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

Post by Alison » Wed May 10, 2017 9:08 pm

ericbarbour wrote:Pointed out to me on Facebook, by Alison Cassidy of all people: the ongoing attempt to sterilize the biography of far-right Irish political figure Justin Barrett. Just today someone called "Irelandwatch" kept trying to make him look like a poor little victim of far-left violence.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =779566257
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =779661369

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


" ... of all people ...." :D

I just checked, and IrelandWatch is now blocked by DoRD for socking.

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Re: Paid Editing

Post by ericbarbour » Sat May 20, 2017 1:27 am

https://www.damninteresting.com

It started in 2005 and was being promoted by "digerati" for years. It's not a bad website but it does have some weaknesses--including an amazing lack of online notoriety and a founder with an ego problem......I clearly recall some squabbling in their comments section and on social media back in 2008-09, which implied that DI was something of a troll magnet. (You can't find much of that today--the DI comments are now carefully purged of any controversy and most public interest in their content faded out long ago.)

DI was on a long hiatus (near death experience?) and started publishing new material just a few years ago. Then a couple of months ago, after a looong silence, they got a Wiki article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn_Interesting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... SG3Nphw7wE

Go ahead. Place your bets that this is Mr. Bellows.

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Re: Paid Editing

Post by ericbarbour » Sat May 20, 2017 9:04 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICON_A5

As noted, the accident was added to a new "Accidents and Incidents" section, as well as a lesser A5 accident in April; mostly by Ahunt. No signs of a paid editor yet. Also no mention of the accident in the main company article.

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Re: Paid Editing

Post by ericbarbour » Mon May 22, 2017 8:05 pm

If you're looking for a person who is almost certainly paying someone to venerate him on Wikipedia, you probably can't go wrong with Aubrey de Grey. Famous for his massive ego and his (rather looney) anti-aging research ("research"?), but not famous enough to have a significant fan following. Apart from the usual "transhumanist" cranks who have infested Wikipedia since its early days.

Indeed: people like Loremaster, Headbomb (ask me about HIM sometime!) and David Gerard are watchlisting this article. Jimbo and SlimVirgin have "put in appearances".

Excellent candidate for the paid editor:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... /Marainein

And de Grey himself has appeared:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =338788646

The article's history is a real mess--IP addresses and SPAs everywhere plus a bouquet of Wikipedia editing maniacs. Frequent vandalism too, odd for a semi-famous Silicon Valley crackpot.

Need the full effect of de Grey's silliness?
This will probably disgust you, even if you think it's scientifically possible (probably is possible but not as simple as most people think):
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/ ... ve-forever

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Re: Paid Editing

Post by ericbarbour » Thu May 25, 2017 12:27 am

Repeated here because no one ever reads my blog......

Does the name “Danielle Bregoli“ sound at all familiar? Her Instagram has 9.8 million followers, she is being attacked by celebrity blogs, David Spade mocked her. And please bear in mind, this is a 14-year-old girl who can’t sing, dance or act. She’s famous for being bratty on Dr. Phil’s show and nothing else. (And for being a cock magnet, which is always unwritten and assumed. Lots of adult males would like to slambang a cute 14-year-old girl. Our culture is insane.)

Oh btw: one of her agents, Adam Kluger, unquestionably paid someone to create his Wikipedia article. Someone being the eternabanned Jeremy112233, who did a lot of obviously paid editing.

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Re: Paid Editing

Post by ericbarbour » Mon May 29, 2017 12:02 am

Ninja Sex Party

Created in 2010 by Bwecht, who (I guess!!) is Brian Wecht of Ninja Sex Party. Heavily edited/expanded since then by Anthonymous. Drmies tried to chop it down in June 2016 (knowing him, done in preparation for an AFD) but failed.

And now for the members of Ninja Sex Party:

Dan Avidan: Created in 2015 after an edit-o-war on the Ninja Sex Party article. Heavily edited by Vampress777, also fiddled with by Anthonymous and TokyoGirl79. An attempted AFD in June 2016 was heavily argued and failed.

Brian Wecht: Created in January 2014 by Anthonymous, the bulk of it was written by Irelynkennedy and Sykenjack.

Arin Hanson: created in 2014 and thence heavily expanded by Anthonymous.

Anthonymous used to show this YouTube account as his "website". Either a paid editor who is doing a good job of hiding his identity, or a legitimately teenaged boy who posts stupid things on YT.

These people (and WP editors) are all connected by one common subject: Game Grumps. Also created by Anthonymous in 2014. All articles associated have these people in common, and are all being editwarred by gamer nerds.

(Bonus: this post was also posted to the Game Grumps subreddit. Let's see what happens.)

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Re: Paid Editing

Post by ericbarbour » Mon May 29, 2017 8:04 am

Insultingly obvious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Reardon

almost entirely the work of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... Jayhova4x4

And no one's even noticed.

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Re: Paid Editing

Post by ericbarbour » Fri Jun 02, 2017 9:15 pm

NetEase is one of the largest ISPs in China. They specialize in online gaming.....and Chinese spammers and con artists love them for "some reason". Recently a Tube Collectors Assn. member was scammed on eBay by a guy with a 163.com email, which is one of NetEase's domains. Google for "163.com scam" or "163.com spammer" if you want to see examples.

In 2008 someone posted this in the article--and it was swiftly removed.
This is a Chinese spam firm. They specialize in sending out emails to thousand of users using false return addresses. I realize this is because they have no concept of ethics. They are protected by China.


And in 2015 some guy in Ireland completely rewrote the article, making it "look like an advertisement". I seriously doubt NetEase has "fans" in Ireland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... bmcgourlay

Followed by
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... s/JC_TPGIR

And look at the 2012 talkpage archive:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:NetE ... hives/2012

Plus there was an attempt to put it up for AFD last year, and none other than Andrew "Fuzheado" Lih, that supreme Wikipedia insider, showed up to prevent it:
This page is not unambiguously promotional, because this is one of the largest Internet companies in China, with revenues of USD 3 billion! --Fuzheado | Talk 12:09, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

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Re: Paid Editing

Post by ericbarbour » Mon Jun 05, 2017 10:46 pm

Over and over I run into quiet little "Wikipedians" like this. If one were to perform paid/COI editing, and wanted to do it without attracting attention, having a bouquet of accounts like this would be the way to do it.

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

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Re: Paid Editing

Post by ericbarbour » Mon Jun 12, 2017 8:29 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Gund

Created by this account, who concentrated on writing happy-love Wikipedia content about some of the wealthiest people in America from 2011 to 2015. I do not think it is a "coincidence" nor is this a "fan of the folk on New York society pages". Besides, the sourcing on most of Habitatsun's work is crap. He just tosses it out and walks away. Laugh at the arrogant rich as they get fleeced by an incompetent WP editor. I will bet this account belongs to an employee at a major PR firm.

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

Another "fine job" by Habitatsun: Fraser P. Seitel. He had to fight with Coretheapple in order to "pump up" the article after it was chopped down drastically; then it was AFDed (by CorporateM, himself a paid editor); then TrackInfo showed up and expanded it again.

Paid editing abounds on Wikipedia, and it is being badly handled by all sides.

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