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.