On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 10:11 AM, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote:
> > > Re: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PRSTATEMENT > > The statement is a nice read and it's hardly objectionable. I'd expect > nothing less from a group of public relations folks, all of whom have a > very vested interest in presenting themselves as good guys. > > However, my gut feeling here is that this statement is a sham. My > (cynical) read of this statement is basically "agencies such as ours keep > getting caught editing on behalf of clients and it turns into a real > shit-storm, so we'll say we'll play by the rules now, even though we'll > really just hire contractors and subcontractors to do our dirty work." > > These public relations firms are paid millions of dollars to ensure that > their clients look good on the Internet. Wikipedia is a major player on > the Internet, but Wikipedia's purpose is not to make these clients look > good, it's to have objective and neutral educational content about notable > entities. Both public relations firms and Wikipedia are served by better, > more accurate articles, but only one side is being paid millions of > dollars each year to ensure that the information makes clients look good. > > It also seems a bit strange that these companies feel it appropriate to > use the English Wikipedia as their hosting platform for this statement. > This probably needs further thought and consideration. It isn't as though > any of these companies would have difficulty buying hosting elsewhere to > post their essays and statements about how they're now reformed. > > About the general trend, this practice is not novel. As I wrote in May > 2012, the current approach by (particular) paid editors is a "radical > transparency" approach, it seems. The idea is that if you do everything > out in the open, you can't later be punished because everyone was aware of > what you were doing and who you were doing it for. It remains an open > question whether this approach is working well or benefitting Wikipedia. > > MZMcBride > > > One reason to think its legit and not a smokescreen? Signing on to the statement substantially increases the potential costs of being caught violating WP policies. Clients hiring bare knuckles PR experts may not have a high regard for the importance of our site policies. If news gets blasted out that a firm said "We'll abide by these principles, we promise!" and then publicly fails to do so, clients might care about that more. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
