Wikipedia investigates unethical edits by PR firm, Bell Pottinger - The Next Web (blog) Options

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<img alt="" height="1" width="1" />[b]Wikipedia investigates unethical edits by PR firm, Bell Pottinger[/b]
The Next Web (blog)
High profile PR agency Bell Pottinger has made over 1000 edits to their client's Wikipedia entries (with at least 10 different accounts), removing negative information and adding positive content, according to The BBC. Some press are now receiving a ...

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[Abd]

This gets sillier and sillier. The BBC wrote:

In some instances, such as with the Paramount Group, Biggleswiki requested "edit protection" after altering a page in the hope that other users would not be able to change the most recent amendments.

So I looked. The removal of the edit by Biggleswiki. Newbie error. RfPP will not normally be granted because of a few odd IP edits.

Biggleswiki has 368 live edits. This is a trifling account, not a serious effort. Again, it's looking like the sin of Bell Pottinger may have been banal incompetence. That RfPP was Biggleswiki's last edit, requesting protection. He'd done this before, for the same cause, also declined. The problem is?

Basically, this was a newbie error. No sophisticated professional editor would have done this. Rather, the editor would have addressed the peacock language, and probably wouldn't have put it there in the first place. There are suspicious edits and weird edits all through the history of that article. On the Talk page, there is some IP who purports to be the owner of a newspaper who threatens Wikipedia with dire consequences. Basically, rampant stupidity.

If there was an ethical violation involved with Biggleswiki's editing, it might have been in representing to a client that he knew his rump from a ditch, as to Wikipedia. If they want professional editing, they should hire Thekohser.

[carbuncle]

Basically, this was a newbie error. No sophisticated professional editor would have done this. Rather, the editor would have addressed the peacock language, and probably wouldn't have put it there in the first place. There are suspicious edits and weird edits all through the history of that article. On the Talk page, there is some IP who purports to be the owner of a newspaper who threatens Wikipedia with dire consequences. Basically, rampant stupidity.

If there was an ethical violation involved with Biggleswiki's editing, it might have been in representing to a client that he knew his rump from a ditch, as to Wikipedia. If they want professional editing, they should hire Thekohser.

I haven't looked through the edits made by the various accounts, but it appears that despite their rather naive approach, they managed to slant things they way they wanted them slanted. Of course, they didn't figure on getting caught because they bragged about it to the wrong people, but it seems to me that they has sussed that it wasn't necessary to do much more than what they did.

Basically, Bell Pottinger don't know the rules of the game.

All of your advice seems valid, but unnecessary for the purposes of making unpleasant information slightly lower profile. See above.

[thekohser]

...they bragged about it to the wrong people...

This is one reason why I don't discuss absolute specifics or do any paid editing for a prospective client, until they have signed a mutual non-disclosure agreement (or have utterly convinced me of their integrity) and made a non-refundable cash deposit.

Besides, using different IPs and different user accounts for each client, even if I did get "stung", Wikipedia would (I hope) only be able to detect one COI client-account relationship. My other clients would be safe.

[Peter Damian]

...they bragged about it to the wrong people...

This is one reason why I don't discuss absolute specifics or do any paid editing for a prospective client, until they have signed a mutual non-disclosure agreement (or have utterly convinced me of their integrity) and made a non-refundable cash deposit.

Besides, using different IPs and different user accounts for each client, even if I did get "stung", Wikipedia would (I hope) only be able to detect one COI client-account relationship. My other clients would be safe.

Do you feel Jimmy is right to say that undisclosed paid editing is dishonest and unethical? (Per email from Jimmy).

[TungstenCarbide]

Do you feel Jimmy is right to say that undisclosed paid editing is dishonest and unethical? (Per email from Jimmy).

Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, isn't it?

The only thing interesting in the Bell Pottinger case is how utterly incompetent they were to get caught.

[Peter Damian]

The only thing interesting in the Bell Pottinger case is how utterly incompetent they were to get caught.

Cough, as I've said about five times before, though they were clearly incompetent, they were not caught because they were incompetent. They were found out in an undercover investigation by a team of reporters who were investigating bad PR practice generally. The Wikipedia thing was one of a number of bad things which the team then gave to the Independent. So they would have got found out anyway, however sophisticated they had been.

This is important, because it shows how useless Wikipedia's 'control and monitor' system is - yet the very same system which convinced the UK Charity Commission to recognise them, ha ha.

I've also been looking at how many recent cases of malicious BLPs were uncovered by the same systems and controls. None, as far as I can see. They were either uncovered by newspapers, or in several cases by the Wikipedia Review.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian:

[Fusion]

Cough, as I've said about five times before, though they were clearly incompetent, they were not caught because they were incompetent. They were found out in an undercover investigation by a team of reporters who were investigating bad PR practice generally. The Wikipedia thing was one of a number of bad things which the team then gave to the Independent. So they would have got found out anyway, however sophisticated they had been.

That's only half true. The reporters discovered that they were doing it. However, the exact extent of their work was, I understand, then found by Checkuser. Had they been less incompetent, they would have been holed, but not below the water line, and as far as WP was concerned they could have continued. Whether they could have retained the trust of their clients is another issue. I'd have thought it inconceivable that anyone will use them for WP laundering again.

But I should worry! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif)

[EricBarbour]

However, the exact extent of their work was, I understand, then found by Checkuser

Link?

[Fusion]

However, the exact extent of their work was, I understand, then found by Checkuser

Link?

Biggleswiki was blocked by WilliamH on 6 December 2011 as a {{checkuserblock}} http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...ser:Biggleswiki

He then immediately blocked six other accounts as {{checkuserblock}}s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...de_review_log=1

I suppose these could have been identified by studying edit histories, but given that it would have been much easier to do it by checkuser, and he says that's how he did it, why shouldn't we believe him?

This post has been edited by Fusion: