Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-05-02/News and notes

News and notes

Wikimedia Switzerland's board and paid-editing firm; passing of Ed Dravecky

Discussions on French Wikipedia

On the French Wikipedia, discussions began on April 6, 2016 on the paid-editing activities of Swiss firm Racosch Sàrl, whose website states:

Wikipedia by Wikipedians

Racosch is a Swiss boutique consulting firm specialised in editing Wikipedia articles.

Our clients are companies as much as high-profile individuals, as well as other Public Relations specialists who want to update or add factual information, correct inaccuracies or address the presence of unsightly banners at the top of articles.

In the course of the discussions, outgoing Wikimedia Switzerland (WMCH) board member Gabriel Thullen (GastelEtzwane) wrote that it is common knowledge – at least within WMCH – that two of the company's principals have been long-standing board members of the chapter, while a third is married to a WMCH employee. The company's three principals are listed on Swiss company registration websites as Stéphane Coillet-Matillon, Frédéric Schütz, and Nicolas Ray. Coillet-Matillon (Wikipedia user Popo le Chien) and Schütz (Wikipedia user Schutz) are current WMCH board members; Schütz is the chapter's vice-president and French-speaking press contact on the WMCH website.

The involvement of chapter board members in paid PR work has previously led to significant adverse publicity, as evidenced by the 2012 Gibraltarpedia controversy. We contacted WMCH requesting further information and received prompt replies from Frédéric Schütz.

Our questions and Schütz's answers are below.

Q&A

The Swiss chapter's logo

1. Please confirm which present or past WMCH board members or staff are personally involved in Racosch Sàrl, or have close family ties to people involved with the company.

I am personally involved. Stéphane is also involved – but he did not stand for reelection at the recent general assembly and his term ends June 1st. The third associate is the husband of WMCH's administrative assistant. No WM CH staff is involved.

2. On which Wikipedias are Racosch Sàrl editors with such ties to WMCH active?

FR and EN at the moment.

3. Do they declare their ties to WMCH onwiki?

Not on-wiki. More specifically: the name "Racosch" is never associated with the name WMCH, to avoid giving the wrong impression that Racosch is in any way endorsed by the Chapter.
But this is being discussed openly, e.g. within the Swiss community (see below). Stéphane recently attended the Berlin WM conference and was also very transparent about it; he will likewise attend Wikimania and we're discussing making a Beutler/Lih type of presentation at the upcoming French Wikicon.

4. How is the chapter dealing with the potential for conflicts of interest? For example, do you have formal rules forbidding WMCH staff and board members from recommending any particular Wikipedia PR firm to companies, organisations, and members of the public who contact WMCH for advice on Wikipedia?

The chapter has a policy on conflicts of interest, which requires disclosing all potential interests in writing – which was done.

In case of a request to Wikimedia CH, the policy is to reply that the chapter cannot provide advice on this topic and in particular cannot recommend anyone. This being said, one of us remembers that during past discussions someone had informally mentioned Beutler Ink, which was the only one we knew of that does proper paid editing.

Note that in any case such contacts are handled by our 3 community liaisons, not by board members (nor by the administrative assistant indicated above).

5. We understand that WMCH board members are elected at the annual general assembly. Are candidates required to disclose to the WMCH electorate potential conflicts of interest, such as involvement in a paid-editing firm; if so, how and where are such disclosures made?

6. How many WMCH members typically attend the annual general assembly? How many voted in this year's and last year's board elections?

The paid editing matter was spontaneously disclosed by both Stéphane and I while introducing ourselves, and was of course discussed during the general assembly (which typically attracts around 30+ participants). In the end, Stéphane did not recandidate (but he would likely have had no problem being reelected), while I received 27 votes/32 (second best score) – indicating that we approached the matter rather correctly.

7. In the WMCH 04/2016 newsletter, the linked minutes of your most recent general assembly are visible only to logged-in WMCH members. Will you consider making the pages documenting your election process publicly viewable?

We'll likely make it publicly available, yes. In the meantime, see attached a PDF version of the version currently available on our members wiki.

General assembly minutes

The general assembly minutes the Signpost received from Schütz contain two references to paid editing:

Page 5

The 10 candidates introduce themselves. Stéphane Coillet-Matillon announces that he retracts his candidature as a member as he wants to concentrate on his new company.

The assembly asks questions to the candidates, in particular about potential conflicts of interest and paid editing.

Page 6

A member suggests that the association should revise its bylaws and discuss the topic of paid editing; this is not discussed further, due to lack of time. Nevertheless, the new board will take this topic into consideration.

WMCH conflict-of-interest policy

The WMCH conflict-of-interest policy Schütz refers to states, in part,

Since conflicts of interest cannot be avoided, they should be handled professionally. ...

Each member of the Board or of the Executive Management team should arrange his personal and business affairs so as to avoid, as far as possible, conflicts of interest with the association.

Should a conflict of interest arise, the member of the Board or Executive Management concerned should inform the President of the Board. The President, or Vice-President, should request a decision by the Board which reflects the seriousness of the conflict of interest. The Board shall decide without participation of the person concerned, and the conflict of interest and the board decision will be recorded in the minutes.

... Anyone having a permanent conflict of interest should not be a member of the Board or the Executive Management.

User accounts

On the English Wikipedia, three user accounts presently mention an association with Racosch on their user pages, along with the articles they have made paid contributions to:

User:Wicodric
User:Pplc (a declared secondary account of User:Popo le Chien)
User:Manoillon

All three are also active under the same names on the French Wikipedia, where similar disclosures are made. Schutz's user page on the French Wikipedia has declared Wicodric as a secondary account for paid contributions since April 8, 2016.

The Signpost looks forward to further community discussion, and thanks Frédéric Schütz for his candid and timely replies to our questions.

Ed Dravecky, RIP

Any death is sad, but the death of someone as young as 47 is more so. Long-time and still-active Wikipedia administrator Ed Dravecky died unexpectedly on April 23, 2016 while attending WhoFest 3 in Dallas, Texas. A Georgia Tech alumnus and native of Hunstville, Alabama, he was active in several WikiProjects, including WikiProject Alabama and WikiProject Radio Stations. He claimed at least 145 Did You Know? credits, and received numerous barnstars and other awards. He was active on Commons, where his most recent upload, less than a week before his death, was a crop of Turtle pin.jpg.

Ed had worked in radio, first as a disc jockey and later with broadcast automation systems. He co-founded FenCon (a literary science-fiction event) and WhoFest (a convention dedicated to the iconic BBC series Doctor Who), and was well-known in the science fiction and fantasy communities. He was an Eagle Scout and a graduate of the United States Space Camp. He was born in Huntsville, Alabama, and at the time of his death, he lived in Dallas. His full obituary is here.

Brief notes

GLAM Boot Camp 2016: The GLAM Boot Camp 2016, a skills-building workshop for established Wikipedians interested in GLAM-Wiki projects, is now accepting sign-ups. The event will take place in June in Washington, D.C. Travel will be funded for all participants from North America.
Milestones: The Japanese Wikipedia has reached 1 million articles.

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2 May 2016 (all comments)

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The first thing we should always ask about paid editors is whether they are following our rules. It's nice to see that they declared their paid status pretty much in line with the Terms of Service. Certainly they followed the spirit of the rules there, but they could use the proper templates "suggested" at WP:COI

Of course when you declare the paid for articles, we get to check whether they are up to snuff. There are only 5 articles declared (they can't be getting rich off of this!), but IMHO at least 2 should be deleted - the main sources are the companies involved. The prose is a bit flowery, closer to PR speak than to the usual Wikipedia fare. So we see once again why paid editing needs to be reviewed.

The presence of paid editors on chapter boards is AFAIK not against the rules, but probably should be. There's bound to be an actual conflict of interest sooner or later, and there is an appearance of a COI now. I think the board could make this clear - no money from the WMF - if you have paid editors working for commercial organization on the board or in the employ of a chapter. I write "for commercial organizations" because that is where the usual problems are, and to make clear that the usual exemptions apply, e.g. Wikipedians in Residence.

They should also check Swiss law. If it's anything like German law, they have to declare the paid editing *in the article itself* But we can't allow companies to make such a declaration in the article, or to assert the article ownership that would entail, so they wouldn't be able to do any paid editing for Swiss companies in this case. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:32, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Interesting point; could you cite your sources regarding German law requiring paid editors to add a disclaimer in the article itself? --Beat Estermann (talk) 07:59, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I'll just copy the relevant section from WP:COI, the German case is in the footnote.

European fair-trading law

In 2012 the Munich Oberlandesgericht court ruled that if a company or its agents edit Wikipedia with the aim of influencing customers, the edits constitute covert advertising, and as such are a violation of European fair-trading law. The ruling stated that readers cannot be expected to seek out user and talk pages to find editors' disclosures about their corporate affiliation.^{[Smallbones1 1]}

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:45, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

[1]
The case arose out of a claim against a company by a competitor over edits made to the article Weihrauchpräparat on the German Wikipedia. The judgment can be read here.

Smallbones is absolutely correct. The reason for declaration of interest is twofold, firstly to protect the declaree from allegations of deceptive practices, and secondly to enable checking for concious or unconscious bias.

The un-resolved issue is that there is a backlog of unchecked contributions.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:17, 2 May 2016 (UTC).

Well, it's a rare day that Smallbones and I see eye-to-eye on these issues, but I find little to quarrel with in his comment. I run a Wikipedia training and consulting business, and in 2015, I put my name forward as a candidate for the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation. (I later withdrew that bid.) In that context, I thought carefully about the issues raised in this news piece. (I answered a relevant question here.) In my particular case, I felt there was no overriding conflict that would prevent me from serving on the Board (though I would have welcomed more pointed questions and deliberation on the matter). But there are two significant differences here (and in the case of Wikimedia UK board members):
1. My firm explicitly avoids making edits to Wikipedia on behalf of our clients. We do this specifically because we believe any blurring between our reputation on Wikipedia, and that of our client, is inappropriate (whether positive or negative). Instead, we guide our clients in working openly and in accordance with Wikipedia's rules and social norms. I can see from question #3 that the Swiss board members have made an effort to prevent that kind of blurring, as well; but it strikes me as problematic in their case, because other Wikipedians may have a legitimate interest in knowing that the editor with whom they are engaging is both a paid consultant, and a chapter board member.
2. The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is more distant from content issues than most chapters. Chapters frequently directly sponsor such activities as edit-a-thons, conferences, and outreach to cultural institutions. The Wikimedia Foundation board does none of these things (though such things may happen occasionally within the organization, at a more operational level). But these are among the things a paid consulting firm might do, as well. So there is an additional kind of conflict of interest, beyond the content of the encyclopedia: are these individuals benefiting from information they get as board members, when organizations contact the non-profit chapter seeking help? Such lines can get very blurry as well. -Pete (talk) 20:52, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
One other point, on the German ruling: It seems to me (noting, I'm neither a lawyer nor a German) that, as described, the court ruling is based on a basic misunderstanding of how Wikipedia operates. Two things:
1. Organizations have many different wishes relating to Wikipedia content. "The aim of influencing customers" is one of many; and sometimes there are multiple aims. Companies also care about (for instance) the value of their brand, the outcomes of lawsuits, public or professional comprehension of their market niche, perceptions of shareholders, prospective investors or partners, the goodwill of the Wikipedia community, etc. etc. I don't know how a German court might determine what the central aim is, but this ruling would seem to ignore vast swathes of the instances where somebody is paid to edit Wikipedia. (This is not a mere theoretical claim; our clients have brought up concerns like those I listed.)
2. It seems rather straightforward for firms like Racosch Sàrl to add a note to the bottom of a Wikipedia article when saving their edits. Another Wikipedia editor could then remove it. There could even be a bot that automatically reverts such statements, and adds the article to a queue that needs review. I don't know for sure that such an approach would satisfy the court, but it seems like the most straightforward approach from my reading of the ruling. -Pete (talk) 01:35, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

The paid editing company was never common knowledge

I must correct a statement that was attributed to me.

The very existence of this consulting company was never "common knowledge" in Wikimedia Switzerland before April 2nd 2016, the board was never officially informed of it's existence and most of the members found out about the whole issue at the general assembly on April 2nd. People did not have time to properly discuss the issue, the general assembly was running very late and everybody wanted to get the meeting over and go have lunch. News like this takes time to digest. What I wrote about (in French) on April 6th was "common knowledge" because this was a few days after our general assembly...

I must add that I brought up the subject of paid editing in Switzerland during three board meetings in 2015 and 2016, Not once was there mention of a possible COI, and these consulting company partners took part in all the board discussions without even hinting about it.

I am quite disappointed that the editors of this article contacted a few Wikimedia Switzerland board members and allowed them to go over the text, but they did not bother to contact me. I could have set thing straight from the beginning. GastelEtzwane (talk) 13:51, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting, User:GastelEtzwane. Just to clarify: we published Schutz's comments verbatim, as is proper when reporting on an interview, but WMCH members did not have sight of the remaining text prior to publication. We were working to a tight publication deadline on this piece, which limited our options. If you and/or others have concerns about the matter, we are happy to publish an op-ed, or work with you on a follow-up piece in a future Signpost issue. You're welcome to contact Tony1 and myself by email. Regards, --Andreas JN 466 20:45, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

I must contradict User:GastelEtzwane, the board of Wikimedia CH was aware of the existence of this company at least since the 1st of June 2015, the last board meeting I attend in my quality of Chief Science Officer of Wikimedia CH.--Chandres (talk) 10:01, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Here is what is in the minutes, and I arrived 25 minutes after the start of the meeting.

Conflicts of interest

[...] This includes the above disclosure. Stéphane and Frédéric indicate that they have created, together with a third associate, a company active in public relations.

No mention of the name of the company, especially no mention of the focus on "Wikipedia by Wikimedians". I do not spend time digging into my colleague's past or current activities, I did not research the company in detail. Are you saying that I should have? GastelEtzwane (talk) 12:50, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

About the disclosure of WMCH board members being active in paid editing activities within the Raccosch company

After reading the article and the above, I want to add information. It is not true that the Raccosch contributors announced their activity spontaneously on their user page. During the general meeting, some people expressed the fact that being director of such a chapter while at the same time mounting a company was not acceptable and that it was representing a risk for the Swiss chapter. The interim director expressed publicly the advice that he disagreed with this. I had personally come to this assembly to express concern about the fact that the budget dedicated to small projects and community building activities was not enough in the swiss francophone area, and I expressed concern about the conflict of interest arising from the situation. I was told before by one of the Raccosch protagonist that his activity did not represent a conflict of interest and that in fact a special page dedicated to this issue had been issued (this did not at the time of our discussion which was prior to the 6th of april imply for him the obligation of disclosing his paid contribution activity on his user page. He was opposed to it in fact, and saw absolutely no conflict of interest!). During the general WMCH assembly, I did not have the impression that the local swiss community from the association seemed really opposed to the paid editing activity, and this was a real shock to me personally. I expressed concern to the new director after the general assembly. The Raccosch contributors have been asked by the French community to clearly state their paid contributing activity on their user page, but this happened only after I in fact had asked a confirmed francophone contributor and admin in Paris for his advice, as I was relatively new to the community and was myself leading a local project aimed at reducing the gender gap for which I was paid by the University of Geneva. After expressing my concern about Raccosch to local swiss contributors, I had been told that what I did could be considered as paid editing. As I did not know the exact rules for paid editing I therefore set out to ask for advice and was surprised to see that the matter in Paris (France) was not considered as unproblematic as it was in Lausanne (Switzerland)! The disclosure on the user pages of the Raccosch contributors happened only after the issue was released publicly here on the french Bistrot on the 6th of april, see here: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipédia:Le_Bistro/6_avril_2016. It was disclosed publicly only after the protagonists had been asked to do so in private (for those who would be tempted to think no chance was ever given to them to deal with the issue befre it was made public). Furthermore, the paid contributions posed problems because they were making cross contributions with several accounts on the paid contribution articles, and also intervening on the admissibility of articles, contacting firms which had their subjects rejected by one of them. The articles, among others, concerned a famous Swiss bank (Group Pictet) and multinational active in the pharma industry (Debiopharm).

The subject is taken seriously by the French community (albeit not the Swiss francophone evolving around WMCH) as is shown by this open survey which is currently opened following this discovery: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipédia:Sondage/Contributions_rémunérées.

This poses problems not only in terms of neutrality and scope of the concerned articles. The fact is, when there is such an interaction between corporate and NGO activities, there is a danger of not doing enough community building and distributing budgets according to the visibility they provide to the protagonists (all appearing in the local media as confirmed wikipedians and experts). This does not go hand in hand with the necessity to attract new contributors and do more community building in francophone Switzerland. So I do hope this is going to be evoked during Wikimania, especially for new contributors like me, as there seems to be no clear operational policy. One cannot pretend to be a free and participative movement, while at the same time admitting these shadow paid editing activities. We should be more persistent in tracking paid contributions, and oblige the protagonists to have it disclosed on their user page, or renounce to be called a free encyclopedia. --Nattes à chat (talk) 16:59, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, User:Nattes à chat. We are happy to run a follow-up piece if there is community interest. Contributions and suggestions are welcome (see my reply to GastelEtzwane above). Best, --Andreas JN 466 21:04, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

@Nattes à chat: Given this section and the one above, I have to say something about the TOU. See Restrictions de certaines activities, under the heading Contributions rémunérées sans divulgation. This was passed by the WMF board in June 2014, following the largest RfC in history, with overwhelming support (about 80% in favor). It applies on the English Wikipedia, on the French Wikipedia, the German, etc. with 3 minor exceptions (there is a clause that allows projects to revoke this specific section if they follow proper procedure and report the change in the proper place). So the French Wikipedia already has a policy on paid editing, it has to be reported at the same time that it happens. You should check whether the 3 paid editors did so. I don't know how or who enforces policies on WikiFR but they have to enforce the TOU (or stand completely aside). If they don't enforce the TOU please report it to the WMF legal department. You might also check French law on covert advertising. I'd think it would be similar to the German court case, since both are likely based on an EU directive. (But please do not *threaten* legal action - if you think a law has been broken and that reporting it is the best way forward, just report it without threats. That's your business, not Wikipedia's). Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:38, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Dear smalltalk, as I am relatively new in the movement, I have basically just reported what happened to people who were more experienced than I was. I would not threaten to have a legal action, I want to believe more in the self regulation capacity of the wikipedian movement. I would like to point out that we are talking about the Swiss chapter, so that French laws do not apply, as this chapter is based in Switzerland. However, the protagonists have now disclosed the information on their pages, so the transparency is there now. What remains is to tackle the issue of detecting future paid editing and having the contributors disclose it on their user page as is required of them, as well as identifying puppet accounts doing cross contributions on one article. As said before, we should also watch how funds and ressources are being used to benefit local and independent projects, as this demonstrates the willingness of a chapter to develop an independent community, and also demonstrates the absence of conflict of interest of board members. I see there are some initiatives taken to have the francophone community meet more regularly and to promote transparency over those meetings, which seems to be a positive outcome (I am also planning to have new contributors from the project Biographies de Femmes Suisses meet regularly too from september on around gender and other gap issues): fr:Wikipédia:Rencontres/Suisse romande#Stammtisch en mai?. I believe in democracy and counter powers: when there is a source of power, it should be counterbalanced by another power acting as a guardian of free knowledge. --Nattes à chat (talk) 05:54, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

JFTR I just added a bunch of COI templates to articles that were paid-edited on the EN WP. If this is not acceptable, please let me know.TeeVeeed (talk) 13:40, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

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