth. Perhaps give editors a "this is institutional bias" flag that they can add to edits they feel should be removed.Kshalle (talk) 04:57, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Kshalle, that is an interesting way to look at the question. I think we may be able to find clearer language to address situations of instructions-for-pay, as you suggest. One of the reasons that we are discussing paid edits specifically in the TOU is because there are laws that address the issue, such as the FTC's rules on astroturfing in the US and similar regulations in the EU. Bias and neutrality are complicated topics in general, and my perspective is that it is best handled in a nuanced fashion in local project policies, like WP:Neutrality and WP:COI on English Wikipedia. Best, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 19:46, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

a best practice / standard of excellence practice should include full disclosure for every contribution where undertaking the edits is part of a compensated position - easy to do, and important for reader's consideration of any contribution. As professor of women's studies, declaring that affiliation allows readers to dismiss my work as feminist bias or be open to it as informed and educated. 16:23, 1 March 2014 (UTC)~ Nechako Tess

Agree with above, and would like financial resources allocated from Wikipedia (to which I contribute) to pursue this end legally.Jacksalssome (talk) 08:47, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I have a related suggestion, that a certain number of random samples be taken of "self-written" type articles on Wikipedia, and these be exchanged between randomly selected Wikipedia contributors who opt-in. After disclosure, all of these types of articles would be open to revision control from a randomly selected outside source.99.199.4.69 20:18, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

But what if the "general interest" as defined by the company is "Feel free to trash any of the individuals who belong to a competing ideology/industry/group of think tanks/etc."?? Especially when you have people who admit to having in the past worked for an organization or academic institution that despises and wants to crush its competitors and admit to having a job now which one might guess has some relation to the past one? 108.18.70.233 14:04, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

If the employee is being compensated for their edits, then disclosure is necessary. If they feel like despise a competitor and edit outside of their compensated activity, then it's not covered by this proposal, but would still be covered by the WIkipedia policy on conflicts of interest. The same general policies and guidelines, such as neutrality, will apply even when disclosure is not required under this proposal. Best, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:13, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't think this goes far enough, personally, no matter that a project may impose further restrictions. Conflicts of interest should always be disclosed, irrespective of what time of day it is, and that should apply as one of the terms of use for the whole site. Consider applying this sort of rule to a parliament: it simply would not be good enough. Disclosure is required, and then it is up to others to decide whether that conflict is colouring the statements given, or whether the statements stand irrespective of that affiliation. Although I would argue it is better simply to recuse oneself, as a judge must. After all editors are supposed to be providing at least an attempt at objectivity. Impossible as it is to be completely objective, that's exactly what the conflict of interest rule is about. One can make an exception for providing factual information, but that should still go through another editor, imo. It's not enough to avoid a conflict: one must be seen to avoid it, and if not to accept that the presumption against you is fully justified. 109.176.246.108 04:10, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Why is this requirement part of the terms of use?

Putting these requirements in the terms of use highlights the importance of transparency and disclosure, and provides prominent guidance for good faith members of our community and third party organizations.

The terms of use are also likely to be read by businesses that regularly engage in paid editing, including their executives and lawyers. Our experience at the WMF legal department is the people want to do the right thing most of the time, and our ability to refer them to the terms of use helps ensure compliance without any legal action. In short, a provision in the terms of use will put businesses on notice of their obligations. In the unlikely event of litigation, courts are less willing to excuse a violation of the terms of use, particularly a corporation that is intentionally deceiving the community.

Shouldn't this be handled on a per-project basis?

Requiring disclosure makes clear to all contributors that they need to provide information, while still allowing each project to decide what to do about that information in a way that is appropriate for their project’s culture, size/age, and (if relevant) local legal regulations. It is also consistent with best practices adopted by many projects, like Spanish Wikipedia. So we think this approach strikes a good balance between enforceability and allowing local flexibility to address their specific needs and problems.

Why is it enough to disclose on a talk page or user page? Do we need disclosure for each edit?

there is also a related discussion below

There are two primary ways to handle paid advocacy through better disclosure:

1. disclose to readers, so that they can stop reading, or make their own judgments about reliability; or
2. disclose to active editors, who can fix any problems in edits, inform the editor how to comply with conflict-of-interest/neutral-point-of-view rules, or otherwise deal with the editor.

These requirements use the second approach—disclosing to editors, through channels regularly visited by editors, namely user pages, talk pages, and edit summaries. This should minimize the disruption for readers while still achieving the end goal of neutral and reliable information. This is also consistent with existing best practices, like those for Wikimedians in Residence, who tend to disclose on user pages rather than on each individual article.

Note that local applicable law may still require disclosure in other locations, depending on the nature of the edit and the compensation. For more details on applicable law, see this FAQ entry.

Is this requirement enforceable?

No rule, whether a part of the terms of use or a community policy, is perfectly enforceable, especially when it comes to rules against deception. However, Wikimedians have found plenty of deceitful sockpuppets in the past, including paid advocacy editors. This language will support those processes, and, in the worst cases, could help us enforce our policies through civil legal means, like cease and desist orders or litigation.

Also, it is not only a negative tool to facilitate enforcement when bad players are caught - it is a positive tool to provide guidance to help guide good faith editors. That makes it valuable even if enforcement is difficult.

Legally there is no way to prove that editorials are real or fake, hence the rule of 'no original research' to begin with. The same would apply to who wrote the editorial and whether or not compensation came into play. 'Community research' as to verifying sources will be the only recourse as with any information placed on wikimedia.

Why amend the Terms of Use if paid editing is already restricted by law?

Legal requirements around the world vary, and can be hard to understand without legal advice. By putting a straightforward rule in the terms of use, we hope to give a clear and easily understandable baseline that will support community requirements (like the various COI policies). It also puts in place a reminder that governments and individual projects may have tougher standards, which we think is valuable.

How will community enforcement of these obligations work with existing rules about privacy and behavior?

This question and answer have been moved to the main page, but please continue to discuss or share suggestions. Thanks! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 22:31, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Like the rules around sockpuppeting and sockpuppet investigations, this disclosure requirement is intended to work with existing policies and practices, so that there is a fair balance between identifying paid contributions and protecting good-faith editors. These policies include the cross-project value of civility, which is a pillar of Wikipedia; relevant project policies, like ENWP:OUTING or ESWP:ACOSO; and the Terms of Use, which prohibit stalking and abuse. (In cases of more extreme behaviors, local law may also apply.) This requirement, like others, should be applied constructively to enable collaboration and improve our projects. Users who violate them should first be warned and informed about these rules, and then only blocked if necessary. In other words: assume good faith and don’t bite the newcomers. If an editor wishes to avoid the disclosure requirement of this amendment, they should abstain from receiving compensation for their edits.

Recurring questions, not yet answered

Please add new frequently-asked questions here, with links to the comments below if that would help provide more context. Don't use this section for questions that have not been asked repeatedly. Thanks! —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

• One possible area requiring a work-around is where a contributor is also a published author or academic, and where the best evidence to cite for a statement is actually that same author's work. What mechanism is there to enable this, without the same mechanism becoming liable to abuse? Pr0t0type (talk) 10:09, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
• How long the info should stay on talk or user page? I see this quite dangerous / not very practical as if someone makes several paid edits and chosen to use his user page to say that, that means that the notice should stay on his page (almost) forever even he has changed his job several years ago. 94.112.30.234 19:29, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
  • I agree that the details of disclosure on the user page should be clarified. I see another problem though (almost the opposite): Let's say user Alice is hired for editing by company Acme, but just for a few days. Alices publishes her affiliation on her user page, makes all kinds of edits in the Acme article (and their competitors), and after her employment ends a few days later, deletes the affiliation statement from her user page. When other users check her edits later, they would have to look at older versions of her user page to find out that the edits were paid for by Acme. Probably not what we want, but formally in accordance with the proposed paid contributions amendment. 85.178.7.243 20:14, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
• Not all content is the same. There is an enormous difference between paid editors creating content for a city council candidate, citing reliable sources for what are predominately biographical facts, and slanted sourcing and writing in favor of a corporation or brand. How does this policy differentiate between the benign and the real COI-driven POV-pushing problem? NickDupree (talk) 01:00, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
• Could we require edits which don't use references apart from those published by the editor or the entity which pays the editor to mention the affiliation in the talk page? Gred16 (talk) 11:34, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
• The proposed amendment is extremely vague with regards to the editor/organization nexus that would trigger the requirement to disclose. Which begs two extremely important questions?

What is the definition of “you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation” [to what]. What is missing from this is any definition of what types of organizations this applies to. I would strongly suggest that a least in FAQs, the WMF adopt the description of organization from en:Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) and clarify whether any of these types of organizations are “exempt” from this proposal.

From this part of the TOU: “with respect to any contribution to any Wikimedia projects for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation.”, one would assume that any employee or governor of an organization whose specific mission was the advocacy of some POV (very common in environmental, educational, cultural and political organizations), if they were editing content related to the mission of the organization, they would be required to disclose under this TOU. They may not be paid explicitly to edit Wikipedia, but they are being paid explicitly to promote a POV in anyway possible. Is this a correct assumption? If it is, then it should be included in the FAQ. If it is not, then the WMF should explicitly exempt this editor/organization nexus from these TOU. --Mike Cline (talk) 17:25, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

With regard to your second point, here is my reading of this policy. If someone works for PR company, but edits on his own risk, without receiving any monetary or other compensation specifically for editing in Wikipedia he is not required to disclose anything per this policy. However, what he is doing still may be a COI problem and require disclosure per WP:COI policy in English Wikipedia, for example. This seems clear enough to me. My very best wishes (talk) 02:53, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Since the question has literally nothing to do with "PR firms", your comment does not address the question. The question asks about the editor/organization nexus when the organization is an avowed advocacy organization. I picked an organization at random from the 1000s that exist: w:Global Green USA. They have an avowed advocacy mission: "Global Green USA has been a national leader in advocating for smart solutions to global warming including green building for affordable housing, schools, cities and communities that save money, improve health and create green jobs." Now the question is, if any of the employees, staff or board members of this organization were to contribute content on subjects that were directly related to the advocacy mission, would they be required to disclose under this proposal? Yes or No? Taking it one step further, if the answer is No, then what specifically would trigger a disclosure requirement if anything for this editor/organization nexus? --Mike Cline (talk) 07:15, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

My very best wishes is quite certainly incorrect; from the FAQ: "If you have been hired by a public relations firm to edit Wikipedia, you must disclose both the firm and the firm’s client." I see Mike's question as a FAQ; I think it needs an entry in the FAQ as the answer is not immediately obvious, especially if one of the amendment amendments is made; I asked a similar question; I think the answer both is and should be that such edits by advocacy organization staff, even if the staff are not explicitly instructed to edit wikimedia, are paid edits requiring disclosure, because the staff is paid to advocate, and so edits to wikimedia that could be seen as furthering the advocacy mission require the disclosure. Again, I welcome an authoritative answer from wikimedia staff.--Elvey (talk) 04:54, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

• 今回の改訂の提案では、自分の業務に関係する編集を行う編集者が自分の業務に関係しない編集を行うことについて次の1,2,3のうちのいずれを推奨しているのであろうか。あるいはそれ以外の方法を推奨しているのであろうか。1.自分の業務に関係しない編集をIP利用者を含むいずれのアカウントでも行なわないこと。2.自分の業務に関係しない編集を自分の業務に関係する編集と同一のアカウントで行うこと。3.自分の業務に関係しない編集を自分の業務に関係する編集と異なるアカウントで行うこと。210.130.221.188 08:29, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

(translation) Which way is recommended for editing the articles which are not related to their business ? 1. Neither account including IP user should be used to edit the articles which are not related to their business. 2. Use the same account to edit the articles which are not related to their business. 3. Use different account to edit the articles which are not related to their business.210.130.221.188 18:42, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• N00b here, but a comment and question: Making this amendment and enforcing it will be quite important for U.S. mid-term elections as politicians polish their personas. I suspect that monitoring and editing of politicians' pages is quite often a paid pursuit, not clearly disclosed to the FEC. Question: How can the community help identify those paid editors (sometimes sock puppets) working for politicians to avoid prolonged editing battles? Can the amendments and policies provide clarity on the most efficient way of flagging suspected paid political editing in the U.S.? Akrewson (talk) 16:32, 5 March 2014 (UTC) akrewson
• Wiki needs to make structural changes to the method of allowing users to edit. Due to the multi jurisdictional nature of this issue (essentially covering any place where someone can access the internet) legal incentives will not be sufficient to constrain paid contributions. No enforcement mechanism is currently capable of conforming editor behavior to legal policy. Perhaps a more robust membership model - verified identities through some means - email verification or some government ID, for example. With a more robust membership identification process some of the problem could be curtailed. Reliable identification does not, to my understanding, violate the value of open mass collaboration. If we wish to prevent the commercialization of this Temple, a structural change capable of withstanding capitalistic pressure is imperative. Braigetori (talk) 04:47, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Past discussions about paid contributions

There have been previous on-wiki proposals attempting to address paid editing, paid advocacy editing, and conflicts of interest. If you have been part of such a discussion, please add it here:

• WikiProjekt Umgang mit bezahltem Schreiben (WikiProjekt, de:wp, ongoing)
• Wikipedia:Die Grenzen der Bezahlung (Community research, Jan-Mar 2013: "The Acceptable Limits of Professional Writing on Wikipedia", de:wp)

  Precis auf Deutsch (in English)

• Three related policy proposals, from en:wp in late 2013 (all closed, opposed):

  Wikipedia talk:Paid editing policy proposal, Wikipedia talk:No paid advocacy, Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest limit

• This page is being selectively archived, manually(!)

  @SNathu (WMF): What is the method that you're using to pick what to archive when? [1]

User Comments and !Votes

This section contains brief statements of support or opposition. For more detailed discussion on these issues, please join below or share your comments in a new topic. Please see the main page for more information on the amendment approval process. Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 20:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

!Vote count - Total number of votes (as of Nov 2015) in each subsection of this section: (Count assumes mediawiki formatting is correct; ignores votes in the #Unsorted_comments section; miscounts votes in wrong section, e.g. one Abstain described as "Strong Support")

• 42 Abstain
• 790 Support
• 266 Support, but should be stronger
• 47 Support, and should NOT be any stronger
• 286 Oppose

Abstain

Vote for disclosing name etc. of paid contributors

1. -abstain, theirs enough rules as it is. what often happens is people propose new restrictions which seem like a good idea at the time; however, eventually more and more are enacted until you have TOS and the like that could more or less fill an encyclopedia. I think in this case, less is more. 69.112.87.89 07:03, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

• Check this out, a view from someone who relies on but doesn't contribute to Wikipedia. There are other ways to get around the issue of COI. Whether there are rules or not, people will do 'bad' things so they can profit somehow. Since they are going to do this regardless of rules and risks associated, why not develop a better way of dealing with the issue? An open source encyclopedia shouldn't be so closed minded. Crowd sourced. Innovative. Wikipedia is a bastion of open information and information society, why bother entrenching itself into outmoded ways of thinking? I know I have ideas on this - I'm a 22 y/o male with big thoughts and ideas. Are you all old fuddy duddies trying to protect a baby? Clearly you all have bad arthritis if this is how you protect Wikipedia. This website does not need your protection or arbitration anymore, it is its own engine. If you see someone pouring bad oil into the engine, A. stop them, B. drain the oil or C. set the engine up to process that type of oil.

A: you can't stop them B: this takes time and legislation and legwork and motivation... C: this requires excitement, innovation, brainstorming, forward thinking... Choose any metaphor for the situation and reevaluate your solutions, folks. This one is not a difficult issue, you just need to think outside of the box. Wikipedia was not born in a box, so don't put it inside of one. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.83.208.101 (talk) 19:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

1. I appreciated this comment very much. –SJ talk  21:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

   I didn't. It's rambling, half-baked, and incoherent. If he wants a "better way", he should suggest something more detailed than "crowd sourced" as the answer. A buzzword is not an idea. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:42, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

   "I'm a 22 y/o male with big thoughts and ideas." -So share some, instead of insulting wikipedia, and bad-mouthing the a reasonable solution. Wikipedia's an Encyclopedia, not a social media company. Also, Wikipedia IS using a crowd-sourced solution. They're requiring paid edits be highlighted, so other Editors can come behind and fix any lies or misrepresentations.

   Trying to catch and act on traditional notions of COI is a missed opportunity to find a new perspective. (Our strength for years was not caring about identity, COI, individual historical traits such as expertise; and finding ways to scale and layer contribution in simple, clever ways so that those things didn't matter.) The analogy is as good as others that have been presented, and different. Not just a buzzword. This change may be fine as far as it goes, but it's a retro and not a transformative change. –SJ talk  18:04, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

   i fokken swor on me mum ill jab u in ur jibber(ish. try again pal)— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 96.58.220.130 (talk)

   Here's an attempt to unpack option C: keep a list of known paid contributors (account names and IP addresses; possibly split between GLAMS and other) and retrospectively background-colour the text of their contributions. Probably still needs a policy like this, to justify the differential treatment. ArthurDent006.5 (talk) 09:54, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

2. As someone who has yet to fundamentally edit or write a Wikipedia article and likely never will (other than correcting typos or small factual errors on articles that are almost entirely about sporting tournaments in Latin America), yet relies on Wikipedia as a source of information and learning, I can neither fully support nor fully oppose this amendment.

   As our generation watches the internet, one of the most promising inventions of its time, fall victim to the plague of commercialization that has destroyed our environment, ransacked our economies and in many cases quite literally murdered our people, I feel strongly and deeply that transparency is a NECESSARY rule for the internet if it hopes to be anything resembling a free means of sharing information. I feel that I am not alone in saying that Wikipedia was one of our great hopes for a universal repository of impartial, or at least balanced, knowledge. Perhaps it isn't perfect yet, but it has become something greater than any of us imagined. I began my post-primary education during a time when students were sanctioned for even considering Wikipedia as reference material, and by the time I entered my post-secondary education, Wikipedia had replaced the ink-and-paper encyclopedia as the starting point for any research project. If Wikipedia becomes anything other than an impartial compendium of knowledge created by a user base that strives for accuracy and fairness, we will lose what I feel to be one of the greatest projects of our time.

   And yet, this amendment does not go far enough. As it has been pointed out by other contributors to this page, how many users read the talk, edit, and user pages? I certainly have not, nor do I have the time to; this is not a condemnation of irrelevance, but vox populi. The internal infrastructure of Wikipedia has a purpose and a function, but these are NOT to serve as a public warning for the average user.

   Any amendment to the TOU regarding transparency of paid publications that does NOT require a clear disclaimer before EVERY paid edit disclosing the identity of the company that has paid for the edit INVITES the loss of what makes Wikipedia great, and, by extension, the loss of Wikipedia.

   I therefore can neither oppose nor support the proposed amendment to the Wikipedia Terms of Use: I cannot oppose it because I believe an amendment in that spirit is necessary, and I cannot support them because they do not fully protect what I believe to be the greatest project of our time. (Daniel M) 72.83.41.66 06:31, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

3. Your heart is in the right place, but there are details about this that may be trouble. As others have pointed out, a notice that is only on the user talk page might be put up for a brief period while paid editing is done, then taken down, leaving other editors with no real way to tell unless they go through the full history of every user page; there's no future mandate for registering these in a more centralized way even if a mechanism is developed. Also, the disclosure of employer, client, and affiliation can be problematic: for example, suppose an editor is freelancing for a company. Is he required to know who hired the company? What if they tell him a false or less than useful bit of information about the client, such as the name of the PR person at the client, the name of another company the PR company works with that recruited the client rather than the client itself, the website registrar for the client's private domain name registration, etc.? It may be that you can only tell which way the paid editors will go to defeat your measure by enacting it, but maybe more thought would head off some of their tactics, I'm not sure. This amendment looks likely to pass, and that's not a bad thing, but either way you're going to be back here taking another vote on another wording sooner rather than later. Wnt (talk) 13:44, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
4. Allowing undisclosed paid editing will change the purpose dynamic of wikipedia. It is a way to make money, which could help Wikipedia, but would change what Wikipedia is potentially altering future funding and the entire concept of the project. We live in a world where "truth" is dictated by money - not a path I would want to head down. 50.139.7.65 18:17, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
5. Abstaining until the policy can be better worded. It should specifically exclude contributions that correct mere grammatical/typographical errors (paid for or not, as they are insignificant enough to sway opinion on way or the other). One proposal to make paid edits known is a check-able box that marks an edit as "p" - paid editor in edits, the option available to all editors logged-in or not. It invites scrutiny from fellow editors checking for NPOV violations, but abuse of the checkbox [much like abuse of "m" (minor edits)] would only be done by the occasional odd-ball. Ellomate (talk) 21:35, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

   Thanks, Ellomate! A few other users have suggested idea similar to the "p" checkbox, so we can discuss further blow under Tag the edit and page: not just the user page. Best, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:18, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

   Let it be known that I have changed my vote to support even though it is past the commenting phase. Ellomate (talk) 01:09, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

6. Abstain - Because this is WMF business and I am the type of editor the amendment is intended for (though I already surpass the requirement, unless you dig really far back in my editing history), it feels appropriate that I abstain from voting/commenting. However, I will be very interested in seeing what the court-room outcome is. CorporateM (talk) 00:16, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
7. Abstaining until the proposed policy covers ALL the issues in a more considered manner. I'm an author of 7 books (is that defined as being paid?). I've contributed to scores of descriptions and content (I have an ID here but never choose to use it due to some bigot/robot/idiot allowed in the past to more than once lord their power over gentle, informed voices). Everyone has an opinion, not everyone can contribute new knowledge. Wikipedia already has a serious problem in that biased, erroneous information is being allowed, so-called managers who can delete valid information (in their ignorance or bias) and people with an axe to grind or are promoting themselves, their company or client, religion or politics and allowed to mislead, lie or otherwise obfuscate. You will never change that as long as you allow unsigned contributions. Yet wikipedia cannot afford to impose itself on the informed who don't want recognition or credit for their knowledge. If you choose to impose regulation which does appear to be needed you only increase the level of bureaucracy, and silence many who would no longer make the effort to add knowledge and that harms the corpus of available knowledge. So if you are truly wise you will make any changes simple and avoid the desire to increase bureaucracy, as doing that creates a point of control for the bullies, bigots and oligarchs to impose themselves in a manner rather like Orwell identified in 1984. 142.165.193.234 11:33, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
8. Is it possible to rule out any misdemeanor by paid contributors? And does it make sense? Let's see

   If any person wants to contribute anything illicit, he or she will do so.

   Unless you are with the NSA, there is no possibility to find out whether the contributor was paid or not.

   If the paid contribution is valid and useful, I see no good in excluding it.

   If the paid contribution betrays any biased, misinformed or commercial purpose, the community will find out and correct it.

   Unless Wikipedia is willing to allow only registered users as contributors, the influx of possibly unwanted content is not feasible.

   Therefore, I believe that the movement cannot be supported as it does not make sense. 2A02:8109:480:4F8:4C71:95AC:DA6A:A6F5 10:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC) Rolf Aderhold, Bremen

9. Abstain, I guess Look, I think your I.P. is registered when you edit, right? Well, what about instead of closing the network you make a teamwork that puts down on a blacklist the I.P.s of crappy, flooder or vandal people. Usually, these scum don't settle for one article. If that I.P. appears two or more times, then block them. It won't stop them all at once, but if you don't show me a chart where I can see that unregistered contributions are at least 100 times smaller than users', I can't agree with such paradoxical decision for this site. And if you do, well maybe I'll make an account. There's someone else that's confused about the introduction. At least I'm not the only one! Please, what's all that paid contribution (who pays? who gets? when? you? what? is that bad or good?) stuff? Thanks for reading and please remove that *sshole from above. --186.153.160.240 15:17, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
10. Neutral/Abstain - Uhhhh Cotevertu (talk) 15:39, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
11. Abstain, I think Wikipedia needs to rethink their process. I am in my 40's but my 14yr old stepson told me you can't trust everything you read on Wikipedia. I just think that is sad for his generation. When I was his age before wide spread use of the computer, I went to an encyclopedia as a definitive source of information. When you want to comment on an article in the NY Times your comments are screened by a panel. What if all contributions to Wikipedia were screened by a paid panel representing a wide range of disciples and expertise? Anyone can contribute and edit so it is still "free" but unless sources are verified and companies disclosed, it is not published. How were original encyclopedias written?Soyface (talk) 16:35, 24 February 2014 (UTC) Soyface (talk) 16:35, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
12. Abstain, " I copy this from Soyface user " I think Wikipedia needs to rethink their process. I am in my 40's but my 14yr old stepson told me you can't trust everything you read on Wikipedia. I just think that is sad for his generation. When I was his age before wide spread use of the computer, I went to an encyclopedia as a definitive source of information. When you want to comment on an article in the NY Times your comments are screened by a panel. What if all contributions to Wikipedia were screened by a paid panel representing a wide range of disciples and expertise? Anyone can contribute and edit so it is still "free" but unless sources are verified and companies disclosed, it is not published. How were original encyclopedias written?" Nhung (talk) 16:35, 24 February 2014 (UTC)71.184.226.11 18:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
13. Abstain I rely on Wikipedia to as a valuable start for research. I am saddened to see a few comments above suggesting that college students are allowed to treat Wikipedia as a reliable source. As many others have pointed out, as long as anonymous edits (like this one) are possible, Wikipedia can never be considered the final word on anything, nor can such a prohibition be enforced. The prohibition will improve the quality of the information a little, but knowing it's there could increase the misperception of reliability.204.58.171.16 20:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC) (Update) Response to "antiwesley": I'm not so sure IP addresses are becoming more static. It is now possible to have a (sub)domain name that points to a new address every hours. And how many thousands of people are using TOR or a proxy or a VPN to hide their location or identity?
14. Abstain As much as I would like to see this implemented, it would be next to impossible to enforce and would invite countless revision wars, as the paid people could just create another account, reset the changes, and so on and so forth. It also brings up the most important aspect of censorship. IP's can be blocked, but what if it blocks legitimate users as well? IP addresses are becoming more and more static, true, but they are still dynamic. What could be an IP for a paid editor in one town today, could be the IP for a user one town over the next. This sounds like an argument for opposition, but I feel that the time would be better used than trying to enforce this rule. AntiwesleyAntiwesley 21:47, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
15. "I reserve judgment" - Montaigne When you're sick you see a doctor. When your car won't start you call a tow truck and mechanic. Most people can't write -- so they hire a writer. Those that can't write but try to tend to produce sub-par prose that won't "start" with the reader. If a paid writer creates an outstanding Wikipedia page for someone else, and the work is neutral, objective and helps an audience, what difference does it make who's name is on it or actually did the work? None whatsoever. Over the years I've written thousands of articles, speeches (and even a few books) that ended up carrying someone else's name as author. As long as the piece in question served the public good, I've never minded remaining anonymous. If there's ever the slightest chance that a proposed article or speech will do harm, I turn down the opportunity. In sum, I write for those people and causes I believe in. Period. Attaching a "bigger name" than mine to the end product serves a purpose: People are more apt to read it. The quality of the work is the thing. In the case of Wikipedia, if there is any doubt about the end result or its intent, I place trust in Wikipedia's outstanding staff of volunteer editors to right the problem. Signed, for once, Jim Crawford.
16. Abstain I like the idea in concept, but the folks arguing about the content being important, not the editor, have a point. Finances aside, if the content meets WP's guidelines, is impartial, and uses reliable sources, it shouldn't matter. On the other hand, anyone editing and being paid to edit is suspect... I don't see a big need for this, and I dont think this is a solution. PrimalBlueWolf (talk) 15:39, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
17. Abstain I agree with comments #2 and #3 and would like to add a quick comment in addition to their great points. The intention of this provision is great but it needs to be implemented much better to actually be effective, in its current form I firmly believe that users following the requirements will not still serve the intention of this provision.
18. Abstain I do not think that requiring disclosure will help to fix the problem. Eventually, if enacted, Wikipedia will need to have a police unit responsible for banning such people from posting. Just like the "like" farms of YouTube, people will find a way to reliably subvert the proposed disclosure rule. In addition, with the proposed rule, Wikipedia is setting itself up for doing background checks on contributors. The assumption would need to be everyone is being paid to contribute unless proven otherwise. Logically, employment of contributors would be ascertained. This is a long and laborious process. Perhaps Wikipedia should consider paying people to contribute content. Even though the people would be paid, they would not be getting paid to promote content. Rather the content would be unbiased. As a bridge between current workings and unbiased compensated contributions, an edit might require approval by a page editor. Approval of edits by the page editor could also work as a permanent solution. This would likely make the editing process easier on the page editor while still protecting Wikimedians from bad information, whether the information is compensated for or simply false information. For example, if an expert consistently makes edits, after three or four edits the editor would become familiar with the source of information. While the edits would still need approval, the editor would not need to scrutinize the edits in tedious detail.
19. Abstain Because I'm kinda on-the-fence, I feel that the proposed amendment does not go far enough, imo, although it IS a difficult step in the right direction. A SIMPLER step, and probably a bigger and better one, is the use of a page editor system, as mentioned above. This MIGHT, also, have the additional effect of increasing Wikipedia's perceived reliability, however, I can see where that's gonna be murky waters at best, since it kinda defeats the whole allowing ANYONE to contribute thing. I tend to agree with most of #19 above, although having paid-for contributors would also kinda defeat the point of Wikipedia, I feel. Also, SOME notice, somehow, that content might not be so reliable is absolutely imperative. Whether a big "P" on the page/edited section itself, or quickly visible on the TOP of the talk page, perhaps a big RED coin? The hardest part, as i see it, is gonna be getting across the fact that some or all of the information presented might be biased ASAP, so ppl can form their own opinion. I can see this going either way, and it being good or bad, either way, there's just SOO many variables, and a LOT of them are REALLY important. Be interesting to see the eventual outcome. My 2 cents, you DID ask for it. 24.67.196.186 09:05, 27 February 2014 (UTC)JesterDoobie
20. Abstain. Long answer: #Why focus on monetary incentives? So many other incentives exist to distort information... (archived). Short answer: I don't feel competent to make my own verdict. But it's an important issue, so I wanted to give it my attention.
    6birc (talk) 15:40, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
21. If we are to somehow label contributions that are paid, to be consistent and fair, we would need to also label those that were unpaid. We would also need to decide if these two categories, "paid" and "unpaid", were the only two possibilities at this level of classification. There may well be other categories that we decide have a similar level of influence on accuracy and truthiness as do these two. It's worth some more thought I think.71.188.107.185 05:43, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
22. I'm kind of the person who falls under this proposed amendment. I get the concept, but as we saw with the Arturo at BP account and (hopefully?) how I've approached editing pages dealing with my employer, if we're open, honest, and reach out to other editors BEFORE editing and THROUGHOUT the editing process, then we'll foster the trust (and oversight) to be allowed to edit the pages we are compensated to in a manner that is accountable to Wikipedia's standards. My talk page says what I do, my username says by affiliation, and I reach out to other editors on the pages I'm trying to edit of which I must be under the WP:COI microscope while editing. GRUcrule (talk) 17:28, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
23. Totally abstain: wiki will become an advertisement / promotional portal — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 176.250.110.163 (talk)
24. Abstain: this concept is similar to bribing, and bribing is illegal. If paid undisclosed editing editing is allowed, Wikipedia will be unable to track vandalism. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 174.21.211.115 (talk)
25. Who runs wikipedia now? There's a board of trustees? Where does funding come from? — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.204.236.240 (talk)
26. Abstain. Here is an example of horrible editing. Whatever policy can prevent a recurrence of this sort of thing I favor, but I am not well enough informed on current proposals to vote here. In the earlier days of Wiki I wrote a long, detailed article on the science of sacrificial anodes, a subject on which I am an expert, have published, and served as a consultant. I had no commercial affiliation at the time I contributed the article, and I contributed information not available in print anywhere else. Subsequently someone selling a corrosion prevention gimmick -- that does not work! -- deleted my article and substituted a a brief article based on junk science that included an advertisement for their gimmick. Needless to say, I never again contributed. I do use Wiki, it is a great resource. signature: Piezoe (talk) 15:33, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
27. Some disclosure is necessary As others much more knowledgeable than myself have noted, sources should be disclosed. Sure, there are malicious users who will circumvent any process, but there needs to be guidelines in place for the process. How this can be tracked and/or verified in the current Wikipedia system is extremely difficult, though, and may require some substantial changes. Karoluskaufmannis (talk) 02:13, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
28. no support because it changes nothing at all — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.155.200.17 (talk)
29. Abstain. I feel that disclosure in theory sounds great, but as the proposed amendment is currently phrased... I'm concerned that it is rather vague. However, given that I can count on one hand the number of times that I've edited on Wikipedia, I also feel that I'm not qualified to say "yea" or "nay" on this matter. -- 50.186.55.118 08:11, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
30. Undisclosed Paid Editing when looked at from a different standpoint, could be a way for some users to finally tell the truth. Just my thoughts 1mh3ar1nth3spac3umad3 (talk) 02:03, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
31. Abstain: As currently phrased, it is vague as to what all of the implications would be. It seems not easily enforceable, at the very least - or perhaps I am simply not seeing the details of how Wikipedia plans on enforcing the rules? In any case, it seems as though it should be made a little more clear exactly what policy this would result in. Better to give users more an idea than less of what kinds of changes they can expect. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.222.240.194 (talk)
32. Abstain I don't think there'll be any difference. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 77.238.68.59 (talk)
33. Abstain the "policing" of this implies that everyone is suspect, and that would take the enjoyment out of contributing to articles. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by MaryJ8743 (talk)
34. Abstain - Pity I can't just oppose this unwieldy process, it seems to me that unpicking the finer points of quantum mechanics would be simpler than digesting the debate on this page. - That said I am in favour of the principle, however I do think we need to keep it simple. Wikipedias (for example) guidelines are already extremely complex, bewildering and off putting to newcomers. Why the choice of where to make the disclosure? Will thus not result in editors hunting for needles in haystacks if they suspect another of bias due to being paid? I can't see why we can't just require those effected by this change to put a brief (non-redirecting) hatnote on their user page or is that too simplistic for the WMF and wider community? --Wintonian (talk) 21:03, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
35. Abstain - I do think the proposed ammendment has more virtues than downsides, however, as other users mentioned before me, the proposed policy ammendment is not specific enough. How ever I do support the notion about paid contributors disclosing the fact that it's part of their job requirement on their user profile page 89.110.224.34 13:23, 7 March 2014 (UTC) Nemanja Stošić
36. Support I cannot trust that corporate edited is a good idea, it can especiallie lead to biased of the companie paying to performing the edit. Pardon the english, but, I do not think it is a good idea for Wikipedia to does.142.151.186.28 04:22, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
37. Abstain I agree with the idea of full disclosure especially when it comes to paid entries. However, it is unclear how the Board of Trustees would enforce the proposed amendment. Until such time as it is possible to immediately and reliably identify paid sources, the amendment is just politics (all bark, no bite). Alas, I wish there was a better solution, but as of yet I have not seen it. That being said, if in the future it becomes possible to positively identify entries that have been funded, it should be made readily apparent on the entry page itself and not buried in comments or otherwise. It would be useful to the reader if such entries were marked either by a dollar sign, a loud font color or some other demarcation as the Board of Trustees finds appropriate.68.36.28.228 01:02, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
38. Abstain - The idea seems to be good in the first place and I agree that if it will be properly implemented, can help the readers a lot. However, I am not sure how will it be implemented. What if somebody doesn't declare about the paid editing and keeps on editing with a bias? I am afraid of one more thing. What if the information is paid yet true? What impression it will leave on the reader who is looking for a neutral view? Even if the paid information is true, the reader will not believe it since it has a tag as 'Paid Edit'. For this I have a suggestion that instead of sharing the Paid edit information to the reader and make him/her not to rely even on the true paid edits, WMF can use this paid-edit tag as its own mechanism to filter and edit better. In other words, do not share the paid edit information to the reader but use it to help the WMF community as a tool to identify potential biased edits. Makes sense?
39. Abstain Anyone found getting paid for editing should have both arms cut off and shoved up their ass in tandem.
40. Strongly Support I'm a regular Wikipedia user. I feel after reading the description that this amendment is needed, and that the Wikimedia organization and community will responsibly enforce it.
41. Abstain 1.Impossible to enforce 2. Other types of conflict of interests - employment, ownership, affiliation etc are lot more common than direct payment.Serg3d2 (talk) 07:39, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Support

1. Strongly Support Paid or unpaid I always felt that Wikmedia lacked information on who is contributing and what their background is. Making that public would seriously enhance the richness of the information as the details of the source and his/her affiliations will be out in the open. My only suggestion is to device to make it easy to enter this information and also view it. Once the basic framework is created I would also like to see how certain sections of an article can be rated by the entire communitity to arrive at a consensus on the impartiality index of the edit/content. Krishsub2011 (talk) 09:33, 19 March 2014 (UTC)krishsub
2. Strongly Support Paid doesn't mean bad, but the user needs this information to clearly evaluate contributed content. 172.10.238.180 06:19, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
3. Support Any honest person will be prepared to disclose their business activities. This amendment will give Wikipedia more transparency, and by that, more credibility. Sleepingbeauty (talk) 16:31, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
4. Support Many PR firm in Taiwan edit Wikipedia for their client, which include companies, politicians, or government units. It must be revealed. --Orion (talk) 19:10, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
5. Support It will need some exemplar cases to work though - damages will need to be high enough that multi-billion-dollarpound industries can't just consider them an operating cost!
6. Blatantly, Strongly Support great idea consistent with the aims and objectives of mediawiki. I am a retired teacher and loaded with information that I do like to pass to younger generations. Frequently my works have been marred and barred as "spams!" because it could shade hidden paid editors or business advertisements with easy free to implement home-brewed ideas. It has happened that my edit had collected viewers and on getting enough viewers and attraction of search engines its original form replaced with commercials -PJ.
7. Support Great idea, why would anyone want to hide their identity after contributing if they are truthful. Jimmydreads (talk) 10:28, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
8. Being able to see clearly whats going on with a page's politics in the history would be great. If you could see at a glance in the history what position the contribution was coming from, i.e. whether a contribution is for example from the owner of that company, or is an actor in question commenting on themselves etc. If done well i imagine it would make it quickly evident what sort of discussion has been taking place on the subject simply by looking at the title of involved participants and this would add to how much of a feeling you could get about something from its page. Of course people could still post anonymously but the big names posting should have reputations. (that is if it was enforceable though...) Formed4 (talk) 16:23, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
9. Support This makes good sense to me. Keep the conversations transparent and above-board. No one should have to wonder if hidden agendas are making it into a global standard source for information. [guest] 14:26, 8 March 2014 (PST)
10. Support I think this is best for Wikipedia and would be a great decision. Aus0107 (talk) 17:17, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
11. Strongly Support and believe the measure could be made a bit stronger. The need to insure the integrity of Wikipedia entries is paramount. Freedom from fraud and deceptive activities are important components of integrity, but they are only part of the picture. A reader should be told when a paid editor adds to an entry not just so the reader can be alert to possible fraud, but so that when judging the accuracy, point of view, or perspective of the writer, the reader can also factor in that the writer was paid--just as one does when a journalist or columnist discloses a conflict of interest. Yet the justification currently advanced by proponents is limited to fraud prevention, as follows: "These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. To ensure compliance with these obligations, you must disclose ...." I suggest that Wikipedia make it explicit that we consider disclosure of paid comments to be necessary to preserve the integrity of Wikipedia.Nikdanjor (talk) 02:46, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
12. "Strongly Support" I am ok with it, As long as there is [sic] s/b ARE no paid contributions. 97.116.173.159 23:13, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
13. Strongly Support I like Wikipedia and would support this amendment. I'm quoting a statement to abstain from Nhung. "'I copy this from Soyface user' I think Wikipedia needs to rethink their process. I am in my 40's but my 14yr old stepson told me you can't trust everything you read on Wikipedia. I just think that is sad for his generation." Anyone that went to college knows that Wikipedia is not accepted as a valid reference, as we probably all know. All you have to do is verify the reference, hoping that there is a valid reference given by the writer. I use Wikipedia because there is more information on here now than ever before. And most of it IS valid. After all, a lot of good reference sites make you pay for information.Cjstudent54 (talk) 20:44, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
14. Strongly Support Adding this to the terms of use would make Wikipedia even more transparent and expedite removal of malicious paid editors. Bonu (talk) 20:31, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
15. ""Strongly Support I think this will be a valuable step towards making Wikipedia a more "trustworthy" [sic] (s/b without quotes as quotes technically de-emphasizes; e.g. President Coolidge was a "talkative" man) resource, and I'm delighted at the breadth of discussion in the community192.159.160.69 08:45, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
16. Strongly Support Adding this to the terms of use would expedite removal of malicious paid editors. Dustin184 (talk) 15:07, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
17. Strongly Support In Telugu movies section you can find references from websites that are paid marketing partners of many movies which is listed in their own website and their movie reviews are listed on the Wiki Page as if they are genuine reviews . It is absolutely critical to find some pair movie promotion websites are using Wiki to gain their credibility and putting the content either extract the link juice or to promote the movie that they are paid for . The Telugu actress wiki pages are filled with those few paid promotion companies comments as if they are genuine. There should be limit on the number of outbound links to a website from the Wiki. Otherwise , genuine content gives way undisclosed paid editing. Niranjan gat (talk) 13:02, 4 March 2014 (UTC) Niranjan
18. Strongly Support I am a web designer and new contributor. My only purpose for making changes on any Wikipedia article at this time would be to add or correct information on behalf of a client for whom I am working to establish or enhance their online presence, so I would come under the category of contributors being paid to make their contributions. I made my first contribution yesterday and found the note about this discussion in the process. I think it's important for anyone who is paid to make changes to articles on Wikipedia to disclose the source of the compensation they will receive so people will know whether or not the changes they make are sponsored by someone with a vested interest in posting correct information. There are too many instances where Wikipedia articles could be "contaminated" by contributors with a vested interest in adding biased or incorrect information, and I think the proposed solution is pretty simple and elegant. This would also help to prioritize tha changes made by paid individuals in the event of a disagreement that needs mediation by the Wikipedia community. I also agree with many of the other comments left by those who also agree that this is a good thing for Wikipedia and its users. In the spirit of supporting this proposed and very reasonable change to Wikipedia's policy I have disclosed the person for whom I am working on my user page and added note regarding another change I'll be making soon for another client. Hanasazi 11:03, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
19. Strongly Support The previous submitter is a web designer. His purpose is "to add or to correct information on behalf of a client". While I am not a doctor, I live with several diseases that have encouraged me to research them. If I contribute personal experiences and information that may conflict with the Wiki editors or with a corporate entity, what is the limit of my personal liability? Can Wiki, after consulting with someone like me, be an advocate for change? Can a corporate entity suppress one's contributions? For example, I am a Vioxx survivor who had several TIAs, a few atypical hemo-plagic migraines (aka strokes), and a palsy of a right optical nerve. Can Wiki resist an entity like Merck that has lots of friends?
20. 131.191.107.123 06:17, 3 March 2014 (UTC)strongly support It is important to know where information comes from to make a critical decision about the accuracy of it.
21. Support Please keep the rules for it simple as I edit in so many ways - for friends, for companies, for non-profits, for individuals alive and dead. Psychetube (talk) 11:23, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
22. strongly support It is necesary to disclose paid editors but not to discourage them, their edits are important.(Jorge Iani (talk) 24:14, 2 March 2014 (UTC))
23. strongly support great move, thank you very much.(Jerrygarrison (talk) 22:03, 2 March 2014 (UTC))
24. strongly support Great move, this is very good thank you (jamesabillion (talk) 22:03, 2 March 2014 (UTC))
25. Strongly Support the amendment for similar reasons as #4; Wikipedia and public will only benefit from full disclosure. Wikipedia's gain is improvement of reputation, public will gain in accessing more reliable resources. As a teacher librarian, I consciously endeavored to encourage students to look for conflict of interest and prejudiced sources of information Teach Lib (talk) 19:52, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
26. Support The proposed amendment would, in my eyes, do infinitely more good than harm, and should be considered appropriately. Requiring the disclosure of data which would affect the way a reader interprets information in an edit is the obvious course of action. --Polymetric (talk) 17:52, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
27. Support Great idea. Max112.118.225.243 16:30, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
28. Support I am a casual user, but Wiki is my primary information resource. I use it like one used to use an encyclopedia, dictionary, almanac, etc.. I find it VERY helpful to know who the contributors are and their backgrounds, which should include the fact that they are being paid for their contribution. This allows me to weigh the information and contributor and look for balance else where if it is needed. Alizyb````
29. Support This is a good idea to help preserve the integrity and independence of Wikipedia as a quality data source for online research. ~kbierce, San Francisco, tech startup employee
30. Support I am a 62 year old trial attorney and I have been a civil rights activist since I was a child. Multinational corporations and their well paid advocates in Washington and in the commerical media are destroying the economic and intellectual bedrock of freedom and justice throughout the world. Many of us cannot even remember when "TV news" was not a euphemism for infotainment, calculated misinformation, rumors and advertisements dressed up as legitimate news, and thinly veiled censorship disguised as editorial discretion. Ever listen to the words of the song Dirty Laundry? Or see the movie Wag the Dog? Or The Constant Gardner, written by a former British spy? Don't let Wiki join the conga line of media whores. If we cave on this one, we may be gong beyond the point of no return. They have so much more money than we do, and they work full time at it. Let them in the door? Better apologize to your spouse and kids first. Who knows, though, maybe the oil companies will give us some of their Honored Customer discount cards if we vote No. Paul Leland Ness, B.A., J.D. (talk) 00:41, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
31. Support with my only reservation being that it might not be strong enough. I am aware of one for profit that has clearly used paid people to create what was essentially an infomercial for the company on the wikipedia. Although I'm not competitor, I work in the same business and could see what was going on. I challenged some of the copy and was mildly criticized for being inconsistent with POV policy -- which might have been a fair criticism. But there was no way to pull the covers on this. If this policy had been in place, I would have challenged the contributor for connection information if the proper disclosure was missing. Proposal is better than nothing. Frog one (talk) 20:49, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
32. Support: While I acknowledge that paid contributions might not necessarily be factually incorrect, the fact that they are receiving compensation implies that there are obvious interests at stake. In other words, there is an obvious risk that the contribution might not represent a neutral point of view at the very least. Such biases can also lead to intentional information, obviously. This is a problem even for unpaid contributions, but where there is financial incentive it stands to reason that points of view backed with large amounts of money stand gain the most influence regardless of their actual validity. An unpaid volunteer could hardly be expected to out-argue someone who's paid to edit full time whether they're right or not. In order to level the playing field, these kinds of contributions need to be disclosed. #--108.162.171.7 20:09, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
33. Support: The person getting paid should not be allowed to edit in the first place. That's advertising! If you refuse to block this entirely, VERY large text should be added stating "THIS IS A PAID OPINION!". Lostviking (Tim Oster) 10:45, Feb 27, 2014 (PST)
34. Support: At least the written material is recognized as Paid for. Anwaraj (talk) 14:30, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
35. Strongly Support and agree that "paid editing" should include political interns, military and the like. I am sorry that I don't know how to "sign" this comment. I have never edited Wikimedia/pedia before.
36. Support I think this is a step in the right direction. Bradybd (talk) 00:31, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
37. Strongly Support: My biggest concern is that large corporate or government entities will pay to have scientific data changed on the site. For example, an unknown whistle blower leaks the results of multinational Pharmaceutical Company BIG PHARMA's confidential test conducted by a team of doctors and medical researchers on their staff. To their shock the test proves that their best selling heart drug causes premature dementia in 43% of all users of the drug. Big Pharma's tentacles of influence are so powerful that their crisis management PR agency is able to kill the any story about the leak in major media sources, because the company is an advertiser on a global scale. But the information is here on Wikipedia. Big Pharma pays someone to delete the information, and falsify the test results on Wikipedia. Without a transparent contribution amendment, there will be no way to trace the source of the deletion. Yes, of course, they can be very clever and have a series of safety protocols to distance themselves completely from the contributor, but this amendment adds a legal hurdle for them to confront and if they are caught, they can not only be held liable but the deletion could be enough for a law enforcement body to view it as probable cause for an investigation, including the subpoenas of the test results. They will therefore have to think very, very hard about whether or not they want to pay someone to lie. MusicalTheatreBuff (talk) 08:52, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
38. Strongly Support: AaronF2 (talk) 17:17, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
39. Strongly support (and on the article page itself). Otherwise there is no way to evaluate any hidden bias and ensure integrity. But how to handle the issue of edits by supposedly 'unpaid' representatives of foundations, councils, lobby groups and the like which may be indirectly funded by 3rd parties with clearly vested interests (e.g. mining, energy vs climate debate). I guess what I am saying is that 'unpaid' is just one indicator of independence and objectivity. Adamswr (talk) 22:08, 23 February 2014 (UTC) Adamswr (talk) 22:11, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
40. Overwhelmingly Support. Wikipedia is, by design, an open, non-biased information delivery system. Anyone who has a financial motive for posting/editing anything MUST DISCLOSE their role to the world. Otherwise, Wikipedia would just become a free advertisintg site. My full disclosure: I have and will continue to annually contribute from my meager financial resources to the Wikimedia Foundation so that it can stay free from advertising. I also challenge all readers of this post to donate at least $5 to the same. If everyone who uses Wikipedia did this, we wouldn't even have to see paid posts. BASoonersFan (talk) 23:19, 22 February 2014 (UTC)BASoonersFan.
41. Support. I would only add that paid contributors are often in the best position to provide accurate information, as compared to others despite their potential bias. I still support their disclosure, but do not oppose their participation. 174.20.145.68 05:21, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
42. Strongly support. Slowmover (talk) 21:58, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
43. Strongly support and "paid editing" should include political interns, military and the like who keep sanitizing the pages.
44. Support!71.163.222.152 17:50, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
45. Strongly support! This amendment is important to safeguard the integrity of Wikipedia.
46. Support Insomniacsloth (talk) 04:38, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
47. Hashtag=support, I guess. I'll support this, because it is something new to try. However, I will not permit such an amendment to exist unless it is able to be nullified. There's nothing wrong with trying something and seeing what happens. I know I've been arrogant about this, but if the people want the amendment, give it to them. They are the community, and they deserve what they ask for. When it all goes terribly like it very well may, just make sure you have a way out, and make sure i'm not involved in the lawsuits. I know you have other opinions to read, so I'm done. I don't like to harass people, but this situation has brought me to tears. I just find it hard to accept that wikipedia would stoop to such a level as bribery under a guise of transparency. Maybe that's just what you need to do to succeed in this fuckeed up world. (brandon).
48. Support
49. Support. This is a no-brainer. The real trick will be destroying the powerful machinations of the massive efforts by governments and political organisations to effectively purchase public opinion and/or rewrite history. No easy task maintaining impartiality against so much well-funded hogwash.
50. Support. The philosophy of Wikipedia is good as is and it's a shame it's being influenced by money. Wikipedia is where people get knowledge and info, it should remain as pure as is humanly possible. Glad to see Wikipedia is recognizing the problem and doing something about it.
51. Support with the suggestion that editors be required to state either "unpaid" or "employed by ..." whenever they make an edit.Hovenweep (talk) 14:07, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
52. Strongly support. paid editing is a fundamental problem for the impartiality and balance of wikipedia.
53. Strongly support. Currently in our society whoever throws the most money at a problem seems to be believed. As a source of information, Wikipedia must be free from this type of propagandizing. (SJB)2602:306:CF02:4250:CD2F:81D3:C2F2:2D73 22:12, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
54. Strongly support.
55. Strongly support!
56. Strongly Support
57. Strongly Support! Kick peoples ass Barack! Just please for the love of humanity. Only pay the smart people.147.69.29.43 17:21, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

    After reading the many posts in favor (and their reasons), and the few posts opposing this change (and their reasons), virtually all of the opposition is based on a total fallacy - that this amendment would somehow limit the ability of people with special competence in a topic from editing or commenting on it, or that it will in any way limit the access or ability of any individual to edit or amend or comment on any article or entry... NOTHING in this amendment will stop anyone from contributing to or editing anything in all of Wikipedia or its related entities. ALL it does is require anyone receiving compensation for doing so to disclose the fact. Those who oppose this change, please read the language of the proposed change. Anyone legitimately making such contributions and/or edits should have no qualms or problems in making such disclosure, and should rather be very pleased to state their affiliation, employer or whatever might even remotely seem like a conflict of interest, to place themselves above reproach as they contribute to the community. Frankly, anyone opposed to such a benign and useful amendment to the terms of use causes themselves and their motives to be called into question, since it will cause no harm and will hopefully do some good, or at least allow for the enforcement of a minimum standard of procedural and journalistic integrity that is expected - if not always present - in any legitimate publication or organization that purports to provide fair, honest, and balanced coverage of <anything and everything>

58. Strongly support. Wikipedia is fundamentally open--the first step in deterring those with financial gain is to prohibit such actions. Enforcement is a separate topic.
59. Strongly Support! Doing this might reduce the risk of biased or partial opinions stated as facts, disguised facts or partial disclosure of facts. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.65.139.248 (talk) 21 February 2014, 22:28 (UTC)
60. Support -- On the grounds that sunshine is the best disinfectant.
61. Support -- I think that if people are providing information for pay that it will be slanted news towards the payer. We don't want to start the whole news channel system here where the advertisers determine what information people have available to them. Paid providers of information would be able to silence others because they would have more time and resources available (A special interest group putting 100 people on the task of slanting the information about them in the articles here making it look like there is popular support for a particular viewpoint when there is none...)
62. Support --205.211.133.128 20:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC), But I suggest a modified wording "with respect to any contribution to any Wikimedia Projects for which you or your employer receive compensation"
63. Support
64. Support - The only thing this can do for this site is make it more reliable. It would be very difficult for a highly monitored paid contributor to decieve users of wikimedia sited.
65. Support - This seems to work very well on other sites. People interested enough to read about a particular subject are usually very much on target overall, I have found. It's very difficult for 'paid trolls' to effectively deceive on a large scale basis, without the 'bs' meter going off in the mind of the reader.
66. Support this amendment: it will clarify that the editor/writer could be influenced by a third party. May not affect contect, just puts it in the open.
67. Support. I doubt that this is very enforceable and there will continue to be people who try (or manage) to take advantage of this wonderful resource for their own ends; however, as an ideological stance on transparency I completely support it. It is absurd that a company, say, Monsanto, would get the benefit-of-the-doubt protection of not being required to have their paid editors/contributors say "I work for Monsanto" based only on the premise that such a disclosure would serve as a de-facto perception of unreliability by the reader, which is the claim many of those individuals opposing this amendment are taking. -Jay A.
68. Support.
69. Support. Is perfectly reasonable and will only ensure more security and reliability in the site.
70. Strongly Support. There is nothing wrong with making money by editing WikipediA articles, and being transparent about that contributes to the reliability of this site. AlvinMGO
71. Strongly Support this and disclosure of sources on all articles and edits.
72. Strongly support. Please keep paid interests our of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the best place to find unbiased or minimally biased information about most anything a human can be curious about. Paid interests can only mislead, obscure, and confuse the average user; and reduce the value of Wikipedia as a whole. If an addition to Wikipedia contains only the truth there should be no need for anyone to be paid to write it.````
73. Support.
74. Support.
75. Strongly support even though it will be hard to enforce. Allowing hidden commercial or economic relationships is far worse than not being able to identify every violation every time. The fact of the prohibition is an important factor in maintaining the projects' integrity.
76. Strongly support- this is required to prevent corruption of information and freedoms related to that information.
77. The problem is solved, if it becomes possible, to write the truth at WP. But this is not possible since years. Political correctness is dominant. The political lobby is paid by her salary, so more powerful tools to handle human rights and democratie shall come to the terms of use. What shall a writer do, if a "political" admin reverts the text? You cant do any thing, I checked it. In the mean time I write the truth to other WPs like Stupidedia. This is not a honour to WP.--212.95.7.51 10:48, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
78. I support what Wikipedia is trying to do here in principle, but I don't think it's possible to enforce such a policy, or even to be able to detect a large portion of the population of violations of this policy, and that's just barely scratches the surface of the first face of this issue. Consider just one alternate face of this issue: what happens when someone is NOT being compensated, but their post is flagged due to a false positive hit on some filter or heuristic?
79. Strongly support the amendment.
80. support but agree that paid edits should be marked on the wiki page itself. the provision "a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions." comes closest but the implemented rule should be even stronger and take away the other two options because they are not transparent enough.
81. Support. Support - but the paid edits should be marked paid in some way on the wiki page itself.
82. Support. Agree with previous comment's sense that paid edits should be readily identified for readers. If not on the content page, then at least make mandatory that the talk page have the notice. That way a reader need only look at the discussion tab to see what content was contributed by paid editor(s). Stephengeis (talk) 14:23, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
83. Support. I strongly suggest reading these support posts in full, or else they could get out of hand. Open the door, get on the floor. Everyone walk the dinosaur.
84. Strongly support. Being paid to edit can very easily lead to bias. If this conflict of interest is not laid open, it may be that the bias escapes unnoticed (most likely for a limited amount of time). This would alter much of Wikpedia's reputation as an impartial source of information.
85. Strongly Support- This is a long overdue amendment. While there are those who suggest embracing these 'paid edits' and earning income from it, the whole point of Wikipedia is that it is a FREE encyclopaedia anyone can edit that is solely moderated by the community. A paid content provider would need to gain elevated 'privileges' above normal users (as they then become 'customers'). While this my not seem like a major issue in the short term, this could lead to major repercussions with regard to objectivity and eventual corporate dominance (Basically the same thing that has happened to many newspapers and 'traditional' media around the world). HOWEVER, I also believe that in addition to disclosure on one's talk page etc., the compensated Content Provider should also be required to put such edits in a different 'style' or coloring to make these edits known to the COMMON reader (who in some cases may not be 'tech savvy' enough to refer an article's or user's talk page). Just my two cents...
86. Support. But a better way would be to not stop the practice, but rather embrace it by regulating it and earning income from it, by requiring paid editors to register as a Wikipedia Paid Content Provider (WPCP). These WPCPs should pay Wikipedia a fee and be required to list all their current clients and all their Wikipedia IDs. Doing so would enable Wikipedia to place a symbol at the top of any WPCP created page that identifies the content as client provided material. Those WPCP clients should also pay Wikipedia a fee for each article posted in order to cover the cost of tracking these WPCP created articles and to enable Wikipedia to hire a bigger staff.
87. Support. Any bias in entries should be marked as such, and commercial sponsorship suggests the possibility that an entry may be biased. But should be left to the conscience of the individual editor (should editors also disclose membership of political parties, the Flat Earth Society, etc??)
88. Strongly support. As has been said before - transparency is key, and must be maintained to ensure the credibility of Wikipedia as an entity. Nothing should be hidden.
89. Strongly support. The conflict between candor and conflict of interest requires disclosure.
90. Strongly support. Transparency is key and, although some will disregard the rules, having the rule sends the message of what is appropriate and what is not.
91. Strongly support. I would also suggest extending the disclosure to memberships and affiliations even where there is no compensation involved, to minimize sock puppetry. For instance, I would find it useful to know that a contributor is a member of political party ABC, or religious organization XYZ.
92. Strongly support. Truth cannot be bought and sold.24.184.109.138 05:19, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
93. Strongly support. Conflict of interest is an issue in all other aspects of society, why not when providing information to the pinnacle of human knowledge?
94. Why have paid editing at all? Editing should be completely democratic! -Sam Bharr
95. Strongly support disclosure of compensated edits. In most cases this will reflect well on the employer, e.g. when a specialist in a field is encouraged by employer/manager to contribute an article or a clarification on company time. (1) "Refraining from Certain Activities" seems the wrong place for this. IMHO it needs a new heading, "Transparency", (2) also to be listed in the box at the top as the second item below "Under the following conditions". (3) Near the end of the FAQ under the heading "How should I disclose paid contributions in my user page?", suggest delete the indicated words: "If you work for Company Acme, and, as part of your job responsibilities, you edit Wikipedia articles >>about Company Acme<<..." (4) Recommend the disclosure be available in the edited page. I don't want to break off pursuit of a topic to check user pages, talk pages: in scholarly work the citations are at the bottom of the page; I would like comparable convenience.
96. Duh, legal limits on free speech apply only to commercial speech. Since Wiki doesn't bill itself as a giant ad for anything, this whole issue is moot. Anybody should be able to edit it with or without revealing their identity, funding, etc., and the contribution should stand if it's accurate, and that's IT. You are making much ado about nothing.
97. I strongly support a requirement that an edit made by a person paid to perform the said edit be disclosed as a "paid edit". In my opinion, further disclosure of the person affiliation is inappropriate. The act of disclosing a commercially directed edit gives the read adequate information to consider that the edit is possibly biased for commercial promotion. The only exception that I would allow is for editors potentially paid by the foundation or its agents. My reasoning for such a narrow disclosure is that all edits are potentially biased in some form. Many of these biases are intentional. If disclosure of an editor's affiliation becomes required, it seems that the foundation could foster an unintentional consequence of partisan (commercial or otherwise) debate in the wiki.
98. Yashskys (talk) 12:57, 25 February 2014 (UTC)strongly support
99. Strongly support. In addition to a simple statement like "I work for ABC Company", additional disclosures like "work as a full-time employee" or "free lance project" could be useful to assess degree of potential conflict of interest.
100. Stongly support - More than once I have had discussions with people who clearly defend articles related to companies that read like advertisement. I really like the idea! --Jlascar (talk) 10:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
101. Strongly support, i agree with paid editions they must be reported (cause it will exist always legal or ilegal). Firmemente de acuerdo. A favor de ediciones pagadas deben ser reportadas porque siempre existirán. --KundaliniZero (talk) 03:49, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
102. Strongly support. Philiptdotcom (talk) 03:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
103. I support the amendment. Kat Schulz
104. Strongly support but don't believe any paid editing should be allowed. As they say, "Money is the root of all evil" and you will not have objective information on Wiki if you allow paid editing. So-called paid editing in some cases is nothing more than a public relations release or advertisement. I have noticed some examples of this. Since I am a writer and editor, I can detect such cases but a student may not be able to. Dru Murray
105. As I understand the intent of the proposal, I support it. Lou Schaefer
106. Strongly support. The need and the reasons for it seem obvious. Bill Mathews
107. I strongly support the proposed change.--L3erdr (talk) 02:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC) l3erdr
108. I strongly support the proposed change for paid contributions to be disclosed. Julianharty (talk) 01:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
109. Strongly Support Paradoxos (talk)
110. Strongly Support - LovelyLillith
111. Wiki promotes and cultivates a level of trust with its readers and contributors that the content it supplies is not biased by corporate interests or advertising; because of this, people let their guard down to a certain extent, regarding discernment of the real from the sensational (or outright lies). It is one of the most-read sites on the internet and is in a unique position of earnestly trying to deliver unbiased truth. Any actual or perceived flaws in our material will only be magnified or scandalized by the discovery of information that is secretly put there by paid interests, and trust will be lost. Labeling such material for what it is gives the reader the opportunity to view it more critically and preserve Wiki's reputation.
112. Strongly Support - TheOwl
113. Strongly support- 81.182.41.24 00:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
114. Quite straightforward. If anyone doesn't want to disclose it in a more public place like the userpage or talkpage, the edit summary option is great. Rehman 00:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
115. Support disclosure, not banning. --PaulMEdwards (talk) 00:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
116. Strongly support - Last thing we need is another platform for right wing disinformation.
117. Strongly Support - Hitman731
118. Support - Wikipedia is based on the principle of transparency. Payments for editing are often perfectly acceptable. I trust the Wikipedia community to be able to discern when it matters and when not. 84.227.242.86 00:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
119. Strongly support - any paid edit which has not been declared as such, becomes blatantly shameful in case of discovery; therefore I believe that this policy should be accompanied by the explicitly retained right of WMF and/or the Community to give full visibility and emphasis to eventual discoveries, at any extent. It would then be a really good tool to make it quite risky for covert paid contributors to be discovered, a sort of matter of money for shame. --g (talk) 01:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
120. Support : maybe ask for a specific keyword to help bots recognize these edits quickly. It makes sense wrt conflicts, and does not harm.
121. Strongly support this long-overdue measure. --Orange Mike (talk) 01:39, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
122. Strongly support - any edit made by a paid contributor should be marked as such, it must be obvious.
123. Strongly support - It's simple information sharing 58.174.85.158
124. Strongly support - The argument to the contrary (that disclosure would cause undue discrimination) is not compelling. Paid edits have a higher probability for fraud. The poster's comments (and disclosure) should take steps to acknowledge and mitigate that.(scotteemac)
125. Support (strongly, strongly...etc). Situation with suspected undisclosed paid editing is getting worse. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC).

     Strongly support - Undisclosed paid editing is corrupting. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC) Moving support to support but should be stronger. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:38, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

126. Support - Paid editing introduces a natural conflict of interest, and edits that are paid and subsequently affect a large amount of the encyclopedia may alter it in a biased way and may not be noticed until far after the event. This amendment would alleviate that by requiring notice when a paid edit occurs. NicatronTg (talk) 02:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
127. Support. Disclosure is required in many situations such as when a news story is about a parent company. With or without disclosure readers do have an opportunity to add or edit articles and this does act to limit or stop false or slanted information.
128. Strongly Support - transparency of the intention behind the addition of information will allow readers and editors to better judge the context of its addition and therefore the merit of it. Information does not exist in a vacuum and transparency allows us to better understand the intentions of a particular addition. Let us not muddy the philosophic undercurrent of this repository by letting pecuniary contrivances on it run rampant and unchecked.
129. Strongly support. Numerous article, such as this from Forbes show this amendment is a necessity.Pjposullivan (talk) 03:44, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
130. Strongly suport. I can't see a reason for hiding that information. Elucches (talk) 02:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
131. Strongly support. The whole reason I go to Wikipedia instead of just googling is that I can read a neutral, objective writeup about Concept X, without distorting hype like i'd get from the Concept X website, or distorting criticism from a 'Concept X sucks' site. Where else can you get a writeup of, say, Islam or Obama or Spontaneous Human Combustion where both sides have edited and (sortof) approved the details? osamabinlogin
132. Lucius Chiaraviglio Strongly Support. I strongly support the prohibition of undisclosed paid edits. The effect of undisclosed paid edits on our laws are proof that this is necessary to protect Wikipedia from falling to the same fate. 173.13.150.22 03:03, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
133. I don't understand the Introduction. What's the issue? "We plan to ask the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees to consider a proposed amendment in our Terms of Use to address further undisclosed paid editing." That's about a clear as mud. Who is being paid? Is Wikipedia going to start paying people? Suggestion: State the problem. Is there a problem? Are people being paid who shouldn't? Are people not being paid who should? I didn't know anybody was being paid. MarkFilipak (talk) 03:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
134. This seems sensible. I'd personally prefer an outright ban on paid editing, but this is a reasonable way of clarifying what's probably the community's consensus position on the topic. Nick-D (talk) 03:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
135. Weak support : It seems that it just specifically states what is already the net result of existing policy. I don't think it will do anything to improve compliance by the problem users, the vast majority of whom know well what they are doing is wrong (and don't care). I think it just gives admins something concrete to lean on when taking action. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 03:45, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
136. Support. If you're editing for money, your first loyalty is to your employer, not the project. Simple as that. You can argue until the end of time that this needn't make a difference, or is the paid contributor's right, or whatever, but it does make a difference, so it absolutely needs to be unambiguously disclosed. —Scs (talk) 03:46, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
137. Strongly support. This is extremely important to upholding a standard of objectivity and a neutral point of view, and is perfectly in line with a policy of transparency. Paid edits are fine, but they are certainly far more likely to be biased, nonobjective or even flat-out advertisement, and editors need to be able to see which information is more likely to be in violation of important policies so they can handle it more quickly. I cannot understand how someone could think that being more discriminating about which information is appropriate is undue discrimination. 75.140.101.66 03:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
138. Support. This is very serious problem, much more serious than most people believe. I had a lot of trouble and stopped editing political subjects because of this. Many paid editors on political subjects do excellent and perfectly neutral work. Having a disclosure would not really hurt them. Still, I am certain they will not disclose their real affiliations, because this would expose their employers. But at least they will know they violate our rules. Not so with paid editing on scientific subjects. Here, making a disclosure would be something innocent. Just to be clear about this, I never did any paid editing myself in the project. My very best wishes (talk) 03:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
139. Support. The proposal isn't particularly onerous anyways. Not many people will even bother to look at an editor's user page when considering whether an edit is appropriate or not. Being paid to edit a subject by a company presents an obvious lack of neutrality, which is clearly against the site's core principles. I think this is a pretty balanced way of dealing with it. Mikeman67 (talk) 03:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
140. Strongly support. Payment makes a difference. Else there would be no incentive to pay in the first place.---<(kmk)>- (talk) 04:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
141. Strong support, this is long overdue. I support making the disclosure requirement prominent, and clearly lay out when it is required. Blackhat PR firms will still try to edit, but if we can make it very clear to their clients that they are indeed blackhat, we might just make a difference. --TeaDrinker (talk) 04:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
142. Support - although I think all paid editing should be banned. Delamaran 04:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
143. Strongly Support - it's a small change with good benefits. Biligum (talk) 04:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
144. Support.
145. Strongly support. Moneyed special interests are being allowed to deceptively edit Wiki pages to cover up/change public opinion on unfair/poor corporate business practices. This undisclosed paid editing also allows for demagoguery of the worst degree in the political realm. This paid editing issue is closely related to the 2010 SCOTUS "Citizens United" decision. This decision effectively said 'Money equals free speech'.\Citizens United v FEC - SCOTUS dissenting and majority opinions Please keep 'Citizens United v. FEC' in mind when looking at the Wiki paid editing transparency issue. --PUnKeModUdE (talk) 07:30, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
146. Strongly support. Wikipedia should remain true, and possible (note: possible) corporate/religious/political/whathaveyou influence and even outright bias taints this trueness. --Marksomnian (talk) 08:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
147. Support. Pawyilee (talk) 05:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
148. Support. --Kersti (talk) 05:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
149. Support. The question of whether a particular set of compensated edits are constructive is separate from simply identifying when they are paid for. If we are fair in reviewing edits for their merit, this disclosure only helps, doesnt hinder, good editing.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:45, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
150. Support - I strongly support this important but seemingly unenforceable amendment. In addition, I believe that ALL paid editing should be banned. 68.71.70.33 06:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
151. Support. Strikes me as a sound response to the issue.
152. Support. It probably won't make a lot of difference, but it seems like a sensible thing to have in the Terms of Use. Kaldari (talk) 06:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
153. Visitor7 (talk) 06:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
154. Support. Scott Paeth (talk) 07:03, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
155. Strongly Support. Samitus mallicus (talk) 07:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
156. Support, with reservations about misuse of user-page notices. See #Temporal evasion of visible disclosures. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
157. Strongly Support. L337p4wn (talk) 08:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
158. Strongly Support. I also think that paid editing should be banned. It's awful to see criticisms of companies disappear. --Mathmensch (talk) 08:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
159. Strong support for a change long overdue. I've been an editor on English Wikipedia since 2006, and the steady increase in paid advertisements has now reached a disgusting crescendo that almost makes me ashamed to be a writer there. Frankly, I would make it a requirement that paid editors state it in the edit summary for each and every edit they make to their clients' pages. Voceditenore (talk) 09:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
160. Dafür/Support. Transparenz ist wichtig. Eine Frage zum Verfahren: Findet diese Abstimmung nur auf Englisch statt? Is this voting only in english language?--LichtStrahlen (talk) 09:30, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
161. Support. Though disclosure should be more prominent to the reader. --R2ZER0 (talk) 09:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
162. Support. Transparency is better for everyone. Additionally, I think the required notices on user pages or user talk pages should be prominently displayed, not hiding in a paragraph of text where it could be easily overlooked. Smilesplash (talk) 09:42, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
163. Support. Strongly support the idea, unsure on enforcement. --Captain-tucker (talk) 10:24, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
164. Strongest possible support Non-disclosed COI editing hurts Wikipedia/Wikimedia. To people in the Oppose section, this does not ban COI editing, but provides a way to monitor paid editing and help keep the integrity of the entire encyclopedia. Zhaofeng Li (talk) 10:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
165. Support. Nearly everything to be said about this topic has already been written; I think we should certainly do it, despite possible upcoming problems (which are there anyway). --Jussty (talk) 10:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
166. Support. We don't want people to be professionally biasing/vandalising Wikipedia without Wikimedia's knowledge! Let them do so by all means, but requiring them to effectively tell Wikimedia that they are doing it professionally helps Wikimedia keep tabs on those people so that their edits can be more closely checked for bias. Yes anyone should be able to edit, but we are also against unnecessary bias and I feel this would help with this. 146.90.158.185 11:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
167. Strongly support with further proposals. Require every such edit to be flagged in the edit summary and the user page to include a disclosure of interest; admins able to flag edits and users. New users should complete a short yes/don’t know/no questionnaire on what they intend to do, where needed link them to policy. I also fear that it will be hard to enforce, but I find a statement of policy important. But I do not see unprompted neutral unpaid factual contributions from employees to articles on their employers as a problem. PJTraill (talk) 11:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
168. strongly support. And I agree this is a very weak proposal, it would also be good to go further and require disclosure in a place where most readers will actually see it
169. strongly support: the only reason that I can think of for a paid contributor to hide their affiliation is because their edits are intended to sway the conversation in a particular direction and not to improve the accuracy of the entries being edited.
170. strongly support an outright ban on all paid contributions. This inevitably leads to bias - literally re-writing of history and current events.
171. Strongly support and possibly expand — I was literally just researching, the other day, why enwiki hadn't enacted similar-or-greater prohibitions, because my spidey-senses have recently been going off while closing a few AfDs that both paid editing and paid advocacy is increasing in occurrence. If left unchecked, it will (or has already) insidiously spill[ed] over into shaping guidelines and policies as well as other consensus-building and consensus-dependent processes, which would have the net effect of corrupting the relatively neutral and democratic nature of the wikis and eventually the foundation, much in the same way that the neutrality of The Media™ has been corrupted by paid news stories and corporate censorship and how votes were once directly bought centuries ago by the rich. The sooner this is prevented, the better, because cleaning up the mess after-the-fact is going to be difficult-if-not-impossible, as it will directly drive away honest contributors by simply drowning them out. A volunteer—admin or not—simply cannot compete against someone paid to edit 40+ hours per week to advance a specific point-of-view. --slakr 13:41, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

     On a related note, the very fact that, looking at the opposes directly below, I, personally, am instinctively led to question whether they're opposing based on genuine belief or because it's "in their best interest" demonstrates how toxic this can be, because all consensus-building processes could fall victim to this kind of thinking, which would inevitably cripple discussions with either overt or tacit accusations of bias and a fundamental resentment and distrust of all parties involved. This would lead to exactly what's had to happen here: someone higher-up stepping in and overruling previous-and-current discussions. This, in and of itself, is extremely counter-productive to an environment where the goal is to avoid ossification of, and strict adherence to, policies and guidelines. --slakr 14:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

172. Strongly support
173. I do not wish to comment. Wait: I have just commented.
174. Strongly support. One of the primary assumptions by readers is 'fair and unbiased'. Being able to check sources' potential conflicts of interest strengthens confidence in the sources. Also, this requirement provides both a clear statement to paid contributors that they are a 'special class' and must provide information, and a method for the Wikimedia Foundation to deal with issues caused by paid users who either do not disclose their status or contribute biased information.
175. Support. While it is true that unpaid contributors can also be biased, I think it reasonable to assume that those who are paid (such as a PR specialist) are likely to be more knowledgeable, harder to detect, and more persistent; it's not hard to see the relevance of this by simply looking at politics and advertising. God forbid wikipedia should become a platform for corporate PR. Though it may be difficult to enforce (and perhaps should be strengthened), I see no reason not to enact mandatory disclosure of paid editing, as a protection against unbiased information. Prohibiting paid editing does seem wise.
176. strongly support. any financial transactions relating to Wikipedia must be clearly identifiable. give the readers all the information, they will decided bias, veracity, interest, etc etc
177. Support: I think paid contributions should be increased and cited. Unfortunately, most of what I look up on wikipedia is partial or missing. I would contribute more if I had more free time and motivation. When I do contribute, it takes added time to edit and improve my writing and to properly cite multiple good sources. If people like me were paid to contribute, scientific articles could bring scientific critiques and debate to a layperson's foreground. Regardless, all conflicts of interest should be disclosed- important or not. It allows the reader to critically weight the expertise or bias of the article. (Suggestion: if you mouseover the paid user contributor, all of his/her edits could highlight so that you know what belongs to this person.) --TheNerdyPengwin 11:13 EST, 21 February 2014
178. Support - This seems like a perfectly reasonable provision to me. Paying Wikipedians for contributions is, at best, an ethically grey area. Requiring disclosure of such activities is a logical minimum step to protect our community from the fraud of dishonest editors and does not, in my opinion, constitute a breach of privacy. -Nutiketaiel (talk) 16:55, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
179. Strongly support. Wikipedia has become a wonderful resource for curious minds, but vigilance will always be necessary. Everything done by humans will be flawed, and good ethics a moving target, but keep up the great work.
180. Strongly support.
181. Support - although I would argue that the disclosure be mandatory on the article page at all times, as most end users do not read user or talk pages, but only the articles.
182. Strongly support. The basic principle of assuming good faith will be severely compromised if the idea gets around that Wikipaedia is being used as an advertising medium. And, if someone were paying me for editing articles (that'll be the day!), why should I be ashamed of this if I were editing honestly and in good faith? I can only see disclosure as problematic for editors who are deliberately violating the standards of an encyclopaedia. Лудольф (talk) 18:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
183. Strongly support: If you are paid to edit Wikipedia but you are doing so impartially, why hide it?
184. Support - I don't think that it will stop paid editing, but will instead provide a method for Wikipedia to take down some paid edits with a strong policy behind their backs
185. Strongly support: it might not solve the problem completely, but it will do little harm.
186. Strongly Support: Transparency is good thing!
187. Strongly support. I declare an interest when I feel I might be unconsciously biased just because of who or what I know, and so declare it in any discussion, yet I have never been paid to contribute to Wikipedia, it just seems like a decent honest thing to do so that other editors or readers can come with clean hands. It is quite right that someone adding something for another, paid or unpaid, should declare that interest.
188. Strongly support: Truth is always good, therefore transparency is good! SimonTrew (talk) 18:52, 21 February 2014 (UTC) I have somehow got my signature wrong but I am User:SimonTrew at EN:WP and oddly enough came here because I saw the ad flyer for comments while I was editing the article at [en.wikipedia.org/quid_pro_quo English Wikipedia "Quid Pro Quo"]. Sorry to be in a hurry to write this, I do try to consider what I write, but the Wikimedia ads fly by very fast sometimes. I can only say I have contributed a few new pictures to Wikimedia Commons in the last month, created a stub article which went to "Did You Know" on the English Wikipedia main page on 24 January, tried to clear up and add content, and a great deal of trouble is caused, if not by companies or hired help adding content, the suspicion that they have, even when it is neutral content by someone with no personal interest in that company. To declare up front, sure, it is not going to happen, but it will be easier to detect. SimonTrew (talk) 18:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
189. Strongly support: Having worked in industries where independence is paramount, the idea of paid contributions with no disclosure is very disconcerting. That affects whether their contribution is viewed as objective by the communities.
190. Support the amendment. Not Sure (talk) 19:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
191. Support - As the policy is just asking for disclosure for transparency I see no reason to object. Not that I believe that anyone who is editing in a biased way will declare, but I guess this will make any cases that comes to light easier to deal with. KylieTastic (talk) 19:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
192. Support. This is a good structural piece for the agreement. By no means is it a final solution to the issue, but it doesn't purport to be one. Any other adjustments for the long term can be made as the need arises. Ultimately, this is an issue that may require more light to fully be solved, perhaps a disclaimer on the talk page of new users or on the edit page itself. This would be the framework for such a project. Wikipedia's independence is safer with this in place. Leoberacai (talk) 19:31, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
193. Support
194. Support - This should apply only to the Tea Party and Conservatives. This proposal should follow IRS guidelines and should not apply to progressive and liberal non-profit causes. Also should the FCC become involved with Wikipedia and help determine on the content allowed? They are starting to monitor TV, Radio stations and newspapers to make sure that they are neutral and not right-wing.
195. Support - It doesn't address all possible issues of bias and full disclosue (note section "#For which you receive compensation.3F.21" in this talk page), but it's good to address the paid edits. (And of course it should apply to all.) --Gahs (talk) 20:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
196. Support - It would prevent companies who wanted to promote a product or game from hiring someone to write a page without the readers knowledge.
197. Support. Hope a way can be found to enforce it!  :) (and so much for having an "all WikiMedia logon :( Student7 (talk) 20:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
198. Strongly support - Wikipedia is becoming so popular that some organizations that are interested in manipulating minds, such as companies, sects, superstitions etc. try to take control of minds through this supposedly impartial and non-profitable media.--Francois C (talk) 20:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
199. Strongly support
200. Strongly Support, it will hopefully lead more people to be mindful of the rules regarding COI. Perhaps the disclosure can be easily implemented in the form of a standardized template or ubx to be placed on the user's page. RA0808 (talk) 20:48, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
201. support, if you're in public office you have to disclose, being an editor is like that --Light.olive (talk) 20:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
202. Support. I also want to see a conflict of interest on the article or article talk page though. This is a great first step, but let's go further.
203. Strongly support --OhWeh (talk) 21:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
204. Support: while this may not be an infallible way to prevent COI issues, it does add to the overall transparency of edits. --Tcxspears (talk) 21:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
205. Support: This is akin to journalist who disclose a possible conflict of interest when writing a story about the parent company of the organization that they're writing for. 21:15, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
206. Strongly support. I further suggest that there should be no paid editor from outside without prior approval of EN-WP. This would help in outing paid trolls from commercial, political, religious corner who work for monetary gain without caring biased or fair jobs. Nannadeem (talk) 21:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
207. Strongly support - LessayCatus (talk) 21:46, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
208. Emphatically Support - Wikipedia's information value is directly linked to the provider's objectivity. That isn't to say that the editor cannot be interested in the subject, but payment creates a conflict of interest in terms of objectivity. The payment is either going to be exclusively or almost exclusively in exchange for promoting a particular view, which will dilute or destroy objectivity.
209. Support - a clear policy should help
210. Support. Many paid editors are already declaring their affiliations. This can only help Wikipedia and for the community to provide support and more importantly control of possibly biased content. Something I noticed: Many people who are voting, they are not signing. A community vote is not a series of edits from the same person coming in from several IPs. Vote counters beware. --FocalPoint (talk) 22:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
211. Support: this amendment maintains the spirit of openness fundamental to Wikipedia. Such disclosures can help readers decide whether or not who is paying for a contribution may influence or bias its perspective.--65.199.189.6 22:19, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
212. Undisclosed paid contribution are rife with the risk of political, economic and historical spin and distortion. What makes Wikipedia a useful source of information is that people, in general, have to put their name to the contribution. If someone is being paid to contribute it should be noted so people can evaluate the potential of risk of distortions or spin. And that includes who paid the person.
213. Disclosure is good. It's also good to make clear that acknowledged and disclosed paid editing can sometimes be appropriate.
214. Support ITAC (talk) 23:15, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
215. Strongly support: it seems an obvious thing to do to keep the integrity of Wikipedia.
216. Support. Disclosure should not be used to whack someone over the head. Basically, someone with a disclosed conflict of interest should be protected when advocating for a position, as distinct from edit warring over it or actually, without adquate notice, placing POV material into articlees. They should never be dinged for "POV pushing," per se, since we expect a paid or COI editor to have a POV. Disclosure should not protect them from the consequences of disruptive behavior, of course. The wikis may decide, in a case-by-case basis, what restrictions to place on editing by COI editors. --Abd (talk) 23:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
217. Support. --Mox La Push (talk) 23:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
218. Bold text Strongly Support. Transparency is a must!
219. Support Jeepday (talk) 00:22, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
220. Support IMO, paid editing should be forbidden. I find it very hard to believe that PR people have Wikipedia's best interested at heart. I realize the difficulties involved in banning the practice so I guess this is the best idea for now. (I also recognize at least one person in the oppose section who was previously blocked for whitewashing articles for money.) Captain panda 00:41, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
221. Strongly support for the following reason: I made some edits to the article on opera director Richard Jones after User talk:Traceyelliston had removed the italics and other formatting consistent with WP Opera's guidelines.

     Then Mr. Elliston chose to make the following comment: "I am the professional manager for Richard Jones. He has requested that these changes be made to this page and that the information appears in this format. Thank you for your understanding."

     I responded to User talk:Traceyelliston's revisions. "Wiki isn't a piece of online personal promo for anyone. This is an encyclopedia. Articles relating to opera use standard formatting, italicizing titles, etc. Argue your case on the "Talk" page if you disagree.)"

     Mr. Ellison then posted the following on his Talk page (rather than the article's: italics are mine):

     "Richard Jones has requested that I make these changes for accuracy and a personal preference for how the information about his professional credits appear. I note your comments about the standard formatting for opera articles and I apologise that I am not familiar with the particulars of this style. I take your point that this is an encyclopedia, but as Wikipedia is now so widely used, I hope you can appreciate an individual's wish to have a degree of control over the factual content of a page relating to himself. The success of Wikipedia means that regardless of other means of promotion, it does become a first port of call for many seeking information about Richard. I would be most grateful for your understanding. best wishes. Tracey Elliston"

     So now we have the perfect reason why someone who is a paid manager of an artist (in this case) thinks that he can create the article the way he - or his client - wants it!! Total rubbish!! Disclosure is essential. Viva-Verdi (talk) 00:59, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

222. Support: to the strongest extent of all applicable laws. Non-disclosure contributions must be utterly removed and the responsibles SUED to the maximum extent of the law.
223. Strongly support. But I do wonder how this rule will be enforced. Atomicporcupine88 (talk)
224. Strongly support. I would ban completely, but this is a minimum first step.
225. Strongly support. A transparency regulation is a non-invasive, commonsense approach to dealing with the long standing problem of paid advocacy. It is not a solution to the problems surrounding advocacy, but it will provide pause to corporations engaging in this type of behavior on a large scale or to obvious detriment to the project. Jaydubya93 (talk) 02:46, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
226. Strongly support: the fact of substantial commercial resources (internal or via paid public relations firms) being put to use in editing or debating positions in an entry should be available to readers and other editors.
227. Support. Standard format disclosure on user page, plus edit summary indexed. (MartinGugino (talk) 03:26, 22 February 2014 (UTC))
228. Support. I support this simply to have this policy, which is little more than an extension of WP:COI, on the books. But I have serious doubts as to how effectively it can be enforced. Unschool (talk) 03:37, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
229. Strongly support. The reasons should be obvious.
230. Strongly support - not only the information we post but also the questions we ask about that information are highly dependent on our position. I expect every contributor to have an opinion. I want to know if that opinion is being paid for by someone else. Money as a multiplier of opinion is fine in a political race but is out of place in an open exchange of information.
231. Strongly Support. Paid contribution to Wikipedia HAS been used to discredit people. A good example is court documents showing that Syngenta, a chemical company, paid consultants to edit wikipedia to discredit Tyrone Hayes, a scientist, after he published evidence their chemicals are likely be harmful. (See article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_Hayes ). I would like to see the wiki foundation have more tools to take legal action against such edits. Gsonnenf (talk) 04:06, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

     Strong support. MER-C (talk) 04:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC) Moving to support, but should be stronger. MER-C (talk) 09:42, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

232. Strongly support. It's not an ideal amendment, and obviously won't be universally enforceable, but will put the WMF in a stronger position to take action against extreme violators (like these guys) whose work legitimately threatens the integrity of our projects. Kevin (talk) 04:13, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
233. Strongly support. Where opinion is galvanized by money, the people or companies behind it should be disclosed. While enforcement of this policy may not be feasible everywhere, the amendment to terms will provide the foundation with necessary legal tools. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.244.172.87 (talk) 22 February 2014, 04:47 (UTC)
234. Strongly support. verdy_p (talk) 04:48, 22 February 2014 (UTC) (see my other comment below).
235. Support. Having lost a battle to get an undisclosed paid editor sanctioned, I feel this is long overdue. Brianhe (talk) 05:07, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
236. Strongly support. 108.77.65.78 05:08, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
237. Strongly support. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 14.139.181.229 (talk) 22 février 2014; 05:35 (UTC)
238. Support. It may help to include a requirement about the duration of the disclosure. Quondum (talk) 05:37, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
239. Support. I see nothing here that prevents other stronger restrictions on paid editing in the future, but this seems to me to be a necessary bare minimum. - Jmabel (talk) 06:40, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
240. disclosure provision necessary a s phadke — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cmsrjp (talk) 22 février 2014, 07:46 (UTC)
241. /* Support disclosure*/ — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 184.98.159.128 (talk) 22 février 2014, 06:57 (UTC)
242. Support. I think openness is essential to impartiality. However, I am concerned about how this might be enforced. What is the process if a violation is suspected? How one might defend against a violation accusation? What sanctions would occur if a violation was discovered? I think these questions need to be addressed before the policy is adopted. Tigerdg (talk) 06:58, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
243. Strongly support. If the quality of a user's content should speak for itself, surely there is no harm in disclosing anyone paying the user to produce the content. This is not an onerous restriction on anyone, especially not on anyone being paid to make edits. On the other hand, this does not somehow encourage paid editing by "legimitizing" it; paid editing already occurs all the time. A simple, easy-to-follow rule like this is the best way to minimize bias due to paid edits, because it is easy enough for paid editors to follow and because it is dangerous enough for them to violate.
244. Strongly support. Paid editing of information is similar to paid articles in the news, i.e., potentially misleading with the specific intent to mislead. Never a good thing.
245. Support, in the interest of full disclosure. Do not conflate this proposal with the stated goal of a free encyclopedia that anyone can use. Others receiving compensation for their effort does not mean that YOU must pay to use it. This merely allows some to be more upfront and honest about something that we all know goes on in some form or another all day every day. Just as soon as you find evidence of true altruism, you let me and the scientific community know and we'll nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize. Until then, if someone is found determined to not have fully disclosed, this policy gives editors, administrators and the WMF ammunition to take action if need be; something to point to and cite if necessary. Having a greater understanding of someone's motives provides a better knowledge of the situation in which action may be necessary. Having a lesser understanding is never preferable. Clearly, WMF up until now has naturally assumed the good faith of its users by default, as it should, but I agree we should also allow (or in this case even encourage) users with alterior motives to state them as such *in* an act of good faith. If bad faith is determined after wrong-doing, then they can't say we didn't warn them. 71.236.253.188 07:50, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
246. Support Although I think it'll be difficult to enforce --Mirrakor (talk) 08:03, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
247. (moved to Oppose section) Peter Chastain (talk) 06:51, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
248. Support A commonsense approach, which lets paid editors know where they stand, and is consistent with existing legal requirements.--Greenrd (talk) 08:32, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
249. Strongly Support And even better would be to make it a requirement to disclose payments in each and every edit (in edit comments). Rationale: IMHO, it seems that during last 2 years impartiality of articles about existing companies in Wikipedia has degraded severely (with less blatantly ad-like wording, but still ad-like nature). I tend to attribute this degradation to paid editing, so the more requirements on disclosing COIs - the better. Ipsign (talk) 09:30, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
250. Strongly Support Wikipedia addresses with this proposal a problem that has always existed. True, controversial subjects have always been written with bias and moderated by the community. This proposal does no harm. It may help, but is rather benign. For that reason, I support it. Halnwheels (talk) 10:28, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
251. Support. I totally support this proposal. Full disclosure will add to the integrity of Wiki.69.123.244.78 10:35, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
252. Support. Wikipedia can benefit from paid contributions as long as it's done honestly, openly and on the understanding that it is likely to be edited. http://whirlpool.net.au is an example of successfully managing paid company representatives in a forum that is largely free information sharing - they seem to keep the shills away. It's obviously more difficult for an encyclopedia, but "this page reads like an advertisement" is a loud warning. BAPhilp (talk) 10:46, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
253. Support. I've seen and been annoyed by some entries that are transparently paid press releases, and no doubt there are others written by people competent enough to avoid canned-press-release style. (Oddly, I have once seen an editor's box complaining that something looked press-releasy, and I disagreed completely. The article looked to me like a legit unbiased essay on a non-commercial topic -- but written by somebody who thought press release style was good writing!) 207.245.236.156 10:59, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
254. Strongly Support but please remind clearly this regulation to any editor. Personal example: I work for a public reasearch institution, and have already edited a page to add an external link to our own website as I think that it is quite relevant to the topic. I totally agree that my position must be disclosed in this context. But this must be reminded explicitly or else this term of use would often be forgotten in good faith (not everyone does read all terms of use before editing - at least I didn't). Simon Chabrillat (talk) 11:35, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
255. Strongly Support. I can't really see any downside to these rules as currently worded. Transparency is much more important to me than stopping people. Jasper Janssen - 13:01, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
256. The Illuminati Strongly Support this statement.
257. Support. Sebástian San Diego (talk) 13:25, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
258. Strongly Support. Requiring writers and editors to acknowledge their affiliations helps to make entries more neutral and not skewed to one particular way of thinking.Bruce WhitehillBrucewhitehill (talk) 13:40, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
259. Strongly Support. Paid editing without proper disclosure beforehand is tantamount to using what should be an objective source of information for advertisement. Lucasoutloud (talk) 14:24, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
260. I was recently thinking about if it's against policies of WMF/En-WP to make edits for some sort of self-advancement when disclosure is made, actually. While paid edits themselves sound bad because the most visible implication is that neutrality will be violated, there is another side to paid contribution. Paid contributions could strengthen the neutrality policy because, for instance, I could remove marketing-style wording and false positive information on competing products and services as a CEO. Of course, this must all be disclosed and negatives cannot be added by paid editors. The only problem I see is the aforementioned potential legal issue in Europe. Would have logged in as En-WP's NuclearWizard but there's a bug in the login/IPblock feature. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.41.39.34 (talk) 18:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
261. Support 101.171.255.226 13:54, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
262. Support, I view this as a rectification of a broken and malicious system into a more neutral and regulated system. 129.62.65.243 15:07, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
263. Strongly Support 79.89.238.167 15:19, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
264. Support 173.53.19.192 15:32, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
265. Support. Way too confusing without this. Thank you. -SusanLesch (talk) 15:53, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
266. Strongly Support. I believe that this amendment will hinder and possibly stop companies that deliberately edit articles for others to further a political/economic or personal cause. See for example: And Paid Edits: Companies Pay Top Dollar To Firms Willing To 'Fix' Their Entries. This practice is incompatible with Wikipedia's stated goal to be an objective source of information and endangers the credibility of the entire project. AlwaysUnite (talk) 16:11, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
267. Strongly Support - transparency is key to the WMF. Bcdm (talk) 16:27, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
268. Support. I would like to see the disclosure strengthened to any edit made while on the clock (as it were) in the edit summary, to simplify identifying paid edits. Wikipedia may be a Hitchhiker's Guide, but I prefer it as the Guide of the first book, not the one of the fifth. Trdsf (talk) 16:46, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
269. Support! ~ MarkJerue
270. Strongly Support with additional proposal The amendment doesn't go quite far enough. I don't think paid contributions will be clear enough if any admission of payment is buried in the user's talk page. A brief disclosure should be required on every compensated edit summary with a detailed disclosure also required either on the user's talk page or the article's talk pagee. But the amendment is a step in the right direction, so I support. Anonymous paid contributions to wikipedia threaten wikipedia's neutrality and credibility. It's difficult to see how a requirement for disclosure could ever negatively affect wikipedia, but it's clear how no requirement for disclosure undermines the project.NZUlysses (talk) 17:40, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
271. Support Skrrp (talk) 17:58, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
272. Strongly support. Am sick of people trying to pervert what should be an objective forum to advance their own commercial agendas. Keep the forum objective! User: theinrich71.92.252.96 17:05, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
273. STRONGLY SUPPORT. I also think that the disclosure should be made with the edit, not just on the user page. Tracking back and forth to user pages, I believe, will be an obstacle that will effectively make this rule null and void. We want readers to know when there is content from paid users, and we all know that people are either too busy or don't care enough to have to dig for this information..... Some paid representatives CAN be a valuable source of accurate information. If someone who is paid by Joe Bloe edits his page to correct his place of birth, for example, that would be an unbiased, credible edit. I believe paid users should be allowed to edit as long as that fact is EASY for readers to figure out..... Wikipedia MUST remain neutral and unbiased! Thank you.208.163.194.246 18:23, 22 February 2014 (UTC)208.163.194.246 18:18, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
274. I strongly support this ammendment. Darkinin (talk) 18:26, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
275. Support. Makes sense, gives Wikipedia a foundation from which to correct abuse.
276. Strongly Support. Any commercial or paid for article should be clearly labeled as such if authorized, without any doubt or ambiguity for the reader.
277. Strongly support. This is the only way to keep (most) articles neutral. Ozzie42 (talk) 19:16, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
278. Support: I think this is addressing a significant problem, and one worthy of significant response. I think I agree with those who say that this may not decrease the problem, so this policy may should only be one stepping stone towards a more comprehensive response. I think the intent of wikipedia is in conflict with the intent of paid editors who try to subvert the goals. Just as there are restrictions on vandalism, there are also some restrictions on the activities of editors whose commitment to wikipedia is too narrow, and self-interested.Ottawakismet(talk) 19:23, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
279. Support: Transparency is the cornerstone of Wikipedia. Without it, I would stop donating. It is known that paid editors have the time, resources, and motivation to intentionally mislead or in dishonestly characterize the content that they are editing. I would be skeptical of any evidence that suggests secrecy is good for public discourse. Secrecy is good for many things that are good, but this is not one of those things. And just because some clever devils who feel the need for secrecy will indeed find their work-around to this new limitation, I still support, because it demonstrates best practices where possible Seanongley (talk) 19:40, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
280. Support: Strong support from me.--Mr Wiki Pro (talk) 19:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
281. Strongly Support - I believe any and all wikis should be free from corrupting influences. 75.71.64.241 19:49, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
282. Support. Some people just do not understand what is wrong with editing Wikipedia pages for marketing. It is fine with them so long as the edit does not look too commercial or too biased. This trend is especially strong in countries where stealth marketing is the norm. I think it is good to make it clear to everyone that we do not want the inherent bias from for-money editing. 三郎 (talk) 20:23, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
283. Strongly support - The issue of disseminating and acting on knowledge is the greatest challenge of our time (see climate change). Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest, particularly financial, is a necessary precondition to engage with any community in an intellectually honest way, intellectual integrity being perhaps the cornerstone of the Wikipedia enterprise. Vrrm (talk) 20:56, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
284. Support: Paid advocacy editing should be an exception. Paid edits should be marked in the edit history at least. User accounts for paid edits should be individual accounts. --Minoo (talk) 21:04, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
285. Support: Transparency is the only way to move forward. A person's motivations are just as important as their actions Bigfatfrog67 (talk) 21:08, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
286. Strongly Support. I would suggest that the words "You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways:" be ammended to "You must make that disclosure in EACH of the following ways:" Disclosure is paramount. That said, care should be taken not to discourage contributions from well-qualified paid contributors- but i think that perhaps this might work in favor of some in the arts, education, etc.. For example, if someone credited as being employed by M.O.M.A. is paid to edit an article on Picasso. This change in policy would benefit us all. I hope that this is particularly rigorously applied to political candidates and organizations, and to dissemenators of biased scientific (or pseudo-scientific) thought. Bravo! B. Z. RowanB. Z. Rowan (talk) 21:18, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
287. Strongly Support. I agree with the points made in Support #9. The quality and quantity of articles in Wikipedia will be enhanced by disclosed paid editing. Disclosure: I have hired people to create articles for Wikipedia as I believed (and still do believe) that this was allowed, based on extensive reading of Wikipedia policies. I have no problem disclosing whether my edits are paid or volunteer. TriJenn (talk) 21:31, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
288. Strongly Support. Transparency is vital to freedom and democracy. If one writes, one must be open to challenge. We grow immeasurably through open investigation, discussion and transparcency. We die inside bubbles when secrecy and beliefs go unchallenged openly. Take Galileo Vs the Church and State. And Rob vs Church and State :-). Bravo! Education is the light on our world. As Jesus says seek and you find. How can you find stuff if it is deliberately hidden.
289. Strongly support this measure. It acts as a regulator of potentially untruthful information being introduced on to Wikipedia; forr the sack of political or other motives of slander. In quoting TriJenn, "Transparency is vital to freedom and democracy". Therefore, it is the duty of Wikipedia and it's contributors to disclose if their intentions are for the sake of information or due to being sponsored.--Mrsolan22 (talk) 22:25, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
290. Strongly support: I have been editing and contributing, both through my account, and anonymously since the very beginning; when I was only 15. Yes we have all come a long way, when there were less than 500k articles in English!. Now, however the problem is different, malicious changes are being made to sensitive information which has a deleterious effect on public awareness, as well as representing an impediment to the constitutional rights of free speech and press. I have witnessed changes to pages in a number of hours. The Sheer number of pages and articles that have been deleted or merged, witnessed by red links, especially on sensitive topics, is disgusting, and alarming. These actions are being PERPETRATED by small groups and they can be traced through the history of page edits. The actions of these Individuals is tantamount to book-burning, and propaganda riling. however I do not believe them to be Isolated unconnected incidents. For personal reasons I do believe the FBI should be brought in on this and a full cyber crime investigation be launched. Ordinarily this would never be something a person like me would propose. However, I have an intense disregard for tampering, as a machinist I feel it sullies hard work. Furthermore, I believe some or all of these individuals to be acting criminally in manner to cover equally criminal activities. I propose a massive sweep, perhaps automated in nature to reset page history and reset/remove any edits which remove large bodies of text or entire articles and topics. Moreover, the trolls have infested this very discussion. I have had it out with a few of these worms in the past seriously call the Feds in on this one.Default0023 (talk) 22:35, 22 February 2014 (UTC)Admir@lKrunch.AnonSec.Hawaii...Default0023 (talk)
291. Support Aoeuus (talk) 22:48, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
292. Strongly Support. Our society needs more transparency in general.
293. Strongly Support. The only truthful information is unbiased information that seeks the light. AlabamaSouthern (talk) 13:32, 26 February 2014 (UTC)AlabamaSouthern
294. Strongly Support, The purpose of Wiki is hindered when a partisan edit is made without full disclosure Keith Robertsson (talk) 23:28, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
295. Support. I think a lot of the opposition is worried that this will be directed at anybody with a stake in the content they add, but this seems like it's rather aimed at people _without_ a stake in their content, and who're motivated specifically by money (e.g. WikiPR, who it seems were basically uninterested in whatever their clients told them to write, as long as they got paid to write it). 2601:9:8580:19C0:226:BBFF:FE0C:FA8B 23:34, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
296. Support: It's happened too often that I've found articles written about corporations, by those very corporations. Misko15 (talk) 00:10, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
297. Support. Assuming that the board is willing to propose further changes to the amendment and its manner of enforcement if needed, and that this amendment will be enforced with the caution needed in dealing with a young and impressionable web (read both ways), this change seems clearly for the better.
298.  Support – Per Abd. Paid editing needs to be tamed, not banned outright. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 01:00, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
299. I accept. On the basis that this change in policy will preserve or increase Wikipedia's credibility as a resource, I generally support this proposal. I have not read every comment on this page, but I have read many. I accept the concerns others have raised regarding the proposal's details, such as the acceptable methods for providing disclosure. I am satisfied to leave those details to experienced editors. I am not one. I am not pursuaded against the proposal by the arguments that it is unenforceable, or that Wikipedia's openness implies that it should have no rules. This page contains many examples of situations that could challenge the revised policy. In my judgment, these examples do not demonstrate that the proposal is flawed. Rather, they show that, like regulations in any context, the policy will need to be applied to cases as they arise. However, the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Department (and all of us) should welcome these and more thoughtful examples as a tool for perfecting the proposal before its submission to Board of Trustees.
     Christopher.ursich (talk) 01:35, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
300. I support this proposed amendment since transparency of motive is how Wikipedia can maintain it's NPOV status regarding content, and in the interest of content integrity, I believe this amendment is in the best interests of the Wikimedia Foundation across all of its projects. Arcane21 (talk) 01:41, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
301. Support, and also call for a requirement to use a standard project-defined template for the disclosure, to facilitate automatic processing, as described below. Nealmcb (talk) 02:41, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
302. Support - as an obvious first step to normalization of paid editing. Carrite (talk) 02:44, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
303. Support Spiffulent (talk) 05:12, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
304. Support. I've used this site as a reference tool for a very long time, and finally just created my account tonight to start assisting with contributions as an editor. At this time, I have never considered being paid in any way for my contributions. Because of such, this proposed amendment therefore does not apply to me, and I honestly really don't care about it right now; just want to enjoy use of the site as I came here to do. Furthermore, even if I were a paid contributor, it wouldn't bother me, either. In any such case, I wouldn't have any problem(s) with providing such a disclosure of information. I just want to learn, and in turn, educate the world; that's all... Josh cannabis sativa™ (talk) 05:20, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
305. Strongly Support Eight9three (talk) 05:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
306. Strongly Support - When someone (a PR firm, a staffer for an elected official) is paid to edit a Wikipedia article, many such cases nowadays are sneaky attempts to "spin" things or remove unpleasant truths. With disclosure, it'll be much easier to detect cases like this and straighten them out. And if someone is paid to edit something in a way that isn't sneaky (GLAM et al.), then they should be OK with making the appropriate disclosure. I say go for it. Robnorth (talk) 05:58, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
307. Support - it seems like an obviously good thing to include to address a problem which may not have been obvious at the outset. Conflict of interest disclosures are the standard in academic publishing and belong here as well. Sawdust Restaurant (talk) 06:15, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
308. Strongly support. We need to safeguard the neutrality and integrity of Wikipedia by preventing commercial editors from editing articles in the favour of their clients. Balaam's Miracle (talk) 06:31, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
309. I Support this. Honesty and transparency are the best policy Aethalides (talk) 07:25, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
310. Strongly support - very important and the burden is minimal. BruceThomson (talk) 07:51, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
311. Strongly Support -- That said, I am very alarmed by the amount of unsigned votes here. Snakebyte42 (talk) 09:13, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
312. Support I do think that Wikepedia's greatest protection is its existing open transparent nature. If somebody edits something and is paid to do so, anybody else has the right to correct any misinformation or misrepresentation. this is the case whether the editor has been paid or not. 46.7.99.174 10:11, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
313. Strongly Support - Something stronger could be attractive, but a blanket ban on commercial submissions would have serious drawbacks: it is very useful to keep manufacturers interested in providing accurate documentation of technical specifications and protocols. Douglas Ray (talk) 11:02, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
314. Strongly support - good idea. I would make it more clear by insisting on a statement in the edit summary. But one as suggested saying "I work for ..." is not good enough, we want automated searching to inspect such edits, so a tag like [[paid]] should go into the edit summary every time. Mirams (talk) 11:47, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
315. Support -- It is unfortunate that such a requirement is necessary, but experience has shown that it is. The requirement is not onerous. It does not eliminate the ability to make anonymous contributions, just PAID anonymous contributions. I would urge that Wikimedia make a significant effort to make these requirements clear and also adopt a policy of assuming good intent, because I would not want new, inexperienced contributors to be driven off because of failing to comply with this policy if they were unaware of it. Mcherm (talk) 12:22, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
316. support - APOYO la iniciativa. Es una buena práctica saber cuales son las afiliaciones de quien escribe en wikipedia, particularmente cuando aquellas condicionan el contenido y forma de lo que escribe, como cuando el autor es pagado para decir algo específico que favorece a la institución a la cual pertenece. Enrique Peñalolen (talk) 12:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
317. Support Max Blatter (talk) 13:15, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
318. I strongly support the emendment, wikipedia should be transparent and totally free of paid interests. This surely, the idea of paying for entries or edits against everything Wiki stands for. This is make no mistake a wall, a bastion of free will and a balance to corpotate and govt propoganda! Strongly agree! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 109.77.91.17 (talk • contribs) 12:57, 23 February 2014.
319. support --Wiki-observer (talk) 14:03, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
320. Support Memetics (talk) 14:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC) ^{Adding reasoning:} Transparency is always desirable. Amendment won't prohibit paid edits: it will just help other editors to more easily identify commercially-driven biases, which as others have said are extrinsic rather than intrinsic. Commercial biases are significant because in an open, democratic context such as this, equitable distribution of power is necessary to maintain the open, democratic nature of the project. Commercial interests have more power than most individuals; therefore, we should know when those actors contribute so that we can make better decisions about the nature of those contributions - i.e., whether those contributions serve to skew the democratic distribution of power or whether they function to preserve the ideally democratic nature of the project. The policy shouldn't be zealously enforced; it should be enforced reflectively, fitting within the democratic culture that we have established. Honestly, the main concern I have is that the worst actors will not self-disclose - but the amendment would allow for consequences for those actors when they are caught. Memetics (talk) 08:50, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
321. Support Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:37, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
322. Support, with small addendum - While I like this idea and think it's a good common-sense approach, I am worried that, as others have suggested, editors might use the existence of affiliation to toss AGF out the window on impulse. There also seems to be some confusion over how and when affiliation disclosure is necessary (I read it as "only if you're being explicitly compensated - like, directly receiving $$$ for contributions", and it is under that reading that I support the amendment). Perhaps some clarification on how this applies to AGF and some illustrations on when disclosure is NOT needed would be helpful. --Viqsi (talk) 15:01, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
323. Support. I'ld prefer to mark each site containing paid edits by a sign. On the other side, it is difficult to verify paid edits by users (readers). Therefore, the requested amendment seems to be a suitable compromise. Juetho (talk) 15:15, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
324. Support - Mgrand (talk) 15:28, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
325. Support As already stated above, a checkbox (paid contribution) on the page next to the minor-edits checkbox would be good and if there is a check it can be shown in the history of the page as a "p" linked to the users talk page that has to have a section like "Paid contributions / Conflict of interest" where the user should state his COI. If a substantial amount of an article (e.g. more than 50%) is provided by paid contributions (of different authors) (article-history counts the bits) a notice can be left above the rendered article, stating that "Significant parts of this article have been provided by professional / paid authors (see edit-history) which might affect the neutrality of the article." In this way people may as well promote their work for WP and readers can be hinted to the history. I think that this should be supported.--Triple5 (talk) 15:31, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

     Hello Triple5! For cross-reference, we are discussing a similar idea below under Tag the edit and page: not just the user page. Thanks! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

326. Support - sunlight is essential to seeing what is happening. Require disclosure so that readers can make their own judgments, but don't ban paid contributions: There will be paid contributors who can make neutral & positive contributions. Alan J Shea (talk) 15:53, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
327. Support - I agree that paid contributions and conflicts of interest should be disclosed in the wikipedia entries. Rdiehl (talk) 16:16, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
328. Unequivocally Support Clearly trolls(unpaid or paid by moneyed interests) prolifically attack irrefutable science of neurological damage by mercury(in vaccines, coal pollution, dental amalgams, etc) by deleting scientific research sources, creating silly ad hominem/strawman entries against anybody (including scientists and doctors) who are knowledgeable about neurotoxins & carcinogens, etc.Yankhadenuf (talk) 17:05, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
329. Support. This can be informative for investigating edits that seem biased; Mr. Shea's comment is apt. Standardrobot (talk) 17:07, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
330. Support. Organizations may employ special workers to manage their online image, and Wikipedia, as one of the most important sources of information on the web, should be able to incorporate the opinions and assertions of persons with a vested financial interest in the material being presented, so long as they disclose their financial ties. I think that more broadly a disclosure of any particular conflict of interest, e.g. my wife works for this corporation &c., would be useful for transparency's sake but perhaps too cumbersome to implement.152.10.217.56 17:43, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
331. Support. But please simplify the disclosure discovery algorithm by mandating a standard "PAID EDIT" tag in the edit summary, so that other editors can more easily find such disclosures. Details of the disclosure can still be included on the user page. Requiring other editors to search the talk pages and user pages for all edits is far too difficult. -- 174.58.20.123 17:54, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
332. I firmly believe that all violators of this should be forced to chop down the mightiest tree in the forest with a herring 172.4.228.98 18:58, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
333. Support. (a) Wikipedia strives to be an unbiased source of facts. In many cases, it succeeds through a balance of contributions from knowledgeable folks around the world without conflicts of interest. This mechanism works well, exemplified by many excellent and well-rounded articles. Efforts from financially invested parties to deliberately and artificially perturb the balance reached by the unbiased community should come with associated health warnings. (b) Many "oppose" arguments assume that requiring this information will prevent editors who, for example, work for a company from commenting on that company at all. This is of course not the case. Editors will still be able to write anything they wish -- what will change is that readers will see where conflicts of interest may possibly occur, and, crucially, will be able to make their own decisions about the reliability of the source. (c) Many of the recurring themes in the "oppose" category are rather weak arguments, for example, disbelief that this protocol will be enforceable, or that the problem it attempts to fix is widespread. These are not in themselves reasons not to attempt a proposed improvement. Aeioun (talk) 19:01, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
334. Strongly support. To those who think this isn't a problem (whether you think it doesn't happen or it's OK that it does), you're kidding yourselves. To those who think it needs to be stronger... Sure, maybe, but if anything this is a start. Compromise is useful. Remember, most people will not notice anything. But it will likely help improve the quality, accuracy, and impartiality of a lot of small-to-medium-sized articles about living individuals and extant companies and organizations. Akkifokkusu (talk) 19:09, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
335. Support. I believe that, unfortunately, this will not change the behavior of shady PR and SEO companies, and take slight issue with the legitimization of paid corporate content creation on Wikimedia sites. That said, the practice of paid editing is widespread enough nowadays that it will likely not make much difference, and I support the institution of rules that will support transparency and disclosure of biases.Tgjohnst (talk) 19:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
336. Support. Transparency is the way to go. Editors will be assured that their edits cannot fall foul of deceptive advertising law; readers will know that companies may have edited their own article (this should be publicised!); and other users will be better able to keep an eye on paid edits. What is important is to make clear that a disclosing paid editor is a valid and valued member of the community. There must be no stigma attached to it: otherwise people will NOT disclose, and things will carry on much as before, with readers none the wiser that they are reading articles authored at least in part by their subjects. (From that point of view, Jimmy Wales' recent comments on his en:WP talk page that this will make it easier to ban paid editors are deeply unfortunate. If the board gives the same message, this laudable initiative will fail.) Andreas JN466 19:54, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
337. Support Even presuming that there is a small bandwidth of paid editing that may be beneficial to the encyclopedia, there is certainly no rationale that would justify concealment in such cases. Meanwhile, such concealment poses a(n existential) threat to the non-commercial character of Wikipedia as well as the intimately associated aim of providing reliably sourced neutral information to the public on an open-source platform.--Ubikwit (talk) 20:20, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
338. Strongly support: I also suggest if there are paid contributors to a page, there should be a section of links to paid contributors at the bottom of that page.
339. Strongly support: 76.14.43.76 21:00, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
340. Support but "any contribution to any Wikimedia projects for which you receive compensation." should be emended to "any contribution to any Wikimedia projects for which you receive compensation or for contributions which would reasonably be considered part of your job duties." Other types of Conflicts of Interest are even more difficult to deal with. Let the Sun shine in.Abitslow (talk) 21:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
341. Support - But your lawyers might consider the impact of putting company names on users profiles - could it be used to sue for trademark infringement?--79.151.121.135 21:33, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
342. Strongly support: I would love to see it made mandatory that one of the first two items be satisfied and ALWAYS make the third one mandatory, so every change has it mentioned somewhere local to the change as well. Spawn777 (talk) 21:44, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
343. Ziko (talk) 21:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
344. Strongly support - Paid COI edits by individuals with ties to pharmaceutical industry appear to be common on medication pages. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 22:05, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
345. Strongly support Adam the Fish (talk) 22:09, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
346. Support Paulherrin (talk) 22:15, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
347. Strongly support Miniapolis (talk) 22:22, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
348. Strongly support Full disclosure is essential Cjsunbird (talk) 22:33, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
349. Strongly support -- may not go far enough The essence of believability is disclosure, but not only in cases where the activity is paid. Washington Post reporters are paid, yet they strive for objectivity in the news pages of their publication, and their reputation stands on the basis of a long tradition of objectivity and public service. To the contrary, what has become even more troubling of late to users about posts in Wikipedia are the deliberate -- and often successful -- efforts by people adhering to one strongly held social or political point of view to defame and miss-characterize the work of another entity holding a different point of view. Material is often selective chosen and cited, with no opportunity to rebut the claims of miss-informed and inaccurate accounts that are cited in support of defamatory statements. Without the opportunity by organizations so impugned to respond and offer the alternate point of view, the impression left is worse than false; it detracts from allowing a true seeker of knowledge from having the information necessary to form their own, well-considered point of view from two sides of an argument. What should happen is the application of this amended rule to the disclosure of past posts that are identified by other, more transparent contributors, to root out the biases they contain. Even the most rudimentary PR campaign about the adoption of the new rules would burnish the Wikipedia brand and infuse a much higher degree of confidence in its material. Moreover, when first-party knowledge is present, it should be permitted to be used to refute inaccuracies. much as they are in the context of a traditional news ethic. With the proposed disclosure amendment, such transparency can actually clean up the larger issue of lack of trust that must unfortunately come from never allowing those closest to an event or fact to comment or correct. Newzmaven (talk) 17:35, 6 March 2014 (UTC)Newzmaven
350. Seems a very sensible proposal and I hope the Foundation Trustees adopt this. AndrewRT (talk) 22:35, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
351. Support --Wikimpan (talk) 22:58, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
352. support but with moderation If someone is paying someone for editing, it is like rewarding someone for community service. As long as wikipedia itself is not paying anyone, its fine. Paying editors is like contributing directly to editors rather than to wikimedia, who of course also needs funds for its projects.
353. support76.73.249.253 00:09, 24 February 2014 (UTC) Full disclosure will make it complicated. I think if its just a simple tag of paid edit or voluntary on, its enough. Its actually an interesting choice to enhance wikipedia. However, we need some watchdogs to check that no bias or misinformation is specifically paid for, that is to not allow use of wikipedia as just another media platform. Stricter review and references checks will make it easier to counter biases. Writing name of employer and other details will itself make it look like an advertisement of that employer. A company may come and say, "Hey, I got a million wikipedia edits paid by me. See, I am such a great company that value free knowledge!" and here wikipedia becomes an advertisement platform and you won't even know that! The assumption that paid editors are more likely to write bad or biased articles supremely undermines the power of voluntary community who will counter any such attempts against the free spirit of wikipedia. And even if someone is really getting paid and not disclosing it, how are you going to find out. It's anyways very difficult to enforce. we have to trust people and see it in a positive light. Paying a contributor is different from paying you for maintaining server etc. for running wikipedia. You may even yourself come up with a program to reward (not necessarily monetary rewards) good editors. Moreover, legal terms are complicated and you should rather consult experts, we can just give opinios but how much we know about those legalities! Pradeep115 (talk) 23:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
354. Support. I think this is a good change. One page I have edited (on Wikipedia) on numerous occasions had a critical section deleted from an IP address associated with the organization on several occasions. It seems pausible that the person involved was from the 'communications' department of the organization. I'd like to think this policy will discourage that sort of behaviour. Nierensteinlaus (talk) 23:59, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
355. support. I think this change is for the better as it discourages certain undesirable behaviors with minimal negative effects137.104.187.16 00:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
356. Support - and needs to be clear on each edit. Unfortunately the WWW and Wikipedia are ever increasingly being used in manipulative ways. (I sometimes wish there were a similar "declaration of interest" requirement for members of political parties or religious organisations, when editing articles about their own party, candidate or church, etc.). CFynn (talk) 00:26, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
357. Support: Dedwarmo (talk) 00:41, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
358. Support Invertzoo (talk) 00:50, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
359. "Support"[(User:tiahende)]76.115.143.101 01:17, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
360. "Support" Has anyone mentioned WHY Wikipedia articles are so sought after? Because they come up first in search engines! They are also seen as less biased versions of the company than can be found on the company's website. Perhaps there could be some way of marking paid contributions that could lead to a lower ranking by search engines? Dlwv (talk) 01:48, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
361. Strongly Support I firmly believe that anyone paid to contribute should be totally transparent. Wikipedia has always been unbiased and a clear model of information that is working without corruption.. so far. The problem lies where a Corporation(s) or Government(s) starts paying people to update and modify a certain article that they find is 'not in their interest'... that's not what Wikipedia is about. Transparency is a must. In this modern age where the governments around the world and corps are trying to get every edge they can, you know damn well they are here and modifying information that they don't like. Like I'm sure my own Government is doing with the article 'Canada Environmental Protection Act' Please amend. Thank you. 108.168.0.45 02:38, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
362. Support: ADNewsom (talk) 03:16, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
363. Strongly Support: MeikaIsNotTooSimilarToMełka (talk) 04:01, 24 February 2014 (UTC) On wikipedia I am meika
364. Strongly Support: Twomcvms (talk) 04:03, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
365. Support. Hakalau Tom (talk) 04:41, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
366. Support I support despite reservations that this may overwhelm the admin staff of Wikipedia. This may need to be expanded in the future but a small step is still usually a good step. -Taospark (talk) 05:28, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
367. Strongly support B-a-b (talk) 05:43, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
368. Support66.97.205.228 05:45, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
369. I absolutely support policy changes that attempt to protect the integrity of the process and its results from biased contributions. I am truly surprised by some comments from users who seem to have gotten "the wrong end of the stick" and are railing against the idea because they seem to assume WMF is planning on paying people to contribute. It is also impossible to prevent biased individuals from introducing potentially false or misleading information, so any assertion that all contributors with a financial interest in the content must be banned is quite, IMHO, unrealistic. At the least, by implementing a policy change, those who abuse the process for their own gain are potentially subject to penalties more significant than a slap on the wrist and deleted post. By incorporating this policy in the Terms of Use, the offender cannot say, "oh, I didn't know I had to tell you I was being paid to post this information by another party." This is the same principle that requires political lobbyists to register as lobbyists--so we can take what they say with a very large grain of salt.RevLauren (talk) 03:19, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
370. Strongly Support: Souvikmaitra (talk) 06:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
371. SupportI am tired of seeing pages being "controlled" by their organizations. --PowerY (talk) 06:30, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
372. Overwhelming Support I support stopping "bad people" from doing "bad things". But I also believe that the amendment needs to specify the actions that will be taken against individuals violating the TOU and how they will be found. The wording needs to become simpler so that everyone can understand without needing to ask questions on the Talk Page. Thank you Wikipedia. Peoplez1k (talk) 06:34, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
373. Support. 161.209.206.203 06:38, 24 February 2014 (UTC) ('CheMechanical' on Wikipedia, no WikiMedia account yet)
374. Strongly support. Can one really represent or stand for anything without the attribution central to the creative commons mission? While we may justly harbor any afraid to show their faces, we need not extend the same courtesy to those apparently ashamed (or worse) and willing to abuse our trust. This is a collective effort. So: have a policy. State it. Good. I'll suggest that statement of content policy [intellectual/philosophical/justifying/permanent] can and maybe should remain separate from one defining enforcement policies [practical/actual/resulting/transitory]; the latter require diligence, attention, and resources; and that's not why I donate today. Oh, and BTW I agree entirely with Supporter #3! [Unashamed] Paid contributors do add value! But I also want any advertisement to declare itself. Sr Yesterday (talk) 07:18, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
375. Very, very strongly support. Paid contributors may have valuable things to add, but it feels incredibly dishonest not to disclose when one is being paid for what they're doing. NotGaryStu (talk) 07:45, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
376. Support --JimRenge (talk) 08:31, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
377. Support. I am in general supportive, though I ask for clarification (as mentioned in a comment in the "unsorted" section): what do we do about folks academics or researchers who are paid in a general/generic way, rather than a specific way, to contribute to thought on a topic? In other words, I'm comfortable with the policy of attribution, but I wonder how edge cases of general payment rather than specific payment will be handled. Joebyday (talk) 09:43, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
378. Support. I strongly support the Wikipedians when editing in all Wikimedia projects paid for their efforts so far in developing all Wikimedia projects. And I hope it is retroactive and all the Wikipedian edits in the past are still active and can not be paid so that they can be rewarded for their actions. Aldo samulo (talk) 10:28, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
379. Support. I support Wikipedia and if the Wikipedia folks need this, then they have my vote. As long as Joe users like me can mold the paid contribution into something resembling the truth, I'm fine with with the continuance of paid contribution. Highlighting what is and isn't paid will simply help me identify those areas which deserve extra scrutiny. Sancarlos1 (talk) 10:44, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
380. Support. Mihirpmehta (talk) 11:23, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
381. Strongly Support. Strikes a good balance between "an encyclopedia that anyone can edit" and basic good governance requiring disclosure of COI. Well drafted. Will provide solid basis in policy to go after sponsored sock networks in the future. Disclosure in edit summary, allows easy auditing of articles. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 12:37, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
382. Support. Got to say it took me ten minutes just to figure out how the change was worded to know if No meant Yes or if Yes meant Yes. I rarely edit and can only rarely make donations, but if the site goes whore-in-secret I'm likely to stop using it or supporting it. Rodger Asai2602:30B:82E1:2A39:3DD2:A9B9:1AE0:6D02 12:42, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
383. Strongly Support. I think paid contributions are a severe problem, I would like to limit their impact even stronger, but cannot think of a just method for it. --Weidenrinde (talk) 12:53, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
384. Support without a doubt Gwaka Lumpa (talk) 13:41, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
385. Support very strongly, but with a major concern: How can it be determined whether a contribution was paid for? And if it is possible to determine this, I would support, vastly more than disclosure, the outright banning of paid contributions.
386. Support without modification. It appears the purpose of this is to give the Foundation a new tool, not admin, although this might not be obvious to the casual observer. Adding more to it only muddies the waters. Dennis Brown (talk) 14:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
387. Support. After all, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an ad platform or a platform for advocating views.TorKr (talk) 14:12, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
388. Support.Cjohn1949 (talk) 14:30, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
389. Support even though ensuring that every paid contributor will disclose the fact that they are, in fact, paid contributors will be hard. My suggestion is to add a list on the edit page itself where a contributor can choose between "I am a paid contributor and I am affiliated with [fill in the box]" and "I am not a paid contributor" or something similar. And then maybe mark edits by paid contributors so that they stand out in the page history. Adding a note on the user page is not really reliable since a contributor might work for a company at some point and then what happens when said contributor is fired or something? Does he leave the note up? Does he remove it? Does he need to specify from what period to what period he was affiliated with whom? Black3agl353 (talk) 15:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
390. I support the proposal. It is proportionate and easy to comply with. Gareth.randall (talk) 15:33, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
391. Support. Flagging the edits as commercialized does not invalidate them, and allows the reader to draw their own (hopefully educated) judgments about the validity and appropriateness of the edit given the context of its commercial nature. Not allowing commercialized edits is not only impossible to enforce, but also implies that it is impossible to say anything meaningful while being paid for it, and not flagging them deprives the reader of context which allows them to interpret the edit properly. Popecrunch (talk) 15:43, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
392. Support. As a user who doesn't have enough time to do more than read the amendment and the titles of the discussion sections here, I'm not familiar enough to give a thorough critique, but it seems to me in general that this is a good move, not too strong, and can become stronger in the future if need be. KoriganStone (talk) 16:28, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
393. Support. Any "paid" articles have some commercial background and this is not good for an independent lexica Flip67 (talk) 16:36, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
394. Support.113.199.137.214 16:51, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
395. Support. If an editor is being paid by someone, they are beholden to that payer, which is being reflected at some level in the edit, and we should be able to determine who is the real source of the edit, and not allow them to hide behind some anonymizing intermediary.Gsskyles (talk) 17:07, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
396. Support. Developing a class system of some editors who get paid versus those who edit for love reminds of the civilizational problems existing in our greater world. How much inequality can we take before it all falls apart? Gzuufy (talk) 17:10, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
397. Support. I worry that it will be unenforceable, and that it may be too late anyway as many of the most prolific editors are already folks who are paid to put spins on things and bias is already a significant problem. Regardless, something has to be done if Wikipedia is going to maintain any respect. Feneric 17:10, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
398. Support. An important step. BCorr|Брайен 17:19, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
399. Frothing at the mouth weak support. I am not paid could be a prevarication. What a legal romp this could turn into. - 173.16.85.205 17:31, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
400. Support. An encyclopedia of information can only be relied upon to be truthful if it is impartial.
401. Strongly Support. This is a enormously important point, at the heart of the issue of credibility. --Gedrean (talk) 19:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
402. Strongly Support. Also what percentage of the opposes do you think are real people as opposed to paid shills? If we don't fix this soon it's going to become a situation that's beyond the ability of the project to fix since once the shills reach a critical mass they can control every attempt to solicit the community opinion. This really might be our last shot at maintaining anything even remotely resembling the goals of the project. I'm also strongly in favor of the shaming plan, whereby the worst corporate offenders are publicly called out. Maybe maintain some kind of Hall of Shame.
403. Strongly support. I like the idea of having an icon that paid editors can use to alert other editors of their status. Eastmbr (talk) 20:03, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
404. Support. I think this is an excellent measure that allows individual editors to handle biased content. Instead of excluding paid contributors, which would just force them underground, it allows people to make their own decisions, and provides more information to the public, which is the goal of Wikipedia. 208.15.90.2 20:12, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
405. Support I agree with vote 17, I can't see any real negative outcome from this amendment and it makes sense (to me) to implement it. Dbrain64 (User talk:Dbrain64) 20:23:00, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
406. SUPPORT I once met a savant (the guy is a walking encyclopedia, much like Longinus in the Court of Zenobia of Palmyra) and I asked him about a particular period in English 'Tudor' history, to do with Cromwell and Boleyn. The savant (whom, can *accuratly* list the name of every Monarch, Pope and Emperor throughout the course of European history!) told me of the history of Cromwell. The wikipedia article I checked was *spot ON*, bang on the money. When this savant learned his art as a historian, he did so from primary sources, at a French University, with no such thing as the internet. I have been a firm convert to wikipedia as a valid source of information ever since.
     I have however, always been apprehensive of editing wikipedia, up until now. The monetary incentive is a marvellous idea; and, furthermore, as a scholar and historian, I shall be making contributions, corrections, with citations, in future. It is a wonderful idea recompensing people for their work. As a poor artist and would-be historian, I embrace this initiative, whole heartedly. Thank you kindly wikipedia,
     Yours Sincerely,
     "Anglyn" Mr. Maxwell Lewis Latham Cert.H.E. (Humanities) with Classical History specialism. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Anglyn (talk) 21:19, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
407. Support. Boud (talk) 21:35, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
408. Strongly support: I also like the idea of an icon for paid contributors. Truth and facts are what this is all about anyway. If paid editors are factual and unbiased, they have nothing to worry about and will hold up to any potential additional scrutiny, which they deserve since they have a potential motive for bias. If they engage in funny business, then not so much. ArishiaNishi (talk) 22:21, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
409. Support Raindrift (talk) 22:55, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
410. Support. The only thing worse than a paid troll is a paid troll editing my wiki. If you can make it stick I fully support this.~~LeeAnn
411. Support. A contributor who is paid may be tailoring the contribution to suit their client and not their personal beliefs. I consider this to be a bad thing. 80.229.245.202 23:17, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
412. Strongly support - The original intent of Wikipedia is extraordinarily important to both current and future users. There is no current viable alternative (i.e. individual viewpoints, not a commercially-driven platform, widespread usage), and there is no historical precedent: Wikipedia is a unique achievement in human social development. Part of the value of Wikipedia is the democratizing nature of individual voices: people think and express themselves differently when writing on behalf of only their own conscience. From a big-picture, historical perspective, it seems blatantly obvious to me: preserve the individual voice. From a pragmatic perspective, I have committed to double my annual donation. It's a big deal. ProtonWest (talk) 23:45, 24 February 2014 (UTC)ProtonWest
413. Support. Axl (talk) 00:05, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
414. Support, while noting that a reference to "organization" is to be preferred over "company." I would also encourage specific Wikis to make methods available for editors to further characterize the nature of any potential COI, such as
     • Employee specifically paid to edit wiki (e.g., PR person)
     • Employee making edits incidentally to job
     • Former employee (could go either way on COI!)
     • Family member
     • Volunteer or unpaid intern
     • I also believe (based on my professional experience) that a large number of companies attempt to follow the rules, and although some will try to fraudulently mis/non-represent their affiliations, there will be quite a bit of voluntary compliance. Matchups (talk) 00:37, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
415. Strongly support It is important that paid editors disclose that they are being paid. Readers are free to make of that information what they will.~~BrekhusR
416. "Support", While noting my belief that Wikipedia has the moral obligation, in respect to knowledge and information, to provide public access to these user's edits.
417. Support, It must be noted that this rule already exists, but it has a hard time being enforced, (this is being paraphrased) this page/section is written in a biased view, please improve this article. (Sorry, I can't figure out how to fix the numbers)--DrDominodog51 (talk) 01:45, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
418. Support, I am a public relations professional that writes articles for consideration to be included in Wikipedia. I think undisclosed paid advocacy editing is highly detrimental to the encyclopedia and I applaud efforts to ban it. I'm Tony Ahn (talk) 02:36, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
419. Strongly Support
420. Support Others have made the case better than I can. BTW, I think vote #374 above broke the formatting, but I don't know how to fix it. Henrymrx (talk) 03:08, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
421. Support. Like the idea (above) that the "paid contributor" note should be on the modified/created page rather than her page, or whichever is more "permanent."
422. Support with trepidation. Transparency on who writes history seems like a great direction for overall society to go in. This seems akin to a band with a hit song giving credit to the creative mind behind the song; the writer or producer.
     • However, I'm not sure if this will lead to Wikipedia becoming a better resource. I've worked for several people with their own Wikipedia articles, and it's painfully obvious that they put in the links, quotes, etc. themselves. (One 'famous person' example of this trait is Nardwuar the Canadian). If it explicitly stated that they edited their own pages, that would be extremely embarassing. They would rather lie, or become less reliant upon Wikipedia,.
     • Now, we are talking about transparency of financial motivation here, not pride.. but are they really different?
     • A tech company that wants to frame its products in a good light on Wikipedia may find it more prideful to lie about how the info is put up, than to follow this rule. The result in this case would be more lying and less transparency, precisely the behavior this rule is supposed to prevent.
     • Another company that doesn't want this brand up may disengage itself from the site entirely, and the overall quality of its Wikipedia article would be negatively influenced.
     • So, I'd either say that this disclosure could maybe be made optional or something, or the quality of Wikipedia as a wholesome resource may suffer. But overall I think it's a good direction for the Web to go in. 71.87.115.93 03:26, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
423. Support. Staszek Lem (talk) 03:35, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
424. Support. Guusbosman (talk) 03:45, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
425. Support, although I think it would not be easy (or possible) to enforce, nor it will really fix the problem (see below). However, it will provide guide for what is expected, and allow those who are not trying to hide the fact to show their affiliations and expect same of others in good standing. Those who are trying to hide the fact should lose their reputation, but such thing does not seem possible wihout either a very small community, technology-enforced PGP-alike web-of-trust, or tehnology-enforced stackoverflow-alike voting system. Note that technological solutions can be circumvented, and if there is money to be made - they probably will be. --Mnalis (talk) 03:54, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
426. Support. Sockpuppetry is sockpuppetry, and mercenary sockpuppetry is worse. Scutigera (talk) 04:07, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
427. Strongly Support Without some recourse against whitewashers, we risk Wikipedia losing what critical approval we've earned through our hard effort. Although it would be nice to have editors who could afford to devote their full working day to actually improving Wikipedia, we have to have some way of reigning them in. The hidden ones (talk) 04:16, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
428. Support. --Cavarrone (talk) 04:34, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
429. Support. Although, I wonder how many actually read the TOU to know that they should comply. 70.67.96.84 04:49, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
430. Support! As an Indigo Shaman, integrity and transparency are very important to me. By all means lets support it!
431. Support! 85.255.109.164 05:50, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
432. Support. Julian BH (talk) 05:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
433. Strongly Support. I would like wikipedia to remain a reliable, unbiased source of information, so it is imperative that any biases arising from employment, personal gain etc be made clear, so the reader can sensibly assess where biases may exist.
434. Strongly support Scrabbledemon (talk) 07:17, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
435. 'Strong Support' should go further, personally I would give an immediate 12 month editing ban to anyone caught gaming the system, this goes against everything wikipedia stands for. GimliDotNet (talk) 08:00, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
436. Support. Dnwilson (talk) 08:59, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
437. Support on the grounds that transparency is better than lack of transparency. Sheherazahde (talk) 09:10, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
438. Support As someone who has a COI statement on my page I'm happy to support this measure. Wikipedia should always be open and honest in it's approach to essentially sharing information with the world - i think this measure simply bolsters that concept. --Jazqer (talk) 09:19, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
439. Support, with reservations.
440. Strong Support Transparency is key to the goals of the foundation. Philg88 (talk) 10:54, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
441. Support. This is a step in the right direction. Good-faith paid contributors must be encouraged. We should take additional steps to ensure NPoV, including perhaps requiring additional disclosure or reviews for such edits. --Dionyziz (talk) 11:32, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
442. Support
443. Support I note that there is at least one legitimate model for paid contributions, namely when some well-off person supports an expert in preparing a contribution that the author is competent to prepare but unable to afford the time. I suppose this makes the contribution a work made for hire and perhaps should be contributed by the sponsor rather than the expert, but I have not thought through the policy issues sufficiently deeply. There is another context in which a contributor should disclose their interest in a contribution. That is when they are participants in some sort of contentious community and are making a contribution whose point-of-view may not be dispassionate. For instance, I rewrote an entry about the apartment complex in which I reside that had been originally created by a local real estate agent and whose POV was entirely biased by the agent's desire to portray himself as the only broker dealing in apartments in the complex. The broker should have disclosed his authorship (it was anonymous and I can't prove it was him, but the only references were to his web site). Nygeek (talk) 13:21, 25 February 2014 (UTC) [User:nygeek].
444. Support
445. Support. --Gregor Kneussel (talk) 13:59, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
446. Support, even if the system will probably rely heavily in user's honesty about compensation, the simple fact that this possibility exists raises awareness among readers and ultimately contributes to critical evaluation of pages' contents.
447. Support.--Héctor Guido Calvo (talk) 15:23, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
448. Support! --93.130.142.180 15:29, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
449. Strongly Support! Wikipedia's value is as an encyclopedic information source, not an advertisement repository.
450. Support. Wiki readers need to know who is being paid so they can better evaluated their comments.
451. Support. I prefer declared paid contributions over forbidden but nonetheless paid edits, as you will hardly ever be able to prove that anybody has been paid.-- Gürbetaler (talk) 20:08, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
452. Support + Ideas. The key to fixing responsibility for the truth of contents is the truth of personal integrity and the only way to reach this goal is to publish by real-name as I do. (move body to Ossip Groth section - was too long and clogging up the numbering) [User:Ossip Groth|Ossip Groth]] (talk) 17:04, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
453. Support. It seems like transparency is what we are looking for here. Ximthebest (talk) 21:45, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
454. Support. Thank you.
455. Support. Mithrandr12345 (talk) 22:06, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
456. Support. This would seriously help editors who prowl the newly created wiki pages easily identify the spam and unwanted "advertising" type of content and promptly get rid of it. Biglulu (talk) 22:15, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
457. Support. This humble and poor reader supports any and all disclosures of compensation. 173.31.0.124 22:33, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
458. Support.Requiring disclosure & transparency is a fair & simple way to address the issues brought about paid editing. Only time will how effective it will be (it is based on an "honor system" after all) but it is certainly worthy of a try, and I see no obvious downside.--JayJasper (talk) 22:36, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
459. Support. While an outright ban would create unnecessary infringement on the public's right to choose their means of exchanging information via the Internet, this proposal respects the rights of all users to know where said information is coming from. Money is speech, remember? We can split hairs over the reliability of Wikipedia but we cannot ignore the wide scope of reference it provides, which is accessed by members of many different demographics. Individuals with lower educations are likely also more inclined to rely on the information Wikipedia provides, which thus creates a societal obligation to preserve the quality of information over time. Any refusal to operate in transparency will make it clear that large sums of money are being spent to reflect the opinions and biases of a powerful entity.
460. Support. Good to force disclosure of paid affiliations.
461. Support. Mostly, I support idea of the board of Wikipedia being asked to consider this. I hope that the Wikimedia Foundation has, and will continue to have helpful & good management, directors and legal department. Realistically, I'm unlikely to be able to delve into this question until many months from now. Detailaware (talk) 00:17, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
462. Support. I'm unconvinced as of yet as to the merits of completely banning paid edits, so I support this as a compromise.--Radix838 (talk) 00:57, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
463. Strongly Support./ I support this measure because of how prevalent calls for commercial Wikipedia editors are on freelance jobs sites. Most employers who want wiki writers pay below minimum wage and they get the poor quality we don't deserve.
464. Strongly Support. Crush all attempts of capital to destroy the integrity of Wikipedia. Now and in the years to come, only the free flow of information will protect us from the controlling attempts of states and corporations. The accumulation of vast amounts of wealth is inherently corrupt, the product of collusion between capitalists and those upon whom they confer political legitimacy. Their money can purchase away the integrity of Wikipedia, as it has purchased away the integrity of countless institutions of education, journalism and media. To fail in checking the power of money is to finally, ultimately fail. Campaign to eliminate paid shills from Wikipedia.
465. Support. Paid contributions should always be disclosed. Whiteguru (talk) 02:22, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
466. Support. I think that this is the best course of action for fairness.
467. Support.
468. Strongly Support.195.57.167.218 18:29, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
469. Strongly support.
470. Support ONUnicorn (talk) 03:37, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
471. Support. However, what if a person is prohibited from disclosing that they were paid due to any applicable law (e.g. attorney/solicitor-client privilege, breach of confidence etc.)? The contribution may nevertheless be neutral and useful. Walfin (talk) 03:54, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
472. Support. I agree with the general concern that paid contributions, in any form, damage the credibility of the site.
473. Support. Thesagemarmot (talk) 04:09, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
474. Support. 71.83.233.127 04:23, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
475. Support.
476. Strongly support. I've seen innumerable articles 'plugging' all manner of 'causes' and 'self-interest' including, for example, a religious cult's lengthy page with numerous references. ALL such references came from the cult's own publications and, once redacted by a Wiki editor, only around 300 words remained. The editor initially expressed the opinion that the page would probably be taken down but, after consultation, the result described was achieved. I believe this was far too meek a response and the editor's implied, preferred course of action was the right decision. (Especially given the cult's pernicious messages, although I realise that this is subjective.) I'm also aware that the example is unlikely have to been paid-for in most of the conventional definitions already covered. Being sui generis it would little surprise if payment were deferred! There's little to prevent insidious organisations, large or small, from reappearing in different guises but that's no argument against expelling them, and expelling them again, once their 'covers are blown'. Brian Benedetti (talk) 08:32, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
477. Support. Disclosure of obvious potential bias seems a very tame response to the problem. Rwessel (talk) 06:34, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
478. STRONGLY Support. We come to Wikipedia for verifiable information - not for "paid political announcements", so to speak. Requiring disclosure of payment for information provided to Wikipedia is an insurance against psuedo-academic chicanery. William Woodburn (talk) 12:51, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
479. Strongly support. Paid-for contributions are an excellent contribution to Wikipedia (and others) as soon as they are visible as such. 37.162.189.106 12:08, 26 February 2014 (UTC)FrédéricLN
480. Strongly support. By knowing whether or not the contribution that was given was paid for we can determine whether or not the pretext for such information has biased attached to it. It can also lend credibility to certain forms of information particularly if the contribution paid for is legitimate scientific or medical research.
481. Strongly support 199.67.203.141 16:42, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
482. Strongly support. It's a matter of neutrality and impartiality. Thomaskpi (talk) 17:18, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
483. Support. Should be required to post exact amount of payment for content as addendum to the content itself.
484. Support. Transparency is best for this issue.--Pharos (talk) 17:36, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
485. Strongly support. Lparsp (talk) 18:32, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
486. Support.70.52.181.196 19:07, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
487. Support. I strongly support not allowing any form of paid contributions to the WP project. Good Luck! But I fundamentally oppose overly complex and poorly understood rule-sets which have been the bane of writers, especially where content covers or overlaps commercial interests. Please do not allow this to become the tool of dogmatic witch-hunters who confuse legitimate information about companies and organizations as some kind of capitalist heresy. Cheers! --Kevin Murray (talk) 20:08, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
488. Support. Sounds a good idea.
489. Support. Seems correct to prevent 'advertorials' etc ninjabeard
490. Strongly support How will it be policed? Moruya.
491. Support In my personal and professional experience, I've seen 'paid contributions' both used responsibly, and abused. However, I think disclosure of affiliation, and adherence to the 5 Pillars is enough to address this problem. FuturePrefect (talk) 23:00, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
492. Strongly support On first review, my only suggested change is to have affiliation notices at all three locations. Each of the these locations serves a different purpose and client.#Atoizzard (talk) 23:22, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
493. Strongly support While I believe it will be hard to enforce, I strongly support the policy amendment as definitely a step in the right direction. --Jeff Hill
494. Support I see this amendment as a step into the right direction. PR edits are reality and need to be reflected. Because enforcement will likely be problematic at first, I'd start now easy with the amendment as it is suggested. For a future, I agree with user YakButter that the provision can be made stronger by simply requiring all three ways of letting know about a paid edit - at the talk page, AND at that user's page AND in the edit summary. W.0q (talk) 00:20, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
495. support the change Dan Maddox --184.185.162.133 21:51, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
496. Support I think this is a step in the right direction. Bradybd (talk) 00:31, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
497. Strongly Support: I might add a clause to ensure that compensation for editing, "directly or indirectly", is prohibited.
498. I support any amendment that makes Wikipedia entries more transparent. Its primary value is as a source of general factual "truth" for a better informed world community. Anyone wishing to explore the nuances of knowledge on a particular topic should get an education by other means. 118.210.142.146 21:21, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
499. Strongly Support. --Mike E
500. Strongly support. -- Matt Z.
501. Strongly support. Mondebleu (talk) 00:27, 27 February 2014 (UTC) MondeBleu Transparency and ethics, by all means.
502. Strongly support. Some kind of disclosure of paid editing is necessary. It seems like editing Wikipedia is becoming part of the standard "to do" lists of industry public relations people, which affects the credibility of this entire effort. I recently ran into this on the page regarding "aspartame," where one editor -- presumably someone from the industry -- diligently edits off or reverses all of the edits from people trying to add a discussion of the damaging health effects of that product. They seem to do on a regular basis, every day, like it's part of their job. -- Zack 2
503. Strongly support. -- Lindsay As a business we have noticed editors using Wikipedia for fluffy business profiles. These businesses hire editors to work around wikepedia rules. Having raised this issue with Wikepedia management in the past it seems reasonable if someone is going to write a promo for a business profile they should openly declare if they are receiving compensation and whether they are affiliated with the business. If self promotional business profiles are prohibited then it can easily be spotted and removed.
504. I think that this is a sensible amendment that provides better guidance for the community to hash out the particulars. David Fuchs (talk) 04:29, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
505. Support
506. i think its obvious this is why schools say not to use wikipedia as a source 2601:6:7500:49E:8DAA:3968:F1AA:6B85 04:36, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
507. Support
508. Transparency allows the intelligent users of WIKIPEDIA to come to their own conclusions about the accuracy and completeness of information posted. As a corollary to the fundamental WIKIPEDIA fairness model, this amendment must be passed.

     However, I have a concern about naive or young or less sophisticated users of WIKIPEDIA who may be less experienced in discerning when a complete picture is not being painted. It is far easier to bias an article by omitting facts than it is by telling untruths. Incorrect information will generally be challenged but most of the time, the omission of information goes unchallenged. This a problem regardless of whether or not editing is a paid or unpaid activity. I suggest that maybe two "heat charts" at the beginning of articles be introduced. The first would be a summary of the neutrality of the article as perceived by users. (Tick or cross at the end of the article or some such mechanism.) The second would be similar but show the degree of paid editing. An algorithm relating amount of editing, number of paid edits vs non-paid edits etc could be reflected in the heat chart. (or whatever mechanism is used to display the relativities.)

     I am a reasonably seasoned research scientist and over the years have developed my "bulldust detection" skills in my own disciplines however, in disciplines I have no affiliation with, I am a very naive user. It would be of great benefit to me, (and I suspect other naive users,) to have access to the equivalent of peer review of the articles based upon the two criteria outlined: COMPLETENESS and CORPORATE input.

     As an aside, your banner drew my attention to the issue and was a timely and appropriate usage of your "biggest gun".

     Thanks for the magnificent resource and congratulations on the current quality of WIKIPEDIA.

     John Millman

509. Support Balon Greyjoy (talk) 05:09, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
510. Support --Hispalois (talk) 06:16, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
511. Support Even though it will not prevent violations from occurring, having the disclosure requirement in the TOU will provide important tool for enforcing disclosures in those cases where controversy does arise. I hope this amendment will be passed. 07:29, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
512. Support This is common practice in scientific publications and is a good idea for Wikipedia. People saying you can either declare COI or have unprejudiced fact checking are presenting a false dicotomy. Richard.decal (talk) 07:52, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
513. Support This is a good balance, it supports transparency whilst not excluding paid editing in any way, professional contributions are a good thing, and a good-faith accurate and informative contribution from someone paid to do it is not something that should be hidden or disguised. --217.36.92.70 10:02, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
514. Support for the reasons offered above IanS1967 (talk) 10:14, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
515. Support for essentially the same reason we require citations. Yes, everyone has bias, but I think we all benefit from being able to research whether the author is a propagandist by profession. Patrickwooldridge (talk) 11:39, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
516. Strongly Support Medical journals require this, for obvious reasons. Wikipedia must try to stop the paid lobbying/slant/corporate troll wars on the truth. They have been buying off the mainstream media and web journals with ads and threats of pulling ads; they have been buying off researchers in medical, dental and scientific journals but at least they have to disclose that now in the academic press. Please stop them from buying off Wikipedia's compendium of knowledge and reinforcing outdated orthodoxy that represents their interests, not the truth. User:HealthyAgain. Hope this posts, I am new at this, can't find vertical mark.
517. Strongly Support. This is a good and proportionate response to a very present danger C.jeynes (talk) 13:55, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
518. Strongly Support. Wiki is all about using your own critical thinking skills to assess the wealth of content. This information is absolutely necessary to do that.
519. Support. However, the amendment does not fully address the issue of those seeking to edit Wikipedia content in pursuit of a personal "hidden agenda" whether compensated for the edits or not. The Wiki concept appears to heavily depend upon an implicit "honor system" whereunder individuals are assumed to provide and edit content with pure motivations of providing factual, unprejudiced, and reliable information. This honor system and the Wikipedia content upon which it depends are easily and readily compromised by unpaid and paid contributors. Because of this, Wikipedia is a great starting place for research; however, it should not be the only place used of research.
520. "Support" I support this change FDLeyda (talk) 16:40, 27 February 2014 (UTC) FDLeyda
521. Strongly Support. I think it is vital to place this issue out: front & center. Many of the recent comments are cogent and I share in them. And although Wikipedia cannot stop the paid "lobbying/slant/corporate troll wars on the truth," that shouldn't keep us from voicing our dissent. There should not be undisclosed paid editing practices on Wikpedia. When this has occurred, then users, editors, and contributors need to know this. We can not (and will not) bury our heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't happen (even if, at the same time, we are skeptical that any "regulations" can really and truly stop this from happening). The fact is that there is a war on the "truth," and there will continue to be a war. And yes, it will continue here on Wikpedia just as there continues to be the insidious (and ubiquitous) practice of Public Relations and business-sponsored "think-tanks" and "Foundation" lackeys "buying off the mainstream media and web journals with ads and threats of pulling ads." And of course there's no way, within the current "system," to completely stop or eliminate this practice of undisclosed "paid contributions." In fact, I don't believe this can stop unless there's some kind of collapse or systemic break with the current world-system which is a Capitalist world-system (see the "Immanuel Wallerstein" page on Wikipedia for more information). So for now let's do what we can do to limit what the "lobbying/corporate" shills can do with the truth. After all, there is a "human right" to information (in fact, September 28 is the International Day devoted to that right; and that is an 'observance' that we recognize as happening everyday on Wikipedia). But I digress. I vote here to "strongly support" this amendment because we must do whatever we can to make it difficult for the "shills" (and that's what you are when you're paid to either "edit" the truth or otherwise traffic in ideology & propaganda on behalf of 'special interests' and undisclosed agendas. Even if your motives are well meaning or done in 'good faith.' That's not up to you. It's up to us. That's up to the Wikipedia community to decide). Finally, we traffic in the real world, we partake of the truth. We also must, as a "commons" and a community on Wikipedia, pay attention to how the truth is being manipulated and make every effort to prevent the lackeys and shills from "buying off Wikipedia's compendium of knowledge and reinforcing [an] outdated orthodoxy that represents their interests, not the truth." Christian Roess (talk) 17:23, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
522. Strongly support the amendment. Wikipedia and associated properties are the single biggest resource globally for many many people on an daily basis. The transparency and collaborative community are part of the very *foundation* of this resource. Please keep the transparency.
523. i strongly support any an all measures that allow the reader to evaluate both the wiki-offerings themselves as well as their source.— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mrbklyn1943 (talk)
524. Support. Glad to see this effort by the WMF to reduce astroturfing and the like. --24.4.140.255 17:30, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
525. Support 24.64.229.181 18:00, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
526. Support. Additionally, I believe that a template should be required for this purpose. --174.54.143.50 18:48, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
527. Support with reservations. Proposed language is probably unenforceable except perhaps against fools. I sympathize with view that we should police content, not contributors, but COI rules already police contributors. This is essentially an extension of the COI policy, and will probably only keep honest people honest, but it may offer some protection to legit editors who delete biased articles or edit them to remove bias. Jdcrutch (talk) 20:00, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
528. "Strongly Support" Transparency works for me. This gives us the tools to judge an article. I don't think that it's possible for everyone to argee on what is true... but this will give a red flag to people who are hiding attempts to manufacture the self-interested truths.
529. Support: Wikipedia is the place where I come seeking knowledge and information. The sole nature of information is that it is factual. Undisclosed paid edits are harmful in this regard as lesser transparency in the editing system means that it can be a potential tool to weed out deliberate misinformation with material gains in mind. Just a simple act of disclosing if you are compensated for your edits will allow people to better exercise their power of judgement on the topic and decide on the validity of the data presented. However, the system will only work if editors believe in goodwill. But as is in the nature of wikipedia, one and all should be able to add or correct information present in the site. Disclosing your intentions behind doing so makes it easier for us to interpret the data and the information conveyed. ~~~~
530. Support: The requirement makes sense and should be passed. That said, disclosure makes only a modest contribution toward objectivity. As always, NPOV itself is still the key attribute that has to be monitored by the community. Not every paid contribution will violate NPOV, and some unpaid contributions will violate NPOV just as in the past. ~~~~
531. Support. Undisclosed conflicts of interest (which are not always monetary) are always a problem. This particular class of conflicts is fairly easy to identify (either you received/expect to receive money and they expect you to edit in return, or not). I have supported stronger rules (e.g. the unsuccessful Wikipedia:Conflict of interest limit proposal on English Wikipedia) recently. However, importantly, this does not take away the ability for individual wikis to make such rules. It explicitly says, projects can "require stricter requirements for paid contributions". This unambiguously applies across the board, including legitimate paid editing (e.g. Wikipedians in Residence). However, it does not burden such programs, which are generally viewed as positive (Residents generally have notes on their user page already). I'm speaking only for myself, in my personal capacity. Superm401 | Talk 20:17, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
532. Support. I'm also on-board for transparency, especially where the integrity of the information is as important as it is on Wikipedia.Joewwilliams (talk) 20:24, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
533. Strongly Support Inetdog (talk) 20:41, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
534. Support Happy now I read the examples Scott A Herbert (talk) 21:06, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
535. Support -- paid edits can be useful and desirable due to information unavailable elsewhere, but unless such edits are disclosed they cannot be determined to be NPOV. If entered with stealth they must be assumed violations of NPOV.
536. Strongly Support. Undisclosed paid contributions defeat the entire point of Wikipedia: unbiased information. Athomas24 (talk) 02:12, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
537. Strongly support. I think transparency is good for everything.Jjroper (talk) 10:54, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
538. Strongly support. if someone who is paid has an entry that in any way supports whoever is paying him, even if it is an "honest" attempt to enter value, it's still a conflict of interest situation, and he should recuse himself. (But I'm really curious how you could tell!) RaverDad - Sam Galetar, sgaletar@neo.rr.com. BTW, I'm a total newbie at this (commenting), so I'm hoping I did it right and didn't break any protocols.
539. I support the proposed amendment. I'd like to think anything I read on Wikipedia is fair and unbiased. (Heather M. Lane)
540. Strong support.
541. Support. I've observed a whole spectrum of bad behavior on Wikipedia, and in particular, horrible behavior coming from the admins. Any measure to limit any of these abuses has my support. # Support
542. Strongly Support This is a crucial step in pursuing an objective Wikipedia. Matt I.
543. Very Strongly Support Need to keep Wikipedia transparent and free from vested and opaque commercial interests. Venkat.
544. Strongly Support the proposed changes to "Terms of use/Paid contributions amendment" because Wikipedia needs to be honest, clear, and available to all. Vested interests may pollute the content, therefore it must be mandatory for all to disclose their professional affiliation before editing pages on Wikipedia. Satish K Dubey
545. Support - this project in many ways (apart from apart from anonymity and openness to all) is similar to more traditional encyclopedias, reviews, summaries and so on. The similarity being the trust that all edits are done on an impartial basis and with the aid of independent sources. It would be näive to claim that is is always the case - but it is the basis of our (and readers) trust. Therefore a full disclosure of paid (in whatever form) editing is a must that was overlooked for a far too long time. An academic paper that has a shadow of being paid for by interested industry looses automatically any moral (and often formal) right to be called 'academic'. Same implies to literary reviews, art critique and even plain journalism. There should also be a consideration given to possibly penalties (however rare - hopefully - that might be) for editors who failed to make such a disclosure and were found later to engage in such an act. yours,
546. Strong Support - Content that is provided by paid agents seeking to promote a person or product or point of view should be identified in a clear manner, such as a different color, than the rest of the content. Also, such people should not be allowed to edit the content of others in the same article.
547. Strongly support - It is true that this would be difficult to enforce, but I still feel that it is important. It might actually have a real impact in reducing misleading or manipulative edits, or increasing scrutiny thereof. More importantly it would send a clear message about what Wikipedia is NOT. We should not discourage professionals from writing about their fields of expertise, and stating one's profession on one's user page should be a matter of establishing credibility. I edit pages relevant to my profession (archaeology), and sometimes cringe at the edits made by obvious non-professionals. Expertise should not be shunned. This is a different matter from PR hacks and government flunkies making edits to manipulate opinion.

     I moved a comment header that was keeping peoples' support entries from being displayed, and now everyone's signoff (4 tildas) from that point to this are displaying my ip address. I added a lot of space above the comment at the bottom to hopefully keep people from splitting the comment again. I will let someone else fix the renumbering problem75.136.121.80 10:30, 28 February 2014 (UTC) [thanks, fixed.]

548. Support. There are endless possibilities about where you might draw the line on this, but the proposed amendment gets the balance about right. Sue Zuki (talk) 14:43, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
549. Support. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a blog or an advertising space. I feel this proposal is an acceptable minimum to avoid the corruption of a valuable source of knowledge by paid advocacy. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:14, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
550. Support. The amendment is a very good idea; the wording achieves the right balance as it pertains to paid editing. APerson (talk) 17:12, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
551. Support. Good, but doesn't go far enough. There are other kinds of venal interests besides direct payment for services that have equal corrupting influence. What we call "log rolling" is an example. I write a flattering bio of you, and you write a flattering bio of me. No $$ change hands. I see stuff that reads like a promotional brochure all the time, but I doubt that all the writers were being directly paid to edit that stuff in. Here.it.comes.again (talk) 17:29, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
552. Support. Quoting Wikimedia, "There is an extreme likelihood that contributions which are paid for, but intentionally not disclosed as such, do not serve the public interest in a fair and beneficial manner...there is at least an implied conflict of interest that the balance will tend to serve the more private interests of the paid contributor." History reveals that hidden affiliations produce hidden bias; so it seems self-evident that a Wikipedia reader deserves full disclosure to weigh the question of whether he or she is reading an attempt to objectively report or to instead advance a biased point of view.Djonesvb (talk) 17:36, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
553. Support. Compensated article creation/editing can never be neutral. Nevertheless sometimes it can be constructive. Knowing those authors who are receiving payment can only help judge the value of their edits. Prestonmag (talk) 18:44, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
554. Support. Cause Wikipedia have to be "free" of corruption and criminal affairs. Wikipedia is not a marketplace to offer informations like trends and goodwill contents.
555. Support. Conflicts of interest should be disclosed and monitored. I am certain that despite occasional good additions or creations, the overall effect of paid contributors will be detrimental to the quality of the Wikipedia encyclopedia and to the ability users have to rely on the information found here. Anything that can be done to eliminate it should be done Kdannehl (talk) 19:21, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
556. Support. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Sometimes paid experts are the best experts. Sometimes they are the worst. Disclosing helps to tell the difference. And though there can always be an improvement, I'm tempted to be in the "and should not be any stronger" column after reading some of the draconian "stronger" suggestions. --GRuban (talk) 19:23, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
557. Support. Polyergic (talk) 19:33, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
558. Support. Any paid edit, irrespective of who paid and who got paid, must be disclosed. Nobody should be allowed to influence the content anonymously.
559. Support. I find it amazing that transparency, and that is all that is being proposed here, is such a controversial issue. It is heartening to see that so many uses are in favor of this modest proposal, which will cost nothing and affect only those contributors that we have the most reason to distrust, and even then that effect ultimately amounts to "be honest." Wikipedia is a success because of good faith collaboration. If you're getting paid, tell us in good faith. That is all.
560. Strongly support existing amendment. I am for a total ban on paid contributions, however the amendment as is will be a good way to begin to assess the amount of paid contributions which exist today. Bhuston (talk) 22:06, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
561. Strongly Support. Imagine advertisement e.g. during news shows on TV weren't made recognisable as such. If paid for - and per definition biased - contributions aren't avoidable in the first place they would clearly have to be distinguishable from serious articles. SW2001 E (talk) 22:19, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
562. Strongly Support. If you are advertising or promoting something you should be made to declare this.
563. Strongly Support. As a librarian, knowing the source of the information and potential biases of authors is critical.
564. Support. I can't see how more transparency could be bad. Natsirtguy (talk) 22:51, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
565. Support. The amendment works as written, and I'm confident in the Wikipedia bureaucracy's ability to handle exceptional cases. Beige.librarian (talk) 22:59, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
566. Strongly Support. If Wikipedia were filled with paid-for items, it will become nothing more than just another way to advertise, for free, to uninformed users. Notta skeptic (talk) 02:28, 1 March 2014 (UTC)Notta-skeptic
567. Strongly Support. Wikipedia must remain separate from monied interests. Johnnyhorse (talk) 03:13, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
568. Support. I agree with the proposal. This type of content should be identified by the editor. Holierthanthou (talk) 04:20, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
569. Support. NPOV and paid editing cannot coexist. Andreclos (talk) 06:41, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
570. Strongly Support Not only is transparency a key to honesty - and ideally, truth - but this gives the WMF the legal tools to deal effectively with the worst and most persistent offenders. Additionally, my experience has been that many people, even in COI situations, are striving towards improvement. In these cases, this measure would improve the ability of other editors to find and verify potentially biased information from even the most well-intentioned editor in a COI situation.TheAmbsAce (talk) 07:26, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
571. Support I have had my content removed on two occasions, by editors who failed to respond to questions about whether that was the right thing to do. I am beginning to wonder if I was the victim of paid editing. ArthurDent006.5 (talk) 10:48, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
572. Support via email from Faye, a teacher and user of Wikipedia. From OTRS Ticket:2014030110001965, via JzG (talk) 10:54, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
573. Support - transparency is important
574. Support can't ppl learn & practice a real profession to gain some money? Gernot66 (talk) 14:25, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
575. "Support" in order to maintain integrity of contentOrlivia (talk) 14:37, 1 March 2014 (UTC)Orlivia
576. Support Because disclosure of paid contributions provides an important form of transparency for Wikimedia Projects. Ambhis101 (talk) 14:57, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
577. Support Concealing the paid affiliation of editors will likely be problematic. Maximum disclosure, minimum delay. Chuck Burden (talk) 15:43, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
578. Support objectivity/transparency needed192.183.41.177 17:38, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
579. Support, in the name of transparency. I appears that certain changes/omissions are being made by paid image watchers; such activities need to be in the open. Ekem (talk) 17:55, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
580. Support, to think that billionaires and special interest can, and in secret, pour money into the constant editting or manipulation of a topic nullifies the entire credibility of wikipedia. this is not a "blog" as others have said, but rather the world's largest encyclopedia. Any steps that move it further from a blog, which is opinion, or propogandized, or biased without transparency, is a good one. I don't come her for anyonymity, I come here for the wisdom of crowds, and that is where the value of wikipedia lies.
581. Support It's just normal!Saluatoix (talk) 21:14, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
582. Strongly Support - There is a tremendous amount of incorrect information on Wikipedia. Editors in some situations censor their pages based on their own opinions or biases. Editors often do not check cited sources, but accept the information as facts. Wikipedia can essentially re-write history as a result at times, and cannot be trusted as fact. All relationships should be disclosed to increase integrity.
583. Support Agree with the idea of full disclosure.
584. Support This is an important change. Many people in oppose seem to leave comments indicating they actually support the change, so I think support is actually more wide spread than the raw numbers indicate. Cdehaan (talk) 23:07, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
585. "Support" I think some people will be paid to monitor the information about an article no matter what policies are in place. Also, I usually can tell when I am being pandered to. I guess you have to "consider the source" when you read these articles. De acuerdo
586. Support - transparency is important, so is accountability.
587. Support - I support efforts to prohibit, discourage, or otherwise limit drafting or editing articles with the intent to persuade, deceive, slant or otherwise act to write or revise the meaning of any article that a knowledgeable neutral observer would determine on the preponderance of the facts or style of writing would present a false or slanted perception on the part of an average reader; whether paid or unpaid. I support efforts to prohibit to the greatest degree possible on a site that depends on the ethical intent of its editors writing for hire to present other than objective language or facts. I support efforts to encourage whistle blowers to bring such activity to task through some kind of initially nonpublic fact-finding body within the Wiki editing community, with an appeal process for editors called out to make their case that they have been erroneously charged. 22:13, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
588. Strongly Support Academic papers are generally required to make the same disclosure. I would make inclusion in the Editing Summary mandatory, for ease of reference.
589. Strongly Support Strongly vested interests such as compensation for edits should be disclosed. 174.101.234.76 23:25, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
590. Support I think the wording is fair, viz "you must disclose ... with respect to any contribution ... for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation." In other words, just having a paid job does not require disclosure, but if are paid to make specific edits... That's fine. Equally, the statements from US laws seem fair, such as "creating the impression [of] not acting for ... his trade... or falsely representing oneself as a consumer." There is no reason why every editor, no matter where they live, should not be subject to a robust requirement against misrepresenting themselves. I have in the past battled against specific editors that I was certain were paid shills. They appear from nowhere on a limited range of articles, making outrageously biased edits, and getting very angry when challenged. They get better at Wiki-lawyering, prepared to fight anybody and everybody at AN/I and everywhere else, then, just as suddenly, disappear - either their contract ran out or they got banned. w:Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia --Nigelj (talk) 23:27, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
591. Support I have no moral objection to paid contributions, but disclosure can help contributors to be honest, and can help readers judge when to be skeptical. Sue D. Nymme (talk) 23:57, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
592. weak support like 111 said, I dont see how this is going to actually work. People lying will not be deterred by yet another rule.
593. Strong support The purpose of this rule is not just redundant deterrence, but also to clarify the legal standing of the Foundation and its editors when faced with a party that has violated the rule. 12.43.67.52 00:53, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
594. Strong support This is clearly in line with the aim of wikipedia itself. I do not require a stronger action, because first we have to test this action, which is already a big change and may be more difficult to implement than it seems. But we need absolutely to know if a contribution is free or paid.--Rdelre (talk) 06:35, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
595. Paid contents should be allowed for fund raising but it should be clearly indicated to users .
596. Strong support With a question: does Wikimedia have any sort of strategy to implement this? How will ordinary editors be involved, if at all? Unless this produces results and discourages violators, it will be an empty gesture. Tapered (talk) 07:20, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
597. Support It is unethical to to obscure or omit one's affiliation with a company when one publicizes a company, its products or its services. The amendment should clearly state that ethical behaviour requires disclosure of one's relationship with an organization in such cases, be it as part of a contract, as a paid employee or as a part- or full-time volunteer (who is considered an unpaid employee). Fest3er (talk) 09:24, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
598. Support Print encyclopedias had signed articles; why should Wikipedia be any different? If this amendment doesn't work as intended, it can be modified. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 10:53, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
599. HERE HERE I appreciate the proposed amendment manages to address this problem without being too onerous. The exceptions are both generous and reasonable; the disclosure requirements pretty simple. DO APPROVE! 76.178.144.67 11:07, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
600. Support This encyclopedia should not be written on any slant. If any changes are needed to be made for accuracy, they should be made personally, without pay. 86.135.209.145 11:37, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
601. Support Proposal is similar to the disclosing of a conflict of interest that one must do in scientific journal publishing. I think this is a good practice. Miguel Andrade (talk) 12:02, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
602. Strongly support as well.
603. Fully Support this initiative. It will restore some level of integrity to articles, as many people have noticed the prevalence of professionally constructed PR-type analysis and influence in certain subject areas. Full transparency on source and motivation will help. The professionals writing articles for money should be prepared to state that they are doing it in a professional, research capacity. This will add credibility to their work as well - An important point. Brett West - London, UK.
604. "Support" Just as you said, "there is an extreme likelihood that contributions which are paid for, but intentionally not disclosed as such, do not serve the public interest in a fair and beneficial manner." That should speak for itself. It's not going to stop the problem, but it will do something to make it better and it's relatively low-maintenance. 138.16.98.88 20:33, 1 March 2014 (UTC) Josette
605. "Support" Complete objectivity is never possible. It is always useful to have knowledge about the source of your information, and it seems that having someone disclose if they are a paid editor would be useful. The downside, thought, is that , due to ease with which a source could simply not disclose this information, it could actually act to make viewers less wary of contributions.
606. Strongly Support I believe that it is VITAL that Wikipedia remain (as far as reasonably possible) a source of unbiased information - and not become yet another internet corporate-money-making/misinformation-spreading/advertising website. The danger of corporations employing workers to pollute Wikipedia with profit-motivated misinformation is real and likely - and this goes against the real spirit and value of Wikipedia. Here are a couple of questions for all here to consider: Would a print encyclopedia allow corporations to pay for non-reviewed entries? What would be the long-term effects if profiteers could 'buy' encyclopedia entries? This stance might seem to go against the 'freedom of speech' of contributors, but this false conflict is actually only a result of not differentiating 'free speech' from 'profit-seeking advertising'.
607. "Strongly Support" I agree with supporting this action wholeheartedly. Over the years I've relied less on Wikipedia because I've personally known the facts on several people it has articles on, only to discover Wikipedia spewing negative about them. I've seen multiple articles that always seem to highlight the negative sides of a story, and many of the articles appear to have an agenda. To be completely honest, I skip wikipedia now when searching for information. Today was an interesting exception. Many peopl are aware large corporations control information on the internet. The normal news outlets are under this influence. Thus many people know the information they are getting is biased, no matter how much they claim its not. If Wikipedia is going to claim to be un biased, it must have the integrity to disclose who's paying them to say what they want. What's the goal of Wikipedia? To inform people and help them lead informed empowered lives? Or take money from anybody who is willing to pay and do what they want, instead of what the millions of readers want. If you are truly an organization of integrity and honesty, I would suggest disclosing paid editing 100%. If you take this action, I feel your credibility will be restored and it will pay off in the long term. If not, its just a matter of time before people get sick of Wikipedia as a propaganda outlet.65.130.65.48 16:52, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
608. PLEASE keep Wikipedia a source of knowledge, bending EVERY effort to block unbiased content. Only if we all stand strong to insure that happens will Wikipedia continue to be the modern-day oracle we all appreciate! --Lew Sheen (talk) 01:39, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
609. Support Any published factual work requires conflict of interests disclosure. Wikipedia should be no different, especially when we take into account that it's a main source of knowledge in the world today. Not only this helps writing unbiased articles, it also might help its reputation with people who still question Wikipedia's integrity. --AbderrahmanNajjar (talk) 01:24, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
610. 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101111 01100100 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101101 01100101 01101110 01100100 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01101111 01101110 01100001 01100010 01101100 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01110011 01100101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100111 01100101 01110100 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01110110 01100101 01100100 (Its in binary.They said a language of choice!Right!) [translation: 'very good The amendments are reasonable and you should send it for getting approved']
611. I'm fine with it as is, but I have a minor suggestion for revision discussed in more detail below as Talk:Terms of use/Paid contributions amendment#Suggest a slight change to the opening sentence. DavidMCEddy (talk) 00:40, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
612. Strongly Support. I think disclosure of interest, especially paid interest, is the most basic ethical requirement for contributors.
613. Support. Many of us rely on Wikipedia for some sense of objectivity in our hyperpoliticized world. This ammendment will at least justify this practiceVVVVVV EYE (talk) 15:58, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
614. Support. Raf82 (talk) 16:15, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
615. Support. There have been too many instances of edits to specific pages by peoples with an agenda that does not include trying to further the education and sharing of information with others. With this implementation, it would add an additional layer of accountability to those who have ulterior motives. While some editors may see this as a hindrance to their efforts, the die-hards will only appreciate this level of protection afforded the precious Wiki articles that they've put so much effort into already.
616. I support the idea of disclosure when a writer is paid.
617. support @hairyasian (talk) 19:49, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
618. Support In our age of systematic self-conscious misinformation, it is always significant to understand the motives of editors
619. Strongly support. Jdlambert (talk) 22:15, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
620. Strongly Support The credibility of Wikipedia as well as all establishment media are under assault by the forces of corporate darkness; disclosure of professional status is the very least we should demand. Nefarious purpose or no, axe to grind or no, orginal research and POV are not always detectable but this will add another tool to the skeptic's quiver. Bruce Marlin (talk)
621. support No objection to people disclosing their allegiance when performing edits. Many experts in a field will, reasonably, be working in that field and disclosing that they were paid is no barrier to contributing. Adoll (talk) 23:17, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
622. Strongly Support.Joachim M. (talk) 23:35, 2 March 2014 (UTC)Joachim M.
623. support 24.155.200.17 01:56, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
624. Support (conditional) The condition is that what specifically denotes "editors paid for their contributions" is further clarified. I support the concept of more open information. 99.110.57.242 03:09, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
625. Strongly support and then some. It seems to me that Wikipedia has a major problem with politically or ideologically biased material, and while some of it is a result of paid editing, most is not. So in addition to this proposal, I would like to propose a policy that articles in which "editing wars" have taken place be locked, and some sort of community review mechanism be required for any further changes to them. Jdg71 (talk) 03:14, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
626. Support: People with a conflict of interest can still make good edits, but there needs to be something to show that there's the COI going on so other editors can look at their edits closer. A total ban would be a mistake, because then we lose the good edits that we'd get otherwise. Anything else either wouldn't do anything or would be way overkill. 199.16.223.2 04:00, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
627. Support Disclosure of financial conflicts of interest is a fundamental ethical requirement in most organisations. No reason why it shouldn't be in Wikipedia. Neljack (talk) 04:33, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
628. Support Any respectable media request full disclosure from contributors wherever a conflict of interest may exist.--Gorpik (talk) 08:15, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
629. Support Please keep the rules for it simple as I edit in so many ways - for friends, for companies, for non-profits, for individuals alive and dead. Psychetube (talk) 11:18, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
630. Support Pretty clear this is going to happen in some form no matter what. I'm more comfortable with this way of doing it than others that have been proposed. Mendaliv (talk) 13:31, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
631. Support as another tool for addressing the reality of paid editing and its potentially corrupting influence, Practically, a job board I use allows me to report for delisting any solicitation for Wikipedia corruption or misuse that violates Wikipedia terms of use. I relish additional grounds for so doing. Douglas Michael Massing (talk) 14:35, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
632. Support Often paid editors act without being aware of WP:COI. HopsonRoad (talk) 14:43, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
633. Support The change seems simple to understand and covers most cases of paid but non-negative edits. 138.251.184.3 14:45, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
634. Support Strong support. Any step to discourage well-meaning employers from asking their Wikipedian employees to bend the rules is a step in the right direction. My employers wouldn't want disclosure, but they also wouldn't ask me to do anything that would legitimately jeopardize my Wikipedia account. PR firms and marketers will continue to do what they do regardless, BUT I think this amendment can protect a large swath of Wikipedians from their well-meaning but misguided employers. Wieldthespade (talk) 15:36, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
635. Support Strong support. This is a basic change that will help further one of Wikipedia's goals - open information. Of course it will be difficult to control or monitor, but it's a good step towards ensuring unbiased communal information. Plus, WP already requires user identification for major changes and certain locked pages. This is a logical next step. Neil618 (talk) 16:35, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
636. Support This doesn't ban any users and nothing changes. It only requires that paid contributors must say that they are such, which I think needs to be done, since it actually protects the editor, because if it violates one of the rules, it can be attributed to the company in question instead of the lackey editor. It also discourages corporate meatpuppeting. --XndrK (talk) 17:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
637. Strong Support It is important to stop commercial interests from clouding the treasure trove of information and knowledge that wikipedia has become.
638. Strongly Support for reasons well-outlined by others. --TimmyMcG (TimmyMcG)
639. Strongly Support; "Paid Edit"/etc should at least be mandatory in edit summary Grye (talk) 19:46, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
640. Support (with concerns) - This is an excellent first step. Now we are able to understand who is doing paid editing, and watch them to be sure that they aren't acting with COI. Those who try to edit-for-pay without following this new rule can be ejected without discussion - and that's also a good thing. My concern is that we don't now sit back and say "Well, thank god we solved the problem". We still need more decision making on whether we want to allow this behavior at all. Once we know who's doing it - we'll have more information with which to make a more final decision - and information is power. So this proposal has my support - but we need to be very sure that it's only just the first baby-step towards a final decision. SteveBaker (talk) 19:50, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
641. Strenuously Support StephenTS42 (talk)
642. Strongly support --Dyveldi (talk) 21:12, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
643. Support I was initially in the 'opposed' camp. I didn't agree that that there should even be paid contributors and question why Wikipedia would even accept such a thing since it goes against its own fundamental concept of 'edited by anyone, anywhere'. This isn't by a long shot a professional service. I think Wikipedia should have made it much more clear that there are paid contributors on here. But since there are I would say they must declare in case of vested interest. Outwu (talk) 21:17, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
644. Support 84.197.90.207 21:38, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
645. Support. If we don't do this, there will still be paid editors - but there will be no mechanism for monitoring them, and no accountability for those funding their work. It's probably not ideal, but it's not an ideal world - it's a world driven by search engines, and in that world, Wikipedia is nearly always near the top of a search for a recognizable brand or term. In this world, asking for good faith disclosure seems a good start. Ezratrumpet (talk) 22:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
646. Support, too. Like you say, Ezratrumpet. Good faith, Ikipfler (talk) 22:15, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
647. Support this amendment. Bjoertvedt (talk) 22:37, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
648. Support Yes! This absolutely needs to happen. It is standard practice to disclose such information in most things, it certainly should be here as well. 67.177.240.92 23:17, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
649. Support I agree with the reasons stated in supporting vote 1. 194.118.255.204 23:32, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
650. ""Support"" When paid editors do not have to identify themselves as such it is identical to watching a commercial and thinking you are watching the news68.211.12.71 00:12, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
651. Strong support - It is simply an unfair advantage to use paid editors to create articles for companies that could well afford to pay hundreds of editors to do their bidding. It is also an unfair advantage to editors receiving compensation for their work when the site is meant for donations of contributions. It isn't a donation if your were paid to contribute. Disclosure has always been the suggestion...it should be the rule.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:34, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
652. Strongly Support It is absolutely critical that ALL contributors disclose any conflict of interest. Obviously this includes any benefit a contributor receives from the contribution(s). There can be no justification for a failure of a "source" to honestly disclose the motivations behind the contribution.jamesefelton (talk) 02:17, 04 March 2014 (UTC)76.125.94.220 02:20, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
653. Support. I support, and believe this should be extended to political propaganda too, especially on the French version of Wikipedia! (fortunately, The English version of Wikipedia puts a bit more efforts to be more neutral than the French one do) Unfair dissemination is not better, not more acceptable neither, when it serves the purpose of political propaganda, that's not really about being paid of not, this goes beyond that single case. At least the disclosure requirement will invites to make theses cases clear. --Hibou57 (talk) 02:27, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
654. /* Support */ I believe the amendment is a fair and balanced way to ensure the concept of "self policing", especially with the site growing every day.
655. Support - It is not unreasonable to require potential COIs to be disclosed as long as no one person is responsible for the decision to remove any given comment. Adding information is done communally, and editing must be done communally. If your contribution is supportable and objective, then your information should withstand the public editing process even if an affiliation is recognized. 63.140.89.0 03:54, 4 March 2014 (UTC)Kat
656. Strongly Support transparency in regard to contributions and visibility of potential conflict of interest. Would like the information posted visibly for significant edits to articles as well.
657. Support A reasonable step forward. Cullen328 (talk) 04:47, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
658. Strongly Support Definitely agree with the direction the board seems to be taking :) Thank you. Xacobi (talk) 05:16, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
659. Support - The key statement is - There is an extreme likelihood that contributions which are paid for, but intentionally not disclosed as such, do not serve the public interest in a fair and beneficial manner. The opposing views mostly argue about the effectivenes and enforceablity of this. There is a stong arguement for disallowing anonymous edits.
660. Support. I believe that the good faith assumption that we give others should not be used in order to bend the rules of Wikipedia towards favoring any particular point of view. In light of that, I think each of us has the right to know if someone we're talking to has an ulterior motive for pushing certain types of content. This is also the spirit of the US and EU laws cited as "applicable law" here.Andrei Stroe (talk) 08:54, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
661. Support i find these guidelines extremly useful. Gilgamesh (talk) 10:29, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
662. Support. I am uncertain whether or not stronger rules than this are needed, but this is at least a decent bare minimum. --66.65.73.157 11:14, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
663. Support. I'd prefer to see a note on individual articles indicating that it has been edited by someone who was paid to do so. It's a bit of a burden on the reader to hunt through for an individual editor's profile to learn if they are compensated. That said, I think this transparency measure is a really important step.
664. Support - Support vote #22 (above) says exactly what I was thinking about this issue as I read the proposal. Those working, for pay or not, in a particular field are often those who know more about that field than those who are not working in it. That being said, if such an individual is trying to be balanced about an edit, then s/he should not really have a problem with acknowledging that an edit has been done on company/organization time. 71.109.99.22 20:39, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
665. Weakly support - The philosophy of this proposed change is essentially good. As others have noted, it is likely to have very little impact as failing to satisfy these rules is difficult enough to track that it will not be done in most cases and the burden of charges falls on local law and its associated system of law enforcement. Most of the points brought up by those who oppose are either misunderstanding the proposal or complaining that it is unenforceable or contrary to the spirit of wikimedia. I disagree that it is contrary to the spirit of wikimedia and I while I agree that it is basically unenforceable, I feel that it is worthwhile to have just as a policy for guiding administrators for smaller wikimedia projects even if it is rarely if ever used in law. I do think that there are several comments in the oppose category that bring up interesting and legitimate points. I want to call attention to the comment accompanying oppose vote #42, which suggests that employees who are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement, there may be some situations that generate a problematic legal circumstance for that employee by having to prove legally that the edits were not compensated and doesn't have the option of simply declaring their affiliation (this is mostly a problem in that the employee may be harassed by legal authorities who point to the legal weight of this clause even in the presence of clear rules that describe what compensation consists of. But, despite the policy's weakenesses and ambiguous corner cases I do feel that it is a good policy which should be implemented in some form. Niffweed17 (talk) 23:02, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
666. Strongly support. Thanks for asking my input. ^{00:29, 5 March 2014‎ RickLandavazo}
667. Strongly Support: This is great!
668. Support - I'm not currently affected by this, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time researching this. But it sounds very reasonable, and I support the idea of full disclosure in avoidance of conflict of interest as well as the necessary legal teeth to ensure compliance.Scorde (talk) 02:02, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
669. Strongly Support: This should have been ratified a long time ago, nevertheless, better late than never. LouisTakePILLz (talk) 04:20, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
670. Strongly Support: Absolutely. With the trend toward corporate control of the internet, it's important that a place like wikipedia remain as unbiased as possible. Whether for or against the basic idea of paid contributions, transparency is of the utmost importance. Mucky38302 (talk) 05:08, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
671. Support: This is not legalizing paid editing, because paid editing is already happening; this would simply ensure that the readers are informed of it and can draw their own conclusions about the reliability of such content. (Paid content may be just fine, but it is up to each reader to make that decision individually once informed.) If paid contributors feel that additional information would help to justify their edits, then they can add that additional information along with the required disclosure -- it's a minimum disclosure, not a maximum disclosure. All this does is increase the information available to those who care, and I am hard-pressed to imagine any reason that would ever be a bad thing. --Shadoh (talk) 06:00, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
672. Support It seems like a great idea. I love it. People should disclose how money has the power to change the perception of a topic.
673. Strongly Support Sergey Tsvigun (talk) 13:36, 5 March 2014 (UTC+2)
674. Support biased editing can occur whether or not it is paid, but this helps address the problem to some extent, and would bring wikipedia into line with academic journals which require authors to declare potential conflicts of interest
675. Support N-regen (talk) 12:34, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
676. Strongly support transparency is always necessary. I donate to wikipedia. I have to admit I'd never given this matter a thought, but I wouldn't have donated if I had. Makes one distrustful. However, transparency would go a long way to clearing that business193.219.103.21 13:11, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
677. Oppose on the basis that I have been paid to oppose this amendment. J/k! Support despite what seem like issues around enforceability, and some overlap with NPOV. Perhaps it should be the "Paid edit" checkbox. Something to be careful of is making it look like we definitely have it covered, & thereby disincentivising users from exercising critical judgment. Don't want anyone thinking, "Oh, but if vested interests were involved, it woulda been colour-coded purple!" or anything. Catcollier (talk) 13:56, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

     Hello Catcollier, for cross reference, we are discussing a similar idea below under Tag the edit and page: not just the user page. Thanks! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

678. Support The only problem I see is that people who are withholding the fact that they are being paid right now are likely to still withhold it even with this amendment. Unless every non-NPOV edit is traced and checked - and even then not all payments can be easily uncovered - this would serve more as a moral incentive to honest businesses (who are unlikely to sponsor biased editing in the first place) than a legal threat to people who actually engage in activities like this. Nevertheless, it's better than nothing, definitely won't hurt anyone, and I don't really have a better idea (at least not without breaking wikipedia's free editing spirit), so I give my support. 151.228.250.216 16:36, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
679. Strongly Support Raztus (talk) 18:00, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
680. Strongly Support Transparency is crucial to any type of /Commons. (sorry for the awkward method of linking to Commons page, I am not very adept at editing)
681. "Strongly Support" For me its about transparency, and a stronger immunization against the corporate colonization of our collective mind. Fight the good fight. Xbladerunner (talk) 19:14, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
682. Support - This makes sense and would keep/enhance the integrity of Wiki -- with suggestion or assumption that monitoring will continue and if needed, stronger actions will be taken.
683. Support - This seems like a good balance of remaining open to all yet being transparent to potential bias. Litig8r (talk)
684. Strongly Support - Wikimedia must reserve its projects for essentially non-commercial activity. Understanding that some will be compensated for expressions within a wiki, the best that we can do is to require disclosure and maintain transparency. Since the early 90's the entire Internet has been available for commercial activity. Society needs a reserved space for free opinion. Nagaboto (talk) 22:12, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
685. Support Languorous Lass (talk) 22:50, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
686. Support. My random sample of 12 reasons to oppose failed to uncover single reason not to support.--Guy vandegrift (talk) 23:27, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
687. Support I admit it: this was a real tl:dr situation. What I support is that people should be required to disclose any relevant affiliations, employment, or payment right up front, attached to the article so that one doesn't have to go looking for that information. I think maybe I'm supporting a "should be even stronger" position? If this is too strong, at the very least make sure that paid shills are filtered out! Quixote9 (talk) 01:57, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
688. SUPPORT!!!2601:2:1000:689:FA1E:DFFF:FEEF:7C42 02:14, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
689. Support I think its important any conflicts of interest such as being paid are disclosed for the good of the reader. Sir Sid (talk) 05:22, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
690. Support. Sounds good. 76.74.2.1 07:53, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
691. Support 'bout time. -- OlEnglish ^(Talk) 08:38, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
692. Strongly Support -- This policy simply allows for more convenient tagging of material that genuinely requires greater scrutiny. If someone is a paid contributor writing in good faith then the validity of their work will hold up. The power that big money has to manipulate us is outrageous, and must be fended off zealously!
693. Support - It seems like a reasonable effort to promote transparency and a potential means to deal with certain problems that the rules of specific wikis don't adequately address. As things stand now, even on large projects like en.wp it is difficult for the corps of volunteer editors to maintain the upper hand in the face of corporate whitewashing efforts, and I shudder to think what things must be like on much smaller wikis. Perhaps this will help; it seems unlikely to hurt. Rivertorch (talk) 15:23, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
694. Strongly Support - disclosure of potential conflicts or biases is vital to the credibility of any information resource. Ericrjohnson (talk) 15:38, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
695. Support - in addition, why not give pages edited by paid-for persons a different background colour? a simple visual cue, better IMO than a note on the 'Talk' page. (jr, 94.193.115.151 17:31, 6 March 2014 (UTC))
696. Support KLuwak (talk) 18:32, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
697. Support - I edited a couple of wiki pages back in the day. I do not regularly do so. However, it would seem to me that disclosing bias in an article is extremely important, especially if that bias is influenced by a person's ability to earn money. The person two comments above me recommended changing the background color of an article written by a paid person. How about just highlighting text written by such a person? The internet is becoming increasingly used as a tool by those with resources to slant opinion and conversations in directions that they choose. Paid shills, PR firms posting in comments sections, governments employing people in their intelligence offices are all very real things. While it will be impossible, and perhaps not even desirable, to stop such postings, it would be good to point out the existence of such to people who are blind to the fact that such concentrated efforts to control information on the internet are being undertaken. Requiring wiki users to disclose their paid status is a step in the right direction. 67.166.78.174 19:14, 6 March 2014 (UTC) I have no idea how to sign this.
698. Support Seems reasonable and effective. --Alf7e (talk) 19:22, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
699. ""Support"" As A I.T. proffesional, and as a considerate human being I think transparency keeps us honest, and as sad as it is the internet has become a truth vs lie warzone just the same as any other form of media... I'm tired of people using lies to sway opinions on a large scale, it's not fair to the people informed enough to be bothered by it, or for those not as fortunate that just take it with a grain of salt. After all, we don't want Wikipedia to become another Fox News.:)
700. Support. I've observed a whole spectrum of bad behavior on Wikipedia, and in particular, horrible behavior coming from the admins. Any measure to limit any of these abuses has my support. BTW, my previous comment was lost. Linas (talk) 22:34, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
701. Strongly Support Transparency is necessary for trust. Wikipedia is meant to be neutral, not paid promotion.Cleeder (talk) 02:54, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
702. Strongly Support Agree precisely: Transparency is necessary for trust. Wikipedia is meant to be neutral, not paid promotion.
703. Support The folks that are already being honest in their editing have nothing to lose and those that aren't are more likely to get called out if this goes into effect. Wikipedia is the closest thing on the internet to neutral ground and I think that's worth protecting.
704. Support - The proposed wording is easy to understand and is sensible. Slambo (talk) 15:02, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
705. Support - As a student who relies regularly on Wikipedia to provide relevant and accurate information on topics with which I feel a need to become more familiar, I do not appreciate the possibility that information on the wiki may be biased by commercial motivation. I think that if an entity, be it a person, commercial company, or any other group or individual, has a personal reason (ie. to make money) to have certain information be easily found on the wiki (such as a section at the bottom listing products or services related to the article and including a product description from the producer), that they should have the right to make that information available, but that it should be presented in suck a way that an average user of the wiki can easily distinguish the unbiased, factual information on the wiki from the commercially motivated information. I also believe that if a producer wishes to promote their product, they should provide supporting evidence, rather than relying on generalities like "Our product, [insert here], offers the best in [insert here]", as they do not provide useful information to consumers. If you want to beat your competitors, make the better product at a comparable or better price and then have an unbiased third party test the products of you and your competitor. As one of the few people I know who can readily call BS on falsified claims or insinuations by advertisers, I have become quite irritated with how much information I've had to disregard due to lack of accuracy. Basically, if you want to claim you're the best, I think you should have to put in the required effort to BE the best. If you can't do that, you still have options other than falsifying information: you could get a job with the people who are the best at it or you could find an aspect of your product that is better than the competitor's and expand on it or specialize in it. Just don't try to block out the sun by blinding people with an even brighter, though fictitious, light source. Not only is that a hard thing to do effectively, it hurts people's eyes. If you want to block out the florescent light by letting in the sun, by all means, go ahead, but be warned: I want the real thing and I'm not going to be fooled by anything less. 152.157.78.173 16:55, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
706. Support
707. Strongly Support. Totalmente de acuerdo. Todo aquel/la que edite pagado por una empresa o institución ha de identificarse como tal, ya que sus ediciones serán poco o nada objetivas y eso se ha de tener en cuenta. --Fugi-bis (talk) 20:18, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
708. SupportPicMirandole (talk) 21:56, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
709. Support - Could be stricter, but it's a great start. --NaBUru38 (talk) 21:07, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
710. Support- Hidden paid contributions provide biased information and decrease the confidence in the Wiki articles. Herber (talk) 21:56, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
711. Support I have been using Wikipedia for years, and dislike people trying to use it for publicity. There is far too little transparency in the world, and requiring people to make a disclosure if they are being paid to put information onto Wikipedia is an excellent idea.
712. Support It will help keep wikipedia a source of useful information rather than the usual media content.69.236.166.126 23:50, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
713. Support Must stay quasi-reliable; must stay absolutely clear! 173.45.178.10 01:21, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
714. Support While in principle I'd prefer slightly stronger strictures, in practice I suspect that would simply result in paid contributors ignoring the rules at a greater rate. (Stricter rules would need some sort of teeth.) 207.172.79.146 02:28, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
715. Strongly Support I am so fed up with PR reps (or propagandists for hire, whatever you want to call them) using wikipedia as a means to mislead people (or, in their own tongue, "shape public opinion"). This practice is a form of corruption, and is wreaking havoc on public spaces and governments all over the world. It is just another avenue through which the unscrupulous among the wealthy--the plutocrats--can use their resources to exert power. In the long run a disorganized group of independent editors cannot combat a well funded and well organized PR offensive, and thus something like this needs to be institutionalized. Disclosure is the least we can do. Asdfffdsa (talk) 02:44, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
716. Support
717. Weak support It's a problem that needs to be addressed; "weak" because I suspect that this will be largely unenforceable, but a basically symbolic gesture is still better then nothing. Deadlyhair (talk) 07:23, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
718. Strongly Support i wouldn't want wiki to change its nature and goals, as things r, it is already difficult to maintain that. as a hebrew wiki editor i experience many times such contradictions - i.e. the affect of political agendas on the cover of contents and the quality of writing. adding to that the influence of other forces and interests is a bad direction. wiki defines her self as 'a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free Internet encyclopedia'. i don't see a way to preserve that, mainly the 'free' part without transparency. tnx. Dalilonim (talk) 07:30, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
719. "Strongly Support" Note that in bidding websites in China, there are ads for paid editing in Chinese Wikipedia and Baidu Baike.--Hanteng (talk) 08:20, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
720. Support I don't think money and wikis really mix. While it is true that I would like to make a living off of editing Wikipedia, I don't think it's fair to those who aren't fair, and despite claims to the contrary, confirmation bias means paid editing inevitably results in promotional editing.--Jasper Deng (talk) 09:46, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
721. Support This is a good idea. There will of course be difficulties and consequenses, but they are manageable and will be worth it. Fig wright (talk) 10:24, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
722. Strongly support I have some direct experience of paid editors, and I find that even impeccably correctly behaved ones potentially introduce bias because they tend to weight an article in one direction. Paid editors must at the very least identify themselves clearly. Wildfowl (talk) 12:20, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
723. Support: This is a good start. More to follow I am sure. Rules and regs always need updating to keep pace with the users ability to find loopholes and cracks. Bold textItalic text(user Telder Silverhawk)Italic textBold text (Telder Silverhawk (talk) 20:39, 9 March 2014 (UTC))
724. Support: --Manuspanicker (talk) 08:27, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
725. Support: I support this. However, there needs to be a way to more effectively enforce the policy. --Tony Tan 98 (talk) 14:14, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
726. 'Strongly support WP is an encyclopedia that shouldn't be used for marketing purposes, but for free and true information. Paid editing should be allowed as there is sometimes valuable information in it, that cannot be obtained in a different way, but it should as well be tagged as such. Even if there might be problems to enforce this policy, offenders should be face a rather huge penalty, monetary as well as a real long ban.--FoxtrottBravo (talk) 15:51, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
727. Support: This is common sense, folks. Prokaryotes (talk) 20:58, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
728. Support. Spencer (talk) 06:20, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
729. Strongly Support.YES. YES. YES. I'm really excited to have my first vote in the wiki (despite having an account for quite a while) be about this. I have always thought that this was a huge issue that needed to be addressed. Very well done. Gh05t (talk) 15:09, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
730. Support: It makes sense
731. Strong Support This is something really needed for us. Srolanh (talk) 20:24, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
732. Support I strongly support the proposed amendment as-is. It seems to clearly outline problematic behavior while not being overly restrictive of legitimate editing activity. Cazort (talk) 20:35, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
733. Support Everyone else has said it all. Robert the Devil (talk) 21:54, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
734. Support YES Djidiouf (talk) 02:16, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
735. Strongly Support I believe most users of this site would support this, myself included. Opaque disinformation is not welcome here.SePi87 (talk) 03:09, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
736. Strongly Support Transparency is a must, and efforts to keep bias and misinformation out of Wikimedia projects is greatly appreciated!! 68.150.220.71 23:38, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
737. Support; the only thing this requirement adds is the requirement that "if you are being paid to edit, the other editors need to be made aware of the fact". This is hardly an onerous requirement (especially since a note on one's user page quite suffices), and aligns neatly with our principles of transparency. — Coren ^{(talk) / (en-wiki)} 03:40, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
738. Support This seems like a good compromise that allows some level of transparency without being onerous. There may be some corner cases or other issues, but this seems well thought out enough to represent a clear step in the right direction. 76.14.48.39 03:48, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
739. Support this idea generally, in whatever form it takes. This change will make it clear that a paid person isn't allowed to decide, for the rest of us, that his "contributions" are important enough to show up yet his blatant source of influence is simultaneously not important enough. Also, by putting this in the Terms of Use, it gives a more direct legal warning that conflict-of-interest behavior for profit is already unauthorized modification to Wikimedia resources, which can be dealt with (by the Wikimedia Foundation) in the off-wiki "real world" where the person and his sponsor are seeking the benefits. --Closeapple (talk) 08:23, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
740. Strongly Support Given the information I have I cannot make an informed choice, however I trust the Wiki board to do the right thingNemo183 (talk) 12:39, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
741. Strong support. This does not prevent anyone from editing on any topic for which they are not being paid, and doesn't even prevent anyone from editing on a topic for which they are paid so long as the fact of the payment is disclosed. BD2412 T 14:55, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
742. Support. I'm happy to see this proposal, and I thank its authors. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:56, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
743. Support. A lot of the negativity and comments in the opposition seem to be missing the point, using examples of someone who is paid by a company for work unrelated to a contribution. They seem to be ignoring all of the statements clearly indicating this would only affect contributions that arise directly from someone being told to make an edit or add a page and are then, in turn, directly compensated for that contribution. I definitely feel that something like this is necessary and will be beneficial in the long run, especially if the argument is just that someone must indicate a paid contribution, and not necessarily the specifics of who paid them or how they are affiliated with the organization paying them. ZephyronALPHA (talk) 22:20, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
744. Support. I also like both proposed amendments. Gdeclute (talk) 22:46, 13 March 2014 (UTC)gdeclute
745. Strongly Support" Wikipedia has become a haven for financed political and special interest factions that have their paid and unpaid members hoover over their wikipedia territories of thought; Case in point: American Patriot Party a party existent since 2003, 28+ states in organization has been blacklisted and refused mention or page (and party web site link ".CC") because the socialist euro wiki minions conveniently can't find news stories that will satisfy "their" wiki standards; But Frivolous parties with frivolous news mentions such as the BEER PARTY and MICKEY MOUSE PARTY are allowed to stand??? hahahahaha! Read the discussions!!! They even conveniently erase the wiki pages of conversations so that you have to use the Wayback Machine and other archives for that! Go ahead and bring back the American Patriot Party page as it stood before they began to hack it to pieces and watch the Belgian, European as well as US party "politically paid wiki society wonders" with all their "buddy wiki badge givers" jump all over it!!! Go on! I Dare you! To test the water, try putting "American Patriot Party 2003" on the "List of Political Parties in the United States" and watch it get whisked away shortly after by wiki's political social propaganda ministry.
746. Support. The amendments are good ideas, but might be included as guidelines rather than requirements. Incidentally, as a comparative newbie I got conflict-of-interest tagged for some edits that were COI (though there was no financial compensation involved). I might still have made that mistake, but it would have been easier to respond to the COI tag (provide the appropriate disclosure) with the policy than without (leave the COI tag there and hope that someone without a conflict cleans it up?). —Steve98052 (talk) 06:44, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
747. Support It's positive when a paid editor is doing a good job and being open about it. If they can remain neutral, they 'll get credit and appreciation for their work.
748. Strongly support I couldn't agree more with these proposed changes, and I think it's incredibly important. MrEvilGuy (talk) 09:18, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
749. Support Tapanpet (talk) 10:08, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
750. Strongly support: No problem if organisations and company pay someone to get "their" article in a well-written and correct state - proofable sources will be a plus. Even a good idea for good, true and reliable paid writers: Say who pays you, show your sources and everything is fine - hide it, and we all see someone's got something to hide! This can also end some edit wars e.g. in articles on celebs, where theyselves edit something (maybe unimportant) like "hobby" or "reasons why I quit at xy", and an author comes up and asks for sources - even if they don't doubt the identy.
751. Support --Aristeas (talk) 18:01, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
752. Support I would like every editor to disclose that they are being paid by their client, employer, business, etc wheter it is to add positive content to their own articles or to add negative content to their rival's articles but only if they are being paid more than 5$ a week in total and only if they are being paid specifically to edit Wikipedia, instead of just encouraging them to simply edit on the company's topic of interest or just because they are working in the company.--Andrei Marzan (talk) 01:47, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
753. Support Option 2 plus Conflict of Interest I believe it is possible that terms worded too strongly could catch non-commercial editing thus: a) a person who, for example, works for Intel and knows his way around Ark helps with Intel pages (careful not to violate any NDAs he might have signed), but is not being paid for it. In this case, I think it would be healthy to disclose both his employer and that fact. Another possibility is a guy who is being paid as a marketroid for Exxon, but edits Wikipedia far away from anything that's Exxon's line of business. Both these cases are non-commercial, but I can see a problem with, say, the Exxon guy editing about fracking (it doesn't seem we have anything on it at all), even though he's not being paid specifically for Wikipedia edits. So, I think we need to narrow it slightly where editing would be clearly non-commercial but might be caught by zealous wording, but we also need to strengthen it to include conflict-of-interest issues where the person isn't strictly getting paid to edit Wikipedia. Featherwinglove (talk) 03:40, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
754. Strongly support If this is not implemented, then Wikipedia will become a conduit for undeclared and back-door propagandising by all manner of bodies, agencies and individuals. Roaringboy (talk) 14:21, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
755. Support Cyberscribe (talk) 15:29, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
756. "Support" Option 2, I think that posting the info that the editor was paid is sufficient without demanding the identity of the client, disclosure of which could violate the writer's contract, or create other legal conflicts. Puzzle53 (talk) 16:21, 15 March 2014 (UTC)puzzle53
757. Support as proposed, with specifications: The proposed amendment seems good to me, given the elaboration in the [FAQ on disclosure of paid contributions - What are you talking about?] I.E. "To ensure compliance with these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution to any Wikimedia projects for which you receive compensation." Specifically: 1. Disclosure is only required when contributors are compensated by their employer or client specifically for edits and/or uploads to a Wikimedia project. 2. “compensation” means an exchange of money, goods, or services. 3. the minimum required is that you disclose your employer, client, and affiliation. 71.193.198.83 20:28, 15 March 2014 (UTC) 15 March2014
758. Support More transparency seems like a good thing. Starshipenterprise (talk) 04:05, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
759. Support Correcting paid contributions and following through subsequent discussions contribute to wikifrustration. Cheers, --Ghilt (talk) 12:14, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
760. Support - would also support Option 2, but definitely not Option 1.--Martin Berka (talk) 18:15, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
761. Support - We should resist anyone's attempts to rewrite history. Erviltnec (talk) 20:00, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
762. Support - Payment is a strong incentive to please whoever pays the bill. ---<(kmk)>- (talk) 21:36, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
763. Support - Let's keep Wikipedia in a distance from commercial activities. Ulisp (talk) 09:53, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
764. Support -- Commercial interests will be involved (impossible to stop them), and if this is an open community then it must allow everyone into it. Perhaps affiliation is the most important part to emphasize (who hands you the money is not as relevant). Sborau (talk) 14:18, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
765. Support 78.26 (talk) 14:43, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
766. Support If there have to be contributions, and if they are deemed as necessary as they have been thus far, make them as objective as possible, and make it as fair as possible. (User:UserTsel)
767. Support The gathering of more information is never a bad thing. High levels of transparency should be greatly encouraged. Adrade (talk) 22:59, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
768.  Support How often have we seen new articles from some corporation that's barely even a stub, just saying that they exist and are happy to do business, call 555-MYFIRM for great deals NOW! We need to have this transparency! --Tauwasser (talk) 23:03, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
769. Strongly support Excellent idea. I like the idea of a "Paid edit" indicator on every paid edit, with more information on the editor's page.
770. Strongly support This amendment seems obviously essential for transparency, making clearer when a writer's contributions serve the interests of certain people or institutions (e.g., particular political, corporate, or religious interests). Where there appears a conflict of interest, perhaps a notice should be posted on an article drawing attention to the fact. If a writer is discovered not to have disclosed financial support for specific writing, he/she should be warned appropriately and then blocked from further contributions. Also, all contributions made up to that point should be either deleted or accompanied by warnings of conflict of interest. --Seoulseeker (talk) 01:42, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
771. Strongly support This amendment improves Wikipedia integrity. I agree with the proposed Common changes and oppose both options. Option 1 dilutes the provisions, and disclosure of academic or other ties would not penalize the contributor. Option 2 dilutes the disclosure's value. Gem4skis (talk) 14:55, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
772. Strongly support Transparency of the sources is a fundamental need for trust. This also includes knowing if the contributor may be acting with ulterior motives. We must guarantee the right of everyone to share her knowledge with all of us. At the same time, we must guarantee the right of everyone to rely on the intellectual honesty of the information she gets.95.112.16.186 19:03, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
773. Strongly support Without strict scrutiny of paid contributors, Wikipedia will lapse into a tool for propagandists and marketers. I oppose both options. Wtmusic (talk) 05:24, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
774. Support This type of conflict of interest should be discouraged, or at least identified as such. It doesn’t seem enforceable unless someone actually confesses to undisclosed paid editing. Completely dishonest paid editors will continue their paid editing, but I think the policy will discourage or identify many paid editors. I do hope that the relevant policies, guidelines, and essays will be updated to discourage individual editors from making accusations of paid editing; without outside knowledge such accusations would be baseless and distract from improving content.--Wikimedes (talk) 08:39, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
775. Support absolutely
776. Support Absolutely, and please allow the results of a search to be set to include, or exclude, or at least highlight in yellow highlight the answers that are paid! 173.58.83.152 19:50, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
777. Support A system of search results selection by author profile points such as, paid, unpaid, professional, corporate, and other facts about the author would be a service I would be happy to pay an annual fee for being able to combine, select and set terms such as; OR, AND, NOT. 173.58.83.152 19:50, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
778. Support For neutrality and transparency this is important.Blethering Scot (talk) 20:50, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
779. Support This is just common sense.— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.227.93.117 (talk) at 02:44, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
780. Strongly Support If there is anything, especially when it comes to money, that could compromise your editing, I think it should be public. 71.99.50.153 04:03, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
781. Supporti am supporting for open for all to ready study edit any documents in a well manner, not for propaganda use. if the shows paid persons of that page this is not bad thing.— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 106.212.135.6 (talk) at 05:47, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
782. Strongly Support The initial amendment, sans all three proposed options, is not only needed, it is necessary. Wikipedia and Wikimedia have a certain amount of historical baggage in the area of disclosure by editors. It is clear to most that here has long been a clear target for marketers and PR personnel. It is equally clear that this activity has never been confined to simply commercial interests. There is certainly nothing wrong with being paid to perform an activity. Nonetheless, disclosure of paid affiliation is required in nearly all forms of public media. So important is this requirement for transparency that it trumps privacy. When one has become the paid agent of another entity, that entity must be identified. In the greater balance of cases this will not in and of itself reveal the personal identity of an individual editor. What it will do in every case is ensure responsibility and improve the quality of participation by agents and their sponsors within the Wikimedia community. Rather than engendering a fear of exposure, it should be a matter of pride to both parties. The public has a strong right, all too often slighted, to know not only the source but the manner in which the information they are exposed to is produced. BellwetherToday (talk) 06:07, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
783. Support JamesMazur22 (talk) 13:51, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
784. Support Although it won't really keep paid fan-boys out of Wikipedia, at least it gives management another weapon to play whack-a-mole with the more obvious offenders. Furthermore, if anyone is looking to pay folks for editing, give me a buzz and see if our moral structures are in alignment. JimScott (talk) 15:05, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
785. Support— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 23.24.30.181 (talk) at 15:46, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
786. Stronlgy Support This amendment would greatly aid in furthering reliability and accountability, not to mention many other policies Wikipedia has in place. Wikipedia is supposed to be a source of information and knowledge, not a marketing nor a propoganda tool. Besides, peer reviewed publications and documents rely on knowing who and what to cite. 自教育 (talk) 19:25, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
787. Support Quite young school students are taught to mention the sources of their information at the end of projects and essays. Academic volumes have full bibliographies and also give the sources of their funding in their Acknowledgements pages. Something that has concerned me about the often very interesting and useful Wiki articles is that there is normally no indication of how well-qualified the writer is to be giving the information. It seems to me that Wiki entries should all give the kind of information we expect in paper books. To produce an article as a paid task may be quite innocent, and the article may be quite reliable, but it is likely that someone who is being paid for their work will reflect the views of their employer, even if they have no intention of deceiving anybody. Readers of Wikipedia should be given information about the writers and the writers' sponsors, otherwise there is a serious possibility of misrepresentation. NB None of the words in my comment are meant to be understood in any technical legal way, and my opinion is that of a reader rather than a writer of Wiki articles.
788. Strongly support Transparency is crucial.
     — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grrrlovely (talk) at 22:10, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

     @Grrrlovely: That's why signing your vote is crucial.
     – 6birc (talk) 15:29, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

789. Long past time Shills, astroturfers, and marketroids shouldn't be passing themselves off as neutral parties on Wikipedia. (Or, for that matter, anywhere.) Disclosure of affiliation for those being compensated to edit should be absolutely required, and could bring in real legal consequences for those who fail to do so if required by the TOS, giving a real incentive to comply. If a paid editor is concerned their privacy might be compromised by such a disclosure or would just prefer not to give that information out, they need only refrain from editing in any area that would require the disclosure. Seraphimblade (talk) 22:12, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
790. Strongly support. Neutrality and transparency are crucial. Wikipedia must not become a marketing or propaganda tool, even if this amendment may not be the way to solve it all, it is, at least, a way of improving things. --Lelou250 (talk) 21:05, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Support, but should be stronger

The requirements to sign here are:

• You'd be ok with the proposed change being implemented by the Board.
• You think that something that would more strongly limit or prohibit paid editing should also be implemented (very briefly fill in your own limits if you'd like).
• You sign below with # and 4 tildes ~~~~ and remove your !vote from any other section if you've already !voted.

1. 'Support, but should be stronger' I also think this amendment is a good start, but that the way it currently stands it could still have potential to allow corruption of the system by commercial parties. I see no reason not to have full disclosure when any payment/in-kind etc is occurring. Princebuster5 (talk) 04:23, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
2. I strongly support the amendment since the disclosure is a right approach to take to ensure objectivity and credibility of wiki data. Common users like me rely on wiki for un-biased information and knowledge. KNowing the affiliation or confliction of interests will help us take the information on a certain page with a pinch of salt. 69.250.69.83 (talk) 15:05, 13 March 2014
3. I am pretty certain this will never be recorded or read because I don't know the codes. I am just a Wikipedia user. I support this amendment but feel it shoukd go further by requiring anyone paid for editing to supply the name and address of the person/persons, whether natural or legal, who have paid them for the editing and further, that all "paid" editing will be "flagged" (perhaps with simple colour highlighting) in all Wikipedia entries and the "person" who has paid for the editing be identified in a footnote. This, of course, will cost Wikipedia, so I further suggest that Wikimedia institute a registratio0n system with registration fees for "paid" editors and that "charges" be levied against those fees for any edits. James Boyce 2 March 2014 207.237.203.201 (talk) 02:34, 3 March 2014
4. Support, but should be stronger. I believe this amendment has a good in-writing intention, but that the way it currently is has the potential to lead to greater corruption by invested parties. Like others have said, the amendment may allow for larger corporations and businesses with greater power (financial and otherwise) to bypass these new restrictions, leaving for a biased set of contributions. I worry about this amendment doing exactly the opposite of what I'd like to see it do. Sayla, 28 February 2014
5. Support with changes The disclosure in the article text should not be optional. In order for the disclosure to not break up the text too much, perhaps it could be added like a reference/citation? This might also provide a mechanism that would allow WP to remind paid editors that any text that isn't NPOV will be removed. 174.65.10.224 00:56, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
6. Receiving college credit for writing wikipedia articles should be specifically banned68.186.130.94 19:40, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
7. Ban all commercial editing of articles by or on behalf of corporations and businesses Smallbones (talk) 23:23, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
8. Banning all commercial editing would be impossible, it would simply result in a covert war of sorts between PR firms and wikipedia, which (spoiler) wikipedia would never win. Rather I think we should take into account the various issues raised in the Abstain and Oppose sections, such as temporally-bounded employment, weasel-worded contracts, and other logistical issues. Fundamentally, what I am saying is that I support the proposal, but there are a large number of kinks to work out and specifics to address before it is meaningful. 67.80.153.207 00:04, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
9. Support, but would like the notification of paid editing to be on the page that is edited. I know this would be awkward, but since many of us don't go to user pages, this would be a more universal notice of bias. 63.131.29.154 00:19, 23 February 2014 (UTC)92.225.129.169 16:14, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
10. Ban all commercial editing I support this proposal as a first step one toward fully rolling back the allowance for paid editing. I agree with 63, the notice of paid edits needs to be placed on articles (and the fact that it is awkward highlights the ludicrous situation we are in, having allowed this in the first place). Note: If we are to continue to allow paid edits, Wikimedia should also pay editors to watch over those pages and edits. It is too much to ask of volunteers to fact-check the BP PR department, for example. Many hours have been put into doing just that, and that article is still biased in BP's favor, per latest RfC. Petrarchan47 (talk) 00:33, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
11. Multiple COI Support, but some provision must be made for paid editors who handle multiple clients. Correlation between edited articles and individual clients/COI sources should be possible. 68.199.234.49 00:44, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
12. I'd like to see a ban on all paid advocacy editing, though it might be unenforceable. Editing for pay/credit isn't itself a problem, it's NPOV violations. Disclosure rules help, though, and I'd like to see a flagging requirement (I suggest "$") for every paid edit and tools for giving them extra attention. Noophilic (talk) 00:54, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
13. Support per Jeff Q. See #Temporal evasion of visible disclosures. Disclosure should either be via edit summary or permanent user page disclosure, i.e. even after paid employment ends, that user account must continue displaying the disclosure (as long as any paid edits remain un-reverted). Hugetim (talk) 01:16, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
14. Strongly Support, but should also:

    i) require inclusion of a "disclosure" link on the wiki page itself at the end of any such non-trivial edit, which would link to the required disclosure (e.g. on the user's page).

    ii) be expanded to cover other vested interest situations - e.g. the current proposal doesn't seem to apply to the owner of a business making an edit, even if he/she has paid someone to draft the edit for them.

    • Members of religions should be required to make disclosure where relevant to the edit - e.g. abortion, euthanasia, theology, evolution, creationism.

    • Ordinary members of political parties not necessarily required to make disclosure, but actively involved members to do so, where relevant.

    iii) "vested interest" edits should be readily searchable so that other editors can find and check them.

    I definitely think there is a place for disclosed "paid" articles - e.g. if a company or product/device doesn't have a presence on wikipedia then it is in the public interest for said company or product manufacturer/seller to add a factual entry (with disclosure). I've sometimes used Wikipedia to find contact details for the manufacturer of a particular computer card (e.g. video card). Even if the entry reads like an advertisement it can be better than nothing, as long as the reader knows the source, and it provides useful true information. Same applies to definitions - sometimes a website uses a term or acronym I've never heard of and for which I cannot easily find a definition.

    Ausvirgo (talk) 02:50, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

15. Strong support as per all above. AnupMehra ^✈ 01:49, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
16. Strong support. Disclosure should be required in the edit notes, _and_ a footnote should appear on the page proper for any article which has been the subject of paid edits. Writing for hire is not necessarily bad or wrong, but the examples that come to light are PR flacks who are interested in providing spin, not factual information.Pstemari (talk) 02:49, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
17. Strong support with these changes, or else oppose for being redundant. Require all three, and also an inline notice (or a stylistically unique footnote so that it stands out) along with the edited parts. Jarmihi (talk) 02:58, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
18. Support with changes Notice posted on the user's talk page should be mandatory. Ideally, we'd require notification on the user's talk page AND one of either the article talk page or edit summary, but perhaps the talk/edit summary notification could be made optional as long as the user was clearly identified, such as a username like CocaColaOfficial, or whatever. Squigish (talk) 03:05, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
19. Support Although this progression is far from perfect, this progression still merits support because it has a good intent. This progression can be beneficial since transparency is sincerely the driving force behind a successful entity-- today.
20. Support As it is not possible to prevent paid contributions, disclosure is the best answer. I support disclosure with every edit, with a simple "paid edit" mention in commentaire, or something pertinent, as "WMF officer" or "[GLAM] officer" etc.. --Wuyouyuan (talk) 05:33, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
21. Ban all commercial editing of articles, implying blanket support for lesser strictures as long as this is not possible. Paid editors should not be allowed, and if they are they should disclose in the edit summary for EVERY EDIT. Free means free. Mr.choppers (talk) 06:03, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
22. but should say "compensation or other financial COI". See my discussion below. WikiAlto (talk) 07:23, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
23. Support I doubt there is a practical method of implementing something stronger, but if there were, I would support it. The encylopedias are built and maintained by volunteers, but skilful volunteers are not easy to find, and as the ranks of professional advocacy swell (due to Wikipedia's success) it is possible that the community could change from a body of neutral volunteers who work for the love of the project to a dwindling group of disillusioned volunteers who recoil from battling professionals. There is no inexhaustible supply of capable volunteers who can examine, debate, and take corrective action against teams of determined professionals. Johnuniq (talk) 08:52, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
24. Very strongly support, with changes This should be a completely unbiased, open academic resource. There is no place here for advertising, vested interests, or other forms of bias to the truth. Even to permit "paid for" posting when acknowledged is unacceptable, and can only lead to the kind of manipulation of truth evidenced in George Orwell's 1984 or, indeed, many current governments. As I see it, the problem arises in how to monitor/administer/"police" such a system. If Wikimedia has the means so to do, then please, let's see some very strong punitive measures against those who would seek to voice vested interest within this place. (There being a vast magnitude of difference between "interest" in the context knowledge of a field in which one has invested years of academic research, and "interest" in terms of business and profit. Mere advertising, or the often misleading claims associated therewith, contribute nothing of value to Wkikmedia, which should reflect only absolute historical fact and state of the art knowledge.) Pr0t0type (talk) 09:28, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
25. Very Strongly Support, But Should Go Further I very strongly support the proposed amendment, but also very strongly support that it go further, in the way suggested by Squigish, above at no. 12: "Support with changes Notice posted on the user's talk page should be mandatory. Ideally, we'd require notification on the user's talk page AND one of either the article talk page or edit summary, but perhaps the talk/edit summary notification could be made optional as long as the user was clearly identified, such as a username like CocaColaOfficial, or whatever." Justito (talk) 09:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
26. Support I recognize it's difficult to implement something stronger, but the scope should be always to limit as much as possible paying for editing. If somebody is getting money for editing, which should the motivation for people who want to contribute as a volunteer. - Joxemai (talk) 09:53, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
27. Very strongly support, with changes I recognize that there are several really difficult aspects to this, especially that the bad guys will not play the game, no matter what. I cannot comment on how this is capable of being handled. But, I agree that all three declarations must be made, not just one, to avoid ambiguity. However, I would go further. The reader needs to be able to see *what* has been edited in such fashion. This is simply a good-faith declaration, and even partisan writers who are honest will be happy to see the record corrected and take responsibility for it. It is a kind of referencing. If I become the source of any information I am happy to be associated with it. I see no reason why honest but compensated editors should not feel similarly. In a sense, there is no distinction to be made between an unpaid zealot and a paid press officer: they both have a motivation beyond unvarnished free information. But, establishing the moral code ultimately means that the user can make judgements as appropriate with more information as to provenance. No reader of anything, anywhere, on any subject whatsoever, should be uncritical. We are dealing with fallible humanity. Guide first; full disclosure is to be the norm. Editorial sanction follows eventually, no matter what, in the event of malfeasance. There are many eyes, fortunately. Hrdubwd (talk) 10:46, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
28. Strongly support ... with supporting of suggestions number 8 (Ausvirgo) *May be a special template, mandatory to use for paid contributors, with an optional extra parameter like this: *type = new article – means a new paid article was created *type = new section – means a new paid article was created *type = or no_parameter_at_all – means another single edited text *can handle the whole process – inclusive automatically categorizing the affected articles? - Jaybear (talk) 12:39, 23 February 2014 (UTC) *(... trying to correct automatic numbering ... Jaybear (talk) 14:13, 23 February 2014 (UTC))
29. Strongly support - I think disclosures should be made on the talk page for the article, and ideally on the actual article page, not only on the editor's personal page. Most users don't look any further than the article. We all have personal beliefs and biases that will affect our edits and the information we choose to add to a page and the information we choose to withhold, there's no such thing as an unbiased human! The majority of editors generally strive to make sure the Wiki page reflects the truth on that topic as they see it, but everything is going to be subjective by it's very nature. It issue with paid editors is that by definition are going to be loyal to their employer, not the truth on the issue. Really, ALL editors need to be making disclosure, but paid ones more so. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 92.9.60.100 (talk • contribs) 13:33, 23 February 2014 (UTC).
30. Very strongly support - Why stop with monetary compensation? Everyone should disclose all of their biases. If someone is a stock holder, stake holder, or benefit in any way from advancing a biased opinion that person should disclose that information. This should also include those who are receiving welfare when they are commenting on welfare/expanding government social programs. This should include anyone receiving government grants. Full disclosure is essential, and allowing anyone to advance their biased opinion tarnishes the reputation of Wikimedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.86.88.50 (talk • contribs) 14:28, 23 February 2014 (UTC).
31. Strongly support - I agree with the above editor; full disclosure should be practised and promoted. Anyone who has a vested interest in a particular topic should disclose that interest. Repeated editing of a particular page by people with an undisclosed bias should be dealt with by presenting a template on the page saying something to the effect of "This page is semi-protected due to editing by people with bias X. If you are a stakeholder in this issue you must not edit this page without disclosing your affiliation and motivations in the edit summary. Other users, please watch for the insertion of biased content." -- 27.33.71.62 00:54, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
32. Very strongly support - Wikipedia shouldn't tolerate paid contributions, nor should it tolerate dictated changes (e.g. from a company or religion ordering their employees/worshippers to remove any negative comments about them). 24.46.198.55 15:03, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
33. "Support, but should be stronger" Place large warning next to Wiki Logo on top banner containing full contact info including but not limited to email phone address etc. Unfortunately enforcement of this measure will add greatly to review of edits let alone enforcement of any new regulations. "English Wikipedia’s policy on neutral point of view requires that editing be done fairly, proportionally and (as far as possible) without bias; these requirements must be followed even if the contributor discloses making paid edits." the aforementioned line should serve the public interest in a fair and beneficial manner. Leaving simple but broad will ease interpretation. Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.74.196.182 (talk • contribs) 14:36, 23 February 2014 (UTC).
34. Strongly support - I strongly support the proposed amendment and would like to see it be stronger.209.6.131.125 15:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
35. Strongly support, every edited page should be transparent about the paid incentives of its editors, on talk, just as with declarations of interest in other reputable academic sources.86.157.186.165 16:29, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
36. Strongly support, but should be stronger. If employees of a corporation, or employees of a PR firm or "reputation defender" are editing the client corporation's Wiki page, future edits from the IPNs of the corporation or its hired advocates should be banned. Activist (talk) 17:04, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
37. Strongly support, as these flat-earthers who would bend this resource in exchange for compensation are an abomination. The point is made that there will always be a way around this. A call for an even stronger version of this needs to remember that you cannot get rid of corporations trying to modify our base of knowledge of our own health and science. Right here in this "vote" you can see that a user "Brandon" has been accused of editing the comments. I know of forums with better AI security... Wiki could be so much better if the obvious propaganda that gets re-pasted into here were auto-kicked or added to a growing known dis-informer list. See the strongly oppose section for the comment of opposition because "he was paid to say so." This grain of salt that has to be taken with this site could be well-diluted by a bit of spam flagging for users who show a log of repeatedly retrograding the same page and/or editing areas that are the core problem for this type of issue. I use other wiki's for technical coverage that are able to manually ban individuals who come in to only subtract. 199.58.100.38 17:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
38. Support - unfortunately I don't see a way to enforce this while still allowing anonymous contributions, but it's too big a problem to be left unchecked. Corona688 (talk) 19:42, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
39. Support. Although if need be, I'd just support the necessity of disclosure (depending on what the final decision is)
40. support it's a start, but I'd prefer all 3 rather than 1. Hobit (talk) 20:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
41. Support - But I think a brief tag should be required in the edit summary for *every* paid edit. 172.10.232.107 20:37, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
42. Support. Paid contributors are a serious problem, and the language should definitely be in place, but it seems "floppy" on both ends. On Wikimedia's side, I don't see how they could possibly enforce this without developing telepathy. And on the user's side, they must disclose paid contributions or else... what? So I'm voting in this section to support the change, but to also indicate that Wikimedia should not sit back on their laurels after doing so. This is only a first step. Aubri (talk) 20:40, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
43. Support. It's a good first step, but ideally, no one should get any compensation direct or indirect for editing or contributing to wikipedia 223.234.58.215 21:29, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
44. Strongly Support - The only trouble is that disclosure on the editor's page is burried. How about a This is a paid edit checkbox below the edit summary? DavidHarkness (talk) 21:38, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

    Hello DavidHarkness, thanks for the suggestion. I provided a little more detail on a similar "paid edit checkbox" idea below, and I would be interested to hear if you have other comments. Thanks! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:16, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

45. Strongly Support. The main article says "many believe" in a total ban on paid contribution. The strength of the ban is in direct proportion to the health of the society, so if the strongest ban is implemented, this will be coherent/resonant with a most healthy society, or the greatest collective wellbeing of the planet. It's hard to argue against greater collective wellbeing as societies have myriad feedback (karma) mechanisms. We know that most of what characterizes the dominant society today erodes our wellbeing, quite severely. The idea of moderation (or centrism in more "political" terms) is very prominent in the dominant society and so we can associate moderate policies with societal failures (this means Obama & company bear responsibility), and then resort to stronger policies, more reflective of the Hippocratic Oath: "Do No Harm". This oath contrasts sharply with the centrist "feel good about doing lesser harm than your evil twin". Ultimately it's our individual choices to come together and do what is best for all of us: Do No Harm. Complete ban on money. Thanks to Wikipedia for providing a collective platform to help us manifest our agenda of greatest collective wellbeing. Rtdrury (talk) 23:17, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
46. Strongly support. Suggest that any edits by an editor with a paid or other vested interest in the topic (such as a member of an activist group) be followed by a normal note/reference. (The number in the little superscript []'s.) At the bottom in the list of notes, the text says, "This section edited by Name working for Blah Blah" or words to that effect. On financial blogs and editorials, the writers often put a "Full Disclosure" at the bottom if they work for the company under discussion, and I think it's fair that Wikipedians should do the same. BAP in San Diego. 76.88.40.30 23:46, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
47. Strongly support. Several editors have made additional good suggestions, notably a "This is a paid edit" checkbox and a requirement for all types for relevant vested interests to be represented. I do not support a total, across-the-board ban on paid editing, as this totally removes any ability on the part of commercial entities, political figures, or anyone else subject to smear campaigns to offer a defense of any type, and that's unfair. Knowing someone is shilling for a company is sufficient for anyone to take their pronouncements with a grain of salt and a boulder of skepticism, without banning them from having a voice at all. Having said that, though, the acknowledgement of "vested interest" edits should be extremely prominent. Additionally, I would strengthen the protection further by allowing community vote on additional, non-compensated "vested interests" applicable to a particular article. Someone above used the example of abortion or creationism; religious or political affiliations required to be annotated should be votable. For example, comments made by a Buddhist to an article about American, "biblical literalist" creationism are most likely fairly neutral; they represent the views of someone who has religious faith but doesn't subscribe to the religion under discussion. The views of an atheist, or a born-again Christian, would be more potentially biased. Community voting on requirements for non-compensated edit bias allows the community to further police itself for factual accuracy and neutrality, without becoming needlessly exclusionary.Xenodox (talk) 00:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

    Hello Xenodox, thanks! A few other users have suggested the "paid edit checkbox", and I responded to a similar idea below. Best, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:16, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

48. Support. Wikipedia needs to root out this problem once and for. The process requires recognizing the problem and then having the will to do something about it. Wikipedia's trustees clearly recognizes the problem, so what you need to do now is to take the next logical step. Disclosure is a bandaid approach. Figureofnine (talk) 01:07, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
49. Ban all commercial editing of articles by or on behalf of corporations and businesses. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randstad_Holding for an example of how shit wikipedia is when businesses write their own articles. Ballchef (talk) 01:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
50. Strongly Support with mandatory disclosure on the paid editor's talk page and on the article page (an automatic "this article contains material from editors paid by parties with a stake in the subject of this article" banner) and in each and every paid-edit summary (an automatic "paid" tag). Failure to disclose by all three methods, or attempts to circumvent the requirements, to be a blockable offence taken as seriously as sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry. I used to spend many, many hours contributing to Wikipedia. I stopped permanently when I saw bought-and-paid editors trashing the project with impunity—and laughing about it. Additional background: Jimbo Wales' statement on the matter, Later discussion on Jimbo Wales' talk page, smug paid editor on CNN. Scheinwerfermann (talk) 02:17, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
51. Meenavora (talk) 02:36, 24 February 2014 (UTC) Strongly Support. Check box indicating financial ties would cover any kind of commercial interest and make it easy for readers and editors to make a note of it.
52. Support - Ban all of the editing described by Jimbo as "paid advocacy editing". Robert McClenon (talk) 02:41, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
53. Support and support banning of editing in receipt of benefit or which could be construed as editing in receipt of benefit. done and seen to be done. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:43, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
54. shut them DOWN! 98.249.58.72 03:33, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
55. Strongly support. I believe that paid editing is one of the biggest threats to the integrity of Wikimedia Foundation projects, especially Wikipedia. In the absence of other ideas to limit this practice, there should be mandatory disclosure on every edit summary, ideally with a flag to make searching for such edits easier. InverseHypercube (talk) 03:48, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
56. Strongly support, and it should go further. Paid "edits" to the people's encyclopedia are just commercial cruft. Ban them. Huw Powell (talk) 04:01, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
57. Support. Unpaid volunteers cannot be expected to compete with paid advocates. Even when paid advocates who adhere to the rules of Wikipedia (NPOV, etc.), there will still be a systemic bias in favor of the sources of their paychecks. Gamaliel (talk) 04:29, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
58. Strongly support. I've contributed financially to wikipedia in the past, but will never contribute again, if paid editing is allowed. And as a librarian, will strongly deprecate the resource as lacking transparency and being prone to commercial bias. 24.239.163.234 05:41, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
59. Strongly support and believe it should go further. As stated elsewhere, not many "average" users go to the "talk" page of an article. I do not believe that would be enough. Any paid edits should be noted inline or, at the absolute very least, at the BEGINNING of the references section of the article. The notation for paid edits should also be distinctive enough that the average user will understand that the modified/contributed content comes from a paid edit. Anything less DOES violate the integrity of this medium. acsteitz 06:22, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
60. Support However I think multiple identifications shoudl be required with the language You must make that disclosure in EACH of the following ways:
    1. a statement on your user page,
    2. a statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, AND
    3. a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions.

    --YakbutterT (talk) 07:07, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

61. Ban all commercial editing, please. The goals of Wikimedia projects and the advertising, promotion or marketing of corporations are mutually exclusive. (Plus I would like to point to the terms of use when I block users for spamming.) MER-C (talk) 09:49, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
62. I'm definitely agreeing with this amendment, and would like to see it stronger, if that can be done without inflicting the Law of Unintended Consequence upon the community. Paid and/or biased edits harm the entire project. I think this amendment is an excellent place to start, and hope that it passes. le loup-garou184.9.155.189 11:03, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
63. Strongly support. It is difficult enough for volunteer part-time and occasional editors to keep Wikipedia NPOV without having to battle constantly with people who have been paid by vested political or commercial interests to reverse NPOV full time. 82.69.9.159 11:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
64. Strongly support. Could have a flag on the main page of the article. OriginalKratos (talk) 12:52, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
65. Totally support this. Paid edits are bad for wikimedia as a whole. 90.152.2.53 13:58, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
66. Strongly support these new mandates, but I'd think that at least the "a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions." should be compulsory, not optional... Serag4000 (talk) 14:13, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
67. Support and feel the edit summary requirement should be compulsory Warfire (talk) 15:01, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
68. Strongly support this, which is clearly going in the right direction, and would suggest that consideration be given to showing in a prominent position in the article that it has been subjected to paid editing. (Maybe even an option to show it without all the paid edits, if technically possible?) I think there is a need for very strong enforcement, and the way in which this will operate needs to be considered carefully. The aim is of course to prevent the unscrupulous, greedy, ignorant, ill-informed, or confused from reducing the integrity of articles by inserting a bias, perhaps unwittingly, and we need to avoid making it needlessly difficult to apply proper edits. Yet, we need to ban editors and their financial backers after a small number of repeat offences. I think that there needs to be more attention to the enforcement process, but the intent of the policy is very good and has my full support. 82.20.69.157 15:14, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
69. I would support stronger disclosure: flagging of paid-editor edits to both Wikipedians – through tagging or coloring of paid edits in the contributions history – and the reader, by marking articles that have received paid edits in a way that is visible to the ordinary Wikipedia reader and makes it easy for them to check the contributions history. The last point is key to compliance with EU deceptive advertising law. I am, however, firmly opposed to a ban on paid editing as such, given the proven potential for bias in Wikipedia. We accord biography subjects considerable leeway when their biographies are unduly slanted against them: companies deserve exactly the same rights and consideration. In addition, paid edits are often minor edits – they include uncontroversial updates (new year's turnover figures, change in CEO, etc.), grammar fixes and so on. In general, paid editors should be welcome as long as they act transparently and that transparency extends to the reader as well. Andreas JN466 16:18, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
70. "Ban all of the editing described by Jimbo as "paid advocacy editing"". --Natkeeran (talk) 16:47, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
71. Strongly support, recommend that we create a mechanism that will allow pages from sponsored sources to be flagged for review for editors; might not be possible but would definitely make it easier for the community to evaluate paid edits for neutrality.Asmallwhitecube (talk) 16:54, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
72. Strongly Support Wikipedia must weed out paid edits because their presence calls the neutrality, accuracy and truthfulness of articles into question. Wikipedia has become the de facto reference in many places. Its high standards must be maintained and enforced. Rosattin (talk) 17:20, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
73. Strongly Support However the disclosure requirements of the current proposal are far too mild. Paid editing undermines trust in what is posted and unbalances debates hence a complete ban would be a better solution.Dejvid (talk) 17:37, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
74. Strongly Support. However, the disclosure must be on a per-edit basis: a statement on the talk page is not enough. This makes it easy for someone scanning edit history to see paid contributions. I suggest having a checkbox in the edit screen that could be set to a default value by the user. Grover cleveland (talk) 21:56, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
75. Strongly Suppor
76. Strongly Support - We need this, whether you call it Transparency, Sunlight, Full Disclosure or just doing the right thing. The question is, what are the remedies? If we find that a paid contributor is injecting bias and false information, I don't think it is enough that we remove their contribution. --Cdichter (talk) 22:31, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
77. Strongly Support Commercial editing is the bane of honesty. -- Eriksiers (talk) 23:42, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
78. Support But disclosure needs to be on the user page.#Binadaoc (talk) 00:19, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
79. Strongly Support Commercial editing IMO is simply destroying the Wiki values. I believe this is a step in the right direction but Commercial Editing should be removed entirely. 82.44.35.41 03:50, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
80. Support, & endorse Ausvirgo's suggestion above that "vested interest" edits should be readily searchable so that other editors can find and check them. A crude solution would be to require a specific string to be included in the edit summary (though that doesn't allow the editor to add it later if they forget). --Chriswaterguy (talk) 05:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
81. Strongly support banning all paid contributions, with a few reasonable exceptions, such as WMF, and paying a copy-editor to turn one's prose into good English. Any typical paid Wikipedia entry will almost certainly violate the entire spirit of Wikipedia and any good reference source, but introducing a point of view. (Alas, my Wikipedia membership does not translate into Wikimedia membership, so no 173.8.212.241 08:26, 25 February 2014 (UTC).
82. Support Disclosure should be required to be present on the user page in some noticeable form (at minimum), and editing by corporations should be limited as far as necessary to ensure only accurate information is published instead of allowing pages to become advertisements (to use a popular example). Intentional violations of this provision should result in consequences up to and including the revocation of a paid contributor's editing privileges, compensated or otherwise. A standard of decency should be upheld which would enable Wikipedia users to view pages which have edits by paid contributors without fear of bias therein. A conflict of interest should necessitate further considerations, most likely on a case-by-case basis. Wikipedia is the Free Encyclopedia; "Free" should mean more than just the lack of a price tag. TheDorianMode (talk) 08:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
83. Strongly support When a point of view is contributed, and someone is paid to contribute or is a volunteer representing a foundation/corporation/PAC etc. this fact should be noted. Those bogus info-adverts found on pages at other websites which provide actual news, etc. often begin their pretend articles with wording which makes it appear that unbiased factual content is being provided when in fact somewhere towards the end of the writing the reader will discover they are being asked for money for bogus medical cures, or the like. At the end of the day people will make up their minds about whether the information they have is useful to them or not, even if it is a result of a paid endorsement. The most helpful and useful way to encourage democratic discourse is to make sure everyone's cards are on the table -- at the very least this starts with admitting who you are and what you support.
84. Support - and change to "You must make that disclosure in ALL of the following ways: statement on your user page, AND a statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, AND a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions." Chrisboote (talk) 14:34, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
85. Lenrodman (talk) 14:45, 25 February 2014 (UTC)Strongly Support I believe this should be made very slightly stronger as above - paid contributors should have to note their status in ALL three ways, not any
86. Strongly Support - all paid contributions should be banned, period. 146.7.88.46 17:02, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
87. Support. Paid contributors should put at least in article talk that they are a paid contributor. Would also be interesting, if paid contributions were marked as such in edit summaries. -Mardus (talk) 17:43, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
88. strongly support. Am opposed entirely to paid contributions. Not concerned about people who may contribute to an article about their employer per se. As long as that contribution was not part of their job. -User:Earnestscribbler Feb. 25 2014
89. Support but needs to be stronger Implement specific disclosures on a PER EDIT basis at the actual location of the edit, not just on a user page. Most of the general public, myself included, do not go to user pages, edit history pages, etc. I understand those are important pages for editors, however not for Joe/Jane Public. When I use Wikipedia, I use it for what I believe is generally unbiased and factual information. It is a brief, direct, and immediate interaction. Maybe I'll click on a photo to see a higher resolution. Once I find the information I need, I then click on the reference link to find the specific source of information. That then typically concludes my interaction with Wikipedia. This is how the vast majority of people use Wikipedia (even less with Google and other search engines providing synopses directly in a search of information). So putting disclosures in a page buried somewhere in the Wikipedia infrastructure does NOTHING to help the typical, casual users from being preyed upon by corporate, government, and other paid affiliation entities.
90. Support but needs to be stronger. The problem is that clandestine paid editing will still almost certainly occur, and discovering it may be difficult to do. There need to be mechanisms to determine if this is occurring and for handling it if it does. Daft Creftsman (talk) 19:41, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
91. I oppose undisclosed contributions, whether paid or unpaid. A person's profile needs to list their affiliations and whether these are paid affiliations or unpaid. It would be ideal to mark all signatures that have paid affiliation with an indicator (previously suggested “$”)so anyone seeing such can track back and check. I also like idea of footmark indicating article has paid contribution. This could be expanded if collected to indicate which organizations have sponsored content. I believe the stipulation of listing that a contribution is sponsored can be and will likely be ignored. This sadly speaks to power of corporatocracy that rules at this time. Independent voices can and should be given additional weight, however it will be nearly impossible to ensure enforcement. I agree with the change in terms and hope a suitable manner of implementation will be created to offer ease of monitoring where contributions come from. --69.14.210.229 20:11, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
92. Strongly Support. Disclosure of the entity who payed for research or a study is standard practice for reputable scientific publications for good reason: Scientists know how easy it is for money to bias (consciously or not) the work of those being paid to perform it. Of course it's possible for Wiki editors to hide the fact that they're being paid to edit Wikipedia articles, but this change in policy should serve to address the biggest offenders with the greatest legal culpability (i.e. special interests with large PR budgets) by 1) Informing the public that an entity may be biasing (intentionally or not) or deceptively skewing an article; 2) Protect Wikipedia from being accused of failing to exercise due diligence for not requiring paid editors to disclose their working financial relationships with special interests. Just as scientists seeking publication for their work in reputable scientific journals disclose who paid for it, so too, anyone receiving compensation for the work they do in editing articles for Wikipedia should disclose who their benefactors are. Njancewicz (talk) 20:40, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
93. Support. This would be a small step in the right direction — necessary but not sufficient — in the way of retrieving Wikipedia’s relationship of trust with its users. It’s better than nothing — but it could be much better. Burbridge (talk) 22:53, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
94. Support but should be stronger. 99.247.254.182 23:40, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
95. Support this movement, but hope it is only the first of many attempts to decouple the wonderful resource of Wikipedia from specific commercial interests SlapAyoda (talk) 02:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
96. I strongly support the amendment, but I would like to suggest a change to it as well: In the interest of convenience to users who want to be aware of potentially biased editing, there should be a mantadory and universal form of disclosure. To best accomplish this with minimal invasiveness to the articles, and maximum convenience to the said keen users, I propose that the "statement on your user page" method of disclosure be required, not optional. This also makes it more convenient for users who have something to disclose, as they only need to note their disclosure on their user page, and no longer need to decide whether or not their disclosure applies to other edits they may make. We should leave it up to the community whether or not a user's disclosure applies in each instance. Scalethemachine (talk) 02:52, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
97. Support strongly The proposed TOU amendment is a good start - and the minimum requirement. Further, I see a necessarily adversarial relationship between the foundations of Wikipedia and paid POV editing (and this means any editing by PR firms). POV editing is part of the marketplace of ideas; paid POV editing is just part of the marketplace. - Neonorange (talk) 04:10, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
98. Support Strongly, Should be still stronger A reader should not have to go to a user page to find out that an edit was made by a paid contributor. This information should be noted on the article page itself. I agree with a suggestion above that there should be a check box in the edit signing area, to indicate that the edit is from a paid contributor. AND checking this box should automatically result in a note at the top of the article: "This article contains edits by paid contributors." --Pechmerle (talk)
99. I support the amendment but strongly believe that authors should be compelled to indicate their "paid" status in only one of the 3 ways proposed: by adding that information in "a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions". Why -- because this is the most obvious place for the reader to look and takes the least effort. The reader should see this information right with the Wikipedia entry and not need to go elsewhere for it.107.198.148.159 04:43, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
100. Support the amendment but believe that an edit by a paid contributor should be so noted in the article itself.75.47.108.198 05:43, 26 February 2014 (UTC) 05:11, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
101. /* Support, but should be stronger */ I support the strongest measures possible concerning transparency of paid submissions. It is a real shame that this issue even has to be considered, a very sorry state of affairs, indeed! (S.R. Strong)
102. Strongly support. I've seen innumerable articles 'plugging' all manner of 'causes' and 'self-interest' including, for example, a religious cult's lengthy page with numerous references. ALL such references came from the cult's own publications and, once redacted by a Wiki editor, only around 300 words remained. The editor initially expressed the opinion that the page would probably be taken down but, after consultation, the result described was achieved. I believe this was far too meek a response and the editor's implied, preferred course of action was the right decision. (Especially given the cult's pernicious messages, although I realise that this is subjective.) I'm also aware that the example is unlikely have to been paid-for in most of the conventional definitions already covered. Being sui generis it would come as no surprise if payment were deferred! There's little to prevent insidious organisations, large or small, from reappearing in different guises but that's no argument against expelling them, and expelling them again, once their 'covers are blown'. #Brian Benedetti (talk) 09:24, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
103. 60.225.108.160 09:37, 26 February 2014 (UTC)Strongly support, but should be stronger...who cares if it's not workable for capitalistic pursuits?
104. Strongly support, with declaration of paid contribution and of any other COI (paid or unpaid) in edit summary or article talk, not only on user page. Stanning (talk) 12:23, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
105. Mostly strongly support Excellent idea to require identification of paid edits. But allowing only identification on the user page is useless. I often check the edit list to better understand an article's history, and I do not want to have to wade through everyone's user page, to figure out if they're employed by something that could affect bias. And... You better disallow just identifying on user pages, for IP-only editors like me. Also, the point a previous poster had about people who change jobs, is also relevant. You don't require the user pages to specify the exact timeframes of employment, and I _really_ don't want to sort through whether the edit in question happened while the user was working for Company A or Company B when they made the edit - especially if they're on contract part time for both. Or work for a consulting company, paid for by several companies. Perhaps there could be a per-user auto-edit-sig, which adds "$Paid$: I work for xyz" to any edit, instead of just allowing the user-page notification. At the very least, there should be a uniform, computer-detectable way to quickly identify which edits are paid. And edits to a hobby page, not related to a job, shouldn't be seen the same way as a job-related edit, even if the user page says "I work for xyz".108.108.114.117 13:51, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
106. Strongly support. I basically agree with entry number 23 above that disclosure needs to be on the page itself, in most cases. However I disagree with those who want to ban all paid contributions. Often paid contributors are in the best position to produce a knowledgeable entry on a subject; for example a celebrity's staff person may have information or insights on the celebrity that would be valuable or at least interesting; similarly, an employee of a company that produces a product could well have valuable information on that product that was not available to someone outside that company. Captzucchini (talk) 13:58, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
107. Strongly support -- as a paid editor I have twice been in a position to add information about organizations that were not represented or not properly represented on Wikipedia. My role as a contributor of information is tracked and published and does not impede anyone else's role as third-party editor, arbitor or dissenter. Further, as a member of a professional organization -- the International Association of Business Communicators ([IABC]) -- I am bound by standards of professional ethics. It is good, therefore, for Wikipedia, for me and for my employer, that I disclose my role and do not engage in any deceiptful or fraudulent behaviour. I am, and others in positions similar to me are, in a position to contribute beneficially to the base knowledge captured in the Wikimedia projects. If done so freely and openly, you -- the unpaid contributors -- can monitor, correct or edit as required. Lastly, though it is understandable that the terms start with paid contributors, it must be noted that there are a lot of unpaid affiliations that are dearer to people's hearts than their jobs are (namely politics, religion and nationality) and these could more easily lead to someone posting fraudulently or seeking to manipulate the information to eliminate or generate negativity. Limiting the change now to paid contributors is good, but it still falls short of fully protecting the information from bias and manipulation. BrettTremblay (talk) 15:02, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
108. strongly support. The normal viewable page or media should contain a remark noting which content is paid and who paid for it. Most users do not track down who made a particular edit nor do they go to talk pages often. Thus, if it is not in plain site, the fact will be lost to most people. This is a very important issue to solve because one can not rely on the fact someone is being paid to write something implies any expertise. Anyone can be paid to write anything and there are plenty of people who would love to spread false information. Those parties who would benefit the most from the spread of false information are those who have the money to pay for the spread of that false information. -User:RobertStreet 10:51, Feb. 26 2014 (EST)
109. Strongly support -- Wikipedia will become totally untrustworthy if most of its editors are paid.Amyzex (talk) 16:09, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
110. Support and would like to see paid editing made much more difficult. I do not want to have to read the comments page for each article, and all the contributors' talk pages, to work out whether the article is paid for or not. That said, there might be exceptional circumstances, such as when no unpaid contributors can be found for a topic, but even then I would prefer no topic to a paid-for one. --Heron (talk) 16:49, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
111. Support disclosing paid contribution. Support the proposed amendments and add additional requirements. It is my opinion that the provisions you are proposing may not go quite far enough to inform casual readers of Articles that the “information” they are reading is being provided by a paid surrogate or vested interested party.I would suggest footnotes be required in the articles that either disclose an affiliation or link to one of the three proposed disclosures.I would further suggest adding to the list of who is a “paid contributor” principals who may not technically be “being paid” but none the less have a vested interested in the positivity / negativity of a segment.An example might be an article on a manufacturer of doohickeys. The owner of the company him or her self, not paid by anyone, might tout positive aspects of their product or dismiss negative aspects. This contributor would be no less prejudice than a paid contributor. Their content should be clearly noted so that people can judge for themselves it’s validity. IE: (4) Information provided by manufacturer.(5) Information provided by paid representative of manufacturer. Fbcnova (talk) 4:40, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
112. Support, but should be disclosed for each edit. It could be a check box like for Minor Edit or a recognized phrase appended to the edit comments like CMPEDT (compensated edit). Those compensated are often advocates, and greater attention must be paid by other editors to such edits. 137.112.42.240 18:20, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
113. Support Bluehotel (talk) 19:34, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
114. Strongly Support, but we should also require an disclosure for every edit, including the name of the paying corporation visible in the edit history. This will make it easier for other users to spot manipulative edits and will lead to a more trustworthy Wikipedia. Stealth edits by paid editors are a great threat to Wikipedia. --Laberkiste (talk) 22:24, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
115. Support. Disclosure is a step forward but insufficient. Coretheapple (talk) 22:46, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
116. Support. I see this proposal as the minimum that should be done to counter paid editing. It won't solve the problem by itself, but at least it'll make our position on it clear. I'd personally rather see paid editing prohibited altogether. Robofish (talk) 23:00, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
117. Support. This is a good first step, but any article touched by a paid editor should be identified by a header notice on the order of "This material has been modified by a paid contributor or editor and should be evaluated for bias." #Exfilia (talk) 23:21, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
118. Support, but expect and require later improvements. In particular, the amendment should require the paid editor to directly inform a moderator of that page (or a moderator of pages in the same category) of the edit and any details necessary to ascertain whether or not a COI exists. The proposed amendment falls short in this respect, as it is expected that a moderator will notice the disclosures wherever they may be simply by browsing. For commonly accessed and edited pages, this will most certainly be the case, but the raw quantity of pages on Wikipedia far exceeds the number of moderators. Thus, it is entirely reasonable to predict that the majority of paid edits will go unnoticed. Consider a new page created by a patent holder or a paid editor creating this page on behalf of the patent holder (e.g. pharmaceutical company creating a page about their new drug, or a web tech firm creating a page about their new application/site, etc.). This applies equally to the examples about political candidates creating or hiring someone to create a Wiki page about them. In all cases, the COI or bias can go unseen for a prolonged period of time, leading to a misinformed public. I feel that the core philosophy of Wikipedia relies on providing the best information on a topic to the general public. The onus should therefore be on the paid editor to ensure the best information is made available to the public, whether via their own edits, or those of an impartial moderator. 69.54.26.14 23:29, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
119. Strongly support, but should go much further. Wikipedia - and all other WM Projects - promulgate themselves as sources of Information, Knowledge and FACT: The very nature of the written word itself has been, virtually since human civilisation began, something of such reverence and sanctity, that anything which is written down is, simply because it is written, understood through mutual agreement to be THE TRUTH. Without wishing to get overly-post-structuralist about this assumption, the primum factum here is that we can have NO "Truth" without understanding that no-one can be completely objective in anything written, because we are all subjective individuals. However, Wiki projects have, since day one, aspired to (and in most cases attained) the highest and most scholarly standards: this means that every nugget of info given by every contributor, must be appropriately cited to the same scholastic standards - precisely to show that it has not simply been included into these living compendia of the Knowledge of Humanity at the whim of one singular writer TO SERVE SOME PERSONAL MOTIVE - regardless of whether the writer/contributor (OR whomever they represent) will receive compensation of any kind. ANY practice of this type (viz. adding or changing content at the behest of another person or company with the intention of manipulating how it may be inferred by readers) is antithetical to the very ethos of ALL the Wiki projects - exactly as it would be in any other Open-Source and/or regularly-reprinted Dictionary or Encyclopaedia! Would this even have become an issue in need of discussion for, say, the Oxford English Dictionary, or Encyclopaedia Britannica? What if either of those publications allowed anybody the ability to, for example, add in a brand name into a digital version of the dictionary to spread awareness of its existence, or to change an entry about a certain new prescription drug, for example, by skewing the information in the company's favour, regardless of whether they *'d that entry as such? Not a snowball's chance on a BBQ! And as Wikipedia (et al.) continues to Increase the prestige and global reputation of its mellifluous role as The Guide to the Living Zeitgeist of the 21st-C Human experience, we must all strive to help keep it as impartial, neutral and uncompromised as possible. IMO this means that THE ONLY acceptable contributions/edits to any Wikimedia article can only be of a purely factual nature: e.g. corrections to the spelling of names, dates of birth, biographical/professional achievements and relevant personal information. And such facts as these can be added by any person, and furthermore since this info cannot bias the content, all that would ever matter is whether such info is accurate and can be substantiated - which wholly negates the need for any info having potential to bias the content to be declared; it would simply (continue to) not be permissible anywhere in wiki-world! pompyxavier
120. Strongly support I'll borrow from Pstemari: "Disclosure should be required in the edit notes, _and_ a footnote should appear on the page proper for any article which has been the subject of paid edits." Qleem (talk) 03:44, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
121. Strongly support Even without paid editors we have a problem with WP:COI, and with paid editors (e.g., representing PR organizations) things would get out of hand and the reliability of this resouce would suffer.--50.179.157.5 04:34, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
122. DONT MAKE US PAY!!!222.155.33.165 04:09, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
123. Strongly support. All significant academic publications/journals, and presentations at scientific conferences, and so on, require such disclosures. Failure to require it for wikipedia lessens its authority. I would go further and require a declaration of all potentially conflicting interests (not just payments). For example, a spouse who is a company director, or a major shareholding, would be considered potentially conflicting interests in an article on the relevant company or industry. I disagree with the concept that there are sufficient checks and balances in the editing process to result in an overall even balance - repeated assertions backed up by biased data will often gain undeserved credence. I would like to see a checkbox, which must be selected to assert 'no interests to declare', unchecked by default. The edit should not be committed until either the checkbox is checked, or the interest details are completed. Obviously this is dependent on honesty, but a person who edits and fails to declare an interest, and who is subsequently found out, will likely find their future edits subject to extra scrutiny. Incidentally, I see many people seem to be misinterpreting the question at hand and believe it to be an offer by Wikipedia to pay for expert articles Stagv (talk) 04:42, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

     Hello , thanks for the suggestion. As a cross-reference, we are discussing the "checkbox" idea below under Tag the edit and page: not just the user page. Best, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:31, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

124. Strongly Support, with proviso I agree with the need for disclosure. I also feel that scenarios where the funds/payments/whatever transaction is involved is motivated by religion or politics should not be permissible, since it is virtually impossible for anyone to be wholly impartial/neutral when invoking politics, least of all those paid to represent a certain party or belief. This is not my argument against any one faction, but rather, a blanket argument against the topics and anyone paid to support any argument within either. I would also like if there were something of a tic box on user profiles which flags what topics might fall within their employed opinion (for lack of a better term), thus empowering us to put a flag on any documents of that nature showing that it was edited by someone with conflicting interests. Admittedly, harder to code than simple honesty would be, but this is 2014 we're living in... Mychyl (talk) 04:57, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
125. Support but I have three areas of concern: (1) I think that any article that has been edited by a paid contributor should have a specific tag at the top to indicate that status. (2) I think there needs to be more clear punishment or sanction provisions. The obvious candidate that comes to mind is a big and visible tag that will be permanently added to any article when it is discovered that a paid contributor has been editing the article in violation of the disclosure requirements. (3) I think there should be a challenge mechanism to question the neutrality of a contributor, but I admit that I am kind of stumped how to implement this. I think what it calls for is a mechanism to look for patterns of apparent bias in a particular person's contributions, and I think that is somewhat beyond the current technology. Shanen (talk) 06:56, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
126. Support but I think it should go further to say that Wikimedia will prosecute both the individual and organization involved should they either attempt to conceal such an arrangement or if said arrangement damages the integrity of projects. This is a community, and everything here is supposed to be free in both a monetary and metaphorical sense. Preserving validity and neutrality should be our top priorities Runrun395 (talk) 09:49, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
127. Strongly Support Am opposed entirely to paid contributions. The thin edge of the wedge L-Bit (talk) 09:59, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
128. Strongly Support but should be stronger. I agree with the proposals put forward by contributor no. 8. ~jgrog14
129. Support I support this requirement, and wouldn't mind it be made stronger. Mckaysalisbury (talk) 14:54, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
130. Support, and policy should be stronger: Ideally, paid contributions would be banned entirely, even if this policy slowed the growth of Wikipedia. Wikipedia's strength comes entirely from its impartiality; if that impartiality is jeopardized the entire project loses its purpose (yes, there are certainly instances of partiality currently, and they must be eradicated; in my view allowing paid contributions, even if they are disclosed, is a needless weakening of the project). That said, if the Board concludes that paid contributions cannot be banned entirely, any paid contribution should be disclosed not only on the user profile pages or edit logs, but in the actual articles as well. Users (not just editors) need to be aware of paid contributions. Finally, GLAM employees should ALWAYS disclose their affiliation when writing about their employers (as should any other employee writing about their employer!), REGARDLESS of whether they're being paid explicitly for writing about the employer or not. The fact that an individual is on an organization's payroll is plenty enough of a conflict of interest, even if they are not being explicitly paid for their contribution. 209.6.55.166 16:08, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
131. Strongly Support, and I also believe that paid editing is a practice which should be heavily restricted if not completely prohibited. While paid editors may have access to information some do not in certain circumstances, it is important to remind oneself of the many instances in which paid editors may reside on teams which will fabricate information for citations to allow biased material to be seen as factual, or in certain cases material which has no credence. This is a group of people which we, as an encyclopedia which puts blood, sweat, and tears into maintaining a neutral point of view, go against the very standards that this wiki is founded on. I will go further to add, however, that I do not believe that someone who works for an organization that also edits or creates an article about that organization should be classified along with paid editors, as long as they publicly disclose their relationship with the entity. There is a very strong distinction between someone using their insider knowledge to better construct a more accurate portrayal of the organization they work for versus someone given incentive to portray that organization in the best light possible. It won't be easy to enforce paid editing while allowing unpaid editing from members of an organization, so I can see less incentive to completely ban paid editing, and more to keep it under heavy restrictions. Regardless, I strongly support the proposed measures. Idarin (talk) 18:51, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
132. Support and also would like loosened criteria for WP:SALTing of PR articles I will accept this amendment but the biggest issue, IMO, isn't gaming of existing articles but creation of entirely new articles that are promotional pages. I would also like to see articles that are successfully AfD'ed with a consensus view that they are WP:PROMOTIONAL be subject to routine administrative WP:SALTing. As it stands now, they simple get recreated when the original AfD nominator isn't looking. BlueSalix (talk) 19:16, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
133. 80.195.213.4 16:27, 27 February 2014 (UTC)Strongly support. Also I consider that the scope of 'compensation' should be broader; to include 'favour', 'benefit', 'advantage' etc although such things would, in practice, be very hard to detect and then prevent. EG the editor is not 'paid' but gets free use of a luxury holiday villa.
134. Strongly Support and should be stronger. All kinds of paid editing has to be forbidden, as it can be seen as as marketing strategy. Wikipedia is not dedicated to advertising AT ALL. Wikipedia MUST remain free, encyclopedic and independent. Bozo fr (talk) 22:03, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
135. Strong Support. The commodification of information is already out of hand. Marketers and editors working in a "reputation management" capacity are simply astroturfers when they do not disclose their COI. Every edit they make should be disclosed as a Compensated Edit, and the article should be tagged. - CompliantDrone (talk) 22:50, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
136. Vehement Support. Paid editing is fundamentally against the spirit of Wikipedia and must not be allowed. Blitterbug (talk) 02:44, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
137. Support the idea but rule needs changes Here are my problems with this amendment: First, consider that Amazon.com forbids paid reviews and requires people to disclose if they received a free book to review, but how many people follow that rule? As a freelancer, I have seen many jobs for paid book reviews that are to be posted on Amazon. Even people receiving the book for free do not disclose it. (How many kindle books are offered for free and people give a review afterward?) I like to consider myself very unbiased even when being paid, but I would find it difficult to slam someone's book if they paid me for a review or even gave it to me free - instead I would just not comment. For this reason, the only paid reviews I do are for a reader service that allows me to disclose I work for them. But not everyone has that level of recognition when it comes to their own bias. Let's also consider how many people use or even edit Wikipedia compared to how many are responding to this. That is about how many you can expect to follow this rule. Based on what I know of history, rules that are made without enforcement or minimal enforcement encourage bigger and worse crimes. This change in the Terms of Use is going to be just as difficult to enforce as those rules on Amazon (and Amazon should at least know some of the people who got it for free). Second, say the non-paid board member of an organization hires me to write a page, but then he wants to post it himself. (I don't write/edit Wikipedia, but there are many freelancers who do.) This person would not have been paid and since I am not posting it, the payment would not need to be disclosed. However, because the freelancer knows how to write better, it could be far more emotionally convincing without appearing biased than if the board member wrote it himself. Third, I just bought a refurbished computer. Say I want to make an edit and I have not been paid, but the person who used this computer before posted he/she was a paid editor in association with my IP. I might never know I was making edits that were marked as "paid" when in fact they were not paid edits. Or say I am a paid editor and I see something I am not being paid to edit that needs to be changed? A blanket statement on my page would not distinguish between the two. Fourth, if a third party hires me just to make grammatical edits to their page, I can't see the need to disclose it. Can I show bias by adding a comma between two adjectives? I think it would be best to just create a blanket statement in the terms of use that says editors need to disclose if they are affiliated with or being compensated in some way to make edits. Then, as many others have stated, when a person is editing or creating a page, force them to choose "compensated," "affiliated with," "not compensated or affiliated with," or "grammar/spelling edit only" to save changes. This way you are making everyone aware that disclosure is necessary, and you are forcing them to make a moral choice each time they post. I would also like to see a "click here to view compensated or affiliate content" at the top of the appropriate pages and have compensated/affiliate content then show in perhaps red or red/green if the user wanted to view it. Since I am a freelancer and get paid to edit people's writing all the time, I can see the value of paid editing. Paid editors tend to create and edit articles faster because they do not have to fit time in around their jobs to do it. There will always be the concern of bias as long as humans are doing the writing, so claiming that only (and all) those paid or affiliated have extreme bias is self-deception. After all, any book that has been published was written by an author who received payment. To those who are concerned that Wikipedia will change because people are being paid in association with it, consider any other non-profit organizations: If they pay a freelancer to help in one area does it mean they no longer need volunteers? Or does it mean that volunteers no longer should give their time because someone is getting paid to do some of the work? I hope not. Few non-profits would survive without a combination of volunteers and paid workers (including freelancers). However, disclosure is important because it allows those reading the article to make an informed decision about it.173.109.142.219 04:47, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
138. Support Further Restrictions I came here with concerns 44 and 55 in mind, but after reading all opinion sections I have strongly ended on the side of severely imposing stringent limitations on this aspect if it is something we come to the conclusion we need to allow at all. There is a case to be made that slightly less information some of the time is better than sometimes questionable information all the time, but even with that aside I feel as if there is enough to worry about as is. To use one of the first examples from the Opposed side, if a member of the Conservative Party is the main editor for their page, I'm concerned about some bias slipping through even unintentionally on occasion. The response shouldn't be to look at that problem to then justify allowing new problems of a similar nature to happen, but to find creative new ways to prevent that problem from happening whether it be a personal OR paid standpoint. We all edit by choice, and while there's certainly always more to be done the answer should come from more Wikipedia meetups and edit parties to encourage activity and get new people interested in editing, not introducing a new line of editors who might be of a lower quality simply to get the work done - to me, that goes against the whole spirit of Wikipedia. 50.139.95.65 05:08, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
139. Strong Support. I believe this behaviour is reprehensible and should be illegal and classed as fraudulent behavoiur. I believe there should be a section on each wikipage that is coralled/ring fenced for paid contributions so it is clearly marked as such. No need necessarily to declare who is paying but perhaps it is to be encouraged as it may lend veracity to the comments if say it's from a competitor company about a product etc.
140. Strong Support. I believe that amendments like this one will be a recurring event, since the advertising business is too well paying to not look at ways around any restrictions. The weaker the amendment, the sooner this issue will recur. Lost Boy (talk) 06:26, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
141. Support, but should be stronger. I hope this is rule is made very strong, and that mechanism(s) is put in place to detect the commercial nature of any such editing, and to automatically flag it in the text as it appears in the encyclopedia page, so that it's clear to everyone. #Dcpleland (talk) 12:08, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
142. Strongly Support. I think "a statement on your user page" is not sufficient. Documentation should be obvious on the changed page itself, either through the update comments or the talk page. However, I do not support a full ban because there are legitimate reasons why this might need to happen. For example, an artist's agent might need to correct false information. Raran75 (talk) 14:38, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
143. Strongly Support
144. Strongly Support. Paid contributions--in ANY form--should be CITED AND HYPERLINKED INLINE. It's not enough just to list this critical information at the bottom of the page or on a different one altogether. The potential for information bias needs to be SEEN IN CONTEXT. Wikipedia is about accurate, crowd-sourced information that serves all, not an individual entity's bias that serves only their interests. Keep up the great work.
145. Strongly SupportDisclosure rules help, though, and I'd like to see a flagging requirement (I suggest "$") for every paid edit and tools for giving them extra attention.--Aruck (talk) 18:49, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
146. Strongly Support Wikipedia was created as a community edited encyclopedia, paid editing should be quite limited and all such edits must be cited/flagged as such. Jgurtz (talk) 19:37, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
147. Strongly Support I believe that any person editing a Wikimedia page who is paid to do so should be required to make that plain, and the notice should appear on the page edited.Saintonge235 (talk) 20:33, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
148. Strongly Support Preventing any COI is good and because the temptation for paid edits is so high, I think the policy could be stricter. Yakatz (talk) 21:40, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
149. Strongly Support Users must be able to identify scam content of paid-for articles for commercial, religious or political institutions. That would discourage such instutions from placing tainted articles in the first place. If possible, Wikipedia should stay free from all paid-for content. SW2001 (talk) 22:32, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
150. 96.42.117.51 23:04, 28 February 2014 (UTC) I basically ditto this: "There is an extreme likelihood that contributions which are paid for, but intentionally not disclosed as such, do not serve the public interest in a fair and beneficial manner. When considering the value of the contribution of content to the public on balance with the value of dissemination of the content, there is at least an implied conflict of interest that the balance will tend to serve the more private interests of the paid contributor. If it is accepted that this is the case more often than not, it is hard to imagine the expected outcome as a net positive for Wikipedia.

     As repeated real life examples illustrate, undisclosed paid editing can have the unintended effect of causing negative public relations issues for companies, clients, and individuals. The press follows such stories closely. Failing to include a disclosure with a paid contribution may lead to a loss of trust with the broader public as well as the Wikimedia community. To maintain goodwill and to avoid misunderstandings, transparency and friendly cooperation is the best policy for those being compensated for Wikimedia contributions."

     And also saw someone else mention that if it weren't too much hassle a alternate version of each article could be provided without paid edits so I ditto that too. 96.42.117.51 23:04, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

151. Strongly support, with more disclosure This is a no-brainer. But disclosure should be required to be ALL THREE...user page, talk page, and edit summary...AND the article should automatically get a note on it saying "some of this content is from paid editors, see Talk page and search edit summaries for details". And there should be an easy way to search for "all paid edits to this page" and "all paid edits by this person". --Jason C.K. (talk) 23:55, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

     More requirements...should also be an easy-to-click link with each article, "list all paid editors of this page". --Jason C.K. (talk) 23:59, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

152. Strongly Support, but should also:

     i) require inclusion of a "disclosure" link on the wiki page itself at the end of any such non-trivial edit, which would link to the required disclosure (e.g. on the user's page).

     ii) be expanded to cover other vested interest situations - e.g. the current proposal doesn't seem to apply to the owner of a business making an edit, even if he/she has paid someone to draft the edit for them.

     • Members of religions should be required to make disclosure where relevant to the edit - e.g. abortion, euthanasia, theology, evolution, creationism.

     • Ordinary members of political parties not necessarily required to make disclosure, but actively involved members to do so, where relevant.

     iii) "vested interest" edits should be readily searchable so that other editors can find and check them.

     184.166.75.242 01:19, 1 March 2014 (UTC)Becky

153. Agree with most here. Although some of the entries so far are somewhat contradictory of each other, I agree with the general direction of a tougher statement. Thx especially to the list: Require inclusion of a "disclosure" link on the wiki page itself, Expanded to cover other vested interest situations, and "Vested interest" edits should be readily searchable.Gloucks (talk) 03:54, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
154. Support & make stronger I'd like to see a checkbox in the signup process that would identify & assign a paid contributor userclass to the account. This could then be used to flag all edits in the edit history/add a comment in the summary. In fact I'd go so far as to revive the Pending Changes concept and ensure that all edits from a paid contributor userclass do not automatically go live, but are held pending review from a non-paid account holder. regards --188.220.165.128 04:29, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
155. Very Strongly support. This is long overdue. Nothing is more annoying than finding what was once an objective and informative article that has been hijacked by some political cause or industry or corporate interest. To further that point, I think to some extent some unpaid volunteer activists should also be required to disclose when they have decided to use wiki pages as their own personal lobbying platform. I was recently pleased to see that some entries have teams of objective experts and academics safe guarding the accuracy and content of certain hot button topics. genetically modified foods for example. But, should these teams of academics and experts really have to devote their life to keep others from trying to rewrite history or well established scientific facts? Its become very clear that a large number of these contentious topics do indeed have politically motivated operatives trolling wiki, watching for any changes or corrections to facts that would run counter to their organizations political goals. If you don't believe me, just try adding well cited references to court precedences that support the 2nd amendment to the US constitution to any wiki entry related to gun control and see how long it takes for it to be deleted. What also needs to be brought under control is when journalists use their own editorials as a cite-able reference to insert their own personal opinions into wiki as fact. Maybe it is time for at least some kind of rudimentary peer review before a wiki author is allowed to use themselves as a citation source.
156. Support and would prefer a policy where any admission or discovery of paid contributions would result in an indefinite block on a user's account. That any such content exists within the Project is contrary to its entire existence. Abusers should be revealed and tracked with extreme prejudice. The sad bare minimum is being proposed here and it is hopefully on a start. These changes were due 5+ years ago. Tstormcandy (talk) 10:00, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
157. Support and beef it up further. the problem of paid editing is simple: even POV pushers usually have a day job to do, so the "force of arms" between them and the community is at least of the same order. If pimping your customers' profile on Wikipedia is your day job, you have not only more incentive but also more time. Any policy on paid editing must include an absolute right of veto for the community on any project, to reject proposed content and restrict the editor. This policy should more strongly state the fact that it covers the minimum required disclosure and does not in any way support or guarantee that paid edits will be allowed. JzG (talk) 10:42, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
158. Strongly support -- may not go far enough The essence of believability is disclosure, but not only in cases where the activity is paid. Washington Post reporters are paid, yet they strive for objectivity in the news pages of their publication, and their reputation stands on the basis of a long tradition of objectivity and public service. To the contrary, what has become even more troubling of late to users about posts in Wikipedia are the deliberate -- and often successful -- efforts by people adhering to one strongly held social or political point of view to defame and miss-characterize the work of another entity holding a different point of view. Material is often selective chosen and cited, with no opportunity to rebut the claims of miss-informed and inaccurate accounts that are cited in support of defamatory statements. Without the opportunity by organizations so impugned to respond and offer the alternate point of view, the impression left is worse than false; it detracts from allowing a true seeker of knowledge from having the information necessary to form their own, well-considered point of view from two sides of an argument. What should happen is the application of this amended rule to the disclosure of past posts that are identified by other, more transparent contributors, to root out the biases they contain. Even the most rudimentary PR campaign about the adoption of the new rules would burnish the Wikipedia brand and infuse a much higher degree of confidence in its material. Moreover, when first-party knowledge is present, it should be permitted to be used to refute inaccuracies. much as they are in the context of a traditional news ethic. With the proposed disclosure amendment, such transparency can actually clean up the larger issue of lack of trust that must unfortunately come from never allowing those closest to an event or fact to comment or correct. Newzmaven (talk) 17:38, 6 March 2014 (UTC)Newzmaven
159. Support and I think that readers should be informed as well, in form of a disclaimer at the top of relevant articles. Asteiner (talk) 12:01, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
160. Support. Also, would it be possible to incorporate personal financial liability for violation, in addition to suspension or ban?Patent.drafter (talk) 13:52, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
161. Support. Me parece bien, pero.... Me agrada la idea de que se nos sea retribuido a los buenos editores, pero habrá que tomar en cuenta que no todos son acertados, y no todos hacen el mismo tipo de contribuciones. Es decir, en mi caso solo periódicamente hago correcciones y/o aportaciones a una sola página; no me interesa cuánto pudiera yo recibir por ello, pero me doy cuenta de que otros contribuyentes no son confiables. Propondría o agregaría un verdadero análisis de la idea, y hacia quienes va dirigido. Ademas, sería mejor si dieran amplitud de lengua. || Good, but no good enough. Aileen Carreño 08:16, 1 March 2014 (CST)
162. ""Support"" Transparency is necessary and I think this first step is better than nothing. I believe that every single paid edit should be noted in the talk page. There should also be a warning (as it occurs with articles flagged as 'poor quality', 'spoilers' or 'controversial', whenever paid edits where a substantial part of the article ('substantial' would have to be defined. I am also wondering if there could be a way for non paid edits and edits *not* from an interested party can take precedence over paid ones, to avoid paid editors taking control of articles... 173.70.129.18 14:31, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
163. Strongly Support I agree with Yakbutter's (#57) statements that EACH requirement must be met. Additionally, I would like this information to be immediately visible to the everyday wikipedia user in the form of a notice at the top or bottom of the page or section which was written by someone receiving payment for their contribution. 95.113.158.111 (talk) 15:54, 1 March 2014
164. I agree that paid contributors can enhance content, but the contributor must be clearly indicated in the article (red footnote, instead of blue for example). As a casual user, I feel the indication should be uniform across all content. The reason for this flag (with hot link to the contributor) must be payment, but could also be a vested interest in the topic by affiliation or contribution history. Not being an editor, I rely on the internal structure of Wikipedia to ensure accuracy and fairness in content. If this amendment can be worded to further these goals I am strongly in favor.24.5.12.32 17:59, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
165. I strongly support the amendment, but would like to see it go further. If it is learned that a PR firm or individual made money submitting edits, the content should be removed. Wikipedia already suffers from individuals having their own agendas posting material. If you have paid material it becomes advertising or propaganda. I do rely heavily on Wikipedia for an impartial view (which I usually get). But the volunteers can never keep up with companies or organizations with deep pockets.93.91.49.198 19:32, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
166. I do believe that paid contributors are different from others with an (ideological) agenda in that companies and governments can put a large amount of money in distortion. I have the area of pharmaceuticals / drugs in mind here in particular. However I do believe there sould be a clause in the TOU, that makes commercial agents liable to pay damages to the project, should they engage in any POV editing or do not state their conflict of interest as required. This will not directly increase enforcability but will underline the aspect of illegality, potentiating the reputation damage. Also identity verification for members with extended rights should be discussed in that context. Any contributor would agree to that contract when submitting an edit. [UserTH, Konstanz, Germany] 134.34.218.137 20:32, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
167. Support, but disclosure requirements should be clearer to make sure that paid edits and paid editors are visible and remain visible to other editors. With the current proposal, disclosure statments could easily become practically invisble (by later edits on talk or user pages). I would like a new checkbox 'I am currently being paid to edit', just like the 'minor edit' checkbox. Chrisahn (talk) 20:38, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

     Hello Chrisahn, as cross reference, we are discussing the "checkbox" idea below under Tag the edit and page: not just the user page. Thanks! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:31, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

168. Support. Should be stronger. Paid writers may be presenting a NPOV, but the appearance of a conflict of interest is high. #Saphil (talk) 02:12, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
169. Agreed, but it does need to be stronger. Possibly one way would be to allow users to not see paid edits (though programming this would be a nightmare). UrbanTerrorist (talk) 03:25, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
170. Support. Suggested modification: College credit should be expressly included as compensation for contribution; it should not be a substantive problem for anyone involved if disclosed (and, if feasible, the sort of class for which credit is being offered should also be disclosed, as it would facilitate inquiry into the expertise or lack thereof informing the edits, which might then indicate potential illicit agenda in the editing).
171. Alakhras (talk) 10:20, 2 March 2014 (UTC) Ban all commercial editing of articles by or on behalf of corporations and businesses
172. Strongly support, as strengthened in comment 11 above by Ausvirgo. We don't need to ban. We need transparency, and for that transparency to be obvious but not distracting. Learjeff (talk) 14:58, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
173. There should be the severest of censure for anyone who would defile wikipedia with paid contributions. There is already an abundance of users willing to trounce others for edits (even a talk page, as was my encounter with one of these "paid contributors" and I've simply never bothered to make another edit in over five years). I've no desire to waste my time contributing only to have some low-life remove my contribution(s) with no discussion whatsoever and such paid contributors will most certainly do just that anytime someone would dare defile their paid contribution. 68.235.189.48 15:21, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
174. Strongly support and agree that "paid" should be shown (also) on the actual wiki page. 92.225.129.169 16:17, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
175. Strongly support, but paid editing shouldn't be allowed at all. Thin end of wedge, slippery slope, foot in the door etc. I've spent time reading the adverts and requests from companies for paid articles and then reading the resulting articles; they aren't of any benefit to Wikipedia and are only designed for the benefit of those companies or entities that commissioned them. The paid editors go to great lengths to find ways of skirting policies so that they can get biased and complementary info into the articles without technically breaking the five pillars. Why do we actually want paid editors editing Wikipedia when almost all of Wikipedia's great content was and is created by normal non-paid people. Wikipedia doesn't need it, it's not beneficial to Wikipedia, it results in bad articles and biased information given to the world. Ban it. Don't get this (talk) 18:12, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
176. Wikipedians who engage in paid editing should be blocked on sight, full stop. People who engage in similar activities have only one thing at heart, and it's neither neutrality nor the sustainability of the project.--Underlying lk (talk) 21:39, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
177. Strongly support. Suggest that hint user page is not considered sufficient because it's too tedious to look up for the aveage reader. Enforceability remains a problem, of course - however, there are ways and means to find out ... - All in all, in my opinion this comes 5 yeares (at least) too late, but better than never ... 84.143.6.147 22:10, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
178. Strongly support. last thing we want is info because people paid for it to be
179. Strongly support We dont want Govt spin here on WP or big corps or national interests like Israels paid bloggers. Snowden has shown its here. PS agree with below articles should be flagged ie Syrian Ukraine if required. SaintAviator (talk) 23:34, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
180. More than just disclosure should be required to address the problem fully. Thanks, 108.18.50.243 00:06, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
181. Strongly support and I'd like to see some flag on articles - "This article may be biased" or similar. Paid editing is likely to be non-neutral, so the read should see that, without having to hunt through Talk or Contributors pages. Drpixie (talk) 01:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
182. Strongly Support - Suggest NO Paid Editing Whatsoever! Thanks for letting me voice my opinion. --- BBQDad (talk) 04:14, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
183. Yes, I more than support this. If there is a way to do it, I would like to see paid editing banned and strict controls placed on politically, commercially and religiously motivated edits, unless this would have side-effects that would be too destructive to Wikipedia. The information that something is a paid contributions should be visible on the page that was edited and the edit, itself, should be bracketed by a tiny symbol in superscript (e.g. <pd>), so I can know, as I read, what words have a paid POV. At first such symbols might seem disruptive but I'm sure it wouldn't take long for users to get used to these symbols and be able to read past them. I assume they would be noticed again once the user has decided that some particular information they're reading is of specific importance to them and they would check for the symbol. For example, if I were to read about diabetes, once I would come to diet descriptions, I would want to know if any of them are paid for, this could save my health. In all, announcing who is paid within the text would probably be a huge wake up call to users to always read and learn while employing a high degree of discernment and critical thinking. Thank you for the opportunity to add my opinion. Lilly-Rose Lazarus (talk) 07:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
184. Strongly Support - it should be made evident in the page itself, not just in the User's page - so rather than the option of appearing in one of three places it should be compulsorily appear in all 3 locations.79.68.255.143 13:37, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
185. Support, but I think there should be a simple binary disclosure on each edit (via a checkbox, say). The details can be provided on the user page, etc., as laid out in the proposal. Marfire (talk) 08:36, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

     Hello Marfire, a few other users have also suggested a "checkbox" idea, so we are discussing below under Tag the edit and page: not just the user page. Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:31, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

186. Strongly Support However I should wish there were to be a manitory disclosure for paid editing
187. I believe contributions paid by anyone, probably except of WMF, should be disabled at all.199.83.103.139 11:45, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
188. Support the proposal, but a simple disclosure mechanism, for both editors and readers would be a useful feature.SuW (talk) 16:05, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
189. Support, but should be stronger. Vested interests should not be allowed to edit, even with disclosure, since the disclosure will often be overlooked - such is the power of what we see 'in black and white' and the weakness of our attention to caveats, disclaimers and details. #86.25.20.184 16:12, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
190. Strongly support the proposal and its intention, but I believe your definition of compensation is too narrow and allows the potential for undisclosed conflicts of interest to remain. I would strongly suggest that you refer to the language used in various treaty definitions of bribery (e.g. OECD Convention) when considering how to define compensation. In particular compensation should include "anything of value" (not just money, goods, services) and disclosure should be required where the contributor has obtain, will obtain, expects to obtain or hopes to obtain anything of value in return for their contribution. In addition, and to stop an obvious loophole, where a contributor subsequently obtains, is promised or solicits compensation after making a contribution (even where there was no intent to do so at the time of making the contribution), then the contribution must be marked with the appropriate disclosure immediately. I think you will need to deal explicitly with the issue of paid edits by wikipedia staff (i.e. creating a specific exception to this group), I presume you have other rules to avoid potential conflicts of interest / political and commercial influence of wikipedia paid editors.217.155.35.76 20:07, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
191. I support the strongest disclosure requirements that can be enforced. Support but the amendment should be stronger so that it CAN BE LEGALLY ENFORCED. If this amendment is NOT ENFORCEABLE, people MAY NOT DISCLOSE paid changes. If the AMENDMENT IS ENFORCEABLE people are LESS LIKELY TO RISK A LAWSUIT by supplying false information and non-disclosure. If a lawsuit is required, the ACCUSED party should be REQUIRED TO PAY for the lawsuit. PAID EDITORS might be REQUIRED TO GIVE a MONETARY DEPOSIT TO WIKIPEDIA, forfeitable in case a lawsuit is required.
192. Support, but should be stronger. There must be disclosure of paid editing wherever it is made- if an article is edited by a paid editor, it should be marked as such on the article page, not just the talk page. This could take the form of a footnote like the disclosure of potential conflicts of interest in scientific articles. I think it would be useful to the reader and not detract from the cleanness of an article to have each phrase in an article that is written for payment marked as such with a citation-like link to the disclosure footnote 137.229.131.34 02:18, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
193. Many people would like to rewrite history. If there is incentive to rewrite history, people will be even more inclined to do so. Wikipedia cannot afford to allow people to compromise the integrity of information. Paid editing should not be allowed at all, but then people will do it anyway without disclosure. It is better to have disclosure so that paid edits are tagged and checked for integrity. Codairem (talk) 22:27, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
194. Support. Also support discussion of adequate wording for in-kind or other non cash payments. Think change is needed so there is means to act where there is serious issue. Support improvements in this aspect being transparent to readers, visible to editors (so no "paid contribution" etc on article pages as alt solution). CitizenofEarth001 (talk) 06:38, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
195. Strong support but I agree with Ausvirgo et al.'s comments above (currently #12 in list). All vested interests (defined as "standing to gain, whether financially or otherwise, from promoting a particular viewpoint on the subject of the article or closely related matters") should be declared, and such edits should be easily identifiable by casual readers of the page, without having to dig through page history, talk etc. Perhaps a "show interests" button which added color and hovertext? Kim SJ (talk) 10:21, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
196. Strong support. This is an encyclopedia, not a platform for advancing various "causes" or promoting one point of view over another. Wikipedia's reputation parallels it's objectivity. Paid writing is the antithesis of objectivity, and Wikipedia's reputation suffers as a result.Clepsydrae (talk) 11:05, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
197. Support, but should be stronger --Dennis6492 (talk) 17:31, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
198. Support, should be easier to identify Add a flag to top of article if any paid contributor has edited. that flag (link) should take reader to the place(s) where paid contribution is disclosed - quick for reader, hence effective#68.81.44.177 21:13, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
199. 99.141.248.97 21:30, 4 March 2014 (UTC) Support but really believe there must be at least minimal reference on topic page.
200. Support, and policy should be stronger: Paid contributions should be banned entirely. Rhinestone K (talk) 22:07, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
201. Support, but should be stronger Paid editing should be banned completely. INeverCry 22:39, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
202. Support, and policy should be stronger It's difficult to serve two masters - objectivity AND your client. 67.86.191.179 00:05, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
203. Strongly support! I agree completely with #12: "Strongly Support, but should also: i) require inclusion of a "disclosure" link on the wiki page itself at the end of any such non-trivial edit, which would link to the required disclosure (e.g. on the user's page). ii) be expanded to cover other vested interest situations - e.g. the current proposal doesn't seem to apply to the owner of a business making an edit, even if he/she has paid someone to draft the edit for them. • Members of religions should be required to make disclosure where relevant to the edit - e.g. abortion, euthanasia, theology, evolution, creationism. • Ordinary members of political parties not necessarily required to make disclosure, but actively involved members to do so, where relevant. iii) "vested interest" edits should be readily searchable so that other editors can find and check them.
204. I definitely think there is a place for disclosed "paid" articles - e.g. if a company or product/device doesn't have a presence on wikipedia then it is in the public interest for said company or product manufacturer/seller to add a factual entry (with disclosure). I've sometimes used Wikipedia to find contact details for the manufacturer of a particular computer card (e.g. video card). Even if the entry reads like an advertisement it can be better than nothing, as long as the reader knows the source, and it provides useful true information. Same applies to definitions - sometimes a website uses a term or acronym I've never heard of and for which I cannot easily find a definition. Ausvirgo (talk) 02:50, 23 February 2014 (UTC)."
205. I don't agree that no paid editing should be allowed, as this would exclude expert contributors who edit during paid work hours. The overall quality of contributions needs to be kept high, as so many people use Wikipedia as a reliable source of specialist information, for example, physiology, or the chemical makeup of prescription drugs.Melba1 (talk) 03:44, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
206. STRONGLY support: I don't edit nearly as much as I'd like to, but I know there is nothing as frustrating when researching a topic than finding a page full of obvious astroturfing. And to be honest, there needs to a be clear and obvious line about this sort of thing. That way when people clearly cross it, we can revert the changes, ban them, and get back to business.
207. Strongly Support with additional declaration required for Vested Interest contributors should all be required to disclose any information relevant to the entry they are making. e.g. religion, professional background, knowledge of persons mentioned and professional background again if relevant.81.147.11.161 16:20, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
208. Support with requirement to disclose edits either 1. In edit history or 2. On the associated talk page as well. Disclosure should be made to readers, not just editors - I want to know this information when assessing the trustworthiness of an article, but I am not going to be able to visit every editor's talk page on every article I read.
209. Support. I agree with (38), (48), and (58) above. All 3 should be required. Calvinballing (talk) 17:55, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
210. Strongly support, but the "paid/vested interest" disclaimer needs to be front & center. A full disclosure on the author's page is useless for most Wikipedia users, we rarely look into the background of the article authors etc. (We should, but we don't.) If an understanding of the authors/editors possible conflicts of interest is necessary for users to evaluate possible biases in the primary material ... and there's no legitimate argument as to why it's not ... then that information needs to be readily available for intake at the same time as the article. A second or third level link just doesn't do it. Thanks for listening. d.d. 72.148.77.100 18:25, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
211. Strongly Support. Undisclosed paid editing of any kind undermines not only the credibility of Wikimedia content, but also leads to inconsistent entry formatting and other problems when changes are made by institutional personnel who are otherwise unfamiliar with Wikimedia rules and policies (particularly those related to notability). I support an absolute ban on paid editing of all kinds. Any intermediary steps are only to the good. Sneekypat (talk) 2:05, 5 March 2014 (EST)
212. Support, but should be disclosed in editing history and on the user page. Either change the policy so that both are a requirement, or achieve this technically. How? The user discloses her affiliation on the user page, and sets her a global variable paid writer and/or flags per contribution as un/paid. If the status is always shown next to the contributor in various contexts, then transparency can be checked at a low effort. Scanning through a change list with author names and then checking status per author, would be such an effort, that no-one would use it. PutzfetzenORG (talk) 19:44, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
213. Support, but should require disclosure in edit summary. The edit summary should have an indication that the edit is paid in a clear, prescribed way, e.g. by prefixing it with "[PAID]" (so that readers could search for that to find all paid edits (rather than having to read all edit summaries)) or by ticking a new check box (similar to the 'minor edit' one). (The affiliation need not be in the edit summary if it is on the user's page.) Readers should not have to search in three places to discover which edits are paid. JohnBLambe (talk) 21:33, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
214. Very strongly support, and should be stronger. At the very least, edits should be noted in a prescribed way. I would prefer that any edits to a page of an employer by anyone paid by or owning that employer should be banned — and I would prefer more strongly that all paid edits be banned. I am sick & tired of dealing with corporate pages that read like commercials. This is undermining the independence of Wikipedia. CircleAdrian (talk) 00:22, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
215. Support, but why limit disclosure requirements to true paid edits only? Should be a requirement for everyone affiliated in a potentially COI-inducing manner with subjects of their edits, even if there's no one directly paying them. --No qwach macken (talk) 00:43, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
216. Support, and I think it would be nice if there were a way to mark particular edits as being paid or subject to possible COI. Sillydragon (talk) 04:05, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
217. Support - and flag IP addresses with frequent edits to catch noncompliance. This addresses the difficulty of dealing with companies that will not comply in identifying themselves. IP's that edit the most frequently are often those with vested interests, as they seek to constantly suppress a negative image. They should be flagged to Wikipedia management for investigation. Gangsterman Sachs (talk) 05:28, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
218. Support, but disclosure needs to be clearer. In common with a number of other comments above I feel the disclosure should not be made through a choice of the methods mentioned in the amendment but a combination of them all. It should be obvious to anyone reading an article if parts of it could be influenced by commercial interests not just those who review the edits and talk page.AlanBrod (talk) 07:49, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
219. Support strongly. Transparency is crucial for a reliable and accountable Wikipedia. But I agree with many of the others here that there should be required that there is a notice in the article itself about the paid contribution, banning all paid edits outright would be a mistake but it should be easy and intuitive for users to keep informed about what interests are behind the edit. 136.152.142.159 08:00, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
220. Support strongly; would like to see a total ban on paid editing. Wikipedia has rapidly evolved from a curiosity to a world information resource. It needs to remain free from profit-driven tampering.Manuel Royal (talk) 14:11, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
221. Support. Given many situations I have observed on the English Wikipedia, I also hope for stricter limits on contributors-for-pay commenting on other editors, which often not only includes inappropriate statements, but accusations approaching if not amounting to harassment. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 19:29, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
222. Change "compensation" to "in exchange for anything of value" and create special field on edit page that would have to be checked before the page could be saved, either disclosing affiliation or asserting no affiliation and no variance from NPOV intended. Joseph N (talk) 20:11, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
223. As an active volunteer, it discourages me to have to deal with paid advocacy editing, but I think it is inevitable and can even be beneficial. Support, but disclosure should be clearer - 1) Disclosure should be made at least in the edit summary and a "paid editing" banner on their talk and user page. 2) Article text should include a disclosure; perhaps a footnote-like icon which links to the editor's user page. 3) It should be possible to search for paid advocate edits so that they can be scrutinized. SchreiberBike (talk) 20:59, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
224. Strongly support, ban paid editing: I begin most research with Wikipedia because I expect fairly unbiased information about a subject or organization. In the case of organizations (institutional, corporate) there are always links to the organization's own webpage where I can get the institutional POV or the corporate sales job. Macadavy (talk) 23:45, 9 March 2014 (UTC) Macadavy
225. 2602:306:C5CA:A210:B01A:25F9:872C:2646 23:45, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
226. Support strongly; Ban all commercial editing. It goes against the spirit of the project to have hireling editors. If someone desires paid editing, they can publish that themselves on their own website. I can only support Ban all commercial editing because to allow any at all makes the shades of grey so hard to judge that endless edit wars will be the only consequence. Ellin Beltz (talk) 20:04, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
227. 'Support strongly; Ban all commercial editing.' AAH 99.50.93.175 22:55, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
228. Support strongly need to send a signal and have something in place to hinder paid trolls from making Corporate Mordor out of Wiki Lothlorien. Could be made stronger by creating a limb of the dispute resolution process whereby nominated senior wikipedians have disclosed to them the personal details of an editor whose wishes to remain 'camped' around an article and 'in charge' of what gets added or deleted. The quid pro quo for such editorial privileges should be a willingness to disclose persoanl details to that closed senior wikipedian tribunal. Refusal to disclose is fine, but that person would no longer have decisive editorial privileges over that article.NimbusWeb (talk) 00:58, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
229. Support strongly. The pages of certain celebrities and public figures are nothing more than hagiographies. Any inclusion of factual material that is not glowing, gets edited and the prior editor gets treated as an enemy of state; subjected to illegitimate smears and attacks without the simplistic attacker daring to engage in a substantial discussion of the matter. This being the unfortunate reality, disclosure of paid editing is essential. It will then be possible to determine who is being paid and who is worshipping false idols. Mattstraightandfair (talk)
230. 23.125.140.139 16:46, 8 March 2014 (UTC) Support strongly. While it seems logical that, at times, persons with some kind of paid relationship to a person or institution might have accurate and beneficial information to share on a given subject, the danger of anonymous misrepresentation is too strong to ignore. Disclosure of paid editing should be made on the entry page itself where it is easy for the average user to see.
231. Strongly support!
232. Stongly support! Increase restrictions, and automatically ban IP Address from any commercial accounts affiliated with paid editing. Ahkilinc (talk) 23:01, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
233. Support, but should be stronger: Require the disclosure as suggested in the amendment for not-for-profit organisations, but ban all paid edits on behalf of commercial organisations. BethNaught (talk) 08:25, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
234. Support: I feel it should be stronger, but in view of the difficulty in policing such events, the amendment may be best endorsed and published as soon as practically possible. Rel wiki (talk) 00:08, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
235. Support: great start, could be and should be even stronger with time. Tomi T Ahonen (talk) 04:29, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
236. Support: There's this Greek saying that underlines transparency. 'Whoever walks in the dark risks of stepping on shit and mud'79.131.96.41 11:04, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
237. Definitely support this! 114.77.113.172 12:53, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
238. Support, but should be stronger: I believe it is not only paid affiliation, but ANY affiliation that should be subject to disclosure, and disclosure should be required on the article itself, not simply in one of the three ways that are listed in the proposed amendment. A typical user in a typical session on Wikipedia is not looking at the talk page, or the edit history, or the contributors' pages - they look at the article, and unless there is an indication of affiliated editing, will never guess who is misusing the credibility of the Wikipedia community to feed them advertising/propaganda/horse-excrement. Tz 98 (talk) 01:16, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
239. Support Hoekenheef (talk) 02:08, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
240. Support strongly as a minimum, despite obvious practical problems with enforcement. 95.34.216.252 18:59, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
241. Excellent proposal, but could go further. If, for example, an article on a business is written by the PR staff, they could argue that they were not compensated for that piece of work specifically; hairsplitting, perhaps, but people split hairs. Any compensation which should be defined to include normal professional duties (as, in this example, the PR staff) ought to be forbidden. If that is not possible or desirable, I suggest that the relationship of the writer to the subject should be revealed prominently in the actual text of the article, not hidden away on the discussion page or some other place where, most of the time, users don't look.Josephlestrange (talk) 22:06, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
242. Support, but should be stronger: A good first step. I'd prefer the edits that have been paid for to be highlighted in some way, with hover text showing a brief description of the user's affiliations. Gfreeman (talk) 05:28, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
243. Support, but should be stronger: The part: "You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways:" should be changed to: "You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways:". I don't want to have to look in 3 different places if someone gets paid for his edits. For IP's making a statement on the user page is obviously obsolete. But all this requires people to play by the rules. There is also a need for a discussion how to deal with the problem of people not willing to play by the rules. TFTD (talk) 11:32, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
244. Support, but could be stronger: It would be useful if a paid edit contribution would flag the original contributor (if any) so he/she could determine its veracity or applicability.
245. Support option 1 It would be nice if language input by paid contributors shows up differently after a certain amount of content. If they are doing minor edits that is one thing but if they are doing entire write ups they should be highlighted in a color that indicates who they are. This would probably apply best when the employer is the company itself, an affiliate or possibly even a known competitor. Not sure how that would work. Just addding in my 2 cents.TraceyDC (talk) 14:58, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
246. Support option 1, but should be stronger
247. Support, but should be stronger Compensated editing needs to be attributed. Articles with editing for compensation should be clearly flagged as such. Definition of compensation needs to include vested interests (because they receive indirect compensation). Netscr1be (talk) 17:57, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
248. Support, but should be stronger There should be TWO obligations, not just one: A statement on your user page, AND a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions (could be in short form like "Paid con"). Saidmann (talk) 18:23, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
249. Support, but should be stronger already on Zero Hedge forum on internet I finding people talk about paid agent on Wikipedia . This I find in regard to Ghouta chemical attack. I disturbing to seen this. It is being the pro USA agnet people be talk about I not say name. MustaphaScimater (talk) 01:27, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
250. support, as a starting point, but it should be stronger. Paid shills have already hurt the project in my eyes, I tell students that anyone can pay for a Wikipedia article or have one changed to reflect their view so long as they can fool a few wikipedians. But this step is one more than we have. --75.161.175.221 23:06, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
251. Support, but should be MUCH stronger: paid editing of Wikipedia on behalf of a client in order to manage that client's public image shouldn't just be something that has to be disclosed; this practice needs to STOP and be a BANNABLE OFFENSE. Rather than having to disclose that they are doing this on behalf of a client, people who engage in these types of paid edits on Wikipedia need to be banned completely. We can't allow PR firms, lobbyists, image management consultants, and such people to turn Wikipedia into a mockery of what it once was and turn articles about their clients that pay them money into 1-sided propaganda pieces. I have noticed that quite a number of articles on political figures, from multiple different political parties, appear to be written by the staff of those political figures and are very glowing, 1-sided puff pieces. --Yetisyny (talk) 01:35, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
252. Strongly Support. 188.99.17.139 23:16, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
253. 50.23.115.93 00:40, 16 March 2014 (UTC)Strongly Support, I don't think that either of the present optional amendments are acceptable. Compensation as goods, services, or monetary contributions is far better than limiting it to financial transactions only. Wikipedia is already troubled by too many corporations trying to get free advertising for their products. Perhaps wikipedia should take on facebook, and increase the social networking aspect of user accounts and require people to sign in to make changes. Perhaps a tad hypocritical from a once-upon-a-time wikignome but I want the quality of information on Wikipedia to be more factual than the information from the Hitchhiker's Guide if you grok me.
254. Support, but should be MUCH stronger:「「報酬」とは、お金、商品またはサービスの交換を意味します。言いかえれば、有償の寄稿は、お金、商品またはサービスの交換で行われた寄稿（または編集）ということになります。」となっているが、wikipediaの中立性を保つために、ここにナショナリズム的充足も含めるべきでは? こうすればwikipediaをnationalismの高揚の場となることを防ぐのに有効なので 118.109.244.4 03:23, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
255. 201.141.235.1 04:59, 16 March 2014 (UTC) Strongly Support: Awesome move, but to make it transparent and clean, there should be a permanent record on the article in question of Who paid what to whom and when should be accessible to the wikicomunity. It could become a major profit to people that dedicate weeks to designing an article for a big company or a challenging subject, and there should be a way of finding people that do this. These paid articles should of course comply with the regulations already established such as no advertising in the article, but could benefit the quality of the very same in terms of accuracy and veracity. That way, if companies were pay someone to publish lies about themselves or pseudoscientists to lie in articles, both the company and the writer should banned from writing and editing articles in front of the whole wikicomunity. I'd also like to suggest the possibility of the wikicomunity being able to pay noticed writers in a particular subject to write an article of their interest. Again this is made possible by the knowing of who wrote what (which is more or less already knowable), but for example, me being a medical student, I'd gladly donate to someone from John Hopkins or a doctorate in biology title owner from Harvard to write about a certain subject I'm interested in. Then I would appear in a list of people who donated X number of dollars to this person for writing about this subject. The article would then be published free for the rest of the community to enjoy and those who paid have a eternal recognition by the community of moving forward the quality of wikipedia. It's progress and we understand you have to take it one step at a time to work out the kinks, but keep it in mind. In summary, agree but should appear in the article itself. Consider possibility of opening donations to projects in progress to certain writers that prove both their worth and their dedication to their writing.
256. <bitcoin_dabbler>35.13.166.201 07:34, 16 March 2014 (UTC) I strongly support the amendment as it stands. It could be stronger. Anything that erodes trust must be curtailed or at least called out as such. Companies/entities that pay to have their page updated have motive and opportunity to spread falsehood or, at least, obfuscate the truth. So, if they are willing to pay then they should also pay for a review by a trusted third party to make sure they are telling the whole truth. Go Wikipedia! PS. No rush but I'm waiting with bated breath for you to start accepting BTC for donations.</bitcoin_dabbler>
257. 24.205.66.127 06:20, 17 March 2014 (UTC)Support Option 1, but should be stronger: The goal should be to stop any biased, corporate, propaganda-oriented, non-objective content without disclosure. If authors or CEO's or anyone that will be compensated in any form stands to gain, that should be disclosed. Authors should be allowed to submit, but with disclosure. Corporate content by anyone with any interest (even potential compensation) should not be allowed without independent review and verification. Thanks for all your hard work to protect our open-source search for neutral, verifiable fact, theory, and information.#24.205.66.127 06:20, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
258. Support, but should be stronger: Ideally, I'd like there to be no paid editing because of the bias involved, but if it has to happen we should make it as clear as possible that an editor has been paid for their contribution. At least put a note of employer, etc. in the edit summary. Hyperfunnel (talk) 00:02, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
259. Support, but should be stronger: I'm against to wield influence from banks and interests groups they based on unfettered capitalism. Exo16 (talk) 06:50, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
260. Support, but should be stronger: Should be integrated into editing experience prior to requirement going into effect. Brycen (talk) 18:27, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
261. Support, but should be stronger: I would avoid mentioning ONLY finantial compensations (I would mention services and/or benefits too). Also add that the compensation, service and/or benefit cannot be received by the editor or any person or organization affiliated to him.Dyentel 02:23, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
262. Support, but should be stronger: While it may be uncomfortable to discontinue the "freestyle" elements of wikipedia, isn't the idea to have a collective accumulation of "truth" wherever possible? To maintain this, the changes should happen "in the light" out in the open, and transparently. I'm not suggesting that people's identity need be revealed necessarily directly, but they should be authenticated privately. Identity and authentication is a fundamental security principal, and you should at least be able to identify some reliable source of the information. I support that with this authentication a public message accompany a private identity if the person is being paid to make their comments. We can't let piles of money rewrite history.
263. Support, but should be stronger John Navas (talk) 14:34, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
264. Support, but should be MUCH stronger No paid contributions should be allowed!! In any case, how would this be enforced? Josephwaters (talk) 21:21, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
265. Support As a first step towards truly cracking down on COI editors. They are the biggest issue facing our credibility today. Hopefully in the future we can expand the policy into an outright prohibition and give it more teeth. Themfromspace (talk) 16:55, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
266. Support - just a good start. We still have companies, WikiMedia wide, who decide to use Wikipedia for their marketing targets and they are recurring, and even after being banned/blocked/blacklisted return to push their POVs and add their advertising or promotional material without declaration. That should be discouraged in the strongest possible terms as violating what WikiMedia is standing for. The only way of enforcing this is by increasing the detection of these edits, strict removal and banning/blocking/blacklisting, and making sure that the abuse is made clearly visible. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 06:29, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Support, and should NOT be any stronger

The requirements to sign here are:

• You'd be ok with the proposed change being implemented by the Board.
• You think that something that would more strongly limit or prohibit paid editing should NOT be implemented (very briefly explain why NOT to go any further than the proposed change, if you'd like).
• You sign below with # and 4 tildes ~~~~ and remove your !vote from any other section if you've already !voted.

1. Support For the sake of transparency, I support the amendment. Groups and Organizations are like people too, and their reputation must be earned, maintained, and over viewed by the community. Steps taken beyond this amendment would violate privacy. This amendment must pass, and there must be no further amendment regarding paid contributors. 50.11.50.225 01:14, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
2. Strong opposition to this "support but strong" alternative. This would mean excluding completely users from any kind of organisations (including WMF staff users !!!) from editing anything on Wikimedia projects. All existing Wikimedians in residence" would also be excluded. It would be impossible to create group of reviewers. Even the existing wiki admins could no longer contribute (they would act only as mediators). The projects must remain to anyone (commercial or not). We just want that all users do not get more powers just because of their capability of constracting and paying others to promote their content. The currently proposed amendment does not ban anyone: it just wants them to disclose who they are and to forbid them to force others to remain hidden only because they are paid or acting under some secret contract. Banning users by principles is completely opposed to the principles of Wikimedia, and to its supported licences. The proposed amendment allows more balanced powers and improved neutrality of positions: and it better protects also the paid contributors (allowing them also to act in their own conscience, instead of being forced by contract to act secretely; the mendment mke these contracts no longer enforçable and will only force the organisations to reveal themselves, without compromizing anything about the own privacy of paid contributors). verdy_p (talk) 02:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
3. I prefer the proposed amendment to an outright ban. I believe that some paid editors (CorporateM) and advisers (Peteforsyth) are good Wikipedians, and I believe that others can be trained or coached into become good Wikipedians. I don't believe that everything connected to money is inherently evil. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 03:44, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
4. Strongly support - I would also prefer that there were no paid edits. Acknowledging the fact that this is impossible the next closest measure seems to be public disclosure. Stating that this will somehow inhibit contributions seems to be a less than convincing argument by someone whose motives I would consider suspect. I would expect someone writing on a technical subject to disclose their affiliation with a manufacturer. That doesn't diminish their credibility in and if itself. To notice that the same person is improperly writing to extoll the virtues of a company technology while denigrating a competitor's would give me pause; were I to know their sponsorship. I, again, strongly support this measure. ImNotEinstein (talk) 05:15, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
5. Strongly support -- public disclosure is the right approach and this amendment is very crisp and clear Timdig (talk) 06:28, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
6. Support - while there are valid concerns about possible discrimination against paid editors (and a potential restriction of their contributions), I do not think that a simple disclosure requirement when being paid to edit articles is harmful. Rather, this will improve transparency and possibly dissuade companies and organisations from astroturfing. However, we shouldn't ban all paid contributions, since people are definitely capable of keeping their biases to a minimum and contributing positively. TROPtastic (talk) 06:48, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
7. Support - (as mentioned under "Support", above) - commercial entries useful to maintain accuracy of technical specs and protocols - do not ban. Douglas Ray (talk) 11:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
8. Strongly Support Because what you will have if you do not disclose paid material is fake science creeping in under false pretenses of being bona fide scientic experimentation, data, and thus conclusions. For instance just think of sugar and how now that people are finding out about the grave dangers of it, there suddenly appear these new scientific studies on how all sugar substitutes are deadly, and create neurological, liver and other permanent bodily damages. You get to a point where you don't know which conclusions to believe. The same applies to things like the science of "global warming" which has been proven to be fake science in order to further the efforts of central bankers to create wealth out of a new Carbon Tax which is based on consumption versus the old way of taxing production. This sheds a whole new light on the "climate change" science and all the while ignores verifiable facts to the contrary (look out your back door if you live in certain zones during the winter of 2013-2014) of global warming that the earth is in fact getting colder. The media is reporting an alternate reality via propaganda provided by corporations and politicians, and wouldn't it be nice to be able to go to a source where you can find the truth according to "follow the money" to discover the connections? Steedcarat (talk) 07:46, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
9. Strongly Support -- as noted much earlier on, "Sunshine is the best disinfectant." Perhaps we could broaden this to include articles written, not just edited, by house flacks as well. It annoys me greatly to seek information and be presented with an infomercial, infrequent as this may be. I'm mulling over the suggestion that "political interns, military and the like" should be counted as paid editors also. I'm definitely one of thos who would like to see all THREE proposed ID methods for paid edit. A small boxed "paid edit" label linked to a more complete statement at the end of the article, with links there to the other two modes --user's page or talk page-, would give the reader a heads-up without much muddying the reading, seems to me. Do we then need a clarification of what size of edit (only non-judgemental way to judge impact I can think of) must be so identified? Or would a "paid" editor ever bother with just cleanup? A company certainly has a right to see that facts are correct (years, spellings, other 'tis or 'taint items). M Lou102WK (talk) 08:01, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
10. support - proposal fine as is. --Diligent (talk) 10:53, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
11. "Support" 109.145.84.211 12:22, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
12. Support - sunlight is essential to seeing what is happening. Require disclosure so that readers can make their own judgments, but don't ban paid contributions: There will be paid contributors who can make neutral & positive contributions. Alan J Shea (talk) 15:55, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

    An outright ban would be unjust. It is not uncommon for companies to have articles on Wikipedia that are defamatory, or at least strongly slanted against them (see this Stormfront post), and company articles often aren't on any Wikipedian's radar. If a company finds itself in that position, they have to be able to say so on Wikipedia, and if need be remove grossly defamatory material themselves. Andreas JN466 19:46, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

13. Support - I generally support the guideline for informing other editors about your consultant status, but please, the objections I am reading here are just preposterous. Of course COI issues should always be disclosed, WE ALREADY HAVE A GUIDELINE FOR THAT. My opinion is this: NOBODY MADE YOU THE KING, SO STOP TRYING TO CONTROL PEOPLE. Wikipedia guidelines are sufficient for specifying the editing task. I agree with a guideline that states that paid consultants should announce themselves as such. Good on you. Now, all edits by all editors must conform to Wikipedia guidelines as already constituted, for ever and ever, amen, without regard to who you are or why you are here. YOUR PERSONAL REASON FOR BEING HERE IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS. The conformance of your edits to established guidelines are all that I care about. If an editor's edits comply with guidelines and rules, then any other concern that you may have is about something other than making a good encyclopedia. In other words, you have control issues that you should deal with offline, not here. Have a great day.Jarhed (talk) 21:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
14. support - proposal fine as is.
15. Support - I support this proposal as distortion of information and inaccuracy are fatal to the aims of the wikipedia project. However self-policing of this will be most likely to be extremely ineffective for obvious reasons. Careful checking of entries ex-post will be needed and this gives me some cause for concern. There seems to be a good deal of attention paid to the low hanging fruit, asking questions such as "is this new entry relevant?", rather than the significantly more onerous study required for "is this assessment of the evidence fair". Who has the time to enter into the depths of quoted references to check the analyses which are presented? And yet I have seen some text entries, particularly with respect to historical events, which appear polemical. JChurchman-Davies
16. Support - I support this proposal as a common sense measure to increase the reliability of content. It makes total sense to require full disclosure of any edits that are made by individuals who receive compensation of any kind for their posting.
17. Support - I support this proposal, or rather, I do not oppose it. It maintains the present spirit of Wikipedia contributions; does not make any statements on whether or not pseudonymity is the advasary of good form; recognizes situations in which paid contribution might legitimately occur without abuse; and, if implemented properly, solves the problem of using Wikipedia as a means to manipulate information.
18. Support - I support this balanced proposal. Trassiorf (talk) 20:52, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
19. Suport - I support this proposal.
20. Support - I support this proposal. It's another means of making sure the information is good. I don't think this proposal should be any stronger at this point since there may be plenty of situations in which paid contributions are accurate and helpful edits.
21. Support - I support this proposal as is. Stronger language may weaken Wikipedia as it would discourage professional input into areas of technical or scientific specialty that require a higher than amateur understanding to effectively comment. Disclosure of affiliation is both fair and an ENDORSEMENT of the editor's skill set and professionalism.
22. Support- I support this proposal, it promotes transparency, as disclosure is absolutely essential for maintaining a healthy public discourse. It doesn't seem to take too strong of a stance against paid contributors (which I like), but it curtails some of their potential powers (which I like even more.) The key is keeping published articles from homogenizing issues and promoting transparency, which the disclosure mandated by thins proposal clearly supports.
23. Support- I support this proposal. Compensation influences the intention of the writer. When the intention is bad the results will be bad.
24. Agree with #1 above. Lana
25. Support- I support this proposal. Where does it leave Google though, one of the biggest corporates in the world, that realistically owns Wikipedia? Most Google employees, at any rate many, are high level editors, so it seems. Hmmm. Perhaps adding religious affiliation might be better, seeing as most googlies are going to be Hindu's or Bhuddists, and editing divides along world-view (religious) lines?
26. Support. The presence of paid editing is an issue that is of legitimate concern to the Foundation and Board and this proposal sets a reasonable basis for it on a cross-project level. More specific concerns are best addressed at the individual project level which can adopt additional limits on paid editing of need be. Eluchil404 (talk) 00:35, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
27. Support only in its current form, no extra restrictions. Suitov (talk) 11:44, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
28. '"support"' its already hard to manage some paid editors swamping some contentious issues.Polypipe Wrangler (talk) 21:21, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
29. Support in current form, no extra restrictions. Transparency, Transparency, Transparency!
30. Support I do not edit, but use frequently. 74.195.249.180 16:06, 2 March 2014 (UTC)JAP --75.70.248.209 03:03, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
31. Support Pro transparency and disclosure.
32. Support I think Wikimedia thought this out well. This is a modest change making it more likely that your edit will get more scrutiny if you were paid to make it. This page is MASSIVE, so maybe this was addressed, BUT, IF: the fact that an editor is paid is only acknowledged on an editor's talk page (and not present at each instance of editing); THEN: an individual that edits in a paid capacity as well as a personal capacity should be encouraged to have separate accounts for these 2 capacities. (People in this situation would likely do this anyway)
33. "Support" - With the caveat that User Pages are expected to have time periods if the editor no longer is no longer affiliated with whatever organization. i.e. not everyone keeps the same affiliation forever with employers and gifters, etc.
34. "Support" Here we only want to assure the quality of the contributions, maybe this is a primary way, wish this can be promoted the all of the users.
35. Support for the sake of maximizing transparency while retaining usability. If there were additional ways to identify material added by paid writers, I would also support that if it could be done without making anything else harder to do. If not, I support the amendment in its current form. Clarifythis (talk) 19:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
36. Support because I believe that transparency are required but not preventing professional writers to contribute to Wikipedia. The proposal would allow users to make an informed decision.
37. "Support" After major head trauma five years ago, I rely quite heavily on Wikipedia almost every day. Loving that this is an open, collaborative effort, I want you to know you all help me to strengthen my "internal cohesion" as I try to better understand my new life. Although it is less important to me that a person is being paid than whether I can trust what I read, I cautiously support this change inasmuch as it helps establish a clear understanding among all editors, even those who are paid to promote opinions about some facts at the exclusion of others, or who believe they are helping with "faithfully" repeated inaccuracies. Thank you very much, all who are keeping this treasure real enough that I can use it to help rebuild what's left of my mind! /R
38. Strongly support transparency is necessary. I suspect paid users are polishing political candidates' pages in particular, and clearer identification on user profiles and talk pages would add transparency and clarity. Enforcement is crucial to avoid prolonged editing wars. Enabling some paid editing perhaps in the future might encourage diversity of editors as well. akrewson
39. Strongly Support, but should be stronger Full disclosure of who paid would be useful, as would an indicator of how many times a page has been edited. Pmerriam (talk) 02:21, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
40. Support I agree that transparency needs to be in place to keep paid contributors from abusing their editing rights and writing skewed material for the party providing them compensation. I also believe that a paid contributor is in a better place to give more indepth knowledge, and possibly push their compensating party to release data to the public domain, or allow the review of information by a journalist in turn allowing access to this information. To discredit all paid contributor is in some sense "taking out the baby with the bath water".Hotshot21983 (talk) 22:18, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
41. Support Full disclosure prevents conflicts of interest that would eventually ruin any credibility in the long run, as paid editors grew to outnumber regular free users who ensure truth above all else. Bogo1983 (talk) 02:40, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
42. Support Certainly the best start, transparency in wikimedia is very important if users are to be able to rely on information. I also see an opportunity for fundraising where private entity pages, separate but clearly co-linked to balanced informative pages, could be edited by the company itself as an advertisement. If I have already decided to eat at a restaurant chain, a Wikipedia page paid for by the chain with locations of restaurants is appropriate.
43. Support I support in current form, but no stronger, as this provides enough clarity to sort out clear breaches. Note that I strongly believe organisations need to be made aware of the new guidelines as they are the other half of the issue of paid editing. I also think we need to test the success of this alteration over a reasonable timeframe before considering anything more radical. Libby norman (talk) 11:31, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
44. Support. It can always be strengthened later, based upon experience in the mean time. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:54, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
45. Support I support it but i find the need for disclosure against the spirit of anonymity upon on which wikipedia was founded (and the entire internet infact), that being said articles are too often destroyed by paid commenters, and that is unacceptable.Unnamed101 (talk) 09:00, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
46. Support Boy, we are in a minority in this section but I don't mind. :-) My worry is compliance and if we make the requirements too strong, they will be difficult to enforce anyway, and more difficult to trace paid editors who are not disclosing that fact. Better some disclosure that a contribution may be biased rather than none.80.189.198.14 01:36, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
47. Support In my opinion a balanced proposal. Some paid contributions may be a waste to ban from Wikipedia, but commercials and biased information must be marked as such. Ewoudh (talk) 20:08, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

Note: Many people below seem to be misunderstanding the proposal being discussed. Wikipedia is NOT pondering to start paying for contributions, or anything of the sort, which has apparently outraged several commenters below. Please do read Terms of use/Paid contributions amendment in more detail. 4ndrepd (talk) 16:07, 28 February 2014 (Oppose

1. Strongly Oppose: Many of the unpaid editors perform their own version of editing for a cause. Is it any less egregious to edit a page for purely political motivations, irregardless of known facts to the contrary, than it is to edit for pay? In many cases, I'd suspect the paid edits are more neutral and objective than many of the partisan edits I've witnessed on Wikipedia. Silliness.
2. Strongly Oppose: There are many countries where a single dollar means a lot of money. And if they can't access to the information that wikipedia offers because they can't afford it, that will contribute to knowledge stagnation. and that is really bad. Wikipedia is not starting to charge for access. Read the article before leaving such a stupid comment.
3. Oppose - as someone says in the support section (I agree with the comment below) - Wikipedia is quite capable of looking after itself. I know that when I look at the Conservative Party Wikipedia page it has probably been edited by a member of the conservative party with an inherent biase. If I see something truly wrong there (as a non-Conservative) I will edit it - that, fundamentally is how Wikipedia works. If I look at a specialist page on the reflecting superposition compound eyes of natant decapods, I'm pretty sure that the information presented there will represent contemporary facts and understanding written by geeks like me. Perhaps Wikipedia need to add a gauge to each page that indicates how often it has been edited which will indicate to people that there are contentious issues on the page. If a commercial company is using Wikipedia as a shop window (fair enough) they should pay the Wikipedia Foundation for their entry but have to live with the fact that it can be edited by anyone.
4. Strongly Oppose - the question has confused some. See above SUPPORT talk - many support when they in fact appear to want to oppose. This is insidious. Secondly - having support has a general assumption of something positive... wiki, you are starting to lose the benefit of the doubt.
5. Oppose I was checking out a commercial product on YouTube which claimed "solid science" was behind it. I came to Wiki to find out about the cell biology "facts" quoted in the add. If I thought this company could edit the biology pages to suit it's ads, I would never trust Wikipedia again. The very suggestion to consider the question of allowing such editing, even if disclosed, is offensive and has diminished my trust already.
6. Very strongly oppose This will cripple Wikipedia's growth enormously!Awarningmessage (talk) 20:30, 24 February 2014 (UTC) How?
7. STRONGLY OPPOSE - Wikipedia should not consider taking payment for any article/editing etc. Taking donation is best way and honest way.It isn't. Wikipedia is not starting to take paid articles. Read the article before leaving such a stupid comment.89.211.116.250 16:45, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

   Wikipedia isn't paying or being paid. Companies are paying individuals to edit their wikipedia pages, and make them look good. This amendment tries to prevent that. 208.15.90.2 20:31, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

8. Vehemently Oppose - I want my donations back. I did not donate to support this supposedly "free" enterprise so that it could in turn pay for contributions. I feel like a fool to have ever donated my family's hard-earned money to support this sham. If Wiki truly pays for contributions, I WILL NEVER DONATE AGAIN ... and I will tell everyone in all of my many circles what a sham this is. Paid contributions remind me of the researchers who "find" that their paid endorsers' products are the best. Shame on you. Backbone310 (talk)It isn't. Wikipedia is not starting to pay for articles. Read the article before leaving such a stupid comment.

   Note: the above comment is the user's only edit, ever. And its nonsensical; it's not about what this is about; see comment by 208.15.90.2 just above. --24.4.140.255 20:01, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

9. Strongly Oppose — This would basically be an institutionalized ad hominem and is completely unnecessary. Well-sourced edits that concur with NPOV are not invalidated by any affiliation, and are not invalidated even if the user gets paid for them. Unsourced edits, or edits violating NPOV do not need a claim of affiliation to be reverted.—Austriacus (talk) 16:27, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

   I guess you have misunderstood this. Note that the requirement to declare paid contributions does not restrain you from making purely voluntary contributions. You would also NOT be forced to disclose affiliation on your user's page, it would be sufficient to disclose it with each specific edit that you were paid (or otherwise externally "stimulated") to make. 62.178.250.9 08:24, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

   Note, however, that being identified as a paid contributor does not immediately implicate the invalidation of its edits. Rather, it would merely be a warning flag to investigate those edits, in order to verify that that payment is not in fact compromising NPOV nor causing a conflict of interest. That, I am in support of. 4ndrepd (talk) 16:07, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

10. Strongly Oppose- "The law is an ass." This rule set provides a framework for future invasions of privacy and the bedevilment of the "little guy". Once enacted, unintended consequences will cascade. The technical barriers to publishing in this format have grown exponentially; it's a natural evolution that payment to skilled people will be involved. Struggling semipro writers will be scared away from economically marginal projects while big money will press forward with carefully calibrated spin. You can't legislate morality; this well-intentioned effort is sure to backfire.Klasovsky (talk) 14:47, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
11. Strongly Oppose-- I disagree with this proposed change for reasons of privacy (the user below who dismisses privacy as "not an issue here" goes on a tangential non sequitor), difficulty of enforcement, and the free flow of information. As a user below write, "knowledge will work itself out." The fact that someone may have a financial interest in a topic does not mean their contribution will automatically be manipulative or biased, and this proposed change disincentivizes meaningful contributions from folks merely because of institutional affiliation. Frankly, NPOV problems are far more likely when strong beliefs--not a paycheck--are involved. The use. Regardless, there is clearly no consensus here, and a change that follows a "mini-consensus" will be destructive to the community.192.204.30.29 06:40, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
12. Strongly Oppose-- Privacy is integral to the contribution of information today. Doing this would also mean that employees can't speak ill of their companies or the field they work in or related matter. Knowledge and information should have nothing to do with a person's background. What's important is the information not the person who contributes this verifiable information. They shouldn't have more of a say because they work there. Also this would mean that it is easier to get proof of favourable information than unfavourable information. Also employees would be encouraged to speak well of their companies as this is considered good business sense. 117.213.3.211 18:52, 22 February 2014 (UTC)Privacy

    Privacy is not an issue here. It is possible to protect it, while also protecting the project: people that really need an anonymity should be able to file an OTRS request to register the registration of an anonymizing account for their contributions where they need privacy, but paid contributions rarely need that and have objectives (imposed to them by others that paid them) that should be disclosed, and have nothing to do with their own privacy.

    Also note that IP users (like you) are definitely not anonymous: if you really want privacy, you absolutely need (for now) to register an account and use it to logon, because your externally traceable IP address will be part of the public logs. verdy_p (talk) 21:25, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

    I know my IP is shown. However I was referring to details about the person which is sensitive information. If you'll read below I have more posts on why this amendment makes it worse. I do however wish my IP address wasn't shown but having an account to cover up your traces is futile as NSA technology has clearly shown. If anything it would help connect the dots more easily.117.221.189.242 16:52, 23 February 2014 (UTC)Privacy

13. Oppose -- because I was paid to oppose this, so clearly it is a terrible idea.

    Lol. Thank you for your honesty. ArthurDent006.5 (talk) 10:57, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

14. Strongly Oppose -- it is easier to manage trolls, than the powerful corporate interests. Knowledge will work itself out. Free access gives access to all. If approved, it will be the beginning of the end of the spirit of wiki.
15. Strongly Oppose -- I don't not believe this is going to solve anything, and may prohibit good editors from editing articles that they have a large amount of knowledge about. --Wildboy211 (talk) 18:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
16. Oppose -- This amendment will solve nothing, as contracts will be re-written and Wikipedia edits will simply be considered a free "bonus" alongside other services provided by an agency. Every edit should be judged on merits, should be factual and present accurate information. It is not relevant if said edit is paid for by someone if it has good quality - such a disclosure would diminish value of valid entries, when the payment was in all good faith (you could pay someone with writing skills to do it for you)
17. Oppose -- Even if labeling the paid contributors is practical for maintainig a Npov, Labeling them is like accepting the situation as normal and encouraging it. This situation is supposed to be out of wikis pollicies and we must not accept them. The reputattion of this enciclopedia wouldnt be the same if it is known that a great number of edit are paid and that pollocies allow this to happen. Unmismoobjetivo (talk) 13:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
    1. @Unmismoobjetivo: Thank you for raising this concern. We do not think that this represents "accepting the situation as normal", and have tried to explain why above. Hope that helps. —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 19:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
18. Strongly Oppose -- Every edit, be it from a paid or non-paid person, should be judged on its own merits. Forcing people to disclose this would make it too easy to discriminate against them and content they create, even if it is perfectly valid and in line with what others are contributing.
19. Strongly Oppose
20. Strongly oppose - no point making an unenforceable policy.--Eliterealprogamer (talk) 17:35, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
21. i'm very choqued that this important think is not wrigting in other languages. Et je suis "strongly oppose" à cet amandeandement. Si les gens veulent être rémunéré, il sn'ont qu'à publié allieurs. Qu'ils créent un autre wiki. Il doit exister une source de savoir gratuit, c'est wikipédia. C'est un opa inacceptable sur les baleurs qui ont fondé cette encyclopédie.--Jean.jul (talk) 01:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

    Salut Jean.jul ... le projet a été traduit en français, italien, espagnol, allemand, et japonais. Tu peux voir les traductions en haut de cette page. Geoffbrigham (talk) 01:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

22. Strongly Oppose- Why limit people. The exsisting system has always worked. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
23. Oppose — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 99.22.13.158 (talk) 01:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
24. Oppose -- didn't we just have a referendum on this in a different forum? I thought that the consensus there was against, but could be wrong. I agree with the first poster above. Paid editing can be a problem, but this amendment will only hurt people who are trying to do the best, NPOV work and not catch people who won't disclose. Mscuthbert (talk) 02:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC) [addendum 10-minutes later; realizing now that that discussion was on en:wp, not on meta]
25. Strongest possible oppose. This will do nothing to stop those POV-pushers and other paid editors who do not care for the rules in the first place, and will only serve to discourage those who genuinely mean well, because those are the ones who actually try to follow the rules. We should not automatically assume that all paid contributors necessarily have a COI, because to do so will only result in pushing away the many that indeed do not, such as GLAMs and other professionals who simply wish to share their knowledge. -— Isarra ༆ 03:03, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
26. Not that I think that we should be voting on this, but this seems as good a place as any other to state my objections. First, there's no evidence presented that (a) this is sufficiently widespread to require action and (b) this is causing sufficiently widespread content problems. Second, I feel that edits should stand and fall on their own merits; we shouldn't attempt to differentiate edits as to whether they were paid or not, just whether they are helpful or unhelpful. Third, paid editing may have different effects on different projects and this is the sort of thing that should be dealt with on a project-by-project basis, not globally. JYolkowski (talk) 03:12, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
27. Strongly Oppose -- no conclusive proof that paid admins or editors are adding entries that break the rules of wikipedia.

    There was at least one such case in Russian Wikipedia, with "paid admin" concluding deletion discussion "Keep" for the article he was paid for (now he does not have admin rights). Tatewaki (talk) 00:38, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

28. Oppose - As long as it does not violate the Wikipedia:NPOV and other rules pertaining to edits, it does not make any difference. Moreover, this does discourage people from making legitimate edits, even by making others judge such edits. And, as long as the policies and Terms of Service are not violated by contributing paid edits, such edits do not make much net differences. Rishikeshan (talk) 04:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
29. Oppose. Beyond the myriad of grey situations The Signpost points out, this rule is essentially unenforceable. There would have to be proof of a violation in order for WMF to take action. Without that proof, paid editing shall continue. Regardless of money changing hands, everyday Wikipedia will be assaulted by numerous pop culture fans, POV warriors, and vandals and this change will do nothing to solve that larger problem. Chris Troutman (talk) 08:34, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
30. While the outline of the proposal as given didn't sound that bad, the one thing that worries me with such a rule change is that it might cause people to try to remove legitimate information on the basis of it being posted by someone whom they don't like (even, potentially, in completely unrelated articles -- example, Person A noticing So-and-So is the owner of a company he hates, so Person A starts reading through everything So-and-So ever posted, looking for things to make complaints against.) While there is a separate harassment rule that's supposed to combat this sort of thing, it sounds like it would be inviting more of these kinds of problems, and strife for everyone. All in all, it seems to me like as long as the citing sources rule is followed, it shouldn't really matter if someone was paid to post it or not -- any source in a Wiki article might have been created by a paid, biased person, so what difference does it make after that? --
31. Strongly Oppose -- Most articles are written by experts, but experts inevitably are employed in a way that creates a theoretical conflict of interest, even though it seems most edits seek accuracy rather than angle. Are you going to forbid Google employees from editing the Microsoft Bing page? Or the Information Retrieval page? How about the Microsoft employees? Wikipedia works because for every malevolent edit there is a curative counter-edit; leave it that way. Otherwise "Discussion" pages are just going to fill up with even more nonconstructive, unprovable flame-war about 'conflict of interest,' you're going to require people who contribute to Wikipedia to jump through even more hoops than they already do, and you're ultimately just going to drive more potential contributors away while not fixing anything in the process. 67.164.149.104 08:44, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

    I understand your point of view, 67.164... To be clear, the proposed amendment would not cover the Google employee writing about Microsoft Bing ... unless Google was paying the employee to make those edits. There may be specific COI project policies that could apply, but not the proposed amendment. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 16:45, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

32. Strongly oppose. You don't have to prove your good faith, you don't have to say where you're working, you just have to say that you're paid for contributions. And that's enough.--Sammyday (talk) 13:13, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
33. Oppose -- All edits and newly made pages should be judged on their merit which includes quality of references, writing, and notability. The Tallest Tower (talk) 13:21, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
34. Strongly Oppose as underthought bad implementation -- It should be obvious from the many comments that the proposd is more heavily flawed than the existing situation and would cause things to get worse not better. I'll suggest that WP should start by following norms on guidance -- begin a WP:PAID page and have WP admins including grant holders test out following it -- and reorient thinking into NPOV and goal being 'how do we guide this towards being a good thing'. Markbassett (talk) 15:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
35. Oppose, as redundant, in addition to the following: we would be giving up, as a community, the right to collectively decide who can edit and how, by placing that decision in the hands of the foundation. Effort after effort to ban paid editing has failed, that is the will of the editorial body--this smacks of a minority trying to find any way to get around the majority because it doesn't like the will of the people. Jeremy112233 (talk) 15:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

    I would also add that this being written in English, as something that would effect all languages is extremely problematic as it takes away the right to vote of thousands of non-English Wikipedians who cannot access this discussion due to language barriers!!! Jeremy112233 (talk) 15:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

    Hi Jeremy. The proposal was rolled out in six languages: English, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, German, and French. We have discussions in different languages below, and encourage people to participate in their native language. (The legal department itself is fluent in seven languages.) Geoffbrigham (talk) 17:28, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

    As long as the disclosure about their paid editing has been made on their user page, they have the same restrictions on editing as everyone else - according to current version of the draft. But perhaps this should be clarified. My very best wishes (talk) 19:36, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

36. Oppose. Neutral and verifiable content is neutral and verifiable content. If it's not, remove it. If it is, leave it in. Should we require members of a church to identify themselves when editing articles involving that faith? Should people have to self-identify their ethnic heritage when editing articles on a historic genocide? There are so many places where bias come into play in Wikipedia that calling out one form of bias as being more damaging to the encyclopedia than others is, in my opinion, inappropriate and creates second-class content. I will say that, as a PR guy by trade who nevertheless has only edited Wikipedia for a client maybe a half-dozen times, my professional association's ethics already require me to identify when I'm speaking on somebody's behalf and I've always done so. Jmozena (talk) 15:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
37. Oppose -- This is a rule attempting to indirectly fix a perceived problem. First, where is the data indicating that paid edits are a substantial problem? Second, if the problem with paid edits is that they are not up to WikiMedia standards, that should be addressed directly with modifications to submission rules rather than targeting of certain users. Third, how could this ever be enforced? There will always be more ways to hide paid activity than there are ways to detect it. This rule will simply send the worst offenders deeper into the shadows while potentially discouraging valuable content. 67.152.152.11 15:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
38. Oppose WMF legal department is trying to enter of spying of users, breaches of privacy of user and violates the autonomy project. The lawyers from legal department of WMF are trying to guess the intentions of editing users and legal department is trying decided about possibility of editing by users. Meanwhile, it is important that the editing is NPOV, WER etc. and not whether the editor got or not to got the money. I agree also with Jeremy that lawyers of WMF takes away the right to vote of thousands of non-English Wikipedians. This proposition is the next step from legal department of WMF to exclude users from project and yourself decide on all matters not only Wikipedia, but even but even about what motives editing must have a user. The extreme arrogance ! --Piotr967 (talk) 15:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
39. Oppose. The only argument provided is to help the editors avoid their own liability: that's their concern and is no reason to adjust our policy. If there's some other, better argument to be made, make it.LlywelynII (talk) 15:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
40. Oppose - see below
41. Strongly Oppose - Go to any public discussion forum where individuals share unpopular views or views which are seen to be those of a large group; the calls of "paid shills" are vehement. Do we want this sort of crowing to exist even moreso within the wikipedia talk pages, now citing a rule? I do not think this makes any sense. The moderated anarchy of wikipedia is what keeps it useful, this serves no purpose other than making people with a financial bias (rather than the nonfinancial biases the rest of us do) wear a scarlet letter. --Dramamoose (talk) 17:07, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
42. Oppose -- A case of trying to swat a fly with a sledgehammer. In my own situation, I often work as a conrractor for a certain high-tech Fortune 500 corporation you all have heard of. In the past, I have helped some individuals with writing Wikipedia articles, & sometimes I have edited articles about technology they sell, although prior to their submission -- & sometimes during business hours. (For the record, my contribution has been to format them, & make them conform to Wikipedia standards. Once added to Wikipedia, my attitude towards them is that they live or die on their own merits; I do not have a yardstick for notability in that subject to know which subjects are notable.) However, I am contractually bound not to disclose this relationship. (See Nondisclosure Agreement in any encyclopedia.) So, in effect, this proposal will forbid me from contributing to any technology-related article, even to fix typos or add references. Thanks a lot, WMF. -- Llywrch (talk) 17:08, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

    Hi Llywrch. I respect your opinion. To be clear, the proposed amendment would not prohibit you from making the above edits, unless your company was explicitly paying you to do so. If companies have nondisclosure agreements, under the proposed amendment, they should not be paying employees to make edits in support of the company. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 17:33, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

    Geoffbrigham, the point Llywrch is making is that virtually ALL large companies with consultant/contractor/similar employees — which is for taxation-related reasons becoming widespread — tend to give ALL such employees a blanket NDA as a condition of employment. (This is WP:OR on my part, sorry, but trust me here. :-)   The point of these standard blanket mandatory NDAs is to keep the consultant from using the name of the big company, in marketing their consulting services. However, the current language of the TOU-amendment sounds like consultant/contractor/similar folks are now prohibited from editing wikipedia, whether about the company or about the products of that company, or article which are somehow related to the company. This is particularly harmful, because consultant/contrator/similar folks tend to have breadth of experience (from working at many different jobs) as well as frequent downtime (between jobs). I suggest thinking carefully about how to phrase the language, so that Llywrch is able to contribute to the encyclopedia without violating their NDA. Specifically, if a person is a consultant at HugeCorporation, and makes an edit to the w:search engine article, which is an industry where HugeCorporation has a product-or-service offering, then putting "I have w:WP:COI" into the edit-summary would not violate the letter of the NDA the person signed with HugeCorp, whereas putting "I am a consultant for HugeCorp" into the edit-summary would definitely violate the terms of the standard NDA with HugeCorp. Does this make sense? I suggest that option#3 language be revised, to permit 'vague' disclosure that a particular edit was compensated. Thanks for improving wikipedia, see you around.

      p.s. I will bug LuisV (WMF), with another concern, somewhat along the same lines of clarifying the language... the first option currently says "#1 a statement on your user page" ... but in fact this needs to be more clear, because simply stating "I work for an employer" without specifying who is of little help in userspace. *Which* employer? (By contrast, if you edit w:iPhone and say "I have COI" then we can figure it out.) Furthermore, anons have only user-talkpages, so that should be explicitly included. I suggest saying "#1 an explicit statement naming your employer(s) on all your userpages" or perhaps 'on all pages in your userspace'. Similarly, the language of the second option needs to specifically refer to article-space, not to userspace. "#2 a statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions" should be clarified as "#2 a statement that you have w:WP:COI (the name of your exact employer is optional) on the article-talkpage accompanying each paid contribution to the associated article". HTH. 74.192.84.101 02:08, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

    74.192 - as I read your argument, companies can't let their paid edits on Wikipedia be disclosed because they a) want to minimize their taxes, or b) they just can't bothered to modify a standard contract form. Smallbones (talk) 02:30, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

    Geoffbrigham, I don't think you appreciate the problem from a contributor's position. Let me explain it in terms you might understand. You are a lawyer, & make a living from that -- which everyone knows. One day someone at the Foundation, knowing your background asks you to fix an article on trademark law for a specific coutnry which is in obvious need of work, which you do in full compliance of Wikipedia rules. How do you prove this wasn't a violation of this proposed "paid contirbutions" amendment? I have seen contributors hounded from the English Wikipedia for less problematic reasons. (And anyone at whom this amendment is targeted usually violates other, more obvious rules at the same time -- & can be banned from the project on those grounds.) The fact I cannot disclose possible COI in advance due to NDA terms only compounds the problem I face here. -- 134.134.139.74 17:29, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

    Thanks 134.134 .... . I appreciate your help here. I hear your points. We have proposed more narrow options which would address the above scenario partially. Under Option 1, for example, I would not need to prove anything since I wasn't writing about Wikimedia Foundation, a living person, or product. We proposed that option to minimize the cases of enforcement. Also enforcement is not the only reason for an amendment like this, as we explain here. Finally, my user page makes clear that I work as an employee at WMF, so that would be sufficient disclosure if there were any doubt. That said, I hear your points (which is one of the reasons we are proposing the optional alternative language). I am also thinking about the harassment issue as well (which is another reason for the optional language). Obviously, the Board will read this consultation and we will brief the Board on the arguments, including the ones you are raising here. Geoffbrigham (talk)

43. Oppose - I'm going to throw my oppose vote in here, on the basis that the Wikimedia Foundation, its founder, and its vendors who are paid with WMF donors' money, have not amply demonstrated (even as recently as 2013) that they are themselves capable of properly disclosing their financial or other professional conflicts of interest when editing Wikipedia. If the WMF, founder, and vendors can properly abide by this proposed amendment for the period of six months, then the WMF legal team can present it to the board. But if we catch multiple failures to properly disclose, then the clock re-starts for another six months. -- Thekohser (talk) 17:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
44. Oppose -- Everyone has his or her right to advocacy. Also unenforceable. Very naive idea. Alonso McLaren (talk) 17:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
45. Oppose - It's the content of the edit, not who's doing it, that matters. If a paid editor is making POV edits, there are already ways to deal with it. Furthermore, a dishonest editor wouldn't follow this proposed rule any more than the existing rules which such inappropriate editing already breaks. Indyguy (talk) 17:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
46. Strongest possible oppose - "Paid editing" is like a wolf in sheep's clothing, because it is naive to assume that such editors will have the best interests of our wikis at heart. If this amendment is implemented, it will give a green light for any business to take advantage of this "free advertising". If this proposal is implemented, it won't be long before someone proposes that we solve the cashflow problem by hosting advertisements. Eventually we will end up with some business-appointed bigwig sitting on our board. Where will it stop? If you have the time, please look at the history of the Cooperative Bank, which used to have community-focussed purposes until it let sly and subversive people lead it up the garden path, with small changes here and there (all with the "best of intentions"). The final nail in the coffin was a blundering chairman who left the bank deep in crisis. This is what will happen to us if we let profit-oriented people and organizations to get their foot in the door. Green Giant supports NonFreeWiki (talk) 17:50, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
47. This goes against everything I have though Wikipedia to be. It fundamentally changes the face of editing, by allowing for anyone to be paid to edit so long as they "disclose" that fact. No disclosure can make up for the complete reversal of policy and culture that this can and does permit. Therefore, I have no choice but to oppose in the strongest way possible. --Hamtechperson (talk) 18:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

    Hi Hamtechperson - To be clear, this proposed amendment does not endorse paid editing: it requires its disclosure to ensure against misrepresentation of affiliation. Wikimedia communities on their various projects are free to impose stricter standards and even ban paid editing, which a few communities have periodically discussed. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

48. Oppose - I put on my user hat to answer this. As a frequent reader of English language Wikipedia articles containing information about countries that use other languages, I assume that many of those contributors are paid editors, if for nothing other than translations. I oppose any further burdens being placed on world contributors who may shy from additional red tape. I think the monitoring system for content, references, quality, and COI works well, as is.--Bonnielou2013 (talk) 18:35, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
49. Strongly Oppose as underthought bad implementation - please see vote and comment above by Markbassett as I concur with his reasoning Abyssoft (talk) 19:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
50. Strongly Oppose - This amendment would be antithetical to Wikipedia. If the content isn't neutral or verifiable, any user can remove. It seems counterproductive to identify problematic content and then track down the editor that contributed it just to ridicule them. I think this amendment would harm Wikipedia. Paviliolive (talk) 19:24, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
51. Strongly Oppose - An ill thought legislation that may well have the exact opposite of it's intended effect. As per Markbassett and Abyssoft before me. Falerin (talk) 19:34, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
52. Oppose for two reasons: a) People may have personal preferations or interests which bias editing, believe in certain theories, technologies or trends which make them create more lexicon material regarding these themes - while perfectly out of the amendment, this is certainly kind of “self-paid” editing. b) As possibly quite a lot of people, I'm kind of a corporate man. I talk my employer, though I am not paid for this opinion, and I am very anxious not to under- or overemphasize products or technologies we promote here. For the matters of this amendment, however, I would see also these cautious remarks “paid edits enough” and either refrain from further editing or simply add my employer as a precaution although Wikipedia editing never was nor will become part of my job.--Tinne (talk) 20:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
53. Oppose Same as Sammyday : too intrusive. We're strangers among strangers, no knowing who we are is the default state, and suddenly one should disclose employer and client ? That's too much, for too narrow a purpose - paid editing is in no way the only conflict of interest one can have on WP. Esprit Fugace (talk) 20:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
54. Strongly oppose: No one seems to have thought this through. Violating privacy rights and anonymity principles in order to direct attention to conflicts of interests stemming from economic motives, as opposed to political, personal, religious, juridical etc ones.--Toter Alter Mann (talk) 21:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
55. Strongly Oppose - I feel this is just an invitation to concentrate on the editor instead of the edits, and will cause talk pages to get even more bogged down in speculation of motivations and identities. Moreover, there are legitimate reasons that people, even those whom WMF puts its trust in, not to want to identify themselves, at least that was the conclusion of WMF Legal from the Access to non-public data debate. Jztinfinity (talk) 21:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
56. Strong opposition This is exactly the discussion that failed at Wikipedia 3 separate times, for good reason. I'm amazed that it's coming up again in a different forum so soon. 0x0077BE (talk) 22:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
57. Oppose - contributions to Wikimedia projects should be judged by their merits, not the contributor's motives. --Joshua Issac (talk) 22:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
58. Oppose — Such a regulation could be easily misused to discredit editors with different views. Many editors edit pages on topics they work professionally with, or have as a hobby on a professional level. They love the topic, and just that is why they know a lot and can write a lot about the topic. I have witnessed a lot of cases (at least on my home Wikipedia) somebody got accused of positive bias because of it ("only a neutral editor without any affection to topic can write a good Wikipedia article about it"). Some of them left Wikipedia after being chased in this way, and I am sure Wikipedia is poorer without them. And such a regulation could be easily misused to get such professionals banned (if they have not fully disclosed their professional etc. affiliation) or chased even more (if they have disclosed their professional affiliation and get even more often accused of non-neutral point of view). --Mmh (talk) 22:48, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

    Note the difference between "being professionally involved with a topic" and "being paid to contribute". Everyone has bias - being paid or not. Being paid to contribute can be very welcome, for example I think students should be paid from university research funds for the effort to contribute. What is needed is that a contributor can be asked to give sufficient detailed explanations and sources / quotes for his contribution.

59. Oppose We're really going to take legal action against someone who does this sort of thing? I have a clause in my employment manual at work that governs how I represent my company online; I'm supposed to disclose that "these views are my own and do not represent those of the company I work for" or something along those lines. I'm also supposed to report anything that I see online that negatively portrays my company. Work is work, life outside of work is my own. Seems like a waste of time, when all the "paid-contributor" has to do is create another account, not disclose what they're doing and away they go again... Have we ever brought legal action against someone who violates the Terms of Service on Wikipedia? If not, why does this matter? Oaktree b (talk) 22:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
    1. @Oaktree b: You asked "Have we ever brought legal action against someone who violates the Terms of Service on Wikipedia?" Yes, we have. Violations of the terms of service were part of our legal action against Wiki-PR. —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 20:21, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
60. Oppose It seems fair to think about those unfortunate4 individuals who can't afford it.--Brittian (talk) 13:00, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
61. Oppose Contributions should be valued by the content, not by motives (although I see the dependence of motive and content) --Murma174 (talk) 22:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
62. Oppose. Not in the terms of use. As a local project policy, no problem with an individual community deciding this, but I see no good rationale for being centralistic here. darkweasel94 (talk) 23:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
    1. @Darkweasel94: Don't know if this helps, but in part in response to your question, we explained why we think this belongs in the terms of use in a Q/A above. —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 20:31, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
       1. Yes @LuisV (WMF):, I've seen that, thank you. I've also already responded to it in #Yes, I believe it will. darkweasel94 (talk) 00:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
63. Oppose. If money was involved then some information could be bias and influenced by that money.
64. Oppose. In particular, the legal threat in the proposed amendment is odious. Edits should be considered on a case-by-case basis. I thought that "assume good faith" was the modus operandi here. Moreover, unscrupulous people with a hidden agenda will simply ignore this rule and continue to be disruptive. --When in doubt, eat potatoes (talk) 00:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
65. Strongly oppose.

    (a) No evidence has been presented that any harm has been done to Wikipedia by any compensated contributor. Why impose a policy when there's no evidence of anyone's having done any wrong?

    (b) By your own admission, current policy treats the very abuse that you're trying to discourage.

    (c) How are you going to enforce this policy? How do you know when someone has not disclosed his commercial compensation? Are you going to spy on us -- a la the NSA? And if you do detect a violator, so what? Even if you ban him, he can just register under another account. And if Wikipedia fails to enforce its own policy, does it become liable for its failure to do so? This proposal is useless ; it's a statement of sentiment.

    (d) What is objectionable about commercial compensation? If the XYZ Co. makes a new gadget that becomes hugely popular -- or if only the XYZ Co. makes an obscure widget -- then who's best qualified to write about the gadget or the widget? An employee of the XYZ Co. !

    (e) What about other biases -- political, religious, sexual, etc.? Read some of the articles about, say, the history of Eastern Europe, where contributors fight with brass knuckles. People write articles about things that interest them -- where they're likely to have a bias. (And is there such a thing as a "neutral" point of view about, say, the Holocaust? "Yes, 6 million Jews were shot or gassed, but then they deserved it, according to their killers.")

    (f) Who is the dainty party in Wikipedia who was so "concerned" about crime that hasn't happened that he/she/they proposed this idea? One guy? Two guys? Some bored lawyer? Who has so much influence? And why should the rest of us pay attention to them?

    Don't fall into the bad habit of trying to anticipate all evils. You'll just end up constructing a police state -- full of rules that you can't enforce and that everyone ignores. Worry about more important things; e.g., what you intend to have for dinner tonight. Cwkmail (talk) 01:00, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

    @Cwkmail: Those are some of the very good points that I've also made. But based on this link the "crime" in question has already been committed. I get the feeling that all this hullabaloo is a direct moral panic reaction to those events. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 02:28, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

    @TeleComNasSprVen: Hi and thanks for the link. I read the story. Basically the problem was that a couple of guys ran a company that created Wikipedia pages for businesses that weren't "noteworthy". I strongly suspect that Wikipedia is constantly flooded with new articles about subjects that aren't "noteworthy" — kids writing about their high school or their local school sports teams, people writing about their local pond or lake or village, matchbook or bottle collectors writing about their hobbies, etc. It just means that the administrators weren't evaluating the new pages that these two "entrepreneurs" were creating. Lax administration on Wikipedia's part. I still don't see how the proposed policy would stop this activity. It's as if the police requested a law that all burglars register with the police. Not likely to be successful. Cwkmail (talk) 09:14, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

66. Oppose. This amendment highlights those motivated by money, which reflexively feels apt. However, we must divest ourselves of intuition when it comes to something like this, and consider the wider parallels. Firstly, wikipedians are not immune to witch-hunts, and there is the danger of financial affiliation imbuing the status of pariah on valuable members of the community. Secondly, money is not the only nefarious influence on information -- ideology is at least equally pervasive and harmful. There is no way to remove all forms of bias from the editing of these pages, which leads me to -- thirdly, all edits, and all reviews of an edit, must be made critically, logically and on a case-by-case basis. This amendment would provide a shorthand which would remove the necessity for due process from many editing judgements, and provide a mark which could easily imply pariah status on valuable wikipedians.
67. Oppose approach, support philosophy The current proposed amendment is not strong enough. Every paid edit needs to indicated as such on the page where said edit occurs. No potential bias should be tolerated, but by allowing - or at least not regulating - edits of that nature undermines the mission of non-bias. The amendment, however, lacks the requirement of explicitly showing which edits are made in return for payment. The three listed requirements are not all required, only one of the three. That does not provide the necessary safeguards to draw attention to potential bias. So, as the amendment is currently written I must oppose it. However, with modification of the text to make the restrictions more stringent and strict, I would strongly support the amendment. Wikipedia should continually strive to eliminate bias and to make users aware of edits that may be bias in nature. Cole.E.Hansen (talk) 01:28, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
68. Oppose The underlying premise is that the merits of an edit have some connection to the identity of the editor. This is an Ad hominem approach that is inconsistent with the long-standing practice of editor anonymity. Wikipedians have developed an amazing system whereby a publication can be edited anonymously, while remaining at least as accurate as other publications with a clearly identified staff. This is because all content must be supported by reliable sources. Biases are managed by [|WP:NPOV] and a variety of additional policies serve to discourage or result in the removal of the types of edits this proposed amendment is designed to prevent. My point is that policies do, and should, be based upon the edits instead of the identity of the editor. When an editor is dealt with adversely, it is because of his or her edits, not an external affiliation. This leads to another issue: Verifiability. It seems like the amendment calls upon an editor who is likely to engage in dubious activity to out him or her self. The easiest thing would be for the editor to refrain from admitting such affiliation to begin with. So the effectiveness of this amendment would depend on an end to anonymous editors.--Libertyguy (talk) 02:19, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

    Yes, the prevailing wiki philosophy ought to be "comment on the contributions, not the contributor". There are only limited circumstances where an individual user's motives may be used to determine a pattern of problematic/disruptive editing, and even that is limited in power TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 02:28, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

69. Oppose Dumb, misdirected, and unworkable. Editors making edits just for money will continue to fly under the radar; this just terrorizes editors making potentially good and valuable edits just because of their careers. No government employee can edit an article about the government; no member of the armed forces an article which refers to the armed forces; no author an article mentioning a magazine or publisher which has published them? Nuts.KD Tries Again (talk) 05:53, 22 February 2014 (UTC)KD Tries Again

    Definitely respect your opinion KD Tries Again, but I do think your examples do not accurately illustrate the proposed amendment. Under the proposed amendment, you must be receiving compensation by your employee in return for the edit. Most government employees are not paid to edit Wikipedia, for example, so the proposed amendment would not apply to them. Take care Geoffbrigham (talk) 06:13, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

    Actually, some government employees do edit Wikipedia, and the last thing they want is to see their employer get slammed in the media over some Wikipedia flame war-- whether they're editing on the clock, or off the clock. Djembayz (talk) 14:04, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

70. Strong oppose The problem with Wikipedia is that it has too many rules, not that it doesn't have enough and needs some more. This will increase the ratio of legal wrangling to actual edits, and prevent simple edits by companies to delete plain untruths, or to, for example, change the date of founding or the name of the managing director. It will also provide yet another reason to hit the occasional ruler over the head with bureaucracy. Mike Young (talk) 09:05, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
71. Strongly Oppose - and why isn't this discussion available in other languages so that non-English speakers can participate, given you're attempting to shove down their throats a policy that they can't even comment on!? Azx2 (talk) 09:23, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
72. Oppose because fraught with privacy and expert-disenfrancisment concerns. Consider academics who, in the course of teaching or background reading, have opportunity to contribute to articles in broad fields of expertise (and are extremely unlikely to encounter potential COI). These are the kinds of articles for which expert contributors are most highly sought-after. (A similar issue occurs with other salaried professionals, for whom there may be no clear division between private and paid efforts.) Consider also the like of security guards who are paid to be available on-standby for countless hours on end, but have no particular duties to occupy them (just internet or TV). This amendment will inevitably motivate some overzealous wikilawyering vigilantes (seeking its enforcement) to try to discover (and out-closet) the real-life identities of psuedonymous wikipedians. (This invasion of privacy can easily lead to physical or financial harm, for all the reasons that editors may legitimately not want their contributions associated to the same identities they present to their employers and governments.) Consider if an editor has previously helped to locate objective unbiased sources about a topic that their future employers would find unflattering, or if their contributions reveal a political-stance (or even a sexual orientation) that is outlawed in a place they live or travel. Yes, biased advocacy (especially editors employed to use WP for advocacy) is a problem, but this proposal goes too far. Cesiumfrog (talk) 09:48, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
73. Oppose 1. Do we have a problem in the first place? 2. Assuming that's true, I don't believe this will fix it. Multichill (talk) 10:04, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
74. Strongly oppose, Wikimedia could not stand with such decisions. This proposal can result in miserable and biased projects.--78.87.105.61 10:13, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
75. Strongly oppose, unless Wikimedia and Wikipedia intend to crack down just as thoroughly on ideologically-motivated editors who throw far more bias into articles than paid editors (who are often paid to correct inaccuracies left by unpaid editors), this is an unbalanced and unworkable approach to the problem. Pervasive ideological bias is the issue that OUGHT to be addressed, and never has been by Wikipedia except by rare instances when an article is tagged for rampant NPOV violations. The ability of some editors to halt contributions by other editors by placing a "protect" tag to halt additions they simply don't like is a much worse issue going un-addressed right now. Until we take care of that issue, I fail to see how imposing an ultimately unenforceable stricture against undisclosed paid editing will help. Are we at some point going to require unpaid editors with a political axe to grind to post on their talk page (inside of a text box surrounded by black and yellow police tape lines) "I am a political activist, and I freely admit that my edits are going to be driven by my attiudes, and I will suppress the truth and utter lies in articles to further my political ends"? THEN I might endorse similar strictures on paid editors, who at least are potentially NPOV if one assumes good faith. loupgarous (talk) 10:50, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
76. Oppose, I think this proposal may cause many good editors that do have some kind of affiliation of relation to the "subject" of an article they want to write to give up writing on the subject. That would be bad because usually they have the best "first-hand" knowledge on it. I think current mechanisms are sufficient to control the quality of the projects. I do not think that additional regulation would help the cause even though "it may sound good". It would be relatively easy to circumvent the proposed regulations anyhow (for example by using a computer in an internet cafe or something like that).--BenVrackie (talk) 12:46, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
77. Oppose I don't see a need and I believe that overwhelming evidence of a need is required to change a tradition, practice, or procedure. Wikipedia on the whole works and I do not see how this will improve it enough to risk the potential downsides mentioned by many. What we need is honest, passionate, knowledgeable editors. Volunteers are not more honest; their evil motivation might be pride or envy instead of greed. Many people get paid to do what they are passionate and/or knowledgeable about. The honest, passionate, knowledgeable editors who live and work their passion might decide not to edit if this is a rule. They might conclude it is dishonest -- that it is against the terms of service -- to edit articles on topics that relate to their work even if they are not paid explicitly to edit Wikipedia, even if their motivations are pure and honest. --Iloilo Wanderer (talk) 12:51, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
78. Oppose If we accept that, we have editors of one type and editors of another.--Xan2 (talk) 13:03, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
79. Oppose I oppose this proposal, not because I think it's a bad idea but because I don't think it goes far enough. It only covers paid editing. I think it should be extended to cover unpaid/free-time editing of an article if that article relates to the editor's employer, customer or their (and their competitors') products/technologies. For example, I believe an employee of a large proprietary software vendor which has publically opposed Open Source Software should have to declare their affiliation when editing an article on an Open Source Software project or an article on a new technology developped by their employer's competitor in their own time. I think the disclosure should also cover affiliation or employment (whether paid or not) to religious organisations and political parties. PapaRedFox (talk) 13:35, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
80. Oppose Bad reply to a good question; editing to promote someone's interest is contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia; being paid or not is only a part of the problem. Cst7 (talk) 13:49, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
81. Strongly Oppose in Current Form. Is accuracy of Wikipedia information the primary objective, or is the aim to protect a spirit of the organization as a wholly volunteer effort? If the concern is substantially the accuracy of content, then the proposed change limits focus to payment leading to bias in article accuracy, over other equally tangible, and some intangible origins of bias based on nonpecuniary interest that are just as egregious. For instance, an alumnus of a particular academic scientific research group (having worked with a given faculty member), though presently unpaid by that former mentor, can certainly be expected to display a bias toward the work of that mentor in writing about it. Yet, for the expertise that the former trainee brings, we would not want her or him prohibited from writing about a subject, though the supportive writing likely brings many tangible benefits. (The few scientists who have broken ranks with their former mentors can attest to the suicidal attributes of disowning one's academic "parent".)

    What is needed, perhaps, in both paid and unpaid cases, is a standard disclaimer of affiliations and interests, such as is used by the Nature Publishing Group, for its authors. In such an approach, varying manners of potential content-bias through affiliation and compensation are exposed. Then, critically needed are reforms within the Wikipedia establishment and community to provide a policy regarding source verifiability (and the mechanisms for automated text checking and removal to give the policy "teeth"), see following, so that it becomes the uniform rule, rather than the exception, that we know where Wikipedia content has originated.

    With such in place, we can acknowledge that few will know as much about a company as those within the company itself, few will know as much about a celebrity as their publicist or agent, etc. What matters to accurate content generation is their expertise distilled to useful prose, insofar as what they state can be sourced to Wikipedia standards—then, critically, trusting in the Wikipedia system to provide further information to balance the bias that their association has introduced. For it is a common understanding in the social sciences and humanities that all authors bring bias to their writing. A controversial example would be to note that bias against business exists (cf. http://www.providencejournal.com/opinion/commentary/20140210-jeffrey-h.-joseph-revolving-door-installs-brazenly-anti-business-activists.ece), and can find its way into Wikipedia though its contributors are unpaid, and from individuals in organizations rather than companies. How can we suggest that biases arising form payment are alone inaccurate in direction/emphasis, and so only the paid are egregious? Wherefrom, in the current policy and revisions, are the protections to come, against such unpaid biases, that might also be clarified if affiliations were disclosed? (Note that I am neither pro- nor anti- on any of these matters, but am simply noting that bias is not relegated to paid offerings.)

    Finally, if the verifiability of sourcing were to begin to receive serious attention (e.g., by a high level wikipedia policy review), leading to a more uniform application of a true, steely verifiability policy, then many real bias issues would work themselves out. The glory of the system is the potential for content to become correct over time, as unreferenced or poorly/selectively referenced material is removed. However, to any academic or other scholarly individual that edits regularly, it is clear that the notion that "Unsourced material may be challenged and removed." (tag verbiage), is a statement of fiction in some article contexts. (The mechanisms of reversion counting and the existence of editorial cliques serve, in some locales, to maintain status quo despite reams of longstanding unsourced, and therefore potentially inaccurate, biased, and plagiarized material.) As it stands (again, echoing others' comments), there are tremendous biases of various sorts and origins in Wikipedia, and selectively addressing one, while failing to tighten up the policies that can rectify this one and other sources of inaccurate information—for it is the propagation of inaccurate information that should most gaul us—is likely an effort in vain. 16:25, 22 February 2014 (UTC) Leprof 7272 (talk) 18:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

82. Oppose with prejudice I can't speak for the rest of Wikimedia, but I know that Wikipedia doesn't handle COI well. This takes an aspect of COI and places editors in legal jeopardy for a COI-related issue (paid editing). Very bad idea. Wikipedia is accused of calling it's own secret-police on unfavored editors; now the real police (or FBI, or non-US equivalent) can be called, and the tax-authorities, and suddenly Wikipedia is a government institution, net neutrality is lost - and that's assuming Wikipedia was ever net-neutral. 1000JarsofPickles (talk) 14:59, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
83. Oppose Strongly This will go to the heart of Wikipedia's credibility. Who wants to read advertorials ? Not me. Would I ? Not in a million years. 86.45.17.60 15:54, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
84. Oppose Strongly I think this is silly. It is completely unenforceable and calls into question the motives of anyone who happens to work anywhere (heaven forbid that they, like me, happen to work in marketing!). If someone is paid but adds useful content to Wikipedia, it is neither here nor there. If someone is unpaid and adds content to support their own beliefs or prejudices, that is an issue. This is likely to develop into some kind of witch-hunt against people who happen to have access to useful information. 77.100.117.169 16:04, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
85. Oppose - WMF can respect the privacy and anonymity of its editors, or it can have no paid editing, but it can't have both. To say otherwise is deny common sense and logic, and lead to even more witch hunts, sock accusations, and attempted outings (at least on English Wikipedia; can't speak to behavior on other projects) NE Ent (talk) 16:44, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
86. Strongly Oppose. Any Wikipedia policy which in any way permits paid editing/ advertising in Wikipedia, for any reason, radically alters the entire nature of Wikipedia. While, admittedly, the enforcement of the prohibition against paid advertising/ editing in Wikipedia may be difficult, retaining a policy of absolute prohibition against paid edits remains absolutely necessary. Otherwise Wikipedia loses the basis of its greatest claim to highly unbiased editing. Scottperry (talk) 17:41, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

    Thank you Scottperry. To be clear, this proposed amendment does not prohibit project bans on paid editing. It simply requires disclosure. More is said here about that. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 21:50, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

87. Strongly Oppose - I see this as a solution looking for a problem. Maybe paid editing is a problem, but aside from a few high-profile cases it does not appear to affect the vast majority of articles. The vast majority of problems that I have encountered with Wikipedia articles involved people who were highly-motivated people with ideological biases. Consider how many Wikipedia science articles now have a counterpart "Controversies" page as a means to get around the Undue Weight prohibition. For that matter, Undue Weight is one of the biggest problems I see in Wikipedia articles in general, where information from highly reputable sources (ie NIH, CDC) gets a single paragraph and information from a few crackpots gets five. The people who add the crackpot information are not paid, but they are often highly motivated by ideological biases, usually more motivated than people who just want to add relevant verifiable information.

    And it needs to be said that people who try to add good reliable information are often already accused of being "shills" by said ideologues. All that this proposal will do is give these people more ammunition, and if they accuse me of being paid or having a COI (neither are true), the only way to conclusively demonstrate that I have no COI would involve disclosing personally identifiable information. This is an essential problem at the heart of Wikipedia's philosophy: experts are distrusted because expertise implies COI (and possible even monetary compensation in the field), while we trust non-experts to be able to accurate comprehend and summarize highly technical literature. There are serious limitations to this philosophy, as demonstrated in many medical articles. Often we're lucky if non-experts even understand MedRS and why it's important, much less whether they can fit what their one source says in with the larger body of literature in a given subject. I oppose this proposal, but I think that it underscores a much deeper problem with Wikipedia in general. Hyperion35 (talk) 18:08, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

    This is what I fear. Genuine editors will be dissuaded by editors who will wave the "conflict of interest" flag as soon as they see the edit comment. It's unworkable bullshit that the real shills will ignore because they can. Short of catching IP addresses known to belong to companies or PR companies, how would we even spot this? More likely honest editors who note their affiliation will get mired in the conflict of interest accusations, and end up in Internet Court instead of making edits, good or bad, that other editors can scrutinise impartially. Concernedresident's butler (talk) 22:49, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

88. Oppose If only because it's completely unenforceable, and will increase, rather than decrease, the problems with paid editing. Good edits, paid or not, should be encouraged. Bad edits, paid or not, should be fixed. This helps neither of these goals, and only reinforces the misconception that paid edits are somehow inherently worse than free ones. They are not. Thesteve (talk) 18:22, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
89. Strongly Oppose - I have had the same idea as writer number 6. DTeetz (talk) 19:21, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
90. Oppose This encourages paid editing, which often creates lots of articles that look like ads (but not always). It also makes anywhere who works anywhere seem untrustworthy, not to mention that it is completely unenforceable. ~ Missionedit (talk) 20:07, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
91. Oppose. « because it's completely unenforceable », « Good edits, paid or not, should be encouraged. Bad edits, paid or not, should be fixed. This helps neither of these goals ». Pour moi le principe sur Wikipedia c'est qu'on pouvait contribuer anonymement, donc sans donner aucune information sans soi, et que les contributions étaient jugées uniquement d'après leur qualité et leurs sources. Devrait-on aussi signaler pour qui on vote avant de contribuer sur les articles politiques ? En somme les votes 74 et 75 résument bien ma position. --Ululo (talk) 21:10, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
92. Strongly Oppose. Anyone should be able to edit anonymously and have his work analyzed for the contents it brings to wiki. Payment, political ideology, personal motives - all are forms of motivation and are you going to try to police them all? It's a slippery slope.----gagaismine

    The problem is that those paid editors are not free with their own opinions, and there's no way to convince them to change it, given these contents are completely out of their control. They are acting as proxies for someone else that is not honnest enough to reveal who he is (and that may have paid lots of other pseudo-"contributors" to force their content to be published (an in that case, most of these contents will be crap but as they seem to have supporters (the hidden paid proxies acting as if they were independant), this unbalances severely the weight of other independant contributors acting on their own initiative (and that can be convinced and with whom it's possible to negociate). Paid editors will never vary any iota about what they publish simply because they can't (or if they do, they will be fired by their payer).

    Paid editors are a severe problem for the wanted neutrality of Wikimedia projects : those that can pay more to pay proxies acting on behalf of them, will get a decisive power on the projects against all other independant contributors of the projects (there are companies that pay the internet connection at home of their employees, and instruct them to install a proxying software on their home internet access, so that these companies can send at any time their own content coming from randomized locations not directly identfiable as these companies: these companies are polluting all social networks with their crap but the proxy users have no choice if they want to continue being paid by their employers: those users also are not free to contradict their employers in their own private contributions).

    Yes it will be difficult to enforce it, but with the policy, we know what to do when these hidden proxies will be detected with their fingers still in the honeypot and the Foundation has ways to defend legally against the companies paying these non-free contributors. The policy should help mitigate the risk that companies (or other third parties) will start doing that in Wikimedia projects (for them there's the risk that one of their employees will denounce the abuses by these companies at any time for ay possible conflicts that could oppose later the company with one of its contractors or employees). On Wikimedia, the model we highly prefer for paid proxies is Wikimedians in residence. verdy_p (talk) 21:58, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

    In addition wth the proposed policy, we have the roots to defend the past paid employees that could be threatened illegally by their past employers for revealing to the world a secret contract between them and the company that they were acting as sockpuppets on Wikimedia projects on behalf of the company. These paid proxies will not be bound by these illegal secret contracts and can defend themselves in a court against their past employers that violated a Wikimedia community policy. That company will be condamned in courts. Globally we are helping to defend the effective freedom of everyone, including the own freedom of these paid proxies, so that they can still refuse to publish things they don't support themselves. In all this, the quality, or non-quality, of these proxied contributions does not matter at all. All this is about keeping the projects free (for everyone to give his own opinion) and neutral. verdy_p (talk) 22:10, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

    We are also helping protect the point of views of organisations because this policy forbids anyone to impersonate the organization and act as if he was a valid representant acting on behalf of that organizations. The affiliation of these paid proxies can be tested, and asserted, using the OTRS system. This allows than even the powerful organizations to have their own share of point of views in Wikimedia projects, including the NSA, or the US State Departement, or any government, even if they are employing proxies to do work in Wikimedia projects. In summary, this also impoves freedoms for everyone, including moral personalities like organisations, to defend their own opinion, in a fair way, even when the rest of the community has a strong opposition to the positions of these paying organizations. Finally these paid proxies are free to have their own opinions given on separate accounts when they do not act on behalf of their employers: what they wrote under this organization affiliation does not engage themselves for the future, and if they leave the organization and join a competitor, they will be able to give other opinions, including on behalf of the new organization or their own opinion. Everyone will gain with more trust and more reliable sources. verdy_p (talk) 22:53, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

93. Oppose. Stongly Oppose
94. Oppose. I don't see how these changes will do anything other than add yet another rule for people to inadvertently break, which will be used against them even if the violation isn't intentional. Conflicts of interest are everywhere. Validity of edits shouldn't be based on the identity of affiliations of the editor. It gets silly. How about if I'm in one of those fan-based publicity groups (street crew?) for a band, and I get t-shirts and stuff for going out spreading the word? Technically that must be disclosed, yet a regular fan with no affiliation can make identical edits without disclosure. What if I'm not specifically paid by x company to edit, but it's in my interests to see my employer receive favourable coverage on Wikipedia? I think edits should be judged by their quality and the history of the user - nothing more. Ban hammer disruptive users and revert unsuitable edits. In short, this is a rule that many will inadvertently break, and those looking to circumvent it will very easily do this. Those are warning signs of a bad rule, and this whole idea strikes me as being more about principle than having something useful and workable. Concernedresident's butler (talk) 22:44, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

    if you are just a fan of a group that may give your some gifts, you are not a contractor with anyone are remain competely free to abandon it, and change your opinion. The policy is there to address the cases where the controbutors are bound to some paid contracts under which they are not free to give their own opinion or drop any dot over a iota in the proxied contributions.

    As long as your favorite fan-club does not incite you by any form of legally enforcable contract, you're not concerned by this policy, because you already agree yourself with everything published in your online contributions. We want people to disclose their affiliations if they do not represent themselves, and we want to make sure that every opinion given in Wikimedia by anyone is effectively endorsed by the contributor himself, or by his paying organisations, affiliating or employing him.

    But if you are doing that to promote a commercial site (including a fan website), then you have to reveal your affiliation with that site for such publication (and if needed, you should use a separate account for publications made under this affiliation; and the affiliation will be also checked, if needed, by the fan-club to make sure that you do not impersonate them without their authorization to damage its own online reputation). verdy_p (talk) 23:06, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

95. Strongly oppose. A good edit is a good edit, a bad edit is a bad edit; it's as simple as that. If the Wikimedia Foundation feels so strongly about the corrupting influence of money, they should of course immediately stop paying their employees. Yaron K. (talk) 03:42, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
96. Strongly oppose. Just like PACs in the USA are able to lobby under ambiguous names that do not truly identify their affiliations (and, therefore, conflicts of interest), so, too, can paid contributors and editors even if they are required to provide some sort of self-identification.173.172.73.33 05:35, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
97. oppose - Edits should be judged based on Wikipedia policies not intent of editors. It is at odds with the philosophy of Wikipedia. --Sicaspi (talk) 08:01, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
98. Strongly Oppose -- I answered a job ad for a company that has major involvement with this. What alarmed me about their process was not that there was payment for Wikipedia material, but that the company fabricated material in "reliable sources." Obviously, Wikipedia cannot stop the world at large from creating biased or dishonest material. The problem rests, then, in what is considered a reliable source. All too often Wikipedia accepts material from a talk show or a popular magazine or even an Internet entertainment web site. Examination often shows these pieces to be fluff, or biased, or written by marketing departments. Also, examination shows that perhaps 1/4 to 1/3 of the links either are broken, or do not confirm the Wiki content. The problem, then, is that Wikipedia is indiscriminate about sources. One suspects, indeed, that many of those eager to contribute actually don't KNOW any reliable sources. They read a few things online, don't know the subject in depth, and are uninterested in becoming more informed. So their Wikipedia contribution is of indeterminate value. The fault is in Wikipedia's editorial practice. Statements that are backed by citations yielding a "404" page result should be hidden from the text, and placed on the talk page for evaluation, just as an example. Leptus Froggi (talk) 09:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
99. oppose - Initially I intended to support the proposal because I have seen what is obviously 'driven' bias in several articles where there is a request for comment. On reading the comments in abstain I really began to wonder whether the proposal will solve the problem and on reflection I do not think it will. Those who write in wiki in a manner of driven bias will not be stopped by the proposal and may even gain legitimacy through their false credentials as unpaid. Although most of my edits have been made in my own time completely unpaid and unaffiliated I have been in a different situation which I think could reflect that of many wiki editors. For example I have been employed to conduct research and will often use wiki to check sources or information. In doing so I have often corrected minor errors and factual errors and I have been open with my employer about this. If however, I had to disclose my paid employment, my employer would object and it would not have been possible to make such edits. I think that wiki probably works with an army of editors who value wiki and make a positive contribution the best their time allows and I think that wiki cannot afford to lose those editors contributions. Isthisuseful (talk) 09:55, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

    I believe that you have misunderstood what its written here. From your description of the situation, it is very clear that your employer did not ask you to modify Wikipedia content and it was not given to you as a task to modify content. Your contributions, therefore, are not under the category of paid contributions. Such contributions, are not under the proposed terms of use. --FocalPoint (talk) 12:52, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

100. Oppose. This information has, in of itself, no relevance to the merits of any given edit. James500 (talk) 13:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
101. Strongly Oppose -- a) The proposal is full of legal terms in English language. Most of the non-native speakers of English language (and I suggest: even most of the English speakers) are not able to understand them fully. So any discussion here must and can be limited to the WP in English language only. (I am a native speaker of German and usually write in the WP in German language). b) There may be a lot of valuable input into WP by people working in organizations, paid by them, who want to contribute knowledge gained there, but without letting their employers know they do so. c) To implant rules which can not be checked properly in their application and which have no real sanctions behind them are useless. -- Reinhard Dietrich (talk) 14:01, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
102. Oppose Hchc2009 (talk) 16:08, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
103. Oppose Why is this being discussed in the first place? Where there's money, corruption and lies follow. Simple as that. Keep this place open. Allow us to amass our knowledge in a collective space without having corporate interests come in and ruin it. Let's just face it. Jimbo is tired of begging for money from the userbase, so the only logical solution is to completely sell out. Sadface :(
104. Oppose I have two reasons to oppose this proposed change. First, it appears that a general opinion is being made that paid writers cannot write in a fair and neutral way showing good faith. By someone posting that they are "paid" does that mean they will be held to a higher standard? Second, As an editor, how does one know they don't have an ulterior motive as well? For example, at a job several years ago, I had to submit business listings to DMOZ. Over time, we were discovering many submissions under one category were not being approved. It turned out the editor worked for a competitor and just wasn't approving anything that could be considered competition. So, it really depends on who has "the final say" alvb
105. Oppose - in times, the growing will be less than before, in times, there were too many rules, we will loose too many well writers. And, there is no possibiliy to make difference between paid writing and writing in pages about / relating to my company. As I am a teacher, I'm paid from my state, but if i edit something about my state, my school, then I'm not paid for editing, only I have knowledge while I have a job there. The goal was to have a free encyclopaedia, the targets seems to get a closed wikipedia, where we do not want to have everyone be helping. --Quedel (talk) 16:52, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
106. Oppose - As being utterly against the goal of Wikipedia to be an open source and anonymous project. My view is that the users voting to support this amendment have too strong a sense of ownership over the project. They are blindly raging against an opponent that doesn't exist, harming the project as a result. 97.118.44.28 18:25, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
107. Oppose - I utterly detest any proposal that involves paid sponsorships related to editing. It will - not would, will - destroy Wikipedia's standing as an open encyclopedia that anyone can edit. What's next? Wikipedia administrators will be paid to do the job in three years? We must not allow paid sponsorships to ruin this great information resource by possibly rejecting accepted views and discussions of topics in favour of someone providing money to put forth their views. This is equivalent to McDonald's paying to have the article say nothing negative - in effect, if McDonalds paid Wikipedia, they could remove the entire Criticism section from the article and mandate it be left off. This is ridiculous and unacceptable. CycloneGU (talk) 18:48, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

     Hi CycloneGU - I fully understand your views. Please note however that this proposed amendment is not intended as an endorsement of paid editing. You can read more here. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 00:00, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

108. Oppose - I understand and applaud the intention, but I think it will cause unnecessary conflict where declared, be widely disregarded by the oblivious, and easily circumvented by the determined. Extra policy isn't what's required; focus should be on growing the editor base to improve the resilience of the project. EdSaperia (talk) 18:56, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
109. Oppose - Wikipedia should not introduce regulation that it cannot possibly enforce - short of accepting the service of NSA :) 82.135.29.13 22:52, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
110. Strongly Oppose — One of those silly rules that can't be enforced. Exactly how would you know if I was compensated or not?????? Was I compensated to write this?
111. Oppose - putting adverts here would be better solution than this.83.5.208.108 00:39, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
112. Oppose — There would be some positive effects to this change - it would provide a clearer way for well-intentioned editors with a COI to declare it, and it would serve as an additional tool in the case of legal action against someone making paid contributions. However, these positives are outweighed by the negatives: it opens up well-meaning people to stalking and harassment, cannot be enforced, and promotes a culture of distrust among Wikipedians. If spin and bias introduced by paid contributors is a major concern, then we need enforceable policies that more directly address the problem. Cthomasbailey (talk) 01:34, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
113. Strongly Oppose - I don't think anybody should be able to pay for edit, that would make the encyclopedia less reliable, my opinion down here The power to censure knowledge Gabrielx com (talk) 01:47, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

     Hi Gabrieix. I clearly hear your point of view. To be clear the proposed amendment is not intended as an endorsement of paid advocacy editing. We write more about that here. Geoffbrigham (talk) 11:53, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

     I think you might have this backwards. People already pay for edits. The proposal is that if they do, they have to tell everyone. Opposing the proposal means you support the right to make paid edits without disclosure. 210.55.212.212 01:51, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

114. Oppose - Disclosure seems like a legal fig leaf, not a practical solution to a problem which, though real, is not proportional in scale. Or is it? Why is this necessary? Wouldn't paid shills make it worse? Before going down this dubious road, WP needs to state its case much more clearly, explaining why this amendment helps the user.Kaewon F. Addus (talk) 02:26, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
115. Strongly Oppose - I do not think anybody should get paid for editing. MozzieINbangla (talk) 05:36, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
116. Support (with reservations) Oppose Require paid editors to disclose on their talk page and to set a "Paid Editor" user attribute. (See my comments about the latter, below.) Do not clutter the article itself with confusing tags about contributions having been made by paid editors. My reservation: how enforceable is the requirement, and are violations likely to be detected? Wikipedia (among other projects) should have a clear ban on editing any article in which the editor has a financial interest. That disallows nearly all paid editing. Requiring paid editors to disclose implies that their activity is permitted. As I will argue below, the few cases of legitimate paid editing can be handled better without the proposed amendment. Peter Chastain (talk) 06:44, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

     Hi Peter Chastain. I clearly hear your point of view. To be clear the proposed amendment is not an endorsement of paid advocacy editing. We write more about that here. Geoffbrigham (talk) 11:49, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

117. Strongly Oppose. Any policy which in any way permits paid editing is like advertising in Wikipedia, for any reason, radically alters the entire nature of Wikipedia according to its own policies. While, admittedly, the enforcement of the prohibition against paid advertising or editing in Wikipedia may be difficult, retaining a policy of absolute prohibition against paid edits remains absolutely necessary. Otherwise Wikipedia loses the basis of its greatest claim to highly unbiased editing with all its information. Say2max (talk) 08:42, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

     Hi Say2max. I clearly hear your point of view. To be clear the proposed amendment is not intended as an endorsement of paid advocacy editing. We write more about that here. Geoffbrigham (talk) 11:53, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

118. Strongly oppose. I prefer to judge contributions by the contributions, not the contributor. --Plauz (talk) 12:08, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
119. Strongly Oppose. The existing rules are generally sufficient for maintaining quality articles. The information on wikipedia is already judged by its citations. I would agree with either banning all paid edits (unenforceable) or allowing all paid edits (possibly deleterious to wikipedia). This is really a refomulation of the age old philosophical dichotomy: freedom (of use) vs. safety (of articles). I tend to side with freedom. 192.249.47.163 19:13, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
120. Oppose'. Wikipedia is about its content, not about who wrote it.Jorgecarleitao (talk) 13:07, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
121. Wikemedia Foundation is answering yet another urgent question nobody really asked. How are you going to enforce it? What are you going to do if you find out someone is being paid? Mentioning "legal ramnifications" violates WP rules about legal threats. DUH! Leo711 (talk) 13:14, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
122. Strong Oppose. This policy preferentially targets those seeking to edit in good faith by the rules, without (as mentioned in the proposal) hampering efforts by violators of existing rules. Magic5ball (talk) 14:52, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
123. Oppose - Orphan Drugs. These drugs are so-named because they do not seem profitable enough to manufacture. While these drugs may be viable and make-able the small scale of the need prevents profitability. In an interesting twist on the concept, I ask "What good topics find no author because they find nobody willing to do it for free who also has the willingness and ability to navigate Wikipedia's byzantine method of article construction?" Articles and edits should stand on their own merit regardless of who posts them...or why. Why does anybody choose to edit an article? What motivations are "pure"?Rtgates (talk) 15:35, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
124. Oppose. I agree with the view that each edit should be judged on its own merit. I think, on top of that, that a rule that is not enforcable doesn't make any sense in the first place. --Zamomin (talk) 15:37, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
125. Strongly Oppose I don't see the problem of being paid to contribute to Wikipedia. We can imagine paid people from government that writes article about historic places, history, protected landmarks, translation of article from other languages. Or simply Wikipedians who want to help companies improving their own articles. Wikipedia is becoming USSR. It's not very surprising. I just hope that a more liberal and free project will be created in the future. --Deansfa (talk) 16:12, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
126. Oppose per #"Paid editors". As worded this proposal would add additional disclosure requirements on good editors who are editing from a place of business, or anyone who is employed and edits an area in which they are a subject matter expert due to their employment. The goal of this proposal (stopping exploitation of WMF projects for commercial benefit) is a good one and should be pursued, but the current proposal will do more harm than good. -- Ryan • (talk) • 19:33, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
127. Oppose Complicated, not needed, and appears to raise costly legal concerns. Guidelines & Policies for individual projects are sufficient for handling this problems. -Verdatum (talk) 20:14, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
128. en:wikt:solution in search of a problem. Still a redlink? Too bad. No such user (talk) 20:45, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
129. Very Strongly Oppose It is a known fact that Wikipedia hires people to edit their own articles using money from donations. Forbidding other organizations from doing so is hypocritical and typical of Jimbo Wales left-wing agenda in controlling information. Wikipedia in general has already been compromised to provide an almost entirely left-wing slant on all articles courtesy of the dictator Jimbo Wales. The last thing it needs is Jim Crow laws to make certain paid editors 'separate but equal'. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.70.221.14 (talk • contribs) 21:11, 24 February 2014.
130. Oppose. Biased writing because you get paid for it is no worse than biased writing because you like something for whatever reason. --Studmult (talk) 21:26, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
131. Oppose because of the proposal's failure to distinguish between expert editors and spammers, as detailed in my comments below, as well as because of the forum-shopping antics of the proponents of these policies and their failure to respond to past feedback. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:36, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
132. Oppose. While I understand that editing Wikipedia by people who are paid for advertising their company is a serious problem, I fail to see the point of creating unenforceable rules. Moreover, this rule might lead to displeasing situations in the community, when people will start being tracked what are they doing IRL. Marcgalrespons 22:24, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
133. Oppose. Seems there are a lot more supports than opposes, but that many of the supports seem like hysteria. There are more downsides than upsides- overall my impression is that this reads as a knee-jerk, PANIC! reaction. I also find the fact that this has been discussed and opposed before and then brought to the community again by the WMF legal department distasteful. Are we just going to talk and talk until the answer goes the way some people want it to, or can we come to a decision already. Comments from the legal folks also seem mostly geared towards "good point, we could change the wording of it to address your concern", rather than, "good point, you make a solid argument for this being a bad idea in general".
134. Oppose. I agree 100% with Austriacus (above), but it shouldn't matter how many of us "vote" here or who I am. One should be able to contribute anonymously or pseudonymously without being expected to explain their motives. Stuff like this is why I stopped contributing years ago - it became about the social status of people involved instead of about the edits. --99.106.242.242 01:10, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
135. Oppose Contributions should be, and already are, judged solely on their content, not on their author. Korossyl (talk) 01:19, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
136. Oppose. I've made my objections known in this section. To summarize: imho it is a uniquely bad idea to elevate pay as an agenda-driving factor over other agenda-motors (ideology, political views, national perceptions, religious affiliations etc etc), because it gives non-payment-driven agendas a tacit pass which they should absolutely not be given. I honestly wonder why WMF proposals are always so singlemindedly focused on particular aspects of far-ranging issues. It seems that some ideology doesn't permit them to see or to address the actual issue, leaving them to fight a single symptom. Back when they were pushing for the image filter, "naughtiness" was the sole potential problem they saw with images. This time, it's pay. The WMF is completely wrong to focus only partial problems. This approach will never, not even potentially, address the problem "incrementally" as some might claim. To the contrary: It will make it even more difficult to address agenda itself as the problem (or in the case of images, objectionability as a general category). --85.197.31.79 02:08, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
137. Oppose. This is worse than doing nothing because it cannot be enforced. It empowers the dishonest. Only the honest paid editors will disclose voluntarily and there is no way to enforce disclosure or even to identify paid editors who don't want to volunteer the information. Edits are supposed to be judged on their merits, not on the motivations (real or imagined) of their editors. Bias is supposed to be handled under the NPOV policy. Just as we do not require editors to declare their political affiliation, gender, nationality, or ideological biases, there is no reason to require disclosure of monetary interests. Tendentious editing is already forbidden. If we need a better way of enforcing that existing policy, this is not the way to do it. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:37, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

     Yes, this is very common opinion. Unfortunately, I can not agree because I know that a small group of editors, coordinated by a single employer, can effectively own an entire subject area, and this is the reason I stopped editing Russian politics. My very best wishes (talk) 10:06, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

     If you already know of tendentious editing by a group and can't do anything about it, then the problem lies in our enforcement mechanisms, not our lack of rules. How would this actually help? AmateurEditor (talk) 22:52, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

     A few years ago, Arbcom in English wikipedia came up with a ridiculous finding during one of their cases: "there is no proof about KGB editing in Wikipedia" or something like that. It was ridiculous because no one claimed about KGB (a defunct organization) editing in Wikipedia at the first place. I guess such ruling has been made to make a mockery of the very idea about the potential interference by external political organizations that could be more powerful than WMF. A lot of things had happened with me since then, including outing, interception of private wikipedia-related emails and placing them on Wikileaks by unknown people to protect a "pro-Russian" editor, serious off-wiki harassment by unknown people to protect the same editor, someone editing from my campus to emulate my grammar mistakes and appear as my sockpuppet, and a couple of other strange real life incidents I would not talk about. This discussion and suggestion by WMF is an open admission of the more general problem and a step forward in the right direction - hence my "support". Will this immediately solve anything? No. But at least this is a significant mindset change that should be made official. The problem is potential hijacking of the project or parts of the project by external organizations. Even admission of this problem by community is important. Telling: "this is unacceptable" is even better. My very best wishes (talk) 05:26, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

     I'm sorry to hear about those things happening to you, but each of those things is already unacceptable under the current rules and would not be affected by this new requirement. Collusion off-wiki cannot be stopped by this. Likely, it cannot be stopped at all. If we can effectively enforce our existing policies, it doesn't even need to be. People making bad edits to articles and making bad points in discussions can be overcome by a better adherence to our present rules (such as the quality of !votes being more significant than the quantity in an AfD discussion) even if they collude with each other. The potential for off-wiki harassment will also be unaffected, unfortunately. And to make things worse, good-faith paid editing will be hampered, and such a thing can exist. For example, I can imagine a famous person hiring someone just to ensure that Wikipedia does not contain baseless slander about them, which has been a problem. It is apparent from other comments on this page that some editors will automatically assume bad faith toward a paid editor, before they have even seen the specific edits made by that person. Assume good faith. If necessary, take editor behavior to the noticeboards. If that is not working, then that's where the problem is and that's what we need to fix. AmateurEditor (talk) 22:45, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

     This is why Wikipedia must aim in the opposite direction: that of anonymous editing. The current Wikipedia model relies on being able to trace users back to their real-life identities to control malicious edits. Anonymous edits are now impossible. The consequences? Like what you've just described. More in this section the archive...
     – 6birc (talk) 22:04, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

     Hmm... (1) Indeed, one can not assume good faith with regard to a person who acts as a proxy of PR company, whose intrinsic goal is to produce POV. WP:AGF policy must be modified if this passes, which should not be a problem in my opinion. (2) Yes, I agree, this is only a declaration of intention, and can not be really enforced if paid editors (or rather their organizations) are clever and have sufficient resources. Still, it's better to have a declaration. My very best wishes (talk) 03:12, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

     "Assume Good Faith" is to help us ignore our perceived motivations of other editors and to focus instead on the content of their edits and behavior, which is all that actually matters. The primary result of this proposal will be people assuming bad faith of those people honest enough to voluntarily disclose this information about themselves. This will be completely counterproductive and divisive. And unnecessary. And even PR efforts are not necessarily bad for Wikipedia. PR efforts need not be the promotion of a POV (which is already against the rules, of course). When verifiable facts are on their side, companies are more than happy to point to them. I can imagine some such edits being perfectly appropriate. Other edits can be seen for what they are through their wording or references. A much bigger problem, in my opinion, is bias from political ideology, which is far more pervasive among Wikipedians and which compromises the noticeboards themselves to some extent. And which seems to be feeding into the arguments on this page. Wikipedia could really use a better way of dealing with subtle tendentious editing. This is at best a distraction from that more fundamental issue. AmateurEditor (talk) 04:32, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

     I can not talk for others, however speaking for myself, you are wrong. As a matter of fact, I knew several paid editors in the area of Biology; I beautifully collaborated with them, and I found their contributions very helpful. Speaking about political subjects (as relates to my national culture and my country of origin), I can easily identify several probable paid editors. Most of them contribute positively. Why on the Earth I would automatically assume bad faith on their part? Those who behaved badly were assigned to watch my edits and do not allow placing specific well sourced information into several specific articles related to their employer, or at least this is my interpretation. As about political bias, yes, I agree, but this is irrelevant to current discussion. My very best wishes (talk) 20:48, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

     My very best wishes, I never said that you automatically assume bad faith toward paid editors. That you know of paid editors contributing positively to Wikipedia reinforces the point that the important issue is the content of edits, not the motivations behind them. AmateurEditor (talk) 23:24, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

138. Oppose. A number of solid objections -- solution looking for a problem, only affects the honest, etc. -- have already been propounded on at length above, so I won't belabor the issues. It's just a bad idea. Thomaslknapp (talk) 02:53, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
139. Oppose. Very against this in general even before this recent proposed amendment. Many agencies already paying people to make edits and opening this up would bastardize Wikipedia. -PatrickCoombe (talk) 05:00, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
140. Oppose. Wikipedia should explicitly ban any and all paid contributions.
141. Strongly Oppose. As long as the information is valid and insightful, I don't care whether or not the person writing it is getting paid for generating the content. Zzyzx (talk)
142. Strongly Oppose by ignoratio elenchi: This amendment would be a suitable and sufficient way to address a problem if one existed. As Austriacus succinctly put it, there is no issue with the lack of mention this topic receives in the ToS. All edits are initially created equal, regardless of their creator. It is the content that decides their validity - not payment, employment status, or other. This is and always shall be a core tenet of Wikimedia. We do not ask all of our editors to provide personal information while making edits because we AGF. This is akin to OUTING sponsored and forced by the WMF. This is an alarming proposal and one that I cannot see as having been thoroughly thought through and processed. Conflicts of interest do not inherently mean that the content will be inappropriate for an encyclopedia - it simply means that some of the editors might not always make neutral contributions using proper neutral language. Determining when those cases exist is a job for local users: sysops, rollbackers, reviewers, and the like. It is not only unfair, but it is completely inappropriate for a foundation that was raised on anonymity and good faith to propose that we label, marginalize, and quite likely stigmatize individuals due to a perceived and unsubstantiated claim of partiality. --Slazenger (Contact Me) 10:07, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

     Unfortunately, according to my experience, this is paid editors who successfully label, marginalize, and stigmatize volunteers, and they do it not only on wiki and and much better than volunteers. My very best wishes (talk) 10:17, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

143. Oppose. I'm an expert in my field of research, and get paid accordingly. If I contribute to the relevant wikipedia research page whilst at work, these rules would treat me the same as an editor with a financial conflict of interest.
144. Oppose. This isn't worth using violence over. Failure to disclose conflicts of interest should be met with a ban. There will be unintended consequences like those listed in the comment above. Honest editors won't be interested in taking the time to legally disclose what the law could fall under, whereas dishonest paid shillers, who the rule is targeted at, will find loopholes (i.e,) getting someone else to do their editing who isn't being payed but is just copying their edits. _David Kinard
145. Oppose It is clear that the current policy makes it clear that PAID CONTRIBUTIONS are not allowed. The text is tantamount to saying "it is okay to be paid for contribution but you must disclose it" which is against policy and, I think, the spirit of Wikipedia.. I would rather that every user should instead be presented on the facts of LAW as they might apply (for example in the US and the EU which prohibits non disclosure) and that the user should categorically state UNDER PAIN OF PROSECUTION that they are NOT being paid for their contributions. Full disclosure here. I have, unfortunately, gotten into edit tussles with editors who seem to add political spin to their edits and who I suspect are paid editors, and eventually got an edit ban for this. I strongly suspect that a fair number of Wikipedia Administrators and higher are also secretly being paid to protect such accounts. I have given up any attempt to regain my editor status because of this.. But I still feel passionately about the projects and think that paid editing is something that should be deprecated rather made tacitly acceptable under disclosure. If there was a fund to enable the instigation of investigation and prosecution of paid editing I would support this financially. --Hauskalainen (talk) 12:14, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
146. Oppose --Channer (talk) 13:25, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
147. 'STRONGLY OPPOSE' This is unworkable policy that will result in unjustified witch hunts without accomplishing anything positive. The people who ignore current policy and guidelines on NPOV editing and COI are simply going to ignore this as well. Instead of wasting our time on this we should be focusing on ways to increase the number of active editors and crack down on POV content. 203.218.215.139 13:42, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
148. Oppose, (might support with changes) To address the concerns about anonymity/outing (see oppose 40 above), I would write "you must disclose that you have an employer, a client, or an ownership interest with respect to any contribution...". I would break the disclosure-requirements out, perhaps:

     • "For edits to article text, you must disclose the paid status of the edit in the edit summary in a form to be prescribed by Wikipedia policies;"
     • "For edits to talk pages, you must disclose the paid status of your edit or any edit under discussion in the text of your comment, before your signature;"
     • "In all cases, you must disclose the fact that you made a paid edit in your user page, and keep that disclosure displayed for at least three years after that relationship ends."

     I would add a clarification, "You need not disclose your employer if your employer's policies permit you to comment on social media or online expressing your own opinion, and not that of your employer, and you are in full compliance with those policies." (In my case my current employer has such a policy, but it requires disclosure where the topic is my employer or its competitors, so that clause wouldn't allow me to hide.) I would also add a clause excepting payment from the Wikimedia foundation (and perhaps other nonproblematic "scholarship", "stipend", etc., programs.) DavidLeeLambert (talk) 14:34, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

149. Oppose as written. It is inconsistent, unenforceable, and will not help readers identify paid edits. Also, as noted above, it has negative implications for professionals who are experts in their field and voluntarily edit content while at work, but not at the request of or on behalf of their employer. -- Dave Braunschweig (talk) 15:04, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
150. Strongly Oppose As a blatant attempt to mislead the community into banning paid editing of any kind. See my notes here. Just Cause (talk) 19:19, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
151. Strong oppose I don't know about the rest of you, but this has been repeatedly discussed and shot down on the English Wikipedia, and for good reason. It's effectively unenforceable, can cause problems for GLAM workers and similar people, and most importantly, it constitutes a very strong focus on the contributor rather than the content, which is at least as against the ideals of Wikipedia as paid editing is. If someone edits within policy and makes good content, I don't care if they're being paid for it. If they're spamming, violating NPOV or N, etc., that's the problem, not the fact that they're getting paid. --BDD (talk) 23:40, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
152. Oppose as unenforceable, selective use of potentially chilling, vague legal threats that don't add anything to the project not already covered by core policies, per my comments below. And enwiki, the real focus, has many times spoken on the matter. Fmrvetwp (talk) 23:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
153. Oppose If you're being paid to post here, chances are you know what you're talking about. A main goal of Wikipedia is to retain accuracy, let's keep it that way. -Bobby
154. Oppose You can't check everybody. The right way is to encourage everyone NOT TO TRUST Wikipedia, just like any other encyclopaedia. #87.102.120.146 06:57, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
155. Oppose As far as I remember, the policy on Wikipedia (the only part of this wikimedia thing I'm really familiar with) is to Assume Good Faith. If paid editing is promotional in nature, and violates content policies, then that fact will be visible on its own. The only thing a "red flag" like this does is encourage users to treat the edits of paid editors with more scrutiny. How is policing specific editors for reasons other than the content of their edits assuming good faith? How will it help people find content that, if it violates policy, should be self-evident? Extravagance (talk) 08:57, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
156. Oppose This will stigmatize paid contributors and become a tool in editing wars. Being a volunteer is no guarantee of NPOV. Contributions should be evaluated on merit, not on source. Race, gender, sexual orientation and political affiliation can also be sources of bias. Should we ask editors to disclose all this as well? Dwatson888 (talk) 09:09, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
157. Strongly oppose While the idea to be able to avoid "promotional" content by the ToU amendment seems favourable, it must backfire for all academics. Even students would need to disclose their affiliation. Botanischwili (talk)
158. Strongly oppose Wikipedia exists to foist lies on the world. Wikithugs have no problem with people doing this without compensation, but are upset that someone might get paid for his labor. Thus, they propose yet another rule, whereby people getting paid to edit would have to disclose such, so the wikithugs could vandalize his edits, and cost him his job. Of course, paid editors are going to follow this new idiotic rule! WP doesn’t need new rules, it needs to get rid of the old ones, since the thugs, er, administrators never enforce them, except in situations where they are irrelevant, and they are enforcing them (or inventing non-existing rules), in order to terrorize people on their enemies list who haven’t broken any rules. Anyone who can actually get paid to edit Wikipedia should fully exploit the possibility. Be libertarians! But don’t dare tell anyone. Unless one is a Marxist enforcer here, and gets one’s rocks off spreading lies and censoring the truth, anyone who edits for free is one of Jimbo’s fools!24.90.190.96 10:42, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

     Not one bit of your comment makes any sense whatsoever. --89.0.233.137 10:16, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

159. Oppose : I dont't see the point of this amendment regarding a link between so called "deceptive activities" and paid contributions. It's all nonsense to me. Why should paid contributors be forced to disclose their status more than anybody else ? What about privacy ? What about freedom ? What's more wrong with being paid thand being old, woman, pastafarist or left-handed ? I don't care who's editing Wikipedia and what's their main agenda, income or background. I do care about helpful contributions and NPOV, but I don't see why paid contributions should be considered any worse or "deceptive" than others. Will there ever be any weird amendment forcing me to disclose that I ate chocolate before editing the article about chocolate ? Even if I add something interesting about chocolate and put many references but don't want the whole world to know what I'm eating ? Or would that be considered "deceptive" too ? C-cube (talk) 14:15, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
160. Oppose - Everything has been said above. --92.108.210.53 14:22, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
161. Oppose : This is a feel good attempt by ignorant users to stick it to the man without actually addressing a real problem. Paid editing is still subject to the myriad of rules regarding editing articles on Wikipedia. Until someone can document an actual problem caused by lack of disclosure that caused enough of an issue to warrant a change, this smacks of over-regulation and idiocy. 76.112.25.59 14:24, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
162. Oppose : I honestly believe that the proposed amendment will be difficult, if not impossible to enforce, and will cause more problems than the behavior that is to be addressed in the proposal. ShawnIsHere (talk) 15:29, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

     Not Opposed : I'm sorry, I misread the "Proposed Amendments Paid Contributions Without Disclosure". From what I've read in comments in this "Opposed" section, I suggest everyone who is opposed should *probably* carefully re-read the yellow section at the following page: "http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment#TOU_Amendment:_Paid_contribution_disclosure" as this Amendment is to keep large corporations and/or Special Interest Groups including PACs, Government Agencies and/or other organizations from paying anyone to author subversive/prejudiced/biased/etc. articles within Wikipedia.org. I, like others, skim read and jumped to the incorrect conclusion... based on text I've read w/in the opposed section, just like others. That is, I though the amendment was for Wikipedia to hire editors. Not so if you read the article at the URL I just referenced.Skeletons From The Closet (talk) 18:17, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

163. Oppose. I see no way this could be made to work, especially across jurisdictions. (Starting a trial against a person living in, say, India, and affiliated with a company there, anyone? And if you’re willing, please consider Kazakhstan, too.) This proposal is an overengineering of sorts (it has no additional value over the already well-established CoI rules), unenforceable in but the most trivial of cases, may open a way for witch-hunts at projects (especially the smaller ones), and also excludes the unpaid people with an agenda. Thus, I doubt the proposed clause would be of any use. (Other than for exemplary trials against US companies, perhaps? The ones not clever enough, or unable to pay $15 for a VPN or a “closed” proxy for such activities, anyway.) — Ivan Shmakov (d ▞ c) 19:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

     (Just to clarify it a bit further.) It’s years since I’ve read “The One Hundred and First Law of Robotics” – a story where a robot kills its owner when the latter tries to teach it the “100th law of robotics.” Naturally, being taught 96 laws after the first three, the robot completely forgets the law #1, with a most unfortunate result.

     My point is that adding clauses to ToU isn’t something to be taken lightly: they come at a cost, – the cost of the time it takes for the community to read, understand, and (possibly) implement or enforce them. This proposal has no value, but it still has cost. And it’s on these grounds I reject it.

     — Ivan Shmakov (d ▞ c) 19:51, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

     Minimalism in Roman law:

     • "Corruptissima republica, plurimae leges." ("In the most corrupt state are the most laws.") – Terence
     • "De minimis non curat lex." ("The law does not concern itself with trifles.")

     – 6birc (talk) 21:19, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

164. Oppose as unenforceable. Let's not turn Wikipedia into a witch hunt.HtownCat (talk) 19:18, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
165. Oppose Wikipedia has always been a volenteer organization, and I think it should stay that way. Dietcoke3.14 (talk) 20:13, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
166. Strongly Oppose 1) The proposed measure is unnecessary. The attention to the quality of content should be no different whatever its source. 2) The proposed measure is unenforceable. It only encourages deeper deception. 3) The proposed measure is counter-productive. Time will be wasted investigating sources instead of assuring accuracy of the actual words. Portucauan (talk) 00:02, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
167. Strongly Oppose As an editor on Wikipedia who had to disappear due to harassment and stalking at my work place across international borders regarding edits that would not have even been covered here, I oppose any policy which requires an individual to disclose any PII. Doing so places editors at undue risk of receiving further harassment, stalking, including ramifications from their employer, loss of livelihood, and potential harm. While I understand the community's desire to restrict harmful paid editing, I feel that the ends in this case do not justify the means. Individual instances of harmful editing, sock-puppetry, etc. can be handled as it is right now. As it is, due to some of the dangers of participating in this community, The Foundation should make it easier for people to remain anonymous when contributing, not harder. Furthermore, I do believe it is a waste of time to codify these rules. People who are already circumventing policy are not likely to comply, those who would comply risk physical, emotional, and financial harm, regardless of the nature of their edits OR even if they contribute directly or indirectly to an article in which they have a financial affiliation with. This is bad policy that, in a perfect world could be implemented, but really in a perfect world wouldn't even be needed. User Phantom85 on EN Wikipedia, unable to unify logins. 2607:A600:2A2:3200:DD4A:E4C9:CDD8:1E08 00:22, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
168. Oppose Jane023 (talk) 00:24, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Although I feel I should build upon my opposition with arguments, I have so many objections to the way this is worded that I feel I can't even begin to express why I disapprove of this attempt at protecting the community from commercialism. Although I sympathise with the people trying to solve the COI problems behind this amendment, I also sympathize with all those who ran away screaming after being accused of COI. Jane023 (talk) 10:56, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
169. Oppose Ultimately paid editors are a) more editors, and b) likely to provide information which has not been previously considered. Yet how many companies will pay for edits if they are required to be "outed", at the threat of legal action if they are not? Moreover, corporations are people too; their opinion should be represented, and this is done through the edits of their staff or contractors. GreenReaper (talk) 01:24, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
170. Oppose Paid or unpaid, what we write in Wikipedia is subject to a vetting procedure that takes away all bias. Which means that our relation to the subject is irrelevant. Disclosure of our professional position is a threat to our anonymity. Balko (talk) 01:41, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
171. Oppose as chilling the free speech (and stifling the editorial quality) of the ambivalent agent/whistleblower. See my comments below at the end of this vote (as they seem to have been removed below). (Note: I was not paid to write this.) —Matjamoe (talk) 04:59, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

     Suppose I am employed by Company X or Government Y, and my duties include an informal expectation of promoting my employer's Internet presence. Suppose I am ambivalent about my employer, and, if given the chance to speak freely as an anonymous editor, would be inclined to edit frankly—perhaps to the point of whistleblowing. If I am required to identify myself as a paid agent of my employer—thus exposing myself to my employer's scrutiny—will I not feel more inclined to toe the company line in my edits? —Matjamoe (talk) 23:12, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

172. Oppose. "Paid contributions" amendment will be a step away from what the community was created for (free information) and will create problems for Wikipedia in the long run (copyright lawsuits, data theft, patents). You've been doing fine without it so far. I may rethink my position if pros/cons are summarized in 10x less words. Mtonumaa (talk) 13:33, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
173. Oppose. Tricky to navigate and too open for interpretation. For example, student work (even when a scholarship, bursary or internship is not involved) would, as stated, constitute “paid contribution” (“educational service” as “compensation”), which completely defies common sense.—Al12si (talk) 10:27, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
174. Strongly Oppose. 1) wp:COI is a soft rule and more than enough for its purpose. 2) The proposed rule hardens often unclarified and artificial boundaries between editors. 3) The proposed rule is not going to get us more editors and more freedom to edit; it is thus a grave concern for those of us that want Wikipedia to be a free encyclopedia still being developed, not a closed entity governed by ever more strict rules. 4) The proposed rule is practically unenforceable, as long as anyone can edit without a login. 5) The proposed rule is a "hygienic" rule, whereby it says no to "bad" things thinking the mere statement will make for a better world and a better encyclopedia. 6) As this proposed rule will be unenforceable at the local level (i.e. at WMF project having less than 100,000 editors each month, due to different project cultures and prerequisites) it will be a legal annoyance with minimal founding in reality.--Paracel63 (talk) 10:43, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
175. Oppose. People in good faith will be driven away by this, while those that abuse the wiki will continue to. Daniel Mahu (talk) 12:18, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
176. Oppose. While I like the idea I think it backfires for several reasons. As can be seen from some of the comments it kind of suggests that "commercial editing" is okay as long as you tell everyone where you are coming from. Secondly it can never be enforced unless Wiki goes the route of certifying and hence also identifying editors which could mean a big loss of contributors. Lastly I think biased contributions can be identified and may be deleted if they have no valid sources. If they have a valid source then they might stay and another person may respond with another opinion and source - this is the case for many subjects, some things are a matter of opinion rather than written in stone. I personally like to see all opinions - again if they have a creditable source. Suggest instead to make non-commercial editing clear and more strict. Enforcement will also be a problem, but it sends a clearer message than this porposal. Qualle14 (talk) 13:35, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
177. Strongly Oppose - "Wikipedia is written collaboratively by largely anonymous Internet volunteers who write without pay" This is the core idea of WP. WP has enough volunteer editors right now, no need to hire editors. Instead, it would be great to change the platform to something more user friendly to get more editors involved. The platform used right now requires a minimum level of programming knowledge and it's very time consuming, making it difficult for people with average programming knowledge to participate. Aretemetic (talk) 14:11, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
178. Strongly Oppose "Paid contributions" amendment will be a step away from what the community was created for (free information) and will create problems for Wikipedia --Kalogeropoulos (talk) 15:12, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
179. Strongly Oppose - First of all, it's nobody's business who pays me. Second, even if I were to write a for-pay piece, if it is written according to Wikipedia's standards for objectivity and style/citation, I have done no one harm. Lastly, having watched Wikipedia in action over the years, any whiff of blatant spin or PR is quickly and viciously corrected by other editors.
180. Oppose - I oppose this not because I believe paid editing should be allowed, but because of how this TOU change could (and likely will) be used by editors as a new weapon against Users they disagree with or have some fundamental viewpoint difference. It's the "human nature" consequences of this change that frightens me. This new rule would give many license to start digging in order to make accusations about something that may never be possible to prove or disprove for that matter. Worse yet, a change like this may even encourage Editors to violate the privacy of Users in an attempt to discredit them. Yes, this is a "What if?" argument, but its based on years of interaction here on WP as well as many other forums. --Scalhotrod (talk) 16:43, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
181. Oppose to the Death! It completely violates the spirit of Wikipedianism to allow ANY paid editing or advertising for that matter. Undisclosed editing or advertising will further violate the spirit. It should ALWAYS remain free from paid editing or advertising, PERIOD! Doing otherwise will not only insult the .org domain premise but will lead to the DEATH of Wikipedia.ORG as it will no longer be for LOVE but for MONEY. Donations should always keep Wikipedia.ORG (*THE* Source of Truth) alive, and I certainly donate when I can. This is a very DANGEROUS path to take if it indeed goes ahead, as you run the risk of turning Wikipedia.ORG into just another *PAID* site on the web, and there are already just too many of *THEM*. 121.223.227.170 18:04, 27 February 2014 (UTC) You guy should post this under 'support', I guess. Some people are just so over-enthusiastic; mistake a Yes for a No ;-) (No offense) --Reginald Sachs (talk) 21:32, 27 February 2014 (UTC) Dear Reginald Sachs, thank you for hijacking my vote and for your many very abusive insults obviously from a person who is jealous and cannot control themselves from bullying others online which is so symptomatic in most social media these days. I hope a moderator here will remove your offensive hijack of *MY* vote and this objection and leave *MY* truthful and passionate vote (from a regular Wikipedia donator) as *ORIGINALLY* posted without the extremely offensive additions. Thank you. 101.173.42.142 11:03, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
182. Strongly Oppose. It's a slippery slope away from a free and open encyclopedia. And lots of other reasons (one given in the discussion below) - Averater (talk) 20:30, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
183. Oppose - I don't feel that paid editing is a good thing, but trying to enforce this policy could cause more harm than good. I think each edit needs to be judged on its own merit. This policy isn't going to be a shield against companies using Wikipedia for promotional purposes, instead the policy will be used as a weapon for editors to get editors they don't like banned. Edit Ferret (talk) 20:40, 27 February 2014 (UTC) +1 I second this opinion. --DJGWB (talk) 06:32, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
184. Strongly Oppose - Wikipedia/wikimedia is about truth (or as Karl Popper with good cause states 'not yet falsified' stuff). If we begin to distinguish between paid/unpaid truth and --strangely so-- value unpaid truth over the paid, we are clearly on the wrong path and lead our efforts into completely unfruitful activities. More effort should, instead, be spent on testing/falsifying wikipedia contents ... and on immediately removing/tagging wrong/falsified articles or sentences. --Reginald Sachs (talk) 21:32, 27 February 2014 (UTC) (Switzerland)
185. Conscientious Oppose - The proposed amendment serves to acknowledge that paid contributions are being made on the site, suggesting that such action is allowable, which is against the spirit of wikipedia. Further, the proposed amendment presents the challenge of preserving the integrity of wikipedia if the site condones paid contributions on the basis of them followed by a paid contributor disclaimer "badge". Instead for the time being, until a reliable, trustworthy ban can be implemented against hired PR services, wikipedia users should continue to trust their own instincts and judgements regarding information found on the site, and, when appropriate, edit rather than rely on a paid contributor disclaimer "badge" to tell them so.Wikithrowaway001 (talk) 21:58, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
186. Oppose The central idea is good, but as written (especially the immensely broad definition of compensation) this would create a monster /witchhunt. For example, merely asking for and receiving information while researching for the article would be defined as "payment" ("preferred access to information") under this and a license to use the system to beat someone up. . North8000 (talk) 22:31, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
187. Oppose as unenforceable; Wikipedia can already easily deal with biased material - policies are in place to revise it. Paid contributors will be able to continue their paid edits by registering multiple accounts or claiming unbiased view. Most importantly, this will create a sense of distrust in the community, when innocent people might be asked to disclose that they are paid editors. --Anthony Ivanoff (talk) 22:58, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
188. Oppose. Unnecessary. Conflict of interest disclosures are already suitable. I don't see how further discriminating undisclosed paid editing is necessary or fair. --El Chivo 2 (talk) 23:42, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
189. Oppose. The basic rationale of the proposal is that somehow an editor who is paid (or given something of value) and who edits wikipedia projects related to the payor is somehow fundamentally unreliable or biased to the point that they must disclose. Meanwhile, volunteers for causes who edit out of strongly held beliefs are not required to disclose anything. In both examples, the editors must maintain NPOV, but the compensated editor is treated differently. I just think the basic premise is flawed. I also think the proposal is too broad. A person who is a paid employee of company who is an expert in a field they work on (think scientific researchers) would be required to disclose their affiliation, even if editing wikipedia wasn't in their job expectations, but just them sharing their scientific knowledge. Finally, enforcement is nearly impossible. Argos'Dad (talk) 04:00, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
190. Oppose - While I believe the essential principal of the amendment seems valid, I do not believe the amendment as present is enforceable except in the most extraordinary of circumstances. Consequently, I oppose the amendment as written and suggest that the advocates for the amendment go back to the drawing board to develop a better system of enforcement.96.237.184.145 06:35, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
191. Strongly Oppose - In my opinion any positive contribution for Wikipedia is valuable. But main point is how do you want to check it (introducing cenzorship)? What about anonymity of Wikipedia users? --Pnapora (talk) 08:13, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
192. Strongly Oppose - Wikipedia has neither the time, nor the resources, nor the inclination, nor the moral compass to achieve the valuable goal of developing its crowd-sourced content in a manner befitting a traditional newspaper or other publication. WP has always been one-sided in the sense that people who care about an article are the only ones who edit it. WP has no practicable way to discern or govern over *why* the editors care about it. Whichever WP admins and superusers who are petty, impulsive, abusive, or unfair will become worse if they are granted greater power, while those who are humble, friendly, thoughtful, and helpful will not become better. For better or worse, WP is a tremendous resource because it is free and anyone can become an editor. Power will corrupt, as it always does in government and society, and WP will be the worse for it -- someday it will be neither free nor open, and on that day will be forever changed into the Huffington Post model, where the content is bought and sold and only the content creators are left with nothing. Best to leave WP alone, bias and all, and caveat emptor. 66.243.230.71 12:37, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
193. Strong Oppose - Recently I began to worry with this article that the votes are now numbered. I really hope something this important isn't merely a vote, it needs discussing and discussion points should be taken on board. I am for disclosure of COI full stop. But I don't think this is the answer. Verdict78 (talk) 12:54, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
194. oppose
195. Oppose. One of the arguments goes like this: "this policy is unenforceable". The very salient counterargument is like this: "laws against murder might as well be unenforceable, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't exist". However, the proposed policy isn't analogous to a law against murder, it is analogous to a law against potential murderers. There already is a "law against murder" (in this extended analogy, NPOV policies). This isn't about whether this policy is enforceable (it's not), it is about whether it's congruent with a site which is supposed to judge contributions on their own merit and not on the merit of those who make them. -Anagogist (talk) 16:16, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
196. Oppose This is a lot of work to put to a vote, and solicit feedback, but I'm not sure it's doing much to settle the issue. I appreciate how you're trying to get consensus in the open spirit of Wikipedia, but there's a much simpler way to handle this. The problem you are trying to solve isn't that paid editors are editing, but that articles are written poorly, in some cases because the editors have hidden agendas. The goal should be first and foremost to stamp out poorly written articles. The implication of this new rule is that having voluntary disclosure will make it easier to spot incorrect/biased/advertorial entries. In fact, seeing a paid editing open disclosure could actually cause some of the more militant editors to delete a person's contributions, regardless of merit. I know of at least one article where consensus was sought by a paid editor giving full disclosure and the edits were all reverted. For this reason alone, you will not get people to disclose a paid relationship with their subject, regardless of any rules you put in place. If the current restriction on paid editing isn't enough of a discouragement, why would this be any different? What you want to do is make it easier to identify potential paid editors. You already have a way - with contribution history. In the View History section, you can click on "contributors" at the top and see who has edited the article. You also have software to automatically screen editors for site longevity and quantity of edits. Why not simply add a color code next to the contributor's name? Red if the person has only edited that entry, or if their first edit was that entry. Orange if they have only edited five or fewer entries, and green if they have edited more that five entries. This "experience" flag will go a long way to helping identify company employees who may have an account only to edit their entry. Their contributions will be scrutinized just as if they had disclosed a paid relationship. But what about paid editors who edit multiple entries and have been around for a while? In the edit history, you can see "contribs" next to the person's edits. Why not consolidate and link a person's contribution summary to their name on the contribution page. Then you can click and see what other articles a person created and edited. If you see just corporate entries that are written as ads, you can spot a paid editor and issue a warning, or even a temporary hold on their account. If you have an editor contributing to the site in multiple ways, including writing neutral articles on companies that are demonstrably significant with good references, whether they are paid or not, does it really matter?Timtempleton (talk) 18:14, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
197. Strong Oppose The proposed fix is too simple. I work for a company (most of us do), if I post that I work for a company then all my posts become a representation of the Company. This would mean I would have to have it reviewed by legal and this threshold then becomes a barrier to my participation. I also belong to several societies who post on topics to reflect their position on topics of interest. On my page I get paid by my company, but my posts for the societies would be labeled as paid since I am either marked as paid or not. And when I am doing independent updates in my spare time, I am marked as a paid contributors. I think that most of the folk who post are doing it honestly. The mechanism we have for a self-righting system has worked pretty well. I think individuals who abuse the system should be barred, but trying to figure out if a government official is doing it as an individual or a government, or a librarian/teacher/student are doing as an individual or for profit is too hard. The rules should state that some limit on overwhelming a site with material exists but not labeling folks as us or them. What if only Republicans could use the site, or left handed people, or do you get the point.LJVandergriff (talk) 18:27, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
198. Oppose Way too generalized to be practical. Paid advocacy is a valid concern when people are paid to tamper with content and spread POV, but some of the paid editing which takes place on wikipedia is well within guidelines and the articles are written fairly and neutrally and I do fear that content would actually be affected by such a bureaucratic proposal. If Audrey Hepburn's son paid me tomorrow to develop her article to FA status and it was well within guidelines and a great article and I was supplemented for my time and efforts, why should it matter to the foundation or anybody else. If I happened to be rewarded for the work personally and it didn't affect the article why would it matter? Wikipedia's way too large and open for such a thing to be practical and it looks silly making legal threats at people to try to frighten people off paid editing. If the foundation actually embraced neutral paid editing within guidelines that would probably have a better chance of being successful than thinking they can eliminate it entirely. If articles are neutral and within guidelines the bottom line is that it shouldn't matter how it got there. Content and editors should be judged individually not by some wildly ambitious attempt to control the growth of wikipedia and paint all paid editors with the same brush and label them as evil. A better solution would be actually for the foundation to hire a team of investigators to patrol the website and scour for obvious paid advocacy which is damaging to the site's neutrality or people and try to stamp it out indirectly, assessing each article and each editor separately and then taking action on individuals who they believe are guilty of serious offences rather than this silly generalized proposal. 81.104.175.138 19:15, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
199. Strongly Oppose Wikipedia is already stuffy and hard enough to edit. Doesn't need any more restrictions freedom.
200. Oppose as further policy creep, unenforceable and missing the point. The matter is not whether someone is paid to edit the encyclopedia. What matters is whether their contributions are biased or not. We already have policy on that: en:WP:NPOV. Liken our situation to the open source field. Major open source projects rely on full-time paid contributors. As pointed out directly above, if someone was paid to bring an article up to FA status then brilliant, I say. Instead of adding more needless policy and bureaucracy to occupy the time of people who talk too much and contribute too little, we need to re-orientate and focus on the five pillars. Handing-wringing over paid editing moves us further and further from our goal here. And I oppose a vote as well. What has become of us? --Tóraí (talk) 21:46, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
201. Oppose: Even non-GLAM research corps reward or encourage improving articles of general interest, including science articles. This makes is sound like sanctioned wiki editing on company time needs disclosure, where none is needed. --Vilding1 (talk) 23:30, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
202. Strongly Oppose The only thing that should be judged is the neutrality of the edit, not the motivation for the edit. FireTheIncumbents (talk) 01:07, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
203. Strongly Oppose: As others have said, Wikipedia can take care of itself. In other words, if an edit is obviously biased/promotional other editors can just as easily alter/delete it. There are POV & Advert tags for a reason. Additionally, many content driven edits (as opposed to fixing typos etc.) are made due to the inherent bias/POV of the editor (they are obviously interested in the issue presented in the article they're editing), and there is nothing wrong with that so long as the edits themselves are verifiable and follow the current guidelines. We've all seen the abuses of government, NSA, IRS, FBI and so forth, and to now add an additional layer of "protection" which could result in WMF itself taking part (by reporting the "criminal editor" because they got paid *gasp*) just really guts the fundamentals of this endeavor. Not to mention that if a paid editor does make an edit, and is required to say it was a paid edit (one way or another) - even if the edit was fully justifiable - there's always the chance that other editors will see the "paid" comment and blindly revert an otherwise good edit, thus harming the article. And where do we stop? If a person has a blog about "Green Spaghetti" and gets paid $0.05/day form advertising on their blog, and then edits an article on "Green Spaghetti", does that mean we have make additional rules to further regulate their editing? I hate the notion of someone being paid to edit, but, I've done my share of deleting & correcting obvious promotional type edits, I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to continue that without having the editor tossed in jail (potentially). Not to mention that if the paid editor continually makes edits that violate current rules, they can be banned (their IP, all the way up to entire networks) - problem solved. Coinmanj (talk) 02:13, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
204. Most Strongly Oppose: The way to challenge "paid" edits is with the community doing what it has always done - set the record straight through consensus. This action (and the FTC's in my view) flies in the face of the First Amendment. While Wikipedia is not bound to the First Amendment, deviations from the spirit of it are inherently unethical to the freedom of humanity. I for one, will applaud acts of civil disobedience if this is enacted. 83.162.94.45
205. Oppose: (1) While I do think it would be good if no paid editors (or anybody else) would make Wikipedia articles (etc.) biased, I do not think this is the right way to realistically work towards that goal. Instead it is to improve or remove content that is biased, advertising language or does not have proper sources. Judge the edit, not the editor. (2) Besides enforcability is questionable; probably mostly those paid editors with rather "good intentions" would comply while many of those willing to deceive would not. (3) The border of the definition of "paid editing" seems vague, see section #Recurring questions, not yet answered. If all employees of a company that has rules/recommendations about social media usage for all employees might be considered paid editors they could come into the conflict between being required by the amendment to disclose their affiliation (and lose part of their anonymity) and not being allowed by their company to represent it in public (unless they work for marketing etc.). This might drive editors away from contributing in their field of expertise. (4) What could come next in the desire to highlight potential Conflict of Interest? Requirement to disclose your ethnicity, your religion or your political orientation when doing edits in those areas? (By the way: I do not think it is OK that clicking the edit link of section "Oppose" leads to actually editing the previous section "Support, and should NOT be any stronger".) --Wilhelm-Conrad (talk) 13:19, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
206. Most Strongly Oppose: I was slammed for posting factual, verifiable, non-marketing, non-advertising content on a wiki page while fully disclosing who I was. I was threatened with being banned from the wikimedia/wikipedia sites. If content can be verified as factual IT SHOULD BE PERMITTED. PERIOD. Your supposed "enforcement" of your existing policies is capricious at best and biased towards the so-called 'editors' fancies at worst. WikiP/Media is quickly becoming my _last_ resort for information on the internet!
207. Oppose - I'm not convinced that this will achieve what it wants to. It has a very enwiki-centric approach (something evident from the English-only nature of the discussion here), suggesting that this proposal would be better fielded at a local level there. Additionally, I'd like to consider judging contributions by their own merits. While ideally all contributions should be from people from the goodness of their hearts, a good contribution is good no matter the motive behind it. I would certainly like to see every editor revealing a conflict of interest, regardless of whether or not they are being paid, but I'm not convinced that this ToU amendment is the best way of accomplishing that or that this would help. Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:30, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
208. Oppose - Wikipedia is about having content, whether from paid or free editors, regardless of bias or indicated bias. Subsequent editors can always revise the content to make it better. --Skarg (talk) 01:10, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
209. Oppose - While I agree (and have always agreed) that blatantly promotional and commercial entries should be removed, Wikipedia already does a good job with that. This motion raises privacy concerns. One small example: If a user is a publicist for a celebrity or brand and corrects biographical information or brand details, he or she will need to disclose for whom they work. If they also have edited any controversial articles in the past assuming anonymity, someone could tie that editor to the celebrity or brand. The potential implications are frightening. Fuzzmartin (talk) 02:52, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
210. Oppose - Agree with Intent, Disagree with Implementation - What would be better is having a series of checkboxes when editing (as I proposed elsewhere on this page), which automatically gets tied to their profiles by automatically generated lists. This would help editors identify specific edits that may need to be looked at further, and also provide disclosure for every edit. 99.99.233.74 05:41, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
211. Oppose - This idealistic, unenforceable rule does not distinguish paid shills from expert contributors whose knowledge of a topic derives from their professional employment. It does not distinguish between individuals providing content and individuals assisting content providers to use an edit page. Tagging contributions, or contributors, as paid will weaken them regardless of their merit and leave them open to attack from strong-POV or fringe-POV elements (already a huge hassle, even in some scientific and engineering topics). And since the rule relies on the honor system, it will discourage ethical contributors while posing no barrier to trolls or liars. Whatever particle of legal advantage might be gained against paid advocacy editing would be offset by the burdens to contributors at large. Susato (talk) 08:30, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
212. Oppose Paid? Unpiad? There should be only one class of editor on wikipedia. Their private lives should not be a part of it unless they are required by law and wikipedia has a legal obligation to ensure they follow that law then disclosure isn't important. People shouldn't be put under a microscope because they get paid. They should get put under a miscoscope because they make bad edits. You got a three revert exemption that lets you revert just because you feel like it. What is it? banned people and ip editors can be reverted arbitrarily? Why? Your going to have people jus focus on paid editors? Why? These types of policies seem like cop outs.Serialjoepsycho (talk) 06:18, 2 March 2014
213. Oppose - The best thing about Wikipedia is the ability for everybody to edit and add knowledge to every article. Monetizing is dangerous and it seems a money-grab--if Wikipedia is the tool it has been previously and was always meant to be. I vote for free (in every sense) distribution of knowledge. I believe there to be ulterior motives to this.(UTC)

     To be clear, the proposed amendment does not endorse paid advocacy editing. See here. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 16:52, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

214. Oppose - Any undisclosed editing/addition is a sure source of ambiguity and uncertainty in the already overloaded global pool of information (86.96.226.8 12:21, 2 March 2014 (UTC)).
215. Oppose - As stated in the previous community-devised proposals about paid editing, the real issue is WP:NPOV and WP:COI. WP:NPOV is a much bigger problem than paid editing. I support the idea of voluntary disclosure, but I think this proposal is more likely to drive potential WP:COI editors who want to do the right thing to try to sidestep disclosure.
216. Oppose. I fail to see how this will stop the shady PR and marketing folks from doing what they do, but I am certain that there are constructive contributors (i.e. people who read and try to abide by policy) who fall into the huge, gaping grey area of this policy and will decide to stop contributing rather than open themselves up to misguided witch hunts or other abuse. Maghnus (talk) 15:49, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
217. Oppose - I edit Wikipedia under my real name, but I respect the right of others to edit under a user name not traceable to their real identity. This is a core value of Wikipedia reflected in the very terms of use being amended, and outing someone is considered a grave offense. In particular, our outing policy says "Personal information includes ... home or workplace address, job title and work organization..." The proposed wording "any contribution to any Wikimedia Projects for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation" is very broad. We want to encourage professional experts to contribute to Wikipedia, not chase them away and we would hope that their employers, e.g. universities, value time spent improving our articles. So in effect we would be demanding that all professionals who edit in their areas of expertise out themselves. This is too high a price to pay for a dubious improvement in terms that already prohibit deceptive behavior.--ArnoldReinhold (talk) 17:25, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

     Hello ArnoldReinhold, I share your concern about any unnecessary barriers for professional experts (who are not being paid specifically to advocate their point of view). We tried to clarify this point in the FAQ response on How will this provision affect teachers, professors, and employees of galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (“GLAM”)? Do you think this is a helpful distinction to make? Do you think we can clarify this further through the FAQ or adjusting the language in the proposal? Thanks for your feedback. Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 01:11, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

     The language of the proposed amendment is very broad. What the FAQ says in the section you reference is very different and is more acceptable to me. If that is all the amendment addresses--monetary payment for specific contributions--it should say so. I am not a lawyer, but my understanding of a Terms of Use is that it becomes a contract when one uses the services offered. Unless the FAQ document is incorporated into the terms, what legal standing does it have? The language should be narrow to address the specific ills that cause alarm, and not the usual sweeping language that attorneys are taught to write.--ArnoldReinhold (talk) 02:47, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

     The FAQ would be officially maintained with the TOU, similar to a legislative history to guide how the terms will be interpreted (if necessary). But I agree that it is preferable to make the terms as clear and narrow as possible, so we will continue to consider how this can be improved. Thanks again, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 20:06, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

     Stephen LaPorte (WMF), this is a step in the right direction. However: a) the wording of the FAQ response in question is telling in that it refers only to nonprofits; the same principle (it's about being paid specifically to make biased edits) should apply universally, whether it's an academic editing in their area of expertise or the employee of a corporation. b) the nature of the discussion on this page makes it clear that indeed narrowing and clarifying the intent in the language used in the TOU -- or ultimately deliberately leaving it up to projects (rather than random individuals) to define the interpretation as I have suggested more broadly in my own oppose -- would be beneficial. Martinp (talk) 18:31, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

218. Oppose Ban paid contributions altogether. This resolution looks like it's going to be implemented because the editors are only stepping in to make supportive arguments; as well as the fact that Wikipedia has brought this up before. That makes me mad. Deenasao (talk) 18:27, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

     Hi Deenasao - I'm not sure if I fully understand your comment, but this proposed amendment is not intended to support paid advocacy editing. See more here. If I misunderstood, my apologies. Geoffbrigham (talk) 16:43, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

219. Oppose. Anyone should be able to edit anonymously and have his work analysed for the contents it brings to wiki. In my opinion it doesn't matter if it's paid or not, as long as acceptable by community. Max51 (talk) 21:02, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
220. Oppose - This is just a silly waste of time, but I'm still going to oppose this idea. I think this is going to form the basis of witch hunts which will destroy otherwise reasonable editors who can't defend themselves against admins and others who are going to try to push them out. w:WP:Outing is effectively made irrelevant with this policy change as the only way to legitimately prove that somebody is violating this policy is to reveal personally identifying information. I believe this also is against several other Wikimedia proposals as well in terms of being concerned about privacy issues and more. Regardless, as long as anonymous IP edits are permitted on Wikimedia projects, this policy will be essentially unenforceable. It certainly won't fix the perceived problem (which I don't even see as a problem) of people getting paid to make edits on Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects. --RHorning (talk) 23:04, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
221.  Oppose – this doesn't really get to the heart of the matter (not all with hidden agendas are paid!), and I'm now a bit concerned that it could lead to good editors getting harassed via their work phones because they dare to edit articles related to their employment in some way. —SamB (talk) 02:54, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
222. Oppose - Some unpaid editors are wildly biased in what they write, and some compensated editors produce good, unbiased content. Wikipedia may or may not have a problem with biased editing. This "solution" widely misses the mark. I'm not sure there is a solution without fundamentally altering what Wikipedia is, but this isn't it. Pattonre (talk) 06:12, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
223. Oppose -- Obviously, no one who is being paid to promote something is going to follow this rule. It only places an unnecessary burden on good faith editors who comply. They will then have their contributions unfairly scrutinized by others. Maintaining impartiality has always been accomplished through the consensus building of editors. Biased edits never last long, and biased editors never get far. I fail to see how singling out one particular sub-type of biased editor with a rule that none of them will obey accomplishes anything good for Wikipedia. More needless bureaucracy can only be a bad thing, and I feel this amendment will hurt Wikipedia. Elladril (talk) 09:08, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
224. Oppose - For similar reasons no policy has worked ever before, mainly that you are pushing people into an underground situation instead of valuing their input regardless of their motives. Secondly this is a pure case of classism, there are many rich people who have absolutely no business editing as their contributions are troubling and their participation disruptive, but these policies only focus on the poorer classes who must work for a living. It is better to improve the quality of contributions to avoid the POV issues, paid or not is irrelevant. This also promotes an atmosphere of disparaging anyone who may be thought to be a paid editor. That creates its own disruption all by itself. Sportfan5000 (talk) 09:43, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
225. Oppose - Contributions should be assessed by their content alone, and not by the perceived potential motivation of the contributors. Judging the quality of a submission according to the rules of Wikipedia can be done in an objective way. Trying to guess the "hidden agenda" of contributors according to their affiliation is a subjective matter. Cochonfou (talk) 15:07, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
226. Oppose - I love wikipedia and use it constantly, almost borderline obsessively, and sometimes regrettably exclusively. "Sometimes," being a word that implies (and literally means) less times than not. All this being said, i rarely wonder if what i'm reading is being fabricated or manipulated to favour a certain point. until now. if companies can pay to write their own articles, they can write their own fictional profiles. and a self made profile for a company is basically an advertisement. in order to maintain wikipedia's basic purpose, articles cannot by financially controlled by their makers. it's for us by us. not for us by them. fox news and george bush might as well write the articles. if wikipedia supports financial aid from the article's controller, they're basically accepting bribes. with the exception of the odd idiot, the people don't prefer lies, so the people won't lie to the people. so support the people, not the money.( 70.78.27.68 14:54, 3 March 2014 (UTC))

     Hi there. Actually this proposed amendment does not endorse paid advocacy editing. You can read more here. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 16:39, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

227. Oppose — Adds no value to free culture. genium ⟨✉⟩ 17:18, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
228. Strongly Oppose - This strikes me as a proposal driven by those who just can't get the after taste of Citizens United out of their mouths and assume that corporate or paid speech is inherently evil and unpaid speech (especially that which supports the reader's agenda and/or POV) is inherently good. Concerted organizational attempts to ingrain POV is the issue. Not whether or not someone is paid to do it. Jamesdcarroll (talk) 17:32, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
229. Oppose: While at first view the amendment appears to be reasonable I am afraid that this amendment could be an invitation to open witch hunts: What happens if a user does not declare himself to be paid but if there are suspicions that he/she possibly is? This is a conflict which the communities cannot resolve. So far, we focus on the edits of a user and we do not care about a user's background outside of the projects. Consequently, we just need to focus on material that is available on-wiki to discuss the quality or merit of a user's edits. We should not introduce any amendments where we are not prepared to enforce them or where any attempts to enforce them are likely to cause more harm than benefit. --AFBorchert (talk) 19:38, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
230. Oppose--Gyanda (talk) 22:25, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
231. Oppose - As long as the information is provided with enough sources for other people to verify, who cares what the motivation was for adding the content? What's next? Requiring all vandalism edits to be tagged as well? My point is, there are many motivations for the appearance of inaccurate content and the integrity should always constantly be checked anyway. we can't become lazy and start to rely on tags now. P.S. How did the Dutch translation of the proposal came to be? It seems like it was translated almost word for word and together with numerous grammar mistakes, it makes no sense whatsoever. 83.81.14.100 22:51, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
232. Strongly Oppose: I don't care whether an editor is being paid for their work. All I care about is that they are following WMF wikis' other guidelines. Libcub (talk) 23:23, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
233. Oppose - in the end a court will decide what "compensation" is, and I wouldn't be surprised if it applied a rather broad definition. Moreover, paid editing is not as big a problem as to warrant this type of instruction creep. I have many other reasons and am happy to state them if you wish, but much of it has been said above. --Pgallert (talk) 06:35, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
234. Oppose - Too many vagaries and problems, and I'm not yet convinced the problem is great enough to justify them. There are more pressing problems affecting the quality of articles such as recentism, too much tolerance of original synthesis, ideological bias, overreliance on weak net-based sources rather than stronger print-based sources, and organized, politically driven campaigns of hostile editing. Concentrate on strengthening policies and practices in those areas. Metamagician3000 (talk) 10:23, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
235. Strong oppose — What problem are we trying to solve ? Will it solve it ? I believe ill-intended paid editor won't discolse anything, and this change of TOU will set another barrier to new contributor. --PierreSelim (talk) 11:21, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
236. Oppose Concentrate on the edits, not the editor. I will continue to oppose any amendments like this until it can be proven that all undisclosed paid editing is harmful, which of course not all of it is. Konveyor Belt (talk) 17:23, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
237. Strong oppose. I do not see the problem at all and am sure that the "solution" does not solve the problem if it exists. Editors who are not accustamed with the wikipedia who are here for payment, are easily identified. There is no need for them to identify themselves, surely not the entity paying them. Anonymous contributors coming in covert will not disclose anything and there is no way to identify them. Respectable wikipedians will get the same respect whether they are identified or not. There are some terrible problems with this suggestion. First, identified paid contributors will probably get more respect from the community to their mistakes then if they did not identify themselves. I had an example like that just today on the Hebrew wikipedia. People saw that the contributor presented himself as a representative of HaEmek Medical Center and allowed him to enter gross errors into the article because "he must know what he is writing". Second, many people who would normally pay for articles about them or their institutions and thus promote the wikipedia would not do so if the article will contain a notice that it was sold out. We loose a lot of progress that way, for nothing. The saying says: "if something is working do not try to fix it". Please, retract this amendment. עדירל (talk) 21:32, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
238. Oppose The idea that paid equals false or deceiving is unproven. We pay doctors to get a diagnosis. An unpaid fanatic can write dribble. Monarch17 (talk) 22:10, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
239. Oppose a good edit is a good ecit regardless of where it comes from, a bad edit is a bad edit paid or not. Edits which are blatant adverts, PR will be seen and removed for what they are, and other than blocking IP addresses when they can be identified with a commercial enterprise how on earth are you supposed to enforce this proposal, if an editor choses not to disclose what are we to do, I suppose you could create a system where we can go around denouncing editors we suspect of being paid, a committee on unwiki activities? but a sly editor will know how to hide such edits. Adopting this change will be potentially devisive and unenforceable.--KTo288 (talk) 22:20, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
240. Oppose Wikipedia already has rules for what constitutes an acceptable edit. Regardless of employer, Wikipedia edits are released under a Creative Commons license and GNU FDL. There should be no legal problems. Even though this proposal is more moderate than the [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Paid_editing_(policy) power trip] Jimbo Wales mentioned before, it is still foolishly turning away good editors. If someone ever paid me to edit Wikipedia I would disclose this but everyone is different. Don't make an unenforcable rule that limits privacy. Connor Behan (talk) 01:00, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
241. Oppose While I really sympathize with the impetus behind this proposal, I consider it essentially unenforceable, and I am against unenforceable laws/policies in any forum. I also see it as fostering a suspiciousness towards persons and institutions rather than towards bad information, which seems to me a problematic switch of focus. Alafarge (talk) 02:01, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
242. Oppose. We have -- and will always have -- a COI problem. And we could get a lot better at policing edits/content for bias, notability, verifiability, etc. But our "paid editor" problem is no bigger than our "unpaid rabid political activist" problem -- both types of editor are equally committed and intransigent. That combined with the lack of clarity visible on this page and other discussion fora on what "paid" would really mean, plus the chance that this amendment could be used as a blunt weapon in wikipolitics, make me oppose. A stricter policy on COI/bias taken more broadly I would support. Martinp (talk) 18:03, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
243. Oppose Mr Wales want it - and all have to follow him. The interesting point is, hat this violates the main guidelines of the project. And Anonymity is holy for our project. But at the end it is not of importance. The WMF will do anything what is possible against the authors. This time the "paid" one. It's a shame. Also interesting - from the beginning we use free licensec - for a good cause. So from the beginning, also money was in the project. Sometimes people come and take things from us, texts, files etc. Sometimes they bring (and not always paid editing is from evil). But the most important thing will be at the end, that the WMF, Board and Mr Wales fear, that the WMF could lose some of the donations - and so their money. As long Google gives donations everything is fine - but donations for example as texts from scientists in their work is not OK for them. Interesting. Marcus Cyron (talk) 18:16, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
244. Oppose - Down the slippery slope. * 2014: You must disclose when you have been paid to make edits, or else face litigation ("but you don't have to identify who is paying you, so it's okay") * 2016: You must disclose when you otherwise have any connection to what you are editing, or else face litigation ("but you don't have to identify what the connection is, so it's okay") * 2018: You must register an account and identify your educational background and accessibility on everything you are about to edit, before you make the edits, or else face litigation ("but you don't have to identify who you actually are, so it's okay") * 2020: You must disclose every potential prejudice that your neighbors and academic community have, or else face litigation ("but you don't have to say whose responses to the survey are whose, so it's okay"), and so on. If this term of service is going to be used for serving cease-and-desists and fining people or otherwise sending them to jail, then I don't support this. X-Fi6 (talk) 20:12, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
245. Oppose in agreement with #16 above: "This amendment will solve nothing, as contracts will be re-written and Wikipedia edits will simply be considered a free "bonus" alongside other services provided by an agency. Every edit should be judged on merits, should be factual and present accurate information. It is not relevant if said edit is paid for by someone if it has good quality - such a disclosure would diminish value of valid entries, when the payment was in all good faith (you could pay someone with writing skills to do it for you)." Thank you for giving this issue the attention it deserves. --209.252.136.198 22:13, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
246. Strong Oppose Casts too wide a net: A math teacher will have to disclose their place of work to make an edit to a trigonometry article if it's done during work hours. This is stupid. Needs to be made more specific to address specific issues. Pengo (talk) 01:18, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
247. Oppose Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. Rules, particularly. Everyone has biases - recognised or not. Paid contributions may be at least as valuable as others. The priority is that editing be fair and honest. "You say that because you're a [insert irrelevant category]" should almost always be disregarded. Disclosure - I have numerous biases, but am not paid to promote them.2.218.192.171 08:28, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
248. Oppose This won't hold off the "bad ones", but "good ones" might consider not to contribute to Wikipedia anymore if they are required to disclose identifying information. The value of contributions to Wikipedia should not be based on whether they were paid for or not. All contributions should be reviewed equally and those who contribute to Wikipedia while being paid should not have any more restrictions. A Maths teacher that wants to fix an article during labor time is a good example. A company that wants to promote itself won't care about the rules anyway. --Pc-world (talk) 10:24, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
249. Strongly Oppose Firstly it seems more or less unenforceable (except perhaps in the case of explicit legal dispute). Secondly there are all kinds of reasons why people edit Wikipedia. Why single out paid contributions. Is money such a bad word? Should people be asked to disclose their political affiliations (for example) or be forced to disclose any other conflict of interest. Where does such a policy end? As others have said - "Everyone has biases" which can occur due to some reason or the other. One of the things that can bias a writer is to be paid for his contribution. What makes Wikipedia special is that any and every one can edit regardless of his views, or whom he works for etc, and that the truth will emerge as a _result_ of that freedom. If those that write for Wikipedia don't have faith in this then Wikipedia is doomed as project of singular significance. Thus the proposal is fundamentally misplaced, misdirected, shortsighted, paranoid and lacking in consistency. Its logical end will be in Wikipedia becoming just another Encyclopedia. If that is what is wanted then go ahead and commit suicide. Added Later: Blatant advertising can easily be detected by anyone and particularly by those who are committed to the project. Such advertising can be flagged as such and that is already being done. So this intrusion into the freedom of expression that Wikipedia was designed for leads me to question the motives of those who have promulgated this sinister idea. 122.167.29.131 16:15, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
250. Strongly Oppose Wikipedia will never be able to resist biased and interested editing by groups of any size, whether it be small grassroots political interest groups or commercial/industrial lobbyists operating on a global scale. You're basically asking people to wear an armband that says "I'm a paid shill". It's a pointless system which will be gamed into meaninglessness, an honor system that I suspect will be just as unworkable on Wikipedia as it would be in real life. It will fail to ensnare the shrewdest institutionally biased editors, and will needlessly chill the voluntary user activity on which Wikipedia relies. Factchecker atyourservice (talk) 16:11, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
251. Strongly Oppose As someone who was accused of being a paid editor because I dared to take time to fix a page that had alerts on it *requesting* that the page be fixed. I oppose there being any need to identify oneself as a paid editor at all. The whole point of Wikipedia is that an article be NEUTRAL, and the subject NOTABLE. If it's neutral and notable, what's the difference if it was created by a paid or unpaid editor. Perhaps there should be a clarification to pointing out that if one is a paid editor - perhaps they are afraid that if they disclose this, their contributions will be removed regardless of whether or not they are clearly neutral. (Why else would they be reluctant to admit that they were working for pay?) I think the problem is that some editors have a strange idea of what is "neutral." If they see a neutral article, but one written by a paid editor, they apparently have a heart attack and remove the article regardless.
252. Oppose. Essentially agree with comments by Matjamoe (talk · contribs) about the potential for chilling free speech, and the comments by Thekohser (talk · contribs) about uniform applicability. -- Cirt (talk) 22:25, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
253. Oppose I support the aim of eliminating bias, but it is naive to think that paid editing inevitably results in bias, or that paid editing is the only source of bias. Someone who bears a grudge could write a more jaundiced account than someone who is sincerely adding knowledge but may be doing it in company time. Also, 'applicable laws' must surely include laws of slander and defamation, which vary likewise from country to country. The proposed change would only work if all contributors declared their affiliations and relation to the subject matter, whether paid or no, in which case there would no longer be anonymity. If referees do their work properly regarding contributions, there should be no need for this amendment. BonamySalop (talk) 22:40, 6 March 2014 (UTC) User:BonamySalop
254. Oppose - This will open a whole new can of worms, no matter how well intentioned this proposal is. (a) Some companies (like mine) have very strong social media editing guidelines and anything we edit anywhere has to be disclosed to some department or other with manager approval. I have never edited any content regarding my company or industry, but if such a rule was formalised then every time I edited anything on Wikipedia I would have to add a moniker I am from so and so company and anything I say does not reflect the views of my company and get it approved by my manager. Citing such a rule my company can actually ask me not to edit anything unless approved by social media mktg dept. (b) I am not sure why I should disclose my employment if I am working in a company not related to art, litterature etc. (c) My company can ask me to stop editing as Social Media is not my dept in my company and Wikipedia now has rules for these things. -17:46, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
255. Oppose As unethical, as a violation of privacy, and as impractical. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 22:52, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
256. Strongly Oppose After an editor has disclosed to be paid, he ethically gains some freedom to be biased towards his employer. Thus this amendment, if it actually works, will give us more biased contributions, which are partially compensated by being able to see whom the contributor is paid by. But I'm not interested in looking at the authors of pages I'm reading and I prefer to read less biased articles. Personally, I'd rather not contribute than disclose my employer btw.88.76.250.155 13:34, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
257. I understand the reasoning behind the proposal, and agree that something should at least be noted. However, this will create privacy violations, where anyone seemingly having any remote conflict of interest with an article will be subject to outing and harassment. In that sense, this proposal as it stands is actually worse than just simply banning paid editing. It will not solve the problem of people covertly attempting paid advocacy while damaging those that actually try and follow our guidelines, while just happening to earn something from it. Oppose as written. Wizardman (talk) 00:33, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
258. Oppose Edits are already required to have an unbiased tone. Singling out one type of influence (paid influence) is over-legislation, in my opinion, and dilutes from the goal of presenting unbiased articles. Levis501z (talk) 00:47, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
259. Strongly oppose. Quality of edits should be required and enforced independently on motivation and identity of the contributors. Private motivation and private contracts of our contributors are quite irrelevant for us. Wikimedia rules must not penetrate privacy of our contributors, especially not in such useless and toothless way. --ŠJů (talk) 02:14, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
260. Oppose as unnecessary, unenforceable and unwise. Unnecessary because paid editing is the least of our problems: if the WMF projects are not robust against the unending flood of bad-faith contributions (most of which are unpaid), then they are simply unsustainable as constituted. Unenforceable because of the inherently open structure from which the projects draw their strength, and also because any truly problematic paid contributors are not going to abide by disclosure requirements anyway. Unwise because such a clause will only lend further support to the exclusionary, bureaucratic tendencies that have been chiefly responsible for strangling Wikipedia in its cradle. Further, to the extent that this unenforceable provision is enforced, it will only give ammunition to the worst among us. ("Ha! I've outed [Expert User] as an employee of [Research Foundation], where he is paid to disseminate information to the public about [Topic of Expertise]! Since [Expert User] failed to disclose a paid affiliation that is directly relevant to his contributions, he has violated WMF policies, and must be banned, while I, as an unpaid crackpot, can continue to edit freely.") -- Visviva (talk) 04:15, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
261. Oppose. I approve the idea in principle, but think that this specific approach is completely wrong-headed and will achieve little, nothing, or less. Specifically: while the possible bias of a paid editor is a problem, it is not inherently any more or less dangerous than other types of biases. All can eventually be smoothed out by other editors. The special problem with the paid editor is doggedness: while the rest of us spend an hour or so a day trying to constructively edit a broad swathe of articles, the paid huckster is potentially spending several hours a day, day in and day out, trying to spin the focus on his one target concept. Every time he is blocked in one direction, he tries something else; when he is blocked in several directions, he tries twice as hard and attacks four ways at once, ever improving his subtlety but never his intellectual honesty. [Personal aside: I used to be a top 500 contributor. This issue is the reason I "retired", and incidentally, have forgotten my account password.] However, this proposal seeks only to a highlight one source of bias -- one which is usually detectable just by careful reading -- and does nothing to address the real issue, the doggedness of the paid biased editor. What is worse, it distracts attention from the real issue by focussing on that one source of bias. In reality, any type of "Single Issue Fanatic" is about equally harmful: political and religious zealots; conspiracy theorists; nationalists; partisans of sports teams or bands; and some forms of mental illness. Indeed, some of the unpaid SIFs are worse because the paid fellow at least stops after 8 hours. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for how to deal with this issue; in my case, as I confessed above, I was worn down to a stub and just gave up. But I am sure that this proposal not only doesn't address the core issue, it camouflages it. -- 202.63.39.58 06:21, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
262. Oppose. as unnecessary. Good edits or not do not depend on paid or not.Xiaojingfang (talk) 07:45, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
263. Oppose. a good edit is good regardless if paid or not, and a bad edit is bad regardless if paid or not. But sometimes it will make a barrier to new editors as well as to old ones if they have to disclose their working places. First because then they have to ask their bosses, and maybe the boss has no idea about Wikipedia and forbids editing, and second even if the boss agrees then the boss maybe wants to influence the edit what maybe will not be the best for the edit. For those cases for which the proposal was obviously meant - those people just will not care for the new terms and they will make anonymous edits. But an expert who wants to make a good edit will care and the expert just will not give the expertise anymore. And there can be a "grey zone" about what does it mean to an editor to be "being paid for". The example with the "forum member" does not fit in here because in a forum you expect personal opinions, but in an encyclopedia you expect facts, references and maybe discussion with peers. Projekt ANA (talk) 22:33, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
264. Oppose. Only the editor knows whether the edit was paid. There are some categories of paid editors who we want to have, who follow the rules but may have reason to stay anonymous (a few examples have been given). There are ruthless COI editors, who couldn't care less about one additional rule. You cannot force the latter to admit paid contributions, but you can chase away any number of good faith editors with accusations of being paid. We still have to handle COI edits and vandalism; we will gain nothing by additional arguments about people's background. --LPfi (talk) 14:29, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
265. Strongly Oppose It would be hard to find evidences for paid contributions. The important thing is to handle COI and NPOV, and on Swedish Wikipedia, where I usually contribute, I think we have good control of the situation. I agree with LPfi above.--Historiker (talk) 19:34, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
266. Strongly Oppose Paid editing following our rules (e.g. NPOV) is no problem. It would be great if we would be able to make all potential conflicts visible. But we can´t. No conflict by paid editing, no conflicts with party membership, no other conflicts. And: Rules which can´t be supervised are not helpful.--Karsten11 (talk) 21:20, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
267. Oppose. Seems entirely pointless to waste energy thinking about. If it's written within the guidelines then what's the problem? 87.112.53.129 00:15, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
268. Strongest Oppose. It's literally one of the most useless policies Wikipedia ever has. No way to enforce it. This would only create discrimination against paid-editors. The policy makes it sound like paid-editors are biased and often do more harm than good, which is completely ****. There is absolutely no evidence to back it up the claim that paid-editors do more harm than good. It works fine the way it is. Stop messing around and make things worse. And also stop sound it it's a crime or fraud because it's not. Just because they are paid-editors doesn't mean they will contribute biased or bad contents. This is no different from racism. Stop judging them base on whether or not they're paid-editors, but judge them on the contents. If the contents are biased and bad then it can be discussed and improved regardless paid or unpaid editors wrote it. This policy will probably hurt Wikipedia more by creating witch-hunt atmosphere and editors will start suspect and accuse other opposed editors as paid-editors to discredit them. If this policy is passed, Wikimedia and people will inevitably spend energy and time and resource to hunt down undisclosed paid editors in vain and more often than not probably hunt down innocent people, only to find out later they were innocent after wasting so much time and resource. I would rather just forget about this whole crap and get back to improving article, there is a lot of work need to be done here. By creating this discussion-crap, we're already wasting a big, gigantic chunk amount of time and resource for no good.75.168.125.23 05:51, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

     Last thing to add, this is nowhere close to be puppetry. People, don't mess up between the two where one is good and the other is bad. Puppetry is clearly fraud. It's also not like puppets where we can checkuser and the results come out. With current technology, there is absolutely no way to have any evidence to prove anyone is a paid-editor unless you can read mind of people from anywhere. Plus, a lot of unpaid editors have their own personal biased anyway, so an environment of distrust and suspicion (worst level is witch hunt like I said) will be born out of this mess.75.168.125.23 06:11, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

269. Oppose. This will give unfair bias to NGOs, NPOs, and labor unions that are not typically "Paying" organizations, but deal in political and social influence. There is nothing to stop the same corporate entities that are the fear being addressed here from forming their own non-profit interest groups and having those non-paid "interested editors" edit. In the end, this just creates an unenforceable rule. I'd rather see the community focus on clearing out NPOV wherever it is.Taurus669 (talk) 01:03, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
270. Oppose: This would solve nothing, as those who are causing the problems it aims to prevent are unlikely to comply. Mkweise (talk) 01:58, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
271. Oppose There are so many things bought and sold today and much of it is for no real reason. Things we buy that we want and do not need. If you want to buy, sell or promote something hire an Ad. or P.R. firm. Are you embarrassed or ashamed by something you have to say? Are you perpetrating lies? Are you pushing politics or a product? I find this whole comment section plain erratic and unorganized. I do not want the terms of use changed a bit. This is the free and open Internet for all. This is her encyclopedia. This is an encyclopedia. Would "American Heritage", "World Book", "Encyclopedia Britannica" put in a bunch of stuff about a politician other than the boigraphical facts that can be confirmed in a states legislative manual or Blue Book? No thats shameless self promotion. What would World Book Do? (WWWBD) I thing you should sign everything you contribute. My Login is Dachvide. I am from Milwaukee WI USA. I am not embarrassed by any of my content. Recently I found that there was a group of Latter-day saints that were distorting the information surrounding the Edmunds-Tucker act. I disagreed with them. I went and got a copy of the Act from off Library of Congress microfilm from the US Statutes at large and added it to the encyclopedia. That's my way of flaming. I will add a primary source document from an indisputable, canonical source. I also build the quality of the project and add credibility to this dedicated team. Votoing here for me today is a chore and is taking time that I need for something else before I go to work. The paid fellows are paid to comment and do what they can to sway things in their favor. I am not I am a volunteer from Milwaukee Wisconsin Named David that does this in my spare time to build an E n c y c l o p e d i a. Let the professors comment they are paid but they have a big interest in building the truth. I have a Bachelors degree. I can help minimally in pursuit of the truth. God Bless our endeavour and save us form the politicians and plutocrats. Dachvid (talk) 12:19, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
272. Oppose I might be naive here, but why challenge the user and not the content? And why put all (paid) users under a general suspicion and not deal only with proven POV-users? Slowlate (talk) 20:40, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
273. Oppose Good intent, bad implementation. There's way too much gray area involved. If it comes back clearer then I'll support it. --Kangaroopowah 18:08, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
274. Absolutely Oppose, I will not to pay contributions, Sorry. --Jonathanquiroz62 (talk) 22:31, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
275. Vehemently Oppose Even if this were massively opposed, WMF would still put this into place because Jimmy wants it. He is a paid Tsar who doesn't want his serfs to get paid, getting all his money off the backs of unpaid volunteers. This is totally unenforceable and will just drive paid editors who are caught more underground, just like bad editors who won't leave and good editors who are continually harassed. If someone is paid and produces solid content, who cares? This is a solution looking for a problem. I'm so sick of WMF worrying about cosmetics and lining Jimmy's pockets. They'd be far better off fixing the real problems of this den of dysfunctional insanity, ie, create and maintain and truly collegial and harmonious editing environment where users don't leave in droves because the place is ruled by jerks. PumpkinSky (talk) 13:56, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
276. Strong oppose Can see no indication this is needed, or that Wikipedia would be improved as a result. Or, for that matter, that paid editing is a problem on the scale of nationalistic or religious articles. And there is a certain hypocrisy in trying to restrict Joe Editor while Jimbo gives well-paid talks about how he's the god-king of Wikipedia, but just a constitutional monarch (insert pause for laughter).--Wehwalt (talk) 14:04, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
277. Absolut dagegen - Absolutely Oppose, By Wikipedia's own current standards contributions should be written non-biased and based on reliable sources. Everything else - whether paid for or not - will be (hopefully) removed, rewritten, tagged, improved by the community. End of story. This amendment will only lead to pointless discussions about "payment", though credibility and clarity are what really matters. - Die Standards von Wikipedia umfassen bereits die Forderung, dass Beiträge unparteiisch und solide belegt sein müssen. Alles andere - ob bezahlt oder nicht - wird (so hoffen wir alle) von der Gemeinschaft entfernt, neu geschrieben, gekennzeichnet und verbessert. Das reicht. Dieses Amendment wird nur zu fruchtlosen Debatten über die Frage von Bezahlung führen, wo doch Glaubwürdigkeit und Klarheit das ist, was zählt.--Maikek (talk) 17:47, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
278. Opposed I don't agree that this is a serious problem, and I don't agree that this will be an effective solution to what does exist. Open source means exactly that, and I do agree with the numerous others who have mentioned, that WP already has a robust set of rules that can be enforced to prevent conflict-of-interest situations. Furthermore, paid and in-house sources (ie: company websites) are already used as RS in certain situations, which in essence shows that WP does allow paid content already. This proposal would only greatly expand the gray area between purely private editing and purely for-profit editing. As usual in this modern world, I cannot understand the need for new rules, when the existing applicable rules are not well enforced. However, if this proposal MUST take effect, I support the language in Option B only, as a way to identify without stigmatizing or furthering conflict. 72.35.149.153 04:53, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
279. Oppose. This is one of those "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions" issues, and the intentions can actually be questioned. There's an extreme leftist, anti-capitalism bias inherent in the entire idea, but this is effectively invisible to many participants on Wikipedia and other WMF projects because of the institutional/community systemic bias toward leftism (often under names "liberalism", "progressivism", "left libertarianism", etc.), among the majority of the regular editorship. Even aside from that, the pre-!voting material on this page indicates a large number of unanswered and perhaps unanswerable questions. unresolved and maybe unresolvable problems with this proposal. It raises, even directly generates, far more problems than it solves. The most obvious of these is that it's totally unenforceable, and will have no effect but shining a negative spotlight on editors who do honestly disclose their editing relationships from the real world, while those being sneaky about it - those whom we should be far more concerned about - will be under no such scrutiny. This is a recipe for furthering the already worsening problem that WP is being inexorably taken over by "civil POV-pushers", editors with an agenda who game the rules carefully and often conspiratorily to shape WP content to favor particular biases over time, while driving off good-faith editors who represent other viewpoints (sometimes in some "official" real-world capacity) but who are not engaged in an organized campaign to slant WP's coverage like the civil POV-pushers are. There are many other problems raised by this proposal, but others have covered them already in detail, so I needn't beleaguer those points. PS: I am an editor who very clearly discloses my potential conflicts of interest on my en:w:User:SMcCandlish page; I have no vested interest or anything to hide. I just think this idea (including both of its modified quasi-alternatives) is a poor one, and is motivated in part by a rank bias against money, as if POV-pushing without being paid for it is magically less of a problem (it's actually a worse one, because it's frequently a form of pathological zealotry in such cases). It also presupposes that all paid editing is by default going to be aimed at wrongful promotion, which is a gross over-generalization. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 13:44, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
280. "Oppose". Unpreventable, enforceable. Raises complicated issues of tax reporting possibly. Large resources will go into police-like activities instead of editor-like activities. Maybe just write a guideline for paid editors on reconceiving their material not as PR material but as objective, and guide them towards that in a useful article, and leave it at that.Ian McGrady (talk) 14:56, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
281. Strongly Oppose. The proposal is unenforceable. Moreover, the money is not the only thing that can bias editing. Many people are motivated by their ideology, religion, nationality, etc… So what is next: every editor will have to disclose his/her religion, ethnicity, political views, sex…? That would be madness! I say: judge an editor by his content, not the content by its editor.SyaWgnignahCehT (talk) 00:29, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

     I’ll just add this: as one other commenter also stated, this proposal will just provide a false sense of security. As a result, contributions that won’t be marked as “paid edits” will not be checked for accuracy as carefully as the marked ones. This is dangerous, because on Wikipedia everything has to be checked for accuracy for all sorts of reasons (vandalism, promotion of certain ideological views, other hidden agendas, etc.).SyaWgnignahCehT (talk) 13:51, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

282. Oppose. This proposal seems besides the point, the key Wikipedia principles are that an article should be about something that is notable, it should have an NPOV, and it should be verifiable. Additionally, they should not be advertising nor advocacy. As long as these criteria are met, whether payment has been made is not relevant. From personal experience, my biggest struggle with another contributor was of passionate interest to both of us, money was not involved on my side and I think it highly unlikely that it was involved on the other either. I believe motivation is secondary.--Evenmadderjon (talk) 13:13, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
283. Strong Oppose The implementation of this TOU amendment will be a sad and historic day for Wikipedia. I predict that years from now it will be identified as the turning point in the ongoing demise of the project (declining participation and readership.) Ironically, this amendment will hasten what I fear is the project's undesirable, but inevitable, transition into a privately funded and privately owned public encyclopedia as editors, readers and donors head for the exits. The encyclopedia that anyone can edit is becoming the encyclopedia that only a privileged group of insiders may edit. Those that got in early and a few newbies who receive the seal of approval from a small demographic group with a similar POV and a penchant for aggression, control, power and incivility. The wisdom of crowds is slowly becoming the ignorance of the angry mob. You can't close a gaping wound with a band aid. You can't legislate away undesirable behavior. This TOU amendment is a short sighted, over-reaction to a non-problem and it sends a message that this project has other problems much larger than the topic it pretends, but fails, to address.--Keithbob (talk) 13:41, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
284. Oppose. This will provide little else than a false sense of security. People can be motivated to produce biased contributions for any number of reasons, and immediate reward is only one such reason (and many such rewards would not require disclosure, e.g. a religious person receiving a blessing as reward would not need to disclose). That aside, the fact that somebody receives a reward directly related to their efforts doesn't mean their contribution is biased, but the proposal will cause all such contributions to be automatically (and quite possibly undeservedly) tainted, which, in turn, will grant possibly unwarranted credence to untainted contributions. Altogether, it's a can of worms, it creates more problems than it solves.87.115.153.220 14:20, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
285. Oppose. Truly absurd. So is Wikipedia now going to start suing people because they were paid to write? Please note that paid writing is still free speech. How lucky for those if they have been sought out to write an article because of their excellent writing and research skill. It would be nice to see all those thousands of newspaper writers who lost their jobs hired to write encyclopedia articles. Would improve Wikipedia even more. I do not know who would pay them. I say fire the lawyers since they behave like parasites and feed off the wealth of Wikipedia. Use that money to pay for the 1,000 volumes of Wikipedia in color for Wikimania 2014. Use the rest of the money saved to hire some Wikipedians who write and are able to cite research - - that takes real time and effort to do a quality job. If there is any left you can always send me a check for the thousands of hours I have put in, the great majority in actual research of citeable sources. Everybody in society has to earn a living somehow by the very nature in how the system is set up.

     How would you handle a scenario of let's say Aunt Martha who dies and pays for writers in her will to improve all of the hummingbird articles, since that was her favorite subject? What about a college that decides to pay for its professors to each write two new researched articles a year on Wikipedia? What if a historical society pays to hire a writer for that person's time in preparing an article on some notable person, or an improvement in content to a former U.S. President?

     I say keep the current set-up as is and still open. Anonymity has caused Wikipedia to flourish. Any severe restriction causes non-participation or low participation. You can see this result in Wikipedia in other non-English languages. You can also see this in other online wikis where identities are public or the writer must have “credentials”.

     All multiple prior issues on this topic have failed; this one should also fail.

     The problem of advertising agencies is real. The trap for all of them is that the article has to reach a certain level of notability. Proper sources still have to be cited, which is a separate trap. They do not like taking the time to cite proper sources. The NSA and CIA have spun articles to their own POV, which is a third trap. Articles should contain both citeable positive and negative content. Current mechanisms already exist to deal with this. There is no problem as long as the writer maintains the standards of Wikipedia. The article must be encyclopedic and not a puff advertising piece. Otherwise it becomes vandalism to the Wikipedia project, a route you can use in the legal realm.

     Non-profit groups benefit by both their paid employees and volunteer ones, especially the latter. Wikipedia is both free to the larger audience of the encyclopedia reader and to the smaller audience of the encyclopedia writer. Whether the writer is paid or unpaid is immaterial. Whether the writer is anonymous, uses a screen name, or is known is also immaterial. What matters is content quality. Encyclopedias in the past had paid staff for articles. Wikipedia should not preclude itself from this either. Thor Dockweiler (talk) 23:50, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

     Keep in mind that we should be trying to emulate and achieve a similar goal as that written by Isaac Asimov in his Foundation Series [excellent reading!] via the creation of an Encyclopedia Galactica. Thor Dockweiler (talk) 06:29, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

     Perhaps it is time to start a Wikipedia II wherein less than notable articles or those of lesser quality can be given a space to be in. These could be tied into the main Wikipedia with green colored links. Thor Dockweiler (talk) 08:32, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

286. Strongly oppose. This is an enWP issue, not Wikimedia-wide: no need to solve a noproblem elsewhere. And I guess it will even be harmful for some projects (Wikisource, Commons, Wiktionary, WPs who live in peace with paid edits, and any project where there is no such thing as a requirement of "neutral point of view"). // Opposition forte. C’est problème de enWP, pas de l’ensemble des projets Wikimedia : il n’y a pas besoin de résoudre un non-problème ailleurs. Et je crois que ça pourrait même être dangeureux pour quelques projets (Wikisource, Commons, les Wikipédias qui vivent en paix avec les contributions payées et tout projet où il n’y a pas de chose telle qu’un besoin de « point de vue neutre »). ~ Seb35 [^_^] 10:24, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Snowball

Glad to see that this is a snowball - not only by vote count, but, more importantly, by idea count and idea weighing. Hope that each is considered by the board. --Elvey (talk) 03:22, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

As I said, "We weigh arguments; we don't count votes. Well, at least that's what we're supposed to do." (at 9:20 pm on 29 October 2013, 4 months, 9 days ago, UTC)

It's apparent that the closure of the No_paid_advocacy was by a non-admin, rather than an experienced admin, and is evidence of a lack of "due diligence" of reading the posts; as my post included this:

As an indicator of due diligence, I ask that the closer indicate that s/he has read this, Elvey's !vote

but, tellingly, there was no such indication.--Elvey (talk) 12:50, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm also glad to see the way this is going, and if this was a regular Wikipedia RfC, it would be time to close it. But this is not a regular RfC. It must go 30 days, according to the current ToU. As I understand it, the Board of Trustees will, in effect, be the closers and they are not bound by the usual rules. Rather, they are the highest authority of the Wiki-movement and can more or less do whatever they want with this.

That said, I'm pretty sure they'll follow the sense of the community as expressed here. I'd guess that the numbers on the !votes are not going to change much, 21% now oppose the change in ToU. I'll suggest what the Board might want to see is somebody taking into account all the views expressed here and trying to integrate them all into something that makes the most sense to the most people. With views being so polarized - very many "Very Strong Supports" with many of the opposes being "Very Strong Opposes", it will be hard to integrate or synthesize all the views. They clearly can't ignore the 79% who have said "yes, we want paid editors to report their edits and employers", but anything that can be done to calm the fears of the opposes (without gutting the overall sense of the community) should be welcomed. Smallbones (talk) 14:32, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I see opinions are clearly polarised. I hope WMF will take into account the probable/possible cultural differences involved. Daily life at enwp is probably very different from daily life at e.g. svwp. See the results of our local voting below for arguments and statements. As Wikipedia is no democracy but a collaborate work in progress, any legal decision perceived as alien to the vast majority of local (senior) users, would be hard to enforce. My two cents.--Paracel63 (talk) 13:51, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello Elvey, Smallbones, and Paracel63, we posted two possible changes aimed to resolve some of the points raised in the discussion. If you have any comments, it would be very helpful if you could leave those below under Discussion for Optional Changes. Thanks! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 16:52, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Will do! --Elvey (talk) 18:18, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Unsigned comment in Japanese (Changed "Oppose voting")

[ goo.gl/p6mgDy English Machine Translation] (Summary: Commenter believes this will bar education policy content from parents and teachers, and content about the Pope from Catholics. (The commenter is mistaken - ed.) ) (link and summary added by Elvey (talk)) . この規約改定案に賛同しようとする人々は、孤立主義(Isolationism)に賛同し、保護貿易主義(Protectionism)に賛同し、共産主義(Communism)に賛同し、全体主義(Totalitarianism)に賛同する傾向があるかもしれない。 要するにこの規約改定案は"*NOT* Open"である。その理由のいくつかを以下に示す。

1)この規約改定案は「Wikiversity:Assume_Good_Faith」に示されいるスタンスと矛盾するのではないか？

2)社会的に活動している人間は、複数の役割を兼ねている。しかし、それらのペルソナ（仮面;Persona）を完全に独立させて使用することはできない。

例えば、ここに高校教師をしている男性がいるとしよう。彼は仕事を終えて自宅へ帰った。すると、彼の妻が、彼らの息子についての教育方針について相談を持ちかけた。男性は、「教師として」の職業的な立場にだけ基づいて会話をするのだろうか？　男性は、「妻の夫として」の社会的なな立場にだけ基づいて会話をするのだろうか？　男性は、「息子の父として」の立場にだけ基づいて会話をするのだろうか？ Is He said as a Teacher? as a Husband? as a Father?

3)一般論として、ある記事について記述できる人物は、多くの場合、そのことに詳しい人物だろう。

従って、この規約改定案が採択されたら、Wikipediaから、その分野に関する職業的な専門家や、そのコミュニティの内部事情をよく知っている人物を排除してしまうかもしれない。

4)記事の執筆に、「公的な代表権」が必要となるかもしれない。

I am Rome Catholic Christian,but I am not "PAPA"! 例えば私はローマ・カトリックの信者である。 しかし、私はローマ教皇から全面的な「委任状」の公布を受けていない。 だから、ローマ・カトリックの教義について、ローマ・カトリックを代表した見解を公表する権利を持っていない。 きっと私は、ローマ・カトリックについて、記事の執筆も、記事の修正も、一切行ってはいけないのだろう。 私は「ローマ・カトリックの信者である」という理由で、記事を書くことを禁止されるのだ。

5)この提案では、記事の執筆者が受け取るものの中に"Service"が含まれると定義している。

"Service"には「心の中での満足('Happiness' and/or 'quality of life' and/or 'well being')」が含まれているはずである。 そうだとすると、トップページの"From today's featured article"に掲載されることも「心の中での満足('Happiness' and/or 'quality of life' and/or 'well being')」に含まれる。 従って、ある宗教の信者、ある政党の党員、ある地域のボーイスカウトの指導者、ある高校の卒業生クラブの会員（and so on...）。 彼らが記事の執筆や修正をしたいとき、彼は自己の所属する団体、彼の宗教観、彼の政治的な思想信条など、彼のプライバシーに立ち入った内容を開示する必要がある。 もし、彼が所属するコミュニティに関する記事が、悪意と偏見に基づいて編集された場合、どうなるだろうか？ 彼は、そのコミュニティに関する一定水準以上の知識を持っているであろう。しかし、彼は「そのコミュニティの全体を代表してコメントする権利」を持っていないかもしれない。 たぶん、彼は、反論するチャンスを放棄せざるを得ないだろう。

---

I Change "Oppose voting". The reason is as follows(Japanese and English).

Japanese: 本来、『百科事典』は「権威そのもの」である。 そしてこのサイトは権威を手に入れることに成功した。 現在のボードメンバーは、権威を得てしまったことにおびえているようだ。

ここに冒険心を持つ少年がいる。 彼は、様々な努力を重ねた結果、権威や権力を手に入れた。 しかし彼は、その事実に戸惑ってしまっている。

現在のボードメンバーは、この少年と同じではないか？

"Terms of Use"には既に"since we only host your content"と明記されている。 今更、それに文言を加える必要はない。

書かれている記事の信憑性を判断するのは読者だ。 誤っている記事を訂正するのは読者だ。 そして、読者は読者であるのみならず、執筆者でもある。 今回の規約改定を提案した人々は、読者が「バカ」だと決めつけているのかい？

従って、私は投票を行うことそのものに反対である（Oppose voting）。 ボードメンバーが権威を手に入れてしまってから、その権威を重荷に感じるくらいなら、財団そのものを解散するべきである。プロジェクトそのものを閉鎖すべきである。

English(Machine Translated):

Originally, an "encyclopedia" is "the authority itself." And it succeeded in this site getting authority. It seems that the present board member is frightened at having obtained authority. There is a boy who has an adventurous spirit here. He got authority and power, as a result of stepping up various efforts. However, he is bewildered by the fact. Isn't the present board member the same as this boy?

"since we only host your content" is already specified in "Terms of Use". Now, it is not necessary to add wording to it. Readers judge the credibility of the report currently written. Readers correct a mistaken report. And he readers are not only readers, but is also a writer. Have people who proposed this agreement amendment taken to task, if readers are "foolish"?

Therefore, I am opposed to casting one's vote itself(Oppose voting). You should disperse the foundation itself, if the authority is felt for a heavy burden after a board member gets authority. You should close the project itself.

Oppose voting

• Wikipedia is in need of oversight by impartial editors. For example, Germany is not a democracy because The Left/SPD/Green Winners of the 2013 election with a 320 seat majority are not represented. Angela Merkel has bought off the SPD leadership with money and power even though her support amounts to only 311 seats. This type of corruption is how Hitler came to power and explains how World War Two started. Today we face a similar expansionary Germany as can be seen corrupting EU politics and invading the Ukraine by means of supporting hooligans. Wikipedia should be honest about the German Dictatorship and report properly in a factual way. Wikipedia in the present form is very dangerous and this has been reported to GCHQ. Please be honest from now on.

  Wikipedia doesn't "report" anything in the way you are suggesting. If there are any facts to back up this assertion, it should be simple to update the relevant article(s) (with citations, of course). But WP is overseen by a fair-minded Board of Directors. Why do you think this discussion is even happening? And please sign your comment next time. 76.178.144.67 11:20, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

• This voting is a total mess; many if not most of the !votes and comments do not have any signature and are likely coming from the same person or a group of people. Not to mention that we shouldn't even be !voting on this amendment in the first place (because 1/ the decision lies with the Board of Trustees and 2/ This community has generally tried to avoid voting on matters, and favoured discussions and consensus-gathering; last time I checked). odder (talk) 09:03, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

• I don't think that it is helpful at all (in contrast to the comments below), but someone thought it should be here. Alice Wiegand (talk) 09:15, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

  Personally I am reading it as a !vote, per its heading. I'm less interested in the numbers, and more interested in the comments. The community feedback has been wonderful (including the stress-testing with hypotheticals). Internally, we are trying some new drafts to tighten up or add language in some areas of concern, and, if it passes our internal legal scrutiny, we may share with the community for their thoughts. So - like our other legal consultations - my expectation is that the text will change continuously as we hear and consider new ideas and concerns during this consultation. Geoffbrigham (talk) 15:01, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

• I oppose paid contributions without disclosing political affiliations or any and all sorts of special interest corporate organizations who are merely paying a price to have their voice heard above all net neutrality voices. We, who contribute to wikipedia, in full good-will do not avoid transparency whereas these underhanded organizations and government agencies are only contributing to the good faith trust relationship to fill their own pocketbooks, it is 100% Grade A USDA B.S. that nobody is going to believe in ever again, and if you file this motion through your board of trustees, word will get out that wikipedia is a co-opted government and corporate hypermedia serving corporate aims, no one will believe in this site anymore and you will eventually see your click results dropping, even though corporate subsidies keep you at the top of the google search engine listing assignment. We do not support big agribusinesses and big pharmaceutical corporations, we are the voice of the people, and word-of-mouth has a lot more to it than what you might think, if all you see is dollar signs blinking in your eyes right now, you won't see them later. See you later. I'm not even going to wait for it to happen. I'm going to start spreading the word since you even considered this option. B.S! Wikipedia changed it's logo and remodeled, they no longer serve content production, they serve the capitalist overlords. You don't even know what this means yet, but you will.97.115.149.83 11:51, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

• The strength of Wikipedia has always been natural and spontaneous volunteers. You can't always buy all the volunteers in the world. Its hard to pay the entire population of the world. Knowledge should be shared, not bought. There are already plenty of websites where people buy stuffs. Think of the people who have donated to save Wikipedia. Think of us who have volunteered for years. "There are companies richer than several countries".  and they have the capacity to pay for anything they want. People believe in Wikipedia because they believe Wikipedia does not have paid editors and it is neutral. Money can't can't buy trust. I oppose paid editing. -RajeshPandey (talk) 16:35, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

  @RajeshPandey, I think that your vote is in the wrong section. It should be in #Oppose #Support.
  – 6birc (talk) 14:56, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

  @6birc, Did you read the last line ? which says I oppose paid editing. RajeshPandey (talk) 17:31, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

  Rajesh, you are right. I read it, it just confused me. Confusingly, many people, who #support the amendment, cite the same reason as you... even though the amendment is not going to ban paid editing. – 6birc (talk) 19:34, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

• Lazy and a false choice; while I agree with the board's effort to improve the Terms of Use, this vote demonstrates a lack of transparency on the part of both the Board and the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Department. This "take it or leave it" approach is simply lazy. Please provide the community more respect; the Legal Department must open up their process and allow input across a range of potential amendments. Unless there is more than one choice, this vote will not properly gauge the true intent of the community. MarkWarren (talk) 20:13, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

• When looking at psychological literature, there are two types of motivation: Internal and External. External motivators, such as monitory gain is good at increasing efficiency when the task does not require creativity. As soon as monitory gains become involved internal motivation is gone, and so with it, creativity and enjoying something for the sake of doing it. On the other hand, internal motivation which is the drive that makes a person dedicate themselves to the good of the community can never be rewarded. The reward is the act itself and the fact that there is no "external" rewards it makes it even stronger. Thus this entire page will destroy all that Wikipedia stands for and if a vote was to be held, it will be the end of this amazing open source initiative that we have been enjoying for many years.

• I oppose increasing Wikipedia's authority on the grounds that I find all authority to be imperious and repressive, and I oppose voting on this issue on the grounds that I find majority rule to be nothing more than a dictatorship of majorities over minorities. I would prefer an autonomous, user-motivated, user-led response to combating this issue over a response that relegates decision-making power to trustees, legal departments, and intermediaries.

• Wikipedia is not about the truth it's about facts (not necessary accurate) and opinions. You should focus on the accuracy of the facts (users can create their own opinion) and that doesn't depend on "user's intentions disclosure". You are trying to solve a different problem with a wrong solution. It is not worth voting.[[Special:Co--Xania (talk) 21:36, 8 March 2014 (UTC)ntributions/109.69.5.39|109.69.5.39]] 15:48, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

• Not really sure where to put my vote. I totally oppose paid edits of any kind so am I supposed to support or oppose? This seems like such a stupid vote. For many people, they have no idea what is being discussed. Others don't seem to know how to vote. A vote is also only likely to get the involvement of the most active Wikipedians rather than the masses. The number difference between USA and UK (and others) editors means that the more capitalist USA voters will win the argument which will not only approve or but also regulate paid editing. And finally this is the kind of decision the foundation should make as they are more capable of understanding it all (a reason why we elect politicians to decide for us rather than having constant referenda).--Xania (talk) 21:36, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• Same like above editors I don't know where to put my vote. I oppose paid editing and I believe that wikipedia should be a place for natural contributions but not some pamphlets or PR places of companies. Yes the editors must follow neutrality principles even after publicly disclosing their motives. Will discolsing not just give them the boost to hack away what ever they like ? Or will the disclosure mean wikipedia editors can watch such accounts and their edits closely ? Why would someone who is working some organisation to push his or his organisations views into wikipedia publicly disclose his intentions, would the wikipedia community "push/force" the editor to disclose with this new rule ? --Pavithrans (talk) 04:33, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Unsorted comments

Append new unsorted comments at the bottom of this section.

• Wikipedia always has been, is and always will be the Mother of all Blogs; ergo, truth and accuracy is neither expected nor assumed; ergo, EITHER WE ALL GET PAID OR NONE OF US GET PAID. Seems fair to me. Luxartisan (talk) 03:32, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

And Wikipedia is not a blog. Andrei Marzan (talk) 02:11, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• Paid editing contributes greatly to wikipedia. I recall, a former science colleague of mine was asked by our program director to create an article on an engineering topic because it didn't yet exist. Our program was in a government research lab, and he was paid for the time in which he did the edits. Its fairly common for academic researchers in fields to make such edits during work hours while getting paid.Gsonnenf (talk) 08:48, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

your insight is informative, but good-natured edits by GLAM is not the subject of criticism or debate here.Wikithrowaway001 (talk) 22:13, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

I submit that any practices affected by this policy are appropriate for this discussion. We're not all shills here, and that's an important point to be made. Suitov (talk) 11:38, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

This proposal doesn't in any way prevent a government research lab from paying someone to create an article. What it does is to say that if you are being paid to edit here, you must make it clear that you're doing that, and who is paying you. This means that this research lab can continue to pay for someone to write that article - but that it won't be a secret that they are doing it. Those of us who care about it will be able to tell that your colleague is being paid (and by whom) to create the article. That's in the spirit of openness - that seems like a good thing. If everything is being done in an honest manner, the organization in question should have no problem with making their financial commitment clear. If they actually do want to hide the fact that they are paying someone to do it - then for sure, we don't want them to do it. SteveBaker (talk) 20:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Some people were suggesting things like forbidding paid edits entirely. I put this comment here in response to that set of people.Gsonnenf (talk) 07:26, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I greatly benefit from Wikipedia's articles in biological sciences, a great many of which, I am sure, are initiated and maintained and improved by the type of editors Gsonnenf is talking about. That said, I like the idea of some self-disclosure on an editor's user page. Canhelp (talk) 20:26, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

• Contributors and section editors should list openly their interest and/ or expertise in the subject area. Readers deserve to know and expect this higher standard. A simple rule avoids many complications.

  That's not necessary. Wikipedia isn't an encyclopedia that's written by experts - it's written by anyone who can find suitable reference material and quote it accurately. The biggest quality we need from our editors is 'bookishness' and a reasonable command of the language that they are editing in. SteveBaker (talk) 20:09, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

• A diet article may be from a trained dietician or a supplement vendor. Conflict of Interest is a gray area and the reader needs to judge the apparent degree of propaganda. An article evaluating exercise machines may come from a licensed physical trainer and/or from a heavily invested vendor. Sorting 'paid' from 'unpaid' is nigh impossible. And some vendors do render even-handed evaluations. Wikipedia will have to somehow vet prospective contributors with employment conflict. <Eumo@stonefieldsheep.com>

• I guess you'll delete this, but you obviously haven't applied the science of neuroplacticity to this issue. Just go ahead and sell out. Cash is king. Am I supposed to put the squiggly lines here? Mister void (talk) 00:48, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

• Many of us live lives in broad strokes simply because there is not enough time or energy to live otherwise. Given this I would like to discern simply and quickly how an edit has been created. This would allow me to decide its a validity. I have no problem with “undisclosed paid editing” I only wish to know what kind of edit it is. 24.156.227.3 02:20, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

• The most important thing is to remember it's an encyclopedia. So the overriding issue is factual accuracy. Ensuring that if editing is paid or sponsored that it is identifiable will assist towards this goal of accuracy. That said it falls on everybody to be vigilant and report any factual errors whether or not the contribution is paid/sponsored or not. I repeat identifying such contributions WILL help the process as money talks though I cannot blanket condemn paid contribution editing per-se as some information can only be given in a sponsored way, e.g. about a company's internal workings, without being intrusive and with data protection conflicts etc. EBrownUKWakefield 02:38,26 February 2014 (GMT)

• Oppose. One of the main goals of Wikipedia should always be accuracy.If you're being paid to post here, chances are you know what you're talking about. Why should we restrict anyone's access to posting an article here regardless of what they are being paid or not paid?

  You might know that the homeopathic medicine that the company you work for is junk and doesn't work - but that might not stop your employer from paying you to write about how good it is. The problem is with the motives of editors. SteveBaker (talk) 20:09, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

• Opposing an amendment - I do not know what effect the amendment would have compared with what it wouldn't as I've not read up on both sides of the argument. As far as I'm aware, Wikipedia is there for anyone to add correct factual data and while I see 'issues' around being paid for edits, if the edit is factually correct and unbiased, I see no need for payment disclosure. I also see it very difficult to police. Content quality is the key thing - and knowing the source of edits invaluable. I therefore say don't make restrictions and allow legal challenges to come from external sources and simply that the warning that Wikipedia Foundation will pass on editors' details if requested to do so by any authoritative law.

• I've written whole articles (or major portions of them) as well as doing normal minor edits while reading. For free, of course. But I would be most glad to be paid for this work!! Any offers? Contact Ron....

• Documentation and footnoting are the essence of peer review. No one publishes in a peer reviewed journal without a show of credentials that normally includes employment while one's peer's comments are available only to paid subscribers. Wikipedia is a step above, an author does not pay to be published, an author can write without fear of employer repercussion, the author can expect a large, articulate, and somewhat knowledgeable, audience. Edits remaining on pages are typically well reviewed while opinions on talk pages get rapid and substantial consideration by experts in their field. With such a podium on which to stand, I believe a minimum of restrictions encourage the best of us to edit freely and often. Excessive restrictions will leave only paid contributors sufficient protection for explication. --Pendare 12:54, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
• I don't know. Paid persons may have unique information to contribute. This is due to access. And it may be relatively impartial. I like what wiki does during election cycles. Lock it down. Also the impartial moderators are very great. They should certainly report their affiliations especially if they are being paid. I think I agree with rules that partial contributors do disclose this fact, but I don't think there is enforcement possible. Others above have stated this. So I think the worst case is that everyone lies. in that case we rely on moderators being impartial and sensitive to current situations. When a subject becomes a hottopic the moderator has to either put a bunch of disclaimers out and publish, or not allow publishing. This is not much help. I don't know the legal aspects very well, but people will just lie about their edit justification. systems are just a barrier to getting out the (inside your head) truth.
• I oppose strongly

• Strongly support, but would be desirable to go farther

It is clear that the conflict of interests bias the otherwise valuable information and should be avoided as much as possible.

I understand that sometimes there is people that can't expose their name because of potential retaliation from some powerful entity, but as much as we all have the right to say whatever we want -freedom of expression- the reader has the right to know who said what and the possible bias of any comment.

In the academic world many times wikipedia references are not accepted because the author of any piece of information is not risking his/her reputation when an idea is written, yet, wikipedia information is invaluable to researchers, students, etc. Real names are important.

Then why did you neither sign, log in nor give your real name? - Averater (talk) 21:25, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

• Avis d’un utilisateur

Non au "Paid contributions amendment". C’est la porte ouverte à tous les abus !

Un utilisateur.

What if everyone working on wikipedia is paid, and we just didn't notice? I believe any debate on distribution is, to some degree, navel-gazing, unless a little thing called human rights and protection of the environment are given top priority. Both entries on Wikipedia somehow manage without mentioning article 25. What happened there? Think or swim! Some people in this discussion mention (the spirit of) article 26, and that it shouldn't be entirely up to wikipedia to ensure neutrality. It's pretty clear that wikipedia's next phase will involve a lot of backtracking: people wading through old entries, sifting through edits. No one but a crazy angel would do something like that for free - especially if they have to worry about paying the bills!--Michael Paul Kerr (talk) 10:56, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

• brief comment: if this is the way you chose to handle input and user feedback, you have little chance of ever resolving anything. Put one person in charge and live with their decisions - this is reducing intelligence to babble. Wayne Rice 2/28/2014 ( preceding comment copied from where left inside the FAQs above Jalexander--WMF 01:00, 1 March 2014 (UTC) )
• Find a better way or risk irrelevance. It sounds like a good idea, it also sounds almost impossible to enforce, even given the responses I've read as to how it could be enforced. Any unscrupulous entity could systematically alter wikipedia if they were to do it subtly enough, as I'm sure they already are, and a non-for-profit organization will likely not have the assets to combat this in pure man hours. It may just be the nature of the beast; once idealistic pursuits gain attention those with money find ways take advantage of them and sully them beyond repair, until an entirely new approach is taken. I think that a part of the solution may be to require that any contributors go through moderately rigorous verification procedures to identify them(i.e. phone #, address, real name, etc.). All this, of course, while only showing a user name to other users, but logging users' personal info with the foundation. It sucks, but it sucks less than wikipedia getting hijacked in to irrelevance by opportunists.75.111.41.81 08:21, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I am concerned that the way the proposal is phrased (immediately below), leaves too much wiggle room for a contributor to say "Well, I have been paid for doing some specific editing on this topic, but this is not something I have been paid for; it is my honest contribution of fact", or whatever. How to correct this I am not sure how to improve this, except perhaps to say "I have been paid to edit and contribute now or previously on this topic or by this interested party."

REFERRING TO THIS WORDING: with respect to any contribution to any Wikimedia Projects for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways: a statement on your user page, a statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions. -Jim Terr 75.161.33.86 09:30, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

• Let's be careful & keep the objective in mind. We want the most honest & reliable source available. There are some paid entries that each of us will support & some we each will oppose. The answer is to understand the source of the information. Second best is to note the source of information; so that individuals can determine if the source is accurate. Is there are way that edits can be color coded to an editor; or some similar way of marking them?— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.15.63.203 (talk) 19:04, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

• As a proponent of truth and a person who would rather see only correct wikipedia pages, I believe this amendment is meaningless. There are countless people distorting the information available on wikipedia, and I believe most of them aren't even paid, just really not interested in an accurate source of information if it can prove them wrong. As it does not seem to be Wikipedia's objective to provide an accurate, unbiased and truthful information source, I believe there is no value in differentiating between paid or unpaid distortion, just like there is no value in differentiating between intentional and unintentional distortion.

• The page I arrived here from stated "You will find an introduction to the question and the proposal from the Wikimedia Foundation Legal Department below." Where is this "question" on that page?Zylstra (talk) 21:29, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

• In the list of the three ways of disclosure, after the first item, put "or".

Möglicherweise ist dieser Gedanke bereits geäußert worden: "Bezahlte" Beiträge sind auch Beiträge und können ein Thema erweitern, sei's auch nur im negativen Sinn. Idee: Wird ein Autor für einen Beitrag jedweder Art für diesen Beitrag von irgendjemanden in irgendwelcher Art und Weise belohnt oder erwartet der Verfasser eine solche Belohnung, ist der Beitrag deutlich als "bezahlter Beitrag" mit Autorennamen und Name des Auftraggebers zu kennzeichnen und 10% des Verfasser-Honorars an Wikimedia abzuführen. Selbstredend können bezahlte Beiträge nur von angemeldeten Benutzern eingestellt werden. Selbstredend hat Wikimedia das Recht und die Pflicht, bei bezahlten Beiträgen deutlich auf eine wie auch immer geartetete mögliche Absicht des Verfassers oder des Auftraggebers hinzuweisen. Für die unlauteren Titel, die nicht zu verhindern sind, gilt nach wie vor der Aufruf an die Leserschaft, auch Wikimedia-Projekt-Artikel skeptisch zu hinterfragen ("Qui bono?"). Für die lauteren Autoren ergibt sich eine Möglichkeit, ihr Talent zu vermünzen und die Auftraggeber haben eine Möglichkeit, für ihre "Werbung" ein Entgeld zu entrichten. Der abgeführte Betrag hält Wikimedia-Idee lebendig, was auch im Interesse der Auftraggeber müsste. Desweiteren sollte vielleicht für die Benutzer der Wikimedia-Projekte eine Möglichkeit geschaffen werden, als bezahlt gekennzeichnete Beiträge auszublenden, also nicht anzuzeigen (vielleicht noch mit Kategorien: Industrie nein, Wissenschaft ja). Für (allzu) grobe Ausnutzung der Möglichkeit bezahlter Beiträge für ideologische, kommerzielle oder anderweitig vermutlich Vorteilsbringende Zwecke gibt's ja immer noch die Möglichkeit, den Artikel unter Verweis auf die Allgemeinen Bedingungen gar nicht erst in einem Wikimedia-Projekt etc. erscheinen zu lassen bzw. den Artikel durch die Gemeinschaft streichen zu lassen (das geht doch bereits jetzt, oder?). Allerdings bin ich Wiki*-Nutzer, nicht inhaltlich Beitragender. Mithin sind mir die Gepflogenheiten, Rechte und Pflichten beim Verfassen von Beiträgen nicht geläufig. Für mich als Nutzer ist ein als bezahlt gekennzeichneter Beitrag eine Möglichkeit, mögliche Absichten des Auftraggebers zu erkennen. Arkesilaos (talk) 12:02, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

• I want Wikipedia to maintain a list of paid editors so that we know who and who is not being paid. --Andrei Marzan (talk) 02:14, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
• The two listed choices are "As part of these obligations, if you receive financial compensation for any contribution about an organization, living person, or commercial product, you must disclose the employer and client who compensated you." and "As part of these obligations, if you receive financial compensation for any contribution, you must disclose that you were compensated." I would prefer to see a blending of these. In some cases it is best not to reveal the specific employer paying for the contribution, but at the same time I would like to see the financial compensation part of the clause expanded to include other than financial compensation such as receiving free products or services or other compensation beyond financial compensation.
• I am always happy to post information for no compensation in the interest of factual accuracy and clarification. I am considered a bit of a nerd and if I find something which I know as fact missing, am glad to simply insert the knowledge into the article, and in fact have done so in the past.

On the one hand, transparency is good - POV-pushers should identify, caveat lector. On the other hand, I see no strong correlation between "paid" and "POV-pusher", there are many an unpaid POV-pusher. But on the gripping hand, It is too easy to forget to check the "paid" box prior to submission (or whatever the means), making this a difficult to enforce rule, making it a poorly worded rule. -- JesseChisholm

My very first go at adding to discussion in this environment. In summary there is a line in the sand. There is only one issue ... is wiki paying for the article? That is it. If everyone is free to contribute that is what it means ... EVERYONE, PAID OR UNPAID. So, the only legal issues are one's that wiki seems to wish to implimnet- a requirement to reveal whether an articles has been or not been paid for. Wiki should stick with first principles, that if an article is submitted to wiki, WIKI gets total ownership of said article. UNLESS IT WAS HANDED OVER FRAUDULENTLY( wiki is already covered for that, it relinquishes ownership, etc). Who gets paid for what is none of WIKI's business. All things being equal, if its published on WIKI, WIKI GETS OWNERSHIP OF SAID MATERIAL. That is all it needs to concern itself with. WIKI: the free pedia means free to use or add to. JUST THAT. Whether article contributions have been paid by someone IS JUST SO BESIDE THE POINT it boggles the mind how they managed to involve lawyers. Lawyers should not be given the time of day. They will sue you for being out 3 seconds. There is no business transaction occurring between WIKI and the contributor. Me thinks WIKI wants to step into the suing arena so it seems to be expessing the desire to lawyer-up. And this discussion is the precusor. My advice is to just stay and remain on its side of the fence and follow the simple instructions contained in a "take down notice" when they arise. 122.149.240.116 09:58, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Can "anyone edit wikipedia"? Yes and no. If you are paid to edit, and anyone disagrees with you, then you will be branded as having a COI, and your comments will be removed. In all areas where there is controversy, paid editing will be regarded as an unaceptable COI. This amendment implies that the editor's motivation for editing might be more significant than what they write. I say - keep the main rule: "Anyone can edit wikipedia", and apply it to all, paid or not. The illogical assumption is that paid editors cannot be unbiased. I could not help but laugh when I saw that the wiki TOC says not to take legal action against wiki, but this amendment proposal threatens paid editors with Federal Trade Commission law. The idea implied by this regulation is that paid (profesionals?) should not edit, so most editing will be done by amateurs. Payment for editing is a good thing, when being a paid editor means they are a good editor. We have a COI rule, which very few follow (except to accuse others of COIs), why do we need a disclosure rule (which very few will follow)? <end of unsigned comment moved by Elvey>

Discussion

Privacy and free speech

Would this mean that wikipedia would be restricted to those who sign in?

Will wikipedia change? Requiring that no more anonymous edits can be made? As in will that mean that a person who views a page cannot edit the page without signing in? 117.221.189.242 12:25, 23 February 2014 (UTC)Privacy

No ... as presently written, the proposed amendment only applies to editors receiving compensation for their edits. And you do not need to be registered to meet the requirements of the amendment. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:37, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Why are we voting if this isn't the final format?You do agree that it heavily relies on honesty for enforcement if anonymous users can contribute? So will anonymous edits be removed when the final draft is created?117.221.189.242 14:39, 23 February 2014 (UTC)Privacy

Hello 117, that one I can answer for you: this is not a vote, it is more of a straw poll, slash communal discussion. The end result will *not* be decided by the "votes" at all, rather, as Geoff mentions in some other comments, the WMF staffers will continue to revise drafts internally. They may decide that the current language is perfect (it ain't ... sorry Geoff :-)   but more likely they will fix it up, and then hold another straw-poll-slash-communal-discussion later. This is more like a town hall meeting, than like an actual election. Does that analogy make some sense of what is going on here? This issue has been under discussion on-wiki and off-wiki for years now, and the WMF staff is trying to feel their way slowly towards the correct language that captures the essence of what wikipedia needs. It is a bit of a messy process, but it works out reasonably well in the end. Hope this helps, and thanks for improving wikipedia. 74.192.84.101 02:15, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Good question. The legal department did not start the !vote, though I'm finding the comments in both the support and oppose lists quite helpful as we think about revisions. We expect to propose some revised language in light of the feedback and continue listening to reactions. The consultation period under the TOU lasts 30 days (sec.16). We are running this consultation as we did the privacy and trademark policies, changing text as we go along, in response to the feedback. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:22, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

• The question is: "Would this mean that wikipedia would be restricted to those who sign in?" - I would suggest: NO (the information on Wikipedia has to remain free to all), but the opportunity to contribute should be restricted to those who have the integrity, honesty and scruples to log in and be identified. Pr0t0type (talk) 20:33, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

There should be a distinction made between those who are contributing freely (in both senses - i.e. of their own free will AND without compensation (of any sort)) and those who are getting paid. Compensation implies they are taking non-anonymous contractual responsibility (the issuer of the contract will want to enforce any guarantees they receive under the contract) AND, if left to their own free will, they would NOT **voluntarily** make the edit in question. Anyone freely contributing their time and knowledge deserves the right to do so anonymously. Anyone getting compensated needs to take responsibility for their work. Netscr1be (talk) 17:36, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Harassment and outing

I would like WMF legal to consider the implications of harassment and outing regarding possible implementation of this policy. At the present, there is a very dangerous problem with Wikipedia of people using paid editing as a way of violating local policies regarding harassment and outing. Namely, these policies are ignored if people make the allegation that some one is in any way a paid editor. This recommendation would estentially enshrine into policy that dangerous practice by further encouraging people to target Wikipedia editors employment. Because the worst cases I have seen have involved women (and gender specific harassment), this potentially leaves open the WMF to violating the civil rights of women by creating a hostile workplace for them, whether they work for the WMF or not. Also, it encourages harassment, and successful harassment at that. The WMF supporting this is esentially the WMF supporting the harassment of volunteers and their employment. Beyond hurting the potential to recruit new editors, it will also hurt the WMF's ability to hire new employees from within the community because no sane person and quality candidate is going to want to subject themselves to potential job loss any given day because the community has been licensed by the WMF to harass editors. --LauraHale (talk) 08:25, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Or is it Wikipedia's Outing policy that is leading to the banning of editors who try to address significant conflict of interest among some of the editors here? Yes we need to find a balance between the two. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

There are always trade-offs. I agree, a balance needs to be found. Right now, the balance is skewed too far to one side, where there is complete permissiveness towards those who are editing Wikimedia projects by proxy for institutions willing to pay to manipulate the information on those projects. That permissiveness is tempered only by whatever local efforts are made at those projects, which can be difficult without the direct support of WMF. This amendment need not lead to witch hunts; on the contrary, it can serve as a guide for people so that they can take a reasonable approach to dealing with paid editors. -- Atama頭 16:39, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The situation is very similar to sockpuppets, in that it is inevitable that such investigations will sometimes require the disclosure of information that ties accounts to identities. We've been doing sock puppet investigations for years. In the case of inappropriate harassment or disclosure, we have all the normal tools of oversight and edit suppression to deal with those. Gigs (talk) 16:44, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, Gigs. And if LauraHale is right about a dangerous mix involving conflicts of interest, harassment, and outing, then that is the signal that paid editing is perceived as being so serious an issue that some have resorted to undermining important WP policies in order to address it. We need a policy like this all the more then, in order to achieve a balance in editing, and to maintain proper supports for all those important policies. Evensteven (talk) 20:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

@Evensteven:, I think that your conclusion is flawed in that it favours the possibility of a bad paid edit being more problematic for English Wikipedia than English Wikipedia trying to recruit and retain all editors. Let me give you an example from my own editing experience: I edited roller derby articles. I had a picture of a roller derby player on my user page. Some one was trying to insert a non-notable league into several pages on Wikipedia. I removed the references and nominated the article for deletion. The person who was trying to include the non-notable league concluded by these actions that I must be working for a competing roller derby league and working to promote them on Wikipedia at the expense of their league. They made this accusation pubic despite zero evidence for it. I largely stopped editing roller derby articles because it wasn't worth that. (In many other circumstances, these accusations are followed up by Wikipedians contacting the people they believe to be the employer, with and without disclosure.) If I was working for the organization, WP:OUTING was violated. If I was not, they were seeking to harass me and make false accusations specifically to allow them to push their own point of view. That's the problem here. These accusations of paid editing, without evidence or in violation of WP:OUTING and WP:HARASSMENT, are bad for Wikipedia. --LauraHale (talk) 09:51, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

@LauraHale:, I agree that using the paid editing issue in order to harass or out editors is inappropriate, and serious enough when it happens to be deserving of a ban. Such bad behavior can indeed lead to the loss of editors. But allowing paid editing by policy is flawed policy, bad policy, and just as serious. It creates a situation where an editing team can be created by nothing more than having enough money to pay them. I yield the point that such teams could abide by WP guidelines just as well as individual editors can, and even that they could accomplish some cleanup in areas that don't get enough attention from volunteers. The possibilities of good behavior and constructive contributions exist. But so do the possibilities of bad behavior. WP's policies depend on the editing community for their oversight and enforcement, and that activity has been shown to take much time and effort. Even so, the assumption is that the playing field is level; it is run and operated by individuals. When a whole paid editing team becomes a bad actor, the playing field becomes tilted in favor of whomever dedicates the most resources to its advocacy. Teams can overwhelm WP's ability to police itself. Consider how problematic that is even when assuming volunteerism. Sock puppets, meat puppets, use of one-time or small-time temporary accounts or IPs, all contribute to the messiest problems in vandalism and promotions of POVs. How much more then if paid editing becomes accepted practice? Besides, if my employer required me to edit WP as a condition of my employment, I would resent that as a violation of my personal freedoms, since it would compromise any volunteer activity I might want to do after hours. I represent myself here, not my employer, and that's the way I want it to stay. As many here have pointed out, a mere policy change will not do our policing for us. But it does establish the publicly-stated groundwork for legitimate activity. If the legal eagles ever have a need to pursue miscreants through litigation, they must have the legal means. WP needs to live in the real world, which includes even legalistic nations like the US. Evensteven (talk) 06:13, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

@Evensteven: It's true that there is a given problem within the English Wikipedia, but given the large number of rebuttals here about edge cases, possible outing and harassment, and even about potentially well-behaved paid contributors, would your suggestions not be more well-suited for internal Wikipedia policies and guidelines to regulate? More power to the editing community at hand there about how to regulate such users, who will judge for themselves (Wikipedia:Consensus), and with less potential collateral damage on the rest of the Wikimedia wikis. After all, it's not just Wikipedia that's affected by the change in the terms of use - one paid contributor or shared account banned on English Wikipedia may have a chance to contribute positively to other Wikimedia wikis, such as English Wikivoyage and German Wikipedia respectively. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 07:12, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

@TeleComNasSprVen: You may have a point; honestly, I just don't know myself, but what you say sounds reasonable. I join discussions like this when I have something to say, but I particularly like it when I have something to learn. When you or others speak of "collateral damage on the rest of the Wikimedia wikis", I am unsure of that because I haven't contributed there, so you're right that I'm Wikipedia-centric. But I definitely have the impression that the criticism is leveled specifically at this proposal. One thing my time spent here has done for me is to clarify my opposition to paid editing itself, at least for Wikipedia (probably as much in other languages as in English). Another thing it has clarified is my steadily increased reluctance to embrace the proposal itself. I appreciate the designers' intent to keep it a relatively light touch, but that can have the defect of making it toothless and ineffective. It can also introduce undesirable collateral effects (as you mention). Put the two together, and you get little benefit while introducing negative impact. You will see in my paragraph above that most of what I say is directed towards the ills of allowing paid editing as a matter of policy. And I would like to support the general idea that Wikipedia, and the Foundation, should have the tools they need to get a handle on the problem. For Wikipedia anyway, I think there could be very serious impacts if they don't. Constructive contributions are never a problem, but the ability to discern constructive ones from destructive ones is always necessary because of the sheer fact of bad actors. Wikis need some protections, and various tools in the armory. I'm just less sure all the time that this proposal is a needed tool - that it will accomplish anything in return for its impact. But as a matter of policy, I believe the Foundation is going to have to decide whether this effort is going to continue to be a volunteer effort or not, and that issue must be addressed at the level where this proposal has been made. However well some corporate or paid elements may be going in some areas, the present English Wikipedia troubles (and feedback here) serve as a warning about what can happen when participants don't play nice. Money does have the power to build. It also has the power to destroy. The point is that money has power. If that power takes hold, especially in the hands of corporations, it won't let go, for good or ill. Then this grass roots effort at building will become a corporate effort at building. The content of the Wiki projects may not decline in quality (or they might). What they won't get is the same community doing the building, and it will likely be a smaller or more concentrated community, with narrower perspectives. I am singularly unimpressed by what I see in corporate America in terms of vision. And even for those who think differently, corporations are not people. With paid editing and corporate involvement, the vision will change, the participants will change, and the joys of dealing with people will change. This specific proposal is "small change". But the English Wikipedia problem is now. The Foundation is looking at what to do. And it will take vision, because choices must be made. I prefer the volunteer approach, and want to see it continue to get the chance to see how far it can go. It's been impressive so far. And that is the path that provides a unique perspective for the world, one that corporations would crush, good intentions or no. Because corporations are not people. Evensteven (talk) 19:55, 4 March 2014 (UTC) Corporate information is not free. It is controlled. Evensteven (talk) 21:46, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Here's another thought, specifically about outing. Employer E hires editor W to do a job of editing. From the start, or perhaps later, E determines that it needs to evaluate W's work, in line with accepted practices regarding employees' performance on the job. To do so, it requires that W reveal the account handle used to do the work, thus establishing the real world connection of W with the wiki account. This information becomes a part of company records, which is seen by certain other employees in the legitimate course of their work. At some point, there are personnel changes; employees become former employees. And at some point, before or after personnel changes, someone reveals the connection of W to the wiki handle on a wider basis. Perhaps it is even unintentional, though perhaps it could also be harassment or intimidation. There could even be blackmail. And all of it could occur outside the jurisdiction and control of the Foundation, and also of the original employer. What if W was already a long-established editor before this job came up? Is this an additional hole in the security of identification that it is advisable to open? What will be the effect on recruitment of new editors? And what will be the effect on retention of existing editors? Of course the answer is: who knows? So here's another in the long line of risks attached simply to the idea of permitting paid editing; never mind this proposal. Evensteven (talk) 22:32, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

English Wikipedia's policy on "outing" is commonly applied in a ludicrously restrictive way. There are many ways in which this applies, but the one that is relevant here is that anyone who is paid to use Wikipedia to promote the interests of a business, person, or organisation should not be hiding the fact. If the "outign" polciy says otherwise tehn theat polciy needs revision. LauraHale asserts that this particularly affects women, but provides no eivdence for that assetion: I would be interested to see the evidence. As for "hurting the potential to recruit new editors", no, it would only hurt the potential to "recruit" new editors whose purpose is to abuse Wikipedia by secretly and covertly using it to promote. The fewer of that sort of editors we "recruit" the better. As for "potential job loss any given day because the community has been licensed by the WMF to harass editors": What? Why? How on earth does requiring people who are paid to promote the interests of a prticualr party to disclise the fact amount to a lciense "to harass editors"? And why on earth should such a paid editor be likely to lose their job because they are required to be honest and open about the fact that they are being paid to edit Wikipedia? JamesBWatson (talk) 20:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that those who wish to "abuse Wikipedia by secretly and covertly using it to promote" will continue to do so regardless of the ToU. True, the Foundation might be able to sue them if it could identify them and prove loss (both hard), but I'm not certain that it would. Indeed doing so might be "problematic" itself. Rich Farmbrough 22:19 20 February 2014 (GMT).

Unintended consequences of disclosure

LauraHale, Nathan, and others have raised this issue, and so I think it's worth clarifying a little more. It's a good question, and this amendment should not be an excuse for other users to disobey other community policies and standards.

The community's processes depend on transparency, which must be occasionally balanced against the interests of users who do not wish to disclose information about their employer or affiliation. The Terms of Use, and other project policies (like WP:OUTING), do not allow harassment or stalking. As others pointed out above, this is a similar question to enforcing sockpuppet rules, and other Wikipedias already have similar disclosure requirements for conflict of interest editing (like Spanish Wikipedia's COI policy). When there are cases where users feel harassed, then that is a bigger issue than a paid contribution disclosure, and should be dealt with more directly (or comprehensively) as necessary. But if users wish to avoid disclosing any information about their affiliation, they should also not submit paid contributions. Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 01:47, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I think you are too dismissive of the problems regarding uneven and highly selective enforcement of such policies, especially in the situation of a high-status "insider" versus a low-status "outsider". A simple inspection of this discussion page will show many people with a passionate attitude that paid contributors are regarded as (my phrasing) enemies-of-the-state. While I have no dog in this fight, having such contributors required to in effect paint targets on themselves does not strike me as something which will go well for them. The issue that while de jure, bad things should not happen, de facto, bad things are likely to happen, needs to be factored into considering the consequences of a policy. Basically, if there's an angry mob, feeding the mob more prey shouldn't be excused by saying it's a separate problem if the mob is hurting anyone in the first place. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 04:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

1. I think, if one doesn't want to disclose, who he is, in his main account, he simply should have a sockpuppet, where he may state that he has another account but not which one or where he doesn't state it, but doesn't vote on official pages - What's the problem?

2. I think, that stating that I am Kersti Nebelsiek (which in fact is my realname) on a hypothetical Kersti Nebelsiek article talk page would be an advantage if I want to enter the information that I am born in Giessen (Germany) on september 22 1969 and a disadvantage if I wanted to tell, that Kersti Nebelsiek is right in everything she writes on her webpage and everyone should believe her. And that is how it should be. (In fact that's kind of a joke - my webpage http://www.kersti.de/ contains mainly the ideas of mine, which I didn't read somewhere else before. Therefore they are ideas, interesting to think about, but absolutely nothing where it would be a good idea to believe it blindly!)

3. If someone has a real understandable problem to disclose his identity - maybe because he writes about a topic, where in real-live are thrown bombs - thats an exemption of this rule if you ask me.

--Kersti (talk) 05:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I think you have some right in the direction of "balance between benefits of transparency and needs of users" but that it needs to get more neutral non-demonizing in analysis and go deeper in not being easily dismissive of effort to designing a better way. That transparency is made possible including some WP:PAID guidance on how and when it should be used should be thinking also about that transparency giving value to users of both reader and editor without being a big pain and useless. Don't want to tell users that they have to go thru a long account process; see the large percentage of editors in histories are red with no profile, and I think an even larger percentage seems to be those with little personal information content in profile. And I do think that having CDC wikimedian would be a good thing and that they and we would benefit from knowing when an edit about Swine Flu is from them. Markbassett (talk) 15:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I am totally agree

I've suggested a counter-solution below. I think email is the best way; it's not as public as user page display, which can easily enable outing, but it's archived sufficiently enough that in times of necessity we can call the right people to refer back to the paid editor to verify and resolve any problems. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 17:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Stephen LaPorte (WMF), I have no idea why you think that any of the WMF communities' processes depend on transparency. They most certainly do not, and they never have. They depend on neutrality and accuracy. Our readers do not care who writes the content, as long as it is fairly well balanced and more or less correct. The vast majority of Wikimedians carry out their activities using pseudonyms; only a minority fully disclose their identities. Transparency has never been a core Wikimedia value; quite the opposite, in fact, given its "anyone can edit, even without registering an account" core philosophy. No, Stephen, if the communities' processes depended on transparency, all WMF sites would be accessible by registered accounts only, linked to real-world, verified identities which were publicly accessible. Risker (talk) 01:26, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but Risker, there is tension between neutrality and transparency. If we have transparent COI disclosure, does that improve neutrality? Or to flip the question around, if we permit non-transparent hiding of COI, does that harm neutrality? At the moment, on any controversial page, people are immediately accused of being POV-pushers for (or anti-POV-pushers against) whatever the topic at hand is, be that a politician, a product, or some more abstract sort of noun/verb/whatnot. Will disclosure of a subset of COI (hard compensation) lessen the witchhunt atmosphere, or increase it? I'm not actually sure, I can imagine it causing more problems: the volunteer editor who happens to think the iPhone is the greatest thing since sliced bread will honestly declare they have no COI to declare, but this will just inflame their content-opponents, who will seek to out them off-wiki, as a means of proving they are Apple shills. Slaporte (WMF), there is no clear-cut advantage to transparency, and as Risker says, the WMF actually has a long-time commitment to pseudonymity/anonymity. Hope this helps. 74.192.84.101 03:08, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you 74, for articulating the question clearly. I appreciate that everyone is thinking carefully about the practical implications. Do you think that there is anything we can include in the policy (or FAQ) to reinforce our commitment to psuedonymity and anonymity, emphasizing that a witchhunt atmosphere is not appropriate? Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 01:08, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

@Slaporte (WMF): and @Geoffbrigham:, One potential solution is to provide additional information in this proposal that says anyone violating the WMF's privacy guidelines by providing information of a person's employment on a Wikimedia project 1) may be in violation of local laws (as is the case in Finland, South Africa and other countries), 2) violates the WMF's privacy agreement and 3) may be subject to an immediate office action block. Sharing speculation about a person's potential employment is also considered harassment on 19 different Wikipedia projects, and probably several other sister projects. It should be cautioned that any accusations of paid editing that are not disclosed should be made directly to WMF staff to handle to avoid potential legal troubles and possible blocking on local projects. This wording would help, and would empower local administrators to better prevent harassment on this issue. A separate OTRS queue should also be set up for people to report accusations of paid editing, especially ones that have negatively impacted their offline life directly to WMF staff who can provide assistance for those targeted. This cannot be left up to the projects to interpret because this is coming from the WMF's own global terms of use policy and privacy policies that should not be left up to local interpretation. --LauraHale (talk) 19:15, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for these detailed comments. We will start drafting a FAQ item that can address the points you suggest, and we will post it above and would appreciate your input. I do not expect, at this time, that we will be able to cover the points about office actions, setting specific blocking standards for local admins, or creating a separate staffed OTRS queue. These points would probably need a bigger conversation with the community.. Best, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 19:46, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

But what if the content is flagged (as compensated or affiliate contribution) but the user is not. That would support anonymity and transparency. 108.115.0.241 23:46, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

What counts as compensation?

Expenses, bursaries, grants, etc

It should be made clear how receiving expenses, grants, bursaries or similar payment from the Foundation, a chapter or other affiliated or associated organisation relates to these proposals.

For example, Wikimedia UK have just approved a grant to an editor to cover travel and related expenses to photograph public art in order to produce a featured list on the English Wikipedia (details). Would this need to be disclosed under the terms of this amendment? Thryduulf (en.wikt,en.wp,commons) 23:06, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I was supported by Wikimedia Australia a couple of years ago to take photographs of a region where there was next to nothing and I just placed them in a category https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_by_Gnangarra_sponsored_by_Wikimedia_Australia, like wise for another person https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_sponsored_by_Wikimedia_Australia who had the same. Its useful just for reporting of your activities back to the chapter to categorise photos as a result of that, I see no need beyond that for such activities. Gnangarra (talk) 23:41, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

These are good points. I don't believe incidental charges to facilitate legitimate NPOV editing are intended to be covered by the amendment. Compensation for the editing service is. I think we could address your concern by including an FAQ that clarifies this point. Would that work?

On grants, I do not see a reason not to disclose the grants if the intent of the grant is to constitute payment for the editing services. Indeed our movement grants are granted in a transparent way, and I think that principle of transparency appropriately follows any compensation for editing. Those are my preliminary views, so I'm open to different views or nuances based on the experience and insights of the community. Thanks for your helpful comments. Geoffbrigham (talk) 00:56, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Certainly on the first part, an FAQ would do the job well. Probably for the second part too, but I need to be more awake than I am now to understand it fully. Thryduulf (en.wikt,en.wp,commons) 01:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I support transparency (and a FAQ). To quote Jimbo There are some good reasons to disclose, and no real reasons (are there?) not to disclose.. However, if there is caution, it may arise from another quote of Jimbo's (talk page) It's the first step from the board in banning paid advocacy editing of all kinds. I trust that Jimbo chose his words carefully, and banning "piad advocacy editing" is not the same as banning "pad editing". I know that Jimbo has made this distinction clear in the past, but not all users have followed all of the history, so may need to be reassured on occasion.--Sphilbrick (talk) 14:39, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Without expressing a very strong opinion either way, I wanted to say that I don't see any reason not to disclose "travel and related expenses to photograph public art". There are some good reasons to disclose, and no real reasons (are there?) not to disclose. The disclosure doesn't have to be framed in a negative way (why would it be?). "These photographs were made possible by a grant from Wikimedia UK to cover travel and related expenses." Sounds positive to me, not negative, so why avoid it?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:03, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The uploads are already disclosed. There's these categories and associated templates (e.g.) used in the file description page. -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 09:51, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I certainly wasn't suggesting there was a reason not to disclose, I was just querying whether these this TOU update would make disclosure mandatory or not. Thryduulf (en.wikt,en.wp,commons) 10:08, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Certain political forces represented by people such as George Soros are currently engaging in a "new media" initiative. Soros for example recently pulled much of his funding of 'patch.com', a system of local news websites. Now, other news websites are popping up, with a similar political slant to 'patch.com'. The difference is, they all appear to be small, independent sites. They get funding from a number of grants, organizations, and private individuals, making the major sources hard to trace. As a small town news website administrator, I know first hand, that donations of this type are few and far between. Therefore I don't see how many of these seemingly independent sites can afford to pay a staff or writers, unless they are getting funding, ultimately, from political forces with deep pockets exc. I do think all paid contributions that have to do with editing of pages should list the benefactors, parent sources exc, all the way up to the private donors in my opinion. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 191.210.158.225 (talk) 21 February 2014; 19:43 (UTC)

[What is meant by 'people such as George Soros'? Jewish people? I think the person writing this is probably an anti-Semite.] — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.163.65.149 (talk) 01:21, 22 February 2014; (UTC)

[A brilliant ad hominem attack from someone who has no place in this discussion. Please note I did not write the original paragraph; I simply find it despicable when a legitimate viewpoint is attacked by someone who ascribes despicable motives arbitrarily to discredit the writer.]72.83.41.66 05:46, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Knowing the publisher of media you read is always a good idea. Wikipedia tries to have a collective and neutral point of view, but paid individual editors should still disclose who pays/funds them, just as with journals. But requiring disclosure of the complete ownership chain seems overkill to me.

(I resplit comments above to actually track the history and separate individual comments, [the ad-hominem attack] from the [complaint on it].--Blaisorblade (talk) 22:02, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

A hypothetical situation: "I have such-and-such viewpoint. I intend to edit Wikipedia. Please donate money; the more money donated, the more time I can spend editing." Said person would edit with or without donations; however, following that statement, donations he receives would presumably be because of his stated point of view.

Setting up a donation button or a patreon.com ID or whatever is no guarantee of donations happening, therefore there isn't necessarily money to disclose. Saying he has such-and-such viewpoint doesn't necessarily say he's going to improperly apply it to the editing. So in this instance, what would he have to declare, and what effect would it have on his editing privileges? Morfusmax (talk) 01:49, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

With respect to controversial pages (where differing POVs are presented), partisan editors can be just as motivated to direct the flow of the information as paid editors. I have seen several pages where editors insist that information that discredits the subject of a page belongs in the lede. In one case, I have seen the author of an article against alternative science reference his own article as evidence, in one case twice in one sentence. The result is a biased WP page, and payoff for the editor is not money but prestige and reputation. INMHO, anyone who publishes anything attempting to discredit anything should be seen as having a de facto COI. I hate the flat earth people. I write a book about it. Then, I quote my own book as a source. Voila! Wikipedia recognizes my book as a reliable source. But what if I distort my opponant's views? What if I even slander them? Will people see the reference and buy my book? Will a potential boss hire me if he thinks I'm an expert because WP mentions me several times? If so, then I had better edit war against anyone who tries to remove the reference to my book.

This amendment is not enough to do it's job (preserve NPOV?) it also needs a provision to cover "payment" in the currency of prestige and reputation. "Being right" can be as powerful a motivator as cash.

Definition of "compensation"?

A semantic query. I see "compensation" is defined in terms of "an exchange of money, goods, or services." This is a somewhat broad-brush definition. For instance, I presume the term "services" may include "hospitality" (as, for example, in the stringent COI guidelines used by Cochrane [2]). This raises the question of quite what counts as an "exchange". Some contributors may have such COI to rather variable extents, ranging from collective lunches at sponsored meetings (without obvious direct exchange) to much more substantial individual hospitality (where some degree of indirect exchange may effectively exist).
I suppose it could be argued that editors should be expected to declare any potential COI of this sort. But that might be both impractical and undesirable. In particular, one would scarcely want to discourage direct editing of articles by academics who only have a theoretical (borderline) COI. But where to draw the line... Perhaps a few more words are necessary as to what sort of services (or goods) are intended? MistyMorn (talk) 19:13, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi MistyMorn. Yes, I've thought a bit about this and I see your point. In the end, I think it will not be possible to find a perfectly exact formulation, which is a fault of language in general. But maybe there is a better phrase. I would be interested in hearing other phrasing proposals that might address your concerns, if you have time. Otherwise, I will continue thinking about this to see if there is a way of tightening the language. Geoffbrigham (talk) 20:05, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Hmmm, maybe other more legally-savvy contributors have some suggestions? MistyMorn (talk) 20:09, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

• I suppose a possible approach could be to provide a few well-chosen representative examples of what would and would not be considered "paid editing" in terms of received services, goods etc (though I have no idea of the legal implications of this). —MistyMorn (talk) 20:46, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I like this idea. We could include more examples in the FAQs. I'm putting it on the list of changes to make this week. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:22, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I think the FAQ should refer to the limiting language of "financial compensation" and not just "compensation" which limits the compensation to only monetary things. Personally I think there is no good reason to limit the types of compensation to just financial things (with some dollar value) but the FAQ should not describe the general when the specific is used in the language. Secondly I wonder if it is prudent, interesting or even useful to require all sorts of compensation, sexual favours may be a more potent driver but it would not make much sense to require their declaration. Idyllic press (talk) 19:26, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I'll preface this by saying that I like the proposal here, and see it as well-worded and balanced. But I have a related question about defining "compensation". Let's say that an editor owns stock in a company. They are not in any way employed by the company or otherwise affiliated with it. If they were to edit the page about that company, they might be in a position to benefit materially if the value of the stock were to increase (or if they prevented the value from decreasing), but that isn't really "compensation" as it is defined here. My reading of the proposed language is that disclosure would not be required; is that correct? Furthermore, someone might own, for example, a mutual fund that has holdings in a company, and in good faith not even know that the company is held in the mutual fund. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:47, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I would like to hear from others, but I think you are right: the proposed amendment would not cover this. My concern is having a definition that is too broad and rendered ineffective accordingly. My rough reasoning: if the definition solves 70% of the challenge, I think individual projects can address the remaining scenarios in their own COI policies as appropriate for that project. I'm just concerned about having a block of legalese text that nobody understands, and, as a result, implementation becomes problematic. Your point is a good one, though. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:22, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

• Geoff, you could borrow "consideration" from contract law, if you think that would serve the purpose better. Gigs (talk) 20:53, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

No, please. We're talking WP policy here, not a legal document. Enforcement is by the community. Just make the policy cover the general ground. Evensteven (talk) 21:15, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The definition is partially based on the concept of consideration (though not as comprehensive). I think this is an interesting point, but to ensure better clarity (as discussed above), I might not go that route. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:22, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually we are talking a legal document. And a very long (overly long) one at that, partly modelled on the topsy like ToS's of a thousand other websites, and only somewhat ameliorated by community involvement. Rich Farmbrough 23:46 20 February 2014 (GMT).

I agree that this is vague and subject to interpretation, but from a different angle. One's employment affiliation is usually unambiguous. What seems more vague to me is if mere employment constitutes presumed conflict of interest or if editing Wikipedia needs to be part of the job description. For scientific and technical entries one would expect the most up to date & accurate entries to come from researchers in that field. I consider those contributions valuable and 'honest' and don't want to burden the contributors with disclosure requirements simply because they are paid by a university or business for their expertise. In my mind, the more suspect activity is if an entity tasks an employee specifically with making edits to Wikipedia in order to promote/demote their or another entity's position. (often known as 'managing' or 'defending' an online reputation) In this case, even though the edits may be factually accurate, disclosure is appropriate to make sure the facts are not being 'cherry picked' to support an agenda.

Requiring disclosure might have an unintended chilling effect. Many technology companies have enthusiastic legal departments who write broad non-disclosure agreements for their employees. An engineer may be willing to anonymously post a clever approach to circuit design or data analysis for the benefit of other engineers, but may not wish to disclose that his employer is using the technique, or risk the wrath of the legal department (or the office politics of internal rivals) for making such a contribution.

To summarize: Is someone who is paid to be an expert, but who decides to sneak in a few edits on company time, considered to be a paid contributor or must the editor actually be paid to make edits? This has a simple test: If your boss told you to do it, or knows you are doing it and supports the effort, you should disclose. If your boss would think you are wasting time and should get back to work, if he knew about it, you are a volunteer.

Professors and some other university staff over here have informing the public as one of their duties. Some choose to use Wikipedia as a channel, while wishing to keep their contributions anonymous (e.g. because of presumed prejudices among colleagues). The amendment would effectively forbid this, which would be very sad. Even when writing on Wikipedia as a hobby, the professor is in fact doing his job every time he touches his speciality, just on unpaid overtime (like he does very much of his ordinary research). --LPfi (talk) 14:27, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

So here's a "for instance" I'd like to propose...

I have a Cabelas credit card that awards me points (that equate to a monetary credit) every time I use it, more so if I make a purchase with that particular store. I know I will receive benefit from this company simply for using this card. Furthermore, I have edited this company's article on WP. Clearly I have an affiliation with the company and receive compensation from them, but I am not a paid editor. Would I be required under the new rule to disclose my connection? --Scalhotrod (talk) 20:07, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Dominique Fausser : Bonne initiative, mais je propose d'ajouter après « pour lequel vous recevez une rémunération ou vous vous attendez à en recevoir une », les mots « soit directement, soit indirectement au bénéfice de l’un de vos proches », des employeurs pouvant par exemple rémunérer l'avantage par le fait d'embaucher ou d'attribuer un stage professionel pour l'un des enfants du contributeur. C'est la contrepartie en terme d'avantage qui importe d'identifier, qu'elle soit directement au bénéfice de celui qui a contribué ou au bénéficie d'une personne tierce que l'auteur de la contribution à désignée comme bénéficiaire.

I support the stronger version 2 with a modification. Not just financial compensation but any compensation should be transparent. I am not for outright banning of compensated material (see e.g. examples of Wikipedia research sponsorships) but favor transparency. Let the reader know and decide. 141.156.88.158 00:30, 13 March 2014 (UTC)USAnwalt

Definition of paid is neither specific nor easily verifyable

In many companies employees are allowed to use the companies internet connection for private purposes. Given now that an employee sees an article in Wikipedia that might be of concern to his employer. He now edits the article which may be proven by his IP address.

Is this now to be considered a paid edit? Or is it only a paid edit if editing is one of his duties? How can he prove to Wikipedia that it was his private edit?

A employer would probably not want a private edit to be associated with his name because this might have legal implications.

Does Wikipedia really want one person to use different accounts depending on the cicumstances of the edit?

How about other conflicts of interest? A member writing about his NGO, should he not be obliged to disclose his affiliation?

--Xypron (talk) 08:18, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Seconded. This requirement is easily circumvented by someone who has a strong interest in a particular POV due to their job and presumably their personal beliefs, but is not specifically paid on a per contribution basis. Take the William Connolley controversy. Connolley would probably not have to declare an interest under the terms of this new clause, even though his income may be related to public acceptance of a particular viewpoint.

As an occasional contributor to WUWT, any edit I made to a climate topic might attract similar controversy - but there would be no requirement under this new clause for me to declare my personal views or non financial affiliation.

--Eric Worrall 01 March 2014

Agreed. The current text sounds like only edits where the editor is specifically being paid to make said edit. The impression I get from the current policy is that edits that happen to be made 'on the clock' but not specifically required by the employer do not require disclosure under this proposed policy. In my view, these affiliations should be disclosed. This may simply mean rewording the policy, or it may mean the policy needs to be extended; currently, I'm confused as to whether these scenarios are intended to be included or not.

-- Calrion (talk) 04:22, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree the definition of "paid" needs to be tightened, but the fact a contributor is being paid for their expertise in a particular area can cut both ways. It may result in a biased article promoting a particular product, technology, theory, or industry, but it may also result in a thoroughly objective critique. And in that case the contributor may well wish to hide their identity as much as possible.

Perhaps the criterion should be more like "vested interest in promoting the area". There's also a question of degree; we shouldn't overlook the fact that anyone with a valuable contribution on some subject is likely to have a particular view.

-- Dlochrin (talk) 04:25, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Types of edits that are affected

Real and hypothetical examples for discussion

(cross-posted, with edits and additional material, from an En-WP discussion a few months ago, here)

In considering an updated policy or TOS provision addressing paid or COI editing, we need to make sure that it addresses the types of situation that frequently come up in this area, and does so in a way that accords with how we want these situations to be handled, and with common sense. Below are some hypothetical situations—but mostly derived from actual situations I am aware of over the years—in which an editor could be accused of having a paid interest or COI. How do we want to address them? Does the proposed TOS addition do so well, or how might it be changed to do so better?

Of course, given the specific proposal at issue here, the expected answer to all these situations would be along the lines of "make the disclosure." However, each incident could be looked at from the point of view of "is it realistic that editors in this position will do that, and do we need them to?" In some instances below, the answer is probably yes; others may be more borderline.

(Note: The examples refer to "Wikipedia", but could apply with minor tweaking to most if not all projects.)

What's important: another examples

I think it's important to understand that the Paid contributions amendment is not about "being allowed" to write or edit an article but it's about making clear that you are paid to do so if you are. You may write articles even though you get paid for it. If you can provide information you couldn't if you wouldn't get paid, then paid writing is not a bad thing per se. But nevertheless I think it's important for other members to at least know that you got paid to write in the wikipedia. So if you are a member of a company and you edit an article about this company during work time (or get paid for it in another way) you should state that. So it will be easier for other members of wikipedia to rate your edits. Other members might take an extra look on your edits if they know you were paid to do them. Which is a good thing because paid edits can in many cases be compared to advertisements which are likely to miss a certain objectiveness. The question about the friend who is an author and offers you to take you to dinner for writing the article I think is also easy to answer: If you knew that your friend was going to take you to dinner before you wrote the article (or if they offered to take you to dinner only if they like the article) I think you should state that. (Actually I think you should even state it if they offered to take you to dinner only if they don't like the article, but I fear that discussions about this option would lead off topic...) I don't think the statement should depend on the amount of money or other things you get - if you get something for writing the thing, you should state it. If you don't expect anything for it and your friend hasn't made such an offer but takes you to dinner anyway after writing the article, then of course you can't (and thus: don't have to) state it when you write the article. And all in all - if the community thinks the articles and edits someone contributes are of high quality I think they won't undo edits just because someone got paid to do them. But it will be much easier to understand the motives behind edits that seem biased if you know someone got paid to do them. Sebástian San Diego (talk) 14:38, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Example 9:
I am a paid employee in a for-profit company (e.g. pharmaceutical) and I edit articles in good faith with completely referenced material from reasonable sources (e.g. the country's Medical Association media releases, medical journals)that are correct to the best of my ability with my qualifications related to this field. One of my edits includes the importance of early intervention of a particular condition in line with current industry best practice (and does not include the company's brand name). Am I required to declare the company I work for? Would I be discouraged from editing in a field of my expertise because of the potential of duality of interest?114.76.48.193 06:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

My presumption is that disclosure would only be necessary if your employer requires you to make such edits, or is specifically employing you to do same. If you happen to just be a researcher who believes in his/her work and adds (otherwise verifiable, notable, NPOV) material about same, I imagine that's Perfectly Okay. Viqsi (talk) 14:56, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I have the opposite take from Viqsi. If you are in the medical industry, and you are editing articles about procedures that will send money your direction, then you have an inherent COI. This is just like editing the article about your Gramma... you know that her cooking is the best, just like you know that early intervention is a "best" practice for your industry, because your company *is* the best in your industry, just like your Gramma is the best cook in the world. Definitely disclose that you have COI, with regard to the procedure (ditto for the company and the products).

  That doesn't necessarily mean you must state the name of your employer, in my book, just that you have COI with respect to the procedure/drug in question. Follow the bright line rule, and suggest edits on the article-talkpage. This sort of thing can be taken too far, of course: if you are in the medical industry, and you add a source to an article on human health which says sometimes doctors save lives, are you suffering from COI? Probably not.  :-)   Use common sense... but that includes, being aware that any time you edit in a way that could "butter your bread" as Mark Twain would say, you are COI-encumbered and ought to proceed with due caution. I've seen many people who rationalize in exactly this way; but they end up cherrypicking sources, and violating w:WP:UNDUE in their edits... they cannot help themselves, nine times out of ten. Having a bias is no shame; the point of disclosure is to make it easy for others to verify you are * acting* in a way that is unbiased, despite your inherent COI-bias. HTH. 74.192.84.101 02:53, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Fair warnings about contraindications for a medicine ("persons with liver damage or compromised immune function should not use [insert name of prescription medication]")or about side effects with appropriate warnings are of value to those who prescribe or use a medicine. If such also appears in the product literature supplied with the medication -- such is appropriate. What is not acceptable would include advertising to expand a market or defamation of a competing product. Wikipedia can obviously not offer free advertising. A link to a company site is adequate.

Testimonials for the efficacy of a medication are of course unacceptable as in real life. Those merit swift deletion even if made in good faith without pay. Pbrower2a (talk) 03:45, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Example 10:
A medical professional is more likely to edit medical articles than a non-medical professional because they feel they have the expertise on the topic. Most medical conditions have to be diagnosed by a doctor and people should not self-prescribe treatments they read about, so these articles are likely to contain advice such as "contact your doctor if you have these symptoms" (which in a sense does "butter your bread" and presents a possible COI) and are likely to be edited by paid medical professionals - would this create a 'boy who cried wolf' issue where almost all articles in certain fields (this isn't limited to medicine e.g. an electrician explaining how certain power lines work but with the warning that they should only be fixed by a qualified electrician) are marked as edited by paid contributors? 114.76.60.131 07:43, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Non-hypothetical example

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tyop_Contest

Would this sort of thing get swept up in the "declaration of interest"? Rich Farmbrough 22:35 20 February 2014 (GMT).

Moved your signature up so it formats a bit nicer. Hope you don't mind. As for the question itself, I would most likely say no, it shouldn't be a problem because you're competing to make Wikipedia a more structurally sound, typographically and grammatically correct place. Besides the point, it would be a burden on the editor to say "no, you must disclose every edit or request paid editor grouping to qualify in our contest to fix Wikipedia's grammar errors". Since I am uncertain that en:WP:IAR or any Wiki-space policy supersedes the terms of use, I ask that the amendment be clarified as to exclude community projects that are not limited to an article (or articles) owned by an entity. Ellomate (talk) 23:05, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm open to this. Maybe we could find examples and draft language for the FAQ that carves out this exception. If someone wants to try penning a draft, that would be great; otherwise, I will try to get to it. Geoffbrigham (talk) 23:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

@Ellomate: The proposed policy says nothing about whether changes are improvements to Wikipedia. What weight does your opinion that this is non-problematic carry, against the clear wording of the policy itself? This is why we should be very careful what we write into policy: because it is what we actually write, not what we secretly would like it to mean, that will end up counting. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:23, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

@David: Well, I should have "disclosed" (wink wink) that I am not an administrator on any Wikipedia project, so can't say for certain. As the saying goes "the law is only as good as the people who are willing to enforce it", which is why not every rule** here is set in stone. I have confidence that a revised FAQ should clear it up, if not, an actual rewording of the amendment will. Ellomate (talk) 18:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Ugh. This is hypocritical in the extreme. Other company's paid edits are presumed bad and contributors must jump through extra hoops to put them in, but our own payments, which clearly fall under paid editing, smell like roses and get a free pass. If you want to put this extra burden on the editors into the TOU, then do it. But no exceptions, especially not for the WMF and its pet projects and initiatives. Thesteve (talk) 05:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure how a typo fix or grammar fix doesn't smell like roses, but obviously the exception falls far beyond that particular scope. Let me offer rhetoric; would ignore all rules apply in a scenario where WMF cleans up vandalism on its own page, or would Terms of Use supersede it? On a side note, check out my proposal under "Abstain" of including an option of editors checking a box that marks the edit as paid "p". That wouldn't be a burden on any reasonable person, "community compensated" editor or not; in contrast of leaving a disclosure on often overlooked article/user talk pages. Ellomate (talk) 07:04, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

There are WMF employees who edit/fix Wikimedia pages anonymously?! There shouldn't be. Thesteve (talk)

I think I understand what you're saying - but I would like a bit of clarification. Do you mean all Wikimedia/Wikipedia articles or just the ones related to Wikipedia itself? Ellomate (talk) 00:05, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

If you look at Geoff's user page, he clearly states he's working for the WMF. I expect this sort of disclosure from *everyone* who works for the WMF, on all Wikimedia/wikipedia pages and articles, to indicate that they are paid editors, and that they have a potential COI. If this amendment passes, it will be required. Thesteve (talk)

Thanks for explaining. But how, though? Does an edit of, say, La Roche-sur-Yon (a town in France) by a Wikimedia Foundation editor truly need to be held to the same standard of paid editing as a member of that town's local government? Granted, Geoffbrigham is paid to serve as General Counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation, but where would a conflict of interest be found in editing that article besides the site in which to do so? Wouldn't it be disrupting Wikipedia to make a point? I don't have a problem with WMF being required to disclose their affiliations for any Wikipedia/media related projects, though. Ellomate (talk) 11:53, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Why no, WMF employees should have a higher standard than everyone else. If your company is proposing a rule for everyone, then all your employees should damn well follow that rule, don't you think? No exceptions. In this case, it means stating clearly on your user pages (for each project) that you work for the WMF and they pay you. And please recall, I said potential COI. Obviously, unless you are from the backwoods of Roche-sur-Yon, then there isn't COI for you to edit there. You were still paid to do that edit though. But if, lets say, a board member wants to edit his girlfriend's page, that might just be COI as well as paid editing. Thesteve (talk) 09:58, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I don't think WMF employees have to declare every edit they make (that would be silly), they just have to say somewhere on every project they edit that they work for the WMF.Thesteve (talk)

More hypothetical examples, from Commons and OTRS

While I believe the main concern is text editing of articles, the amendment clearly applies to all projects. I have a couple questions regarding photos provided.

Situation 1. The subject of an article realizes that there is no photo of the subject in the article, and arranges to send in a photo, with permission. The actual addition of the photo to the article is often done by an independent editor, but the literal upload of the photo is a contribution to a project. I assume this situation doesn't require disclosure, but it is set-up for the next situation.

Situation 2. The subject of an article realizes that there is no photo of the subject in the article, and asks his or her assistant to upload in a photo, along with permission. In this situation, the assistant is paid by the subject (or their common employer). Do we want to declare this as an example of paid editing, requiring disclosure?

Situation 3. Same as situation 2, except the assistant doesn't upload the photo, the assistant sends it in to Photosubmissions and I upload it for them. (For those unfamiliar with OTRS, this is a common occurrence, happening the order of a hundred times a year. ) Is the act of emailing Photosubmissions a contribution as defined in the amendment? Does it require disclosure? If I upload the photo for them, do I have to declare anything?

Situation 4. An art museum decides to licensee some of its collection, and a paid employee of the museum arranges to upload the photos to Commons. Does this require disclosure? Suppose the employee uploads to Commons, and places the photos in articles. Is this different.?--Sphilbrick (talk) 15:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sphilbrick. Your examples force reflection.  :) I would be interested in how you would answer under the proposed amendment and where you think disclosure does not make sense. If you think disclosure would be required but it does not make sense, would you have any language changes for the proposed amendment or suggested FAQs to clarify the scope? I'm not punting this, but genuinely asking. I will continue to think about this and will likely benefit greatly from your perspective. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion of Examples

Photos are indeed different but I do believe that the same basic ToU will work as well. Commons may want to set a specific policy on this but I believe our current rules and practices cover almost everything. For examples 1-3, presumably a copyright statement is already required, releasing the photo. That could be viewed, in effect an adequate disclosure. If Commons thought that a more specific disclosure was needed they could require something else (but of course not retroactively). For situation 4, I'm sure there is already something recorded that shows the museum agrees to the upload.

I don't think there would be any problem with anybody (paid or not) uploading public domain photos. I think the only real problem with photos would be when they are biased, e.g. photo-shopped to show something that didn't happen, or perhaps an image of a political cartoon. I'd think that any Commons policy should focus on these, and the rest of the situations could be handled easily by saying "ToU apply for all photo uploads, but are adequately covered by other required disclosures." Smallbones (talk) 19:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Short response: my current thinking is that Commons should be treated differently. (See collapsed discussion for complications.) My argument is that while it is quite understandable that paid edits to articles should be, at a minimum flagged, and in some circumstances, prohibited, I don’t think the same rule applies to Commons content. I not only accept photos from pros, I encourage them. If an art museum wants to freely licensee their collection and a paid employee is involved, I want to applaud them. I do not miss that inclusion of a photo in an article, not just the decision to include or exclude, but the choice of photos, their captions and placement all contribute to the POV of an article, which we want to be neutral. However, I think there is a clean demarcation between the selection of photos in an article, and the addition of a photo to Commons. The first is an editorial function, and if compensated, should be acknowledged, per TOU. The second action may or may not be compensated, but I don't think that identification is critical.--Sphilbrick (talk) 21:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

My opinion is, in cases like this, what reason would there be not to disclose? Why would they not want to be known that it's someone connected with the subject/the institute that is doing the uploading? If you want to applaud them, is it really an onus on them to let you know who you are to applaud? - Andre Engels (talk) 23:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Selection of an image to upload is also an editorial process, photo-shopping is just further down that road (by a long way, but still ... - Neonorange (talk) 03:14, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

additional thoughts
I first thought about photos. Commons has more than photos, but in the context of this issue, I felt comfortable treating video, animations and sounds the same way as photos. Then I remembered that text, in the form of pdf's are often uploaded to Commons, and I paused. However, I then decided that the distinction is not between text and images, but between the compilation of an article about a subject (which includes a lot of text, can include images and pdf texts, and other items). I decided that the compilation is the editorial process, and it is that process that must meet NPOV, and that process where paid editing must be identified. If someone upload a pdf of text they created, it will probably be deleted (unless they and the text are famous) but if it passes the rules for inclusion, it sits by itself as a file until and unless some editor makes the judgment to include it in an article. It is the second step where I want to know if the editor is paid. I don’t think I care about the payment status of the creator or uploader. I then thought about the fact that it is possible to lie or mislead with images. Suppose there is a famous text, and one side wants to minimize the importance. If they pay someone to take photos in a way to minimize the size of the crowd, isn't this as serious a problem, as the paid advocate using text to say that the crowd wasn't that large? Of course, but the difference is that if the paid, biased photographer uploads the photos to Commons, it is not automatic that they will be used. There may be better photos with a different message. Even if not, it is the editorial judgment of the article writer to determine whether photos should be included, and if the only photos are misleading the editorial decision ought to be to exclude photos. I note that the amendment refers to " any Wikimedia Projects" . I'll start by suggesting it be changed to " any Wikimedia content Projects", then if my arguments above carry weight it may be appropriate to exclude Commons. I propose the modifier "content" because I can think of several examples of contributions to "backstage" projects which could be paid, but not problematic. (It is possible that no one intended that Backstage Projects be included. However, this page defines projects, and I don't think any casual user would know why the TOU refers to some projects but not others. I can imagine several situations where someone might be paid to contribute to a Backstage project (e.g Wikimania conference planners) and I don't think disclosure is needed. I know little about Wikidata, but I have a long-term hope that I can persuade ESPN or some other stat company to provide sports statistics. If that ever happens, I would see it as analogous to the Commons situation: a paid editor choosing to incorporate such data in an article should disclose, but a provider of the raw data may not need to. Finally, to give my own views on the situations I listed, I think that the paid assistant uploading a photo, the OTRS agent uploading on behalf of a paid assistant, and the art gallery employee uploading photos should all be allowed to without disclosure of their compensation arrangement. The art gallery employee should be urged to leave the placement of the photos in article to other (unpaid)editors, or disclose if they want to be involved in the placement.

i would say all situations comply with the proposed terms, if they reflect the provenance of the image in the metadata of the image. and you have the edit summary to disclose situation. Slowking4 (talk) 19:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Slowking4. J73364 (talk) 01:06, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Goodness, I fear this discussion is becoming a bit 'retentive' that I fear it will put off much goodwill of the enthusiastic GLAMWIKI contributors who want to support Wikipedia, but happen to have jobs in the cultural sector as well. Before I was made redundant from Derby Museum (England) in 2011 I was doing my best to work with Wikipedians to bring museums and wikipedia together. Jimmy Wales even gave us an honourable mention for our use of QRpedia codes (steered by Victuallers). But at that time my employer had a blanket ban on use of social media, which included Wikipedia. What I did was out of the box, and done for the best interests of both sectors, but having to make a formal declaration that I was being paid (as a museum curator - with only 1% of my paltry income even barely relating to Wikipedia) could have entirely put me off contributing. Let's get real folks and find a way to separate paid promotion from genuine contributors who happen to have a job in the cultural sector, and want to help.--Parkywiki (talk) 01:31, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

My reading of the proposed change would mean that:

• Situation 1. No, unless the subject of an article is themselves an employee of a firm or a client; e.g. if they were employed through a company. This is actually quite common in some countries for tax reasons, where "John Smith" takes on (e.g.) lecturing work, and his feeds are paid through "John Smith Ltd", which firm then employs him as to do the lecturing work. In this case, the promotion of himself could be considered to be implicit in the payment received through the contract, and would need to be declared.

• Situation 2. Yes, seems clearly to be covered the new guidance.

• Situation 3. No, the uploader doesn't seem to be a client or an employee.

• Situation 4. Yes, seems clearly to be covered the new guidance. Hchc2009 (talk) 12:35, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

At Commons I don't think we mind who uploads a file as long the files are within scope, no copyrights have been violated and a suitably free license has been attatched to the file. Companies do make donations of files, sometimes we have to remind them do they really want to make the donation because once they do they lose control of them.--KTo288 (talk) 14:49, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I've asked for other from Commons to comment on this.--KTo288 (talk) 15:09, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks KTo288. Do you know if there is ever any problem on Commons with contributions that are promotional or advertisements? Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 18:14, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

There are certainly contributions that are promotional or advertisements but the image upload itself usually is not (you simply cannot advertise by uploading because no one will see your file). If we can record permission – we often ask uploaders of professional-looking product shots to confirm – everyone is allowed to edit these files, including for example the removal of watermarks. If the file barely consists of anything useful, we usually delete it. In this regard, you can very easily spot the uploader's intentions and it's not difficult to deal with it. Take for example the Steinway photos. I think we can be proud to have these high quality photos. Asking uploaders to confirm their identity or require them to state that they're paid, if they confirmed permission via OTRS is superfluous, IMHO. Often, the actions following the upload (in sister projects of Commons) are more problematic, for example Steinway replaced some piano-shots with their photo, if I recall correctly, I assume to advertise their brand. For doing image upload only, I would be opposed to requiring disclosure. -- Rillke (talk) 23:31, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Disclosure and notification

Proposal to require disclosure on each edit

WMF legal has posted our explanation above of why we think the proposed amendment is a good answer to this question. The idea below is a proposal for an alternate approach, and does not reflect/explain the current text of the amendment. —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 19:38, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Insisting on disclosure on every edit would greatly assist transparency:

• Only the briefest of disclosures can be made in edit history. If full disclosure were required to be made on the user page "in addition to", rather than as an alternative to disclosure on edits, this would provide much more transparency.
• Without disclosure on every edit, the only way to see if paid editing has taken place would be to check absolutely every editor's user page. Surely this is such a prohibitively time-consuming activity that it means that in practice it would not happen and disclosures on user pages would be likely not to be seen.
• Without disclosure on every edit, the entire talk pages would have to be searched for disclosures in addition to the user pages of every editor, yet more searching (although not as onerous), which would mean in practice disclosures are rarely seen.

This draft answer therefore calls for compulsory disclosure

• • on every edit,
  • with details of interests to be disclosed on a user's user page,
  • a standard link mechanism be established so that a very quick simple link can be placed in the edit history directly to the relevant disclosure on the user page,
  • a standard and automatically updated list of compensated editors and their edits be incorporated into the edit history so that the influence of these edits can be clearly seen. SciberDoc (talk) 18:35, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I see what you are trying to do here, but it would be very cumbersome in practice. It might be easier to require disclosure on an article's talk page as well as a user's page, rather than on every edit: this would bring the disclosure to the notice (e.g. the watchlists) of any editors involved with the page. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:34, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

No, by mandating a standard "PAID EDIT" tag in the edit summary, it would be very easy. Details of the disclosure could still be given on the user page. -- 174.58.20.123 17:46, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I Agree with this. People are simply not always going to go to the User's page or the talk page to find this out. You could put more detail there, but there needs to be some indication on the entry summary. 190.137.4.217 16:22, 6 March 2014 (UTC)Bill Hughes

AGREE with the proposal above and suggest that the practice of allowing unsigned edits be ended to further transparency, responsibility, and accountability. I would go further and require that every editor post his or her real name and location on their User page. So, for example, you would know that, when I posted an edit, it was done by Charles Landman of Portland , Oregon, USA. I see no reason to allow anonymity for editors. CTLandman (talk) 02:16, 28 February 2014 (UTC) • SUPPORT this draft requirement with a standard "PAID EDIT" tag in the summary, perhaps implemented with a checkbox. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C01:53, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely, to be meaningful, disclosure must be made in the summary for each individual edit. Lahaun (talk) 02:25, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree, every paid edit should be marked. Huw Powell (talk) 02:56, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for the redlinks. I am on en.wikipedia.org as a user. Huw Powell (talk) 03:44, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

• Strongly support. Ideally there should be a checkbox that would flag edits as paid ones (similar to the 'Minor edit' one) to make them easier to search for. A user page or talk page requirement is not enough, since it can take a long time to notice this for low-traffic articles. InverseHypercube (talk) 03:53, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

  Hello InverseHypercube and Scheinwerfermann, as cross-reference, we are discussing the idea of a checkbox below under Tag the edit and page: not just the user page. Thanks! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:26, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support! I think I have a great idea how to make this work *really* :) but I’m not sure if this is the best place to post it, so if you like it, please feel free to copy it in a better place! Here goes:
  

When editing a Wikipedia article, a number of "motivations for editing" buttons are shown, where at least one has to be checked before the edit can be saved. I’m not sure if we can fit all the possible motivations in there, but some main ones could be: "personal interest, field of study, sympathy for people discussed, compensation, other", where "other" would require an explanation in a connected field. This series of buttons disappears when one checks "This is a minor edit". Like that check, the motivations clicked are saved with the edit and can be viewed in the article’s history.
-Notes: Instead of writing rules and proclaiming that everyone should follow them, this feature would make their fulfilment automatic and easy. The only way around would be lying, and recording the clicked options will make that very unattractive. The people reviewing non-minor edits will easily determine problem cases, so there is no need to flag "paid edits" in the article text. If a so-called "minor edit" turns out to be problematic, it was not a minor edit, which would also ring an alarm bell. Except for the paid edits problem, this feature would also help with solving edit wars.
The proposed motivation line would include a help link to a Wikipedia explanation/manual page where the exact meaning of the options is clarified.
(My signature is red, too, although I’m registered--probably at en.wikipedia.org or nl.wikipedia.org--and logged in.)--Geke (talk) 12:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support I strongly support machine-readable per edit marking. I like the previous poster's suggestion of a tick box. Wikis that need to, can turn on a "This page contains paid content" banner, anytime such a flag is ticked. Maybe the edit content itself could be in a greyed font, until an unpaid editor verifies it for neutrality. (Probably quickly for GLAMs, slowly for Fortune 500s...)108.108.114.117 14:38, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support the proposed reason-for-editing mechanism. Other editors can probably make a common-sense judgement about whether it is likely to have been lied to.ArthurDent006.5 (talk) 10:09, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

• Strongly support From a usability perspective, this seems to me like the best idea so far. It's simple to disclose (with full details on the user page) and easy to check later, as the disclosure is machine readable. Without this, checking for bias and transparency will be a logistical nightmare. Lupisak (talk) 00:04, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

• Strongly support. Direct linkage is the only way to ensure adequate transparency. --69.174.58.44 15:05, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

• Strongly support. It adds transparency to the source of material for political figures, companies, prominent individuals (such as academics, authors, and businessfolk), which are very often edited by paid employees of these individuals or bodies, or at the very least by paid employees instructed to write about something on behalf of a (knowing or unknowing) third party. I'm curious to know how Wikipedia will enforce the rule. Does this mean biased page content lacking disclosure will be flagged, blocked, or deleted? How will paid bias be objectively distinguished from unpaid bias? Or will the rule give grounds to Wikipedia to sue for misrepresentation, fraud, and so on? Good idea on the whole, but whether there's any weight to it is unclear. InfoSaw (talk) 10:12, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

EU problem, Directive

I think that it is necessary solve the EU problem.

The purpose of this amendment is avoid the undisclosed paid contributions. But, if a citizen/paid editing company of EU follow the ToU with this amendment, there is a risk for the company who pay it, to be sued by their rivals. So, in order to obey the Directive 29/2005, in the terms of use has to be explained a legal way for paid editing. For example, add a fourth disclosure: a specific template in the article in a indefinite time, or a category, or ...

For two reasons, for allowing the paid contributions in a legal way and solve the paid editing problem, and for avoiding that a court goes against WMF, because european paid editing companies, and companies which ask its article, can allege that they are following your ToU.

If you dont solve this, the things will continue in the same way until now for all the companies that operate in EU, that is undisclosed paid contributions.--Temulco3 (talk) 18:43, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

It can be added sometihing similar to this:

For articles related to products or companies of the European Union, also you must make another disclosure in at least one of the following ways in the article page:

• a template in the article page,
• adding a category called "Paid articles", or "Articles with paid contributions",...,
• ...

--Temulco3 (talk) 19:14, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello Temulco3, thank you for this proposal! Just to clarify, each user is responsible for complying with applicable laws, in addition to the disclosure requirements in the proposed amendment. Even if we set a minimum requirement for disclosure, we cannot guarantee that paid editing will be legal. There may be some rules, like the EU regulations you post or the FTC's Dotcom Disclosure Guide in the U.S., which may require more specific type of disclosure or not allow paid editing at all. Under the current Terms of Use, users are responsible for complying with applicable law, and I hope that the first sentence in the last paragraph of the amendment makes this clear for paid edits (emphasis added):

Applicable law, or community and Foundation policies and guidelines, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure.

Do you think that there is any way to integrate the EU requirements that you drafted with the current disclosure requirements? Thanks again! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 22:03, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Hola Temulco3. Just FYI, I copied and translated to Spanish a comment on this topic made by Geoffbrigham, our General Counsel, in this discussion. This was posted in the Café's relevant section of Spanish Wikipedia in February 28. --JVargas (WMF) (talk) 21:34, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Slaporte and JVargas. Ok, WMF may have no legal problems, but I think if you dont make a way to make paid contributions legal in EU, you are not going to solve the problem in EU. So, I have made several templates to make the disclosure in the article page, and I think that with this disclosure nobody can violate the Directive. You can check the templates here.--Temulco3 (talk) 18:25, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

The templates are under discussion here.--Temulco3 (talk) 14:23, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Details on why people support

To the critics: WHY THIS AMENDMENT IS USEFUL

The usefulness of this amendment has been a major point of contention so far. Detractors and critics point out that this amendment does not do much in the way of actually preventing or deterring such undisclosed, deceitful or paid edits. I concur. However, this does fulfill the critical requirement of acknowledging this problem and laying the groundwork to combat it. Allow me to explain. I will be using the modern legal system as an example. The exploits that lawyers often manipulate to win cases were not borne overnight. Instead they are oft build upon the framework of past cases and judicial rulings. As such, the current legal system which we are accustomed to is the result of the groundwork and precedents laid by the generations that preceded us-- from the initial beginnings to all the subsequent cases, fair and unfair rulings alike. All that we have today is the result of the mistakes of those who preceded us AND of the things that they got right.

This amendment fulfills the same purpose. It provides a foundation for us to build upon and eventually face this issue that threatens the integrity and freedom of Wikipedia. So, it's not really 'useless'. at all.

BUT, it is IMPERATIVE that we do get this right. If today's legal system or society in general are any indicators, laying the wrong foundation can have devastating consequences in the future (to cite a more humorous example-- the common acceptance of decadence and frivolity from the rich and the famous-- sure they do have their critics, but it's become the societal norm hasn't it?).

Should we allow this issue to go unchecked, it will eventually lead to:

a) Wikipedia's compromised integrity

b) loss of trust amongst the user base

c) Political and corporate dominance of Wikipedia (akin to the hardcore bias by the traditional media networks such as Television and Newspapers)

The true beauty of Wikipedia is its freedom and community governed ethics. It's an encyclopaedia by the people, for the people. Sure there may be a bit of bias here and there, but as long as it remains free and open, the rest of the community will balance it out. This discussion, in itself is proof of that. Should this fall into the hands of entities such as the corporates etc., these founding ideals will be truly lost and Wikipedia will become another political tool. And encouraging or allowing paid or sponsored edits to go unchecked it the path to promoting eventual corporate dominance of the Wiki.

Thank you for your views here. I set out some other reasons why this proposed amendment may make sense here. Geoffbrigham (talk) 01:18, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I support this measure. But paid editing can be done for an innocent reason, such as not being able to type. Ixobel (talk) 16:11, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Various support

out of place, redundant with !votes above?

I Believe This Proposed Amendment is a Good Idea

I believe - as noted on the Content Page - that this amendment will contribute to transparency and openness. Some people have made comments suggesting that the proposed amendment is not a good idea. There are several broadly repeating themes with these arguments, all easily dismissed, and I will address these now.

Firstly, the number of Wiki contributors will not decrease, whether paid or not. In fact, if people know that WIKIMEDIA is taking further steps to ensure transparency, it is quite likely that the opposite will happen - its reputation will be enhanced and it will continue to be trusted as a source of (at least) transparent information.

Secondly, it has been suggested that the amendments won't stop bias in articles. I believe by providing transparency, readers can make more informed decisions about how they interpret the information presented. The alternative being suggested by some is to do nothing, simply because there isn't a better solution. I think this would be wrong. To at least make a well-informed start is far superior to doing nothing, because of a paralysis of ideas. Amendments can themselves be amended in time, but the idea of allowing paid contributions to continue without further efforts at transparency would be a big disappointment and damaging to Wiki's reputation.

In short, again, I support moving forward with greater transparency.

• I entirely agree with the above.86.151.130.9 12:45, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

• I support this amendment Rohita (talk) 21:57, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

• I support this amendment70.138.163.252 23:22, 22 February 2014 (UTC)Tom Peery

• I support this amendment Outofindia (talk)

• I support this amendment. I feel quite certain that without increased transparency, undetected bias in editing by paid editors would inevitably occur, despite any of the likely denials that such an editor's opinion could be so easily swayed. 22 February 2014 Roger L Kelley 67.164.215.159 23:44, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

• I support this amendment. As a contributor, both monetary and grammatic, to WIKIMEDIA, I believe transparency in editing is crucial, as are live and valid reference links, for those looking for information on any WIKIMEDIA project.50.151.117.41 19:29, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Anything That Preserves...

the integrity of Wikipedia...I'm for

Doug

Strongly support

I rely on Wikipedia for unbiased information. If I want biased information, there's always the rest of the web. Please disclose. 76.176.43.190 00:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Strongly Supportive

I strongly support this move! Paid edits are fine - nondisclosure of commercial payments is not fine!Jashwood (talk) 00:22, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

+++++I agree with disclosure of paid contributions=== yes!!===

Strongly support

I support this amendment. Please disclose. Generically (talk) 00:29, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Consequences of Breach

What are the consequences of breaching the proposed amendment (ie what if I make a contribution for which I am compensated, but do not disclose it)?

Unintended Breach

I am concerned that there are poorly-edited contributions that may appear to be sponsored but are, in fact, just from a well-informed follower. --Hawkoftheredvariety (talk) 00:30, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Repeated Breaches

What are the consequences for repeated breaches? There is a fine line between ensuring that unintentional breaches (above) are not hit too hard, and promptly stamping out intentional and repeated breaches. --Hawkoftheredvariety (talk) 00:30, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Ungrouped discussion

What happened to free speech? What happened to truthful journalism? Wasn't the point of the internet to provide open information? Wikipedia has achieved something special, taking its place on the internet as one of the most viewed reference pages out there. Many of its supporters appreciate the non-biased information this cite offers. Much of the information in newspapers and other media is adulterated by financial subjectivity, resulting in a lessening of credibility. Please do not demoralize your ethics like the rest of the money-hungry plutocrats that are trying to massacre everything good about this world. Stay true to your roots! ----Ashley

It takes a lot of research and time for someone to even acquire the skill to write a comment. In other words, many good ideas are not heard because the formatting required computer skills scare people away from editing wikipedia as a whole. Therefore I am very much in favor of hiring professionals to edit and fix the formatting but not technical aka semantic/factual or opinionated claims, more the grammar behind it (please fix this run on sentence for example). And The cheat sheet is actually more complicated to the technologically inadept as well. People probably skim/skip over opinions like this because lack of time to format them properly or even coherently for that matter, should this population therefore be neglected? --Smsegal (talk) 02:40, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I never heard that this was a problem in true live. Problematic articles don't have a problem in the formatting, but in the content like: not balanced, not understandable, not enough sources.

As long as the text itself is ok and understandable (inclusive that a reader could understand what are the sources of the text), the first person controlling the "new articles" fixes such minor and easily fixable problems in formatting the text according to Wikipedia standarts.

People may fear to put simple text without formatting in in Wikipedia, but there is no reason for fear, I never even considered it to be work when I corrected formatting while reading an interesting article, because I was reading it, and formatting takes much less time than reading.

--Kersti (talk) 17:54, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposed questions that we do not plan to turn into FAQs

A few users have raised questions above that were worth answering, but that we do not plan to turn into FAQs. I've placed them here for reference. —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 23:40, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

• Has due consideration been given to a change, such that only registered contributors (who are logged in at the time) may post. I believe this would afford a greater degree of moderator control at several levels, from being able to deal more effectively with trolls, through to identifying and taking appropriate action against those with vested interest or other reasons for "paid"/"for profit" entries. Pr0t0type (talk) 10:09, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
  • No; the movement and the Foundation are committed to allowing anonymous contributions generally. —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
• IS THE PROPOSED RULE written unambiguously and clearly and correctly enough with respect to the common meaning of documentation? Which elements in particular should be questioned & clarified? Xgenei (talk) 05:20, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
  • @Xgenei: We think it is written clearly, or we wouldn't have published it. (One of the reasons we made it short was to reduce potential ambiguity, but all language is inherently at least somewhat ambiguous.) If there are specific concerns or ambiguities, we're happy to discuss those, though! —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 23:40, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
• Could a link to en:WP:COI be added to the new wording as an example of what additional restrictions apply? I think this would answer most of the Not Enough votes below and having it linked in the TOU would make it harder for weasels to pretend they didn't know - not with the nutshell summary "Do not edit Wikipedia in your own interests or in the interests of your external relationships" right there at the top of the page. Filceolaire (talk) 22:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
  • We try to make the policy itself neutral with regards to projects, so we didn't want to link to specific projects COI policies - instead we just say "community ... policies, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure." If there is a project-neutral way to do that link, we could do it, but probably references in the FAQ are better. —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
    • then the wording of the link needs to be changed from our background note on disclosure of paid contributions to our background note on paid contributions and the second paragraph of the FAQ needs to discuss these additional restrictions on paid contributors. It's much more important than the unsolicited legal advice you have in the second para now. As the vote has stated already you therefore need to post the proposed revised wording now. At least that is what I think. Filceolaire (talk) 16:53, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
      • @Filceolaire: I'm not clear why making the document project-neutral requires a title change? Could you explain more? —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 23:40, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
        • @LuisV (WMF): Sorry I missed your comment till now. If the FAQ refers to project COI policies then the link text for the link to the FAQ should make clear that it is a link to a discussion of "paid contributions" not just "disclosure of paid contributions". I think the FAQ should have a discussion of project specific COI policies with a link to the en:WP:COI page as an example of one of these. A link to wikidata item Q4663309 could also be included as this should eventually have links to the COI pages on most of the WMF wikis.

NIPPON(JAPANESE) no yuutu Write JAPANESE ro-ma ji

Taihen jyuuyou na naiyou to kakareteiruga , Wagakuni deha eigo ga tsukaenai hito mo ooku , Honyaku kinou de yomanakereba narazu giron ga muzukasii. Nihongo de narubeku okonattehosii to kanjiru. Wagakuni deha koukou de eigo wo narauga , Hazukasinagara eigo wo dekinai kodomo ga ooi. Kentei siken mo sakan dehanaku. kentei siken wo motteinai hito mo ooi. Tada , eigo ga syabererukara atamagayoi wakedeha nai. Watasimo itsunohinika Eigo wo dekiruyouni ganbaritai. Nihongo wo honyaku surutoki no tyuui de aru. sumimasen.--ぐれ猫 (talk) 10:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Google Translate is not working for me on this, so, if somebody can translate for me, that would be great. Geoffbrigham (talk) 14:36, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh hah, probably because GTranslate doesn't recognize ローマ字 (romaji) as a legitimate language. I'll try to parse it through this before sending it through GTranslate. No guarantees this will work though. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 16:48, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Machine translation: "It is very important for writing and for internal use, but there are also many people who can not use English in our country of Japan, discussion is difficult and must be read in translation yesterday. You feel it wants as much as possible be done in Japanese. In our country English is learned at high school, but there are many children who cannot use English because they are ashamed. I -ken also test rather than actively. People who do not have a certification examination also covered. However, the head is not good English because speak. I also want to do my best to be able to when the Nohinika English. It is Ji~yuu physician Nyakusuru when Carved Japanese. I am sorry."

@TeleComNasSprVen and Geoffbrigham:: The above translation more or less tells the idea. He/she pointed out inability for many Japanese people to make comments in English. @ぐれ猫: 具体的な懸念点がありましたら、通常の日本語でお書きください。ボランティアで誰かが翻訳することもあります。最悪の場合、機械翻訳で部分的には伝わります。 --whym (talk) 00:45, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. To the extent we can encourage our Japanese colleagues to comment in Japanese on this page, we will find ways to get their thoughts translated. (We already translated professionally the proposed amendment and FAQs into Japanese.) Many thanks to each of you. Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:21, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

• 日本語で入力しても翻訳が伝わるのですね。よかったです。では、日本語で。

（上記の意味、一部略、一部追記）本件は大変重要な内容と書かれておりますが、我が国日本では英語を使えない人も多く、翻訳機能を使ってのディスカッションでしかできず、実際には議論がかみ合わない可能性があります。 我が国では一部を除いて、英語の各種検定もあまり盛んではありません。高校生も英語ができない人も多いです。ですから、日本語での議論ができる場所もあれば、そのまとめたものを英語に翻訳し伝えることも可能ではないか。そう感じています。なお、私も英語ができるよう頑張りたいです。 （実際の考えについて）Wikiには、日本では、予想ですがHNの乱用（一人で複数のHNを所持したりする行為）も考えられ、抜本的な対策は難しいとは考えます。ただ、規定自体は問題ないと考えます。なお、HNを所持する際、営業で利用する場合は寄付を募る。営業で書き込みする場合はマークをつける、そういうこともそろそろ検討すべきかもしれません。実際、日本のWikiでは、有名なスポーツ選手やアイドルでも、記載で否定派が多くなる、あるいは、書き込みされないケースも出ています。書き手も減ってきているようです。その結果、百科事典機能としての利用者も減っている気がします。　--ぐれ猫 (talk) 11:48, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Tsukainai? kokose, ego dekiru hazu da. Daga, anta wa pointo o shimashita, arigato g-neko-san.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 11:40, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

疑われるなら、我が国日本の高校生個々の英語検定受験率を調べてみてはどうでしょうか？でも、回答ありがとうございます。　--220.159.6.82 01:55, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

• Here are translations of the two large Japanese comments by ぐれ猫 (Gure-neko). First the one at the top, in romaji:

  Although the information contained on this page is very important, in Japan there are lots of people who can't speak English. It's difficult to carry out a debate via machine translation. I'd like this discussion to be accessible in Japanese, as much as that is possible or practical. While we learn English until senior high school in Japan, there are a lot of students who can't speak English. English tests aren't even all that popular; many people have never tried to take one. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that Japanese people who have learned to speak English are more clever than those who haven't. One day, I would also like to try my hand at learning English well. This is my advice to you when you translate things from Japanese. Sorry that I can't be of more help due to my current level of English.

  And the second, in Japanese script:

  Although the information contained on this page is very important, in Japan there are lots of people who can't speak English, and who can only take part in the discussion by using machine translation. These people are very likely to be misunderstood. With the exception of a small part of the country, English tests are not very popular in Japan. There are many senior high school students who can't speak English.

  If there were a place where we could hold discussion in Japanese, perhaps we could translate a summary of that discussion and have it considered in the decision that you are making. I think that would be a good way to enable Japanese speakers to take part in this process. I'd also like to learn more English so that I can contribute more here.

  My personal opinion is that on the Japanese Wikipedia, I think it would be difficult to deal with the problem of paid editing, as there is always the possibility of deception by using multiple accounts. I don't think this is a problem with the rules as such. It might be time that we considered asking commercial entities using pen names to donate, or to flag their edits somehow. The reality on the Japanese Wikipedia is that even for famous singers or sports stars, there are people opposing inclusion of facts into their articles, and sometimes events simply aren't recorded into the articles in the first place. The number of Wikipedia contributors is decreasing; that makes me wonder whether the number of our readers is decreasing too.

  Hope this helps. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:46, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the comments, ぐれ猫, and thank you for the translation, Mr. Stradivarius! For reference, there is a discussion on this amendment on Japanese Wikipedia, at Wikipedia:井戸端/subj/上部に表示される『利用規約の改訂案：非開示の有償の編集に関する改訂案にコメントしてください。』のバーナーについて. Best, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 19:47, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

本当にありがとう。（翻訳も）感謝します。thank you！ --ぐれ猫 (talk) 16:15, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

For which you receive compensation?!

I'm concerned about the phrase "...for which you receive compensation." being a grey area. For example: someone is employed by a company, and contributes to an article that in at least some respects relates to goods or services provided by that company, but the person is not specifically paid by their employer for their editing efforts, nor are they asked to. Do we think that someone working for a certain organization is likely to have a possible bias, *however inherent and unintentional*, towards that company? *Maybe* not, but can we rule it out? No! And, if not, wouldn't we want to know? In the non-profit group with which I've been working for over a decade, we sign conflict of interest (COI) forms that relate not only to actual COI, but also to the *appearance* of COI. So, when I read content, I can likely judge whether someone has gone over the edge in terms of bias, but if the content is more subtle, it would be very worthwhile to know if I might want to be extra careful, as when even an indirectly paid person contributes in a situation of this sort, hence involving a possible implicit bias. To that end, I agree with others that the suggested location (not locations, since only one of the three is proposed to be necessary) seems insufficient. I do like the idea of hovering over a signature showing the notation, to whatever extent of linking makes sense. And, for those that want to claim the sky will fall if paid edits start undermining confidence in Wiki... oh, well, if there's that much of it, maybe we need to know. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rosebud (talk) 00:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I would be interested in any proposals on how to reword our definition of compensation to be more exact, if you have the time or desire. We do have this FAQ. Maybe someone can propose a sentence or two to add? Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 00:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I share some concerns which Rosebud has expressed. As I am working for a German university, my employer is a German state. May I write or modify an article during my office hours if this article is related to my employer? The German state and its subdivisions (states, towns) is the largest employer in Germany, and a huge number of articles is more or less related to it. Neither do I want to be forced to write my personal details on my user page, nor do I want to write such information in commit messages. --Stefan Weil (talk) 06:19, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I share the concerns Rosebud has expressed with regard to edits made by employees whose employers don't specifically ask them to do so. Two related issues: (1) What if someone is self-employed or has broad discretion in his/her activities, so he/she gets to decide for his/herself what to do in conducting business? (2) What about employers that specifically restrict employees from identifying themselves as being affiliated with the employer when contributing material to the internet, which is sometimes done to avoid the appearance of an organization endorsing a position that it doesn't officially endorse? The first issue could be addressed by having a broader "full disclosure" policy as Rosebud seems to suggest, but the second is tough. Do we want edit summaries and signature lines cluttered up with disclaimers as well as affiliations? Maybe, maybe not, but that seems like a broader issue. So, to address Geoffbrigham's request while keeping the scope of the provision narrowly focused on paid contributions, how about adding the following section to the FAQ:

What does the phrase "contribution ... for which you receive compensation" mean?

As used in this provision, this means a contribution (or edit) that was necessary in order to receive compensation. Contributions unrelated to compensation are not addressed by this provision as written.

Would this be useful? --Gahs (talk) 19:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

This is a useful conversation. Thank you. In my opinion, "necessary" may be too narrow. I want to think about this more, but, for discussion purposes, how about something like this in an FAQ:

The phrase "contribution ... for which you receive compensation" means a contribution for which someone is paying you compensation - such as money - to make on a Wikimedia project. Contributions that are made in a personal capacity without compensation are not covered by this proposed amendment. A professor who edits about areas of personal interest on her personal time without receiving compensation for those edits would not be required to disclose under the proposed amendment. An editor who is contracted for pay by a PR agency to write an article about a company of interest would be required to disclose.

Geoffbrigham (talk) 22:59, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Those two examples seem to leave such a huge grey area between them that they are almost no use at all. How does being a professor affect the first example, anyway? --Avenue (talk) 09:30, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I have a similar problem with "with respect to any contribution to any Wikimedia projects for which you receive compensation." It seems to me to have a loophole.

For example, say I work for company x but my job description makes no mention of PR or wikipedia. In my own time I "happen" to spend many hours editing Wikipedia articles in ways favorable to my employer. I am not receiving compensation for this editing so i would not need to disclose. However, there is clearly still a conflict of interest.

What if, instead of "for which you receive compensation," it said "for which you receive compensation or have another financial conflict of interest."? That would at least eliminate a large loophole in the proposed wording.

WikiAlto (talk) 07:23, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

The problem with the wording "or have financial conflict of interest" is that it now applies to anything. For example, you have a financial interest in stocks you personally own. Do you now have to disclose your entire stock portfolio, if you happen to update a page of a company you happen to own stock in? What if the stock is in a mutual fund, and you are not aware you actually own that specific stock. Technically, you would be in violation not disclosing that your mutual fund has the company's stock in it. You have a financial interest in a bank you are a customer of not failing. Do you need to disclose where you bank when you edit a bank's Wikipedia page? I know what you are driving at, but that wording isn't specific enough since it can apply to anything where money is involved. 99.99.233.74 05:09, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi all, we are proposing some alternative language which narrows the compensation to "financial compensation" and ensures the disclosure requirement does not capture the case of the professor or GLAM official writing about issues of interest. You can see those options here. We are narrowing the scope to potentially provide more clarity in its application based on thoughts expressed here and elsewhere. Any feedback is of course welcome. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:11, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

From a Wikisource/Sisters perspective ...

I know that this is important for the Wikipedias, especially where there are issues of conflict of interest, and vested interest. That said we are talking about an all of Wikimedia policy statement here. So my comment is about making sure that we don't hoist ourselves upon our own petards. I have next to zero issues if we have people being paid to come and transcribe our works at enWS (not that it is likely to be happening, unfortunately). So however you word this, please take into consideration the balance of the wording as it effects each of the sister sites. For example if it is the Wikivoyages are you just enabling the addition of commercial links on the user page, and any page where the person add links? If it is at Comons where an employee is legitimately uploading an image of their organisation, you are now requiring that they do more. My concern is that to stop abuse at the WPs, the consequences can be negative elsewhere. There seems to be a lack of focus on the (perceived) benefit for the editor/recipient and not sufficient acknowledgement/allowance of neutral edits.  — billinghurst sDrewth 12:08, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

In #Other Wikimedia projects I made mention of the four wiki projects that are probably most affected by organizations: Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource, Wikiversity, and Wikivoyage. Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource have similar goals, that is as repositories/collections of media and text respectively, and so may depend on donations from outside organization-like sources. For Wikisource, it could be libraries under the GLAM projects. Wikiversity depends on educational resources written by various university professors affiliated with (and sometimes paid by) whatever institution they are affiliated with to conduct wiki "courses" of a kind. Wikivoyage is the youngest and perhaps the most important, and I believe some of their best info is written by travel agencies wishing to advertise their destinations (and then later rewritten by other neutral editors). This is a recurring theme that I hope WMF will address in their FAQ once it's been revised. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 12:20, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikivoyage has to deal with edits from CVB's (local convention and visitors bureaux), which are there to provide up-to-date local "tourist information" (which is good) but at the same time their mandate is to hype and promote a destination (which can be problematic). If they'd just drop the promotional language and stick to the facts, they can (and have) contributed constructively. K7L (talk) 01:47, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I think this is a good point. We considered using only the word "edit" (as opposed to the word(s) "contribution" or "edit or upload") to limit the scope, but that caused a general inconsistency with the rest of the language used in the TOU. (If the community feels strongly about it, we can reconsider, of course.) You may want to consider a couple of options - with more narrow scopes - that we posted yesterday. The scope in Option 1 would not remove Wikimedia Commons, for example, from the application of the amendment, but the number of times it would be applicable would be greatly reduced. A GLAM official could upload paintings found in her museum without needing to make a disclosure since that compensated contribution is not "about an organization, living person, or commercial product." I will be interested in people's feedback on these options and whether they mitigate any of the above concerns. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:25, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Unsigned votes

How are we addressing unsigned votes here? Before this closes we need a method of determining the legitimacy of the votes on each side. Jeremy112233 (talk) 16:59, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

The !voting is clearly messy - in a lot of ways. I'll just quote @Geoffbrigham: above "Personally I am reading it as a !vote, per its heading. I'm less interested in the numbers, and more interested in the comments."

I had thought at the start that there would be no !voting, only comments, but we're well past the stage of changing it now. Frankly, the feedback system needs to be worked on for the future, the WMF likely didn't expect 500+ comments/votes in the first few days.

But the results aren't going to depend on throwing out unsigned votes. Most of the unsigned votes were in the first 70 or so cases, mostly in the "support" category, but also in the "oppose". The totals in those categories as of this a.m. is 343 to 107 - it's not going to make a difference. Plus there were 58 !votes in the "Support, but should be stronger" category, which just started 1.5 days ago (with almost no unsigned votes). Since I started "Support, but should be stronger" it has gone more than 2 to 1 over "oppose", with plain old "support" still getting a majority. So "oppose" seems to be a minority of a minority. Smallbones (talk) 19:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I still think it is important for clarity here, but of course comments are the only thing that really matter in these things. That said, maybe that can be made more clear at the top--that this exercise is largely to seek critical comment, not a vote tally. That could let people with less Wikipedia debate experience that if they have an opinion on the matter they can share it, and that this is encouraged. Just a thought. Jeremy112233 (talk) 19:27, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

It's a good thought, Jeremy112233. I'll bring it up with the team. (And Smallbones, you're quite right that we didn't expect quite this many comments - though we knew it would be a lot, in fairness.) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 11:38, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Philippe - no criticism of the WMF staff intended here at all. It is one of my pet peeves (I only have 3) however, that the consensus/!vote method of decision making really doesn't work very well when there are a couple hundred folks involved. Among other things - the loudest and most extreme views are often the only ones heard. Now that 700 folks have !voted, this would be extremely difficult for anybody to make sense of, if the results weren't so overwhelming (only 22.4% oppose). Even just looking at the numbers can be misleading, e.g. a lot of the "opposes" are really folks saying that they "oppose all paid editing"! Or a bit more understandable, that some opposes seem to come from folks who think that this ToU change will legitimize paid editing (despite what the WMF has said about that).

I imagine what will happen here at the end of the month is that each board member will take 3-4 hours to read through everything and come away with a good understanding of the percentages (+/- 5%), a few of the best arguments on each side, a few interesting new ideas, and that's about it. Then they'll discuss it at the board meeting, probably not spending much time on the best arguments only because they've discussed those many times before, spending a lot of time on the few new interesting ideas - but probably not coming up with a solid new solution because of this (the ideas are too new, but they might help set a new direction later). And ultimately deciding mostly from the percentages. It's a reasonable exercise - mostly to get the interesting new ideas into the mix - but I think we could do better.

My "interesting, new" proposed solution is:

• Have an open unstructured discussion, as we have now, but without !votes, until it become clear within a certain time that there are too many people discussing to make much sense of it (say 150 people in the first 2 weeks)
• Once it becomes clear that too many people are involved for an unstructured discussion, have a more formal, structured feedback system
  • WMF staff select the 4 or 5 "major viewpoints" and in one short paragraph each summarize these.
  • Everybody (including those who discussed before) could then svote, on a separate "page" like we use for voting for the ArbCom, selecting one of the structured choices, or "other" and putting their comments (say 100 word or less) is a special box.
  • If it was considered to be important there could also be a questionnaire on who the svoter is, e.g. reader, former editor, occasional editor, active editor, or even the old "check for 100 edits in the last year" option if that was really necessary.
• At the end, or as you go along, the output would be formatted under each of the structured choices (plus the other category), with the contributor's wiki-name and short comment neatly presented.
• The board members could easily see the percentages, read the comments much more quickly, concentrate on the "other" category where the interesting new ideas might be concentrated, and of course read the unstructured discussion. Whatever they want to do, they can do - but in a more structured form, making a more effective use of their time.

This wouldn't be useful for all discussion, e.g. discussion on technology might be very difficult with this method. The technical requirements to set this up shouldn't be very difficult - it's very much like the voting systems used for ArbCom and other places we actually vote.

Smallbones (talk) 17:00, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Another idea I'd throw in, if you were re-running this, would be to consider what roles you want the paid WMF staff to perform in the debate. It's been unclear, to me at least, about whether the individuals concerned are:

• Advocating the proposed amendment (e.g. selling it as a preferred solution);
• Neutrally providing expert information about the proposed amendment (e.g. explaining background, or what a particular concept meant);
• Neutrally coordinating or chairing the discussion (e.g. summarising points, steering debate etc.);
• Contributing as private individuals (e.g. not with their paid WMF hats on at all)

I think that with greater clarity about the roles being played out, we'd get a more structured and flowing discussion.

As a fan of experimental learning (!), I suspect that we'd also learn more about the interaction of paid and unpaid editing. Generally, I think that more of the community will accept paid editors contributing in the second category (as experts), and to a limited extent in the third (helping to coordinate), but is generally less keen on the first (acting as advocates) and are suspicious about the last (paid editors in a private capacity).

In this particular debate, of course, the WMF staff are paid editors with particular personal and organizational interests (I can't imagine your team would wish to be banned from editing entirely, for example, which is the proposal from the more extreme wing of the argument...). It would be interesting to consciously track what sorts of contribution the paid staff make, and reflect after the debate on the impact that has had, either on the debate itself, or on their own sense of what it is to be a paid/unpaid editor. Hchc2009 (talk) 16:48, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, we struggle with that on any consultation. Typically (although there's no easy indicator of it), folks from my community advocacy team are acting in a neutral fashion to moderate and steer things. Sometimes, I or another team member may be the "in-house expert" on something, and then we can provide background but were usually also have a pretty well informed opinion, which we usually share, because we're community members too. But yeah, when we have some people advocating, some being neutral, etc, it can lead to some confusion. I wish I knew an easy fix to that. Philippe (WMF) (talk) 18:29, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

My advice would be to follow best facilitation practice, and formally assign the key roles, including appointing an overall facilitator for the debate; someone to advocate for the change; and someone to handle the admin, including updating the FAQs. I'd advise putting these names and the roles clearly at the top of the discussion page, and then stick to them - don't be tempted to wander "off-role", because, as you say, it does confuse others and can break the "neutrality" of certain roles. I'd also recommend briefly stating how you intend to manage your work and personal personas at the top as well, for example, perhaps laying that you are formally acting in your WMF roles unless otherwise noted, and spelling out what's probably already on the individual editors' WMF pages - namely the legal team are professionally representing the WMF's interests etc. In my opinion, it wouldn't be unreasonable, at the start of a debate like this, to also note that the WMF team think the amendment is broadly the right way to go (else you wouldn't be intending to progress it!) - again, it makes it transparent. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:44, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Hchc: good ideas. Naming a facilitator (of the debate), an administrator (of the proposal and the FAQ), and an advocate (for the proposal), would be a help. Other possibilities:

• have an open group of clerks that help maintain the wiki discussion - everyone's welcome to do this, but for large-scale changes [like some of the refactoring, which can be contentious] it can help to have a group of people who regularly do that.
• have the comments and any !votes on their own page; neither the proposal page nor its talk page.

  Talk:Proposal can include discussions about wording, context, structure, and timing; not about content.

  Proposal/Comments can have discussions about the proposal, alternate proposals, and the like: most of what's on this page now.

  Talk:Proposal/Comments can include discussions about who is participating, how they're finding out about this / what this is a cross-section of; and how facilitation is going. Including sections such as this one.

–SJ talk  01:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Once voting is over, the admins can just review the edit history of this page and figure out who posted each of the unsigned votes. With enough time and effort from enough people it's not that hard a problem to figure out who posted each of the unsigned votes. Someone could probably write a scripted bot that would automatically do it, even. That being said, it is rather annoying that people post unsigned votes. Since it might be the same person voting over and over again. Or it might be different people, who don't understand how to sign their comments. Anyway, Wikipedia ought to have bots that automatically take care of this problem. And the people voting ought to know better about how to sign their votes. There needs to be a better explanation of how to sign votes. One idea for how to deal with unsigned votes if people are too lazy to look at the edit history to figure out who wrote them and also too lazy to write a scripted bot to do that work for them, would be to take into consideration the CONTENT (i.e., IDEAS) of what people said in the unsigned votes, but NOT take into consideration unsigned votes when COUNTING the votes for and against a proposal. So if, for instance, someone proposes some sort of reasonable compromise and good idea in an unsigned vote, that would be taken into account. But their vote would not. Still, I think Wikipedia ought to do its best to figure out who posted each of the unsigned votes, and then come up with a list of people who voted and which way each person voted. Another important thing is, someone can vote more than once, both logged into an account, and logged out and voting with their IP address. So, someone who is able to see what IP address logged-in users use, needs to make sure there isn't any double-voting in this manner. Maybe some Wikipedia administrator who is fairly neutral and well-trusted could volunteer to do all the work on all this, perhaps by adding signatures to unsigned comments after figuring out who posted them, and making a list of all the people who voted each way and keeping that list updated and accurate. I have seen that done on previous votes. Anyway the final decision will be by the WikiMedia Foundation, not the people voting here, so in that respect, it's a bit of a moot point. Plus some people put their votes in the wrong place or don't understand what they are voting on... some people who oppose any paid editing whatsoever vote "Oppose" when actually the correct way to express their viewpoint would be to vote "Support but doesn't go far enough", as just one example. And there is even stuff written in foreign languages on here... that doesn't make any sense, why non-English speakers would want to weigh in here, since this is a debate on the English-language version of Wikipedia, and this policy won't apply to Wikipedia in other languages. I guess maybe because some things like Wikimedia Commons would also be covered by this policy and they are worried about that? Well I guess that reasoning makes sense, foreign language speakers might be worried that content would get taken down from Wikimedia Commons and no longer available on their foreign-language wikis. Still they ought to be able to use Google Translate or some similar service to translate their opinions into English before posting them on this talk page. Oh wait, this site is meta.wikimedia.org, not en.wikipedia.org, I guess that means foreign languages are allowed... not sure though. Anyway my point is, this voting page is a bit of a mess and it'll be quite a hassle for whoever has to sort through it and make sense of all of it, figure out who said what, and tally up the votes and all that. There ought to be some way to, umm, explain things better, so that future people who vote will all sign their votes properly. But that's beyond my level of expertise... I'm not too good at explaining things. --Yetisyny (talk) 02:38, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Try something like this?

For those seeking an "all embracing" approach, but worried about the impact on GLAM and enthusiasts with topic knowledge, I thought I'd try my hand at a first draft of something more embracing.

Requirement to disclose any advocacy activity you undertake on Wikimedia projects, whether for your own or another's benefit Wikimedia's websites are intended to be neutral public reference works. We welcome content added by people knowledgeable in any topic or field, but not at the cost of neutrality and quality standards, and not by misrepresentation or deception. As part of our quality control, editors try to scrutinize especially carefully, any changes to our content made by people who may have a personal gain or benefit from the edits they make. This is part of our routine quality control. You are forbidden from impeding this process by misrepresenting yourself (or allowing others to believe by your silence) to suggest that you have no close involvement with the topic, if you do have some close involvement that might reasonably be seen as potentially biasing your editorial activity. If you have a close connection with the subject matter of an edit, to the point that your edits are made in anticipation of some benefit or advantage received by you or anyone else connected to you (including any other corporation, person, organization, legal entity, or group), you must disclose this "up front" to other editors even if they haven't asked you. You don't ever have to identify yourself, or give information on the exact benefit or connection that exists, but you must not hide the fact of a close connection existing. You have to be open about this, even if you intend to be neutral, so other editors can check the change you make more carefully. If you don't want to disclose this publicly, you must ask permission from the local Arbitration Committee or equivalent to make the edits.

Examples: John is a PR consultant for IBM. He writes content on IBM topics as his job. He should say that he has a personal connection to the topic when he edits things related to IBM, because he gets pay for these edits. He does not have to say what the connection is or give any more details. Michelle is a researcher for a pharmaceutical company. She improves an article on a disease for which her company is researching medications. She should say that she has a personal connection to the topic, because her employer will benefit from her work (even if it is appropriate and neutral they may still benefit). She does not have to say what the connection is or give any more details. Chris is a museum archivist for an art museum. He often writes and improves articles on art topics, and sometimes he improvements articles related to the exhibitions they are showing or promoting. He doesn't have to disclose anything for most of his edits, but he should say he has a connection if he edits an article about something they are showing or going to show, and his employer could be seen to benefit from the work. He does not have to say what the connection is or give any more details. Janice's sister is a board member of a religious body and Janice edits a lot on religious topics, mostly her edits will be to help her sister, her religious body, and their religion, by ensuring their religion's views are represented in articles as appropriate. Even if unpaid and voluntary she must disclose she has a connection to the topic for these edits, because of her especially close connection to the religious organization or group that benefits from them. She does not have to say what the connection is or give any more details. Clive is a protester and activist, and as a voluntary activity he helps "put the facts out there". Even though unpaid and voluntary, and not an employee, he must disclose that he has a connection to the topic, if he makes edits relevant to his activism on our sites, because his edits could reasonably be seen as influenced by his advocacy role (even if they were in fact balanced). He does not have to say what the connection is or give any more details.

This is intended to be a "stab in the dark" at a possible policy style. It aims to promote debate and see whether people who would prefer a more embracing policy could possibly find a wording that works for them.

It is indeed quite strongly worded and it covers a lot of voluntary and completely desirable work.

I have deliberately tried to see whether a completely embracing policy can be found, not least to test whether we can in principle exclude any "unpaid advocacy" loopholes and whether this kind of clearly minimal disclosure would actually be seen as reasonable by GLAM personnel and other common instances with a clear topic connection. If it's a decent idea but over-strong, perhaps someone else will suggest the needed exemptions or improvements. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 02:33, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

• This is something I would oppose. What exactly constitutes "close connection to the subject"? More important, the COI is not the situation when someone simply has a connection to the subject, but the situation "when advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia", as quite correctly stated in WP:COI policy. Consider this. I am writing a BLP (and writing an informative BLP always benefits the subject) about someone I know, meaning I friendly talked with them on a conference, or I visited him/her at home, or someone I consider a genius and talked with him/her on Facebook. With my experience here, I am certain that none of that (or even much closer "non-paid" connection in the area of science) would create a COI problem for me ("when advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia"). Rather, I could be negatively biased writing about someone who I know was a mass murderer. Let's make this about paid editing only for now. 24.11.55.66 04:06, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

WP:COI is a social policy, so it can work on a basis of "we know what sort of thing we mean". TOU can't. The wording you quote won't work here. A TOU term requires legal approach wording that a court would recognize, even if never actually tested in a courtroom. This is a deliberate test to see if we can find a wording that catches any usual case where an editor may be partisan, and obligates them to say "I have some connection to this topic".

If we ask for that, we don't need more: - we don't need them to explain how they are connected, if they are paid, or anything else. We don't really care how they are connected, who they are, or if they are paid (since many forms of advocacy-abuse editing are indeed unpaid SPIs). We also don't care if they are connected but unpaid, or connected but completely neutral, either as I'll show.

What we actually care about here, at rock bottom, is that we would like to identify edits written by persons who may be close enough to the topic, in such a way that their edit has a moderate or high risk of being partisan. That's all we want. Given the sole disclosure "are you closely connected to the topic as covered by these examples" (which doesn't require detail or self-identification), we can scrutinize relevant edits more carefully which achieves our NPOV goals. Even if the author is neutral and non-partisan we would still like that info, to allow edit checking and to allow reviewers/readers some idea how much (and which parts) of the article is written by connected persons. Even if they are of the utmost neutrality and their edits are good, and there isn't in fact a COI, it's still good practice for writing that aims to be neutral to disclose the existence of a close connection.

So my question is, can we draft a clause that achieves that, and covers most kinds of "connected editing". FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 23:32, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

• OK. That would be a different proposal and require a new and separate discussion and vote. Yes, one could try to adopt well established COI guidelines, such as those for scientific grant reviewers [3]. For example, I would have to declare a COI while writing a Wikipedia BLP page about another person (who appears in instruction below as "applicant" or "investigator") if one of the following apply:

1. YOUR AFFILIATIONS WITH AN APPLICANT INSTITUTION. You may have a conflict if you have/hold/are:

• Current employment at the institution as a professor, adjunct professor, visiting professor, or similar position. • Other current employment with the institution (such as consulting or an advisory arrangement). • Previous employment with the institution within the last 12 months. • Being considered for employment at the institution. • Formal or informal reemployment arrangement with the institution. • Ownership of securities of firms involved in the proposal or application. • Current membership on a visiting committee or similar body at the institution. (This is a conflict only for proposals or applications that originate from the department, school, or facility that the visiting committee or similar body advises.) • Any office, governing board membership, or relevant committee chairpersonship in the institution. (Ordinary membership in a professional society or association is not considered an office.) • Current enrollment as a student. (Only a conflict for proposals or applications that originate from the department or school in which one is a student.) • Received and retained an honorarium or award from the institution within the last 12 months.

2. YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH AN INVESTIGATOR. • Known family relationship as spouse, child, sibling, or parent. • Business or professional partnership. • Past or present association as thesis advisor or thesis student. • Collaboration on a project or on a book, article, report, or paper within the last 48 months. • Co-editing of a journal, compendium, or conference proceedings within the last 24 months.

3. YOUR OTHER AFFILIATIONS OR RELATIONSHIPS. • Interests of the following persons are to be treated as if they were yours: Any affiliation or relationship of your spouse, of your minor child, of a relative living in your immediate household or of anyone who is legally your partner that you are aware of, that would be covered by any italicized items above. • Other relationship, such as close personal friendship, that you think might tend to affect your judgment or be seen as doing so by a reasonable person familiar with the relationship.

Please note how last phrase about "Other relationship" was formulated. 141.211.44.143 16:53, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

• However, I think this is not workable. There is no way to disclose such COI other than providing your own name and a list of all your collaborators. This is inconsistent with current privacy policy. Besides, this only applies to editing about a person. COI with regard to a scientific subject, for example, would be a lot more tricky. For example, what if I include a reference to an article/book published by a person covered by COI above? This is something debatable. 141.211.44.143 17:08, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I definitely support the proposal made by FT2 that is focused on the only right thing: get the information about connection between editor and the topic. User:PhL38Fr 15:00, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks for this discussion. I'm always grateful for concrete, practical ideas to address issues of concern. FT2 - I especially call you out on this. You are always coming up with good ideas that are always worth considering, and you propose actual language, which I find helpful in thinking out the issue. I believe some of the issues discussed above might be addressed in part in some alternative language that we just posted yesterday in response to concerns expressed during this consultation, including this discussion. You can find that language here. A combination of Option 1 and 2 may address the crux of the issues under discussion in this thread. I will be interested in hearing your thoughts on this. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:37, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I STRONGLY Disagree with FT2's revised proposal in this section. "Clive is a protester and activist, and as a voluntary activity he helps 'put the facts out there'. Even though unpaid and voluntary, and not an employee, he must disclose that he has a connection to the topic, if he makes edits relevant to his activism on our sites, because his edits could reasonably be seen as influenced by his advocacy role (even if they were in fact balanced)." I am against this. I am in favor of requiring paid PR flacks to have to divulge what they are doing and who they are working for. But ordinary people who aren't connected to any organizations being discussed in articles, are unpaid and just volunteering and might be involved in some activism, having to disclose this? I am very much against that! The purpose of this paid contributions amendment is to get rid of bias, institutional bias, from large organizations, governments, corporations, PR firms, paying people money to "spin" information favorable to their POV on sites like Wikipedia. But on any issue that is controversial, people will be activists, on both sides of an issue. People who are unpaid activists just volunteering, that is a very common activity that many people on both sides of any issue will do. Those are people who are motivated, motivated enough to contribute to Wikipedia. If we don't allow them to contribute openly we'll be censoring the ability of common people to express themselves and post factual information on sites like Wikipedia. Most people ARE strongly opinionated, but most people are also capable of putting their opinions to the side and trying to write from a Neutral Point Of View (NPOV). However, there will still be a bit of bias that leaks through despite this. My concern with this revised proposal by FT2 is, it goes after the wrong people. The original proposal, the one that everyone is voting on higher up in the page, is a much better proposal, and one that I support, since it goes after the right people, the people who are being paid to spin, being paid by moneyed interests to change articles on Wikipedia to better represent the views of their clients, who, by definition, have money, since their clients are paying them to edit Wikipedia, after all. Given the extreme disparities in wealth, the income inequality, we see in the world today, the original proposal is following the right approach... follow the money. FT2's approach is wrong, and goes after a common person involved in a little unpaid activism just as vigorously as a PR consultant for a large corporation. A much better approach is to go after the PR flack for big business, while letting common people who aren't being paid and just involved in unpaid activism, not have to disclose any of this. Activism is such a broad and ill-defined category. Personally speaking, I have been involved in a very very small amount of activism, occasionally showing up at activist protests on very rare occasions, never at all being paid, and spending very little of my time (less than a fraction of 1%) on activism, and never being involved in any decisions undertaken by an activist organization. Should I have to disclose this? That would be ridiculous, given my very low level of involvement! But what about someone who is a full-time activist? Well, for someone to be an activist full-time, they would have to be getting money from SOMEWHERE, so that they can pay the bills. So I think, full-time activists, professional activists, they generally DO receive some type of financial compensation, or else they wouldn't be able to afford to do what they do. So those people ARE covered under the main proposal everyone is voting on. But I take great offense to the idea that someone like Clive from FT2's last example would have to disclose that he has a connection to the topic. It is quite frankly ludicrous. If people like him start having to disclose fairly loose ties to a topic, to me we have already fallen down a slippery slope, to the point where almost everyone has to disclose even the smallest, most incidental connection to any topic they edit an article about. But if we just focus on people who are being financially compensated for their contributions to projects like Wikipedia, that is a much smaller and much more well-defined, easily identifiable group of people. Anyway, sometimes people attending protests don't even agree with what the "leaders" of the protest are saying, and might just be at the protest out of curiosity or boredom, having nothing better to do. I have an example of this myself. I was at a protest in December, to raise the minimum wage. I found out, when I was at the protest, that the protest was part of a nationwide campaign that was calling to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. That is ridiculous! I think it should be about $10 an hour or maybe $11, but $15 is too high. Currently it is $7.25. Anyway, I didn't even agree with the protest, despite being at the protest and participating in it, since I didn't find out about it wanting the minimum wage at such a high level until it was too late and I'd already been there like half an hour or something. And I talked to some other people there and they also thought, maybe $15 an hour is going a little too far, even though, officially, that is what our protest was in favor of doing. Also I have worked for companies and actually worked for companies I hated and couldn't stand at all... and if I were writing on Wikipedia about them I wouldn't be biased in favor of my employer at the time but rather against it. Anyway my point is, it's hard to tell what someone's bias will be, sometimes it can be the opposite of what you might expect. And FT2's proposal is way too overly broad and would affect a very large percentage of people who ought not to be affected, many of whom would only have a very minor, passing connection to a given topic. As an example, since I attended that protest about the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour being too little money to live on and needing to lift it, but I also opposed the protest leader's goal of raising it all the way to $15 as something that would go too far, well, I would probably have to disclose this, under FT2's proposal, if I edited any article having to do with the minimum wage, as a topic. And that is simply ridiculous, I should not have to disclose such a silly little minor detail. FT2's proposal does go in the right direction but it simply goes way too far and ensnares too many people in the net of having to disclose small, minor, insignificant ties to topics. The current proposal people are voting on is a much better compromise, although personally I think PR flacks working for large corporations ought to be BANNED completely from editing Wikipedia. So in one sense FT2 goes too far (going after WAY too many people), and in another sense FT2 doesn't go far enough (not even REMOTELY punitive enough on the worst offenders). We need a much more intelligent, targeted approach than what FT2 says, and going after people who are paid to contribute to Wikipedia is the by far the best distinction about who to go after and who NOT to go after, that I can think of. That is exactly what the original proposal people above are voting on does. FT2's flawed revised proposal is a step backwards from that, in the wrong direction. --Yetisyny (talk) 03:32, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Yetisyny for taking the time to comment. How do you feel about the alternative options presented, which are a bit more narrow in scope? You can find them here. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:05, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Support

I strongly support this measure, as it adds to the

transparency which makes Wikipedia such a valuable resource. Sheena Ford

I too support transparency as it relates to paid contributions

I support transparency in paid contributions as it would add to my trust of the information's accuracy I read on this site, and I use this site every day. 173.251.49.18 18:20, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Support

Yes I think their must be some type of accountability for sure. However, don't say that Wikimedia is all about truth, for instance, look up the definition of 'evolution' and you will see my point. Evolution has not been proved in the slightest and yet on the definition page you state it as a fact and not a theory. Ask any top DNA expert, and related scientists and they will tell you that they have no evidence, and that they can't prove it. People tout the word as a scientific word so it should be kept to scientific standards and have provable, reproducible results. I know everybody likes to fool themselves but science actually disproves evolution and yet it is stated as fact when it surely is not. 70.109.146.84 16:36, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

You have got to be kidding me. If you ask any top expert in the field of biology they will say that evolution is true and creationism is wrong. You say "ask any top DNA expert". OK. How about Richard Dawkins? He is an example of top expert in biology and genetics. Guess what? He believes in evolution. So, you are wrong. One of the ideas Richard Dawkins coined is the idea of "memes", which are similar to genes, except memes are ideas that evolve over time, as part of the language and culture of a society. If you look at Wikipedia itself, you will see that Wikipedia memetically evolved from humble beginnings as an experimental side-project to Nupedia into the #1 biggest information resource on the entire planet. Similarly, humans genetically evolved from humble beginnings, ancient ancestors that were single-celled organisms, into a complex multicellular life form with opposable thumbs, language, the ability of rational thought, and the ability to discover and invent things in order to help ourselves out in this world. Religion and creationism, those are memes, as is evolution. On Wikipedia, a place where memes are tested for accuracy and whether or not they accurately represent the real world, the meme of evolution was successful and the meme of creationism went extinct. This is likely what will eventually happen to the meme of creationism, in the minds of all of mankind, in the long run. Like the dinosaurs, creationism itself will go extinct. Devoutly religious people once believed the world was flat, and that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Nowadays, only a tiny fraction of 1% of people in the world believe in a flat Earth or that the Sun revolves around the Earth, and while devout religious people still exist, their beliefs are quite different from devout religious people who lived during the Dark Ages. Someday, the same thing will happen to the idea of creationism, which is just as absurd as the idea that the world is flat, and contradicts known science just as much. On all 3 of these matters, namely whether the Earth is flat or round, whether the Sun revolves around the Earth or the Earth revolves around the Sun, and whether evolution or creationism is correct, Wikipedia is an accurate, reliable information resource, whether you like it or not. And Wikipedia ended up as a reliable and accurate information resource because that is what it has evolved into over time, with the percentage of information in its articles that is accurate gradually increasing over time, year after year. The debate taking place right here on this page is a part of that memetic evolution of Wikipedia, part of its continuous process of improvement. Wikipedia has identified a foreign object in its body, namely people paid to edit it and posting biased or inaccurate information on it, and is now reacting to solve the problem, similar to how the human body's immune system identifies a foreign object inside the body and produces antibodies to destroy it. This is actually helping to prove Richard Dawkins' theory of memetics, which is adapted from Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, correct. And that, in turn, leads to even more overwhelming evidence in favor of evolution. Of course, a creationist could simply state, "Jimbo Wales created Wikipedia, and he gazed upon it, and he saw that it was good. And on the seventh day he rested." But that would grossly oversimplify things, because, for one thing, Jimbo Wales is only one out of countless hundreds of thousands of people who have edited Wikipedia and helped it evolve into a more advanced information resource. This would make Jimbo Wales akin to the first cell of a multicellular organism, before cell division starts taking place, rather than akin to a creator god. Although I am sure there are those who would think otherwise... wiki-creationists, I call them, as opposed to wiki-evolutionists like myself. According to the wiki-evolutionist view which I hold, Wikipedia holds a natural niche in the online ecosystem of memes and ideas, and if Jimbo Wales had not started it, a similar wiki site would have been started by somebody else and evolved in its place. Wiki-creationists, on the other hand, would argue that Wikipedia or any site like it would only be possible if created by Jimbo Wales, and they would argue that he is a God-like figure who is unlike other men, and that if he had not started Wikipedia, a similar website would NOT have arisen to take its place. This debate can only be settled one way: by building a time machine, going back in time, and preventing Jimbo Wales from starting Wikipedia, then going back to the future and seeing what happened. Therefore, I have started work on construction of a time machine, so that I can use it to go back in time, prevent Jimbo Wales from starting Wikipedia, go back to the future, and observe the presence of a similar wiki enyclopedia online that would likewise be the world's #1 online information resource. If successful, I will be able to prove wiki-evolution correct, and therefore evolution by logical extension. Additionally, I will be able to go back in time even further, over 65 million years ago, have my photograph taken with a few dinosaurs, and prove biological evolution correct... that is, unless the dinosaurs eat me. Wish me luck! :-) --Yetisyny (talk) 05:32, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Offenlegung von Zahlungen

für mich ist das ok, allerdings sehe ich auch Interessenskonflikte bei anderen Bereichen z.b. das einige Wikipedianer hier ihre wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten, Institute oder Stiftungen favorisieren. Daher bin ich der meinung das wikipedianer dies grundsätzlich auf ihrer wiki-seite offenlegen sollten wo sie tätig sind und waren um diese interessenskonflikte auszuschliessen.

Vielen Dank fuer deine Ueberlegung. Der Vorschlag waere eine erhebliche Ausweitung der Fragestellung und wuerde zudem mit dem grundlegenden ANON-Ansatz kollidieren. Beste Gruesse, --Jan (WMF) (talk) 17:17, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Noble intentions, unintended consequences

I was quite involved in the WikiPR debacle on enwiki, and I've seen plenty of groups of paid editors. On one hand, especially when you're dealing with hundreds of accounts who all seem to be creating spammy articles, there is the reaction to ban the core behavior at play, namely paid editing. The issue with this proposal, however is it fails to account for the nuance and unintended consequences of such a restriction. While I'm hardly the world's largest paid editing advocate, this sort of misses the point. I more or less agree with Risker here. Most of the obvious/distinguishable paid editing I have noticed has been single purpose accounts creating articles on "Protechstartup" or "Bob Robertson, rising star". As a checkuser I tend to run into these accounts on singular ranges. We know they are a paid editing group, but who the hell are they? They could be WikiPR. Could be PR Corp. Could be Unemployed Freelancer. We have no clue, and how do we expect these people who have been socking prolifically to actually disclose. It's an aattempt to kick them off but there is still no way to actually prove that it is paid or COI editing. Sometimes I've run into editors who are editing their company's page (clearly COI) but not in a paid sense. They are doing so simply becuase they wish to. Oftentimes these edits improve article quality. Most of the paid editing that is obvious has been the creation of articles for non notable or barely notable persons. Raising notability thresholds would be the most sure means of quashing this sort of paid editing, not demanding disclosure. I've seen a few disclosed paid editors: the vast majority were reasonable, or tried to act reasonably. But this sort of WikiPR activity will not be stopped by these guidelines, and it risks tremendous instruction creep. How close is related. What is paid. How do I know the editors are paid. Is a SPA creating an article paid? Do we know if he's a single purpose or not? Do I have authority or obligation to run checkuser to see? This is an effort but this needs to be reframed "what if any actions should be taken" as opposed to the current proposal. NativeForeigner (talk) 20:10, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

@NativeForeigner: Thanks for the thoughtful comments, and thank you for your effort on the WikiPR stuff. A few responses:

• This is not an attempt to solve all paid-advocacy-editing-related issues in one swoop. As I see it, there are at least three different kinds of paid advocacy editors: lone wolves/freelancers; organized firms-for-hire; and in-house PR folks. I think you're right that this does very little about the first category (freelancers), since they are unlikely to care very much what the terms say and this is unlikely to be very useful in enforcement against them - if you can catch them, you have most of the tools you need to deal with them. For organized-firms-for-hire and in-house PR, I think it is more effective. They tend to have lawyers, investors, etc., and those people care what the terms say. Not to say that they are all scrupulous or moral, but this will at least put them on completely unambiguous notice that they need to think very hard about their business model and how they interact with the projects. That will help with the borderline or actually good-faith-but-don't-know-the-rules folks, and for the bad faith ones that go forward anyway, the amendment will make it easier for us to enforce the terms against them. (We think they are already pretty clear for this situation, but this will make it even better in this respect.)
• For things like "editors who are editing their company's page without being paid to do that", I think Geoff has suggested elsewhere in the page that we narrow the definition a bit. We're still thinking about that.

• We have just proposed some optional language that would address this concern. You can find it here. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:42, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

• I think implicit in your statement is that it is too hard to catch socks. I agree, and I hope we can invest in tech to help with that process. But I don't think "catching socks is hard" means we shouldn't improve other tools that we have to help deal with the problem once they are caught, or avoid investing in a little bit of communication to help reduce the number in the first place.
• With regards to reframing as "what, if any, actions should be taken": there have been repeated discussions about a variety of proposals of varying complexity. All of them have failed to get consensus. This proposal is minimalist in part to avoid some of the difficult, real problems that those proposals died on. This isn't to say the proposal is perfect, and it shouldn't be the end of the discussion. But it is deliberately minimal in part so that it won't stop or interfere with other policies and proposals in the future - if we want to ban it altogether, or build better detection tools, or whatever - all of those are still possible after this change.

Hope that helps explain where we're coming from. —Luis Villa (WMF) (talk) 23:16, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

It definitely does. I think the issue is there will be unintended circumstances which drives editors away, and although I think this would probably help with in house PR< it's so hard to identify what dedicated PR firms are running which accounts, it has limited impact there. Plus, from what I have seen generally CREWE efforts have been reasonably successful in dealing iwth in house PR, especialy for larger comparnies. Correct me if I"m wrong. NativeForeigner (talk) 00:00, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

@LuisV (WMF) I think this statement: "As I see it, there are at least three different kinds of paid advocacy editors: lone wolves/freelancers; organized firms-for-hire; and in-house PR folks" fails to recognize the fourth, in my opinion, the most egregious type of paid advocacy editor--the employee or governor of an avowed "advocacy" organization. If the avowed mission of an organization is the advocacy of a POV, then by association any employee or governor of that organization who edits topics related to that mission is and should be considered a paid advocacy editor. Why does the focus of this amendment continue to be narrowly defined by commercial enterprise? The unintended consequences will be real when one class of paid advocate is given license by omission. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:42, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

@Mike Cline: You make a point. Regardless I've rarely encountered that. NativeForeigner (talk) 08:51, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Support for 3 options of disclosure.

While any reader should view any undocumented comment as suspect, disclosure of paid sponsership would aid readers' examination of the article.

=== Concern about proposal ===In truth money should not be the issue, joining the forum is a form of being at the arena, gladiator or not you will suffer consequences, that is just as is and cannot be changed if you support lies then you will be held accountable. Bequeathing power, authority and wealth has always been curtailed by God on either side of the coin it is open season."""" (WG) --Ecapaja (talk) 05:10, 6 March 2014 (UTC) One thing I do not like about this amendment is that the disclosure is mutual: my employer would know that I saw fit to use company time to edit this article or that article. I would find this to be chilling, and I might consider that my duty to correct errors, typos, etc. that I note in the course of my regular workday to be lessened accordingly. 64.85.169.79 21:23, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

=== STRONGLY SUPPORT!! === x2 (me too)

In the interest of full disclosure and transparency, I support the amendment. The objections Ive read are IMO baseless. Professional journal articles require the same disclosure in order that a reader may evaluate possible conflicts of interest. Paid editing may help enhance any article for verity, but without disclosures,we lose ability to evaluate the content.

I do not object to editors with financial ties, as long as the ties disclosed. OTOH to restrict entries to amateurs, will IMO leave open the possibility of inaccurate or even hidden biased content with even less transparency. 71.48.107.64 23:02, 5 March 2014 (UTC) science consultant/educator in NJ

Strongly support

Let's not forget this is supposed to be an encyclopedia. There are no viable arguments made above that justify the use of paid contributions. For those being so literal as to worry about editing articles while at work for a completely unrelated profession/job, relax. We all understand that is not the purpose of this amendment. Please pass this amendment and maintain the integrity of Wikipedia.

Amendment Supported

I strongly support the amendment, which helps prevent Wikipedia from being used for public relations by private parties. Ianeds63 (talk) 01:15, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I also strongly support the amendment. Allowing non-disclosure of paid edits is essentially a small form of the disastrous Super PACs in American politics, that allow private wealth to influence the dispersal of information and what's more, to do so secretly.

Disagree / Desacuerdo

This amendment seems overreaching, particularly in terms of the examples it cites, such as the FTC. Laws regarding business fraud do not uniformly apply to information exchange that is not commerce, per se; damages would be extremely difficult to prove. Wikimedia would hope that the examples given extend to web forums and reference tools like Wikipedia; but the examples have a tenuous relationshi.

Addressing the demand side of this problem

I've voted oppose to this amendment, not because I am in favour of paid editing, but because I believe that trying to eradicate paid editing using the mindset that created this amendment will lead to witch hunts and wikilawyering. However I agree that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

This amendment addresses the supply side of this problem, that there are editors and organisations such as Wiki-PR who are taking money to edit wikipedia; however no attention seems to have been given to why people are willing to pay for paid edits? If we can offer these individuals and organisations an alternative to paid editors, we can remove the financial incentive for paid editing. What is it that Wiki-PR been offering and how can we remove demand for it?

• i)Article creation. The article creation wizard can be used as part of this deincentivisation, rather than discourage individuals and organisation because of COI we should direct them to this avenue as a matter of course. However any article so created will first be scrutanised for notability, neutrality, verifiabilty etc. If the article will be non-notable we should inform the individual/organisation so, that there is no way that they will have a wikipedia article paid or not, and any money that they are thinking of spending will be wasted. If however they are notable the article can be sent into a pool that volunteers can choose to edit and improve.

• ii)Reputation management. First we should declare that we will not whitewash articles for the benefit of organisations, but also that we will also not allow contentious allegations to stand without verification, and we should be doing this anyway. If an organisation believes something is misleading, unfair or plain wrong we should educate them to the fact that they do not need to pay for {{POV}} and {{Citation needed}} tags. However there will be times when it can be proven that an individual or organisation has a genuine skeleton in the closet. We can discourage attempted whitewashing by making such attempts reputationally damaging, a press release of the attempt and a permanent record of people /organisations who have attempted to do so, a hall of shame in the manner of w:Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/List.

By working with the targets of Wiki-PR and its ilk, we can starve paid editors out of existence.--KTo288 (talk) 08:32, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure that you understand what the LTA is about. that's for long term sock masters whose cases run back years and years, a decade for some, not for one-off paid editors. However I agree that there should be a separate place for that sort of thing. KonveyorBelt 17:21, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry if I haven't been clear, the watchlist/blacklistid of any company that has found to have induldged in trying to remove verified details they find embarrassing, even for a first offense. The consequence of any attempt of trying to look better will result in further reputational damage.--KTo288 (talk) 15:30, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

This... this is brilliant! In this reactive atmosphere of moral panic, especially after the Wiki-PR incident, we seem to be always tackling the symptoms of the problem rather than arriving at the root of the money source. Instead of trying the difficult way to solve a long and intractable problem (which might have collateral damage even), that is litigation against paid editing, why not try and deincentivize the reasons behind the payment and cash flow in the first place? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 01:44, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Why I am opposing-lack of data. Also, what are the motives behind this proposal?

I am opposing for lack of data on the long term effects of paid editing. This proposal, after all, only works if it can be proven that all paid editing is inherently harmful to the encyclopedia. Is it? I've yet to see any confirmation from the WMF, their legal team, or the leaders of the respective encyclopedia showing any proof. In fact, this amendment just might not be about paid editing at all. At #Who asked for this to be developed?, it is said that this amendment is a direct response to Wiki-pr saying that the TOU do not prohibit them from editing. Thus, this amendment can be construed as a "back atcha" to an individual firm, not a statement against general pad editing. In fact, we let undisclosed paid editors edit our pedias every day. Some of them make constructive edits. Most do. It's only the high profile cases of PR editing that stir trouble. And that's what this proposal is about. KonveyorBelt 17:23, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Offenlegung von Auftraggebern und bezahlten Beiträgen

Grundsätzlich ist die Idee bezahlte Beiträge im Sinne der Nutzer auch als solche zu kennzeichnen sicher gut gemeint. Man sollte jedoch nicht so naiv sein zu meinen, das dies über eine freiwillige Selbstverpflichtung der Autoren der Beiträge auch tatsächlich in der Praxis funktioniert. Wikipedia ist in den letzten Jahren als Informationsquelle für den normalen User immer wichtiger geworden. Dies um so mehr als die letzten Verlage sich aus dem Geschäft mit Online-Lexikas komplett zurückgezogen haben. (Brockhaus) Da ist es natürlich sehr verlockend seine Produkte kostenfrei in einem Lexikon dezent zu plazieren, wo man von vornherein weiß das diese Platform von vielen Usern genutzt wird. Glaubt man den Recherchen der öffentlich rechtlichen Fernsehprogramme, so treten diese bezahlten Autoren nicht nur als normale Nutzer auf sondern als Autoren mit erweiterten Berechtigungen und Befugnissen. Außerdem benutzen diese Leute nicth nur einen Nutzernamen sondern gleich einige Dutzend davon, um auch aufkeimende Diskussionen in ihrem Sinne und unter verschiedenen Namen zu beeinflussen. Ehrlich gesagt, mir ist nicht klar wie Wikipedia dieses Problem mit einer freiwilligen Selbstverpflichtung in den Griff bekommen will. M.E. hilft hier nur ein gesundes Mißtrauen, eine gute eigene Allgemeinbildung und Informationen aus verschiedenen Quellen zu vergleichen um Artikel kritisch zu hinterfragen und evtl. Manipulationen auf die Spur zu kommen.Mars2030 (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Since the possibility of finding the place I would like to be working in this editing page is quite remote, given the limitations of this UI and my knowledge of it, I am just putting my remark here and counting upon some "refactoring" editor (who might be paid!) to move it to a better home. (Please remove the foregoing sentence plus this one.)

I do not think the real worry here is about "editing." It is about the creation and modification of content in an influenced manner. The pharmaceutical industry requires authors of papers to disclose financial relationships that in any way might constitute a conflict of interest. What are the two parties in potential conflict? They are financial gain and unbiased truth, i.e., they are worried about influence. We know the researcher might have an actual opinion or outlook that affects his interpretation of results, but we want *his* opinion, not the opinion of some hidden party with business or political motives using him as a puppet. Influence is the issue, not pay. The teacher changing a mistake on a chemistry-related page is being paid. However, he would have been paid anyway. He was not influenced by his pay check. I think if some kind of definition can be worked out with language about "compensation for the purpose of intellectual influence on Wikipedia content," or some such wording, it will eliminate most of the neutral cases that unnecessarily complicate this matter. --Jkshrews (talk) 22:38, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

The opener Mars2030 of the topic has absolutely right. Its not possible to find the truth unless everything is optional and not with a law that has teeth, zähne ;) It seems that this discussion is all just about to take away the responsibility of the organization and to give it only to the users or better the anonymous mass. Perhaps an intelligent way of business but a very poor sign for morality and ethics. --93.184.26.78 15:09, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Der Vorschlag beinhaltet keine freiwillige Selbstverpflichtung, sondern stellt eine rechtsverbindliche Offenlegungspflicht dar. Beste Gruesse, --Jan (WMF) (talk) 17:19, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Alternate recommendation

First, appreciation to the Foundation and to commenters for taking this on. It's pretty clear from the discussion that there is a lot of support for the idea that we need to be vigilant against COI editing caused by "paid contributors" in particular, and general support (or at least only rare opposition) to the idea that the TOU should be tightened to explicitly forbid trying to fly under the radar about it. However, there is a lot of disagreement between community members what precisely "paid editing" includes. A PR flack paid to whitewash an article or create one for a nonnotable entity = clearly bad; professional expert editing freely with no employer coercion or direct oversight in area of professional expertise = probably ok. There is also disagreement by project how specifically vigilant we need to be (en:wp = high concern; wikisource/data/commons = less so; wikivoyage = more nuanced). How about the following alternative:

• Each wikiproject should develop a clear project-specific policy on what constitutes a potential COI, including a prescribed way editors with a potential COI should disclose it (may range from "don't edit" to "make sure you indicate COI on talk page" to "mark every edit with a specific tag"). This provides the needed flexibility by project.
• The Foundation amends the TOU to explicitly forbid COI editing in violation of each project's specific policy. This provides the additional "weaponry" to combat COI by omission of disclosure or misrepresentation that would apparently be helpful.
• The Foundation develops a default COI policy which applies to wikiprojects which do not develop one of their own. This provides a backstop.

The difference versus the current proposal would be that instead of the Foundation prescribing a "strong minimum" disclosure policy (which a significant number of contributors are finding variously too weak or too strong), the Foundation would merely provide the framework for projects to combat paid-editor and other COI effectively within their requirements. Thoughts? Martinp (talk) 23:21, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello Martinp, this is an interesting consideration. My initial concerns would be that this process is less clear for outsiders -- it may make it more difficult to explain the minimum rules for disclosure. I will think about this further, but thanks very much for the suggestion. Best, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 20:54, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello Martinp, I drafted an addition to the policy following this idea. See it below at Allowing projects to write an alternative disclosure policy. Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 01:09, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Biased editing is not a problem, but the very foundation of Wikipedia

Paid editing is just one of many forms of biased editing. In fact it is a smaller issue than intrinsically motivated POV warriors, because PR-professionals charge for their time and therefore can't invest as many time and resources as those who are fighting for their believes. Since the very beginning of Wikipedia we all are justifiable proud about our ability to build a NPOV-article out of conflicted positions. It is the very foundation of our collaboration that we see opposed opinions not as threat but as valid contribution and strive to integrate them into a neutral description. Paid interest are just one more of those opinions. We are used to deal with biases and we are good at it.

If some are concerned that Wikipedia might be flooded by too many articles to be maintained and neutralized by our volunteers, we can always raise the threshold of notability and delete articles about small companies, products of little market share and the like. I admit issues with tourism destinations, they are notable but highly at risk of paid advocacy. But we will find methods to keep them free of undue content; we have done so for more than 13 years now and even in much more contested areas. --h-stt !? 13:24, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi H-stt, thanks for your comment. So, if I'm reading your comment correctly, you would be against adapting the proposed amendment, correct? Take care. Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:17, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

@Geoffbrigham: You bet, I oppose the amendment. I don't see paid editing as a more damaging issue than any other biased editing. And we are good in dealing with biases. --h-stt !? 17:29, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

h-stt, how would you feel about an amendment that links to sock puppetry instead. Roughly, something like this:

"If you are accepting compensation in exchange for making contributions to Wikimedia projects, you may not engage in sock-puppetry; specifically, you may not create new accounts to avoid detection; use another person's account; use multiple accounts and present them as different users; or employ other people to use accounts to appear as unaffiliated contributors. Applicable law, or community and Foundation policies and guidelines, such as those addressing conflicts of interest or unfair business practices, may further limit or prohibit paid edits to a Wikimedia Project or require disclosure of affiliation and payment. For more information, please read our background note on disclosure of paid contributions."

Thanks, Geoffbrigham (talk) 11:38, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

@Geoffbrigham: That would not be compatible with WP:ANON, one of the foundations of Wikipedia. Sock puppets are perfectly fine to separate editing in different fields or just for fun. One just may not use several sock puppets in one discussion or even vote. I still wonder, why WMF, Jimbo and many others are focusing on paid/compensated editing as an issue? Fans of soccer clubs, those with political or even philosophical believes can be just as biased. But they are intrinsically motivated, meaning they will invest their own time and energy in "setting things right" in Wikipedia. Paid editors are spending their client's time and money and thus are far less likely to be persistent, when they encounter resistance. When I write about listed buildings in my home town, I do that because I believe in their cultural value for society. Am I biased about them? Of course. And that's perfectly fine. If someone writes about their favorite movie, game or cell phone they might be biased too. And the article might show it. So what, then someone else comes in to tune it down a bit and neutralize it. Same for paid PR. I really don't get the obsession. --h-stt !? 15:11, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time h-stt in responding. You are raising good issues. We set out some of the reasons for the proposal above at the beginning of this talk page and in the FAQs. Also we have seen significant volunteer resources used to patrol against deceitful paid advocacy editing, and one argument is that it is not sustainable as more people seek to make money on Wikipedia and its sister sites while relying on volunteer teams to find and correct mistakes of undisclosed paid editors. That said, I hear your points: bias may be found anywhere and is not linked just to financial compensation, and that the edit, not the editor, should matter. In partial response, we have proposed a couple of options that narrow the focus of the amendment to try to put more of the emphasis on the edit and not the editor; and to limit the scope to the most problematic edits (and leave the rest as in the past without an express requirement of disclosure in the TOU). See here. I don't think this will satisfy you completely, but it gives you an idea of the gist of the thinking and a willingness to try to find other solutions. In any case, the Board will read this discussion. We are not counting votes per se, we are listening to ideas and feedback. Stronger arguments will have great weight, and the Board will make a decision accordingly. Your comments will no doubt help them think this through as well. Thank you again for your time. Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:02, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

@Geoffbrigham: As I wrote above: If Wikipedia lacks the contributors to maintain NPOV, we should raise the notability levels and delete articles on smallish companies and their products. And I repeat on this issue again that it by no means depends on whether a biased editor is paid / compensated for his or her contributions. --h-stt !? 19:49, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the amendment is a good idea.

I think the amendment is a good idea, because it discloses the potential motives and bias of a contributer.

Better Disclosure for Paid Deletors and Obfuscators Appointed as Supervising Editors For an Article

Support the change wholeheartedly. But a related problem are 'official' editors who are paid to camp around sites like 'carbon price' 'fossil fuels' 'nuclear power' 'climate change' 'deforestation' 'pollution' 'arms dealers' 'surveillance' etc to delete information that is not in their client's interests, to make sure that debates expressed therein remain full of doubt. Not just MNCs but government secret services are doing this on wikipedia.NimbusWeb (talk) 20:52, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Uneingeschränkte Zustimmung zu den vorgeschlagenen Änderungen

Sie dienen der wissenschaftlichen und damit auch einer gesellschaftlichen Redlichkeit. Montigny-le-Roi (talk) 21:26, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Vielen Dank, Montigny-le-Roi. Beste Gruesse, --Jan (WMF) (talk) 17:21, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Uneingeschränkte Ablehnung zu den vorgeschlagenen Änderungen

Es riecht, um nicht zu sagen, es stinkt. Geld beherrscht die Wahrheit, nicht umgekehrt. Und alles, was Gegenmeinung zu den Großen ist, findet keinen Platz mehr.

Thanks for your view against paid editing. To be clear, this amendment does not endorse paid editing. You can read more here. Take care. Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:14, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I support it.

If it means stopping the biased reporting and editing from some contributors, count me in. BrothaTimothy (talk) 22:53, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I think it is important to distinguish between the people who voluntary contribute and people who get paid for their contribution to Wikipedia! because it help to Wikipedia users to judge better about the accuracy and bias of the shared info! --Pari Sima

Oppose

I think it is a moot point because unenforceable; with so many mobile devices available around the world, anyone can edit anything at will. But I also think there is a question of integrity involved - WikiMedia's: the very act of adding such an amendment would, de facto, condone paid-contributions to articles. Shir-El too (talk) 00:06, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

By this logic ("with so many mobile devices") one can not enforce WP:SOCK. Let's not bury our heads in the sand. An elephant in the room? Yes, there is indeed elephant in the room, and it is huge. 24.11.55.66 15:13, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Support

Even though it will certainly not be enforced in 99.99% of the cases I believe the new requirement makes sense because it will give Wikimedia stronger ground in enforcing the most significant, in their viewpoint, 0.01%.

Good paid authors will be able to build better credibility and recognition this way so it will be useful for the good-faith paid authors as well.

I would consider adding some legalese though that would protect Wikimedia from potential accusations in non-even-handed or otherwise irregular enforcement because any attempt to make it such will probably drain all their resources and then some.

I strongly support this. 121.44.173.5 04:15, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I think it is important to distinguish between the people who voluntary contribute and people who get paid for their contribution to Wikipedia! because it help to Wikipedia users to judge better about the accuracy and bias of the shared info! --Paris 60.241.87.102 09:13, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Support

The underlying idea for Wikipedia is that people will operate with good will. Working for somebody to push one or another point of view subverts the whole process. 24.136.187.187 06:04, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

There's too many rules that are currently unenforceable. Creating more will solve nothing. We need less rules, not more. Jamesena (talk) 11:39, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

Paid text is a big problem for WIKI. WIKI text demonising a prominent researcher into AUTISM, whose work has been validated many times, indicates the size of the challenge. It appears to me that the text in question has come straight out of the marketing department of a well known industry. Further, WIKI contributors have complained that the text in question is ring-fenced. WIKI has a proud heritage. However, unless it gets a handle on this quickly, it will increasingly lose credibility and enter decline, possibly to be replaced with a more robust structure. The proposal in question cannot be enforced and diverts attention from a more pressing concern.Laplumedematanteestdanslejardin (talk) 19:32, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the proposed amendment does not endorse paid advocacy editing. You can read more here. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:10, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

In Favor of paid editing for all articles!

"the proposed amendment makes clear that "community and Foundation policies, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure." This provision gives the community discretion to further limit paid editing, including paid advocacy editing, according to the needs of the specific project. That is, the proposed amendment is a minimal requirement, but the community may impose greater restrictions or bans." Was pretty much the encompassing end statement on the main page pertaining to the proposal. I feel that others are correct that it would be good in a sense to be able to know that someone with more knowledge pertaining to a subject would make this a better site provided that the paid entries disclosed the information at the TOP of the page not the bottom, and that the disclosures are investigated by your team to the best of their knowledge by asking for support from possible competitors. This could of course open a new investigation department and more jobs within Wiki. I for one would like to see Wiki become a more fact based site as opposed to just anyone being able to edit content. Therefore, should Wiki decide to let a paid disclosure be submitted one could then feel secure that it not only was investigated but had also allowed competitors to make any amends and continue to do so. To avoid a he said she said; this competitor edit would have to submit the information, ( with full disclosure as to if they are being paid to make such an edit) which would then be investigated by your team before the edit can transpire and then a wiki representative edit can be made. I understand completely; the more I think on it how sticky this could be, but on the other hand I would like to see Wiki become a very fact based source that I can count on and trust your judgement to keep it like an encyclopedia and not an advertisement dumping ground.~ TPowers Lady of Dunan

It would help promote effective writing and attract a more skilled group of writers to the site. So it would also stand to reason that access to the site should be restricted to paying customers as if Wikipedia had been akin to your neighborhood newspaper for instance. With paid writers you would get a new kind of professional quality you just can not get taking in unknown volunteers.

I would also say this would benefit the writer in other ways such as employment. A paid writer could file taxes like any other man or woman in the work force and take full credit for their useful labor within the site. You could even use it as an excuse for establishing users true identities so that when a vandal or group of vandals hits a particular page you can sue them just like someone crashing into your automobile because they ran a red light on the freeway.

In regard to keeping things undisclosed I am against on the grounds that if you are a sales associate at a major retail chain you are not afforded secrecy if you get fired for screwing up on the job. The employer goes will out of their way to ruin that persons life and career so that they never even get a job selling used cars and the same should be true of paid writing. The writer screws up they should be given a bad reference the rest of their natural lives so that they can not pollute the market with inferior labor!

The non-wiki community would also take an interest in paying for information they know for a fact is correct rather then taking some high school kid's word for it, who is not even paid for their time and cannot be held accountable for their actions.

When I was going to a private high school no English teacher no matter the grade level took Wikipedia seriously mentioning just how easy it was to vandalize the site before our eyes. I used Wikipedia as a source one time in American history and you know what the teacher told me in front of the class? She said "You'll never get to college learning from computer literate vagrants! Why not a good book instead of wasting my time and your parent's money!"

That's all I have to say concerning this! 96.2.110.63 23:05, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Writers and editors should be paid according to their skill level and expertise. Wikipedia has no value as it is, and your defense of it and its bogus ethos is ridiculous. Their is no trust with amateur entry writers, and no guarantee of accuracy or quality. The only positive of that is it hopefully has allowed some professional encyclopedias to remain in business. The fact that you have destroyed some is utterly heinous. I have carefully composed entries only to have them ruined by amateur editing. What are you upset about? If you think it renders the entries as advertising, rewrite them! The idea that this is valuable and can be continually rewritten renders it worthless. No professor worth anything will allow students to use wikipedia. Its only value is in spreading knowledge to those too poor or rural to have access to a library. But what good is the knowledge if it is corrupted by ignorance? That is your problem, not paid writing. OOPS! I thought this was about wikipedia, not wikimedia. What the hell is wikimedia???? 98.140.79.240 03:51, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• Yes, absolutely. We must attract more skillful paid editors. They should simply make disclaimer of financial COI on their user page (as proposed in current version of this instruction) and go ahead. Everyone will appreciate their good faith effort in the project, and I know that many paid editors do just that. 24.11.55.66 16:56, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia has plenty of value in the hands of people with a degree of reason; "person A says X" does not mean that X is true, but neither is it a valueless statement. Just check your sources - Wikipedia makes that extremely easy. It sounds like you'd be better off paying for a subscription to a service with a radically different business model. 81.96.200.247 22:49, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't agree. Paid writers work for money and in many cases they do this all the time (whole work-day and year round). In some respects - especially the parts, that get better if they are practiced very much like ortography, writing style this leeds to higher quality.

In other respects, it reduces quality, as doing the same thing all day and year round leeds to boredown. Second to earn enough money, one has to write very much, therefore there isn't the time to do a lot of research for every article. Third there may be paid editors, that are paid for promoting lies or unbalanced articles. (Of course some paid editors may write very good and balanced articles too.)

But this is not what the "Paid contributions amendment" is about. We don't want to forbit it, we don't want to promote it, we only want that paid contributers tell that they are paid contibutors. In some cases this may be good, in others it may be bad.

--Kersti (talk) 09:13, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Strongly oppose

We need to suppose that every editor has his own concerns in items he contributes to. Our rules should regulate the quality of the content of Wikipedia etc. INDEPENDENTLY on identity and private motivation of the contributors who invest their time, their work, their knowledge, their skills, their facilities or their money in improvement of Wikimedia projects.

If the user write with bias, subjectivelly or unencyclopedicly, he should be corrected (or even blocked if he heavily harms the project) regardless his motivation. If the user inserts valuable and quality contributions, he should be appreciated and welcomed independently on his private relations outside Wikimedia projects. We have no justifiable reason (nor a real authority and possibility) to inspect private motivation and private contracts of our contributors. --ŠJů (talk) 01:58, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I would agree with you if Wikipedia community was able to efficiently correct the quality of content, i.e. fix intentional misinformation. But this is not possible, as honestly stated in our Official risk disclaimer. In practice, many subject areas of the project can be easily highjacked by a small group of paid editors coordinated from a single center, and I edited in one of such subject areas. Not any more. 24.11.55.66 16:42, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

The risk of intentional misinformation is in every edit, whether paid or unpaid. Every editor has his own preferences, concerns, opinions, contacts, limits... there is no justified reason to have special restrictions just for paid editors. --ŠJů (talk) 01:15, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Paid editing violates the basic assumption that every editor represents himself. If several people edit as proxies for the same organization or person who hired them, the key policy of WP:Consensus can be easily used as a tool for promoting whatever POV the employer wants them to promote. Worse, a group, coordinated from a single center, can be used to attack and get rid of "undesirable" contributors they do not want to see around. This is not a fantasy, but something I actually read long time ago in an interview given by people involved in such business, although they did not mention specifically Wikipedia. The interview was given to Novaya Gazeta. Right now, this newspaper had to close all discussions on their site because of massive comments by paid trolls. 141.211.44.143 17:06, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how Wikipedia's policies on sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry do not already address some of the concerns that you have. An operator having one or more accounts trying to game a discussion is not that much different from one employer having one or more "hired persons" trying to game a discussion. You can proxy just as well with sockpuppets and meatpuppets, and they'd be blocked by Wikipedia all the same. Bear in mind also that other Wikimedia wikis are also affected by the scope of this proposed change, who may be more in favor of "paid editing" than others, and not just English Wikipedia which could arguably handle this at a local level. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 11:54, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Incompréhensible

"Il est extrêmement probable qu'une contribution rémunérée, mais intentionnellement non déclarée comme telle, ne contribuera pas, positivement et honnêtement, à l’intérêt du public." Cette phrase extraite sous le titre "Existe-t-il d’autres effets négatifs possibles pour les contributions rémunérées ?" est 'étonnante' pour le moins. Une proposition au sens phrase correctement énoncée est soit juste soit fausse soit indécidable. Si elle est fausse il faut le prouver et elle doit être corrigée ou retirée, si elle est juste elle est acceptable à condition de fournir sa preuve de justesse si elle est indécidable marquée comme telle avec preuve. La phrase suivante " ... ne contribuera pas, positivement et honnêtement, à l’intérêt du public." implique une notion de bien ou de mal spécifique de la chrétienté qui se doit de tout cataloguer en bien ou en mal afin d'asservir les personnes, au sens les marquer comme dans la famille - amis ou hors donc ennemi. C'est une vue de l'esprit arbitraire, dogmatique et extrêmement violente. Le bien ou le mal, le positif ou négatif ne dit rien de l'intérêt de la chose contrairement à ce qui est déclaré. Le "négatif" tout autant que le positif peut ou non être intéressant, informatif. Chercher à classer arbitrairement et pour une justification difficile à défendre en bien ou mal, en positif ou négatif une proposition (une information) est hors du champ de la connaissance, des Sciences mais relève des jugements adossés à des dogmes. Un dogme, in démontrable injustifiable est la source la plus certaine de violence donc d'arbitraire et de désolation, d'exclusion, d’intolérance.

Pour résumer : chercher à qualifier une proposition (un texte informatif) comme positivement ou négativement relève du dogme (de l'arbitraire). Il est bien plus utile, au sens informatif, de se contenter de se limiter à déterminer sa justesse. La justesse étant démontrable. La complexité du réel est telle que ce dernier est inaccessible. Ceci rend donc toute proposition relative à la description du réel à jamais incomplète donc fausse car toujours partielle. Afin de palier à cet inexorable, une proposition sera donc établie d'un certain "point de vue" explicitement décrit. C'est ce que fait la Science en décrivant les limites du système étudié, le contexte, les grandeurs prises en compte. Le point de vue limite l'éclairage du sujet explicitement car il ne saurait en être autrement. La notion de positif ou de négatif est simplement sans objet dans une encyclopédie.

intentionnalité

Jamais il n'est possible de décrire exhaustivement ni de prouver l'intentionnalité d'un acte. Notre cerveau accumule tant les impressions, les réflexions les émotions que chercher les intentions ne peut être parfaitement défini. Il est donc inutile d'associer les qualités de l'auteur à un texte pour en déterminer l'intention afin d'essayer d'en qualifier la justesse. Il est par contre indispensable d'en valider la justesse. Et par là de proposer plusieurs points de vue sur un même sujet sans devoir choisir tel ou tel. Chaque point de vue peut apporter de l'information et par là intéresser une personne. Le marchand, puisque le sujet de cette réflexion-consultation est soucieuse de se protéger des marchands, peut défendre son point de vue tout autant que le consommateur, puisque c'est la problématique de cette discussion et qui n'est qu'un point de vue parmi bien d'autres de la manière dont s’élabore les textes.

Je propose que l'encyclopédie fasse l'effort d'adjoindre à chaque (la plupart) entrée des tableaux (ou autre moyen) apportant des points de vues différents pouvant être mis en perspective c'est à dire de montrer chacun un point de vue particulier et par là enrichir la connaissance d'un sujet.

Why do I need separate logins for Wikipedia and Wikimedia?????

I have an account at Wikipedia and have edited for many years. But that doesn't give me an account with Wikimedia. If I am invited to vote on this issue inside of Wikipedia, it makes no sense to me that I should have to resgister a new account for Wikimedia. This makes so little sense to me that I'm not going to waste my time with such an awkward arrangement. Either the vote should be within Wikipedia, or anyone with a Wikipedia account should automatically have a Wikimedia account with the same login.173.8.212.241

Quite possibly your account was created when the software for the Wikimedia Foundation did not support interlinking account information between separate wiki systems. This wiki, Meta-Wiki, is on a different domain name //meta.wikimedia.org than the English Wikipedia //en.wikipedia.org which would explain the disconnect between your user accounts. However, the introduction of Single-user login (SUL) tech around 2008 has allowed it so that you can merge your account information across the Wikimedia wiki family by visiting Special:MergeAccount. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 04:35, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Should fair use policy on English Wikipedia be modified to allow copyrighted logos to be displayed on user and project pages to communicate affiliations?

There is currently a request for comment at en:Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#RfC:_Non-free_images_in_collaborations_with_other_organizations.

One argument for doing this is that it can increase an organization's compliance with the policy discussed here, because displaying a copyrighted logo (perhaps with special permission throught OTRS) on a project page communicates an organization's presence on Wikipedia.

One argument against doing this is that it disrupts Wikimedia community values to minimize use of non-free content.

Comments are requested. I am posting here with the presumption that people commenting here might feel that increased use of non-free logos is a potential consequence of this paid contributions amendment. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:13, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Common submission from Swedish Language Wikipedia concerning the proposed Paid contributions amendment

In response to the Paid contributions amendment proposal to the Terms of use, (the proposal), discussion amongst users of Swedish Language Wikipedia occurred on Bybrunnen, primarily in Swedish. There is already a recommendation on Swedish Wikipedia that paid contributers declare openly their conflict of interest. The discussion centered on whether this should be a binding, mandatory rule or not. Multiple reasons were given for and against the proposal, and after these were listed users were encouraged to give their support either for or against the proposal during a voting period that continued from the 3rd to 9th of March 2014. During the period of voting eighteen votes were received against the proposal, with one neutral vote and no votes in favour of it. This participation level is similar to that experienced in deletion decisions and administrator elections. Both the reasoning and the votes are presented below, in English translation.

Reasoning

In favour of the proposal

• It was suggested that the possibility of getting caught breaking the rules proposed would make companies aware of the risks of not declaring paid contributions.

Against the proposal

• Concern was raised about the possibility of users being falsely accused, of the conflicts this would create and the feelings of those falsely accused. It was felt this would do more to worsen the climate on Wikipedia, and around Wikipedia in general, than benefit it.
• Concern was raised about to which length Wikimedia Foundation would go to investigate whether a user had made undeclared contributions, and to which length Wikipedia would protect users wrongly accused.
• Concern was raised about the wording whereby a contributor needs only to declare who he/she is in the employment of and of whom this company has been engaged. It was suggested that this alone would render the proposal ineffective as a company wishing to promote itself could employ a secondary company which then employs a PR company; this would result in a declaration similar to "I am John Smith, I work for John Smith PR, and we have been employed by Letter Box Company to conduct these edits."
• Concern was raised about the multiple grey zones around what constitutes a "paid edit", with governmental, educational, organisational, sectarian and other types of editors possibly being involved, with or without pay.
• Concern was raised about how WMF/Wikipedia could pursue any kind of suspicion of "paid edit" and make use of this amendment in an effective way. There is concern that this amendment would only turn out to be a cosmetic rule with minimal founding in actual practice.
• Concern was raised about the effectiveness of this amendment, as most articles are open to non-registered editors.
• Concern was raised about whether the mandatory marking of "paid edits" makes for discriminatory action against editors based upon their identity and not their edits.
• Concern was raised about whether the mandatory marking of "paid editors" – on the other hand – would lead to an unnecessary large acceptance of editors with a clear conflict of interest.
• Concern was raised about how Wikipedia's anonymity principle would be affected, and that requiring contributors to state their employer could scare away target groups Wikipedia has long tried to attract. This could include anyone who doesn't necessarily have fast working hours, but where giving information to the public is part of their work, for example a professor. In principle Wikipedia encourages these people to edit in their area of expertise.

Voting

Det gick att rösta till och med klockan 23.59 söndag den 9 mars 2014. Kommentera gärna din röst, antingen på svenska eller engelska.

For

Against

1. Dieselmotorvagnar (till stationen) 3 mars 2014 kl. 05.55 (CET) For my comment in English se under Comments. På svenska: Ett fullständigt abderitiskt förslag som jag är helt och hållet emot.
2. SergeWoodzing (diskussion) 3 mars 2014 kl. 06.41 (CET) People who are paid to contribute should behave even better than people who aren't paid, writing verifiable facts and providing reliable sources, otherwise whoever is paying is bound to be very dissatisfied when entries are removed. The anonymity factor is also important.
3. Yger (diskussion) 3 mars 2014 kl. 06.51 (CET) Creates new complication and chase potential new contributers away
4. Averater (diskussion) 3 mars 2014 kl. 09.35 (CET) As already stated in previous comments and also because, as is shown in the comments of those favoring the amendment, it will be used against others by users with a different point of view when proper arguments run out no matter if the others are paid or not.
5. Rex Sueciæ (disk) 3 mars 2014 kl. 09.41 (CET) As above.
6. Lavallen (mail) 3 mars 2014 kl. 10.09 (CET) Återkom när vi loggar in med bank-id
7. ℇsquilo 3 mars 2014 kl. 11.34 (CET) a half-baked idea that will spread mistrust and misunderstanding in the Wikipedia community.
8. Paracel63 (diskussion) 4 mars 2014 kl. 00.56 (CET) A misguided idea that will be impractical, unenforceable and counterproductive. Breaks some of Wikipedia's core principles.
9. Janders (diskussion) 4 mars 2014 kl. 09.21 (CET) Bad idea. We shall focus on the quality and the published results, and not on how the contributors are working! The proposal focuses on one of the least serious of the many possible problems where Wikipedians can act in their own interest.
10. Sjö (diskussion) 4 mars 2014 kl. 09.49 (CET) This will spread mistrust and misunderstanding in the community, further discouraging new editors from continuing. At the same time, it will offer almost no protection against paid editing, because of the possibility of anonymous editing and the general difficulty of provding evidence of paid editing. This seems to me to be a solution to a problem that exists mainly on the large language versions, such as the English Wikipedia. Smaller language versions, such as the Swedish one, can mostly recognise individual editors with an agenda and handle them accordingly. I also agree with Janders post above.
11. Tostarpadius (diskussion) 4 mars 2014 kl. 10.11 (CET) SAA.
12. Adville (diskussion) 4 mars 2014 kl. 11.12 (CET) - As Diselmotorvagn writes in the comment field below.
13. FredrikT (diskussion) 4 mars 2014 kl. 12.23 (CET) (I agree with all the comments above. This is a BAD idea!)
14. LPfi (diskussion) 4 mars 2014 kl. 12.44 (CET) The amendment would not solve any problem, especially as it is enforceable only when somebody already admits paid contributions. The problem it tries to target can be handled as any other COI edits. The amendment would be a severe threat to anonymous accounts, especially if WMF or the community tries to enforce it (which would require breaking anonymity), but also just by fear about such action and by antagonists having more incentive to break the anonymity. The worst effect will be on professors and the like, who would (with the current wording) no more be allowed to write about their speciality anonymously.
15. Lixer (diskussion) 5 mars 2014 kl. 17.23 (CET) Som ovan / As above
16. Tomas e (diskussion) 7 mars 2014 kl. 18.27 (CET) Exaggerated and impracticable, agrees with Paracel63, Sjö, LPfi and others.
17. rrohdin (diskussion) 8 mars 2014 kl. 16.18 (CET) Impracticable
18. Taxelson (diskussion) 8 mars 2014 kl. 23.53 (CET) As above

Neutral

• NH 3 mars 2014 kl. 17.07 (CET) Kan varken rösta för eller emot. Jag har alltid tyckt att man ska undvika att redigera i artiklar där intressekonflikt kan uppstå. Och där ska tröskeln för vad som räknas som intressekonflikt vara mycket låg. Detta är en minoritetsåsikt, men jag håller mig ändå med den. Om vi hade en sådan riktlinje och menade allvar med den skulle frågan om betalda redigeringar vara ett ickeproblem.

That is to say, "Can not vote for or against. I have always thought that you should avoid editing the articles where conflict of interest may arise. And where should the threshold for what is considered a conflict of interest to be very low. This is a minority opinion, but I stick with it anyway. If we had such a guideline and was serious about it, the issue of paid edits be a non issue." At least that's what Google Translate thinks NH said. JimScott (talk) 14:56, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Comments

Längre kommentarer som stör röstningen kan presenteras i detta avsnitt.

Longer comments that disrupt the poll can be presented in this section.

---

I don't support the idea of people coming to Wikipedia having been paid simply to market their company, or dirty down another company. On the other hand, if a person has been paid to write a balanced and well written article about their company, their sports club, or anything else they're associated with – or even been paid by another company to do so – and does it, does succeed to create an article Wikipedia is happy to have, I see absolutely no reason to treat these users any differently to any other user. More troubling however, are the grey areas where employees of educational institutions, or archives, might be uploading images or working on articles 'on work time'; again, as long as these users contribute in the way neutral manner expected of all users, I see absolutely no reason, what so ever, to treat them any differently. To require these users to state details about their-self that they normally wouldn't is the same as to offend them, to spit in their faces and say 'we don't trust you, tell us what you're really up to'. No user should be treated this way, ever, let alone users who are giving us – the entire Wikimedia movement and every person who contributes to, and takes enjoyment of it – more than most other people ever will.

In no way does this proposal seem anything less than thoroughly thought through. At the same time it seems that doing the best for the Wikimedia Movement was not at the forefront of thought. The tools to attempt to dismiss any resistance have been cleverly hidden in the proposal. Unfortunately, the scant relic of anonymity which has been preserved in the proposal is nearly worthless. Requiring someone to state where they work, combined with the possibly small interest range they have (reflected in the small range of topics they edit in any serious matter), will easily lead work colleges, and imaginably even people further afield to the conclusion that Editor X is Person Y. With the threat of being 'outed' so easily, it would be entirely understandable if these persons refrained from editing Wikimedia projects in the future. This is an utterly disastrous outcome, as Wikimedia should, in my opinion, encourage editing from as many reliable sources as possible.

Alarmingly, the proposal's proposal page is heavily biased and lifts only the negatives that so called paid contributors bring without discussing the positives. Without discussing the how rich these people have made our media collection, Commons. Without discussing how much people like professors, who may or may not fall four of the proposal, have contributed, effectively 'in secret' to our articles. Indeed, the role these people have played for Wikimedia during its existence to date may never be known. Despite this, it seems certain people are ready to completely disregard these people and demand they state personal details they might not wish to share with the world. This is absurd; completely and utterly absurd.

Perhaps most alarming of all is the total lack of understanding around the proposal. Given the lack of information on the proposal, and that which exists being bias, it's not hard to understand why a lack of understanding has arisen. It seems unlikely that the proponents of the proposal have done any research to ascertain whether or not it will achieve what they're out after; and more alarmingly, what impact the proposal will have on all Wikimedia projects. With the prevailing lack of information, it is impossible to imagine how anybody can make an informed decision; let alone the Board of trustees.

It is disheartening to see that 'big wiki solutions', may be forced on all projects; regardless of size or even the problem existing. It is naive to believe 'paid editing' doesn't go on to some degree on most or all versions of Wikipedia; but it is handled in vastly different ways. The Swedish Language Wikipedia ranks in the top ten by number of articles, yet we keep on top of promotional edits through a team of dedicated and mostly unthanked users who, like hawks, patrol new edits and make sure that everything is as it should be. Other versions of Wikipedia, such as the German language version, require edits to be patrolled before they're accepted into the stable version of an article. That all projects could be forced to accept what largely feels like an English language solution to a problem they haven't got control over implies that they need new work methods, not the rest of us.

Indeed, it's hard to see how the proposal will even be effective. Certainly it may reduce, by an amount which given the lack of presented research is anybody's guess, promotional edits. The question, as alluded to in the previous sentence is, by how much? If it's a one percent reduction it certainly isn't worth alienating other user groups which could be affected by the proposal. If it's one hundred percent we still have to ask ourselves, is eliminating promotional editing really worth the damage it could do? Do we really want to scare people and institutions into not contributing, when they could share, with every one of us, immense resources? Anyone that thinks it's worth it seriously needs to think about why they're contributing to their respective Wikimedia project.

Given the general toothlessness of the proposal we seriously need to ask ourselves, why has it even got this far in this state? We risk losing potential contributors with rules that do little. On the proposal's page it's stated that a person need only their employer, affiliation and the client. If the employer is a PR-firm, the affiliation is employment only, and the client is another PR-firm, a letter box company, or a legal firm, what have we gained by disclosure? Nobody is any wiser as to who is actually paying for the edits, or what they're trying to achieve. Without this information how can anybody make a reasonable and sound judgement on whether the edit is worthfull or should be reverted immediately? Without the information it encourages people to jump to conclusions, you're being paid, you're now suspected of having an agenda to promote/discredit a company.

We must also ask ourselves, how will this proposal actually work? It relies on honesty, just as Wikimedia does currently. There are already laws in place in many jurisdictions which prevent activity of deceptive promotion; it is stupid to believe that a clause in the Terms of use requiring disclosure will lead to complete an utter honesty. What's left is what we have now. Accusations, right or wrong, of people having hidden agendas; with little we can do to prove (or disprove) them. What does Wikimedia Foundation intend to do to prevent people being wrongly accused (and defend them if they are)? Unfortunately, the general vagueness and lack of information around the proposal rears its ugly head again. It's quite simply not stated to which means Wikimedia Foundation will go to enforce this rule, and to defend those wrongly accused. I dread to think how much economic drain this would place on Wikimedia Foundation is they were to thoroughly investigate (and/or defend) all accused.

Put simply, the proposal as it stands now should never have gotten this far. There is a lack of information, and that which exists is skewed in favour of the proposal. Given that one of the pillars of Wikipedia, and all Wikimedia projects, is neutrality, this is alarming. The proposal in another form, with clearly defined rules and case examples, with information about its likely affects, and with assurances and extra information about the gigantic holes raised earlier, may get my support; as it stands I would be ashamed to support it. The people who currently support it need to take a long hard look at themselves and ask: 1) do I actually understand the implementations, or do I just like the sound of it? And 2) why am I supporting something that will drive away some of Wikimedia's most valuable contributors?

The proposal needs to be presented with more information, and with more refinement. Do it again, and do it right. Dieselmotorvagnar (till stationen) 3 mars 2014 kl. 05.55 (CET)

---

Comment about user signatures. Links in user signatures have been prefixed with sv: so that these point to the relevant page on Swedish Language Wikipedia as many of the users do not have pages on Meta. Dieselmotorvagnar (talk) 23:36, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing these detailed, organized, and helpful thoughts from the Bybrunnen discussion. –SJ talk  11:18, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree this is helpful, and appreciate the time and participation of everyone. We are thinking about an amendment with narrower scope in light of all the feedback in this extensive consultation. I don't think it will address all the above concerns, but it may mitigate some. We expect to be posting some of those alternative ideas in the next day or so. If you like or dislike them, I would be interested in hearing your views if your time permits. Take care, Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:02, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Comment

I feel much more comfortable when I know if an article in Wikipedia is sponsored or not sponsored. Everyone has bias but it becomes much more critical when the bias is supported by money because it seems to me that the intent may well be more to promote rather than inform. The problem of making bias visible will not be resolved by this amendment but it is a step in the right direction.

I absolutely agree that people must disclose their affiliations when they write into Wikipedia, and mention if they have received monies. I do agre that wiki will lose credibility if this does not take place. In other dictionaries/encyclopedia, there is a list of contributors with their credentials, why should Wiki be different? It does not mean we have to say who we are, but what we are. I also agree with a proposal made in French above: articles should be more open to ideas from differing, divergent and even opposite standpoints: a new contributor could add that they disagree with what contributor A wrote, and this should not mean that the first contribution gets deleted, as long as the argument is honest and based on facts, or that the subjective aspect is well presented.At present, this is only possible with stubs. Long live Wikipedia!

MUCH SUPPORT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Support

If someone is being payed money to edit Wikipedia, they should be required to disclose such, because it can help identify potential conflicts of interest. AnnerTown (talk) 03:49, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Ofc, this is common sense - until you've to hide something. Prokaryotes (talk) 20:57, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

My take - support change

Wikipedia has for long been a place where editors spam, push their POV, promote their business, it pays having your page or your links on Wikipedia! We constantly delete, revert and remove that type of obvious advertorial information. Until now, editors were not required to state that affiliation beforehand (though, quite some do!). In a way, it does not matter, if you continue to push your advertising/promotion/POV to Wikipedia, you will be reverted and in the end possibly blocked or even banned, whether you state your affiliation or not. However ..

.. there are several cases where editors were encouraged to state their affiliations, Wikipedia's GLAM is one of those initiatives, I've personally worked together with quite some of editors related to external databases. I feel that that works, editors come in, they convey their affiliations with a certain organisation, and work together with the community to improve Wikipedia on our terms. Of course, every now and then, there are also 'GLAM's (or similar) who fail to do so - in some cases, those have been met with reverts and even blocks, generally because it is unclear whether the editors are here to promote their organisation, or to help out Wikipedia (it is a grey area, but some are blatantly upfront about what their goal is: to be linked and to have their pages here!).

I've been active in spam-fighting on Wikipedia for a long, long time. If an editor comes in, states their affiliation, discusses or talks with others but edits a bit too promotional/POV, generally talking with them helps. No need for warnings, blocks, etc. Those who however come in and do not talk/discuss/state their affiliation and still edit too promotional/POV are generally met with early warnings, blocks and worse (however 'good' their affiliation is!).

Does this mean that everybody HAS TO state their affiliation: no, if you don't want to, you still don't HAVE TO - not stating your affiliations is not a blockable offense. Advertising your business or pushing your (paid) POV (against consensus) is what is the blockable offense.

I do believe that that type of transparency pays off, doing it behind the scenes is more prone to get stern warnings (or worse) than being upfront and responsive to concerns. I support the proposal to make this clear in the Terms of use, and I believe that it actually helps with your Wikipedia experience. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} (en: U, T) 09:26, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Strong support but suggested change

As others have noted, having the affiliation info on the actual Wiki page (not the users page) would enhance transparency tremendously...173.61.197.234 20:11, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Idenficação pela própria Wikipédia dos produtores dos artigos pagos

Uso a Wikipédia eventualmente e percebo a sua importância para a cultura, tendo ela substituído as enciclopédias tradicionais. Assim, parece-me uma conduta criminosa substituir a informação verdadeira por uma informação oficial, de um governo, uma empresa, etc. Todos tem direito de contar a sua versão de cada fato, mas considero que, se os artigos devem ser pagos, porque não colocamos pop-ups com publicidademais explícita na Wikipédia? Assim, o dinheiro iria para os cofres da Wikipédia, e ela poderia desenvolver mais e mais projetos em prol da cultura. Acho que, com este dinheiro, a Wikipédia poderia passar a identificar os fraudadores da informação, envolvidos com o interesse dos seus contratantes ou patrões.--179.232.82.99 22:13, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for expressing your concern about paid content on Wikipedia. To be clear, this amendment does not endorse paid advocacy editing. You can read more here. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 17:51, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Idenfication by Wikipedia itself the fraudsters paid producers of articles

I use Wikipedia occasionally and realize its importance to culture, and she replaced the traditional encyclopedias. Thus, it seems like criminal conduct to replace real information with official information, from a government, a company, etc. Everyone has the right to tell his side of every fact, but I believe that if the articles are to be paid, why not put pop-ups with more explicit advertisements in Wikipedia? Thus, the money would go into the coffers of Wikipedia, and she could develop more and more projects on culture. I think that with this money, Wikipedia could pass the information to identify the fraudsters involved with the interests of their employers or contractors -. ~ ~ ~ ~ === Mi name's Joel, Brazil, and I d'ont know speak Inglish language. I use Wikipedia eventually and realize their importance to the culture, that it replaced the traditional encyclopedias. Thus, it seems criminal conduct replace accurate information by official information, a government, a company, etc.. Everyone has the right to tell his side of every fact, but I believe that if the items are to be paid, why not put pop-ups with explicit publicidademais in Wikipedia? So, the money would go into the coffers of Wikipedia, and she could develop more and more projects on culture. I think that with this money, Wikipedia could begin the information to identify the fraudsters. All are involved with the interests of their employers or contractors -. ~ ~ ~ ~

Thanks. To be clear this amendment does not endorse paid advocacy editing. Please go here for more information. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 17:48, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

A noble idea, but aside from the fact that it is unenforceable I have two major qualms with it: firstly that the average user will never check editors' pages for COIs, and more significantly that the beauty of Wikipedia is the sheer volume of contributors; I realise that obviously biased contributors will produce obviously biased contributions but I believe that a measure such as this, which could be construed as an attempted restriction on editing, is a thoroughly misguided policy direction (also I literally slipped on a slope yesterday and it kind of hurt). 81.96.200.247 22:49, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I definitely hear your point. In a effort that at least partially addresses some of your concerns and those of some others, we may want to consider a more narrow version of the amendment. I have already proposed more restricted language above, and I believe we will post some other ideas shortly. Geoffbrigham (talk) 17:43, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

i opppose because i didnt put jibbersish i am onnastasia myself

Indirect association

If I, as a retiree receiving retirement pay, make a contribution to an article or subject that I have some professional expertise in by virtue of my previous employment. Is that considered an "association" that should be stated?68.62.230.126 02:29, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I think you mean "affiliation." The answer is no. One needs to be directly paid for the edit. Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 17:38, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Comment

Note: this comment was received by email, and permission was granted to post it here. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:24, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
I fully support any terms that promote or increase transparency including any relationship whatsoever to the article. Not just for paid work but for ANY relationship. E.g., if the editor of an article is the spouse of someone that works for a company referenced in the article (if this is allowed by Wikipedia), I would want to know that.

The current amendment lists three places where someone could note the disclosure information. If this means the reader would need to check three places to find potential disclosures, then I would vote against that option. Disclosures should be obvious and easily accessible to the reader. I suspect most readers don't go looking for disclosures. They should serve as a flag to readers (indicating there are disclosures) and not be something a reader would have to search for. Someone on the talk page echoed this sentiment and mentioned a pop-up. That might work, but it also might annoy readers. Another option would be a DISCLOSURE button or tab, or a disclosure section at the end of the article.

Thanks for the comment. It is a tough balance. Asking people to always make a disclosure in an edit summary box can become quite cumbersome for some editors; that is why we provide options like the user page. The disclosure is primarily to help our community members to evaluate whether the edit reflects a neutral point of view. Although many paid edits do, many do not. It is less a tool for readers, as I see it, but I understand if people disagree with that. Thanks again for taking the time to read and give us your views. Geoffbrigham (talk) 17:35, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia Technology Support Ideas

Tag the edit and page: not just the user page

I feel the guideline has far too many uses of the word 'or'. When looking at a page or an edit, I'm unlikely to dig deep enough to discover where the paid editing was disclosed:

  a statement on your user page,
  a statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or
  a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions.

I feel that when submitting an edit a box should pop up with a disclosure form. One might reference a pre-canned disclosure (e.g. "I work in Social Media at DoNoEvilCorp"), and that would be fine. But one should face the question of the relationship to the edit at each submit. This would also be a great place to say more about your authority to edit even if there is no conflict (e.g. "I worked for ten years as an auto mechanic at a Volkswagen shop"). Nothing here says your right to remain unattributed is affected: just that some background helps put your edit in context. [Disclosure: I do not expect to be paid for this contribution. I have contributed on and off to Wikipedia for ten or more years as a hobby.] Brycen (talk) 05:13, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello Brycen, thanks for the suggestion. Adding a new a new disclosure form or checkbox may be possible, but it is also a more complicated commitment and would take some time to develop. There was some email discussion about a similar idea on Wikimedia-l.

Steven Walling provided an engineering perspective:

[With my WMF product manager hat on...]

This a big request with many moving parts. We should probably try to separate them out and simplify where we can. I'd recommend filing bugs for structured information about groups, profiles, the ability to join/leave groups, activity feeds per group, and more. This is something that is of general interest, and is not specific to COI-related issues at all.

Gryllida's comment was a bit abrasive but is a correct understanding of the challenge here I think, in terms of creating richer kinds of information about types of edits/editors without making a user do unnecessary extra work. Imagine if there is essentially as many group types as there are categories, for instance. It probably makes more sense to have collections of pages associated with a group, so that we can generate a feed of group activity not by making the user select a group when saving, but automatically. So for example: I'm in "Group:Beer" and I edit the article on "Pilsner", so my edits show in a feed of edits by Group:Beer members to articles in that subject.

In the long run, we should start creating structured information about topical groups, and let people access it both through a group page as well as some kind of editor profile. However, it's not going to happen in the next calendar year, so I'm not sure it's a good interim solution to the problem of how to make COI disclosures easier. AbuseFilter also is honestly probably not the right solution, even if self-tagging existed.

In my view, this means that it would be better to add this type of feature to the roadmap for a structured user profile that enabled users to track their affiliation, instead of a making an ad hoc feature focused on paid edits. But it also means that we are unlikely to be able to get this type feature within the next year or possibly longer. Would you be comfortable with requiring disclosure through the edit summary or talk page, until we can develop better features for users to identify their affiliations? Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:12, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Response: all that's a quite heavy solution to the problem. Much easier, and on track to the problem, is a single additional text field that goes with each edit record. It might be blank in most cases, but it would be available for a person to disclose a potential conflict of interest on a given edit in addition to the required disclosure in the user page/talk page. Thus each edit would have an edit summary plus a conflict disclosure statement. I'd also say the paid editing notice should be disclosed on the edit, the talk page AND the user profile. Not OR but rather AND. The version on the talk page could be removed after the paid editing gig is finished, but the others would remain. Brycen (talk) 00:32, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Additional Response: I would also prefer to not have to dig into someone's user page to find out if they are a paid contributor. To granularize the paid contributor category in this matter would mean that anything that the user contributes would be under the guise of a 'paid contributor,' regardless of creating other personal edits that were not paid, as well as confusing the possibility that someone could be paid to make two different edits by two different employers. It is also too much hassle to keep looking at people's pages to find their status and thus to determine the credibility of the edit / information. In the end, I believe it muddies the ability to easily track the credibility of the information. Wandering Artist (talk) 06:34, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I hope that I am posting appropriately! I spent quite a bit of time and reading trying to find out where I should post my support and comments. I strongly support the admendment to require disclosure. This will always be a difficult area to deal with but the requirement to reveal a potential conflict of interest such as is proposed in amendment 1 along with the already strong effort to ensure unbiased and deceptive editing will, I believe, improve the ablitlity of the foundation to prevent "hijacking" of this valuable resource. I have not edited an article for quite a few years now (shame on me) but have instead been very impressed with the obvious effort to remain objective about very contriversial subjects. To me it seems pretty obvious when an article is essentially written by a person or persons with an organization affiliation and it appears, to me at least, that efforts are made to be clear that the article might not be fully objective. I feel that the collegial nature of the wiki foundation will benefit from this new requirement.

I feel that all of us with a strong background and many years of experience in a particular field but with a real love for truth and knowledge will not be harmed by having to reveal an financial connection related to our posts. I personally have never had anyone, much less a employer or even fellow employee make any suggestions about edits or postings that I have made regarding nuclear power. However, I don't feel that it is unreasonable to expect me to indicate that I have made my living in that field. Please continue the outstanding work that you do to make wikifoundation a premier information source! 184.155.220.237 17:17, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I find myself in strong agreement with Brycen! I also like the suggestion that once an affiliation/potential conflict is entered into the users page that it would automatically be part of any post. That should be editable however since the posting could be totally unrealated to the affiliation/potential conflict. 184.155.220.237 17:24, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

What Exactly Constitutes Paid : It's Tricky

slippery

The definition of paid is a bit slippery in the proposal. If I'm paid by a company the difference between 'paid to edit wikipedia' and 'paid, but editnig wikipedia helps my job prospects' is pretty thin. I'd like to know if an employee or contractor to XYZ corporation made an edit: in some case it enhances the credibility of the contribution, in others it's a flag to check the details NPV and references even more closely. Brycen (talk) 06:09, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

A clear case?: UC Berkeley to hire 'Wikipedian-in-Residence'

See http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/uc-berkeley-hires-wikipedian-residence-22953509 Here the University will hire a professional Wikipedian Kevin Gorman to help individual researchers edit wikipedia. So exactly how are the professors's edits counted: are they paid contributions because a paid Wikipedian helped them? For this reason I favor a broader requirement of disclosure: any conflict and the chain that lead to it should be disclosed. Brycen (talk) 19:15, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Other Comments

links

If writing a blog and I want to link to a Wikipedia page (for reference) without changing a single word or character on that page, is this acceptable? Intranaut (talk) 19:01, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Can you please reword the question, its very hard to understand what your saying. Jacksalssome (talk) 08:44, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Support Full Disclosure

I agree with the idea that if someone is paid to post on Wikipedia they should disclose that fact and who is paying them. I also agree that there are too many "or's" (options) for the disclosure as it's currently stated. If a post or edit is paid, it should be disclosed up-front. "PAID EDIT: (edit text follows)" with a link on PAID EDIT to who paid for it.

That said, the official organizations, individuals or people representing the individual should be able to edit & post without disclosure because we assume the data is from the source.

When the data is NOT from the source, the source should be named even if that source is "self". In truth, the source of the data we're reading should always be named regardless, but especially if it's a paid or opposing viewpoint/organization/individual.

The only problem I see is that a corrupt propagandist could get around this by being paid for something else and doing the post for "free". Example: XYZ oil company has a publicist they keep on retainer for social media marketing. It "doesn't include wikipedia" but the publicist "throws it in as a freebie". They could argue semantics & say they're not being "paid to post on wikipedia". "Paid to post on wikipedia" is too narrow to avoid possible biased posting & edits without disclosure. We should know who's posting and if they were compensated in any way.

So the disclosure rules need to say something regarding if the poster receives or has ever received any compensation of any kind from a related or opposing entity or cause, etc. It should require them to say who pays them in general. Clubware (talk) 22:28, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

How do people feel about Wikipedia content being sold commercially?

Some of the basic responses to paid editing include the feeling that commercial entities are somehow "soiling the purity" of volunteer contributed Wikipedia content. This is a rather vague and subjective statement, and I don't think it is a valid argument against paid editing. Let's ask ourselves, why is Wikipedia released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license instead of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license? After all, even if a commercial entity decided to sell content they grabbed from Wikipedia, so long as they credit Wikipedia they're allowed to make a profit off our work; and if they don't credit us, they would be already running some legal risks. Just imagine the hard volunteer work being contributed to Wikipedia sold as commercial profit by some other entity. I know that doesn't seem to ethically sit right with many, but ask yourselves why contribute to a site that does not choose a noncommercial license?

This is not an argument for paid editing, per se, but it's meant to address many of the misconceptions the !voters have brought up as a reason against paid editing, that commercial entities are somehow "soiling the purity of volunteer-driven Wikipedia contributions". For the very reason that commercial entities are able to reuse our content (and presently also contribute to it), that the appeal to vague emotion such as "purity" and self-centered righteousness ought to be dismissed, or else Wikipedia should change its license entirely. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 08:06, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Transparency good. Undisclosed financial interest bad.

I've reduced this to the most simplistic issues as I see them. Any paid or otherwise compensated provider of information is biased. There may be exceptions but I cannot provide any examples of such. Undisclosed financial interests have ruined most commercial media.Neovivo (talk) 09:41, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

A couple of exceptions have already popped up on this page alone as a counterargument for this change requiring paid editors to disclose. See the statement above by Michaeldsuarez for one. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 11:58, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

One example of this wide-spread problem affecting Wikipedia's credibility is the topic of extreme sports. Participants in extreme sports can suffer monetary losses in disposing of used equipment when knowledge replaces hype and potential customers shy away. Also, many extreme sports enthusiasts commercially train others in their disciplines, sell equipment and compete under sponsorship for prizes and income. I was once interested in using my actuarial knowledge to make Wikipedia better. I provided just one year of fatality data (over 100 deaths) with the requested citations on "Paragliding/Safety." These were almost immediately removed by posters from ParaglidingForum.com posing as unbiased Wikipedia editors. The citations remained on the Paragliding/Talk pages for over a year but I see now that they have been removed. I tried for a while to keep the information up but there seemed to be no recourse in the face of such censorship. While Wikipedia remains a fantastic source for non-controversial information, anything controversial should well be disregarded until this problem is dealt with.Nopara (talk) 20:11, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Support

Support in the interest of transparency. There seem to be more than one issue here; "personal interest" AND "receiving consideration" and they are not always in synch and the discussions here are often unable to be clear on which is being targeted, this lack of clarity makes the wording a challenge. I think there can never be a test in a court of law so trying to find complicated legal language with no loopholes is wasteful, I favour a wording that conveys only the spirit of the pHALTS MAULroposal and has very easy to comply guidelines. Remedy when lapses are discovered could be flexible and perhaps include a simple locked edit on the transgressors user page for example. Most people don't care unless there is a controversy and then disclosures can be applied if missing and edits can be made on that basis if blatant non-POV is discovered. Idyllic press (talk) 19:46, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Disclosure of 'potential conflict of interest' is a nice blanket term 'such as paid editing'. For example

I'd like to know if contributions are made by someone employed in the nuclear power industry, even if they are not paid for it. Brycen (talk) 18:26, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Discussion for Optional Changes

We have posted two options of potential changes in the main page of the amendment. We appreciate your comments and feedback on these options, considering they are not mutually exclusive - both of them, either, or neither could be adopted by the Board (depending on whether they adopt the amendment as a whole). Please leave your feedback in the respective subsection for each option (if you are commenting on one in specific), or use the "General discussion" subsection if commenting on both of them. --JVargas (WMF) (talk) 22:34, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

General discussion on both options

Please use this section if you want to support, oppose, or overall give comments on both options.We think that either or both of the two options could better focus the amendment on paid advocacy editing, which is a chief concern. However, we also realize they could raise other considerations. Your feedback on these options will help the Board as it considers what language to adopt.

I very strongly support a measure to alert readers to any content that may have been provided for financial compensation. I feel that the proposed terms of use/paid contributions amendment is appropriate as it stands. The option 1 limits the the disclosure obligation too much. A great deal of harm can be done to free and objective discourse by paid obfuscation of general knowledge in the service of corporate interests. I understand the rationale behind option 2, which requires disclosure of special interest without naming the specific affiliation - it is intended to protect people whose affiliations may be to repressed or oppressed groups such that disclosure could result in their being incarcerated or killed. However, since most people working for such groups are not financially compensated, I don't feel that this is as much of a risk as some would represent. I think the key here is to specifically alert readers when content has been inserted at the behest of and on the payroll of moneyed interests. The content can be included, but let the readers know its source so that we can form our own opinion of its reliability. To this end I believe that the source of the money that pays for the insertion must be published on the same page as the content appears. If readers have to comb through editors' profiles that will delay and deter access to this very important information. I hope that the final language of the amendment will require that the entity paying for the content insertion be published as a disclaimer on the page where the content appears, and may at the editor's discretion also appear on their profile or other relevant identifying pages.

In addition to supporting all of the proposals in the preceding paragraph, I'd like to suggest that a section be added at the end of every content page that identifies relevant associations of the editors of that content. This would include the required disclosures enumerated above, as well as disclosures of non-compensated associations. I see no problem with preserving the anonymity of editors themselves (in both compensated and non-compensated contributions). The power of the wiki structure is that it represents a collective consensus of our understanding of the world. History is full of examples of the limitations of that consensus, in the realm of science, in the oppression of minorities, and especially in the perpetuation of self-destructive cultural myth making. Documenting the associations behind this consensus may be as illuminating as the contents themselves.

• The new optional changes still misses some key points:
  • Does not address the manner in which community members should challenge individuals they suspect of being paid editors.
  • If you're not going to use the term "paid advocacy editor" in the amendment itself, and define it in the amendment, then the amendment applies to any form of financial payment; this remains a major concern and does include anyone working for a GLAM or as a paid Wikipedian in residence.
    • Wikipedians in residence often edit in a way that could easily be seen as promotional for the institution at which they are resident. The fact that the WMF and the institution share at least some common goals does not negate the fact that most institutions also have a financial or reputational reason for ensuring that they have close ties to the highly-ranked WMF projects.
  • Removing the phrase that clearly states it applies to all Wikimedia projects implies that the amendment does not apply to all projects.
  • There is often a bigger conflict of interest in a student trying to get higher grades (and a greater risk of harm to the project, based on what we have already seen in various educational programs) than there is when an article subject trying to fix an error in their article.

• Unfortunately, it also does not allay my concerns that the WMF is laying the burden of policing this amendment on the laps of front-line editors and administrators without sufficient support to make it anywhere near consistently enforceable across the projects; without ensuring that article subjects are provided with adequate, viable, consistently available channels to express concerns about article contents; and making all editors susceptible to on- and off-wiki sleuthing and harassment when another editor chooses to make a "paid editor" accusation at them. Risker (talk) 23:03, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello Risker, thanks for continuing to review and post feedback -- this is a good list of issues for consideration. Do you think that there is anything further we can do via an FAQ or other explanation to alleviate the concern about over-aggressive sleuthing for suspected undisclosed paid editors? I am trying to figure out if this issue is necessarily tied to a paid edit disclosure requirement. Thanks again, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 00:06, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Slaporte (WMF), it's tied to the requirement to disclose, because a *failure* to disclose will then become a bannable offense. When it's not in the TOU, editors are judged on their edits and can just roll their eyes at such accusations if there's no problem with the edits. When it's in the TOU, the content of the edits is completely irrelevant; it's all about the (alleged) money. There's no defense against such an accusation; one can't prove a negative. And the proof of the allegation (because it's about the money, not the content) comes from sleuthing, usually external to Wikipedia, for "evidence" that the person is taking money for their edits. There is a very significant first-mover advantage for POV warriors to make such accusations against editors who do not share the same POV - even if the editor is bringing an article to neutrality.

I'm a bit concerned that, a month or more down the road since you started working on this, you've not realised that this amendment is about power, and not about content and not about neutrality and not about behaviour, and not really about money, either, given the number of loopholes that you folks keep trying to create to protect groups that have financial benefits but are "friends" of the WMF. The issue I have with it is that it's putting power in the hands of people who have historically been amongst the biggest problem users on WMF projects, the POV-pushers, and takes it away from the editors who try to resolve those issues. The latter group are going to be extremely vulnerable to accusations of paid editing. Risker (talk) 00:54, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Risker - I guess another approach - which I think many would find a bit "watered-down" - would be to prohibit deception and paid editing as well as unlawful conduct. Something like this:

"You may not make a contribution in exchange for compensation and engage in sock-puppetry or meat-puppetry. Applicable law, or community and Foundation policies and guidelines, such as those addressing conflicts of interest or unfair business practices, may further limit or prohibit paid edits to a Wikimedia Project or require disclosure of affiliation and payment. For more information, please read our background note on disclosure of paid contributions."

The language would need to be better defined and word-smithed, but you get the idea. I'm not convinced this is the right approach, but would you support a provision like that? Thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:26, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Geoffbrigham, if I was to boil that down to very plain language, would this mean roughly "No socking if you're getting paid for your edits. Projects may make additional policies and/or guidelines."? If that's the gist of your proposal, I could entirely live with that. Risker (talk) 16:44, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Another possible approach - comments welcome:

Yep. That is basically it, Risker. The problem is how to define sock-puppetry and meat-puppetry. I've been playing with some words, but it ain't easy. It might roughly look like this:

"If you are accepting compensation in exchange for making contributions to Wikimedia projects, you may not engage in sock-puppetry; specifically, you may not create new accounts to avoid detection; use another person's account; use multiple accounts and present them as different users; or employ other people to use accounts to appear as unaffiliated contributors. Applicable law, or community and Foundation policies and guidelines, such as those addressing conflicts of interest or unfair business practices, may further limit or prohibit paid edits to a Wikimedia Project or require disclosure of affiliation and payment. For more information, please read our background note on disclosure of paid contributions."

I would want to see support for this in the community before going much further, but I'm willing to explore it if there is support. Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:18, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

TeleComNasSprVen, I would be interested in your views of the above version (which makes a link to sock puppetry without actively requiring disclosure). Of course, everyone is invited to comment. Thanks, Geoffbrigham (talk) 11:43, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello Geoff, and apologies for not responding earlier. I had briefly considered the language of this revision, and my initial impressions were that I would probably support such measures, including both option 1 and option 2. Option 1 restricts the requirement solely to commercial and/or financial interests that receive benefits, since we do not want to adversely affect noncommercial interests too much, such as GLAM and organizations that would pay for a balanced, neutral article about themselves. Option 2 has my backing because it reduces the effects of outing and harassment, the two major concerns against this proposal going forward. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 19:27, 15 March 2014 (UTC)`

Thanks TeleComNasSprVen - In the end, the Board will make the decision based on its experience and this consultation. I know they appreciate your stress testing our ideas here. Geoffbrigham (talk) 19:59, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the ban on sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry, I feel that is just as well a good revision to consider. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 19:29, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Geoff, I oppose that as watered down as it does not make a bannable offense of what (I've argued) the FTC has already barred; there's no reason to say we don't have a problem with paid advocacy editing if it's done without sock puppets, that is, by exploiting a loophole.--Elvey (talk) 19:08, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

• • • • I agree with the strong support for a broadly defined disclosure clause for ALL compensated work. My issue is that this is an ETHICS clause in the Terms of Use, and may be unenforceable except in the most egregious cases. I trust the editors to find a reasonable solution, but it should not be limited to specific entries, and ultimately we must rely upon the collective intelligence of the Wiki-community to identify and correct any unattributed editing. I would want to know that President Bush edited his own page, even if he were not compensated financially, he benefits from the legacy, the beauty of this media is that we only edit that which we care about, and no entity can pay everyone enough to hide the truth.

• I (Dyveldi) support the original text. Possibly with the exeption for the change: «Change the words "To ensure compliance with" to "As part of these"», since this does not seem to change the content of the sentence.
• The words or the content should not be changed after the users have voted. Issues concerning how to understand the words in ambiguous situations should be resolved in a FAQ section. Interpretation issues will arise whether the words are changed or not and I find the original words best suited. Ambiguous issues will always arise no matter how much time is spent trying to find the right ones. I do not find the new suggestion better or clearer than the original.
• I agree that enforcement will be a challenge, but that is always the case with rules. The frontline will have to read both the words and the FAQ carefully. The risk of discovery that the rules are violated is low, but this is the case with at lot of rules. Most people are honest and do their best to comply with the rules of the society they are a member of, this is also the case with the users of the Wikimedia-projects. One of the rules are "good faith". We are obliged to assume that editors are acting in good faith. Implementing this rule will not suspend the requirement to be polite. This rule is however a useful tool for the frontline to ask polite questions of users if they are aware of the pait edit rule and if they have something to disclose.
• I am aware of the fact that being obliged to disclose information about compensation in some cases will include the possible consequense that the identity of the editor is revealed or can be guessed. In my opinion the choice is clear, if you wish to edit anonymously you stay away from edits that can reveal your identity, paid or not.
• This will not solve issues concerning conflict of interest, non-neutral editing or opinionated editing, but it will be an ethical standard. Most users will comply, the ones that do not will still be a problem, but they are a problem without rules as well.--Dyveldi (talk) 14:41, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Agree with all Dyveldi's points! --Elvey (talk) 19:05, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Support both options, they alleviate my concerns with the original text (that it would have discouraged GLAM, contests and other good volunteer work for which there is some form of renumeration), and the amended text is still strong enough to prevent large-scale deceptive paid editing, which is the only realistical goal for a terms of use anyway. --Tgr (talk) 05:44, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Support the original text and
Oppose both amendments. I see gaping loopholes within the amendment language that are surely not intentional. For example, if I edit the BP article and BP pays my way to conferences in the swiss alps (ski pass included) where BP is discussed, and/or provides a company car as compensation for my wikipedia edits, is that obviously compensation? Yes. Is that obviously financial compensation, per the proposed amendments? Well…, Steven? Should it be allowed? Of course not. I believe LCA, when crafting language, needs to put themselves in the mindset of someone looking to find a loophole that allows them to perform some kind of PAE without violating the letter of the policy. I think LCA hasn't done that enough. I think the board needs to do that as well. The amended text is NOT strong enough to prevent large-scale deceptive paid editing. Could better language be strong enough and calm GLAM? I think LCA could try again. --Elvey (talk) 19:05, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

(Similar, more minor point: I also see issue with the commentary, "The intent is to try to exclude potential application to professors…". Surely it would be more appropriate to say, "The intent is to try to limit potential application to professors…" because a professor should not have carte blanche! --Elvey (talk) 19:05, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello and thanks for the invitation to comment under the common Swedish Language Wikipedia contribution. Obviously these are only my personal views and don't represent the whole of Swedish Language Wikipedia, but I think the proposed amendments are a small step in the right direction. This should of course not be interpreted as my support for the proposal as a whole (I am still against then proposal). Problems such as scaring away potential contributors, and 'outings' (either rightly, wrongly, or as a threat), along with a lack of clarity and a sincere concern about the drain prosecuting and defending affected users could take on WMF's finances remain. Addressing each amendment in detail:

Option 1: Do not support. All moves to exclude persons such as professors and teachers (though these are far from the only people that could be unintentionally affected) from the proposal are welcomed. It is however hard to see how this would apply to those persons except in a narrow range of articles. If a professor writes about a project, an organisation or another professor at their university, they would still be affected. Indeed, what if they write about a piece of equipment that was critical in their latest study? This would surely be classed as a commercial product, and once again professors and teachers, amongst others, would fall foul of the proposal. It's hard to see how Option 1 betters the proposal in any significant way; and this is the reason to my lack of support.

Option 2: Support. Wikimedia Projects should never require users declare information which could be used to identify them. This should always be one of Wikimedia's ground pillars.

Common change in Option 1 and 2: Do not support. Whilst moves to alleviate concerns about which sorts of compensation require a declaration are welcomed, the new wording opens a whole new can of worms which could cause WMF more headaches than it realises (if the proposal was to be accepted). What constitutes financial compensation may be open to challenge, for example if an employee's car ceases to function and the employer gives them a new car instead of a bonus to the same value of a car, what's the difference? And if this bonus is for paid contributions to Wikimedia Projects, it could possibly be an effective way of getting around the proposal.

Unfortunately people who might receive some financial compensation from a sports club (or similar) that they're in, but who have not specifically been paid to edit Wikipedia (or any other project), still find themselves in an uncertain position even after the proposed changes. It is my firm belief that these people, as long as they're writing neutral and well sourced articles, should never be treated any differently to another other contributor. Witch hunts for people who make good contributions but may have been compensated in some way do nothing to promote Wikimedia as a friendly and welcoming environment.

In addition to the above mentioned situations, external entities which have been contracted by a Wikimedia Project to make edits (for example experiments regarding article readability) would be required to declare this. This is somewhat absurd when such projects often occur outside the main article area (Swedish: ”huvudnamnrymden”) and in controlled circumstances.

Changing compensation to financial compensation does little to alleviate concerns and make absolutely certain which persons are affected, and therefore support cannot be given.

Option 3: Mild support. If the proposed amendment would be accepted by Board of trustees, it should never be forced upon projects which don't want to have it. In the common submission from Swedish Language Wikipedia it was clearly demonstrated that there isn't unilateral support for the proposal. Forcing it on projects that don't want to have it may even lead to subversion tactics, and this would be less than optimal for any project. Full support cannot however be given as the proposal, if adopted, should be 'opt in', not 'opt out'. As the proposal appears to have been drafted in response to a problem relevant to only a small number of projects, a still better option would be for Board of trustees to give permission for disclosure requirements to be included in terms of use, and let each project decide if it wishes to A) require paid edit disclosures, and B) use the formulation as it exists in the proposal or write its own version. Dieselmotorvagnar (talk) 22:13, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Not so small additional changes

I oppose changing the term "compensation" for "financial compensation". There are many types of compensations that are as much concern as money. If educational projects are at risk, and free lunches and other small benefits are to be excluded, then the term should be "significant economic or social compensation".106.68.110.3 03:00, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Option No. 1: Adds "about an organization, living person, or commercial product" to describe the contributions.

Modify clause 1 to Academic Freedom with unbiased Responsibility as far as possible.

Please use this section to support, oppose, or overall give comments on Option No. 1. This option narrows what kinds of contributions these requirements would apply to. This focuses on topics that are potential subjects of advertisement and promotion, and excludes other topics of general interest. The intent is to try to exclude potential application to professors, teachers, and Wikipedians in Residence, and other individuals editing on topics of less commercial interest.

Modify I'm frustrated that there are two differences between option 1 & 2. Option 1 limits disclosure to those "about an organization, living person, or commercial product", but also require disclosure of the party that compensated you. I'm opposed to the former but in favour of the latter. So, I Oppose "about an organization, living person, or commercial product" and I Support "you must disclose the party that compensated you"

Oppose: This proposed softening of the current requirement narrows it too much, making it less likely that users will trust Wikipedia entries.

Oppose: The wording "commercial product" singles out one class of organization. Non-profit organizations whose avowed mission is the advocacy of a POV have a product: their POV. They sell it to their donors and they make millions of dollars pushing their POV. Why are employees and governors of these types of organizations excluded from disclosure if they are editing articles related to the mission of their organization. Using the word "commercial" just reinforces the already vicious community bias against commercial enterprise. The wording would be much more useful if it read: ...""about an organization, living person, or the products, services or mission of the organization commercial product" --Mike Cline (talk) 01:06, 13 March 2014 (UTC) Exactly, global warming is likely to have paid bias and would not fall under this categories, i support option 2 or a mixture of both.

• I agree. Global warming, religious articles, etc. I oppose both options and want to keep the current wording. Professors won't be hurt by the requirement of stating on their page that they are being paid. 62.61.46.162 20:50, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Modify: I agree with Mike. Often the quality of an article is judged on references, but it's still very easy for people to only use POV references or to even use references from their own organisation. The scientific approach works best on scientific articles, so perhaps instead of naming which articles need disclosure the articles that don't require disclosure should be named. If the compensation is from an internationally recognised higher learning institution on a topic taught all around the world then as long as the article makes no mention of the organisation or it's financial interests there shouldn't be an issue. If paid edits don't put "the products, services or mission of [a specific human] organization" (other than the mission of wanting open access to complete and verifiable global knowledge) above those of others then there would be little to criticise. Saying this, though, if they are employed by a University it would be easy to say so on their user profile - problem solved. On the other hand, if a PR employee improves the Wikipedia article about their company in any way they are technically being financially compensated for their efforts, but if those edits are purely factual without removing negatives or adding marketing dross then there shouldn't be any need to acknowledge it as paid. If an employee is hired to do those edits though, they should definitely disclose. Uno b4 (talk) 02:04, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Modify: It needs to be clear what is meant by "commercial product". Our concern is surely whether the "product" is associated in any way with the activities of the employers of the editor. Otherwise, strongly in favour.Aliquis (talk) 12:17, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Oppose: Option 1 excludes several kinds of topics which have been "subjects of advertisement and promotion" rather extensively. One example is tourism in some city or region. The place isn't a commercial product or an organization, but Tourism Boards routinely fund ad campaigns. Another example is a political issue or government policy. US health care policy, for example, has been the subject of many millions of US dollars in advertising in recent years, and while there are organizations, living persons, and commercial products associated with the subject, the subject itself is excluded by Option 1. 207.55.103.150 06:20, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

• It seems to me that, although this option describes the most typical instances in which problems would occur, it does not help us to limit it in this way. It is possible for an edit motivated by pay to mislead the community, even if it is not related to an organization, person, or product. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:48, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - not out of principal, but as a practical issue, this might be best handled at the project level. I think there will always be PR folks or similar coming around saying "but this is not really a paid editor situation" and these can be handled with reason by the projects, but the projects should have the leverage that enables them to say "NO". At the same time, I think many of the "borderline exception conundrums" have been manufactured by opponents of the whole concept of watching paid editors, trying to derail the whole amendment. These conundrums will likely disappear once the amendment is put into place. Smallbones (talk) 21:11, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
• Comment. I feel that this wording is very vague. Is an article about a railway line about an organization, because the railway line's operator is an organization? Is en:milk an article about a commercial product, because milk is often a commercial product? Is a country's legislative body an organization, and if not, does it still fall within the scope of the proposed wording because it consists of living persons? Is an article about a country covered, or only the parts about its politics, because it's kind of an organization, broadly construed? I think a paid editor will know insufficiently well from this wording what exactly is covered and what isn't. I don't know if there is a better wording. I'm generally supportive of making this amendment weaker, because I oppose it in the first place, but this isn't an improvement as far as clarity is concerned. darkweasel94 (talk) 23:00, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose As noted above, the wording is in practice too vague and doesn't correspond to either the real world or the way Wikipedia articles are organized. "Roundup" is a commercial product – a trade name of Monsanto. "Glyphosate" is a short form of the name of the compound N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine. It is the main ingredient of Roundup. The English Wikipedia has one article: en:Roundup (herbicide) is a redirect to en:Glyphosate. So what is the position of someone paid to write about the chemistry and uses of the compound glyphosate in a way which will indirectly promote the commercial product Roundup? As also noted above, en:Global warming is neither an organization, a living person, nor a commercial product, so it would be ok for someone to be paid by an oil company to edit this article. An editor couldn't be paid to write about the en:Roman Catholic Church, because it's an organization, but could be paid by that church (or any other) to write about en:Catholicism. The wording just doesn't work. Peter coxhead (talk) 02:47, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose On the basis of my recent rather intensive experience with promotional articles, a focus upon commerce and living people and organizations does not cover the field adequately. there have been quite a number of promotional edits on causes of various sorts, on non-commercial works of art, on decease persons--presumably relatives-- and almost anything conceivable. Probably a good number of them have been paid. Mike Cline's statement above seems the best explanation of the situation. I am not concerned about problems with project-related people. I'm a WIR myself, and I disclose it and use an obvious username (even though I'm not being financially compensated; I certainly would be particularly careful to do so if I were paid for it.) DGG (talk) 05:34, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Dagegen. Das klammert so wichtige POV-Bereiche wie Glaubenssysteme, Weltanschauungen (inkl. Klimazirkus und Energiewendeweltrettung), politisch motivierte Einflussnahme (siehe aktuell die Edit-Wars um die Krim) und nicht sofort offensichtliche Reklame für z.B. Urlaubsorte oder Inhaltsstoffe des positiv darzustellenden Gegenstandes (z.B. Arzneimittel) aus. Das ist viel zu wischi-waschi formuliert. Weissbier (talk) 05:44, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. I fully agree with the comments above by Peter coxhead, Smallbones and the anonymous 207.55.103.150. This wording is too narrow and would sanctify paid editing of a wide range of potentially controversial topics.--Hispalois (talk) 06:41, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose: As before, these disclosures cannot be enforced. Any attempt to introduce such terms of use shifts the attention from the edits to the person who edits. What happens if a user is suspected to be paid? How to prove that a user receives compensation? Please do not introduce new terms or amendments of any kind which cannot be handled by the communities. --AFBorchert (talk) 09:43, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Strongly Support: I think it is time that people show on whose behalf they make their contributions online. The readers need to know who has paid for the presentation of knowledge and facts. --USBuehler (talk) 09:43, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• @USBuehler that probably means you support the default version of the text, not option 1.

• Oppose: his excludes important articles about historical events, scientific facts, or any type we cannot foresee yet which paid political or religious groups will try to influence. Examples: natural selection, global warming, war started by [insert country here]. 17:25, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Zustimmung: Es sollte jeder kommerziell geprägte Beitrag (oder Änderung bestehender Beiträge) sichtbar sein

19:54, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Det här gör inte något i förslaget bättre! -- Lavallen 15:46, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• I oppose a change and support the original text. The words or the content should not be changed after the users have voted. Issues concerning how to understand the words should be explained in a FAQ section. Ambiguous issues will always arise no matter how much time is spent trying to find the right ones. I have made a more full comment in the general section of this discussion. --Dyveldi (talk) 14:44, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose: Paid editing affects many more things than the listed subjects (most notably history). --NaBUru38 (talk) 02:43, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose This is way too narrow. The initial version does not require disclosure of personal identity. My very best wishes (talk) 21:34, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose The narrow terminology waters down the entire principle and implies that it is OK to be paid to edit other topics. We should have a broad, overarching prohibition on paid editing. Lets not start saying which topics it is and isn't OK to edit with a COI. Themfromspace (talk) 15:27, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Option No. 2: Narrows down the extent of the disclosure, changing it from "your employer, client, and affiliation" to just "that you were compensated."

Please use this section to support, oppose, or overall give comments on Option No. 2. This option focuses on simply the fact that compensation was involved, rather than specific information about the editor's identity. The intent is to allow editors to identify and review paid edits without requiring editors to disclose specific information about their identity. Individual projects may supplement this rule, and create guidelines for additional disclosures, depending on the circumstances.

'Modify: Wikimedia may simply issue to each paid editor, a certificate at the end of each financial year (Feb-March) with the STATEMENT' - To whom it may concern' the number of editing jobs done by the editor and payments made to the editor and taxes if any deducted at source, so that the editor, if necessary pay income tax in his country without any tax law violations.

Modify: Compensation means a product, service or benefit is received, and if that benefit is to raise the understanding of the community there should be no reason to hide affiliation. I can see that there could be legitimate reasons to hide the exact identity of an employer, though. If, for example, a human rights activist group in a country with an oppressive government wanted to pay a journalist to research and write about human rights violations in that country there is a possibility that the oppressive government might take action within the country against that group. In light of such, employer/client identities should be recommended to be revealed (and indeed why wouldn't people take advantage of the little extra free marketing) but not mandatory. Uno b4 (talk) 02:21, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Modify: [Commercial entities are protected enough by governments of all configurations, and profoundly manipulate communications for their benefit] Therefore, I suggest adding "Commercial entities require full disclosure of identity. Non-commercial entities must indicate that they were compensated."

• I lean against this option, because it is less helpful in terms of identifying the ways in which other editors should evaluate the edit in question. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:51, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: If adopted, should cover reasonable anticipation of compensation: e.g., "As part of these obligations, if you receive (or anticipate that you may subsequently receive) any type of compensation for any contribution, you must disclose that." FeatherPluma (talk) 06:29, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose no. 2 - it's not the editor disclosing personal information on himself, it is the paymasters that are being disclosed. So if a company pays a middleman who pays an editor, the editor would disclose who the company and the middleman are, but nothing directly about himself. The Company and the middleman are the important ones to know about. They are the meatpuppeteers. Smallbones (talk) 20:46, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: it seems to me to be relevant to indicate who compensated you, but less relevant to indicate you relation to that individual or organization. On the other hand, if you know you are dealing with a middleman, honest disclosure should include who is the principal. - Jmabel (talk) 00:34, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. If an article is written by an editor paid by an organization, the true intellectual author of the article is the organization. Readers and fellow editors have the right to know the name of that organization; just knowing that the editor was paid is rather useless. --Hispalois (talk) 06:47, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Comment. Much better than option 1, but I would add the obligation to disclose exactly in what form (amount, weight, number etc) the compensation is received and from whom (CEO, chair, CFO etc.) even if the officer offered you a job because you wrote so positive about her, him or their business. Of course you can do this by private e-mail to a special committe e.g. OTRS(?)  Klaas|Z4␟V:  09:29, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose: Experience shows that in most cases disclosure is already practiced without any new terms of use. (See here for more than 2000 openly declared associations at de-wp that were confirmed by emails to OTRS). However, you cannot enforce any disclosure. Instead we need to focus on the edits and their merits alone. If someone discloses his or her background this is fine. But if someone introduces some bias into some article shall we assume that this user was paid for this? Again, please do not introduce any terms which cannot be handled by the communities. This option does not address this fundamental flaw of this proposal. --AFBorchert (talk) 09:58, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose: As it is well ligitime for organisations to see information in WP about their history, products... well-written and correct, there is no reason they shouldn't let it do by paid authors/editors - as long as they openly say it and sources are - in this special case - are freely available.--Mideal (talk) 14:35, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose: This limits the community's ability to distinguish between legitimate and malicious paid content. E.g. scientific content produced as science outreach component of a publicly funded science project may be legitimate and untainted by the political opinion of the funding agency. 17:32, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose: Too vague and open-ended. For lawyers, you aren’t doing a bang up job of describing what you really want (or the community wants). The question is (as you all have tried to put it): When is disclosure required? Answer that question and this becomes just a matter of mechanics of how to disclose, a detail each project can work out. The circumstances as to when disclosure is required needs extraordinary clarity to prevent abuse by community zealots. In my view there are three, if you will, elements of proof.

1. Compensation is involved: This can be through contracts, fees, employment (including paid board members), grants or other explicit remuneration. (FAQs could clearly spelled what and what is not considered compensation)
2. An organizational relationship to the compensation exists: An organization (broadly construed, to include every type of organization from individuals to nation-states to international organizations) is providing the compensation. (FAQs need to broadly construe the definition of organization).
3. Contributions are related to the mission, purpose, products, services or identity of the organization. (FAQs can clearly clear characterize the degree to which a relationship exists or does not exist)

• For disclosure to be required, there needs to be a clear nexus between—compensation, organization and contributions. If that nexus exists, then disclosure is required by the TOU. If that nexus does not exist, then disclosure is not required. By taking an "elements of proof" approach, no paid editing that is deemed harmful to the reputation of Wikimedia will be excluded from disclosure.--Mike Cline (talk) 11:47, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

• Det här gör inte något i förslaget bättre! -- Lavallen 15:46, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Requiring a specific employer to be named is quite easy to get around for large entities. If you're worried that someone who actually works for Monsanto is going around editing GMO articles, all they need to do is hire a contractor who hires a subcontractor with a name that seems inoffensive. Someone could be hired by "Cheap Food for the Poor" to encourage more GMOs. It becomes another form of marketing.

Similarly, anyone who received a grant to study climate change should probably disclose that if they are going around advocating on behalf of climate change legislation. Would they name the grant? The institution they work for? What if they are hired to work in the field, and on their own time, go in and edit articles in a way that may benefit their future employment?

In the U.S. there is a fair amount of focus being brought on any kind of donor to smear them publicly. Perhaps this rule change is intended to find ways to go after the Koch brothers, which seems to be trendy. In other countries, people are fired or arrested for disagreeing with the people in power. The policy requiring naming of employers might put those employers in harms way - picture someone from Amnesty International making corrections to a page that makes it more accurate; but disclosing that also makes it easier to target them. How many journalists have died in Russia in the last 20 years?

Honestly, I don't believe that just because someone is "compensated" it means it is more or less accurate. I suspect there are lots of regular employees who correct and balance their employer's pages rather than let biased complaints go unanswered. Not every company has someone paid to address things. I think we want to encourage people to engage in the community. I'm thinking now of a tire company that leaves bad reviews on their own web page, but adds a comment with the customer service phone number and invites the unhappy person to contact them. I suspect that there are many, many advocates who make their living in the advocacy field, but who may not feel compelled to disclose that if they aren't specifically compensated to change wikipedia entries. They're paid for advocacy, and do the wikipedia stuff for free. So they don't disclose. This will likely happen across the spectrum.

Honestly, mostly I think you'll get PR people willing to disclose, so a company can hire some copy editors who are technically proficient and can go correct entries without them hiring a full-time person. Just hire a firm to check every once in a while. In other words, the boring, noncontroversial pages will be the ones who are happy to disclose. (unsigned contribution)

• I oppose a change and support the original text. The words or the content should not be changed after the users have voted. Issues concerning how to understand the words should be explained in a FAQ section. Ambiguous issues will always arise no matter how much time is spent trying to find the right ones. I have made a more full comment in the general section of this discussion. --Dyveldi (talk) 14:45, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - It's important to know the employer and client, it helps to understand the contexto. It's not like they are disclosing their address and credit card, by the way. --NaBUru38 (talk) 02:49, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - This option clearly precludes the transparency goals of the amendment. Niffweed17 (talk) 14:55, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per above. My very best wishes (talk) 21:36, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support, But... This is the only version of the language I would support at all. Edits should be judged on their own merits as much as possible. I like that this has as few details as possible, because I don't think this proposal makes much sense, and therefore would like to see as narrow a version as practicable take effect. I only support this option with the realization that the proposal will probably take effect in some form. 72.35.149.153 05:08, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose Again, this waters down the proposal. We need to strengthen these guidelines, not weaken them. This wording will help get out just who exactly is pulling the strings behind paid editors. This will greatly help our integrity and show the world that we mean business about being an unbiased source of knowledge. Themfromspace (talk) 15:30, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Option No. 3: Allowing projects to write an alternative disclosure policy

One modification (suggested by Martinp and others) is to allow local projects to craft an alternative disclosure policy. The idea is that local projects can pass an alternative disclosure policy, similar to an EDP under the licensing policy for fair use. This would be possible by adding the following paragraph to the current proposal:

A Wikimedia Project community may adopt an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy. If a Project adopts an alternative disclosure policy, you may comply with that policy instead of the requirements in this section when contributing to that Project. An alternative paid contribution policy will only supersede these requirements if it is approved by the relevant Project community and listed in the alternative disclosure policy page [to be created].

Is there other support for adding this (or a similar option) to the proposal? Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 01:07, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

If the proposed amendment comes as bad as it is, it would be a relief to have at least an opt-out option for individual projects. However, you write alternative disclosure policy and a modification requires approval of the WMF. This sounds as if a simple opt-out cannot be implemented for a project. --AFBorchert (talk) 16:33, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks AFBorchert. If we were to include this option, the goal would be to keep it as simple as possible where a project has consensus on a better alternative. The WMF's approval would provide an opportunity to weigh in on the legal enforceability of an alternative disclosure policy, if a project wished for it to be legally enforceable. Would you prefer "...and reviewed with the Wikimedia Foundation", or to remove this part entirely? I am curious if there is support for this option in some form. Best, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 18:43, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello AFBorchert, I adjusted the language above to require that disclosure policies are listed on a central page. Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 21:32, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the adjustment, Stephen LaPorte! This looks good to me now. I do not know how much support this is likely to receive but I think that an opt-out should be an option for a project if the project community approves it. Regards, AFBorchert (talk) 06:14, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Oppose Option 3 - It seems vague and abusable. Wiki needs a conguent policy we can trust. - E. Rowe, BSPharm

• Oppose The WMF has its heart in the right place with this guideline and I'm worried that individual wikis, including the English Wikipedia, could develop a small local consensus (without the valuable input of all the disassociated users that we have here) to undermine these guidelines. For example, there are many people on en.wiki who believe that disclosing paid editing is akin to "outing" and harrassment. Many would rather bury paid editing and protect the paid editors "privacy rights" than worry about the issues that come with paid COI editing. The issue of paid COI editing is strong enough and dangerous enough to our integrity for the WMF to step in and enforce a blanket guideline that individual projects cannot override. Individual projects should be able to strengthen this guideline but in no way should they be able to weaken it. Themfromspace (talk) 15:48, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

strong oppose

1. oppose de midkera comqew com cinmksa. Terinma ca djkinka ma. Berintonsa ca fomsexito can. Wikipedia sonmon den cosidko homocideonat sdjik.

Translation in English: Privacy concerns. People could be outed and injured or killed. Also fails to disclose conflicts of interests of volunteers, such as supporters of a political party. Wikipedia should not be an accessory to murder if people are outed. Stephanie Bowman (talk) 04:24, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Accessory to murder? KonveyorBelt 16:05, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion you shouldn't edit Wikipedia in the first place to prevent such thing to happen.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 22:54, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Being able to see clearly whats going on with a page's politics in the history

It would be good to see when a notable person has been making excessive edits to a page. If you could see at a glance in the history what position the contribution was coming from, i.e. whether a contribution is for example from the owner of that company, or is an actor in question themselves etc. It could, if done well, make it clear what sort of discussion has been taking place on the subject simply by looking at the title of involved participants.Formed4 (talk) 16:07, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Agree: an overview who change how much and maybe one that shows a timeline of changes (like a stock exchange order volume) would be great! (Sometimes you find something to be change and wonder about the main author/editor, that hasn't to be the one with the most edits of the last version page.)--Mideal (talk) 14:31, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Marketing Magazine (Marketingmag.ca) piece

Wikipedia may lift ban on PR people editing entries

Founder Jimmy Wales once said Wikipedia was no place for the “puffery and spin” of PR. That could change.

by Marketing magazine, reprinted at http://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/wikipedia-to-the-pr-industry-maybe-youre-not-so-bad-after-all/

Wow. This is exactly what we don't want - our attempt to bring the WikiPR abuses under control being misconstrued by marketers as a weakening of existing policies. Perhaps the policy needs to explicitly prohibit WP:COI editing unless an individual, local project explicitly endorses a weaker "edit, but disclose" position? K7L (talk) 19:04, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

But the wikimedia do wonna know the names of the companies who are willing to pay for contributions? So, the door for advertising is not fully closed anymore? Pieter2 (talk) 22:48, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

The piece is horribly off-point. In fact it seems to have been written from a single source, a PR-spinster. There is essentially no information on anything going on here in that article. Smallbones (talk) 16:00, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Disclosing one’s affiliation on Wikipedia "in the proper way"

The FAQ includes the following passage:

"National legislation of EU member states may further restrict undisclosed paid contributions, such as through local competition laws, and, for similar reasons, local national courts may find violations in failing to disclose one’s affiliation on Wikipedia in the proper way."

It should be noted that Wikipedia currently does not enable contributors to disclose their affiliation "in the proper way". The German court made clear that talk page disclosure or disclosure on an editor's user page was not sufficient; the only "proper way" to disclose would be to do so on the article page itself, where the reader sees it.

The fact that "proper" disclosure may be impossible is material, and FAQ readers should be made aware of the fact that talk page or user page disclosure is not enough to safeguard them against legal liability. I therefore suggest the following amendment:

"National legislation of EU member states may further restrict undisclosed paid contributions, such as through local competition laws, and, for similar reasons, local national courts may find violations in any paid contribution to Wikipedia whose provenance is not clearly apparent to the reader of the resulting Wikipedia article." Andreas JN466 01:53, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Makes sense to me Andreas. I will make that change. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:04, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

This is the sentence I added: "Indeed, government authorities may require disclosures of paid editing that are impossible to execute on Wikipedia - such as disclosures by businesses in the article itself to ensure notice to the reader; in such cases, paid editing is not allowed on the Wikimedia sites." Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:13, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Geoff. Andreas JN466 07:03, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I couldn't believe it when i read the amendment, i was like "say what? on the user page??? on the talk page??? who will ever look there when she reads an article???" There should definitely be some tagging required, similar to "citation needed" or the likes, next to each and every sentence/paragraph that is paid for.--Gyll (talk) 13:24, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

STRONGLY SUPPORT GYLL ABOVE... proposal does not go far enough.

I agree that disclosing payment/affiliation on one's user page is NOT enough to inform the reader of the potential bias in an article. Most readers probably don't even know what a user page is--I know my friends don't. Disclosure has to be made on a talk page.

In addition, I agree we need to flag paid editing on the article itself, preferably to identify all contributions that were paid for. If you just note the article includes paid edits, a reader will not know what is probable PR.

In other words, if you open Pandora's box to commercial interests, you have to identify all the monsters that flew out of it.

One final note: people, even experts reading material in their own field, often miss bias because human beings rely on certain cognitive heuristics in processing information, and this leads to error because people assume they have adequately compensated for bias. (For details see the research of Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman.) If we think we are clever enough to spot all spin, including the details that are artfully left out, or minimized, we are fooling ourselves.16:51, 16 March 2014 (UTC)Saenger

Möglichkeit 2

Hi,

es sollten alle (!) kommerziell geprägten Artikel / Änderungen erkennbar sein.

80 dd (talk) 19:47, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. Geoffbrigham (talk) 05:06, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Agree with 80 dd. --Dr. von Gänseklein (talk) 22:05, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Hola, soy de Uruguay y mi principal preoccupación es de donde van a sacar el dinero para pagar a los miles de editores de Wikipedia?

¿Mediante clics por google? ¡¿O por medio de publicidad??

thanks

Hi. Most editors are only volunteers. We pay for our infrastructure through donations. The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the sites for the community, is a non-profit organization. Geoffbrigham (talk) 05:06, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Este cambio no significa que la Wikimedia Foundation va a pagar a los editores voluntarios. Pero si un editor es pagado por una compañía comercial, habrá que declararlo. Andreas JN466 07:14, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Correct, under the original version. Options 1 and 2 require reporting in more narrow circumstances. Geoffbrigham (talk) 20:16, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Möglichkeit 3

Ist ja wohl der Witz des Jahres.

Dit funktioniert doch eh nicht. Das Internet lügt!

To permit this would immediately place the veracity of content in the same calibre as "Snopes", "Politics", and/or "Religion" truth at inception, now all propaganda, under the premise of goodwill and truth. As with the three aforementioned, people will still look towards you with trusting faith, but will become fools for doing so. 174.48.243.225 08:43, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia in the center of the universe

In the time of Galileo Galilei the world was mostly designed by the church. They said what the world has to believe. The people who said something else were against the church and against god. This was for a very long time like that. Nowadays the variety of life, of thinking, of feeling, of habits, of clouthing, of identity ... did change a lot until then. Until the rise of internet, the world could explore the world in a very strong new way. In a global time without real rules, the companies and other organizations can do very lot things in the space between the different national rules n law. There are no global rules. And there is nobody, that protect this "open space". No real law brings a big potential, potential for new ideas. The potential of good and the potential of bad. We know all the NGO's nowadays. The reality is, that a lot of NGO's are not anymore neutral or working in the origin sense of their founding time. They are working for money or working for some specific interestes. The "conflict of interestes" in space without real law and rules brings back the very old system of "First come, first served". Or more modern the egoism. Without the beliving of working all together, the "system" let the most fast thinking and most powerful participant win. In a system, where everybody hide his privacy or have different idendities and different playing roles, you can not only your husband or wife descover every day new, also yourself. So no a lot things are realy clear. The factor entertainment is f.e.g. more important or powerful than the factor virtues. Everything is allowed, as long nobody complains. The church or nowadays the big power of today fear the democratic potential of internet. They act different than the church in the middle age, but in the same meaning. Wikipedia is already a big power for and in the world nowadays. Long ago rich n powerful people remarked the potential of this site. As the NSA was working with google, yahoo, facebook and and and.. wikipedia couldnt hold the neutral position. When you can get million of million dollars, what would you say? The administrators of wp were in the beginning perhaps neutral. The communication were in the beginning democratic. The technics was in the beginning neutral and equal for all. It was neutral. It was a project of idealistic people. It was trustful. It was a constructive discourse. Now its a money-machine. A global money-machine. And with that it can not be neutral nor help the people. It will help the money and the system of egoism. Is there a project to protect the whistleblowers? Is there a project to think at the origins and to obtained the origin idea and philosophy? Or will it soon be a "multinational corporation" a "holding", an unimaginable extreme huge institution. Google is leading the digital world and does not bring good global rules to the world, what would need brave actions. This is perhaps the moderns stile of the roman imperium. WP will help the people, but only a few people. A little group will become more rich and more powerful but the main people will become more poor and dependent. The system of machines, the thinking of machines was and is against the variety of life.

The factor entertainment is more important or powerful than the factor virtues in the daily contact between people. Everything is allowed, as long nobody complains. Complaining is as uncomfortable as a having no fridge in nowadays world. As long as human believe to help others with technical instruments only they understand, the wall between themselves has to grow. For a constructive system WP has to become much more transparent and easy understandable. Probably in an anonymous society as our nowedays not realy possible. As long as we believe to know somebody we did not see personaly every week for houres for at least 2 years, we deceive ourselves and the world. An illusion becomes reality as in the time of Galilei. --93.184.26.78 14:06, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Compensation and "Vested Interest" are often interwoven.

I perceived an instant contradiction between some of the draft wording here (many of which used the phrase "financial compensation) while at the same time, under Definitions, "compensation" is defined thus - "What do you mean by “compensation”? "As used in this provision, 'compensation' means an exchange of money, goods, or services."

As I read that definition, "financial" compensation is only one of three identified means of compensation. This ambiguity seems to be addressed or skirted multiple times here as persons seek to enlarge or clarify the terms of compensation. Looking at it head-on I wonder how vested interest (in content presentation) fits into the discussion... as it undoubtedly confers gravitas, ascendency and influence in many topics of ie. international relations, spirituality/religion, politics, "morals," and certainly "history."

Do American Indians knowing about a particular historic battle (vividly remembered through the stories of elders) have some kind of rebuttal-force against academic dominant-culture historians still "mis-remembering" the event and promulgating some semi-plausible rationale (offered by the white soldiers) FOR the massacre? What if the dominant-culture historian... by editing the Wikipedia article... enhances his or her own academic standing by reinforcing the dominant paradigm and his/her own "academic" editorial reputation?

When there is active political or cultural dissent in a country, who gets to write the story of the dissent event? If a nationalistically-identified editor portrays the event as motivated by "anarchists" and "hooligans" (and receives pats on the back from the nationalist party leaders for it) is that compensation? When dissident members in the anti-nationalistic movement edit the article to more sympathetically (perhaps accurately) depict their grievances... as participants are they "compensated" by having the nationalist version "lose" ground and popular opinion tilt more in their direction within the spectrum?

Where does the maxim "Whomever triumphs in history gets to write the history" apply here? Does not having "won" a skirmish or an intellectual/moral "war" become the opportunity to define history (as when an editor belongs to the dominating faction gaining consequential and inherent privilege... after triumphing within a political doctrinal shift, the redefinition of a complex conceptual/functional structure like the World Wide Web, shaping an international religion such as Catholicism or Tibetan Buddhism, espousing a moral-movement such as the anti-reformists hoping to rob GLBTs of marital and other benefits-equality or, bolstering the ruling class in a authoritarian country's civil war. Is not such an editor "compensated" by privilege if his or her view prevails? He/she AND all their like-minded friends (sharing ideology or suppressing a dissenting view) mutually benefit when the "loser's cause" is written-out of history, do they not?

In Wikipedia biographies of controversial figures ie. L. Ron Hubbard, Geshe Michael Roche, Pope Benedict and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche can become heated cross-editing exchanges. The prevailing editor "wins" if his or her either most-loved person or most-hated person, respectively, is (as a consequence of their editing) either more admired or more reviled. Are not such editors' positions-in-life notably enhanced when their highly-invested views prevail? (Even if they have written in an entirely reasonable, non-inflammatory way... helpfully "defining the territory" so to speak, for the "sake of" those less knowledgeable about the "real story.")

I believe these examples make enough of my point. Often compensations are tangible (stipends, fees, bursaries, salaries, executive privileges, exclusive memberships, commissions) and almost as often they are intangible - the relational perks, the power to control opinion, the rise in the public's esteem of one's acumen and advocacy, the likelihood of academic or political favours because of one's espousing "the cause," and all the social and cultural advantages which come with elevating one's own (and one's class/cohort's) views and suppressing another's. This is certainly as true in intellectual and academic writing as it is in political, religious and "moral" writing.

How can one possibly get an editor to reveal these other affiliations, takings-of-side and dominant-culture attitudes in exchange (often) for a bit of fame, control of the "truth," and enhanced social esteem amongst those sharing one's own perspective of the situation, the history, the controversy or the struggle?

Being compelled to reveal "I have a vested interest in this topic" would be, in my view, fantastic. "I ask if I should recuse myself from this topic because I and/or my social cohort would personally benefit from the outcome" is another way to go. Honorable and ethical codes of conduct can always be encouraged (because they can't be easily enforced in this environment). But in the last analysis, writing oneself into the "winning side" of an argument is perhaps the most powerful editorial compensation which exists. Michaelbix (talk) 04:45, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Good points! Summary:

tl;dr: There are financial COIs even in the absence of "financial compensation", that should require disclosure.

I propose some language derived from here. Namely, language that addresses:

Some more "How will this provision affect" questions

How will this provision affect employees that edit articles related to their employ, specifically:

1. An acupuncturist editing en:placebo? en:Homeopathy? (Editing content about competitors)
2. en:BBB staff editing en:Class Action? (There's a FCOI that introduces bias, but there's no direct financial compensation for the editing.)
3. en:Americans_for_a_Better_Tomorrow,_Tomorrow staff editing en:Publicly funded elections? en:Americans_for_a_Better_Tomorrow,_Tomorrow itself? (lobbyist / SuperPAC)
4. a wireless carrier employee editing en:SAR score? (Editing content that discusses employer's product safety)
5. each of the above where the employee pays someone to do the editing instead of doing it directly.

The FAQ entry for What do you mean by “compensation”? is short! Does it leave loopholes? It reads:

As used in this provision, “compensation” means an exchange of money, goods, or services.

Any objections to swapping in something better to replace "exchange for a particular contribution" in the FAQ? Requested advocacy does not become OK just because a particular edit to effect that advocacy isn't specified. I'm considering being bold. "exchange for guided contribution" or ""exchange for implicitly or explicitly requested contributions" or "for advantageous editing" --Elvey (talk) 01:44, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

98.231.84.118 06:30, 17 March 2014 (UTC)World Book Like? And occasional fund drives like Public Television

I'm just a user, not a scholar.

Just suggesting it be run similar to the way encyclopedia's used to be organized. Since I'm on the high side of middle aged, I still love my World Books from 1967 with yrly books after. 2 HUGE dictionaries also and a 'Cyclo Teacher'. Look that one up. *G* A teaching tool. Still have it. Perhaps teaching items could be sold to help support staff salaries?? Fund raising would be a decent part. If sold large scale, price might stay decent since it would be for non-profit, it should stay a bit cheaper, therefore selling a LOT probably worldwise.

Staff could verify with experts, etc, that kind of people constantly. 'Documentation' in the computer field (of procedures, knowledge, etc) is in a loose way similar to what you provide. It has to be written and verified by in house computer experts.

As I see what is proposed, how exactly would you verify the info given????? How would the 'paid' person's (out of the woodwork, expert, person with 'an agenda', etc) input be given credibility? If a Wpedia staff is verifying, there is no allegiance to anyone except Wpedia and their boss.

Public Television fund raisers explain themselves, grants accepted eagerly. Teaching items need not be specific Wpedia info, but actual learning aids for various peoples of ALL sorts. TONS of products available from World Book, but all USEFUL I believe. Guess it could be most anything if you made it useful OR 'want'able (advertising campaign), like M&M cutsy or whatever (more serious).

My 2 cents, Joyce 98.231.84.118 06:30, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Joyce for your comment. Geoffbrigham (talk) 08:30, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia team to help companies

I remember reading an interesting article some two years ago: Companies struggle to correct faulty Wikipedia entries, April 18, 2012, TG Daily

The real issue is not about companies trying to pay for cosmetic articles. The real problem is they don't know how to maintain the Wikipedia articles about them and there are no specialists to do such a job.

Most of the companies don't know how to add information or to maintain (the accuracy of) the Wikipedia article about their company. It doesn't make sense to have an employee in the company just to keep the Wikipedia page accurate - 99% of the time they will have nothing to do. Their IT staff are too busy to do their job, they can't become versed into Wikipedia as it needs practice, and there is not much to practice in a single article - you can't become versed by practicing two hours each three months. Their marketing teams are in a different mind setup than the mind setup needed for editing an encyclopedia - they are looking for doing something sensational, that attracts attention. If the company will try to outsource the job to some professionals, those people will do what they know - adding marketing info (The PRSA says it's also discovered that PR people barely understand Wikipedia's rules for editing - in the TG Daily article). The companies need to hire some encyclopedic (economic) professionals, not marketing professionals.

I think Wikipedia should create a team of 5-10 people good at economy from an encyclopedic point of view: history of economy, overview of economy and social impact of economy. This team should work together with companies, asking the companies to help provide information that is important from a historic and encyclopedic perspective. Of course, the company might try to supply only the positive information and not the negative information about the company. However, that's much better than nothing. Also, maybe they can provide "negative" information (or at least hints) about their competitors?

I really believe such a team is needed. It can start as an experiment, for say one year. They will experiment the concept working with a set of companies - big and small - that can help to get experienced into this kind of work and to learn as much as possible. In time, the team can offer such services for money, and they will offer a needed service that no one else is capable to offer. For starting, there are all kind of development funds offered by governments, like en:Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund, there should be funds for cultural activities too. This is nothing about sucking govt. funds for profit. It's just about maintaining accurate information about the country's economy and about offering a service that is needed and no one else can do it better.

I also think that Wikipedia should work closely with the governments in order to document certain significantly cultural things (like museums and monuments) and to maintain (and display) plain statistics (like the history of corn production in USA) in a form that's user-friendly. It's in the interest of the government to take care of knowledge and transparency. Such Wikipedia teams to interface with governments should exist. Nobody can do paid editing better than teams of encyclopedic people working for Wikipedia.

Look what en:Sir Tim Berners-Lee said in 2012: These developments are encouraging, but the simple message to governments around the world must be consistent and forceful: raw data, now! Opening up data is fundamentally about more efficient use of resources and improving service delivery for citizens. The effects of that are far reaching: innovation, transparency, accountability, better governance and economic growth.

Almost all the raw data covered by national institutes of statistics should be presented in a friendly form that is easy to find and to compile by the citizens. I can't see a better place to host such data than on Wikipedia. Therefore the government should hire Wikipedia to do the job

Yes, I am very much for paid eding. Wikipedia teams (people hired and under direct control of WikiMedia Foundation, not groups started by any Wikipedia editors) should be paid for documenting cultural and economic issues and for introducing plain, dry statistics. I don't want to become part of such teams, because it would reduce the freedom that I have now - I edit Wikipedia only when I enjoy it. But such teams are needed. —  Ark25  (talk) 08:26, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Avis d’un utilisateur

Non au "Paid contributions amendment". 

C’est la porte ouverte à tous les abus ! Un utilisateur.

Pour être clair, cette modification ne nécessite que la divulgation d'une édition payé - il n'approuve pas l'édition payée. Merci. Geoffbrigham (talk) 13:28, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Seems fair.

Whether we like it or not, knowledge is valuable and being a huge, free database of knowledge Wikipedia is attractive to companies and institutions because it costs them nothing to be represented and therefore advertised. Just by adding sources, the site is linking out to other, frequently paying, sites.

Declared or not, personal around the world will still have it in their job description to ensure that the pages reflecting their work (in particular specialist fields) up to date and relevant. The real problem is with the medical pages. Here information is readily available for almost every disease known to man and like it or not this information affects treatments in a clinical environment. This very information is used by patients all over the world to educated themselves and their loved ones, and has frequently been noticed as a source of information for students of medicine and the biosciences. Even doctors round the world have reported using wiki to look up rarer diseases instead of going through the original research journals or medical textbooks (which may be out of date). Wikipedia may provide medical information in a more timely manner than going through medical journals and text books.12.163.39.66 10:33, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

This is an area that needs rigorous editing and overview by compensated, competent, accredited professionals. This is a matter of global health. I suggest compensated editing and evaluation of critical pages, that are declared and open to public scrutiny, naturally fully referenced from the literature.

78.248.87.154 16:10, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Don't fully understand all the logistics I'm sure, but I AGREE after reading the various talk on this page. PLEASE SEE MY LINK ON WHY I THINK WIKI NEEDS MORE TRANSPARENCY!

http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/coconut-oil-blackballed-by-wikipedia/

Please choose wisely, WIKI is a great source of information turning humanity GOOD.

QUOTE " ... In practice, many subject areas of the project can be easily highjacked by a small group of paid editors coordinated from a single center, and I edited in one of such subject areas. Not any more. 24.11.55.66 16:42, 9 March 2014 (UTC) "

Reading more thoroughly now it seems like this is going in the right direction, but I just wanted to say, the current Coconut article is quite like if the earth page said it was flat! maybe we could atleast get another topic that says 'alchemist or magical standpoint'!, lol.

NOTE : A percentage of those who Oppose or Agree don't seem to fully understand the amendments proposed here

72.160.59.52 02:49, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I believe that is correct. A number of the "opposes" reflect opposition to paid advocacy editing in general. Geoffbrigham (talk) 12:40, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Empty "What are you talking about?" section?

Why is there an empty "What are you talking about?" section in the content page? Mathieu ottawa (talk) 01:09, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Because of this edit. Seems nonsensical. I'll fix it.--Elvey (talk) 03:42, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Versteh kein WOrt

Natürlich müsste das strenger gehandhabt werden, aber reicht das? Gibt vermutlich genug die zur Irgentwas gehören, jenseits aller Bezahlung rücksichtslos ihre Meinung durchsetzen wollen. Also, zumindest die Bezahlung sollte offengelegt werden müssen. Grüße aus der Eifel Caronna (talk) 10:20, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Der Vorschlag befasst sich oekonomisch motivierten Bearbeitungen. Zur Frage generell absichtsgeleiteter Mitarbeit hat Henning oben eine Debatte eroeffnet. Gruesse aus Muenchen in die Eifel, --Jan (WMF) (talk) 17:25, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Die Grundversion des Vorschlags ist gut

Die Versionen 1&2 schränken das zu sehr ein! Aktuell habe ich ein Problem bei der Hausarztzentrierte Versorgung ein kritischer Hinweis über die versteckten Mehrkosten wurde wieder entfernt. Die Kosten können jedoch entstehen, die Entfernung ist sicherlich durch die Pharma-Lobby gesteuert. Selbst wenn es nur ein Arzt war, der in eigenem Interesse handelt.--Derwatz (talk) 06:38, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Auch wenn ich letzten Endes es für wichtig halte, wenn die Regelungen nicht zu restriktiv sind. Zu viele Artikel werden in Deutschland gelöscht. Eine Entwicklung von neuen Artikel wird massiv behindert. ... bestehende Artikel mit politischem Inhalt zunehmend verwässert (siehe Hausarztmodell).

Thanks for taking the time to comment. Geoffbrigham (talk) 12:37, 19 March 2014 (UTC) Below is a Google translation of your comment:

The versions 1 & 2 the limit too much! Currently I have a problem with the family doctors a critical note about the hidden costs has been removed. However, the costs may be incurred, the distance is certainly controlled by the pharmaceutical lobby. Even if it was only a doctor, acting in his own interest -. Derwatz (talk) 06:38, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Even though I think it ultimately important if the rules are not too restrictive. Too many items are deleted in Germany. A development of new products will be seriously impeded. Existing products ... increasingly diluted with political content (see GP model).

Ja gut aber nicht ausreichend. Add a traffic light for accordance in discussion

Sehr gut! Ich unterstütze die Vorschläge aus folgenden Gründen: Der Grundgedanke ist und sollte bleiben das JEDER an Wikipedia mitarbeiten kann. Neben den oft beschriebenen Lobbyisten gibt es aber auch einige die einfach nur Geld verdienen wollen und aus diesem Grund (nach meiner Beobachtung) häufig unqualifizierte Links einstellen. Ich hatte dies bereits versucht auf betroffenen Seiten dies zu diskutieren habe aber rasch feststellen müssen das diese Menschen die Wiki Mechanismen besser beherrschen wie ich und aufgegeben.

Ja ich ging sogar so weit das jeder Autor/Editor kurz seine Intention offenlegen muss. Was ich zu bedenken gebe. Nach meiner Erfahrung haben sehr viele Wikipedia Nutzer keine ausreichende Medienkompetenz, damit will ich sagen dass alleine die Offenlegung der Einnahmen sicher nicht ausreicht dem Durchschnittsnutzer die Bewertung für sich selbst richtig duchzuführen. Vorschlag: Ähnlich wie es für die Lebensmittel eine „Ampel“ geben sollte (gibt) haltet ich es für sinnvoll eine deutlich sichtbare Ampel zu zeigen (Grün/Gelb/Rot) die den Nutzer motiviert doch mal in die Diskussionsseite zu schauen und sich selbst ein Bild zu machen. --PeterKaiser (talk) 10:09, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks PeterKaiser for your comment and idea. Geoffbrigham (talk) 12:33, 19 March 2014 (UTC) Below is a Google translation:

Very good ! I support the proposals for the following reasons : The basic idea is and should remain that can collaborate EVERYONE at Wikipedia . In addition to the lobbyists often described but there are also some who just want to make money and this is why (in my observation) set often unqualified links. I 've had this been tried on the affected pages to discuss this but find quickly that these people better master the wiki mechanisms like me and gave up.

Yes I even went as far as each author / editor must briefly disclose his intention. What I submit . In my experience, a lot of Wikipedia users have no adequate media literacy , so I want to say that alone disclosing the revenue certainly not sufficient for the average user for yourself perform with due assessment properly. Suggestion: Like there should be for the food a " traffic light " ( is ) I think it would be useful in a clearly visible lights show ( green / yellow / red) that the user motivated it out to look at the talk page and get yourself a to make image . - Peter Kaiser ( talk) 10:09 , 19 March 2014 ( UTC)

What will we do after approval?

• Hello all. Greeting from Turkey. I have a question about this amendment.

What will we do after Board of Trustees' approval of this amendment? Will we create a policy about it or something different? What are you planning about this? Can you give me information? Thanks. --ravages 10:24, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

I expect the Board to review all the arguments and decide what version it prefers (if any). Most of the versions however only require approval by the Board without further need for additional policies. I hope that helps. Geoffbrigham (talk) 12:29, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

That's sufficiently helpful. Thanks! --ravages 12:41, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Additional comments

Matter is an illusion. You are free entities.

This is the end. We had a good run. I say "we", but of course I had no actual part in it. I simply consumed, as consumers are want to do. Still, I felt an odd sense of liberation when I pondered on the implications of a truly free source of information. Considering a future where the population was informed and intelligent; thus rendering some sense of validity in this faux-democracy, where votes are collected by deceiving and manipulating the populace.

Now, of course, we have people paying to anonymously "contribute" (see: "change") this on-going record of human knowledge. In other words, Wikipedia has been added to the list of mainstream media which can be changed to suit the whims of the elite. It has been a long time coming, and I thank the honest contributors who attempted to expand the knowledge of the population for the sake of doing so; as opposed to the obvious political or economical reasons which will now become commonplace; whilst they had the chance to do so.

I look forward to the next glimmer of hope which would supposedly lead toward an actual enlightened utopia; until that too is stamped out and used as an additional tool of mass manipulation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.164.89.30 (talk • contribs) .}

No to Option 2. If I'm reading correctly, Option 1 language opens editing so that persons paid by organizations can edit "ideas", scientific fact (as we know it) and the like. I would suggest the rules are not changed to allow a religious organization rewrite the "Evolution" article without disclosure of compensation (but do they really need compensation to do so? Probably not...). No change. I donate. Protect wikipedia. 71.63.244.164 13:10, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Support Option 2

If people are being paid to post, I want the option of knowing they may have other motives for the post. I don't think option one would help much when its really needed someone will always find a way round rules. But opt 2 is a great simple i decide myself :)
— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.96.34.173 (talk) 00:33, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

• wikimedia.org remains an excellent 'information-resource' with other assets evolving into a 'bureaucratic-complex'…with mitigating value & credibility.
• wikimedia.org needs to return to, & maintain it's basic, clean & valued information resource, with all other assets defined as 'ßresources'.
• wikimedia.org is 'clearly' entitled whatever funding, & other resources that can be secured to 'clearly' add value to the pool of defined-information.
• wikimedia.org should consider adding a 1 thru 10 'consensus-value' to each published 'Wikipedia-Page' summating the +&- vote from each member.
• The …'undisclosed paid editing' is a problem, with the …'undisclosed paid'… part a deal-killer' for anything to qualify for "Amendment" status.
• You can simplify the entire "Terms of Use" issue & secure funding from all sources by creating, or including them in a defined category, i.e."Wikidata"
• New funding sources should 'clearly' defining the objectives, measure the value & track the performance of any new category of information.
• …
• …
• …keep up the good work…good luck!

— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.142.77.148 (talk) 16:10 and 16:16, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Support

I support this idea. It makes sense to have lots of clarity.— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.180.167.24 (talk) at 19:02, 20 March 2014 (UTC) Open transparency for all is best for all, readers, researchers, and oversight. There should be a penalty for people PAID to lie, there should be the knowledge of WHO input what parts of the research shown in Wiki AND who they are affiliated with. This would also lead to a better understanding/education by the very people DOING research!— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 50.150.97.65 (talk) at 19:25, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Why three different ways?

I am disappointed to see that the proposed wording changes don't address the simplest issue: we're making it so that those interested in checking if an article is paid have to go through an absurdly convoluted procedure to do so. Check the history of the article, check the history of the userpage, check the history/archives of the talkpage, and no standard format for any of these things.

For this policy to really work, so that people can do site-level statistics on the paid editors, flag any article with paid contributions, etc., you have to settle on ONE way for these to be indicated. What's more, that one way should be somewhere distinctive, easily found, easily webcrawled -- for example, a special subpage or a specific mechanism. For example, it should be possible for someone to run a script that flags all reverts (other than self-) by paid editors so that volunteers can review them. It should also be possible to search through these edits for keywords like, say, "leading", "number one", "forefront", "ground-breaking"... well, you get the picture. Wnt (talk) 20:27, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello Wnt, the intent of allowing three types of disclosure is to make this a minimal requirement in the Terms of Use. I see the benefit of requiring one specific type of disclosure (especially if it is machine readable, etc. as you suggest) for Wikipedia. Projects may set a stricter requirement for disclosure, and this Terms of Use proposal would require users to follow that more specific requirement as well. Thanks for your feedback. Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Tired of the legal policies, among others // Fatigué des politiques juridiques, entre autres

English

I begin to be tired of the modification (thinking, translating, commenting, advertising the community, rethinking, retranslating, dealing with blocker points, etc.) of the legal policies, among others. Since one year were changed: the privacy policy, the term of use policy, the trademark policy, the data retention policy, the nonpublic data policy, and there were the Wikimedia-Community logo issue and this one about paid edits. All that require a lot of work from the community who have already a lot of work elsewhere (FDC reviewing, grants reviewing, OTRS, translation, reading the reports, etc.) without speaking of chapter-related work some people (FDC/grant proposal, searching money, doing programs, reporting, etc.) and also contribute to the Wikimedia projects themselves for some other people. I’m absolutely not advocating against the openness, it’s really great, but could the WMF slow down the rhythm of the structural changes and/or try to better summarize the changes and/or try to better hear and respond to community requests and/or find ways to reduce the burden of the over-information within the movement? Today I have the feeling that the administrative tasks require so much time than programmative/contributive tasks suffer of a reduction of the available manpower. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 11:17, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

français

Je commence à être fatigué de la modification (réflexion, traduction, faire des commentaires, avertir la communauté, re-réflexion, re-traduction, gérer les points bloquants, etc.) des politiques juridiques, entre autres. Depuis un an ont été changées : la politique de confidentialité, les conditions générales d’utilisation, la politique des marques, la politique de conservation des données, la politique des données non-publiques, et il y a eu le problème du logo de la Communauté Wikimedia et celui-ci sur les contributions payées. Tout cela demande beaucoup de travail de la part de la communauté qui a déjà beaucoup de travail ailleurs (relecture du FDC, relecture des subventions, OTRS, traduction, lire les rapports, etc.) sans parler du travail lié aux chapters pour quelques personnes (propositions de FDC/subventions, chercher de l’argent, faire les programmes, faire les rapports, etc.) ainsi que contribuer aux projets Wikimedia eux-mêmes pour quelques autres personnes. Je ne suis absolument pas contre l’ouverture qui est vraiment formidable, mais j’aimerais que la WMF ralentisse le rythme des changements structurels et/ou essaye de mieux résumer les changements et/ou essaye de mieux écouter et répondre à la communauté et/ou trouve des moyens de réduire la charge de sur-information au sein du mouvement. Aujourd’hui, j’ai le sentiment que les tâches administratives demandent tant de temps que les tâches de contribution ou liées aux programmes souffrent d’une diminution de la main-d’œuvre disponible. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 11:17, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

You and I both.  :) We needed to get our core governance documents in place, which we have done with the terms of use, privacy policy and trademark policy. Either these policies did not exist or were well outdated. After this consultation, I expect we will want to consult on the CC 4.0 license at some time. And then I don't expect much more from legal. Hope that gives some idea on where we see ourselves going. Cheers. Geoffbrigham (talk) 22:54, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

A formatting bug in archives

In lower screen resolutions (here: lower than 1600×1200), large Table of Contents obliterates top section headers. Solution: remove clear:right;float:right. I can't do it because the template is edit-protected. Also must be checked in other Wikimedia projects for the same defect. (See Template talk:Archive header#Formatting bug.)
– 6birc (talk) 13:50, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

WMF and its foray into paid POV advocacy editing

Those of you who are not on the Wikimedia-l mailing list have a right to know that the very organisation which is pushing for this amendment (the WMF) has been caught with its hand in the cookie jar. Editors may catch up at the archives ([Wikimedia-l] Timothy Sandole and (apparently) $53,690 of WMF funding), with some detailed analysis by myself here. Given that the impetus for this amendment was Sarah Stierch's ouster from the WMF for taking a $300 payment for editing an article on behalf of a paying client, it would be entirely inappropriate for the WMF board of trustees to endorse this amendment whilst the WMF's foray into paid editing, only being exposed, it still being investigated. Russavia (talk) 05:58, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Point of information (taking no position at this time on the Sandole matter) - The impetus for this amendment was likely not the unfortunate Stierch kerfuffle, which would hardly warrant a revision of the terms-of-use, but rather the company "Wiki-PR" blowing off (politely) the legal cease-and-desist letter sent by the Wikimedia Foundation. See the article "PR Company Says It Was Demonized By The World's Biggest Internet Encyclopedia". To defeat a defense of no terms-of-use violation, the WMF response is to change the terms-of-use, to make it a terms-of-use violation. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 12:04, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Without title

Wrongly posted in Talk:Terms of use/Paid contributions amendment/Archives, moved

I think having people have to say they are being paid, at least, is a good idea. If someone's being paid they have more of an incentive to keep changing a page back to the way they want it, possibly causing a more heated editing war. I don't even edit the articles on Wikipedia pages anymore, I've gotten so much trouble from weird people who want to have a page their way. And I knew I was right, too. I had books written by personal friends of a now dead famous person to back up my side. It didn't matter. I go to the talk page now if want to say something on Wikipedia. I think it would also be helpful if there was a function on Wikipedia that showed on the top of the page of an article a statement that people are editing the page are being paid to do it. Also, if there is an editing war going on and the site is being changed back and forth, I think that there should be a similar statement at the top of the page and a suggestion that people look at the talk page if they want to see all the conflicting views. I've run into people that trust the article pages on Wikipedia too much. They think that there must be a consensus for a page to be the way it is. In actual fact, people who are being paid or just are obsessed may just be spending way more time changing the page to their way, while more people think an opposite way, but just don't have time to edit the page all the time. 67.206.162.154 01:39, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Undisclosed paid contributions are biased.

Wrongly posted in Talk:Terms of use/Paid contributions amendment/Archives, moved

A number of our entries is flagged with a statement to the effect, "This entry reads more like an advertisement . ." which is important to communicate. The proposed terms of use change will take some of the guesswork out of applying the "reader beware" label, and I support it wholeheartedly. The change still depends on contributors' honesty, so attention should be paid to verifying contributions which are paid for and/or biased, but not disclosed. Go for it! Let's work out the verification kinks as we go.— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 152.26.228.66 (talk) at 16:06, 17 March 2014 (UTC) how did you know i was into self-study? i am the editor-at-large if you know what i mean ..(: im sean 608 320 0386 66.112.113.224 06:55, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

"The board will"

"As a next step, the Board will review the community comments" etc. etc. I don't understand, who decided this? The introduction in this page only said "The Wikimedia Foundation Legal Department plans to ask" etc. I didn't see any announcement about this item being on the board agenda. Just as a reminder, the board agenda is set by the board itself. --Nemo 17:45, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Nemo, this is certainly on the Board's agenda - we attend closely to our counsel. We also aim to put community proposals on the agenda, when they arise, at the nearest opportunity. The agenda for the next Board meeting has not been fixed, but I expect this proposal will be discussed there if not before. Nevertheless, you are right that it would be clearer to write "the proposed amendment and options will be sent to the Board for review, along with a summary of the community's comments".

Two related comments for Stephen and team:

• TOU changes are the mandate of the legal team. I understand that the Board's direct input is requested here because it is seen as a significant change, and the Board generally approves any wholesale rewrites or updates to the TOU. But while the Board will be happy to weigh in on this subject, I think the legal team could just as well decide to update the TOU on its own after such a public consult. You should feel comfortable making, evaluating, and changing or unmaking such changes as you see fit. Let's avoid creating the impression that any changes in this area, including later modifications or alterations, require month-long sitebanner saturation (roughly 10B? pageviews, almost all to logged-out readers) and Board approval. Both of those steps are normally overkill.
• The Board will   have a limited amount of time. A clear proposal (it's hard for me to understand the implications of the Options section; perhaps some can be folded into a revised amendment?), a good closing summary, and an analysis of the three options and significant opposing views, would be most helpful.

Regards, and thanks for all of your work on this topic, –SJ talk  04:18, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

"Let's avoid creating the impression that any changes in this area, including later modifications or alterations, require month-long sitebanner saturation and Board approval. Both of those steps are normally overkill."

It's very concerning to see a board member take this stance considering Section 16 of the Terms of Use, which is linked right at the top of this page. This amendment is not necessary for pressing legal or administrative reasons. (Don't try to make the case that "well, all changes are legal or administrative." We need to get this vague loophole amended as well, hmm.) Nor was this in response to community consensus. All previous proposals in this vein have been shut down within the community itself. Therefore, yes, a minimum of 30 days for comment was required. And quietly proposing a channge without linking members to it would not be the same thing as opening the issue for comment to the community, therefore yes, the banner saturation was required.

Perhaps, indeed, asking the board is overkill, however I feel that if every board member has a similar lack of understanding of the only contract between Wikipedia and its authors, this could be a good opportunity for some education. Recursivelement (talk) 17:53, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello Recursivelement, please reread my comment above. Section 16 clarifies that changes to the TOU require 30-60 days of public discussion and feedback. It does not require either a) a banner seen on ~10 billion pageviews over 30 days, or b) approval by the Board. (I added a few words to clarify what I mean by sitebanner saturation.) A banner notice for the logged-in community is certainly needed, as is announcement in all of the expected places: village pumps and other signposts. Showing the same banner to a cross-section of readers likewise makes sense, to get perspective from our reading community, though they may need additional context to understand what is at stake. But I hope most changes to the TOU can be handled with more focused iteration and less megaphone.

For reasons that you note, it is indeed appropriate for the legal team to consult with the Board before making any chances pursuant to this RFC. But we should be clear that the legal team is trusted and able to revise the TOU, based on both public consultation and consultation with the Board.

As for "legal and administrative reasons", that is a common bit of boilerplate. Do you have a preferred replacement? –SJ talk  17:45, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I hadn't understood that the legal team can approve this itself - that's good to know. That said, I'm very glad that there was a month-long banner and will be (some sort of) Board approval. While various sorts of advertising, spamming, commercial editing have always been against the rules (as they came along), general regulation wasn't considered necessary - wasn't it obvious that commercial editing was against the Wikipedia way of doing things? With the rise of social media and the fairly recent recognition that Wikipedia is a pretty reliable source that everybody uses, there has been a wave of admen putting their garbage on Wikipedia. These admen seem to work together to control the discussions on Wikipedia (a la "regulatory capture"), thus we have had a gap between the apparent consensus on Wikipedia and the consensus (4-to-1 in favor of regulating paid editors) as shown here. Actually, I think that the real consensus is more than 90% in favor of regulating paid editors - paid editors have a big stake in commenting here and are likely over-represented. Thus I find the sentences above "Nor was this in response to community consensus. All previous proposals in this vein have been shut down within the community itself." to be offensive. There always has been a consensus that paid editors should be regulated, and there always will be such a consensus. Who wants an encyclopedia that is pitching products at them? With a concentrated band of editors who will always oppose such regulation, we do need to keep open the option of having a month-long banner and getting the real community involved in this type of thing. Smallbones (talk) 16:22, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Offensive? Which part of the fact are you offended by? Can you show me a previous proposal in this vein which was not shut down by the community?

Perhaps you consider drive-by polling visitors to Wikipedia an accurate reflection of community consensus - I very much prefer the lengthy discussions by people heavily involved in the inner workings of Wikipedia, who understand what the stakes are. A significant number of people who voted here clearly didn't even understand what they were voting on. It's quite likely that an additional significant number of others didn't know what they were voting on, but didn't indicate it, or even more likely, had no idea of previous proposals and arguments or the extent of any problem, but simply dropped in, voted, and left (this applies to both sides). And I'd wager this is the reason for the apparent "change" in consensus. It's interesting to note that the voting is near snowballed, but the arguments themselves, and people willing to hash out ideas, are much more evenly balanced.

Regardless, my intention wasn't to make arguments for or against this amendment. I'd have done that earlier if I'd thought there was any point to the PR charade. I simply wanted to point out that this amendment didn't stem from legal or administrative requirements which cropped up, or from community outcry, and therefore didn't qualify for a speedy 3-day change. 12.234.227.194 17:51, 2 April 2014 (UTC) (logged out, apparently) Recursivelement (talk) 17:55, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm offended by your implication that only the opinions of people who agree with you count. Paid editors, whose livelihood depends on it, can always get a bunch of people together to defeat a poorly publicized discussion, but when the RfC is publicized to the full community any proposal that effectively allows advertising inside Wikipedia articles will be roundly defeated. This type of advertising has never been allowed on Wikipedia, and never will be if the entire community is heard. 4 to 1 in the RfC with the largest participation in history might be difficult for paid editors to swallow, but they should get used to it. The choice for paid editors now will be whether they are going to try to undermine the implementation of the community's consensus (thus proving again why paid editors need to be regulated), or whether they want to help with reasonable regulation of paid editors. Smallbones (talk) 19:00, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm also rather offended at the idea only the opinions of people who agree with you are well-formed or well-informed, and that others just drop in and leave. I myself have been editing on WP for less than a year and am indeed less aware of decisions or history at this level of the organization. But my relative inexperience here is not reflective of the substantial experience I bring from the outside. I didn't bother to register a vote; my vote is registered in the multiple comments I left in the discussion, and that vote says that paid editing is an idea that is basically inimical to the organization. Those who know how to manage the organization can now take that vote into consideration and decide what an appropriate response should be. My inexperience here need not bias their consideration. As far as community outcry is concerned, it is expressed in just such forums as this. There is no necessity that it be full-blown beforehand. Now those are fundamental outlooks regarding community participation and consensus that I with lesser experience understood very quickly, but which seems to escape the attention of those who don't like the fact that apparent consensus is not always actual consensus. The difference between the apparent and the real is exactly what this discussion has been about - how paid editing can distort one of the main working relationships the project depends on. So don't tell me I don't know what it is that I am voting on. Evensteven (talk) 20:12, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I see none of you noted the tremendous number of people who dropped in to vote against paying to view Wikipedia articles? It's blatantly obvious a lot of voters didn't understand what this was about - if you weren't one of them, if you took the time to read, if you took part in the discussion rather than simply driving by, then good for you. I wasn't writing about you. You could take the time to parse my sentences and realize you don't fall into the group I'm discussing before being offended by them. Pointing out that voting "no, Wikipedia should be free forever" is completely irrelevant to this discussion is hardly a controversial fact. You can't demonstrate that the community discussions were secretly dominated by shills. But if you read up, you will discover multiple voters here clearly demonstrating they had no idea what was going on.

Go ahead, though, keep telling me the opposite is true. Why bother with facts, why bother with evidence, when you can have emotion?

At least I'm backing my claims up here, referencing solid facts which can be looked up by anyone curious. You're just spouting rhetoric which can't be proven right or wrong. Why should I believe that a bunch of people who voted "no, Wikipedia should be free forever" and everyone else with them, is a more accurate reflection of community consensus than discussions where people were actually addressing the issue at hand? I'd be insulted by your implication that every single previous discussion on this was bought out because they didn't agree with you, but I'm not quite so thin-skinned. Again, the people who actually discussed the matter were much more evenly balanced. Right in line with all previous proposals in this vein.

Finally, whether or not you believe this right here is consensus, the fact remains that people who remained quiet until after the proposal were not driving the proposal, therefore this was not in response to the community, therefore it did not qualify for the speedy 3-day instatement SJ appeared to be referencing. I don't care what your beliefs are otherwise. I'm amused that you're both insulted by cold, hard facts, though. You two are the only ones implying only those who agree with you count. Recursivelement (talk) 02:51, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Correction: I was not referencing any 3-day process. (simply the high visibility of showing banners continuously to all logged-out readers.) –SJ talk 

Oh, please. I never said you didn't know what you were talking about either, nor that I couldn't accept the fact you disagree. "'no, Wikipedia should be free forever' is completely irrelevant to this discussion" is a part of your opinion; I don't see it that way. I'm not insulted by that. But I take issue with the idea that your opinion is a fact. You apparently see no value in the airing of opinion, which is part of what this discussion IS about. It's a basic principle of discussion here that the comments left behind are just as important as votes, and they will be viewed, weighed, and considered. Emotion? It also serves a purpose, and drives both human behavior and (often) human reasoning. It's human itself. I agree it can get irrational; I do not agree that it has made me so. And I do not agree that your arguments lack emotion either. That much is acceptable. I'm not entirely in agreement with many people on "my side" of this argument (I rarely am, in any argument). I think arguments (in reality) have many sides, many viewpoints, many angles, and a great many things worth considering. I learn from arguments, and often change my opinions because of listening to them. I object to your wholesale classification of this discussion into two narrowly-defined camps, and dismissing the value of anything that doesn't fall within those constraints. It has never been up to you to define what the discussion is about, much less to foretell what is going to have an impact on the outcome. Especially it is not up to you to dismiss other people because of whatever you may see as shortcomings. Maybe some have acted superficially - so what? Do you think others can't see that also? Are you offended that some of them may have voted? Why? Is the discussion narrowly defined as another undemocratic vote-fest? Is the tally only a matter of numbers? I prefer to stick with the theory that has always been on Wikipedia that comments count, and votes may be counted, but not necessarily equally. I think that it is insulting to be so dismissive; I take offense at that. I don't have to be taking it personally to take offense. But I'll take opportunity to use it to oppose narrow and restrictive thinking. You may have your hard, cold facts. There are warm, soft ones that count too. One thing is abundantly clear from this discussion: the warm issues (there are many of them) are much bigger and more significant than the literal proposal, and the "vote". Evensteven (talk) 03:18, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Sj for the answer. I'm looking forwad to hearing the legal department's reply and an official announcement on the board agenda.

It also makes sense to me that the board may decide to delegate the matter to the legal department if they don't feel strongly about any of the options or otherwise consider their evaluation not to be their priority. However, considering that this amendment would directly supplant a number of local wiki policies and guidelines and therefore represent a substantial power structure (constitutional) shift in Wikimedia projects, with a whole massive area of regulation transferred from the community to the Wikimedia Foundation (and from editors self-regulation to legal obligations), I think such a delegation would need to be explicitly decided with a board resolution. While individual changes to the terms of use may need varying degrees of approval, a change of the role itself of the terms of use certainly requires the highest possible rank of approval. --Nemo 15:17, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Nemo - this is well said. The Board should resolve the scope of change that is appropriate to make in this area, and any significant change in the role of the TOU. We need to be better about delegation: for instance, we might resolve to delegate making, evaluating and revising such amendments to the legal team. Followed by non-resolution guidance regarding one of the proposed options, or a variation, that seems reasonable to the Board. Without clear delegation, people can variously post concerns in multiple places, write to the LCA, ping the ED, ping Jimmy, or petition the Board directly: leading to confusion, exhaustion, and forum shopping. –SJ talk  18:41, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

@Sj:, throughout this process the WMF staff have mentioned that WMF board approval will be sought, so it would be a very big shock if one or more of these proposed amendments were to be enacted without a board resolution. (search this talk page for 'board' and you will see many instances) In any case, I agree with Nemo that it would be wise for significant amendments like those proposed to be made only by resolution of the WMF Board. There are some legal underpinnings to these amendment propositions, being the laws about astroturfing/unfair competition/fraud/etc, but none of the amendment options are merely legal - they all go beyond what is required by law, for good or ill, and impose policy on the projects, and will force some community members to retire due to the serious legal threats posed elsewhere in the Terms of Use (but to be fair, it may change the culture significantly and result in hordes of new contributors...).
If the board cant approve any of the proposed amendments, a carefully and conservatively written amendment to highlight legal disclosure requirements could be a first step forward, and could be done under the "changes for legal .. reasons" provision of Section 16. Essentially change 'you must disclose' to 'you may be required by law to disclose' and indicate that paid contributors should consult a lawyer to determine the applicable legal requirements of both their jurisdiction and those of the U.S. So simple ... and probably just as effective. hehe John Vandenberg (talk) 04:03, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello John, I'd like to discuss further how you see significant policy amendments being made. Perhaps at Talk:Terms of Use? I expect most amendments would not be nearly this controversial.

To this specific amendment - I expect there will be a Board vote related to this, and Board guidance on one of the resolutions or a variant. I agree with you that a clear, stepwise approach would start with a minimal amendment that highlights legal disclosure requirements. Then we would now be discussing whether to change or amplify that: the public discussion would have been shorter and less confusing.

In my view, the reason we haven't adopted that sort of approach is a lack of practice in revising policies, because any time it happens it is a treated as a huge deal; so people try to pack all possible changes into one. Which is my motivation for reducing rather than increasing red tape. –SJ talk  18:41, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Sj, when you say "I think the legal team could just as well decide to update the TOU on its own after such a public consult.", doesn't that in practice essentially permit the General Counsel to update the TOU on his/her own? (I presume the rest of the legal team reports to the GC, and in any case, can't formally override the GC even if hypothetically they wanted to do so). That's a huge amount of power for any one person to have. While the current GC seems very collaborative and respectful of objections, such power in the hands of a by-any-means-necessary lawyer could be extremely dangerous. Could the terms-of-use be updated by the GC to have an indemnification clause? A non-disparagement clause? If you say no, why are those categorically different from some sort of mandatory disclosure, where I believe the discussion above has identified several problems? If you say yes, well, that's a problem itself. This amendment strikes me as having turned into a case study of a lesson in why the legal team should not make nontrivial changes on its own authority (no offense meant to legal team members here, just being descriptive). There's serious tension between what they might want for legal battles, and the externalities which might be imposed on everyone else. And that conflict is why TOU changes should be examined by as many stakeholders as possible. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 10:44, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Seth, this is how I understand the current process: The GC and team are currently able to update the TOU, after a translated explanation and well-publicized community consultation of 30-60 days. That's a strong commitment to examination by many stakeholders. The Board is informed of such policy changes, and generally asked for informal approval, but is not required to pass a resolution approving policy updates. For major policy overhauls, a Board vote may still be requested.

Bear in mind that the GC does not have independent authority: the ED, and the Board in turn, have the power to stop or alter any such actions. We would not allow the sorts of changes you hypothesize, under either process. The question is what mandatory procedural hoops are jumped through before changes are implemented. –SJ talk  18:41, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Status?

How are things proceeding? Anyone? Per WMF_Board_meetings it looks like there are generally around 7 board meetings a month - and that page is woefully out of date, or meetings are much less frequent now. ??? [4] still stands.--Elvey (talk) 02:19, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

It seems the board met April 24 and 25. [5]--Elvey (talk) 02:37, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Why is there no decision? It does not take this long even considering the diverse range of opinions which were voiced. Come on!--Xania (talk) 19:23, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Hello Elvey and Xania, the Board discussed this at the April 25 Board meeting, and I expect that they will publish the results of the meeting in the next few weeks. Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 20:14, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Have they done this? If so, where? 180.200.187.189 02:46, 5 June 2014 (UTC).

Hello all, you can find the update in the Terms of Use. More information is available in this blog post. Thanks! Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 16:53, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Difference between employer and client

Hi.

• What is the difference between employer and client? If a freelancer is hired by a company A, for creating an article, the client is the person who initially hired the company A? If I am right, then the freelancer can not know the client, if exist or not. So, what should the freelance put about the client in the disclosure? Unknown client? And what if the client doesnt exist?. Thanks in advance--Rndmdf (talk) 23:00, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
• Secondly, if a company/person Z hire a freelance, then the company/person Z is the client, and the employer doesnt exist. Can anybody answer me, please? Thanks--Rndmdf (talk) 10:09, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello Rndmdf, an editor should fully disclose his or her financial connection to the topic that he or she is editing. If one cannot provide the necessary disclosure, then he or she may need to refrain from editing. We also posted an explanation in the FAQ: What does the phrase “employer, client, and affiliation” mean?. I hope that is helpful. For more detail about what sort of disclosure is appropriate, I would encourage you to consult local conflict of interest policies (such as WP:COI on English Wikipedia). Thanks, Stephen LaPorte (WMF) (talk) 16:50, 10 September 2014 (UTC)