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 | This page in a nutshell: When dealing with UPE, keep it in the back of your mind that no matter how clever the perpetrator is, or think they are, they are in a permanent dilemma as one thing you can always trust is the fact that UPE never fails to be UPE. You reading this, yes you! can spot UPE and very easily too and become extremely good at nabbing unethical practices. |
In the past dealing with UPE was an arduous task but now, spotting UPE isn’t difficult because the beauty of UPE is that UPE never fails to be UPE as it always betrays itself. Now, What really is UPE? asides the conventional meaning, a UPE is always an WP:ADMASQ, and an ADMASQ is basically an advertisement(I would like for the word; "advertisement" to be emphasized upon, which tries to masquerade and appear as a legitimate article.
How does this work? A quintessential example of a UPE would read something like Mr/Mrs(ABC) is a businessperson/entrepreneur/CEO/social media expert/ brand influencer/leading figure/top-most/sought after/first-ever/owner of/who won the (award)/Specialist the list goes on, whatever it may be, they all follow the basic premise of trying to subtly promote something.
No matter how insignificant you think a “minor” promo might be, you are likely looking at a UPE article. Once you spot any of the aforementioned words or phrases in any given article or if you note what you believe to be subtle promo, as aforementioned you indeed might be looking at a UPE article.
The dilemma for UPE editors is if the aforementioned words aren’t inserted in the article their employer wouldn’t be pleased and it wouldn't be much of an ADMASQ which is basically the ultimate goal of a UPE article (To subtly promote or advertise something that is not notable by our notability criteria)
Furthermore, another sign you may be looking at a UPE article is the claim that the subject has won an award, whilst this may be true, what you want to do is look up that award, do a research on the award and you’d realize it’s a non notable award, In-fact, this is a major indicator you are looking at a UPE article.
When dealing with UPE, checking the sources used are a good way to indicate possible UPE, for example most experienced UPE editors know reliable sources and they know to put in the article to land credence to the article, now what you want to do is check those sources, you’d observe that most of those sources although reliable are publishing unreliable pieces, such as the byline reading "Admin" or "Guest editor" this is the reason you must be well acquainted with reliable sources in general, and also be acquainted with reliable sources in your home country.
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