If you read my blog (which you don’t) you’ll know that one of my berserk buttons is business misconduct, especially among startups. I wrote about this ad nauseum in Technology For Technology’s Sake, but today I’m taking a break from the big picture to focus on a quiet insurrection that seeks to destroy one of the internet’s greatest treasures. I’m speaking, of course, of the spam articles overrunning Wikipedia.
Wikipedia has always been under attack. From the advent of The Squidward Vandal to the ever-present threat of Wikigroaning. These issues were obvious or contained enough to be dealt with succinctly. The newest vector, however, is spam so well-disguised that it’s often vetted and approved by experienced editors. In our post-journalism news-o-sphere (and we are post-journalism, see Churnalism) there is no fine line between news and advertisement. News outlets publish whatever will earn the most advertising revenue, and as it turns out, the shortest path to ad revenue is often to simply host content from the advertisers themselves. Thus, once-reliable (or at least regulated) sites like Forbes now offer blogging platforms which allow anyone to write blogs on their domain. When paid promotional editors want to lend credence to their client’s article, all they need to do is spend a few dollars on Forbes, IBT, and Reuters blogs to publish some paraphrased press releases.
Rather than addressing this broadly, Wikipedia’s policy discussion has remained painfully quiet, instead devolving into case-by-case fights on the Reliable Sources debate board and an endless torrent of Articles for Deletion. Editors and admins alike are forced to run through the same song and dance for every single fraudulent and unnecessary article pushed through the system by PR editors. Worse still, there are real editors who filibuster these discussions by defending the spam blogs out of ignorance.
In a reversal of fate, I wrote my satirical take on this on Wikipedia itself and have (for now) reserved my more serious judgments for this blog. This will not be the case forever. I will begin drafting a proposal for editors to discredit these PR blogs with extreme prejudice. There is no middle ground in this fight, as any wiggle room given to these repeat offenders only invites further abuse of loopholes and public goodwill. My proposed changes would affect AfC, AfD, and hopefully CSD by broadening the definition of “promotional sources”. I will also advocate for increased admin responsibility to identify bad faith content and delete or deny mature articles with no independent references. Too many AfD debates are closed without consensus because one or two editors feel that the PR sources are reliable.
Essentially, my proposal would bring the handling of business articles in line with WP:FRINGE, where due to an overwhelming influx of hoaxes, articles about fringe topics are treated as self-sourced by default. The use of surreptitious paid PR is no different, in that it presents itself as facts on a newsy domain name (i.e. not Blogspot, WordPress, Weebly) when the content is entirely editorial. As I see it, Wikipedia’s policy already agrees here, but the precedent is largely ignored in debate.
Hopefully, this movement gains traction before AfD sets a precedent against allowing spam to survive on “reasonable doubt”. A number of articles sourced entirely to “The Times of India” (the blog, not the paper) came up today and were defended by long-term users unaware of the website’s past. I was personally responsible for an AfD which was cited to Forbes (the blog) International Business times (the blog) and Breitbart (the blog, not that that makes any difference) and defended for the same reasons. It took two submissions for admins to take notice.
It’s frustrating, but not unstoppable. With a concerted effort to educate editors and admins, change can be made and editors can get back to curating articles instead of fighting a sisyphian battle against spam.
Update: After giving WP two second chances, I’ve realized that I don’t have the time nor the focus to enact change. I do, however, trust the system as it’s always kept things in line in the long run. I expect that the admins and experts will eventually reach the same conclusion I did, and develop a stronger, better-worded spam policy than I ever could. It will just take time.
Profanity Filter Testing Domain 