Making The Case For PR Pros Editing Wikipedia
from the is-it-really-notable dept
Obscured amidst the hysteria over anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA has been a valuable discussion bubbling up within public relations about PR people editing clients’ Wikipedia entries.It’s a topic that has been debated for years. From Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales stating in 2006 that “PR firms editing Wikipedia is something that we frown upon very, very strongly” to last year’s Bell Pottinger lobbying scandal, where it emerged that the firm was surreptitiously manipulating client’s Wikipedia entries — raising the ire of Mr. Wales and his Wikipedia acolytes — it’s a discussion that seemingly knows no end.
PR people have long been frustrated by the complexities of the Wikipedia editing process. Colleagues tell us they feel rebuffed by what they believe is an arcane system meant to ostracize them whenever they attempt to correct inaccurate or outdated employer or client entries.
The issue over edits made on Wikipedia is one that affects more than just the public relations profession. It has implications for every business, organization and institution around the world, given Wikipedia’s widespread use as an information resource.
The matter gained particular prominence recently when Phil Gomes, an executive at Edelman Digital, began to peel back the layers of distrust and confusion between PR people and Wikipedians with a blog post and Facebook group aimed at bringing together the sparring parties.
Gomes’ initiative, dubbed the Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement, is based on four pillars:
- Corporate communicators want to do the right thing.
- Communicators engaged in ethical practice have a lot to contribute.
- Current Wikipedia policy does not fully understand Nos. 1 and 2, owing to the activities of some bad actors and a general misunderstanding of public relations in general.
- Accurate Wikipedia entries are in the public interest.
Techdirt further examined the issue when Mike Masnick asked, rather pointedly, whether PR people should be “able to edit otherwise ignored Wikipedia pages of their clients to correct errors?” He focused on some fairly glaring issues that we believe Wikipedia has yet to adequately address. Among them: Where do professionals turn to if their efforts to go through the proper channels to request edits to inaccurate or outdated information are either rebuffed or ignored?
That question has been overlooked for far too long. As Mr. Gomes pointed out in the comments of Mr. Masnick’s Techdirt post, “Some of us are working together to help [the] PR [profession] do the right thing by the Wikipedia community, especially considering that guidance is at times contradictory.”
The Case for PR Pros Editing Wikipedia
We believe there is a case to be made for PR professionals to responsibly edit client Wikipedia entries in an ethical and transparent manner.
At its most basic level, it is a matter of serving the public interest.
An accurate Wikipedia entry serves the public interest far better than inaccurate entries that are allowed to languish with errors because Wikipedia editors refuse to allow “paid advocates” to make necessary, accurate changes. A disclosure of one’s professional affiliation with a business should not automatically exempt him or her from being allowed to responsibly edit Wikipedia entries.
Greater accuracy and transparency within Wikipedia entries should be the basis of how Wikipedia goes about its practices. It should not matter who edits a page, so long as the information is accurate, unbiased and properly sourced.
PRSA certainly does not condone behavior on the part of public relations people or PR firms that is unethical or dishonest in respect to their editing of clients’ Wikipedia entries. To be sure, there are some who wish to abuse the system. Let’s not kid ourselves into thinking otherwise. But on the whole, we believe that PR professionals, particularly those whose work adheres to the PRSA Code of Ethics, are responsible and respectful of the online communities in which they engage and seek to influence.
We’re encouraged by efforts in the U.K., where the Chartered Institute of Public Relations is establishing guidelines on how the PR profession deals with Wikipedia. We hope to do the same in the U.S. by working with Wikipedia to develop rigorous and explicit editing guidelines that can be used throughout the profession.
Our position on this matter is simple: it's wrong for the PR profession to think it can run roughshod over the established Wikipedia community. PR professionals must engage with it in a reasonable manner that respects the community’s rules and protocols, while also ensuring they are acting in their clients' best interests. But the engagement should be a two-way street in which Wikipedia is willing to see and accommodate both sides of the issue. At the moment, we do not believe that to be the case.
Gerard F. Corbett, APR, Fellow PRSA, is chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: companies, editing, pr, wikipedia
Companies: wikileaks
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COI on Wikipedia
1. Pick a user name that is arbitrary, and not related to your business or clients.
2. Whenever possible, find a source to cite to that is not a property owned by the topic of the article.
3. Watch the article's talk page.
4. If anyone raises concerns, pay attention to their talk page, and the talk page of any other users that get involved.
5. When the ONLY source is the subject's own information, only mention those things that would have no impact on the subject's perception either way (ie, boring facts).
6. Know WP:VERIFY (especially WP:SOURCES and WP:ABOUTSELF) and be very aware of WP:COI.
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Re: COI on Wikipedia
Keith Trivitt
Associate Director
PRSA
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WP:NPOV, Neutrality
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Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
I think PR pros should be encouraged to be transparent -- if only to make it easier to identify and re-edit their contributions after they've made them.
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Re: Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
Another objection is that these professionals get payed for doing what they do, and hence can easily afford to spend the entire workday working the article, thus putting the occasional contributor, i.e. one that does have (an) other job(s) to tend to at a disadvantage.
The result will be that
a) sensitive articles will be dominated by PR-people getting payed to make it reflect the companies POV (and let's not forget, that is what they are payed to do)
b) WP:NPOV and the public perception of WP's neutrality will go to the dogs.
And I know the practice you describe is commonplace. I've reverted or nominated quite a few PR-pieces and, since the PR people are PAYED and TRAINED to get their point across, it almost inevitably results in a lengthy debate on (oftentimes) silly or trivial points, killing the joy of being a wikipedia editor.
Then there's the issue of astroturfing. If you cannot be sure which articles were written to provide information and wich articles were written by professionals to reflect the POV of company X, wikipedia is useless. It will be no more than an advertisement venue, a lobbyists paradise.
In order to keep the playing field level, professional PR-people should be banned indefinately.
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Re: Re: Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
You can likely find hundreds of pages right now with suspect motivation behind them and ongoing discussions about how to improve them. Maybe they were just poorly edited, or maybe they were edited by biased parties. You'll never know in all cases.
Are you claiming Wikipedia is already useless then? I think not.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
If you can "likely" (mind the qualifier) find hundreds of articles amongst 3.000.000 plus on en.wiki alone, you can _still_ be reasonably sure.
If the floodgates are opened, we _can_ be sure PR-firms will jump on it and wikipedia _will_ be useless.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
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Re: Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
Keith Trivitt
PRSA
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Re: Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
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Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
Why cannot contributions be judged by their content, not by who makes them? After all, if Jimmy Wales can edit his own page and not be immediately banned and have his edits rolled back, what right do you have to judge others who don’t hold such a position of power over Wikipedia?
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Re: Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
You do not adress _any_ of the points made, but directly label my comments as "prejudiced". Well, please spell out which of my statements was prejudiced, not based on fact or otherwise incorrect.
Contributions _are_ judged on their content and i am one of the (many) people doing just that. I don't reason from an abstract idea, but from very concrete experience.
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Re: Re: Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
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Re: Re: Re: Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
Again: If you want to advocate banning PR-people, that's fine. But you can't simultaneously pretend that you want to judge contributions on their content, because you don't.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
I'm under no delusions that dirty tricks aren't employed now, mosty because i reverted quite a few of them, Like the attempt of an employee of a major entertainment company trying to have another user blocked for unwelcome edits. I've gotten a haughty mail from a VP of PR of anothe major company after reverting his edits which turned the article into an advertorial, a college professor playing dummy and pretending not to understand the concept of selfpromotion.... etc ad nauseam. I think i know what im talking about, and i havent even started on guys like Miroslav Magola. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kleuske/Miroslaw_Magola
So, as far as i'm concerned, the only good PR-guys are banned PR-guys. I don't care what POV you're payed to represent, it ain't NPOV.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
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Re: Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
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Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
No, it wasn’t his user page, it was the article about him.
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Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
I am an attorney; an ADVOCATE, like a PR person (and under even more stringent rules of behavior). DO NOT EXPECT me (or them) to be "neutral"; if they are, they (at least, attorneys) are guilty of malpractice.
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Re: WP:NPOV, Neutrality
I am an attorney; an ADVOCATE, like a PR person (and under even more stringent rules of behavior). DO NOT EXPECT me (or them) to be "neutral"; if they are, they (at least, attorneys) are guilty of malpractice.
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I'm against giving anybody special writing priviledges to Wikipedia based on anything other than Wikipedia's own contributor ranking system. That priviledge does not come free, it comes at the cost of contributing to the improvement of the quality of the information in Wikipedia. That means citing good sources of information, pointing out inaccuracies, challenging bad or biased sources, as well as unsourced information.
Also, understand that Wikipedia's goal is not truth, but verifiability. If you can't get good sources for the information you're hoping to correct or add, that information should probably not be over there.
Finally, there is a discouragement of writing about yourself in Wikipedia. The reason for that is that if information about you is relevant to anybody else, it will eventually show up there. Just like having your work pirated is an indicator that your work is appreciated by somebody.
Respect the protocol. :3
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Re:
We're not asking for PR pros to be afforded special editing privileges. All we ask is that an automatic and outright ban of a person not be put in place merely because they have a professional affiliation with a business or individual. One could argue that Jimmy Wales editing of his Wikipedia entry is tantamount to an advocate of Wikipedia editing an entry that directly affects the organization. By the unwritten rules that Wales himself has set out for edits made by "paid advocates" should he not be allowed to do so?
Keith Trivitt
PRSA
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Response to: Ceiling Jimmy Wales is watching you play with your on Feb 2nd, 2012 @ 11:37pm
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Well, there's your problem right there. This pillar is all wrong. First, not all "corporate communicators" want to do the right thing. I'm sure that there are some who do, but for every honest guy there will be several dishonest ones.
Second, define the "right" thing. Their job is making their client look good, so doing that may be the right thing.
Third, these people are professional spin doctors. Pick a company that has a big controversy or few under it's belt. Having that on wikipedia looks bad. PR guy spends all of his time trying to twist and turn and manipulate the facts and details to make the controversy look like just a silly misunderstanding or something. When he sees information on wikipedia that doesn't support his slant, of course he'll think its wrong! Let's go over the top and pick righthaven for an example. "What?! My client didn't 'wildly sue people without the proper rights' they were just 'zealously defending the copyrights of their clients in a hostile legal climate to save american jobs and to keep terrorists from using news stories."
Point is, if a company is a bunch of douchebags, i want to be able to find out about it in plain english, not slog through a bunch of PR speak. I say let the PR people can edit whatever they want on any webpage their client owns, but keep yer grubby mitts off my wiki.
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Re:
In addition, it should be more difficult for them to remove than to add.
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Re:
Pillars 1 and 3b annihilate each other, releasing energy, but not adding information to the system.
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Re: Edits or Addendums?
There is very strong anti-corporate sentiment, sometimes deservedly so when madly, high profit driven corporations excersize their muscle over the public's greater interests, driving American policies and politics. Please Do Not Edit.
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And yet Wikipedia went offline for a day when a law that would punish foreign websites trafficking in movies and music might be passed.
I'm sure this blatant hypocrisy and disconnect will go unnoticed by everyone.
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Re:
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Re: Re: Strawman
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Re: Re: Re: Strawman
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FTFY
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Re:
You're a liar. Masnick is a liar. All of the foot-soldiers for Google and their dirty billions are liars.
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Clearly, an article can be biased and misleading, even if any factual content is entirely accurate. Being selective about what's included is the key - and PR folks are experts at this (well let's face it - this is what their job is)
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What are these guys even asking for, anyway? The only thing I can think of is that they want to drum up public support for dumping typical press releases on Wikipedia, and then hope people will be too busy to fact-check them.
That wouldn't work. The internet never runs out of anal-retentiveness.
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Absolutely not.
Thus one of the completely reliable indicators that a company or politician or nonprofit or any other entity is lying is when they begin to hire a "spokesperson". (Otherwise: why pay for one? Why not just speak for yourselves? And if you're too illiterate or stupid or cowardly to do that, why the hell are you in charge of anything?)
So: no way. The last thing we need are these dysfunctional clowns getting their paws on Wikipedia. The latter has issues, sure, but at least it's not infested by vermin who spend every working day doing their best to destroy the truth.
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Re: Absolutely not.
That's not to say they tell the truth, just that they don't actually lie (at least from their perspective). Understanding how a marketing agent thinks doesn't make any difference from a material perspective, but it helps when actually attempting to communicate with them.
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Re: Absolutely not.
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Re: Absolutely not.
Does it contain any truth? A little. But it's clearly been crafted to obscure it as much as possible, exactly the sort of thing that professional liars are well-paid to do.
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You know, kinda how like how the MPAA wanted SOPA passed despite already having tools in place to shut down infringing websites without needing SOPA.
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Re:
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Re: Re:
THAT'S what I find unsure about this. Not which information PR-folk would add, but which they'd take away.
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Re: Re:
An accurate Wikipedia entry serves the public interest far better than inaccurate entries that are allowed to languish with errors simply because Wikipedia editors refuse to allow “paid advocates” to make necessary, accurate changes. A disclosure of one’s professional affiliation with a business should not automatically exempt him or her from being allowed to responsibly edit Wikipedia entries.
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Yes, this takes precedent over bills that affect the freedoms of the world.
We must fuckus, sorry, focus on this.
I'm sure Sunrise Propane would like to edit anything possibly related to them as well. eg.
"Lawyers have pleaded not guilty to several charges on behalf of Sunrise Propane and hope to show the explosion was an accident, not negligence."
But how can that be?
Truck to truck transfers are illegal in Ontario and they had been previously warned about it. But it was an accident, not negligence?
Sorry Dr. Fever, no dice.
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Everyone has personal biases, on all topics. PR pros are no different from the rest of us, in that respect. Wikipedia has existing processes for keeping their articles unbiased.
Since everyone is biased, bias is not a sufficient reason to block PR pros from editing Wikipedia. They should be treated the same as every other editor- and their biases should be handled by Wikipedia's normal bias-handling procedures.
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More back-and-forth is needed
I'll break down some of the points I've seen in the article:
Yes. This is reasonable. If the user edits responsibly, Wikipedians won't generally have a problem with that user, whether PR pro or not.
Engaging is good, but "seeking to influence"? This is precisely the sort of problem that those opposing PR pros suggest. A PR pro's job is to exert an influence on public discussion in favour of their organization. Correcting errors is one thing, but the moment a PR pro is attempting to "influence" Wikipedia, there's a slippery slope from correcting bias against the company towards introducing bias for the company, and I think that that slope is rather steep. To illustrate this, test yourself: can you tell which of these sentences is most neutral?
(Answer key: 1 is blatantly bad, 2 is nearly as bad, 3 could be neutral, but needs to be referenced and in context, and 4 apologizes for the organization despite its negative tone. These were very simple examples.)
That's a fair and simple position, but it begs the question: what can Wikipedia do to fairly accommodate fair and ethical editing by PR pros without allowing a free ride for those not acting in good faith? I have seen several comments and now an article by members of the PRSA (Keith Trivitt and Gerard Corbett) that have repeated this statement verbatim.
I realize that Wikipedians are often too quick to judge those in the PR industry: let's not ignore that problem. However, if that problem could be defeated, what are the current barriers to PR pros editing? The current conflict of interest guidelines do not in any way prohibit people from editing with a conflict of interest, so long as those edits follow Wikipedia's NPOV policy. PR pros have an outlet in the form of discussion pages, through which they can already make transparent suggestions for fixes to articles, and if they make a suggestion which is ignored, they can be justified in implementing the suggestion themselves on the basis that no one has objected. If the matter is sensitive, there are contact emails available through which concerns can be raised; these are dealt with confidentially by trusted volunteers authorized to use that email system (I am one). There are also many help channels available as well; I'll personally recommend the #wikipedia-en-help channel on Freenode IRC as a source of instant editing help at any hour.
I'd like to know what the PRSA hopes to achieve, what they precisely mean when they ask for a "two-way street". At present, the primary barriers to PR pro involvement are overzealous Wikipedians and the high level of skill and care required for them to edit ethically and effectively. The former is reasonably a problem, and the latter is the burden of care for the PR pro.
PRSA: is there anything I've missed? While I know that many have knee-jerk reactions to PR involvement, I'd like to extend a hand to anyone who'd like to promote an ethical, transparent involvement in Wikipedia. Feel free to contact me on Gmail: wiki dot nihiltres.
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PR people editing WP
"Amateurs" would not be allowed in an operating room.
It is hypocritical for Gerard Corbett of the PR Society to ask WP to ask for a two-way street when the Society barred all press from its 2011 Assembly in Orlando for the first time in its history. It barred me from all the sessions and exhibit hall. Members have yet to get the minutes of the Assembly of Oct. 15, 2011. The Society believes in a "two-way" street for others, not itself.
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NPOV vs OPOV
People tend to be intelligent and can decide for themselves if the spin is real or just spin.
I would go one step further. List each and every litigation that an organization loses or just settles. That way, the Wiki reader gets a fuller disclosure. The organizations won't like this, but it seems a reasonable price to pay in order to get their POV posted.
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Re: NPOV vs OPOV
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Re: NPOV vs OPOV
The main motivation on the part of Wikipedians to add such a thing would be to reduce the motivation of black-hat (i.e. bad faith) PR pros to add their OPOV to the article that ought to be NPOV. If the OPOV is not at least as prominent as the main article, the motivation of black-hat PR pros to tamper with the NPOV article isn't significantly reduced. If the OPOV is as prominent as the NPOV article, then that defeats the point of keeping the "main" article NPOV.
Adding an OPOV section also removes much of the potential benefit to Wikipedia of PR pros editing, since they would presumably add their updates to the "OPOV section" rather than fixing errors or otherwise helpfully updating the NPOV article.
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Crapaganda!
This scurvy dog Corbett flies what should be a shameful term, "PR" from his highest mast!
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Their house their rules
As has been mentioned there are mechanisms in place for correcting articles. If you find something on there you absolutely cannot abide then create an account follow their rules and fix it. Don't cry and scream that they need to adjust their rules to you.
People seriously need to get over the entitlement mentality.
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Programing solution
Yes, it involves more than a little programing, but it would solve what seems like a pretty significant - and very annoying - issue.
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Re: Programing solution
Finding better social rules seems like a simpler system than (looser?) social rules plus technical infrastructure and yet another backlog to clear.
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Wikipedia Ethics
The real problem is the knowledge-gap within the field on ethical best practices, processes and Wikipedia rules.
I would challenge any PR person who feels they were banned from Wikipedia because of their identity - and not because of their edits - to share their username and related editing history. Their editing history rarely tells the same story.
This is a problem with the PR field that can be answered with better education and expertise - not with Wikipedia - who already has an established and detailed set of rules for dealing with it.
-David King
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PR people can contribute, right now, registering a user name and 'correcting ' any errors they come across.
If their corrections meet guidelines, they'll be left in place.
If not, they're reverted.
If they continue making biased edits they will be banned.
So far, so good.
There are only 2 reasons I can think of for wanting to change this to 'allowing ' paid-for contributions:
1) this new category of contributors should have more 'discretion ' in their ability to contribute (no thanks) ;
2) PR people want to be able to add their WP 'contributions' to their portfolio (no thanks)
Any company that has the cash to pay PR people should have enough money to put up their own web site, on which they can practically say whatever they like.
I realise that this would not allow them to co-opt WP's credibility for their own benefit, but...
Oh, wait a minute
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working WITH Wikipedia
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Wikipedia destroys Street Artist Banksy and American Photographer Spencer Tunick Chronology!
It's in neither of their Wiki pages, CENSORED, CRAZY! UNCYCLOPEDIA HAS IT THOUGH!
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