Requests for comment/Interlinking of accounts involved with paid editing to decrease impersonation

This is a subpage; for more information, see the Requests for comments page.

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Statement of issue

We commonly see paid editors pretending to be established Wikipedians such as here.

Proposal

We require those involved with paid editing on Wikipedia to link on their user page to all other active accounts through which they advertise paid Wikipedia editing business.

This means that, should we discover an account on a site such as Fiverr or Upwork which state they are involved with paid editing of Wikipedia, however there is no account on Wikipedia that discloses that account, then we can more easily get these types of sites, some with whom we currently have good relationships, to remove those accounts. This will help those here who are being impersonated to stop the impersonation

Example

If the above users were required to interlink the accounts they uses on Wikipedia and their Upwork profiles we could verify the claim that they are an admin or the admin in question. This will make legal's job easier when they are involved in follow up.

Support

1. Support as proposer. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:24, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
2. Support makes sense. Pundit (talk) 15:25, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
3. Support Jcc (talk) 15:38, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
4. Support Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:52, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
5. Support David Gerard (talk) 16:12, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
6. Support with comments below Smallbones (talk) 18:20, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
7. Support --Vituzzu (talk) 18:25, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
8. Support Definitely makes sense. Tanweer (talk) 18:49, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
9. support--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:11, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
10. Support makes sense imo. I suppose that it will be the same rule for all wikipedias languages, and probably all WMF wikis ? --Framawiki (talk) 19:42, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
11.  Support - sensible proposal. – Ajraddatz (talk) 20:09, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
12.  Support with the proviso that this only applies on WMF wikis that have disclosure of paid status as a requirement (so not Commons or other projects that have chosen similar alternative policies on disclosure). TonyBallioni (talk) 20:48, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
13. Support Kudpung (talk) 21:48, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
14. Support good proposal, with comment below GastelEtzwane (talk) 21:56, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
15. Support, probably with some wordsmithing per the discussion below. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:41, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
16. Support--Nattes à chat (talk) 00:29, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
17. Weak support This sounds like a great idea, and if we could actually require (and automatically enforce) this then that would be great. However, I can't see how we could automatically check this (so the burden is still on editors/the WMF) so I think that this is more of a guideline that we would like to see people follow, rather than a requirement. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 00:37, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

    BTW Upworks appears to be willing to work with us on semi automated enforcement tools. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:02, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

18. Support Confirmation is an obvious requirement that applies to things like IRC/Cloaks#Obtaining a cloak. I don't want someone claiming to be me with no redress. Johnuniq (talk) 00:49, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
19. Support This is actually much closer to a silver bullet for the undisclosed paid editing problem (the part of it that gets facilitiated through Upwork and similar sites) than most people voting here seem to realise. Rentier (talk) 00:54, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I would support if it were stated to be not retrospectively applied, be time-limited and inapplicable to clean-start users who have made good faith attempts to comply with policy. It seems unfair to force a user to forever declare themselves as a paid editor and link to their "corporate" accounts if they happen to have been employed to do so years ago; we do not require ex-WMF employees to do this. I suggest there is a reasonable time-limit of one year after paid edits have ceased. --Fæ (talk) 15:58, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

   User:Fæ this is for people still involved in paid editing. If a person is no longer involved in paid editing than they should not have accounts on Upworks / Fiver still offering to do paid editing of Wikipedia should they? Does adding "active" address your concern?

   Also this is about linking to "Accounts through which they advertise paid Wikipedia editing". Most corporate account will not fit this description. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:01, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

   It's too implicit. Paid editors need to remain responsible for their contributions for a relevant period, not "vanish", shuttle between apparently unrelated non-paid and paid accounts, or be allowed to pretend it never happened 5 seconds after their last paid edit. If that were allowed, then regularly contracting paid editors could refuse to make any public statement between periods of engagement, even if for the same employer. Anyway, something to sort out the details in the Comments section if a further rewriting is being suggested. --Fæ (talk) 16:17, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

   I am not sure I understand your concern. What is too implicit? This is only putting in place the requirement to interlink accounts that are currently involved in paid editing to prevent impersonation of Wikipedians. It means that if one puts up an adverts that says "I am Fae and I will write article for you for 1000USD", if the Wikipedia account of Fae does not link to that advert, we can assume that advert is impersonating you and more easily request it be taken down. If someone was previously involved in paid editing and has removed all the adverts they had up than no linking is required per this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:26, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

   "vanish", shuttle between apparently unrelated non-paid and paid accounts, or be allowed to pretend it never happened 5 seconds after their last paid edit - unfortunately, Fæ, this is precisely their MO. There's not much we can do about it except make more rules so when we find them being broken we can react better. Kudpung (talk) 00:02, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

2.  Oppose This will only lead to wild goose hunts with nearly no real benefit. Problem no 1 is that you have no way to verify that two accounts on two different systems is controlled by the same person. Not even if the two accounts seemingly is involved in editing the same article, and not even if they seems to have the same user name. You must start with creating systems that allow identification and tracking of users, and as of now no such systems exists on Wikipedia. The only outcome of the proposal would be stalking and alienating users. It is quite frankly, not a good idea. — Jeblad 23:54, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

   I think you are misreading what is being proposed. Let says a Fivver account is claiming to be you and offering to edit Wikipedia for pay. Yet you have not linked to that Fivver account on your Wikipedia user page. With this proposal we can ask Fivver to take down that account more easily and thus prevent the impersonation of you. P.S. both we and Fivver have policies against impersonation. For those involved with paid editing our TOU already require that they list the intermediaries through which they work, so nothing changing there. We are not trying to verify that "two accounts on two different systems are controlled by the same person" only the person who controls those two accounts can do that.

   Impersonating other people is a big issue, not a minor one as you try to make out. It is a form of harassing long term editors and drives volunteers away. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:27, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

   You can reformulate this as impersonating someone, but it is still the same – only worse. The proposal would then be to make claims about impersonations done on an external site, with no real evidence. — Jeblad 01:00, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

[1] I didn't know it was this blatant (in terms of selling their services/souls if they have any)...agree w/ above proposal--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:30, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

That page used to say that "Andrew C." was an admin. There is an editor here who used to be an admin by that name but I think this upworks account is just impersonating the person as they say this is not them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:38, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

This should be an RFC, not a Meta RFC, no? --MF-W 14:17, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Excellent point and will move. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:40, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

The first of your two examples is a dead account; the second is a sign-in page. {also, to emit valid and accessible HTML markup, please only indent your first reply, to any uninedented comment, with one colon]. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:59, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Ah cool. Good to see upworks finally took down the account that appears to have been pretending to be an admin on EN WP. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:02, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

• What does interlinking mean exactly? Can you show us an example of a profile which is interlinked in this manner? Gamaliel (talk) 17:21, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
  • It means that the owner of a WP account involved in paid editing would link to the Upworks account through which they do paid Wikipedia editing work. For example whatever account this person is using would need to contain a link to this Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:48, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
• On first reading this seems to say that they link in the advertisement to their user page here. While the current wording might do it, if there are other concerns about wording, I'll suggest:

In order to enforce the Terms of Use prohibition on impersonation, we require those involved with paid editing on any WMF project to link on their user page to all active accounts through which they advertise paid Wikipedia editing services, or use to respond to such ads. In the ads themselves, and in responses to such ads, the editor should link to his user page on the WMF project where he is most active.

Note that this is not regulating the content of other websites, only regulating the actions of Wiki users who wish to make paid edits here. Smallbones (talk) 18:20, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Would be happy with that wording aswell. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:41, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

James, would you be open to wording that takes into account that some local projects do not require disclosure of paid status (Commons for one). Perhaps something like On projects where disclosure of paid status is required to comply with the terms of use. might fix it. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:16, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Commons TOU redirects to the meta TOU.[2] Were does it say that commons does not require disclosure of paid editing? We still want to prevent impersonation of commons editors. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:44, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Commons has a alternate disclosure policy at commons:Commons:Paid contribution disclosure policy it is listed at Alternative paid contribution disclosure policies. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:54, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

While we do say "on Wikipedia" and Commons is not a Wikipedia. While Commons has a policy on disclosure not being needed for paid editors I would imagine they would be against impersonation. But agree at this point we should leave them out. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:03, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

For the moment, The Wikimedia Commons community does not require any disclosure of paid contributions from its contributors. But that may change in the future now that the Wikipedia community is waking up to the problems caused by undisclosed paid editing. Wikimedia Commons could, for example, just require disclosure and set no other restrictions. We should start with Wikipedia and remain flexible enough so that other projects can jump on the band wagon at any time. GastelEtzwane (talk) 21:55, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but this would be a global policy. I'm all for stricter policies on paid editing, but we shouldn't be writing a global policy only for Wikipedias. Keeping it broad by making it apply to all WMF wikis that require disclosure would make it so that if Commons decided to require disclosure in the future, they would automatically have this policy if they made the switch. I think that is a positive thing that also allows local communities to decide how to deal with this issue if they want to. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:17, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation itself are using Upwork. How do you plan to handle that? How do you plan to verify that some people have a legitimate use of an account on Upwork? How will you try to figure out who do paid editing and who tries to help people? How do you plan to connect an user account "wild-rabits" on Wikipedia with an account on Upwork? Are you Harry Potter with a magic crystal ball? Yes I see the problem with Upwork, there are a lot of people there crying about help with their pages. Rather than going after those that help them at Upwork, try to make a working community at Wikipedia that help them! — Jeblad 00:06, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

They are NOT offering to edit Wikipedia for pay. Two things are required (1) The account on Upworks needs to be offering to edit Wikipedia for pay (2) There needs to be no link from WP to the Upwork account in question. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:30, 14 September 2017 (UTC)