Hoi all, as a recent lengthy CU case on de.wp showed, there is clear evidence that two people (a lawyer and a PR entrepeneur) working at the law school of a university in Germany, but on outside funding, have influenced contents of de.wp (away from a neutral point of view) on at least two different sites. Aggravatingly, these two work on a project "Wiki Watch" to evaluate Wikipedia articles on their quality and contents... The university probably did not even know (now they do, reaction still pending) about the shenanigans of these people.
The first incident involves a company who fabricates drugs including a type of insuline, which was deemed possibly potentially cancerogene by an institute. From WP accounts associated (by checkuser and other evidence) to these Wiki Watch people, the articles about the institute, about that drug and about the drug company (and some more related to this) were changed (in general positivizing/promoting the company and the drug and adding critics to the article about the institute). The second incident involves articles in the field of evangelical organizations (including such who want to cure homosexuality and stuff like that, all highly non-scientifical). One of the Wiki Watch guys worked for such an organization until recently. A number of WP accounts, also associated to the Wiki Watch people (by CU), was found editing in this field, adding the views of this sort of organizations to articles and promoting such views. For those of you who read German, the FAZ, one of the most widespread daily newspapers in the country, have published a long article on this matter online: http://www.faz.net/artikel/C31013/die-dubiosen-verstrickungen-von-wiki-watch-hier-prueft-der-buerger-das-insulin-noch-persoenlich-30452874.html So, heads up, everyone, this can happen in other Wikipediae, too. (or it might already have...) Best regards, Thogo. p.s. thanks to the CU people at dewiki and to others who helped to reveal this. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
