<story><title>Wikipedia editors, locked in battle with PR firm, delete 250 accounts</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/wikipedia-editors-locked-in-battle-with-pr-firm-delete-250-accounts/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>raganwald</author><text>This should be fixed the old-fashioned way: By cutting off teh flow of money at the source. When clients are caught directly or indirectly using sock-puppetry and astroturfing on Wikipedia, banners should be added to the affected pages naming and shaming the clients.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;This page has been locked by Wikipedia in response to deceptive practices paid for by Engulf and Devour to circumvent our community standards and mislead readers.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;If you want this to stop, you have to give the clients a disincentive. That will drive the good clients out and these firms will be left with erectile dysfunction flim-flam as their market.</text></comment>
<story><title>Wikipedia editors, locked in battle with PR firm, delete 250 accounts</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/wikipedia-editors-locked-in-battle-with-pr-firm-delete-250-accounts/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>tokenadult</author><text>I hope, as a Wikipedian since April 2010, that this is the beginning of a thorough change of culture on Wikipedia in the interest of making Wikipedia more of a genuine free online encyclopedia[1] and less of a publicity platform for everyone who doesn&amp;#x27;t want to pay honest cash money for a paid advertisement. There is currently a proposal discussed among Wikipedians for a tighter policy against paid editing,[2] and as long as the new policy, whatever it ends up being, makes for less promotional content on Wikipedia, I&amp;#x27;m all for it.&lt;p&gt;People who want to help Wikipedia improve as unpaid volunteers have a number of channels for doing that. One thing that would help Wikipedia&amp;#x27;s goal of better content quality[3] is adding more reliable sources to articles. I try to help that process by compiling source lists in user space that any Wikipedian can use for updating articles.[4] It&amp;#x27;s a long slog to fight the rot on Wikipedia. Reading Wikipedia takes a sharp eye for propaganda and advertising in disguise.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Here_to_build_an_encyclopedia&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Wikipedia:Here_to_build_an_enc...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Paid_editing_policy_proposal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Wikipedia_talk:Paid_editing_po...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Movement_Priorities#Improve_Content_Quality&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;strategy.wikimedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Strategic_Plan&amp;#x2F;Movement_...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#Accuracy_of_content&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Wikipedia#Accuracy_of_content&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[4] &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/IntelligenceCitations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;User:WeijiBaikeBianji&amp;#x2F;Intellig...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/AnthropologyHumanBiologyRaceCitations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;User:WeijiBaikeBianji&amp;#x2F;Anthropo...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>