Aha -- I was pointed to en:wp's List of paid editing companies <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_paid_editing_companies>. (thanks!) This is a great resource and deserves to be better linked. The page is semi-active - 4 additions in the last month, including the Olaf case. I've cleaned it up a bit and linked it to the German page. This really needs some automated scripting and tracking, at the scale of ORES...
Is there any routine analysis / stats compiled of edits associated with these orgs, or of their activity online? On Tue, Sep 7, 2021 at 2:19 PM Samuel Klein <meta...@gmail.com> wrote: > Jan Böhmermann <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_B%C3%B6hmermann> > published an amazing expose on political WP editing in Germany; it gets > good around 15 minutes in > <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNsTaKwyAzI&t=900s>. In the video he > exposed the workings of a paid editing farm run (by Olaf Kosinsky ( > Wikidata <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30108329>; CheckUser discussion > <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProjekt_Umgang_mit_bezahltem_Schreiben/Verdachtsf%C3%A4lle/Olaf_Kosinsky> > ; archived PR-services site > <https://web.archive.org/web/20210416110100/https://kosinsky.eu/>), an > excellent long-time editor with over 3 million edits. > > *We need to distinguish paid editing from general COI editing*. Paid > editing is COI editing by professionals, who have strong external > incentives to persist, no leeway in the outcome they are aiming > for, experience in doing this in dozens of cases, and may have colleagues > who can drop in as 'uninvolved' editors to forge consensus or social > proof.[1] > > This is one of our great recurring challenges, siphoning off both our > reputation and our community. There are many things we can do about paid > editing, starting with maintaining *paid-editing metrics and a dashboard* > of known and estimated paid editing. We can estimate its prevalence by the > availabiity of services online[2]; and look for patterns of such editing on > wiki. Even with large error margins, this would be a step above simply > waiting for outbreaks to be discovered and reacting to the visible bits of > the iceberg. > > What sort of metrics like this do we have already? Who is working on such > things? > Since the above video came out, de:wp started a table of WP editing > services > <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProjekt_Umgang_mit_bezahltem_Schreiben/F%C3%A4lle#Wikipedia-Web-Agenturen_auf_dem_Markt>. > It currently includes an initial dozen examples, with no estimate of > activity (the 1 account known to be associated with each is in most cases > blocked; but most have active websites soliciting work) This would be > useful in all languages. > > SJ > > [1] as Melmann wrote > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_167#Limiting_the_scope_of_COI_edit_requests> > recently: > "*in my experience, **all the most difficult edits are WP:PAID > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PAID>**. Most non-paid COI comes > from a place of desire to make things better, and often can be relatively > easily guided towards a better place... [or] it is relatively easy to use > existing enforcement mechanisms to to correct and ultimately control their > behaviours. PR professionals, on the other hand, are subtle and sometimes > downright deceptive, and it takes lots of effort to check their edits when > most of the time you lack context and expertise and you really have to > research in depth to see their edits for what they really are. I think that > one of the fundamental mistakes of the current policy is lumping paid > editors with general COI editing as paid editors are fundamentally playing > on a different level in terms of PR expertise and incentives*" > > [2] Just searching for this online led to ads from dozens of services. > The first 10 below seem to be clones of the same service (perhaps run by > the same farm) > Elite Wiki Writers > Wiki Curators > Wiki Genies > Wikipedia Legends > Wiki Page Writing > Wiki Page Creator > WikiProfs > Wiki Specialist LLC > Wiki Writers Workshop > Wikipedia Publisher > Wikipedia Services > 360 Ghostwriting > Contentfly > Otter PR > Premium Content Writing > ReputationX > Upwork > > > -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/7YUU6NFVERF6ZKWKKZXQV3VONDQ55TWS/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
