User:Barkeep49/WMF UPE

To Katherine Maher and the Wikimedia Foundation,

The Wikimedia Terms of Use clearly demand that users disclose paid editing. The seriousness with which the WIkimedia community takes this issue is shown by the fact that many individual projects go further by also requiring disclosure of non-paid conflicts of interests (e.g. English German & Simple Wikipedias).

Enforcement of the Terms of Use in this area rests nearly entirely with the volunteer community. This project level enforcement works - except when it doesn't. When project level enforcement breaks down it can cause problems with WMF areas of concerns such as Incivility & violating the privacy of others as well as project level policies such as en's OUTING. Besides the user(s) effected by these paid editing investigative efforts, the discussions around these incidents can be divisive and difficult for the community.

Like many other areas of the Terms of Use, discovering violations of undisclosed paid editing requires investigation. Copyright is an illustrative example of Terms of Use investigations working relatively well through volunteer efforts. While spotting copyright violations requires some level of investigation, this investigation is frequently fairly straight forward and can be assisted by both manual and automatic tools. While copyright issues can linger, there remains both a dedicated core of volunteers who devote substantial time to the efforts and a wider number who assist in other smaller ways. Its enforcement also remains relatively uncontroversial. This is in marked contrast to paid editing, which has a smaller core of dedicated volunteers devoting substantial effort and also a smaller number of infrequent casual volunteers, and this smaller use base also has no access to tools of sophistication similar to those available for copyright.

Yet, the damage to Wikimedia and its projects through undisclosed paid editing is significant and harmful to the overall functioning and reputation of the projects.

Given these factors we ask that the Wikimedia Foundation devote staff resources, whether through staff or contractor assistance, to upholding the Terms of Use either in the area of investigating and remedying instances of undisclosed paid editing or by providing the volunteer more powerful tools to deal with violations of the Terms of Use.

Signed,

1. Barkeep49 (talk · contribs)
2. Kb03 (talk · contribs)
3. ShakespeareFan00 (talk · contribs) - Endorse the request for WMF involvment in removing undisclosed paid editing.
4. ToBeFree (talk · contribs) – the TOS violators get paid for what they do. The WMF should strictly enforce the TOS and not hesitate to take legal action against repeat offenders.
5. Natureium (talk · contribs)