WMF employee forced out over "paid advocacy editing"
The issue of paid advocacy—the practice of being paid to promote something—has long been thorny on the English Wikipedia. The most recent battle was over the public relations company Wiki-PR, whose employees created, edited, or maintained several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients using a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts, violating several English Wikipedia policies in the process. These practices were exposed by the Signpost and other news outlets.
Shortly after, the executive director of the Foundation, Sue Gardner, authored a press release that in part distinguished between paid editing and paid advocacy:
| “ | Editing-for-pay has been a divisive topic inside Wikipedia for many years, particularly when the edits to articles are promotional in nature. Unlike a university professor editing Wikipedia articles in their area of expertise, paid editing for promotional purposes, or paid advocacy editing as we call it, is extremely problematic ... [violating] the core principles that have made Wikipedia so valuable for so many people." / Being deceptive in your editing by using sockpuppets or misrepresenting your affiliation with a company is against Wikipedia policy and is prohibited by our Terms of Use. | ” |
Gardner could not have predicted that the very next controversy would be so close to home, involving the dismissal of Sarah Stierch, whose paid-for editing activities were first revealed in a blog post. This included a screenshot of Stierch's profile on oDesk, a global clearinghouse for the hiring and management of remote workers. The profile showed that she had been paid US$300 to author a Wikipedia page for an "individual", along with two billed hours for a "Wikipedia Writer Editor" job that was "in progress". Since that screenshot, the profile has been updated to rate her work at five stars, saying "Thanks, Sarah! I really appreciate you!".
The topic also hit the talkpage of Jimmy Wales, the outspoken co-founder of Wikipedia, who immediately intoned: "I very very strongly condemn such editing, and this is no exception."
Just days after the revelations, Stierch found herself without her WMF job. Frank Schulenburg, the Foundation's Senior Director of Programs, told the community that she edited for pay "even though it is widely known that paid editing is frowned upon by many in the editing community and by the Wikimedia Foundation" (he later corrected this statement to read "paid advocacy editing" rather than paid editing).
In his announcement of Stierch's dismissal, Schulenburg wrote, without overt irony: "I would like to believe that the Wikimedia movement is a place of forgiveness and compassion. ...". It can only be speculated what the motivations were for Stierch's paid editing, but a sense of this might be gleaned from her tweets in late December.
The Signpost asked Schulenburg whether Wales was involved in the decision to sack Stierch. He replied: "We aren’t going to give specifics about a personnel matter. In general, decisions about dismissals are made by an employee's manager, in consultation with HR and other parts of the staff." On whether the boundary between paid editing and paid advocacy was a factor in the decision to dismiss, Schulenburg was unforthcoming: "The terms paid editing and paid advocacy are very specific, and may not always be clear to many." Other questions he deferred as a "personnel matter", declining to go beyond what was stated in his opening post.
The WMF does not appear to have an explicit agreement with its employees or contractors that bans them from either paid editing or paid advocacy. We asked WMF spokesperson Jay Walsh whether the Foundation explicitly forbids its employees from either paid editing or paid advocacy:
| “ | In the Foundation's experience any form of paid advocacy editing runs against the values and editorial policies of the Wikimedia projects. Foundation staff are expected to uphold the values of the Wikimedia projects and the movement as a whole, and like any user of our projects, they are also expected to honor our Terms of Use. / Our staff receive clear standards of conduct in our employee handbook, and sign an agreement which outlines conduct expectations and conflict of interest guidance when they begin employment. / That agreement doesn't necessarily go into specific detail about what activities are permitted or not permitted. Like any employer, the Foundation expects staff to bring good judgement and to be able to interpret the guidance as it applies to their lives and to their work. Of course if they aren't sure, staff are always encouraged to discuss any potential conflict situations with their managers, HR, or legal counsel. | ” |
Walsh told us that some of the basic substance of the agreement is in the WMF's COI policy, which is specifically aimed at officers, board members, and executives; however, "this is not exactly the same as the employee agreements. Not all of those agreements are necessarily identical, given that staff work in different jurisdictions around the world. But the basic principles and expectations are the same."
The Signpost was unable to find definitive evidence in the terms of use of a clause that Stierch might have breached, even though both Gardner and Walsh have both cited the terms in relation to paid advocacy—Walsh specifically in relation to the Sarah Stierch dismissal. One term of use listed under "Engaging in False Statements, Impersonation, or Fraud" mentions "misrepresenting your affiliation with any individual or entity, or using the username of another user with the intent to deceive". In this respect, the Foundation may be relying on Stierch's failure to openly and proactively disclose her "affiliations" (contractual relationships) with clients. However, if this interpretation of the terms of use were applied evenly throughout the movement, many editors would be in breach, and accepted practices in a number of foreign-language Wikipedias deemed invalid.
Back in the early years, I had a little statement on my userpage encouraging people to donate money to me if they liked my work and wanted me to do more on Wikipedia. —Erik Möller, deputy vice-president, WMF
The Foundation's conflict-of-interest policy does insist that a "Covered Person"—which does not include employees such as Stierch—acknowledge "not less than annually, that he or she has read and is in compliance with this policy on a pledge of personal commitment."
Wikipediocracy, the persistent blog and forum dedicated to discussing and criticizing the Wikimedia movement, kindled press coverage by tipping off the Daily Dot's Tim Sampson. The resulting article outlined the controversy and explored the site's previous coverage of the English Wikipedia's experience with paid advocacy. Another early runner was the major German-language news portal Heise.de, with a particular focus on IT. Ars Technica, The Independent, Netzpolitik, and Il Messaggero followed. Although Stierch is saying nothing publicly about the incident, Walsh told the Signpost that "it's her decision if she should wish to speak about the matter."
Many commentators confuse paid editing with paid advocacy, despite Sue Gardner's attempt to distinguish the two. Paid editing is commonly accepted on Wikimedia projects, most prominently in the form of collaborations with public institutions such as galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. One such editor is Dominic McDevitt-Parks, the recently hired digital content specialist at the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). NARA has contributed a set of guidelines for its staff when editing Wikipedia during the course of their job, created after the unrelated Gibraltar scandal in Europe.
McDevitt-Parks has uploaded to the English Wikipedia his full job description and a personal FAQ page, where he takes on the notion that he could be considered to have a conflict of interest when editing the site: "As a cultural institution with an educational mission, we believe that there are certain activities we can undertake where NARA and Wikimedia have a shared interest, rather than a conflict of interest. ... The two organizations have a conflict of interest when it comes to, for example, the National Archives and Records Administration article itself, but we do not have an interest in editing those types of articles."
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