Re: Paid Editing on WP is permissible

Post by **ericbarbour** » Sun May 21, 2023 6:51 am

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HypoVereinsbank

75% of which was written by

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Horst_Ruvak

He also uploaded the bank's corporate logos to Commons.....

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spec ... orst_Ruvak

Place your bets that he'll show up on this article

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustl_Mollath

ALL HE DID ON WIKIPEDIA WAS TO VENERATE HYPOVEREINSBANK.

Did he do the same on de-WP? What you think, Willis?

https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... orst+Ruvak

There is nothing in Google about a "Horst Ruvak", other than his WP fiddlings. So it's probably a pseudonym.

Post by **ericbarbour** » Tue Jun 06, 2023 2:29 am

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TGCP

Almost certainly works for Carter Aviation Technologies, because most of his early history in 2009 was blather about the CarterCopter and related things. Later started grinding other aerospace content.

Funny side note:

In 2016 he created Lucid Motors, which had just started as an EV company. Four days later an editor from India with advanced rights, Tiven2240, used a notorious new-article review bot called "Page Curation" to tag it for speedy deletion, claiming "advert, incomprehensible". TGCP showed up and objected, successfully. This is FAR from the only article Tiven2240 has tried to speedy delete. Seems like a very sloppy patroller with an itchy trigger finger for deletions--very ugly mess of an edit history on en-WP.

Post by **ericbarbour** » Tue Jun 20, 2023 7:53 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphex_Systems

Looks like ad copy? Most of it was written by two accounts:

An IP address (192.249.47.11) belonging to United Technologies, possibly a paid editor no one ever noticed before, created it in 2005.

And also David Wiener, an egomaniac who owned Aphex between 2010 and 2015, "updated" it. While removing some good historical information.

Binksternet has been watchlisting this article for many years. I'm damn certain he knows it was paid-edited and POVed. He said nothing and did nothing about it, that I can find. Lemme guess, he's "helping his buddies in the pro-audio biz" or somesuch.

Post by **ericbarbour** » Thu Jul 06, 2023 5:22 am

sashi · Post by **sashi** » Sun Jul 16, 2023 12:14 am

I missed the story about Avisa Partners when it came out. In the hilariously skinny section about this on en.wp the lobbying for EDF and Bayer-Monsanto are not mentioned... despite it being in the third paragraph of the article cited:

Selon plusieurs éléments obtenus, Avisa Partners a vendu des prestations de modification de pages pour le compte de grandes entreprises françaises comme le groupe LVMH, La Banque postale ou EDF. Dans ce dernier cas, la mission consistait par exemple à « contenir l’activisme antinucléaire » sur Wikipédia. Avisa a aussi été missionnée par le géant de la pharmacie et de l’agrochimie Bayer, qui a racheté Monsanto en 2018, dans le but, là encore, de « contenir l’activisme anti-OGM » dans les articles de l’encyclopédie en ligne.

According to several "elements" obtained, Avisa Partners sold page-editing services to major French companies like the LVMH group, the Banque Postal or EDF (electricité de France). For the latter, the mission was "to contain anti-nuclear activism" on Wikipedia. Avisa was also tasked by the pharmaceutical and agriculture giant Bayer, who bought Monsanto in 2018, with the goal of "containing anti-GMO activism" in the web encyclopedia's articles.

source

If you're interested you can also pop this page into google translate.

It looks like Avisa Partners split into two companies after all the bad press... so it is no longer associated with atlantico.fr...

Les liens entre LVMH et Avisa sont manifestement anciens. Selon des écoutes judiciaires réalisées en 2013, c’est en effet l’ancien chef des services secrets intérieurs sous la présidence Sarkozy, Bernard Squarcini, reconverti dans le privé, qui a mis en relation la société d’intelligence économique avec LVMH.

Une interception téléphonique en particulier, datée du 13 avril 2013, laisse apparaître que Bernard Squarcini avait même ambitionné « de revoir la com’ » du groupe de luxe au service duquel il s’était mis, et d’en confier certains aspects au « fils Dassier » : comprendre Arnaud Dassier, l’un des cofondateurs d’Avisa avec Matthieu Creux. Squarcini parle d’Arnaud Dassier comme d’un homme à la tête d’« un système de blogs pré-établis [avec] 300 mecs éparpillés dans le monde » pour servir la communication déguisée de ses clients.

This echoes with another story, the Wikipedia angle of which we'll probably hear more about soon ...

Post by **ericbarbour** » Sun Aug 06, 2023 8:08 pm

One of the most obvious and little-noticed hagiographies ever seen on WP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques-Andr%C3%A9_Istel

He was the founder of the weird "community" in the ugly bone-dry desert west of Yuma, called either "Felicity", "Museum of History in Granite", or "The Center Of The World", whatever. I'm told that it basically operates like a religious cult. There are blogs and videos by people who visited Felicity and found the place "extremely creepy". Istel is alleged to be a arrogant and manipulative gentleman who, while having built a serious "landmark" in the desert, keeps a very low profile himself. But a hagiography on WP is okay with him, evidently. So COI editing here should not surprise anyone. It passes muster as "notable" thanks to "weird news" journalists occasionally writing stories about the place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:C ... bhistorian

Post by **ericbarbour** » Mon Aug 07, 2023 10:48 pm

Post by **ericbarbour** » Thu Aug 31, 2023 9:01 pm

Yesterday I was reading this Tedium blog post.

And thought; I wonder if Stephen Thomas Erlewine, a deeply obscure music writer, has a Wikipedia article. If he does, it is almost certainly the work of paid/COI editing, because it's REALLY difficult to find "reliable sources" other than his personal blathering on AllMusic and a few other websites. And I was right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Thomas_Erlewine

And whattaya know: nepotism is still popular, even on the internet.

Erlewine was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is a nephew of the former musician and AllMusic founder Michael Erlewine.

You little Wiki-Boogers now have something to AFD.
So DO IT.

And this is NOTHING. You should have seen the shitstorms around Pitchfork Media prior to its 2015 purchase by Conde Nast. Their insider gang were openly and deliberately abusing mainstream musical acts, while glorifying obscure and often-terrible indie bands who usually went nowhere despite high Pitchfork ratings. And the millennials ate that shit up. Selling out to a media corporation has basically killed Pitchfork's influence off. Their WP article looks actually not-bad and does not display the usual paid-editing traces.

Post by **ericbarbour** » Mon Oct 30, 2023 5:08 am

Doncha just love the smell of successful paid editing in the morning?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgemar

almost entirely the work of an unnoticed sockpuppet probably belonging to a paid-editing company

https://xtools.wmcloud.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/UCP6160

Post by **ericbarbour** » Fri Nov 17, 2023 1:13 am

Seems to me.....if you're looking to paid-edit Wp for defense contractors, a really good way to cover your activities is to simply pose as a military fanboy and suck up to the Military History wikiproject. Politically conservative opinions are tolerated in that scene--along with very questionable editing.

Example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:America789

Gave us this, which sure as hell looks like advertising to me. He's also done dozens of similar articles--all about munitions and military equipment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Switchblade

Wikipedia Sucks!

Wikipedia Sucks!