Archive for Wikis

Wikipedia editors discussing PR firms participation - Rules of Engagement in Social Media Commons

August 29, 2006 @ 2:45 pm · Filed under Ethics, PR, Wikis

Ward Wiki's logoThe issue of PR firms’ involvement in editing Wikipedia entries for clients strikes again: the German newspaper Die Welt has recently published an article (original) featuring MyWikiBiz, a US company founded by Gregory Kohs, that is writing (for a fee) Wikipedia articles about companies.

Mr. Kohs, who was editing the clients’ articles under the username MyWikiBiz, has been banned blocked for 10 days by Jimmy Wales for being paid to add entries to Wikipedia which — says Mr. Wales — “is a serious serious no-no because of the obvious conflict-of-interest issues“. Also, the Wikipedia article edited by Kohs on Norman Technologies has been marked as AfD (article for deletion) which has started a discussion that will likely determine if PR firms will have any involvement in editing their clients’ entries in Wikipedia, and how the process should work.

Bellow you’ll find a list of links pointing to Wikipedia talk pages and discussions lists where this issue has been debated for the last couple of weeks (as well as a couple of other articles that I thought are relevant for this discussion). If you’ll take the time to read them — which I strongly recommend — you’ll see that the issue is not trivial. (I’ll post my views on this issue later.)

The problem of edits by PR firms for client — or any “pay for edit” arrangements — is not going to disappear. This is not only about using Wikipedia to promote one’s clients - it’s also about accuracy and reputation. As Wikipedia’s readership, popularity, and position in search engines results will grow, companies will become more and more concerned about the accuracy of Wikipedia’s entries and on how their reputation is affected by it, and will not stay idle if the entries on their organization, leaders, or products are inaccurate.

Of course there will always be a problem with anonymous editors. But I think there are a lot of PR firms and practitioners that are willing to abide by a code that will state clearly the guidelines to be followed by a practitioner for getting involved in the edits of clients pages.

This code doesn’t exist yet - and the discussion about it is happening, for now, without the participation of PR practitioners.

The problems raised by this case are not confined to Wikipedia. The industry should start working now on the rules of engagement on Social Media Commons — social spaces like del.icio.us, YouTube, digg, MySpace, and Second Life — that will allow organizations’ participation in a way that is transparent and respects the communities’ rules.

 
 

Other articles and blog entries on PR edits in Wikipedia:

 

Hat tip: PR-Kloster, Storryblogger & bitemarks.

 

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Interested in Learning to Change?

November 28, 2005 @ 8:21 am · Filed under NewPR Wiki, PR, Wikis

Some time ago Steve Rubel has launched the idea of inviting a selected group of leaders from mid-large size PR firms to “brainstorm some joint action initiatives to immerse PR pros” in social media technologies. Jeremy Pepper had a better idea:

Why hide behind an iron curtain, though? Make the Wiki public, and invite all various PR firms and PR bloggers to be involved. Or, why not do this on the New PR/Wiki?

Steve has accepted the suggestion to use the NewPR Wiki for this project, but the participation is still restricted to people working in midsize or large PR firm. I’m not exactly enthusiastic about the idea of having only a small group of people invited to this project, but it’s Steve’s project and I respect his approach (and FishBowl wikis are not exactly new).

But what about the rest of us — PR pros, consultants and students (maybe journalists, too?)– who might want to join the conversation?

Well, it’s simple: we can start a new wiki page and use it for sharing ideas and comments on the same topics as our colleagues. If you’re interested to participate in this project (any suggestions for a name? how about Learning to Change?), please leave a comment below or send me an e-mail at cbasturea@gmail.com, and I’ll send you an edit password.

There’s no need to feel excluded from the conversation; we can start our own.

Update:

Steve Rubel announced me that the Going the Distance project is no longer invitation-only. If you have already an edit password for the NewPR Wiki, you can contribute. If you don’t have the password, please contact Steve or send me an e-mail.

Second, I think I have to clarify a couple of things. Despite trying to do my best to explain the reasons why I posted this entry, here’s what I read on Niall Cook’s blog:

Now Constantin Basturea has weighed in by starting a separate wiki page (also on The NewPR Wiki) for those who feel “excluded from the conversation”. The implication is that - by participating in Steve’s initiative - we want to exclude and ignore other points of view. This could not be further from the truth.

Of course, everyone is perfectly entitled to create their own wikis, or even just talk about the issues on their own blogs, but this is all getting a little bit silly.

What we have here is a failure to communicate (what?), I think, so I will reiterate my reasons:

  • It was clear from the beginning that people who are not invited to participate will be unhappy about it; I didn’t invented this: it’s all in the comments and trackback posted back in October, and reignited recently.
  • Since people asked “what about us?” and since Steve’s project is hosted by the NewPR Wiki, I thought I have to respond to these questions by -at least- offering a discussion space for those who felt that their ideas are ignored just because they’re not working in large PR agencies. It’s people’s choice if they want to use it or not.
  • I never implied that any of the people participating in Steve’s initiative have the intention to exclude and ignore other points of view. That thought never crossed my mind.

Glad to see this solved.

Links:

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Wikis require both pride and humility

May 11, 2005 @ 2:52 am · Filed under Wikis

Christopher Allen:

I’ve been working on an ambitious list of topics that I’d like to cover over the next year. I offer them to you here so you can have some idea the areas that I am thinking about. [...]

Wiki Editing Dichotomy — One interesting possible barrier of entry to active participation in a wiki is what I call the “wiki editing dichotomy”. You have to be proud enough to believe what you are contributing is generally worthwhile to others (or at least worth your effort), but you also have to be humble enough to understand that others can improve it. I don’t know of many other collaborative media that requires both pride and humility.

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IABC’s Bulletin articles on wikis, blogs, podcasting

May 7, 2005 @ 12:01 am · Filed under Business blogging, PR, Wikis

The May issues of IABC’s Communication World and CW Bulletin are featuring some interesting articles on new communications tools and their impact on PR:

  • Tech Talk — Wiki: the new way to collaborate
  • Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts
  • All About Wikis
  • Top 7 Tips to Write an Effective Blog
  • RSS, Search Engine Visibility and Brand Perception
  • Podcasting

Now, how do we get to read them, if we’re not IABC members? :)

Update: Dan Forbush has posted an adapted version of his article published in the Bulletin: Time to Start Your Own Wiki?.

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Wikipedia: the night before the flack attack

April 28, 2005 @ 5:44 am · Filed under PR, Wikis

Steve Rubel is asking some important questions:

So far this year, the mainstream media has cited Wikipedia as an authoritative body of knowledge nearly 100 times. [...] What should someone in PR do if he/she finds inaccurate information?

As Wikipedia is relied upon as a credible source by the press, will these and other companies begin to edit articles? What guidelines should we follow? My initial feeling is, if you can prove the article false, challenge it. If it’s true, leave it. You’ll only make matters worse. Besides, inaccurate information on Wikipedia doesn’t stay that way for long. What’s your take?

(Coming next week in Part II: what should you do if your client/brand is not listed in Wikipedia? Is it ethical or proper to create an article?)

The best source for starting to explore this issue is Wikipedia itself; more exactly, a page included in Wikipedia’s Problems FAQ and titled Autobiography (formerly known as Don’t create articles about yourself). Here’s an excerpt relevant to this discussion:

Some of us feel that even editing an article about yourself is best avoided [...]. If you do so, please only add verifiable information and be especially careful to respect the neutral point of view. Noting objections or corrections on the talk page may be appropriate.

Similar principles apply to articles about works that you are primarily responsible for - the company you run, the website you started, the book you wrote. Use common sense.

Now, it’s important to note that this is not (yet) a Wikipedia policy page, it’s a semi-policy:

Semi-policy pages are an attempt to codify and write down long-standing unwritten rules that have widespread support. They should be treated as guidelines, not as strict rules.

In the Talk area for this page there’s an interesting exchange between Wikipedians, including a person — username: Pfwebadmin — who’s working for a "US-based non-profit that does reproductive health work in Asia, Africa & Latin America." Pfwebadmin wanted to see an article about his organization on Wikipedia, but was reluctant to start one, and asked what’s the proper way to handle this.

Someone responded that this kind of things have been anticipated, but didn’t happened. What’s crucial is that the article, if started, should conform to the "non-negotiable" policy of maintaining a Neutral Point of View (NPOV); for that, the authors should stick "as much as possible, to facts that can be verified using third-party sources."

(I’ll skip a juicy bit about how Pfwebadmin has offered money to any experienced Wikipedian to start and expand an article about his employer, and that the article has been created, although the money was refused.)

There are a couple of things that Pfwebadmin did right - and they can serve as a start in responding to Steve’s question:

  • he joined the community, by starting a user page
  • was upfront about the relationship with his employer
  • was aware of Wikipedia’s policies (especially the NPOV) and rules (Don’t start a page about yourself), and respected them
  • asked for guidance
  • made clear that he’ll try to stay out of the editing process, and that he will disclose any edits
  • asked fellow employees to contact him before trying to edit the page, especially if they’re not familiar with Wikipedia
  • asked people to discuss the issue of an employee starting/changing the page of a company ("Enable me and my organization to do right by Wikipedia.")

His care for respecting Wikipedia’s ethos was noticed and appreciated. Here’s what another wikipedian — user name: Lotsofissues — wrote:

Thank you for your careful consideration of POV on this site. It’s refreshing to see after discovering/deleting so much vanity/marketing daily.

It’s a "success story" - at least for now. The page on Pfwebadmin’s employee is very short, and it didn’t experience any editing war so far. But this could change, since the organization focuses on reproduction and AIDS/HIV prevention issues, which are sensitive topics.

There are a couple of things that you might want to consider before jumping to start or edit a Wikipedia page about your employer:

  • I think it’s unlikely that most journalists –and their editors– are taking the information provided by Wikipedia as facts, without checking them for accuracy, especially if the subject matter is controversial. Steve points to a page showing that Wikipedia has been cited by mainstream media nearly 100 times so far this year. But the number itself doesn’t tell much (and, by the way, most citations are from English-speaking media, and at least two of them are from WebProNews reposts of blog postings). Sometime Wikipedia is indicated just as a resource for more information. Also, look at the terms for which Wikipedia is used as a source: definitions of podcasting, phishing, anime, weblog, webcasting, folksonomy, spamming, spyware, warez... — and Sauerkraut. So, let’s see these numbers in perspective.
  • Is your company important enough to have a page in Wikipedia? Would you expect to find an entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica about your employer? No? Then why do you want a page in Wikipedia? Aren’t there better ways of making people aware of your company and engaging in a relationship with them than starting a page on Wikipedia?
  • How much of what people know about your company is likely to be influenced by what they read in Wikipedia about it?
  • You will have to invest time in maintaining the accuracy of your page. You’ll have to be prepared to do research, to find third-party endorsements for things that you take for granted. You’ll have to go through editing wars, and to explain why you’re adding to, or deleting, or modifying the page. Are you ready for this type of work and involvement?
  • Finally, if you are a PR professional, ask yourself: would you have considered editing the page about a company if the company was not your client? And, more important: what impact a (perceived) "flack attack" is likely to have on Wikipedia as a community and as a resource?

On the other hand, it would be unrealistic to think that companies (and PR professionals) will shy from involvement in influencing what Wikipedia says about them. That’s why it’s better to start now a process of establishing the rules of engagement. Wait, Pfwebadmin already thought about this (emphasis added):

I’m wondering if there is room for a project of some sorts to help facilitate people and entities that will have to walk these Autobiography issues choosing to walk them correctly. I’m basically trying to create, on my company’s discussion page and on my login’s discussion page, a blueprint for how to act with respect to this sort of stuff. I wish there were a few options in somewhat a cousin vein to a license of sort that I could use there instead of having to try to create the wheel and also figure out which and how many spokes should go in it. Maybe even something that I could then get my president to sign off on being our company’s official policy towards its employees’ interaction with Wikipedia? Does that make sense? Strikes me that as Wikipedia and Wikipedia’s relevance grow, these sorts of issues will be ever-present and increasingly important to address.

There’s no such project right now, but we should start one soon. Does anyone have Jimmy Wales’s phone number on Rolodex? Scratch that. Now we’ll have do discuss it with the whole community. Heh.

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Happy birthday, dear Wiki! Thank you, Mr. Cunningham

March 25, 2005 @ 6:52 pm · Filed under Wikis

c2 wiki logoTen years ago, on March 25, 1995, Ward Cunningham has started the first wiki at http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki, hosting the Portland Pattern Repository.

A heartfelt thank you to Ward Cunningham and to all the people who have contributed, in a way or another, to the WikiWay.

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Copy editor needs sleep, wiki-wiki

March 17, 2005 @ 2:03 am · Filed under Quote of the day, Wikis

Newspaper headline

Source: The Star-Telegram, March 16, 2005.

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