The Signpost

Interview

Meet a paid editor

Before being indefinitely blocked, FergusM1970 made more than 4600 edits on the English Wikipedia, spread over eight years. In the last two years, he was paid to edit several articles for clients that included the Venezuelan energy company Derwick Associates; Fergus maintains that this was his only step into paid advocacy, rather than paid editing, a distinction that the Signpost has drawn attention to previously. Fergus was banned in December 2014 amid allegations of advocating for pay on behalf of e-cigarettes. We spoke with him about his experiences.


The ed17: How long did you edit for pay on Wikimedia sites?

Ed: Is FergusM1970 your first account? If not, how have you evaded scrutiny by the English Wikipedia's checkuser tool?

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Ed: Do you only operate on the English Wikipedia, and how many articles have you been compensated for editing?

Ed: To broach a potentially taboo topic area, how much do you charge clients for creating or maintaining articles?

Ed: Have you consistently disclosed when you were editing for pay?

Ed: If a client's preferred topic is not notable under Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, how do you proceed?

Ed: Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has endorsed a so-called "bright line", which "is simply that if you are a paid advocate, you should disclose your conflict of interest and never edit article space directly. You are free to enter into a dialogue with the community on talk pages, and to suggest edits or even complete new articles or versions of articles by posting them in your user space." Is this a viable option for paid advocates?

Ed: In your opinion, how should the Wikimedia sites deal with paid editing and advocacy? Where should the proverbial line in the sand be drawn?


















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