[WikiEN-l] WP:COI violation

Wed Nov 8 22:44:04 UTC 2006

>Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2006 14:16:26 -0500
>From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] WP:COI violation

>Gregory Kohs wrote:
> Seriously, I know I'm trolling, but come on -- can anyone else see the
> hypocrisy here?

>Hmm, a user banned for spamming wikipedia with pr puff pieces admits
>that he is trolling in making a silly complaint about nothing?  Yeah, I
>think I do see the hypocrisy.

>--Jimbo

I still maintain that the Wikipedia community, in its DRV discussion of the
needless delete of [[Arch Coal]] -- an article that nobody paid for at any
time, since it was just an experiment (ha ha!) in testing Jimmy Wales'
previous agreement with MyWikiBiz that content could be written
off-Wikipedia, then scraped in by independently-acting, volunteer editors
(which is exactly what happened) -- strongly suggests that the article was
NOT a "pr puff piece".  Why would independent editors in good standing
describe the original article as:

"The content was legitimate and the article was neutral"

"The article is written in what appear to me to be neutral terms. The
company itself is a shoo-in for WP:CORP, if the article is accurate, and if
this had been posted by any other editor we would surely never have noticed
it"

"It sounds partially like a paragraph at the end of press releases, but
those do not necessarily 'plug' the company, in fact are often quite factual
and NPOV"

"I've seen the article, it was a short informative and neutral article
(didn't exactly have enough length in it to be POV pushing) of an obviously
notable company.  ...I thought that for that length, that it covered the
most important aspects of the company. I know I can't have been the only one
to think that the article was adequate"

"I'm not sure I'm even looking at the right article... looks like a
perfectly acceptable Wikipedia article on a company to me. As for spam...
what, am I gonna go out and order a million tons of coal from them to feed
my power station because I've seen this humble piece on Wikipedia? Erm, no."

See for details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2006_October_5&oldid=80379872#Arch_Coal
Are each of the above quotes from people who are temporarily insane, or
something?

Therefore, Jimmy's ban may be illegitimate; but typical, nonetheless, of
someone ruling by fiat and unwilling to listen to the community.  In my
estimation, Wales is simply acting pious about Wikipedia being for
non-commercial use only, while he quietly supports all kinds of commercial
exploitation of the domain, as long as it goes into his pocket, or that of
his for-profit company.  Citing the various examples here would be a waste
of my energy.

I admit, I have been a royal pain since October 5th.  But, if you stop and
think, can you exactly blame me?  You may all consider this my parting shot
for the year, because there's apparently no intelligent way of getting most
readers of Wikien-L to see that there has been a very poor handling of a
potentially controversial subject; when, in reality, with some cooperation
and a lot of transparency, MyWikiBiz could have done a great deal to help
Wikipedia become a better encyclopedia.  I honestly don't think that's the
main mission any more.  I think most of you feel Wikipedia is a "good
enough" encyclopedia now, and the new mission is an elaborate game to
"protect" it from evolutionary forces.

<On a Wikibreak until 2007>

-- 
Gregory Kohs
Cell: 302.463.1354