Wikipedia blocks 300 accounts over paid edits

03 Sep 2015

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Wikipedia yesterday said that it had blocked over 300 accounts being used by people that were paid to create or tweak entries at the communally sourced online encyclopedia.

Investigation over weeks revealed that the English version of Wikipedia for "black hat" editing had 381 accounts in which people took money to promote outside interests with no mention they were someone's payroll, according to a blog post.

Wikipedia, a volunteer powered service barred paid advocacy that was not disclosed, such as in the case of museums or universities having employees tune entries related to exhibits or institutions.

"Neutrality is key to ensuring Wikipedia's quality," Ed Erhart and Juliet Barbara of the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation said in the blog post.

"Although it does not happen often, undisclosed paid advocacy editing may represent a serious conflict of interest and could compromise the quality of content on Wikipedia."

In addition to the action against 381 "sockpuppet" accounts, Wikipedia editors deleted 210 articles created by people using those accounts.  More entries could need to be removed as the investigation continued.

"Most of these articles, which were related to businesses, business people, or artists, were generally promotional in nature, and often included biased or skewed information, unattributed material, and potential copyright violations," Erhart and Barbara said.

"The edits made by the sockpuppets are similar enough that the community believes they were perpetrated by one coordinated group."

This was not the first time Wikipedia had taken the kind of action. In the fall of 2013, volunteers blocked hundreds of accounts related to consulting firm Wiki-PR. According to terms of use of Wikipedia, Wikipedia prohibited ''engaging and deceptive activities, including misrepresentations of association, impersonation and fraud.

The action of the volunteer editors formed part of their commitment to ensuring that the English Wikipedia provided accurate, neutral, and reliable information to everyone.

Wikipedia does not charge for making edits and users need to only need to comply with editorial guidelines of the project.

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