Obvious paid editors are obvious

[lightnight]

Hello. It seems to me that there is no improvement in biased content additions from a paid editor than an editor with a strongly held personal point of view in regards to a topic, and that most editors focus is to propagate their biases. The COI/personal bias problem seems to be compounded by the luxury of anonymity.

[EricBarbour]

Jamesnorman (T-C-L)

Good one. I would presume that Norman knows what "hagiography" means. And yet, he just can't stop himself.

It seems to me that there is no improvement in biased content additions from a paid editor than an editor with a strongly held personal point of view in regards to a topic, and that most editors focus is to propagate their biases. The COI/personal bias problem seems to be compounded by the luxury of anonymity.

Correct, and Wikipedia's community mindset is so profoundly dysfunctional, they can't even admit there is a problem. There are tens of thousands of examples
like this, spread all over the WP database (in all languages even). Most have never even been tagged as being problematic.

[thekohser]

SeanPatterson121288 (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Sean Patterson is a student at the University of Utah, which feeds legal interns into the office of Judge Gregory K. Orme.
Disclosure: Indicated that he had contact with and permission from Orme to make Orme's photo public domain.
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: Yes, about the portrait image(s)
Blocked: No

My own disclosure: Judge Orme ended up marrying (and divorcing) my ex-fiancee, who served as a legal intern for Orme and was 16 years younger than the judge. Orme believes Wikipedia's reputation for unreliability is "not-well-deserved". I guess when a student from the local university that feeds you interns is (presumably) assigned with the task of writing your Wikipedia biography for you, then your experience with Wikipedia may be centered on a level of reliability that others don't enjoy.

Meanwhile, practically the whole Utah State Court of Appeals seems to be exploiting University of Utah editors to create biographies for the bench.

Carolyn B. McHugh (T-H-L) - Bio created and tended to by Hannie Chang (T-C-L). In real life, Hannie Chang is an undergraduate student at the University of Utah.

J. Frederic Voros, Jr. (T-H-L) - Bio created by Pbergeson (T-C-L). In real life, there have been a couple of recent University of Utah students named Peter Bergeson.

James Z. Davis (T-H-L) - Bio created by Dmcconkie (T-C-L). In real life, Danielle McConkie is a recent graduate of University of Utah.

William A. Thorne, Jr. (T-H-L) - Bio created by Cemckelv (T-C-L). In real life, cemckelv has studied for courses POLS 3001 and ANTH 4255, which are courses taught at the University of Utah. Adrienne McKelvey (perhaps cemckelv's older sister) is on the University of Utah College of Law's Moot Court Team.

[SB_Johnny]

Teotret (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Law firm PR guy
Disclosure: none
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: Yes, about images
Blocked: No

Came across this while sniffing around the SOPA stuff: he did a bit of buffing to the Dow Lohnes (T-H-L) article, which is (supossedly) the WMF's lobbyist.

Interesting retraction is that he removed stuff about the firm being "notable" for offering particularly high salaries to new recruits, which of course fits right in to the WMF way of spending as much as possible on whatever they buy.

[thekohser]

Teotret (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Law firm PR guy

Appears to be an international student (probably Danish) who ended up going to New York Law School in late 2007.

[SB_Johnny]

Teotret (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Law firm PR guy

Appears to be an international student (probably Danish) who ended up going to New York Law School in late 2007.

Yup, but that was a long time ago. He appears to have a bit of "wiki SEO skills" (getting rid of orphan tags, etc.), so presumably he's doing other things under other names.

[thekohser]

MissyYoung (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Melissa Young is the Executive VP of Sales Engineering at the SuperNAP, a data center facility built by Switch Communications
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: No
Blocked: No

My favorite content she added to Wikipedia, no citations, of course:

Most data centers today are faced with severe issues resulting from improper management and control of equipment-generated heat. Switch offers the most forward looking designs for space and power in the industry.

That's been sitting in the Switch Communications (T-H-L) article since June 2008, viewed approximately 600 times per month, of late.

Follow up to this one...

Days after I reported on this here at Wikipediocracy, the Wikipedia user ErrantX (T-C-L) did his moral duty and cleaned up the Switch Communications article.

However, less than a month later, there's user Cowerponsulting (T-C-L) (get it? Power Consulting?) making some changes. And a couple of months after that, there's another single-purpose account, hammering away at the article with a single purpose.

If the Wikipediots can't even keep tabs on a COI article that's been spoon-fed to them, imagine what's happening every day of the week elsewhere on Wikipedia!

[EricBarbour]

Erika Monroe Williams (T-H-L)
Likely COI: self-bio, plus the bio of her husband, obscure retired baseball player Matt Williams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =362693801
Disclosure: none, but it couldn't be more obvious. Tried to get an article created for her website, failed, created it herself, it was deleted and forwarded to her bio.
Unity of focus: see for yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Co ... Emonroe111
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Co ... 204.207.30
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Co ... 139.57.253
Ever warned: except for a brief note in 2010 on the talkpage, no.
Blocked: nope.

(I heard about this story because I know her father. He has told me, at great length, what a pushy egomaniac his daughter is. So I told him that she's editing her own bio and the bio of her husband. At least it's funny. She even posted an enormous photo of herself on her bio.)

[86Mookie]

obscure retired baseball player Matt Williams.

Not that obscure- He had a good chance to break Maris's home run record in 1994; the strike did him in.

[thekohser]

MariaTash (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Probably is Maria Tash (T-H-L), who by dint of hosting the Thursday, May 6, 2010 seminar "Power Selling With Style" at the Association of Professional Piercers' Annual Conference & Exposition, is now considered by Wikipedia as "an authority on the art of body piercing." (Note that the "reliable source", the trade show handbook, is incorrectly cited in Wikipedia as the QAPP, rather than the APP, because the ball closure ring in the organization's logo looks vaguely like the letter "Q".)
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: No
Blocked: No

Also note that after MariaTash created Maria Tash, the first editor to help spruce up her biography was the Office & Development Manager at Wikimedia UK.

[thekohser]

DanielaAsdaa (T-C-L) and Daniela Asdaa BM (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Probably is Daniela Gorini who is Associate Account Manager at ASDA'A Burson-Marsteller, a public relations firm that counts M.H. Alshaya Co. (T-H-L) as one of its clients.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: Once, a speedy deletion notice for M.H. Alshaya Co., but on her second account, a bot invited her to the Teahouse.
Blocked: No

Note that it is unlikely that Wikipedians would ever attack this work by Daniela Gorini, PR specialist, because her firm represents the Kuwaiti firm whose CEO (Mohammed Alshaya) also co-chaired a World Economic Forum event alongside Jimmy Wales. (Additionally, Kuwait is one of Tony Blair Associates' largest PR consulting clients.) Somebody should ask Jimmy Wales what he thinks about the provenance of the M.H. Alshaya Co. (T-H-L) article, without telling him anything about Ms. Gorini. That could become very amusing.

[EricBarbour]

Oh, that's a really ripe one. So, do you still stand behind your estimate that 50-60% of corporate articles are paid-edited?

[thekohser]

So, do you still stand behind your estimate that 50-60% of corporate articles are paid-edited?

I think I said I could find probable paid and/or COI editing on 50-60% of articles about businesses. Not that the majority of the content on those articles was paid/COI, mind you. If you're asking about the percentage of business articles that have had the majority of their content created by paid/COI editors, that's probably closer to 20% or so. Still working on the study of 100 such articles.

I really wish someone would ask Jimbo what he thinks about DanielaAsdaa (T-C-L) and Daniela Asdaa BM (T-C-L), but it seems nobody is bold enough to do so.

[thekohser]

DanielaAsdaa (T-C-L) and Daniela Asdaa BM (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Probably is Daniela Gorini who is Associate Account Manager at ASDA'A Burson-Marsteller, a public relations firm that counts M.H. Alshaya Co. (T-H-L) as one of its clients.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: Once, a speedy deletion notice for M.H. Alshaya Co., but on her second account, a bot invited her to the Teahouse.
Blocked: No

Note that it is unlikely that Wikipedians would ever attack this work by Daniela Gorini, PR specialist, because her firm represents the Kuwaiti firm whose CEO (Mohammed Alshaya) also co-chaired a World Economic Forum event alongside Jimmy Wales. (Additionally, Kuwait is one of Tony Blair Associates' largest PR consulting clients.) Somebody should ask Jimmy Wales what he thinks about the provenance of the M.H. Alshaya Co. (T-H-L) article, without telling him anything about Ms. Gorini. That could become very amusing.

I believe Jimbo is now essentially asking for a blocking admin to intervene, but even if one does, we all know that the PR-generated content will stay there, nonetheless.

[thekohser]

Jhspring (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Probably is Jayden Spring, chairman of Virtual Skies Network.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: About 80%
Ever warned on Talk page: Yes, about a copyright violation.
Blocked: No

[The Joy]

Dunvegancastle (T-C-L)
Likely COI: http://www.dunvegancastle.com/content/default.asp
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: Yes, about potential COI.
Blocked: No

[thekohser]

Hilde6102k (T-C-L) and Wausauhomes (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Probably Matthew Hildebrandt, who in 2008 was Systems Analyst for Wausau Homes.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: About 98%
Ever warned on Talk page: Yes, Hilde6102k was warned about a speedy delete and about numerous copyright violations. Wausauhomes was blocked.
Blocked: No and Yes

[thekohser]

Rickb110 (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Probably affiliated with TopCashBack.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: About 90%
Ever warned on Talk page: Yes, repeatedly.
Blocked: No

[thekohser]

Will Steinberg (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Will Steinberg is the Strategic Communications Consultant at Shiftgig
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: No. His new article was assessed as Start-Class.
Blocked: No

[thekohser]

Melissa2508 (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Not so obvious, but if this is not a paid editor, I'll print this post, whip it up in a blender, and eat it.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: Over 90% on newly created articles about businesses and business people.
Ever warned on Talk page: Repeatedly.
Blocked: No

[EricBarbour]

Sbgardella (T-C-L)
Likely COI: According to this, Sbgardella is probably Stacy Gardella, Director of Interactive Marketing, Werner Co.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: Worked only on Werner Co. (T-H-L). And nothing else.
Ever warned on Talk page: No.
Blocked: No

[SB_Johnny]

Sbgardella (T-C-L)
Likely COI: According to this, Sbgardella is probably Stacy Gardella, Director of Interactive Marketing, Werner Co.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: Worked only on Werner Co. (T-H-L). And nothing else.
Ever warned on Talk page: No.
Blocked: No

Looks like they switched to a pro now, Mcgenea (T-C-L), who moved on to that article after tidying up a genealogy service's article.

[EricBarbour]

Looks like they switched to a pro now, Mcgenea (T-C-L), who moved on to that article after tidying up a genealogy service's article.

Seriously, it's no fun looking for these things, because there are so damn many of them.
Greg's statistical analysis will be far more informative.

[EricBarbour]

Just one more for the road.

75.169.172.219 (T-C-L), possible others.
Likely COI: employee of Blue Coat Systems (T-H-L).
Warned or blocked: nothing visible. Article was completely erased and rewritten in December 2009 due to COI issues, including a massive warning box. BlueCoatSystems (T-C-L) was blocked in 2011 after trying to turn it into an advert again.

Other background: Blue Coat is notorious for making proxy servers used to censor the internet.
You'd think the nerds would be more interested in this. As it sits, the article only briefly mentions Syria's
use of Blue Coat products for censorship.

[thekohser]

Fresh off the Wikipedia presses this morning:

Rogersquire (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Being Roger Squire
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: No
Blocked: No

His only contribution to Wikipedia, on the article about Mobile disc jockey (T-H-L):

The craze originally started in the UK in 1966 when a young man called Roger Squire started an entertainment service in North London and coined the trading name Roger Squire "Mobile Discotheques". (NB : the word "discotheque" means in French "record library"). He is credited with being the very first person to invent the term Mobile Discotheque. Within just two years he had fifteen mobile discotheques performing at around sixty functions every week. His mobile discos entertained at events attended by film stars and royalty as well as performing at endless numbers of college dances, wedding receptions and other social events. Over the next few years huge numbers of copycat "Mobile Discos" then started up to emulate Squire's successful formula. This was the swinging sixties dancing to the beat of the Beatles and the Stones. It was the decade when London got its "Swinging London" reputation. Squire's later set up a Disco Equipment supply service and sold disco sound and lighting systems to literally thousands of budding DJs both in the UK and abroad.

[EricBarbour]

I'll give ya three guesses who 141.156.92.117 (T-C-L) is! Ha ha ha ha!!!!

[Poetlister]

I'll give ya three guesses who 141.156.92.117 (T-C-L) is! Ha ha ha ha!!!!

Geolocates to somewhere pretty close to Washington DC.

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools#ipInforma ... 156.92.117&&

[EricBarbour]

He's kinda "shirty" too......
http://gawker.com/5983383/profane-outbu ... ord-shirty

[thekohser]

Smithne930 (T-C-L)
Likely COI: During her time with NASPO, Nicole Smith edited all association publications, was responsible for researching and producing issue briefs and whitepapers and coordinated all internal and external research. Ms. Smith also managed the redesign of the NASPO website, naspo.org, and developed marketing strategies for NASPO.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: Copyright violation warning and two speedy deletion notices
Blocked: No

She accomplished quite a lot for her organization in only 2.5 hours on Wikipedia.

[EricBarbour]

I was looking thru the edit history of List of Google products (T-H-L),
and wondering if this is what careful, purposeful paid editing looks like.

Over and over again, an account with an Indian-sounding name and no userpage pops up, makes a few furtive edits
(usually adding tidbits), and goes away. Add that to the random-seeming IP addresses who do much the same.
Plus, an IP address tagged it as {{advert}}. Since when do IP addresses tag articles for problems?

Google has an enormous division in India. Plus, every year, Google is near the top of the lists for H-1B visas (most from India)
and is often prominently mentioned in articles about Indian IT outsourcing. Plus:

http://www.slashgear.com/google-ip-addr ... -17209533/
http://forbesindia.com/blog/technology/ ... orribilis/

There are over 2000 employees at Google India and an unspecified, though “significant” number of contractors. Collectively they work on most of Google products.

[Hex]

Since when do IP addresses tag articles for problems?

Plenty of times. Some even have an in-depth knowledge of policy; see for example this current discussion on the policy pump.

[tarantino]

I was looking thru the edit history of List of Google products (T-H-L),
and wondering if this is what careful, purposeful paid editing looks like.

Over and over again, an account with an Indian-sounding name and no userpage pops up, makes a few furtive edits
(usually adding tidbits), and goes away. Add that to the random-seeming IP addresses who do much the same.
Plus, an IP address tagged it as {{advert}}. Since when do IP addresses tag articles for problems?

Google has an enormous division in India. Plus, every year, Google is near the top of the lists for H-1B visas (most from India)
and is often prominently mentioned in articles about Indian IT outsourcing. Plus:

http://www.slashgear.com/google-ip-addr ... -17209533/
http://forbesindia.com/blog/technology/ ... orribilis/

There are over 2000 employees at Google India and an unspecified, though “significant” number of contractors. Collectively they work on most of Google products.

There are thousands of edits from Google corporate IPs on wp that could probably be correlated to some user names. For example, 72.14.228.137.

Those edits are distinct from edits that trace back to the Google app engine, which are frequently used by spammers, vandals and bots like Cluebot.

[Poetlister]

Since when do IP addresses tag articles for problems?

Plenty of times. Some even have an in-depth knowledge of policy; see for example this current discussion on the policy pump.

They could be people deliberately trying to conceal their identity without the sin of creating a second account. They could indeed sometimes be people editing accidentally while logged out; I've done that a few times, though probably not since they started having warning notices.

[thekohser]

Since when do IP addresses tag articles for problems?

Plenty of times. Some even have an in-depth knowledge of policy; see for example this current discussion on the policy pump.

They could be people deliberately trying to conceal their identity without the sin of creating a second account. They could indeed sometimes be people editing accidentally while logged out; I've done that a few times, though probably not since they started having warning notices.

Or, quite likely is that they work for a competitor of the subject company, and their objective is to make the competition's Wikipedia article look worse.

[thekohser]

Jl4573 (T-C-L)
Likely COI: One edit to Wikipedia, creating the page Localeze (T-H-L) on March 23, 2010.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: Yes, speedy deletion
Blocked: No

Later that same day...
Jqotb (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Jennifer MacLeid Qotb is Spokeswoman for Localeze.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: No
Blocked: No

Two months later...
Jenniferlm (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Jennifer Mirabile at the time was Assistant Vice President at Young & Associates (PR firm) in Pittsburgh, which counts Localeze as a client. Mirabile specialized in "strategic planning and management of communications programs for high-tech companies".
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 87%
Ever warned on Talk page: No
Blocked: No

Three months later...
Nikalos-1976 (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Four edits to Wikipedia, all about Localeze.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: No
Blocked: No

Two months later...
67.20.237.81 (T-C-L)
Likely COI: IP address geolocates to the Pittsburgh area, home of Young & Associates PR firm.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: No
Blocked: No

Two months later...
Jenniferlm17 (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Jennifer Mirabile at the time was Assistant Vice President at Young & Associates (PR firm) in Pittsburgh, which counts Localeze as a client. Mirabile specialized in "strategic planning and management of communications programs for high-tech companies".
Disclosure: Said she was trying to "write from a neutral point of view".
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: No
Blocked: No

Now, one of the companies that Localeze frequently partners with for research is 15miles (T-H-L). Their Wikipedia article was mostly authored by...
Corygrassell (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Cory Grassell was employed by 15miles, the interactive division of TMP Directional Marketing.
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: Yes, a speedy deletion notice... from Fae!
Blocked: No

By the way, Grassell also created the Wikipedia article about his employer's parent company, TMP Directional Marketing (T-H-L).

How did I find this? Someone mentioned Localeze to me today, so I looked them up on Wikipedia. It's that simple. Wikipedia is chock full of articles that were written by COI, single-purpose accounts. Nobody seems to care any more. And that's fine by me.

[thekohser]

Just a running thread to document editors who are (fairly) clearly paid to edit, either by a client or an employer.

I'll kick it off here with a format I think will be helpful going forward:

Space Rubbish (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Employee of Jennic, then acquired by NXP Semiconductors
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: Appears to be about 90%
Ever warned on Talk page: No
Blocked: No

Remember when I kicked off this thread about 10 months ago, with this post about Space Rubbish (T-C-L)?

Apparently, Wikipedia's administrators really don't care about probable conflict-of-interest editors, because Space Rubbish is still toiling away exclusively on the NXP Semiconductors article, as recently as a couple of weeks ago, yet not a single warning on his Talk page, certainly no block, and not the least of a tag, warning, or notice to the reader on the NXP Semi article.

All this "bright line" talk of Jimbo's seems to be nothing more than hot air, when you get down into the trenches.

[Poetlister]

They could be people deliberately trying to conceal their identity without the sin of creating a second account. They could indeed sometimes be people editing accidentally while logged out; I've done that a few times, though probably not since they started having warning notices.

Or, quite likely is that they work for a competitor of the subject company, and their objective is to make the competition's Wikipedia article look worse.

Indeed, so of course they want to conceal their identities. They should know about how easy it is to trace an IP before they do that!

[thekohser]

Or, quite likely is that they work for a competitor of the subject company, and their objective is to make the competition's Wikipedia article look worse.

Indeed, so of course they want to conceal their identities. They should know about how easy it is to trace an IP before they do that!

Why should they care, if it traces to a Burger King, or a Verizon outdoor hot-spot, or to their neighbor's unsecured router?

[Poetlister]

Or, quite likely is that they work for a competitor of the subject company, and their objective is to make the competition's Wikipedia article look worse.

Indeed, so of course they want to conceal their identities. They should know about how easy it is to trace an IP before they do that!

Why should they care, if it traces to a Burger King, or a Verizon outdoor hot-spot, or to their neighbor's unsecured router?

Of course they won't care if they're clever enough to do that. Obviously I meant the less clued-up people who edit using IPs that link to their company.

[thekohser]

Obviously I meant the less clued-up people who edit using IPs that link to their company.

No shortage of those sorts of dullards in the Wikipedia-Business nexus.

[thekohser]

Briana16 (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Briana Perrino was the marketing intern at IC-TAG Solutions (T-H-L)
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: One speedy deletion notice
Blocked: No

[thekohser]

The only reason I looked up Chicago Bridge & Iron was because a friend was talking about it as a stock tip.

That was July 24, 2012, when CBI was trading at $36.41. Today, CBI is trading at $54.91 -- an increase of about 50%, with two 5-cent dividends in the interim. (The Dow Jones average is up only 12% over the same period.) Did anyone besides me buy some CBI stock?

I'm telling you... hitch your wagon to me, folks.

[thekohser]

Hwhitt3185 (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Heather Whitt is/was a marketing communications manager of Cypress Communications
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: No
Blocked: No

Sample of content:

The communications leveraged by this term can include phone, e-mail, chat, voicemail, presence services, and fax. Unified communications integrates these communication mediums so that any activity or message can be easily transferred to another, otherwise known as a seamless user experience. Gains in efficiency can result through an optimization of business processes and enhancing human communications, reducing latency, managing flows, and eliminating device and media dependencies.

[thekohser]

Amberlburke (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Amber Burke is the Internal Communications Administrator for O'Melveny & Myers (T-H-L)
Disclosure: None
Unity of focus: 100%
Ever warned on Talk page: No
Blocked: No

(Tried that User name, after Omm communications (T-C-L) got name-blocked.)

[thekohser]

This past weekend my wife and I happened to take a little shopping tour through Smithville, Atlantic County, New Jersey (T-H-L). While shopping, I decided to look up Smithville on Wikipedia, to confirm my immediate belief that these buildings were not an authentic settlement of actual 18th or 19th century arrangement. (I was mostly right.)

I read that Wikipedia says that a nearby planned development was sold to KHovnanian of Red Bank. Oh goody, I thought -- another article about a business to check for obvious paid editors. Take your pick:

Khovalert (T-C-L)
Epearce (T-C-L) (actually, an angry customer, but still COI)
67.81.17.177 (T-C-L)
KHovSoCal (T-C-L)
JonRWilhelm (T-C-L) (promotional link spammer, not likely affiliated with Hovnanian)

[thekohser]

GRuban (T-C-L)
Likely COI: Former employee of Lavastorm, though I don't know the dates
Disclosure: Not readily, but he made it easy enough to figure out, with links to off-Wiki "personal" pages
Unity of focus: Appears very little, a mark in his favor
Ever warned on Talk page: No
Blocked: No

George Ruban appears to be the very model of a modern Wikipedian, but he did basically author the article Lavastorm (T-H-L) from scratch.

[Randy from Boise]

The COI/personal bias problem seems to be compounded by the luxury of anonymity.

The Wikipedia community can either worship the idol of anonymity or seriously attempt to stop COI editing, but not both.

I personally am neither in favor of anonymous editing nor a particularly harsh approach to COI editing (seeking to regulate it, rather than ban it). But as Greg has demonstrated in this thread, the identification of COI editors necessarily involves so-called "outing" of anonymous accounts. Those seeking a hardline approach are going to be forced by the situation to choose. My guess is that anonymity will be preserved as sacred, COI editing will be grudgingly allowed — as is currently the case.

RfB

[thekohser]

My guess is that anonymity will be preserved as sacred, COI editing will be grudgingly allowed — as is currently the case.

Woo hooo, for my dozens of paid COI sockpuppets, then!

[TungstenCarbide]

on the front page;

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =538994067

[EricBarbour]

on the front page;

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =538994067

Look at his talkpage, some real comedy in there. Plus Seren, trying to "advise" him on paid editing properly.