Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss already-proposed policies and guidelines and to discuss changes to existing policies and guidelines. Change discussions often start on other pages and then move or get mentioned here for more visibility and broader participation.

• If you want to propose something new that is not a policy or guideline, use Village pump (proposals). For drafting with a more focused group, you can also start on the talk page for a WikiProject, Manual of Style, or other relevant project page.
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Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequently rejected or ignored proposals. Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for two weeks.

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Looking for guideline, forgot where it is

I recall a while ago, I found and/or was pointed to a guideline that basically stated cosmetic changes to links or templates should not be done if there is no change in functionality or where the page links (such as replacing a link to an redirect with the link to the target page). Can anyone point me into the direction of that guideline? Steel1943 (talk) 19:26, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Could it be WP:NOTBROKEN? (I also thought of WP:COSMETICBOT which is technically just part of the bot guidelines but my sense is in general people like human editors to at least be aware and minimize such edits.) Skynxnex (talk) 19:33, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@Skynxnex: I'll look into it further, but that definitely gives me direction on what to look at. Thanks! Steel1943 (talk) 19:41, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

No such guideline exists. Gonnym (talk) 06:21, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

It's not a guideline, but it's common sense. WP:BOTDICT#cosmetic edit (see the bit about "edit warring on presentation"), WP:BOTDICT#editor-hostile wikitext, and the general concept of threshold of usefulness will have good general advice. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:29, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

COSMETICBOT is a policy for bots, which includes tools that assist manual editing, and it identifies itself as a general guideline for other "bot-like" purely manual editing. So it might apply with different strength depending on how many such edits someone is doing, how they are doing them, and if/how-much disruption it's creating for other editors working on certain pages. DMacks (talk) 13:30, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Digital storage time by law

Is there a legal time frame that WMF is forced to store IP addresses of users? It seems the WMF has given them out before and has said to an Indian court that they are going to again. If there is no legal reason then they should be purged after a certain time frame. This would make it difficult for checkusers and sockpuppet admin. We could easily store them in an area that only those groups would have access to. Then the WMF could say that the court would have to subpoena someone from those groups. Thoughts?Music Air BB (talk) 17:08, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Foundation:Privacy policy#How Long Do We Keep Your Data? states Once we receive Personal Information from you, we keep it for the shortest possible time that is consistent with the maintenance, understanding, and improvement of the Wikimedia Sites, and our obligations under applicable law. In most instances, Personal Information is deleted, aggregated or de-identified after 90 days. and further links to Foundation:Legal:Data retention guidelines, which states that IP addresses will be kept for "at most 90 days" and then "deleted, aggregated or deintentified".

The Sharing section of the privacy policy details when, why and with whom your data may be shared by the Foundation. The "For legal reasons" subsection begins We will access, use, preserve, and/or disclose your Personal Information if we reasonably believe it necessary to satisfy a valid and legally enforceable warrant, subpoena, court order, law or regulation, or other judicial or administrative order. However, if we believe that a particular request for disclosure of a user's information is legally invalid or an abuse of the legal system and the affected user does not intend to oppose the disclosure themselves, we will try our best to fight it. Thryduulf (talk) 17:20, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

We should knock that 90 days down to 7 days but leave in a limited access area for 90. Only sockpuppet and checkusers would have access to it. What about email addresses? I thought no human had access to those? Music Air BB (talk) 17:31, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

The IP information (for accounts) is already limited access - only checkusers (with good reason), stewards (sometimes), some techies and some staff can access it. It gets automatically removed from the database after 90 days. That seems a reasonable timescale to me - it's mostly used to reduce abuse of the site, which can be chronic. As for email, if it's in a database and can be displayed to a human, then a human can access it. The people operating a database (in this case the WMF) can access pretty much anything that's in there, with enough effort. They surely have policies and checks in place to prevent willy-nilly access, but it can't really be stopped on a technical level. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:39, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

The WMF's privacy policy is not something that the en.wp community has any control over. If you want to suggest changes to them you need to do so elsewhere. I don't know where that place is, but the people who watch meta:Wikimedia Forum are likely to. Thryduulf (talk) 18:42, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

There is a shedload of fora I could have posted to including Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF) where there seems to be some drama about the WMF take down of an article and doxing because of a court order in India. The article contents are still in a sub-section of a parent article so I don't know why the grand uproar. Just expand that section like a WP:COAT. I doubt many people have Wictionary:Village Pump (WMF) on a watchlist nor the main WMF ones. This page probably has the best input. Music Air BB (talk) 19:45, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps somewhat ironically, the OP is the sock of a user who has already been subject to multiple blocks. The 90 day limited access was enough to confirm this without any doubt. Girth Summit _(blether) 16:48, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

I have trouble locating AfD deletion discussion

How do I find the discussion concerning deletion of Effie Awards? I attempted to search the tool in Articles for Deletion section, but it doesn't yield the relevant result.

Most relevant discussion I found is here. Marcos [Tupungato] (talk) 16:48, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Effie Award was speedy-deleted under WP:CSD#A7 in September 2018 for not credibly asserting significance. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:53, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Yep, note that it was Effie Award that was the article - Effie Awards was a redirect to it, and was deleted under CSD#G8. The article was only sourced to the Effie website, which at the time didn't work either. Black Kite (talk) 16:59, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Paying someone else to write your edits

I have encountered many kinds of COI editors, autobiographers and paid editors (disclosed and undisclosed) in my time but I've just stumbled upon something that I've never seen before; a page where the text strongly suggested the user had paid someone else to write text for them that they were then posting on Wikipedia. The telling part was that when copying the text they had left in part of the correspondence they'd been having, not unlike when users forget to remove the "Sure, here is a draft Wikipedia page" text from a chatbot.

The page has already been tagged for speedy deletion by @FifthFive because it was in any event autobiographical, promotional and NOTAWEBHOST, but out of mere academic curiosity: is there any area of policy that deals with this kind of thing? AntiDionysius (talk) 21:20, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Copyright is the first thing that comes to mind. AIUI, unless it is a work for hire or you explicitly assign the copyright to me (or release it under a Wikipedia-compatible free license), you own the copyright and my posting it here would be a violation of your copyright. Other than that I don't think there is any need for policy here - if I wrote it and it would be deleted (NOTWEBHOST, spam, etc) then delete it for that reason, if it isn't a copyright violation and it wouldn't be deleted if it was self written then I don't see any benefit to deleting it. Thryduulf (talk) 22:06, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Re copyright, really depends on jurisdiction, the communications between the parties and (as mentioned) an absence of any express licence, but if it was clear between the parties the text was going to be used for Wikipedia, it wouldn't be unreasonable to argue that an implied licence exists compliant with Wikipedia's requirements. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 23:45, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

In this particular case, it seemed like it was very clear that the writer was aware their work was for Wikipedia (not that this stopped them from writing promotionally, but anyway) but yeah I can see how those contextual questions would be important. AntiDionysius (talk) 00:26, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

For sure, yeah - it strikes me as likely to end up being promotional most of the time (why else would you pay someone if not to promote something?) but I'm not suggesting we need a policy to ban the practice as such. AntiDionysius (talk) 00:27, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

If it's promotional enough that deletion is better than rewriting, then it should be deleted for being promotional regardless of who wrote it. If it's not that promotional then it shouldn't be deleted, regardless of who wrote it. Thryduulf (talk) 01:35, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, that was what I was trying to express. AntiDionysius (talk) 10:28, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

In my limited dealings with COI's, a thought occurred to me that, in working with them, I risk subjecting myself to suspicion of being a COI editor myself (Wikilawyering intensifies). Cheers. DN (talk) 00:07, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Date redirects to portals?

16 August 2006 points to the current events portal as a result of this discussion. However, date redirects will continue to come up at RfD, some some wider community discussion and input is helpful on whether or not the current events portal is an appropriate target for mainspace redirects. See also: this ongoing discussion for some context.

Related questions to consider: are portals "part of the encyclopedia"? Thanks, Cremastra (u — c) 00:55, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

• The second question is easy: Yes, portals are part of the encyclopaedia. As to the first question, portals are reader-facing content and so I see no reason why they wouldn't be appropriate targets for mainspace redirects, given that uncontroversially target mainspace redirects to reader-facing templates and categories when they are the best target. Whether the port is the best target for a given date will depend on the specific date but in general the portal should always be an option to consider. Thryduulf (talk) 01:32, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with this. The portal is definitely not always the best option and it has its limitations, but, as I wrote at WP:RDATE it should be considered and assessed along with mainspace articles. Cremastra (u — c) 01:44, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Pinging: Utopes, who I've discussed this with.

Notified: WT:RFD, WT:PORT, WT:CURRENTEVENTS, WT:WPRED. Cremastra (u — c) 01:43, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

If a namespace doesn't have the same standards as mainspace, then the reader shouldn't be redirected there while possibly not realizing they are now outside of mainspace. Yes, there is more content at Portal:Current events/August 2006 than at 2006#August, but the reader is now facing a decades-old page with no quality control, where links to Breitbart are misleadingly labeled as (AP). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 00:50, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Portal does have the same standards as mainspace. That a portal is not up to those standards is no different to an article being in bad shape - fix it. Thryduulf (talk) 00:54, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

• There's a lot of random junk in portalspace, but yes, it is part of the encyclopedia. Just like categories and templates, portals are reader-facing content. C F A 💬

Issues with antiquated guideline for WP:NBAND that essentially cause run of the mill non-notable items to be kept

Specifically, WP:NBAND #5 and #6, which read:

5.) Has released two or more albums on a major record label or on one of the more important indie labels (i.e., an independent label with a history of more than a few years, and with a roster of performers, many of whom are independently notable).

6.) Is an ensemble that contains two or more independently notable musicians, or is a musician who has been a reasonably prominent member of two or more independently notable ensembles. This should be adapted appropriately for musical genre; for example, having performed two lead roles at major opera houses. Note that this criterion needs to be interpreted with caution, as there have been instances where this criterion was cited in a circular manner to create a self-fulfilling notability loop (e.g., musicians who were "notable" only for having been in two bands, of which one or both were "notable" only because those musicians had been in them.)

These appear to have been put together by a very small number of editors over a decade ago and hasn't seen much change since then and I feel it's much more lenient than just about anything else. This SNG defines a "label" that has been around for over "a few years" that has a roster of performers as "important". So, any group of people who have released two albums through ANY verifiable label that has exited for more than a few year can end up being kept and this isn't exactly in line with GNG. I believe a discussion needs to be held in order to bring it to GNG expectations of now.

Graywalls (talk) 06:17, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Especially given how broadly the various criteria have been "interpreted" in deletion discussions, the best way to go about it is just to deprecate the whole thing. Rely on the GNG for band notability, and if that results in a heap of articles on ephemeral outfits, garage bands and local acts vanishing, huzzah. Ravenswing 09:07, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

The SNG isn't workable in the age of digital distribution. It's very easy to create "an independent label with a history of more than a few years". If someone wants to suggest a way to reform the SNG, I am open to solutions. But deprecation is a simple alternative if we can't. The GNG is always a good standard because it guarantees we have quality sources to write an article. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:22, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I was active in AfD discussions when NBAND was pretty new, and it was useful for dealing with a flood of articles about garage bands and such, but I think our standards in general have tightened up since then, and I agree it is time to review it. There is the possibility, however, that revising NBAND may require as much discussion as revising NSPORT did. Donald Albury 17:49, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

This sounds reasonable. I guess we need some concrete re-write suggestions to base an rfc on. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:17, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

It sounds like you're assuming that NBAND is meant to be a substitute for the Wikipedia:General notability guideline. That's true for some WP:Subject-specific notability guidelines but not for all of them.

I guess the underlying question is: Is there actual harm in having a permastub about a band that proves to be borderline in GNG terms? Consider this:

"Alice and Bob are a musical duo in the science fiction genre. They released their first album, Foo, in 2019 and their second, Bar, in 2020. Both albums were released by Record Label. They are primarily known for singing during a minor event."

I'm asking this because I think that the nature of sources has changed, particularly for pop culture, since NBAND and the GNG were written. We now have subjects that get "attention from the world at large", but which aren't the Right™ kind of sources and, while these Wrong™ sources definitely provide "attention", some of that attention might not provide biographical information (which means we're looking at a short article).

For example, instead of getting attention in the arts section of a daily newspaper, they're getting attention from Anthony Fantano on YouTube. He's an important music critic,[1] but I suspect that our knee-jerk reaction is "Pffft, just some YouTuber, totally unreliable". Consequently, we might rate a band that we theoretically intend to include ("attention from the world at large") as not meeting the GNG (because the whole field relies on the Wrong™ style of sources). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:02, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Keep in mind that like most other notability guidelines, it is a presumed assumption that a topic is notable if it meets these criteria. If you do an exhaustive Before and demonstrate there is no significant coverage beyond the sourcing to satisfy there criteria, the article should still be deleted. None of the SNGs are geared towards preventing this type of challenge. — Masem (t) 19:30, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

If we had to yield to presumptive notability about some random band because it released two albums with Backyard Trampoline Recordings established few years ago and had to do exhaustive search to disprove notability, we're getting setup for a situation where removal is 10x more challenging than article creation. So.. I see a great value in scrapping NBAND 5, and 6. Graywalls (talk) 00:47, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Welcome to WP:SNGs. As Masem said, they're supposed to be a rough idea of gauging notability before exhaustively searching for sources. But pretty much all of them have ended up being used as means to keep articles about trivial or run-of-the-mill subjects. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:37, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Graywalls listed two criteria but the main discussion seems to be about the 1st (#5). I agree with Graywalls on that. With the evolution of the industry, the label criteria is no longer a useful indicator as it once was and IMO #5 should be removed or modified. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:13, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, both those criteria should be scrapped. JoelleJay (talk) 22:21, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I've noticed that as well. I think #6 has some value still, while #5 is like saying an author who has published two or more books by a major publishing house is presumed notable. Way too low a bar without requiring some level of reception of those albums/books. (WP:NAUTHOR doesn't have that 2-book criteria, of course, just seems like parallel benchmarks.) Schazjmd (talk) 13:25, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

On the other hand, in this case, I suspect that an artist that "has released two or more albums on a major record label or on one of the more important indie labels" will in 99% of cases have enough coverage to clear the GNG bar. I'd like to see an example of one that doesn't. Black Kite (talk) 13:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

The definition of important as said in #5 is "history of more than a few years, and with a roster of performers, many of whom are independently notable". This would mean that a garage band is notable, because they've released two CD-R albums on Rotten Peach Recordings which has been around for 3 1/2 years, has a roster of performers and some of whom have a Wikipedia page on them. Often time "notable" is determined by the presence of a stand alone Wikipedia page. When you look at the page, many band member pages are hopelessly non-notable, but removal takes an AfD. So a simple deletion can become a time consuming multi-step AfD. Graywalls (talk) 19:18, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Here's a current AfD I am participating in where NBAND#5 was invoked to justify a keep. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sons_of_Azrael_(3rd_nomination) Graywalls (talk) 19:24, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Not opining on that band's notability, but Metal Blade is a famous independent label that has existed for 42 years, has released material by very high-profile bands, and is distributed by Sony - it's not some one-person imprint operating out of their garage. Black Kite (talk) 11:28, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

• One suggestion I would add is to make these two criteria apply only to bands before a specific year, that year being where physical releases still dominated over digital sales. I don't know the exact year but I am thinking it's like around 2000 to 2010. There may still be older groups during the time of physical releases that don't yet have articles that would fall into one of these criteria. Masem (t) 20:02, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
• As someone who's had WP:DSMUSIC watchlisted for most of their editing history, and who tends towards deletion at that, I actually don't see much of a problem with these criterions. It certainly seems true that the majority of musicians who are signed to a label or a member of multiple bands with two other musicians who meet WP:GNG themselves meet GNG. I do think it is sometimes justified to accept less-than-GNG sourcing in articles where a SNG is met (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John LeCompt for this as it applies to c6 specifically) and more importantly, NMUSIC contains language that allows deleting articles even where it is technically met (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rouzbeh Rafie for an extended argument about that. Mach61 23:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
• I've understood these criterion to be supplementing GNG, that is, that if a band or individual artist meets one or more of these criterion, they *likely* are notable. However, in the past when I was a younger and less experienced editor, I think I did understand these as being additions or alternatives to GNG. So I think that should be clarified. This has come up on the deletion discussion for Jayson Sherlock. He is a member or former member of several very notable bands, and for that reason I presumed that he would easily have independent coverage about him specifically. However, to my surprise, there's only one interview of him in a reliable source that would provide notability (there's some interviews on personal blogs or minor sites that wouldn't be RS except for him making statements about himself). But at least one editor has used the above criterion to argue that the article should be kept.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 12:20, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  Just as an aside, interviews do not contribute to GNG unless they include secondary independent SIGCOV (such as a substantial background introduction by the interviewer). JoelleJay (talk) 15:39, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

• Agreed. That's important to note. I was presuming such, and also why I wouldn't rely on a singular interview as the sole source for establish GNG.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 16:30, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

That's how I see most SNGs (and the outliers ought to follow their lead). At the very least, we can clarify that NBAND is meant as an indicator for the GNG, and not a substitute. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:04, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

• As someone who thought the old NSPORTS was wildly overinclusive and needed cleanup... these NBAND guidelines don't seem that bad? If two plainly notable musicians were discovered to have done some obscure team-up in the 1970s, that does indeed seem to be a notable topic and useful to have linked somewhere, even if there isn't tons of info on this collaboration. It's worth mentioning because minor subtopics are often merged to the overarching topic (e.g. songs to the album), but there may not be a clear merge location for this if both parties were equal contributors, and a short separate article is an acceptable compromise. Similarly, the complaint about #5 seems to be about just how "indie" the hypothetical label is, but this seems like a solvable problem. If a band fails GNG, that implies that either their two albums really were from a very obscure indie outfit and thus also fail NBAND, or else that we have some sort of non-English sources issue where we may consider keeping on WP:CSB grounds (i.e. that sources probably do exist to pass GNG, but they're difficult to find, and we can trust they exist because this was a major and notable label releasing the band's work). About the only suggestion I can offer is that the comment in 6 about avoiding circular notability could probably be phrased in the sense of GNG, i.e. that the two notable musicians need to both meet GNG and then this will create a new, safe NBAND notability for their collaboration. SnowFire (talk) 17:36, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Shorten the recall petition period?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

To anyone unfamiliar with this, admin recall is a new process that is exactly what it sounds like. Currently, there is a 30 day petition period: if 25 people sign it, the admin then needs to pass a new RfA within 30 days to keep the tools. Should we change the petition period?

• Option A: Keep the petition period the same (30 days)
• Option B: Change the petition period to 7 days
• Option C: Some other time period (like 14 or 15 days?) that's longer than a week but shorter than a month.

Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 19:20, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Another RfC regarding the admin recall process

Cut the petitions to being just signatures, or not? It is here: Wikipedia talk:Administrator recall#RfC: Should we add text prescribing just signatures, no discussion? Herostratus (talk) 05:50, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

And Wikipedia:Administrator recall/Fastily this morning. BusterD (talk) 14:36, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

WP:PAID if owner of company

Drm310 and I have a polite disagreement on the interpretation of WP:PAID, and I may very well be mistaken. What is very clear is if an editor is an employee of a company, they are a paid editor. What's not clear is what happens if the editor is the owner of a company. Sure, there's a conflict of interest, but are they a paid editor? I'll quote Drm310, as he says it better than me. "They said that they were a company owner and not an employee. You said that makes them a paid editor. I always interpreted the policy as: if a person is receiving (or expecting) compensation as part of their job, then they're a paid editor. But if they have an ownership stake in the company/organization, then they fall outside the definition of employee. Are we now interpreting it so that owners are paid editors too, because they are drawing an income from their business?" My position is that an owner of a company counts as a paid editor by virtue of the ownership (they don't even need to be drawing an income). Is that position correct, or is it a step too far wrt WP:PAID? --Yamla (talk) 15:25, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I would read it as you do, @Yamla:; they have a vested interest in the company being successful, which, in my book, ultimately means getting "something" out of it (which in most cases will mean an income of sorts). Reading it differently smacks slightly of (wiki-)lawyering. Lectonar (talk) 15:35, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Hmm. Well, Lectonar, it has always seemed to me that the line "you stand to gain from your editing, so it's effectively paid, even if you aren't actually paid for the editing" is wikilawyering, so evidently that's a matter of point of view.

I have always taken it that paid editing does not include editing about one's own business, in line with what Drm310 says, but my experience is that many, perhaps most, administrators take it the way that Yamla and Lectonar do. In a way it doesn't make much difference, as in either case the conflict of interest issue applies, but there are ways in which it may make a difference. In my opinion the most important way it may make a difference is the purely practical consideration that most owners of businesses writing about their own businesses don't recognise "paid editing" as a description of what they are doing, so it is, in my opinion, more helpful to use other wording which they will be more likely to understand than insisting "yes it is paid editing". (There's already enough of a problem with: "No, I'm not paid to edit Wikipedia, it's just part of my job" ... "Yes, but if it's part of a job that you are paid for then it's paid work" ... "Yes, but..." without adding another layer of room for misunderstanding.) I therefore think it's more helpful to treat the expression "paid editing" as not applying to editing about one's own business.

Theoretically it isn't up to us to decide what the expression means, because it's part of the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use, over which we have no jurisdiction. However, those terms of use refer to "each and any employer, client, intended beneficiary and affiliation" and as far as I can see there is no definition or clarification of the word "affiliation", so that doesn't really help. JBW (talk) 16:10, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I think an owner is "intended beneficiary", ownership being a beneficial interest in what is owned, even if one can't parse "affiliation". Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:17, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that PAID applies to owners, but the wording of WP:PAID is ambiguous enough that a reasonable person might very well disagree with that opinion, and I think that should be clarified on that page. An owner of a company can still be an employee of that company (e.g. if the company is set up as a C corporation they can be considered an employee for tax and insurance purposes). I don't think the applicability of the paid-contribution disclosure should change depending on how you structure your company if the role in the company is similarly situated. If you are compensated by working at a company as an owner or otherwise, that needs to be disclosed. Even situations where an owner does not receive direct financial payments or dividends from their ownership of the company (like with a smaller startup company) they would still need to disclose that under WP:PAID, as money is not the only form of compensation. Even in a sole proprietorship they are directly paid for their work at the company, the same as if they were an employee. Owning the company should not be a loophole precluding the need for disclosure. - Aoidh (talk) 16:48, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@Aoidh: Has anyone suggested that it should preclude the need for disclosure? If they have, I haven't seen where tgey have done so. I assumed it was obvious that there is a need for disclosure of one's position because it is a conflict of interest. JBW (talk) 22:30, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@JBW: I'm sure I've seen it come up but I can't recall where. Someone with a COI reading Wikipedia:Conflict of interest might reasonably assume that if they are not considered a paid editor, then they are not required to disclose anything. The difference between the PAID verbiage (required...requirement..you must disclose...you must not use administrative tools for any paid-editing activity) contrasts with the less strict wording of non-PAID COI (expected to disclose...should disclose...COI editing is strongly discouraged). The section Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide#Disclosure also makes this distinction. I'm not saying I don't think COIs should be disclosed, but someone with a COI who is going to split hairs about whether an owner of a company make one a paid editor would be likely to split hairs there as well. - Aoidh (talk) 23:51, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

• While an owner is technically not an employee, it would be absurd to suggest that PAID applies to employees but not owners. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 16:22, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Jessintime I do not intend to tell you that your opinion on this as "absurd"; I prefer to just say that I respectfully disagree. You may like to consider which of those two approaches is more constructive. JBW (talk) 16:28, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I did not mean to be disrespectful, but my use of the word "absurd" here was in reference to the doctrine of absurdity. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 16:34, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Jessintime OK, thanks for clarifying that. However, having looked at the article that you have linked, I am wondering what the absurd result you think would ensue. What is it that an owner of a company would be allowed to do which an employee wouldn't? Certainly not editing without disclosure of conflict of interest. JBW (talk) 22:36, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I think Buster's response below (Starlink's unpaid interns would count as paid editors, but not Elon) illustrates the problem. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 17:18, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

From the policy page: Interns are considered employees for this purpose. So unpaid interns count as paid editors when editing the Starlink Wikipedia article for their employer. But edits by Elon Musk would not count as paid editing. That sounds like an absurd result to me. Do I misunderstand the policy? BusterD (talk) 19:42, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

• Someone who has a few shares in a large company is one of its "owners" in law, but likely doesn't have a big enough financial stake in it to amount to a COI in Wikipedia terms. Someone who has most of the shares in a small company, on the other hand, has a COI.—S Marshall T/C 22:10, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

  If I may extend your example, if I were in the business of stocks or futures, I might actually have a stake (direct or otherwise) sufficient to put me in direct conflict, no matter which company is the subject. BusterD (talk) 23:00, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

• I have just seen a message on Yamla's talk page, where I think he makes a point that I have tried to make, but he has expressed it perhaps more clearly than I have. He said: "In the end, whichever way the consensus goes, I think the combination of WP:PAID and WP:COI means the end result (though not the communication) ends up the same." Many of the comments above appear to be based on the assumption that not interpreting "paid editing" as including owner-editing would mean letting owners edit without disclosure, but it wouldn't. JBW (talk) 22:50, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for copying my comment here, JBW. In my initial post, I meant "Sure, there's a conflict of interest" to cover this point, but failed to be clear. I do think the communication around paid editing is important, even if the end result (user has to declare a conflict) is the same. This is frequently a challenging concept to communicate to new editors. --Yamla (talk) 22:56, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

• I think there may be a more fundamental misunderstanding of WP:PAID here than you think. Paid editing is about people being paid to edit. Let's take What is very clear is if an editor is an employee of a company, they are a paid editor to the point of absurdity: a burger flipper at a 40,000-location chain fast-food restaurant who edits the article about the chain is in no way being paid to make that edit. Their job is to flip burgers, not to do corporate PR. They do have a COI (positive or negative) due to the employment relationship, but unless the CEO or PR department or whoever is telling employees that editing Wikipedia is now part of their job it's not WP:PAID.
  But like many other things around here, since WP:PAID has stricter requirements and penalties than WP:COI, people tend to try to stretch the definitions as far as they possibly can to use the stricter requirements and penalties to combat editing they don't like. I won't be surprised if people in that space take objection to my paragraph above on the basis that restricting WP:PAID to the clear definitions would hamper their efforts to combat the spammer scourge.
  As for the business owner, if the business is making paid edits on behalf of clients then the company as a whole, including the owner, is being WP:PAID to edit on behalf of the company's clients. And the required disclosure includes those clients, not just their general ownership of the paid-editing company. On the other hand, if the business is making widgets then I'd say the owner's editing is a very major COI but it's not specifically WP:PAID. Anomie⚔ 00:21, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with that interpretation of WP:PAID. The policy says: "Users who are compensated for any publicity efforts related to the subject of their Wikipedia contributions are deemed to be paid editors, regardless of whether they were compensated specifically to edit Wikipedia." I think it's completely reasonable to hold the belief that "publicity" is almost always part of the job of a company owner and other senior officers e.g., C-suite occupants, governing board members. ElKevbo (talk) 02:43, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, and even more than that, the owner, officers and board members are fiduciaries of the company, and "compensated" and "incentivized" by ownership and/or other compensation (money, goods or services -- possession of the company is a good) to work in the company's best interest, whether in editing Wikipedia, or elsewhere. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:52, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Certainly the sole or majority owner of the company has an actual or risk of COI (depending on which definition of COI you use), But "Paid" implies more that that.....that somebody is paying them and telling them what to do. North8000 (talk) 02:53, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

IMO WP:PAID should be split into its main two interpretations: "instructed (even if implicit, e.g. hired for publicity in general) to edit Wikipedia for compensation" and "direct financial interest in a subject". JoelleJay (talk) 17:39, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

The issue here is WP:COI, not WP:PAID. When you're PAID to edit, the owner (or someone acting on behalf on the owner) tells you 'your job is to do this for me'. If you don't, you lose your job/don't get paid, so that's where your incentive comes from. WP:PAID exists, among other reasons, because there are firms trying to sell these services to companies/owners, and companies/owners paying people to edit on their behalf so they can go 'we hired professionals, if they're an issue blame them!'. It's a special type of COI-editting that's common enough to have a special policy for that special type of COI editing.

When the owner themselves are doing the editing, all the special concerns of PAID disappears, save for the remaining one: COI-editting. But that's covered by WP:COI. There is nothing special about the owner of Mary Sue, owner of Certified Reiki Thetan-Level 3 Shop editing an article on her business, than Rocker Boy Joe writing about his band Rocket Bobs, or Jensen Huang vandalizing AMD articles through an account named User:AMDTROLL4V3R. They don't lose their jobs, they still have their income, and they don't get in trouble if they fail to deliver. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:50, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

If your job includes promoting a business and you come to Wikipedia to promote that business, that is PAID editing, owner or otherwise. That someone would be fired for refusing is not the criteria, an owner is highly incentivized to promote their business and can expect to be compensated for that effort through business growth and profit, and it is the compensation element that makes an editor a paid editor. - Aoidh (talk) 17:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Which is just a regular WP:COI. There is no compensation exchanged, nor any power dynamic at play when/if they "fail to deliver". Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:11, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

There is no part of WP:PAID that suggests that a power dynamic or consequence for a failure to deliver is a determining factor, and owners are indeed compensated for their work. This is especially true when taking into account that compensation is not limited to remuneration. - Aoidh (talk) 19:27, 5 November 2024 (UTC)