Billionaire Aubrey McClendon’s Paid Wikipedia Articles

By Stanistani

(with help from other Wikipediocracy members)

Visionary and controversial oil billionaire Aubrey McClendon  passed away a few days ago under unusual circumstances.

Aubrey McClendon
Image Credit: McNeese Studios
License: CC BY 3.0

I began examining his Wikipedia biography to see how it had been handled by Wikipedia editors and administrators.
On the article home page I found this interesting chunk of confession from an editor at Wikipedia named 16912_Rhiannon:

This was about eleven months ago, at a time when McClendon’s troubles with the law were percolating but hadn’t boiled over.

Soon enough, an experienced Wikipedian with the symbolic name Ɱ came in and helped edit paid editor 16912_Rhiannon‘s new draft of the article to replace her previous version.

It’s interesting that Ɱ also edits for pay, as shown on his COI disclosure page.

I decided to dig a bit deeper…

16912_Rhiannon’s user page has this:

Emphasis mine.

Her angel alter ego Grisette is interesting, if a bit vaporous. In her user space is a tiny stub of an article about a brand of perfume.

Grisette’s total edits in five years: 45

16912 Rhiannon is Rhiannon Ruff of Beutler Ink. She is identified in this Wikiconference submission and identifies herself in this image upload. Rhiannon also posts on the Beutler Ink blog and identifies her account as Grisette.

Rhiannon Ruff: Image from LinkedIn

Beutler Ink, the major source of this billionaire bonanza bingo article creation, offers Wikipedia article creation and control as one of their services. Look under ‘Wiki Content’ on the page linked.

When contacted about this blog post, William Beutler of Beutler Ink replied, “… everything we did followed Wikipedia guidelines and best practices where financial conflicts of interest are concerned, we had multiple editors review the draft before they judged it worthy of inclusion, and we’re very proud of the work we did on behalf of the late Mr. McClendon.” On Wikipedia, William Beutler is User: WWB and his ‘paid editor account’ is User: WWB Too.

William Beutler Image Credit: Beutler Ink (screencap from 2014 video)

Previous polishing on the Aubrey Mclendon article and that of McClendon’s latter company Chesapeake Energy was performed by SPA (Single Purpose Account) Creativejuice. A grand total of 47 edits.

Creativejuice admits to being “an employee” of Chesapeake here: link

Chesapeake Energy (T–H–L) was worked on by another employee of the company back in 2010.

From the article talk page:

An interesting editor: Humorglazer with only 168 edits over a year, including a few in the last few days (on Chesapeake Energy). A near SPA, very interested in the oil industry.

Top articles edited:
8 Baker Hughes (T–H–L) one of the world’s largest oil field services companies…
7 GeoQuest Systems (T–H–L) was a company offering geology software, systems integration, and information-management services and software to the oil and gas industry.
5 Schlumberger SEED (T–H–L) is a global non-profit educational outreach organization within Schlumberger Limited, the global oilfield services company.
5 Ernest Henry Nickel (T–H–L) was a mineralogist from Canada…
4 Technip (T–H–L) a company that carries out project management, engineering and construction for the energy industry.
4 List of oilfield service companies (T–H–L)
4 Otto Schlicht (T–H–L) was a German-American manufacturer of concertinas in Chicago.
3 International Logging (T–H–L) provided the world’s oil & gas industry with products and services…
3 Thomas Allan (T–H–L) …he is remembered today for his contributions to mineral science.
3 Well cementing (T–H–L) is the process of introducing cement to the annular space between the well-bore and casing or to the annular space between two successive casing strings.
2 Grup Servicii Petroliere (T–H–L) is a Romanian company providing offshore integrated services for oil and gas industry.
2 Chemlink (T–H–L) global power equipment company, transitioning to equipment communications links.
2 Georges Calas (T–H–L) is Professor of Mineralogy at the Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University and a Senior member of University Institute of France.
2 Ekhard Salje (T–H–L) is Professor of Mineralogy and Petrology and former Head of the Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge University.
2 List of oil exploration and production companies (T–H–L)

(I’m using usually the first sentence in each article for a description.)

I’d say this editor is a professional in the industry, perhaps a geologist who worked for petroleum companies.

My favorite edit of theirs: link

Marked as a minor edit (which typically are punctuation changes that don’t change the meaning), it minimized a $233 million fine levied against Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfield services company, for violating sanctions against trading with Iran and Sudan.

This was deceptive, and designed to fly under the radar.

Aubrey McClendon founded another energy company, American Energy Partners, LP (T–H–L). The corresponding Wikipedia article was created only six months ago, also by 16912 Rhiannon (T–C–L).

But hey, everything is A-OK, kosher, and halal.

The Bright Line Rule handed down on glittery stone tablets by Moses Jimmy Wales is being followed to the letter, according to Rhiannon:

May Jimbo rock us to sleep tonight.

I am not criticizing the admins and editors of Wikipedia for helping the paid editors — they are following policy — nor am I criticizing the paid editors for making money — it is instead the ins and outs of how these articles are manipulated because of a failure to set a coherent policy that becomes a blanket of fog over the supposedly transparent workings of Wikipedia.

Despite all the chaotic arguing over paid editors, and Jimmy Wales’s ‘Bright line Rule’ one thing is clear — if you have lots of money, your version of ‘the truth’ is the version Wikipedia will show its readers.

Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit — but if you are a billionaire, your employee’s edits will persevere.