Wikipedia:PR Professionals & Editing

If you are editing an article on Wikipedia as a PR, HR or communications professional, there are a few important guidelines that must be followed when doing so. One of the main principles of Wikipedia is that pages must be written in a neutral point of view (NPOV), and if an editor has a conflict of interest when editing a page, then the page loses the NPOV. Having a NPOV is crucial for an encyclopedia.

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community.

Steps for PR Professionals Editing Wikipedia

Editors should create an account on Wikipedia. This links all edits that you make to an account and prevents your IP address from being posted publicly on the website.
On your user page you should disclose any conflict of interest that you might have. This could include where you work or potentially the clients that you work with.
Avoid editing pages that are relevant to any conflict of interest that you have.
If you have an issue with a page that you have a conflict of interest with then you should go onto the talk page and engage with other users about the issues.

For futher information on Conflict of Interest Editing see Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia

Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement

Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement (CREWE) group is a group of PR Professionals and Wikipedia editors that are working together to improve the relationship between PR firms and Wikipedia. If you would like to join the conversation join the group on Facebook.

For more information go to the Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement

Conflict of Interest Editing Incidents

Jimmy Wales

In December 2005, it was noticed that Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales had edited his own Wikipedia entry. According to public logs, he has edited his biography 19 times,^[1] as of September 9, 2013, seven times altering information about whether Larry Sanger was a co-founder of Wikipedia. It was also revealed that Wales had edited the Wikipedia article of his former company, Bomis. "Bomis Babes", a section of the Bomis website, had been characterized in the article as "soft-core pornography," but Wales revised this to "adult content section" and deleted mentions of pornography. He said he was fixing an error, and didn't agree with calling Bomis Babes soft porn. Wales conceded that he had made the changes, but maintained that they were technical corrections.^[2]

United States Congressional staffers

In 2006, it was discovered that more than 1,000 changes had been made to Wikipedia articles originating from United States government IP addresses. Changes had been made to articles about Representative Marty Meehan, ^[3] Senator Tom Coburn, Senator Norm Coleman,^[4] Representative Gil Gutknecht,^[5] Senator Joe Biden,^[5] Senator Conrad Burns,^[6] Senator Dianne Feinstein,^[7] Senator Tom Harkin,^[7] Representative David Davis,^[8] Tennessee state representative Matthew Hill^[8]^[9] and Representative Mike Pence.^[10] The edits removed accurate but critical information and embellished positive descriptions.^[7] In response to the controversy, certain affected IP addresses were temporarily blocked.^[11]

Later, in 2011, conflicted edits were also made to US Congressional representative David Rivera's article.^[12]

Wiki-PR

In 2012, Wikipedia launched possibly one of the largest sock puppets investigations in its history after editors on its website reported suspicious activity suggesting a number of accounts were used to subvert Wikipedia's policies. After almost a year of investigation, over 250 sockpuppet accounts were allegedly found, operated by two independent networks of users. Wikipedia traced the edits and sockpuppetry back to a firm known as Wiki-PR, leading to a cease and desist letter by Sue Gardner issued to the founders of the organization.^[13] The accounts were banned. On October 25, 2013, a community ban was further placed on Wiki-PR and any of its contractors.

For more examples see the Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia.