Template talk:Undisclosed paid/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Template:Undisclosed paid. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

• @Rentier and Doc James: This template is invisible for me right now both on this page and in articles. How about for you? I can't see any recent changes that could have affected it. SmartSE (talk) 22:26, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

  @Smartse: That's strange. It works for me. What kind of browser / screen size are you using? Rentier (talk) 22:35, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

  @Rentier: Hmm indeed. Browser is: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux i686; rv:55.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/55.0 (Linux i686). Screensize is 1680 x 1050. It's worked fine before and other templates show up as normal. Tried clearing caches/purging and restarting to no effect. SmartSE (talk) 23:07, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

  @Smartse: Very hard to guess what might be happening. Perhaps it was hidden by an ad blocker. I made a small change that could have fixed it if that was the case - is the template still hidden on Template:Undisclosed_paid? If yes, does the template show up when you are not signed in? What if you try a different browser or device? Is the template completely invisible or do you see any part of it? Rentier (talk) 00:39, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

  @Rentier: Well it's working fine again now! Whether or not it was related to your change I'm not sure. Cheers regardless. SmartSE (talk) 16:46, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Why the return to ambox? This makes the template invisible on mobile. Rentier (talk) 01:01, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Mobile Wikipedia is literally not optimized for proper content editing. No ambox modules are visible on m.wiki, but you can find it grouped in Page issues at the top of the page, forcing HTML to display {{UDP}} is basically bypassing the mobile accessibility modifications. --QEDK (愛 • 海) 03:20, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

One can edit just fine on mobile now. So yes the notices are important their aswell.

It is also a notice to readers who may be mislead by paid editors. For example we had this happen[1] which ruined a lot of peoples lives it appears.

Restored it to how it was before. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:04, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Doc James. I think the accessibility concerns are secondary to the paid advocacy issues. We should be thinking about making the other COI templates visible on mobile, not the other way around. Any data on how many users click the "Page issues" link? It doesn't take an UX expert to predict that the number is going to be really small. Rentier (talk) 11:36, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes I agree we should make the COI template visible as well on mobile. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:37, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I won't contest the restoration/reversion, not much of a need or will. But either way, I believe this template is getting undue importance; there's always been content issues and it's barely relevant when you consider issues like lack of verifability and original research which are threats to an online encyclopedia like Wikipedia. While I'm not questioning the problem that UPE surely is, we're overplaying it with all these relative comparisons and that article that you've pointed to is very situational, and could have been related to almost anything else; the fact that it's related doesn't imply the causation. --QEDK (愛 • 海) 14:06, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Making such a change would require a RfC. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:36, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Should we have a version of this templates for talk pages? The template:connected contributor (paid) makes a definitive statement that X was paid and we often use this tag when it a DUCK situation; I only use the "paid" template on talk when we have an actual disclosure of paid editing. I am using the plain template:connected contributor for now for these cases... Jytdog (talk) 19:42, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

I use the COI template when the editor discloses and this when when the editor does not. I think what we have for talk pages currently works and is clear. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:21, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

This template does not sit well inside {{multiple issues}}; see, for example, Old revision of Oliveboard. Can that be fixed? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:32, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

This was mentioned at Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2018 July 16#Formatting issue with article tags? PrimeHunter (talk) 20:44, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

This is resolved, as the template once again uses {{Ambox}}, which should now display on mobile. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:32, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Would it be a good idea to attach a category to this template? E.g. "Wikipedia articles with possible undisclosed paid content"? This would seem like a natural extension of the existing relationship between the template {{paid contributions}} and the category "Wikipedia articles with paid content". Thoughts/opinions? --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 15:47, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Drm310, Category:Wikipedia articles with undisclosed paid content? Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:33, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

@Galobtter: Facepalm Oh man... I need a few days off. Thanks. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 17:37, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

This template boldly now marks pages as NOINDEX (i.e. excluded from search engine indices if it was created less than 90 days prior to the tag being placed) per this discussion. It's not too late to have your say at that link. MER-C 19:29, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Late support for the archived suggestion. This can be archived now as well. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:46, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I've undone this bold edit. No-indexing article-space content should not be done without a clear consensus in a widely-announced, centralised RfC. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:31, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Which policy/guideline says that? SmartSE (talk) 17:30, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

ITYM "which policy says we can hide article-space content from search engines" - to which the answer is "none that I know of". I'm sure you'll tell me if I've missed one. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:48, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

The consensus in the linked discussion was to do so. You've unilaterally overturned that, seemingly just because you don't like it. SmartSE (talk) 23:21, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

"I'm sure you'll tell me if I've missed one." None, then. See also WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:54, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. A lot of things with this template are way above status quo for accepted policy. --QEDK (後 ☕ 桜) 14:21, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Being discussed here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:39, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

This is per Template:Ambox documentation. Orange is used for major article issues. ViperSnake151  Talk  19:55, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

True, every other major issue template uses an orange color. However, the UDP template is a special case as the UDP template is visible (to my knowledge, all other templates only show up when you access 'page issues') when viewing Wikipedia from a mobile device. Having a bold red coloration, I feel, is a stark warning for potential undisclosed paid editors. I see no reason to change it to orange.--SamHolt6 (talk) 21:04, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

We also want readers to notice this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:32, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

We use red for deletion notices only. This is not a deletion notice; therefore keeping it red is inconsistent. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:03, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

If there are no comments then I propose to change it back to orange — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:10, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

@MSGJ: This has been red for a long time and has been discussed previoulsy so there should be a consensus to change it to orange which currently, I do not see. Regarding We use red for deletion notices only see e.g. {{Copypaste}}. Red is equally suitable here, given that the context is potentially legally dubious per laws on covert advertising. SmartSE (talk) 12:06, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Hello,

Would like to know how to remove "paid contributor template" from wikipedia pages. Please guide — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kumargau (talk • contribs) 03:28, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Seeing this banner being used more frequently in cases that in the past would typically have been {{COI}}. For example, an employee of a small company edits the article. Or someone who works at a school edits an article about a student at that school. In both cases the account names are the name of the company, or name of the school ie. a disclosed identity.

These are clearly connected contributors a COI. The "$" symbol in the UPE banner gets people's attention - but when misused it dilutes the banners traditional meaning. In the given examples, there is no evidence of anyone being paid for the express purpose of editing Wikipedia, or even being paid at all. There is no third party involved. There is no hidden account involved. At worse they neglected to add a single sentence to their talk page disclosing their affiliation, despite effectively already doing so with an account name.

This banner should be used more sparingly when there is a clear paid violation and attempt to hide a disclosure. We should not be punishing newbies with this tag when they have already in effect disclosed their identity, and when there is no clear evidence they are being paid for the express purpose of editing Wikipedia, and not merely doing so on their own time but under what they think is an "official" account, which is how newbies think this being a good thing. Use {{COI}} instead. -- GreenC 14:19, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

disagree. Before newbies even start creating pages, they're already given heads up about COI editing. Graywalls (talk) 21:35, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

There is a difference between COI and paid editing, and this template is often used where it really is COI with no evidence of paid editing, other than a COI connection. -- GreenC 21:27, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

GreenC, there's a difference between COI and paid spam. There would be fewer articles tagged with this if it weren't for a handful of people who resist any attempt to delete articles created in violation of the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:06, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Deleting articles is one way to deal with it. There are others. It's easier and quicker to make lemonaid from lemons then wait for a lemon tree to grow on its own in the wild. -- GreenC 21:27, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

GreenC, but for the most part these are not lemon trees. The subjects that pay for articles are very often from categories that are wildly over-represented on Wikipedia, like motivational speakers. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:39, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not talking about motivation speakers, see examples given above. -- GreenC 21:46, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I think that when you personally reach a certain level of frustration with the garbage that comes in the door, you tend to reach for stronger sounding templates. It's almost like you're screaming at the newbie because the previous hundred people didn't do what you wanted. I think it's a sign that it's time to rotate yourself to a different area of contribution, but unfortunately editors tend to hang out in an area like this until either they burn out or the start behaving so badly that they end up banned. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:08, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

The current wording (It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies) implies that only content removal is required in order to clean up UPE. While removing promotional content is the main job to be done, it is equally possible that the problem is with negative content being excluded. Should we reword it to account for this? i.e. editors should evaluate available sources to determine whether they are given due weight. As an example, take a look at Beyond Meat (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) which has been plagued by paid editors since it was created.SmartSE (talk) 16:48, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@Smartse, I don't think that "cleanup" implies removal. That may be because my main reference for "cleanup" is the old {{Cleanup}} template. That links to Wikipedia:Cleanup, which is mostly about formatting and copyediting. It might be more pointful to say something like "Please check this page for Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch and POV problems" than for "cleanup". WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Note that the editors Adam Williams, AleatoryPonderings, Doc James, Sampajanna, TonyBallioni, and Yaxı Hökmdarz are mentioned in the table below (once there click show to see it) having removed {{Undisclosed paid}} from one of the articles in the set. Any editor welcome to weigh in on this proposal.

I'd just like to say first of all that I identify with the goal of preventing advertising and promotional material from getting into articles. One of the key goals of the Wikipedia Project is to provide accurate information from a neutral point of view, and advertising material detracts from that goal.

I'd also like to say that it seems to me a high priority for Wikipedia to be able to create and enforce reasonable Terms of Use and good content policies without unduly or unnecessarily antagonizing people and companies. I think there can be a reasonable balance.

Perhaps even more importantly Wikipedia should try to not only decrease the probability of spreading false information but also the probability of giving people a false impression even if the exact statements are not explicitly false.

When readers see this tag at the top of an article there is a good chance that they take it to mean that the subject of the article paid for editing to be done. People and companies have an incentive to promote themselves and they seek to do so. The documentation at Template:Connected_contributor_(paid) includes the statement, The client is on whose behalf the edits are made; this is often the subject of the article.

It may very well be the case that the subject of the article did pay an independent contractor to create or edit an article, or that an employee or the person themself did so.

But consider the case of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/VentureKit/Archive which led to the application of the tag to multiple articles which had been edited by the sockpuppets.

I became aware of the investigation on January 13, 2021 when I visited the article on Partners in Health, and discussed it a few days later with Blablubbs on the Partners in Health talk page. In part I think I was concerned that the presence of the tag might make people hesitate to donate when after looking into the matter it wasn't clear to me that Partners in Health had necessarily done anything wrong. The presence of such a tag on an article on a nonprofit could be a particularly acute issue as donors could decide to stop donating for any number of reasons.

As a result of the investigation Blablubbs placed the tag on over eighty articles as can be seen in this list of contributions (one can note that the first one in the list, J. Crew, actually got tagged as a result of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Yoodaba/Archive).

MER-C tagged additional articles that had been created by the sockpuppets which one can see if one goes to https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org for Quorum816and considers say for example Michael Rapino and Paul Yanover.

The total number of edits by all the socks in this list:

is 8273 with the number of pages being edited found to be 4742 (a Python script is available here in a Github repository that was used to help make the table).

Now it seems to me that it's far easier for someone who knows about Wikipedia editing to edit a Wikipedia article than it is for an organization to obtain a new paying client.

Furthermore there are plenty of reasons why an organization who does undisclosed paid editing would edit articles on subjects that are not their clients.

• Articles on subjects that are not their clients could still have content that bears on their clients. One might note that top edits for Marginofinterest include the articles London and De-extinction, top edits for GroundFloor include Smart city, and top edits for L0calh0$t include Healthcare in Germany. Similarly edits may have been made in articles on non-clients that are the competitors of clients.

• Reading and editing articles on people, companies, schools, technology, etc. can help staff to gain knowledge and skills. This could help to obtain new clients, better serve existing clients, and also better understand the workings and dynamics of Wikipedia.

• Additional edits can help to legitimize the accounts in the eyes of other editors, and could also stimulate other editors to do editing that supports information sources that are valued by clients.

• At the outset a newly created account needs to make a sufficient number of edits in order to get to autoconfirmed and then extended confirmed status.

So it seems to me altogether possible that of the articles in the list of UPE tagged articles below although some may have been actual paying clients others may have had nothing to do with the VentureKit group.

This is consistent with the discussion between Blablubbs and Cookywook who is an employee at the UK bank called Monzo (see User_talk:Blablubbs/Archive_5#Undisclosed_paid_tag_on_Monzo_page). Cookywook says:

Could we get this removed soonish please? Absolutely nothing to do with the bank, and obviously a bit concerning for customers..

One might consider that Cookywook could have said something like, "We hired a PR firm, and they took action without our consent." Or they could have said, "We hired a PR firm to edit Wikipedia articles, but we didn't understand that this is against the Wikipedia Terms of Use". But Cookywook said it has nothing to do with the bank.

Blablubbs acknowledges in that dialog that it's altogether possible that the bank actually didn't have anything to do with the VentureKit edits.

There is no doubt in my mind that this page was edited in exchange for undisclosed payments; whether on behalf of the bank, an investor, a competitor or some combination of the three I do not know, but the changes made need a thorough examination.

...

As I said, I am not accusing Monzo itself of anything – I am also not asking you to prove innocence, and this tag is not about the company, it's about Wikipedia. These changes may have been made by an outside PR firm you retain, by a competitor, on behalf of an investor... there are a number of possibilities.

I think that information could be helpful for readers to have. As Blablubbs said the tag is really making a statement about the article and the process used in developing it, but isn't explicitly making a statement about the subject as necessarily being the payer.

But as mentioned above a lot of people are likely going to assume that that's what it means even if as it currently is the tag doesn't explicitly say that.

So the proposal would be to just add some language which conveys that to the reader. The exact wording and format could be the subject of discussion, but one possibility could be:

"The payer may have been the subject of the article, or a competitor, rival, associate, independent entity, etc."

and could be placed after the sentence ending with "Wikipedia's terms of use" so that it would look something like this:

This article may have been created or edited in return for undisclosed payments, a violation of Wikipedia's terms of use. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies. The payer for the editing isn't necessarily the subject of the article.

The use of italics or bold might be helpful for readers who have seen the tag before, and now would have a visual cue that there has been an additional sentence added, but I don't think that's in any way critical.

This change would have an immediate effect at the top of approximately 2000 articles without requiring any additional volunteer labor (see Category:Wikipedia articles with undisclosed paid content).

A downside though that one might see with this change is that if a company or an individual did actually pay for editing to be done then I think with this additional language they aren't necessarily getting dinged as hard.

I could say that I did take a look at 16 other articles that weren't part of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/VentureKit/Archive, and were just listed at Category:Wikipedia articles with undisclosed paid content. I just clicked on a few that I saw, and sought to figure out how it went for that one.

Perhaps it could suffice just to say that going through those 16 I didn't see anything that would make me reverse course on suggesting the proposed change. I think if I had seen very strong evidence for most of them that there was undisclosed paid editing financed by the subject that could put a brake on it. Or, alternatively, if for most of the articles the existence of the tag was the result of a consensus reached after discussion by a number of editors on the talk page that would be another potential brake. In none of the cases did I see any extended discussion of the application of the tag, and at least in one case an editor made an explicit statement that the tag was wrong, and that no payment was made (see Talk:Amanda_Ansell, the editor, Ipingalex, also expressed indignation, and then stopped editing, see: Special:Contributions/Ipingalex).

For higher visibility articles that get more views there's a greater chance of more discussion on the talk page concerning the presence of tags.

I think that because the number of volunteer editors is limited in comparison to the volume of work people are behooved to make fairly quick judgments concerning whether there was paid editing, and given the amount of time available they can't be expected to make air-tight cases. They may also sometimes just make mistakes when it isn't really the case.

Anyway, my thoughts are that with this proposed change although some companies and individuals may get a sort of amelioration even if they did directly pay for editing I think that cost is worth the benefit. I see a pretty heavy negative weight in Wikipedia potentially antagonizing people who are actually totally innocent of doing anything against the terms of use, and I think it may be an even heavier negative weight for Wikipedia to send out information that can be interpreted to create a false belief.

It's also the case of the 87 articles that got tagged which I went through as of February 4 for only 10 has the tag been removed (there's a Python script available here in a Github repository that I've been using to find if any have changed). This suggests to me the question, "if they did finance paid editing because they are concerned about how they look on Wikipedia why isn't there more evidence that they object to the tag and have sought to get it removed?". Such evidence might be posts on Blablubbs talk page like the message from Cookywook of the UK bank Monzo mentioned above.

This suggests to me the model that for various companies and individuals on the list it's the case that they didn't have anything to do with the VentureKit paid Wikipedia editing.

Blablubbs mentioned at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/VentureKit/Archive:

In case someone comes here from my UDP tagging spree: Noting for the record that almost all of these pages have (quite heavy) involvement by other UPE farms or suspicious SPAs too. Involvement by one of these accounts is not the only grounds for tagging in most cases.

And in our discussion in Talk:Partners_In_Health#Discussion_and_Process_Used_In_Removing_Undisclosed_Paid_Editing_Tag Blablubbs spoke about how there are other editors besides those of the sockpuppets that are problematic. This may be very well the case, but I think articles could get promotional language or advertising type materials for a variety of reasons:

• The people who are inclined to edit the article are the ones who are most enthusiastic about the subject.
• Editors may copy materials verbatim or nearly verbatim from the subject's publishing and those materials may be promotional in nature.
• Some editors may be paid employees of an organization, and should disclose so. Others might be spouses, close friends, friends, acquaintances, or within the same social circle. This could lead to promotional type language getting into articles.

But this doesn't automatically mean that there was any collaboration between paid editors and enthusiastic editors.

With that said I just made this edit to the article on Partners in Health to aim to set it with a more encyclopedic tone.

My understanding is that I could make this edit on my own, but I figure that with a change like this effecting about 2000 articles at the top of the article it's reasonable to send out a message like this before doing so.

I may not be able to respond right away to comments, and although I don't think there will necessarily be any time over the weekend there's still some time available today and tomorrow, and I could work further on it next week.

Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 19:34, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Just made the change (went without italics or bold, and so just plaintext), but there could still be discussion here.

I could note that both Bob Chapek and Maria Elvira Salazar have now had the tag removed, and both of those are ones with high average pageviews per day.

Affirm (company) is high up there on the list in terms of pageviews but that's influenced by the IPO that was on January 13, 2021. One can see a spike in the number of views on that day, and that now the average views per day as listed by Pageviews Analysis is 689 down from 1348 from before.

The above list will likely get more out of date as time goes by, but figured I could nevertheless share a little bit of what the situation looks like as of the present.

Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 04:06, 12 February 2021 (UTC)