Astonishing what people want to edit war over...

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visu...mest-edit-wars/

It's pretty, but there are some issues with it.

Not the least of which is the exclusion of Niko Bellic!

How could they??

I love it when Wikipediots get upset and write a terribly long screed about something that was only a joke in the first place.

FTFY


If they wanted a real challenge, they would have researched the endless (and still ongoing today) battles
over Israel-related articles. But oh, that would have required a lot more work. The result would
not have been a nice, simple, colored chart. For nice, simple people.....

The author of that piece is William Beutler, a public affairs strategist for New Media Strategies (T-H-L-K-D). It looks like he has dozens of blogs and columns scattered all over, a lot of which appear to be abandoned. On wikipedia he is WWB (T-C-L-K-R-D) .


New Media Strategies says they "leverage the power of social media to give our clients a respected and influential voice in that conversation".

There page on Wikipedia Engagement says


The wp search function reveals these additional self-identified employees of NMS.
Nanorlb (T-C-L-K-R-D)
Patrickottenhoff (T-C-L-K-R-D)
RLBN (T-C-L-K-R-D)
Marklemunyon (T-C-L-K-R-D)
Dmbosstone (T-C-L-K-R-D)
NMS Bill (T-C-L-K-R-D)
Chrisabraham (T-C-L-K-R-D)
Gmazeroff (T-C-L-K-R-D)
Sorendayton (T-C-L-K-R-D)

They appear to be quite successful in monetizing their editing of wikipedia.

How is NMS Bill not one of those prohibited insta-blocked commercial user names?

The user is a walking advertising board. Each article has it's own company name next to it. How nice

William Beutler certainly has "the look" of a Wikipedian.

Indeed! When it comes to editing the actual article about New Media Strategies, it appears that 80.4% of the edits made by the top 5 editors (60% of whom are employees of New Media Strategies) are part of this meatpuppetry clique.

From WikiChecker:



Whoopsie daisy! Melanie Phung (Mphung, anyone?) was with New Media Strategies when she was working on Wikipedia. So, now that's 91.3% of the top editors' edits, and 80% are employees.

I wonder if Cadabera was ever an employee of New Media Strategies? Hmm... here he is bad-mouthing the competition, and here he is removing the competition.

I wonder if any of the model Wikipedians here will ask Jimbo on his Talk page about how and why this sort of "PR puffery" has been tolerated for so long in Wikipedia, being that he was so very adamantly opposed to just this sort of thing? Aw, heck... maybe I should just ask the "very model of a modern Wikipedia editor"?

"Domino’s Engages Social Media Pioneer, New Media Strategies, for Customer Engagement Strategy" http://nms.com/pressroom/entry/dominos-eng...-customer-enga/

And here is the rewrite of the Domino's article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:NMS_Bill...roducts_rewrite

Amazing and blatant. So blatant it's probably OK, then.

I can see why workers at New Media Strategies were so dedicated toward building their firm's business. $100,000 bonuses, if business grew.

Damn - Meredith Corporation is based in Des Moines, Iowa, of all places. I had no idea they'd gotten into this sort of thing!

I guess the fact that this company (or "division" if you prefer) isn't solely devoted to "placing" corporate promotional articles on Wikipedia makes it okay, is that it? As long as it's part of a larger "strategic online marketing package," you don't get the ongoing demonization treatment from Jimbo 'n' the Gang?

Who knows? I really wish someone would put this question publicly to Jimbo's Talk page, but nobody seems brave enough to go up against the New Media Strategies powerhouse.

Probably because it is not blatantly so. If I worked for Ford, could I create a user name Ford Fred? Probably.

Yes, brilliant, I'd say. I have not reviewed exactly what they do, but if they rigorously follow COI policy, they should be able to do it, and Wikipedia content will, in fact, benefit. If they are doing it well, it won't be a problem, except for people who make a fuss because, well, isn't getting paid BAD? Shouldn't we punish people who get paid?

People forget about COI policy. They have tended to treat COI people, including experts, as pariahs, to be shunned. I've argued this one extensively: COI people should be confined to Talk pages, except for noncontroversial edits. A COI editor who reverts someone else on a covered article should be warned and blocked, again, unless it's not controversial, i.e., vandalism or the like.

And they should be protected on Talk pages, expected to be pushing a point of view. Neutrality a kind of synthesis of all points of view, not a particular point of view! If they argue tendentiously on Talk, it can and should be refactored to prevent visual disruption. But protected as long as it is civil, and as long as it is not clearly deceptive. Biased, it can surely be. That's the point of COI!

As of July 30th, WWB/NMS_Bill no longer works for New Media Strategies. the NMS web site, his user pages and various blogs haven't been updated yet.

Here he says he's a writer and consultant.

Here's another from their website. "Frederick Wildman & Sons Partners with New Media Strategies to Expand Social Media Presence - Leading wine importer works with social media pioneer to help increase awareness of Trapiche wines." http://nms.com/pressroom/entry/frederick-w...expand-social-/

And behold the article on the Trapiche winery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapiche_(winery), written by Nanorlb http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&action=history .

Don't get too far down that rabbit hole, there. You can't "synthesize" an article from various points of view without having a point of view. The completely work, by definition, represents your point of view about how much weight to give the sub-views, and how to present them. Knowing that there's no way you can be other than mostly-ignorant about nearly any subject you're writing about (The American Civil War, anybody? There's been more than one book published for each DAY since the war. How many have you read?)

At this point, somebody's going to chime in and say "Oh, no, at least in THEORY this COULD all done by algorithm, based on the various weightings of the entire integral (or differential sumation) of all the various POVs of view in the world literature, multiplied by the number of people who hold them, each appropriately weighted by their academic reputations!" At which point my reaction is:












Ah. Thanks for that. I've heard it before, and I still like my view.

The COI policy seems designed mostly to protect harassment of editors with COI. And why should an encyclopedia benefit from wineries or restaurants advertising their presence? Take this to its logical conclusion and you can have BP writing articles about fixing oil leaks.

Should we punish people who get paid? Not if they are paid to give an independent evaluation of a product or organisation. But if they are paid by the organisation itself? You must be joking.

It's a horrible idea. Next we'll have pharmaceutical companies writing papers on the effects of various drugs, and paying medical journals to advertise the same drugs. Can you imagine what that would do to the sacred practice of medicine? And in government, it would be like having various government agencies spend money to do things that essentially lobby congress to give them more money. Like having the military advertise about the military or having the USDA spend money to promote beef-eating... Can you imagine state agencies hiring lobbyists with tax money to go to Washington to try to get more tax money for the same state agencies? The whole system would implode in a spending frenzy, with a positive feedback loop! In no time at all, the government would be in debt!

God save us from such a world. I'm thankful that what I see on TV and read in the papers isn't influenced by filthy lucre. If you allow that, next money will creep into your religion, and maybe even into your BED.

So, don't start with Wikipedia. Because you never know where it will end.

"Wikipedia has given me so much, this is hardly anything to give back." — William Beutler, donated 100 USD

Touché, Bill.

In the mid-1960s, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, I worked summers at WOW-TV (Channel 6) in Omaha. WOW-TV was then owned by Meredith Publishing Company, publishers of Better Homes and Gardens and Successful Farming magazines.

Johnny Carson started his television career at WOW-TV.

Just spotted another COI/self-promotion piece:

The article on Russell Potter, a professor from Cleveland:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Potter

Started and mostly written by Profrap (T-C-L-K-R-D) , who later revealed himself to be Russell A. Potter himself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=80276743

Profrap then resigned, attacking wikipedia. The user account "rapotter" then appeared and changed name to "Clevelander96" (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Rapotter&action=history)

The Potter article then added to by Clevelander96 (T-C-L-K-R-D) , who added Potter's books.

Don't worry -- Wikipedia's got an minor teenager on point.