How to vet potential Wikipedia vendors

Are you considering hiring a consultant, agency, or freelancer to help you with Wikipedia? 

There’s nothing worse than shopping for something when you don’t know how to judge a good actor from a bad one. 

Welcome to the Wikipedia Buyer’s Guide. With the pointers below, you won’t have to just take their word for it. You’ll know with confidence how to parse the right way from the wrong way. 

Any reputable Wikipedia consultant should be glad to tell you how they work within the following:

➡️ Wikimedia Foundation Terms of Use. Anyone with a financial conflict of interest who contributes to a WMF site (Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, etc.) must fully disclose their financial conflict.

➡️ COI Guideline. Wikipedia’s community guideline concerning all types of conflict of interest strongly cautions against direct editing an article if you have a financial conflict of interest.

➡️ Independent Sourcing. These high-quality sources are required for all updates sought by a company.

➡️ Neutrality. Content proposed by brands and organizations for Wikipedia must reflect the balance of what is stated as reliable sources and must be written in a non-biased manner.

➡️ Non-promotional. All Wikipedia content should be encyclopedic and should not seek to advertise for a company, product, or individual, nor be written in a promotional tone.

➡️ Articles for Creation. The official process on Wikipedia for submission and review of new articles, especially when proposed by a representative of a brand or organization.

➡️ Notability Guideline. The guideline of eligibility requirements for a new article can be summarized as follows: a topic must have significant coverage in third-party sourcing to be considered notable for Wikipedia. 

In contrast, consider any of the following to be red flags:

❌ “You can’t edit your own Wikipedia article.” This is only half true. The conflict-of-interest guideline does prohibit you (and anyone you hire) from making direct edits BUT that doesn’t mean you can’t transparently propose edits.

❌ “You need to have a certain number of edits before you can make changes.” There aren’t different levels of editors on Wikipedia! Shady actors love to tell you “I’m a senior editor” but that means nothing, especially if they aren’t following Wikipedia’s rules. An account made tomorrow has the same access and ability that an account made 10 years ago has—it all comes down to following the rules. 

❌ “We have Wikipedia administrators on staff who can make these changes for you.” I repeat, there aren’t different levels of editors on Wikipedia! Administrators are a small group of editors on Wikipedia responsible for specialized upkeep (like locking articles when things get contentious); however, it’s important to note that administrators can’t take actions of their own accord. They only operate based on the community consensus and would be no extra help to an editing project. 

❌ “We’ll need to edit from different locations/accounts to make the changes over time.” This is called ‘sockpuppeting’ and it’s a big no-no on Wikipedia. This is one of the most common ways people try to get around Wikipedia’s COI rules, but a quick look at the ban list above shows it always gets caught and their edits always reverted.

❌ “There’s a license fee/donation / any kind of payment that Wikipedia itself requires.” Just walk away if they say this. This flies in the face of everything the Wikimedia Foundation stands for. Yes, you should pay your vendor for their time and expertise, but you should never be asked to pay Wikipedia in order to get changes. 

❌ “We can get that done right away.” When following the rules and working with the editor community, Wikipedia projects move slowly and should be measured in months not weeks. Anyone promising quicker turnarounds is likely breaking the rules along the way and their edits will be equally short-lived. If you want long-term change, invest in a long-term solution.

If you encounter a situation outside of the above, please let me know and I can help you vet whether it’s a viable course of action. 

Remember: it’s better to do nothing on Wikipedia than to do it wrong and break the rules, offend the editor community, and earn a bad reputation for your brand.