Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-04-25/Disinformation report



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  • "accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency" - how do you know when a politician is lying? - Check if his lips are moving. Given that perennial wisdsom, I am curious whether anybody cares to carry out this kind of scrutiny on other presidents, such as Bushes or Clinton. (I am sure Trump will beat them due to his ..er... level of wisdom rather than intentional lying, but... ) BTW we have Bushisms, time to write up Trumpisms [1]? Lembit Staan (talk) 22:10, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The WaPo tracks the Bushes and Clintons, too. They also lie, but not nearly to the same degree.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 14:02, 27 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • While I'm pretty sure that (Redacted) has a conflict of interest, I don't really see any evidence that the person behind the account is Patton, and I think it's probably inappropriate to state it as definitively as has been in this article. Having reviewed literally hundreds of COI/UPE accounts over the years, I see the hallmarks of someone who was paid, but not the article subject herself. Risker (talk) 22:14, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • What a waste of an article. We have paid editors and COI editors running rampant but you managed to write an article with a segue from Trump kind of insinuating the paid editors and other editor who people accuse of COI harmed the encyclopedia with false edits. They also last edited years ago. I'm sure we have more recent editors in many different subject areas doing much harm to Wikipedia. Sir Joseph (talk) 22:47, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I fail to see how Mmartinnyc's "declaration" is "quite convincing". Anyone can claim to be anybody, so this could just as likely be a false flag to tarnish the Trump Organization's reputation. Until Michael Martin confesses to creating the Mmartinnyc account outside of Wikipedia, there are little grounds to believe the claims. I'm not saying that Mmartinnyc is not Martin, but should we be so quick to take identity declarations on Wikipedia seriously without outside evidence to back it up?
I also see the theory that (Redacted) is Patton to be nothing more than speculation. While it's clear that (Redacted) has a COI and it is unlikely to be a false flag given the circumstances, it would be a stretch to say that (Redacted) is Patton. The lack of an identity disclosure makes this claim even murkier than the claim that Mmartinnyc is Martin. - ZLEA T\C 23:19, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not sure that I get your point(s) You seem to say that we shouldn't take any paid editing declarations seriously because "anybody can claim to be anybody" trying to hurt TTO's reputation. So what kind of evidence do you think we should take seriously? You seem to want a notarized confession from a dead man! Even if he could do that, why would he? (more later) Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:01, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Smallbones I was unaware that Martin is dead (it doesn't really make that clear in the article's text). I'm not saying that we shouldn't take paid editing declarations seriously, because even if Mmartinnyc is/was a false flag they would be a case of disruptive WP:NOTHERE. I don't want a confession from anyone, I just want people to stop jumping to conclusions based on an iffy confession, especially for a heavily politicized article such as this. If Mmartinnyc is/was a troll, this article likely would be exactly what they wanted. - ZLEA T\C 00:29, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    From the first sentence: According to his obituary published in December 2020. – The Grid (talk) 01:22, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, I admit I overlooked that. - ZLEA T\C 01:23, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Even if all of this is true, it doesn't even sound that bad; it's the normal background noise of vandalism & POV edits. Clueless newbies editing in an obviously partisan way isn't unusual, and it sounds like it was rolled back without incident. I'd be way more worried about UPE that was either persistent or else uncaught due to being on obscure topics. SnowFire (talk) 23:48, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't really get the impression Trump cared about what his Wikipedia page said. Reading Donald Trump one would think he'd have some people on the case if he cared. But afaik, he hasn't even ranted about it on Twitter, and it's a reasonably low bar of discomfort for him to rant about something. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:13, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @SnowFire: @ZLEA: @Sir Joseph: @Risker: I say, how about suggesting the withdrawal of the article, because from the above comments it seems that there was no evidence of massive attack from Trump's camp, little harm was done for wikipedia, therefore the article is of little importance and looks like nothing but petty beating the dead horse of Trump ? Wikpedia should stay away from politics, right? Lembit Staan (talk) 00:23, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Lembit Staan Absolutely, this article is a clear attempt to defame the Trump Organization with extremely iffy evidence. TTO is a highly controversial organization owned by a US President who is not exactly known for being universally popular, but any claims that the organization paid editors to edit Wikipedia should be backed up with strong evidence. Without such evidence, they are nothing more than a conspiracy theory. - ZLEA T\C 00:37, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's ridiculous. I think this news article is covering a quite small issue that is not unusual, but it isn't false or anything, and the people involved are public figures (aka this isn't "let's shine a light on a random dude from Nebraska"). Withdrawal would only be appropriate if the events described were false, which they aren't. SnowFire (talk) 00:48, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm astonished that several experienced editors have called for the censorship of a Signpost investigation of paid editing by the recently most powerful person in the world. 2601:647:4D00:2C40:68E5:B805:77C5:11F1 (talk) 20:02, 11 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, you know ... before 2016, he was in show business, a television show, beauty pageants, etc. There's an old quote alternately attributed to have originated with either P. T. Barnum or Broadway entrepreneur George M. Cohan, "I don't care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right." What better way to have people talking about you, than saying something to disparage your public image? It came out during the 2016 campaign, a recording where he was talking to the National Enquirer about himself. Why would he care, as long as he's talked about? Individuals related to him might not share the same philosophy, but as long as he's in the encyclopedia ... eh ... — Maile (talk) 00:50, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is the first time I dislike a Signpost article. Not because of political biases, but because it's just useless. TTO supposedly paying people (paid editing has a wide range of meaning and not just trading so there's the word "supposedly") to edit a Trump-related article is an expected thing, from a popular and controversial subject. What, you make an article and expect things to go smoothly? Especially on a Trump article? The vandalism isn't even so severe. Yet the article highlights Donald Trump and the supposed 30,000 lies, as if these paid edits count. I find this article to be not just biased, but also vague. I've seen worse vandalisms, and it is somehow not being taken to attention. GeraldWL 06:42, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • From the title I expected the article to reveal some grand conspiracy by or on behalf of the Trump Organisation involving numerous paid editors. Instead the article is simply speculation that two editors who between them made 331 edits (23 to Ivanka Trump, 16 to Donald Trump Jr, 258 to Eric Trump, 33 to Lynn Patton and 1 to Donald Trump) were paid editors. The evidence is weak and the offences trivial and long ago dealt with. One editor has not edited in over eight years (and may have died), the other not in more than three years. So long after the events discussed why was it considered relevant to write the article at all? --DavidCane (talk) 01:17, 27 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Who cares? A handful of edits on some of the most watched pages? Ideologically motivated / activist editors do far more damage and are much harder to deal with than any of the editors or edits spotlighted here. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:37, 27 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I second that. Anyone with more than 12 brain cells that reads the Trump bio and compares it to the Obama one, can clearly see the favoritism lended to the latter over the former. Trump is portrayed as if the piece was written by a MSNBC or CNN goon, hardly a neutral treatise on the subject. That the fancruft Obama bio is an FA is telling of the political slant that this website is dominated by.--MONGO (talk) 01:30, 28 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • High profile politicians, athletes, and performers have paid editors? What a surprise. Even those failing WP:GNG engage "YourWikipediaBiography.com" companies. Of course it works both political ways where a zealous editor carefully monitored Hillary Clinton's biography.[1] Treat them like any other editor with obvious WP:COI and hold them to WP:GNG, WP:RS, and WP:VERIFY.
  • Just to clarify my quoted comment maybe a little, the outside connection with an OTRS ticket may be as innocent as having an email chain. I've certainly reached out to all types: museums, businesses, libraries, universities, trusts, what-have-you. But if you ask me where I get that photo, I'm gonna tell you I talked to the librarian at such-and-such. Don't really have anything to hide here, and in fact have a personal interest in keeping things as transparent as possible, within the limits of community standards regarding respect for privacy. Using only publicly available information, at some point, it becomes pretty daggum obvious when someone is making flattering edits and also uploading photos with official confirmation. GMGtalk 23:57, 27 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wow, coming back days after I first read this, I noticed that the second half of information in this article has been removed. At least be honest and put a notice at the top saying half of information has been redacted. enjoyer -- talk 23:43, 28 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Am I misreading the diffs, or did Risker—an oversighter—just WP:OUT the subject in question, leading to a swift redaction of ~80 diffs?! In other news, the job of Signpost editor has just opened up—I think you've just qualified for it! ——Serial 11:10, 30 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "Meet the guy who has protected Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia page for almost a decade". Retrieved 27 April 2021.
    • I think you are, Serial Number 54129. This is an interesting situation. I'm actually quite pleased to see that the broader community supports the concept of not connecting real-world names to Wikipedia accounts if not done by the user. For years, editors working at the coalface of COI and UPE have pushed harder and harder against this principle, and have encountered quite a bit of success; I suppose my error was from so much exposure to that pressure. I was wrong in the way I expressed my opinion, and my oversighter colleagues were right in their actions. And no, there is not a snowball's chance that I will take on the Signpost. Risker (talk) 02:02, 1 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]