Wiki-PR is a consulting firm that formerly marketed the ability to edit

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read ref ...

by "...directly edit ngyour page using our network of established Wikipedia editors and admin . It received media attention in 2013 after a sockpuppet investigation resulted in more than 250 Wikipedia user accounts being blocked or banned. The

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...

changed its terms of use in the wake of the investigation, requiring anyone paid to edit Wikipedia to openly disclose their affiliations. Despite the ban, the firm continued to make undisclosed edits in violation of the terms of use.

Company

Wiki-PR was created in 2010 by Darius Fisher, its current

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, and Jordan French, its current

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. Confirmed clients include Priceline and Emad Rahim, and suspected clients include Viacom, among many others. The firm claimed to have Wikipedia administrator access enabling it to manage the Wikipedia presence of more than archived November 14, 2013 Wiki-PR has been reported to use "aggressive email marketing" to acquire new customers.

Investigation and company reaction

An investigation of sockpuppet accounts on Wikipedia that began in 2012 implicated hundreds of accounts. Wiki-PR's involvement was confirmed after four customers of Wiki-PR spoke anonymously to ''

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'' journalist Simon Owens, and two others, Priceline.com and Emad Rahim, spoke to ''

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'' journalist Martin Robbins. In addition to violating rules against sockpuppeting, Wiki-PR violated Wikipedia rules by citing articles that were planted on business content farms and various other websites that accept contributions from any Internet user as sources for Wikipedia entries, creating a false impression of credibility. The same websites were used repeatedly, and their presence in various Wikipedia articles aided investigators in identifying articles the company had worked on. The investigation led to the Wikipedia community blocking hundreds of paid Wikipedia editing accounts believed to be connected to Wiki-PR that had edited contrary to Wikipedia's rules. In 2014 ''

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'' described Wiki-PR's methods: In ''

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'', French was quoted as saying that Wiki-PR is a research and writing firm, counseling clients on "how to adhere to Wikipedia's rules". French said that its paid work is part of the "fabric" of Wikipedia, complementing the work of unpaid volunteers. French acknowledged that Wiki-PR had sometimes made "bad calls" on the notability of articles. He also said that "We do pay hundreds of other editors for their work—they're real people and not sockpuppets." Instead, as was reported by the ''

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'', Wiki-PR had been involved in "meatpuppetry"—a practice in which editors illegitimately encourage other individuals to edit in support of their position—in addition to planting articles online to try to garner better potential notability for its clients.

Wikipedia and Wikimedia's reaction

, Wiki-PR, including all of its employees, contractors, and owners, were banned from editing Wikipedia. Sue Gardner, executive director of the

, stated that the Foundation was "exploring our options". On November 19, 2013, Wikimedia's law firm, Cooley LLP, emailed a

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letter to Wiki-PR. French told ''

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'' that Wiki-PR "is working with the Wikimedia Foundation and its counsel to sort this out", and hoped to have further information in a week's time. The Wikimedia Foundation acknowledged communicating with Wiki-PR, but the Foundation rejected any implication that they were negotiating with Wiki-PR, saying that if Wiki-PR wanted to continue editing, Wiki-PR must turn to Wikipedia's community. In June 2014, the Wikimedia Foundation updated its terms of use, forbidding undisclosed paid editing and requiring any paid editors to disclose their affiliation. The blog post announcing the change stated that "Undisclosed paid advocacy editing is a black hat practice that can threaten the trust of Wikimedia's volunteers and readers. We have serious concerns about the way that such editing affects the neutrality and reliability of Wikipedia." Later in 2014, a number of large PR firms pledged to follow Wikipedia's new and existing guidelines.

Notes

References

External links