Paid PR scandal erupts at Wikipedia

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This Is Awkward

Scandalous!

A Wikipedia trustee and a Wikipedian In Residence have been editing the online encyclopedia on behalf of PR clients. Add the discovery of an SEO business run on the side, and this tempest is out of its teapot.

They usually further agendas for free.



A Wikipedia trustee and a Wikipedian In Residence have been editing the online encyclopedia on behalf of PR clients. Add the discovery of an SEO business run on the side, and this tempest is out of its teapot.

Concerned Wikipedians raised the alarm Monday that two trusted men -- one a trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation UK, the other a respected Wikipedian In Residence -- are allegedly editing Wikipedia pages and facilitating front-page placement for their pay-for-play, publicity-seeking clients.

Jimmy Wales is not pleased.

It began this week when an interesting discussion started on the DYK ("Did You Know") discussion page.

Roger Bamkin, trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation UK, whose LinkedIn page describes him as a high-return-earning PR consultant, appeared to be using Wikipedia's main page "Did You Know" feature and the resources of Wikipedia's GLAM WikiProject (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) initiative to pimp his client's project.

Bamkin's current client is the country of Gibraltar.

In August, Gibraltar was featured as a Wikipedia DYK front page feature an astonishing seventeen times - that's an unusual frequency of every 2-3 days.

Other than the Olympics, it is the only repeated topic throughout the month.

The "Did You Know" section on Wikipedia's Main Page publicizes new or expanded articles - the publicity viewership on Wikipedia's front page is estimated in the hundreds of millions per month.

Wales: "wildly inappropriate"

When Wikipedia's founder was told about Bamkin's client in relation to Wikimedia UK, Jimmy Wales wrote:

It is wildly inappropriate for a board member of a chapter, or anyone else in an official role of any kind in a charity associated with Wikipedia, to take payment from customers in exchange for securing favorable placement on the front page of Wikipedia or anywhere else. - Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:54, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


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Corruption in Wikiland? Paid PR scandal erupts at Wikipedia | Internet & Media - CNET News


Just like the MSM news.

And you wonder why you've never heard of electricity in space.

Actually, I've never wondered that. But if it explains how they get the caramel in the Caramilk Bar, bring it on man.

And to understand that process you must have stayed at a Holiday Inn?

The reason that you have not heard of electricity in space is because space vacuum. No sound waves. Now can you hear me.

They turn on the switch and squeeze it in the upside down top first and then they press another switch and the bottom is rolled on top at exactly 52.7 c it then enters the cooling and flipping chamber where it idles for 3.75 minutes while the choco solidifies at 28.1414 c exactly, it is then wrapped in burlap by tiny little old ladies recently displaced out of the Afgan opium processing business. See you didn't read any of that at Wikepedia did you? The whole process depends on the electrical properties of chocolate.

I was hoping for a Dr. Seussian type of assembly line mental picture but this will have to suffice.

You knowwww...now that you've disclosed this information...well...I'd watch your back for Cadburys' Ninjas. They're worse than the 11 herbs and spices patrol KFC sends out.

The secret was passed to me by a carload of drunken Chinese industrial spys who had gone off the road into the forest in my neckof. They had killed a busload of smurfs in the accident and I helped them dispose of the little **** bags. They got my back, that's what they said anyway.

There are people who will believe Wiki articles if they support their own beliefs.
Cripes, who didn't figure out years ago that Wiki was manipulated, given no real vetting of most of those submitting so called facts?

EAO and the bulk of the Usual Suspects.

Ah, Wiki is ok for some things. For others, it's best to getting supporting data for, though.

Well sure, it's not written in stone or anything but it is handy for quick look ups of information. Still have to use some common sense when assessing it though.

Well that excludes all of the Usual Suspects.

Well then that qualifies as user error, lol.

The concept of it is great, a one-stop internet shop for quick info. But obviously anything that can be modified by anyone with internet access needs to be accepted with a grain of salt. Or two.

I can remember seeing an interview with BNL a year or so ago and they were talking about their Wiki page, how on occassion they would update info (you know, about their lives) and "fans" (really **** retentive ones I presume) would alter it because they didn't believe it was true, LOL.

So yeah, consider the source would apply.