Submissions:2014/Confessions of a paid editor


 * Title of the submission: Confessions of a paid editor


 * Themes (Proposal Themes - Community, Tech, Outreach, GLAM, Education): Community


 * Type of submission (Presentation Types - Panel, Workshop, Presentation, etc): Presentation


 * Author of the submission: Gregory Kohs


 * E-mail address: thekohser@gmail.com


 * Username: Thekohser


 * US state or country of origin: Pennsylvania


 * Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.): MyWikiBiz


 * Personal homepage or blog: http://www.examiner.com/wiki-edits-in-national/gregory-kohs


 * Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal): Commercial paid editing of Wikipedia has been tumultuously debated since at least 2006 when MyWikiBiz, the first (and longest-running) content creation and editing service devoted to Wikipedia, was launched. In these debates, often the paid editor's point of view is either assumed, muzzled, or not even invited.  Indeed, the Wikimedia Foundation kicked off 2014 by terminating the employment of a star colleague when it was discovered that she was engaging in paid editing contracts in addition to her work for the WMF.  In this presentation, you'll hear about the experiences and mindset of one of the most "notorious" paid editors in Wikipedia history, Gregory Kohs.

Kohs and other paid editors have concluded that content decisions at Wikipedia are not at all about the quality of the contribution, but rather, the provenance of the contribution. If the editor is embedded in the community, their content generally stays; but if the editor is new and unfamiliar, their content will generally be deprecated or removed with prejudice. Wikipedia's guideline about paying someone to make edits on your behalf states:

...If you expect to derive monetary or other benefits or considerations from editing Wikipedia, then you are very strongly encouraged to avoid editing Wikipedia in areas where there is a conflict of interest that may make your edits non-neutral (biased).

That sounds clear and fair enough, but what it doesn't tell you is that biased and subjective administrators are generally the ones who will make the determination whether edits are "non-neutral".

This presentation will review several case studies of marketers and public relations professionals who, frankly, messed up their interaction with Wikipedia and paid the price. We'll retrace their steps, so that you can see where they went wrong, so that would-be writers can avoid the same mistakes. You might be surprised by some of the myths about Wikipedia that Kohs may overturn.


 * Length of presentation/talk (see Presentation Types for lengths of different presentation types): 75 Minutes


 * Will you attend WikiConference USA if your submission is not accepted?: Possibly


 * Slides or further information (optional): A recent presentation to Rollins College delivered by Kohs in 2013.


 * Special request as to time of presentations: Prefer to present on Saturday or Sunday.

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