McGrath says someone told her Luna’s wiki page was inaccurate. She checked it out, thought that it was misinformation and she felt it was her job to change it. “My job,” she says, “is to make sure that correct information is out there. I do it all day, I do it every day.”

[...] But Becky Tallent says it’s not that simple. Tallent teaches public relations at the University of Idaho and worked in state government PR for 15 years. [...] Tallent thinks McGrath’s foray into Wikipedia was unwise. [...] However, Tallent says Wikipedia is different than most information sources.

“Anyone can go in, anyone can make changes, whether these changes make the information right or wrong,” she says. “Which makes it a kind of unique and sometimes dangerous animal.”

The Public Relations Society of America agrees. The member organization for PR professionals has tried unsuccessfully for months to write guidelines on how to deal with Wikipedia. The organization's Stephanie Cegielski says so far they agree that sometimes it’s OK to edit a client’s Wiki page and sometimes it’s not. Cegielski says many PR people get frustrated with Wikipedia because there is no formal structure. [...]

For some reason, the media isn't talking about the single-purpose account that transformed the article from this to this. "Kleej13" was the reason "MelissaMcGrath" decided to become involved. Only those who are honest enough to use their real names and disclose their COI, such as "MelissaMcGrath", get into trouble. Pseudonymous editors, such as "Kleej13", can get away with anything.

Interesting stuff that demonstrates both the pros and cons of COI editing. On the one hand there was clearly bad information that got removed, but there was also some promotional information added. However, on the whole it is difficult to distinguish COI editing from any other form of biased editing.

Bingo! And I see this all the time with clients. Pseudonymous attackers using highly questionable sources to malign the subject via Wikipedia, so a paid agent of the subject goes in to try to undo the unfair damage. Then, they get smacked down by an admin called to the scene, because the paid agent is not as sneaky and crafty as the pseud. And so, they then begin searching on the Internet for help, and the next thing you know, a paid editor is at work on the article, using the same sneaky and crafty techniques as the pseud, because that's the only way to get to that mythical "NPOV" at that point.

The Wikimedia Foundation truly owes an apology to Tom Luna and his staff for allowing this article to look this way for 3 months on Wikipedia. It was nothing but an attack piece, disguised as a non-profit, charitable encyclopedia's "sum of human knowledge".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Kleej13

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kleej13/sandbox

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tom_Luna&diff=495175446&oldid=459031309

For some reason, the media isn't talking about the single-purpose account that transformed the article from this to this. "Kleej13" was the reason "MelissaMcGrath" decided to become involved. Only those who are honest enough to use their real names and disclose their COI, such as "MelissaMcGrath", get into trouble. Pseudonymous editors, such as "Kleej13", can get away with anything.

McGrath removed various one-sided opinions that had been posted months prior while adding her own biased point of view.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tom_Luna&diff=511845871&oldid=511689120
"Kleej13" is back. Kleej13 even mentioned his or her own "various one-sided opinions":