I just had a work account with Elance.com closed by their management because they found that my paid editing of Wikipedia service to be a "potential violation of another site's terms of service".

When I pointed out to them that Wikipedia has no terms of service to violate, they responded that I must finish up my current Elance project (in process), then they would review that project client's feedback, then make a final determination on the account. In the meantime, my access to all of my project notes and reports and financial milestones was cut off by Elance. In other words -- "finish your work, but do it with one arm tied behind your back".

Well, my client was so offended by what Elance had done to me, he closed his Elance account.

So, Elance's final decision -- my account shall remain closed, and I am not entitled to any appeal.

What do you think about this, folks?

Was your Elance job/project related to Wikipedia?

Well, that seems less than thoughtful of Elance.

Perhaps you could discuss it with Fabio Rosati, the CEO, at (650) 316-7500. Or email him at frosati@elance.com, or fax him at (650) 316-7501.

Got these from acquisition documents freely available on the Internet.

What do you think, Ottava?




Thanks. But, I've got an appointment lined up with Jonathan Diller, as it seemed he'd be the more appropriate member of management to talk to.

Best of luck.

I don't know what Elance is — a pointy tool for puncturing an Eboil maybe ??? — but it ought to be obvious to anyone with more than a pimple for a brain that Wikipedia has no Term of Service contract.

Jon

Why don't you just make another account? You have considerable experience in that. You've already faced obsession-driven checkusers on WP so Elance shouldn't be much of a challenge for you.

You mean like the one I created last night?



One problem, though... is that I lose the good reputation that I had built with the first account... and that has manifest impact on my earning potential.

This is an important point and one that demonstrates a weakness in the position of the 'user' in the contractual relationship between user/provider across much of the Internet. The prevailing model is that of the Bar/Hotel owner who 'reserves the absolute right to refuse entry' - I would guess that even on WR this is the 'bottom line'.

'Absolute right to refuse entry' (or eject anyone whose entry is no longer welcome) is not unreasonable where the contract revolves around the provision of food and drink, acommodation, and/or provision of social space and activities. The refusal to allow access, or remove access once provided, are unlikely to have substantial enduring effects in these 'hospitality' contexts*. However where work product or contract communication is contingent on access then the denial of access is a much more serious issue. It's rather as though, when typing away on one's laptap in a coffee bar, one is asked to leave for some offence to the owner's sensibilities, and one is additionally required to delete every action on the computer which was carried out while on the premises.

*Excluding of course all issues relating to illegitimate discrimination.


A.virosa

While I am no a fan of paid editing, Elance has no shortage of people openly offering to write WP articles, so singling you out seems strange. My guess is that one of your fans from WP was behind this, so any account that can be identified as yours will suffer the same fate until you work this out with Elance.

Entirely concur with this.

Well, guess what, folks?

I finally heard back from Elance.com's "Policy Team", which forwarded me a note from Elance vice-president, Jon Diller.

The reason why my Elance account was suspended is because it was in violation of this Wikipedia policy:

Wikipedia:Paid editing (policy)

The Policy Team representative went on to ask me to ferret out any other buyers or sellers on Elance who are also in violation of this important Wikipedia policy.

Can any of you smart cookies figure out... what's wrong with this picture?

The answer seems to be embedded in the question.

Do I win a prize?

Ferret them out and you eliminate some competition.

I dunno, can a site like elance.com afford to ignore "failed" templates at the top of proposed WP policies? Given that it causes them to alienate their users and constituents...

Perhaps this could be demonstrated for them more clearly by creating a policy page entitled "WP:FREELANCE", which would claim that any form of freelancing, consulting, or contract work is contrary to Wikipedia policy, whether it's related to Wikipedia or not. In other words, if you were hired by someone to fix their bathroom then you'd be subject to a 1-year block, or if you work at Wal-Mart as a "1099 employee" you get a lifetime ban, etc. That might work.

Sue them ... or do they have one of those typical Web 2.0 'bend over and take it up the ass we can do what we want' user contract?

Yah, over 400 ... can't they use their own search engine to find them ... or do they expect to ban you and THEN work for free for them snitching on others.

It seems to be one of the 10 Commandments of Internet, "Thous shalt snitch on others as other would snitch on you, just get in their first. The disease spreads ...

Meanwhile, this guy is pulling $1,000 Wikipedia jobs.

http://www.elance.com/s/faustus37/job-history/10180?t=1

Meanwhile, these guys are actively looking to recruit admins

http://www.awikipro.com/wikipro5.html

Had I only known there were more profitable pursuits on Wikipedia ...

He's not exactly Shakespeare. If they're really paying him $1000 a pop for this, more fool they.


"Special rates for users with 15 years of service on Wikipedia". What's wrong with this picture?

Three sock puppets, each with 5 years of experience? By that measure, I have hundreds of "years of Wikipedia experience"!

Seems to me, Greg, that you could probably sue Elance and use that as evidence they are
mistreating you in an inequitable manner.....

Elance is funny. Here's a professional ghostwriter, openly revealing that she wrote this novel,
and not the credited author......seems to me that such a revelation would embarrass her client....

I didn't see where she said that she "wrote" that novel. I got the gist that she edits manuscripts for Leucrota Press.

Huh? He's obviously Faustus37 (T-C-L-K-R-D) on Wikipedia, just like the name says. (And he's even from Idaho!) What makes you think he's also this Elyse B (T-C-L-K-R-D) person?

This is actually a good example of what Mr. Kohs and many others here have been saying all along - if anyone on Wikipedia knows about Mr. Faustus' activities at all, they haven't said boo about it. And it's probably because Mr. Faustus isn't criticizing them publicly, and therefore not drawing their unwanted attention.

Hopefully Mr. Faustus won't sue me for destroying his business by pointing this out, but it's not like he's exactly going out of his way to hide himself. If anything, he's being almost as up-front as Mr. Kohs was, and once they check this out I wouldn't be surprised if he gets a lengthy block (not to mention plenty of finger-wagging) for it.

So, important safety tip: Never divulge your WP username on freelancing-enabler sites.

Indeed -- what's wrong with this picture?

Certainly, this article (and its one independent reliable source, a passing mention in the Wall Street Journal) about registered investment advisor John Rhoads demonstrates far more subject notability than did the Graffiti4hire article (with its multiple independent reliable sources).

Wrong with that picture? I don't see anything wrong with that picture. It says you can quality. I personally happen to love to quality.

Mr. Kohs, you should probably stick to getting jobs of this type through difficult-to-track side channels. I'm sure you've got connections. What use have you for a website that freaks out if you break some other completely unrelated website's completely-made-up POS TOS?

From Elance's policy team, via e-mail:



Who wants to start a side-bet on how long before my Elance account will be suspended again?

I wonder if Elance will believe it if I change the failed proposal to policy and then send them the page revision with that. Really, though, they're a crappy service that you don't need to use.

Write an Examiner article about this or something, why don'tcha?

They also misspelled "preferred," left the "s" off of "awards," and misused the article "a" before the word "reviewer." And that was just in that one paragraph... If you go up a little higher, they also used the wrong spelling of "discreet," left out the word "been" before "revealed," misspelled "politicians," left out "and" before "also," and generally used commas where they should have used semicolons. What's more, you can "Instantly Proofread Your Texts And"! I've been wanting to proofread my texts and for quite some time now, but I can't seem to get organized but.

Anyway, I'd say they've got the Wikipedia style down pat! No wonder they're the "leading resource" for all those famous people.

Where's that "Sir Caustic" guy from Yahoo! when you need him, anyway? I love that guy!

I know I don't "need" to use the service, but it's low-hanging fruit, just waiting there for my bids.

I just might write an Examiner article about it, but I think that even fewer people would care about it than about the mysterious departure of Mike Godwin from the Wikimedia Foundation.

Greg