Wikipedia:The truth about paid Wikipedia editing
Essay on editing Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hiring a paid Wikipedia editing service is filled with pitfalls and risks the loss of your money. Completing your due diligence is essential before entering into any agreement or spending any money. Wikipedia is the fifth most popular website in the world in terms of unique visitors, with about 11 billion monthly page views. There is an enormous financial incentive for unethical people to try to manipulate Wikipedia for their own personal gain.
 | 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. |
Here are some things that you should know and questions that you should ask to avoid getting ripped off.
Most paid editing services are scams
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The sad fact is that a large majority of companies that advertise and market paid Wikipedia editing services are dishonest and not competent to create appropriate Wikipedia content that will stick. They are more interested in taking your money than in actually helping you achieve your legitimate objectives on Wikipedia. They often make promises that they cannot keep and may end up damaging your reputation and your company's reputation on Wikipedia. Wikipedia has stringent standards regulating paid editors and editing with a conflict of interest. Nearly 400,000 Wikipedia accounts have been blocked for improper promotion or advertising, so the risk of doing business with an unethical operation is very real.
Please be aware:
No editor can guarantee any outcome in Wikipedia – not that an article will be kept or deleted, nor that any content will remain or be deleted, nor that any tags will remain or be removed.
The small minority of ethical paid editing firms will be honest and open with you, will answer all reasonable questions accurately, and will not promise what they cannot deliver. Their rates tend to be higher than the unethical companies, because You get what you pay for and also If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Essential questions to ask before hiring a paid editor
- Do you comply with Wikipedia's Paid-contribution disclosure? If so, how do you disclose?
- Complying with this disclosure requirement is mandatory on Wikipedia. Companies and individual paid editors who do not comply are subject to being indefinitely blocked and their content (including the article you have paid for) may well be deleted from Wikipedia.
Know who you are doing business with - What is your user name on Wikipedia? Do you have any other Wikipedia accounts? If so, what are their user names?
- Paid editors on Wikipedia are required to disclose their accounts. By typing "User: Example" into the Wikipedia search box, with "Example" being their user name, you can discover a wealth of information about that account, including the date it was established, the articles it has edited, the specific edits it has made and any blocks on the account.
- Will you please provide a list of Wikipedia articles that you have edited for clients?
- The paid-contributions disclosure requires paid editors to disclose the articles that they have edited. You can look at the history of those articles to verify the account's contributions.
Investigate the company's name and background - How long has your company been in business?
- It is common for unscrupulous paid editing companies to frequently change their business names and change their website domain names to try to evade the scrutiny of Wikipedia administrators and avoid contact with dissatisfied customers. The Wayback Machine is a website that enables you to find out how long a website has been operating. If they claim to have been in business for ten years but their website has only been operating for a few months, that is a red flag.
Wikipedia policies and guidelines
- Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure
- Compliance with this policy is mandatory and non-negotiable
- Wikipedia:Conflict of interest
- Guideline that restricts promotional editing
Wikipedia action against paid editing rings
- Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Orangemoody
- Investigation of a massive ring of undisclosed paid editors
- Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Scam warning
- Description of one type of paid editing scam. There are many.
- Wikipedia:List of paid editing companies
- A large majority of known paid editing companies have been blocked from editing Wikipedia. Only a small minority comply with requirements. Absence from this list is not evidence of anything.
- Category:Wikipedians who are indefinitely blocked for advertising
- List of nearly 400,000 Wikipedia accounts blocked for improper advertising or promotional activity
Relevant Wikipedia articles
- Wiki-PR Wikipedia editing scandal
- Wikipedia article about a ring of undisclosed paid editors
- Operation Orangemoody
- Wikipedia article about a ring of undisclosed paid editors
- Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia
- Wikipedia article about editing with a conflict of interest
Useful resources on Wikipedia and from the Wikimedia Foundation
- Wikipedia:PR Professionals & Editing
- Guidelines for public relations people who edit Wikipedia for their clients
- Wikipedia: Policies and guidelines
- An organized guide with links to all of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines
- Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)
- The standard that is applied to a business or organization to determine whether or not it is eligible for a Wikipedia article.
- Wikipedia:Notability (people)
- The standard that is applied to a person to determine whether or not he or she is eligible for a Wikipedia article.
- Wikipedia: Help desk
- A place for any editor to ask questions about editing Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia: Teahouse
- A friendly place for newer editors to ask questions about editing Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard
- A place to raise concerns about biographies of living people on Wikipedia.
- Help:Your first article
- A detailed explanation of everything required to write an acceptable Wikipedia article.
- Wikipedia:An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing
- A warning about the possible downsides of attempting to promote yourself on Wikipedia.
- Wikimedia Foundation: You don’t need to pay for a Wikipedia article
- A caution from the Wikimedia Foundation about paid editing.