This week we present an open letter from one of our forum members, Mason (known as “28bytes” on Wikipedia).
Jonathan E. Hochman is the founder of a marketing business specializing in search engine optimization. He is also a long-term Wikipedia participant (since 2005!) and an administrator on the site, where he contributes under the name of “Jehochman”. As he states on his personal Wikipedia profile page, Hochman does not “edit” on behalf of his clients. But truth, on Wikipedia, is in the eye of the beholder. Hochman may not create or contribute to articles about his customers on Wikipedia *now*, but as the following will show, he has done so on numerous occasions in the distant and not so distant past.
28bytes, as the reader may recall, was the most popular candidate in last year’s elections to Wikipedia’s supreme and far from uncontroversial decision-making body, the site’s “Arbitration Committee”. He resigned after having been criticized (especially by Jehochman) about also having an account here on Wikipediocracy, as well as having edited some articles he had a close connection with.
We’d also like to give a hat tip to Mila, who did a lot of research to bring this topic to light. You can see her forum post about Jehochman here.
AN OPEN LETTER TO JEHOCHMAN
Dear Mr. Hochman,
I am sure you recall leaving a message on my talk page six weeks ago asking that I resign from the arbitration committee for not disclosing to the Wikipedia community that I had (and have) an account here on Wikipediocracy. This was one of about two dozen messages you left on my talk page within a period of a few hours, many of which made the claim that not disclosing this fact
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