Wikipedia:Identifying PR

This is an essay on the promotion policy, spam guideline, and the speedy deletion criterion G11. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Shortcuts WP:IPR WP:IDPR

This essay is in development. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Consider these views with discretion, especially since this page is still under construction.

This is intended as a guide to identifying content that is likely to be PR, most often undeclared paid editing. But that doesn't mean it always comes from paid editing--many good faith editors write the same way, partly because they see so much of it already in Wikipedia, so they copy it thinking it's what we want, and partly because the wide penetration of PR in our society leads to everyone using that style. Some of the indications are article formatting and development, others are key phrases or a word. Particularly with key words, they are as often an indication of plagiarism or copyvio as of direct PR--someone copied the material from a PR source. And some of it is just bad writing. Attention should also be paid to copyright issues. Firms will often recycle content that is posted elsewhere on the internet. If an article appears to be PR, a copyright check should also be conducted.

For other approaches to this problem, see WP:PEACOCK.

That an article contains PR does not always imply that the article must be deleted--sometimes the PR can be removed without extensive rewriting. But if extensive rewriting is needed, then it almost always does indicate paid or other COI editing. Opinion varies on whether undeclared paid editing must always be deleted, but recent trends at WP:AfD and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard indicate that it usually will be. One of the reasons is that such editors are almost always sockpuppets, and the material will be subject to deletion on those grounds, even if we have not yet identified the master. The main exception is when some known good faith editor is willing to adopt the article, especially if the subject is so important that removing it entirely would be a disservice to the readers.