Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

Good, bad, biased, paid or what-have-you. There's an endless supply.
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Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

Post by ericbarbour » Thu Mar 09, 2017 9:41 am

http://jezebel.com/gothamist-deleted-ne ... 1793085352

That's the thing wealthy people are beginning to realize about websites--they're easier to censor than print media.
They're stupid and wrong, but it doesn't stop them. Didn't stop Jimbo.....

Speaking of censored websites:

Whether you're wondering or not, Ricketts has a Wikipedia bio. Which shows signs of paid editing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... dk2a04cv3x

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Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

Post by ericbarbour » Sat Mar 11, 2017 9:08 am

Alison mentioned this guy on Facebook -- there is a petition demanding that he resign his seat on the Dail.

So I checked his Wiki article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Harris_(politician)
And sho'nuff he's been editing it himself.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... onHarrisTD
The account that created it has that funny smell too....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... owpolitics

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Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

Post by HRA1924 » Sat Mar 11, 2017 9:47 am

ericbarbour wrote:Alison mentioned this guy on Facebook -- there is a petition demanding that he resign his seat on the Dail.
Since this is shaping up as the Doxxing forum, perhaps "WP paid editing" should be a separate sub-forum, so indivdual cases can be better indexed through the thread titles.
Another thing, can the posts per page be increased to 25/50 from the present 10 ?

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Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

Post by HRA1924 » Sat Mar 11, 2017 10:00 am

Soham321 wrote:
Soham321 wrote:(i) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... enterprise

(ii) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... enterprise

(iii) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk ... _threat.3F
---
Question: is it a coincidence that the wikipediots started going after Vipul only after his sponsoring of paid edits was brought under scrutiny in a WP critics forum?
Of course it is coincidence and nothing but coincidence considering that only 7 out of over 13 million registered WP editors read this forum.
Trivia : The user account Inlinetext which started this is likely to be a sockpuppet of 'OccultZone' - the Singaporean trans-sex gamer Natalinasmpf who had a torrid cybersex affair (in the HG forums) in 2006 with Vipul's paid editor 'Simfish'. Simfish was shocked to discover (in 2009) that Natalinasmpf was a man (gasp !) and then hied himself off to Quora.

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Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

Post by ericbarbour » Mon Mar 13, 2017 4:28 am

Well, I'm trying to give the fools a reason to watch this forum. Thus:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_M._Croce

Created in 2011 with a massive copyright violation. Speedy-deletion was tried and refused.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =406298396
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =406300464

It attracted some diddling by various people for 6 years. Somebody stuck some really nasty comments in it on 10 March. ("Lord Monboddo" looks like a skeezy character.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =769481859

Then on 11-12 March it became an editwar target. Apparently there are people in the "scientific community" who want to piss on Dr. Croce's head. One of the combatants openly admits being a relative of Dr. Croce:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =769686051
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... ertocroce1

And another seems to hate him intensely. Bad info is inserted, someone reverts it, an idiot patroller restores it. As usual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... s/Emb010gr

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Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

Post by ericbarbour » Wed Mar 15, 2017 8:25 pm

I suspect that Jax_0677 is Jack Pelton. Because one of the first things he did on Wikipedia in 2008 was to create the article about, guess who...Jack Pelton!

He also spent time working on the bios of fellow former Cessna/Textron people like, well, his boss, Scott C. Donnelly. Plus Dick Millman.

He was blocked only once, in 2014 over a minor argument about a redirect. Still editing today.

Related: the article about FlyersRights, one of the few organizations in the world that supports the interests of airline passengers. FlyersRights has existed since 2006 but didn't get a Wikipedia article until 2016--thanks to Jax 0677. He was the principal editor of this article and it makes me wonder who he knows at FlyersRights.

Look at the history of the FlyersRights article. In April of last year, someone called "Kendallflyers" showed up and copied material from FlyersRights' website to Wikipedia. And those edits, plus a following chunk of other edits, were rev-deleted by persons unknown, for no apparent reason:
(cur | prev) 17:55, 1 May 2016‎ Catlemur (talk | contribs)‎ . . (8,649 bytes) (+544)‎ . . (Filled in 4 bare reference(s) with reFill ())
(cur | prev) 13:31, 1 May 2016‎ AnomieBOT (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (8,105 bytes) (+28)‎ . . (Dating maintenance tags: {{CN}} {{LR}})
(cur | prev) 13:10, 1 May 2016‎ Jax 0677 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (8,077 bytes) (+6)‎ . . ({{LR}})
(cur | prev) 13:08, 1 May 2016‎ Jax 0677 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (8,071 bytes) (+17)‎ . . (→‎Current Legislation: fix URLs)
(cur | prev) 13:07, 1 May 2016‎ Jax 0677 (talk | contribs)‎ . . (8,054 bytes) (+22)‎ . . (→‎Background: fix URLs)
(cur | prev) 06:50, 1 May 2016‎ Yobot (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (8,032 bytes) (+1)‎ . . (Removed invisible unicode characters + other fixes, replaced: → (3) using AWB (12006))
(cur | prev) 00:55, 30 April 2016‎ Kendallflyers (talk | contribs)‎ . . (8,031 bytes) (+1,713)‎ . . (legislation) (Tag: Visual edit)
(cur | prev) 00:16, 30 April 2016‎ Kendallflyers (talk | contribs)‎ . . (6,318 bytes) (+1,301)‎ . . (expand background) (Tag: Visual edit)

followed by:
(cur | prev) 03:17, 4 May 2016‎ Diannaa (talk | contribs)‎ . . (7,708 bytes) (-941)‎ . . (remove copyright content copied from http://www.flyersrights.org/about.php)

Hmm, could "Kendallflyers" be FlyersRights employee Kendall Creighton?.......
http://flyersrights.org/board.php

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Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

Post by ericbarbour » Tue Mar 21, 2017 1:40 am

A large chunk of Joshua Topolsky was written by a single editor called "Douusskamika".

Who worked on very little content on Wikipedia other than Topolsky's bio, the article about The Verge (a tech "newsblog" founded by Topolsky in 2011), and Topolsky's previous employer, Engadget.....And that Verge article has an "interesting" history. The vast bulk of it has been heavily edited by only three accounts: Douusskamika (who created it), Page Fold, and "Oxxoxxxxxoxxo". Hope they were well-compensated.

Topolsky has left The Verge and been fired from Bloomberg. He recently started another "newsblog" called The Outline. Which has no Wikipedia article--yet. Place your bets.

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Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

Post by ericbarbour » Wed Mar 22, 2017 6:13 am

Ever seen a Great Big Story video? Here's a relatively new one that is among their better efforts:


Fun facts: Great Big Story was started only 2 years ago by CNN as an attempt to muscle into "web video". Some of GBS's videos have been popular on social media, most have not. They tend to be very short, happy-smiley, and not very informative or "educational"--aimed at short attention spans. I understand that CNN deliberately staffed GBS with "cultic" digerati types who don't tolerate criticism of any kind---there are rumors of brutal battles between GBS staffers over trivial nonsense, so it is a very dysfunctional organization; and people in the web industry consider GBS to be a massive failure which CNN dumped millions of dollars into. (How true is any of this? You'll have to ask some "web professionals" who specialize in video. Such as the people at VICE, one of GBS's primary "targets". Bet they have "interesting things" to say about their competitor.)

GBS is considered such a "failure" that there is almost nothing on Wikipedia about it. The guy who started it, Andrew Morse, had his Wiki bio heavily expanded by an SPA called "TIMSWA1810", who is obviously being paid by CNN/TimeWarner to edit Wikipedia content and commit COI violations...TIMSWA1810 also spent months making TimeWarner CEO Jeff Zucker sound like a hero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =642685998

Bonus update: GBS was finally shut down in late 2020.

DOUBLE SECRET BONUS: GBS got a Wikipedia article in 2018, was shut down in 2020, and revived in 2023 under new management. The WP article is amazingly free of references and looks like something a GBS employee tossed together in two hours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Big_Story

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Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

Post by ericbarbour » Sat Mar 25, 2017 2:43 am


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Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

Post by Strelnikov » Sat Mar 25, 2017 12:28 pm

Actually, the way The Outline is presented reminds me of Wired as it was in 1997; weird color choices, odd non-conventional page layouts, using pages of short text with large images for essays, etc. The infinite scrolling and oddball layout are for people using tablets and smartphones and not regular computers.
Still "Globally Banned" on Wikipedia for the high crime of journalism.

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