Draft best practice guidelines for PR

Philip Sheldrake and Neville Hobson discussing Paid Editing at the WMUK 2012 AGM

This draft guidance was initiated by Chartered Institute of Public Relations social media advisory panel (#ciprsm) with input from the Public Relations Consultants Association, initially dated May 2012.

The guidance has been proposed following an ongoing conversation about how the public relations industry might work effectively with Wikipedians and Wikipedia. A presentation was made by Neville Hobson and Philip Sheldrake about these proposals at the 2012 Wikimedia UK AGM. You can see the slides here. A video of the presentation is available on the right of this page.

Please use the talk page (the tab marked 'Discussion' above – 'how-to' for newbies here) to discuss any and all elements of this guidance and suggest edits. Through this editorial process, it is proposed that a full version which explains the rules of Wikipedia to the PR industry will be ready for circulation by mid-June; so please do get involved.

A page of links to background information and other resources is maintained here.

About the guidelines

The guidelines are intended to provide clear and detailed advice on how PR professionals should edit pages and engage with the Wikipedia community; the guidelines also summarise the CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) code of conduct.

Where possible, these guidelines give added detail to existing advice given to PR professionals by Wikipedians and have given examples of dos and don’ts. These guidelines aim to highlight best practice and equip public relations professionals with the guidance needed to navigate the grey areas of Wikipedia engagement and understand how to transparently protect an organisation’s or client’s reputation.

The CIPR encourages individual professionals to make themselves aware of the legal considerations of engaging with social media (also see section three of CIPR social media guidelines).

The CIPR advises that all professionals review the relevant industry regulations, which may have specific policy and guidelines that need to be taken into account. For example, a member working in the pharmaceutical industry is advised to review the policies and guidance of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), and members working in the financial services industry should refer to the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

These guidelines do not constitute legal advice. Neither CIPR nor Wikimedia UK accept any liability for any action taken or not taken as a result of this information.

The definition of public relations

Public relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.

There is another interpretation of public relations, commonly referred to as "spin". If this is your mode of operation then we recommend you steer clear of Wikipedia altogether.

Dark arts on Wikipedia (a side note)

Comments about the use of “dark arts” on Wikipedia, whereby PR professionals manipulate Wikipedia entries to favour an organisation or an individual, made the front page of the Independent national newspaper in December 2011.

The social media panel would like to take this opportunity to remind professionals that “dark arts” of any sort go against existing social media best-practice guidance already published by the CIPR. Intentional deceit and other malpractice in PR activity by CIPR members or a member of staff under the management of a CIPR member can result in disciplinary action against the member, potentially resulting in expulsion from the Institute.

The CIPR advises that the core principles of its code of conduct are applied to all elements of a communications campaign, including editing Wikipedia entries and engagement with the Wikipedia community.

Further information about the CIPR Code of Conduct can be found here.

Current debating points

Wikipedia is the world's sixth most-read website with editions of Wikipedia in 285 languages. It is an online encyclopaedia with more than 20 million articles and often the first port of call for millions of people researching a topic, individual or company. And, at the heart of Wikipedia is its community. Wikipedia has more than 100,000 active contributors, also known as 'Wikipedians', an online community in the most positive, engaged and pro-active sense.

There is no doubt amongst PR professionals that the site and its community are influential but many believe that the community is not taking its power seriously enough. PR professionals such as Philip Gomes, Edelman Digital’s senior vice-president, and other PR professionals that are part of the active Facebook CREWE (Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement) community – http://www.facebook.com/groups/crewe.group – are lobbying Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, to review the site's process and policies.

Disclosure amongst the Wikipedia community is another bugbear amongst PR professionals. Chime Communications' chairman Lord Bell emphasised this point when he met Wales at his offices in February this year. PR Week quoted him as saying transparency was required from PR professionals but the same level of transparency is not demanded from the site's editors. Bell commented: “It’s important for Wikipedia to recognise we are a valuable source for accurate information.”

Jane Wilson, CEO at CIPR, broadly supports the movement for change but adds that changes to the site are not going to be made over night and PR professionals must respect the site and community workings as it stands now. Wilson adds: “The CIPR’s priority is to ensure public relations professionals are aware of detailed best practice, hence the guidelines, then by working in partnership with Wikimedia UK and Wikipedians, through outreach, diplomacy and dialogue, we can explore opportunities for change.”

The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit?

There are different views when it comes to Wikipedia editing by PR professionals. Some people, including Jimmy Wales, believe that as paid advocates PR professionals should “never ever directly edit an article” and should engage with the Wikipedia community only via the talk pages of Wikipedia articles. Other people, such as Lord Bell, believe just because PR professionals are paid that they are “lying” and not in a position to edit effectively according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.

Differing views can also be found within the Wikipedia community. Contrary to Wales' view, a Wikipedia page states that PR professionals can “fix minor errors in spelling, grammar, usage, or fact", which would suggest that PR professionals might find ways to edit articles which no-one would find problematic. These are not yet defined, however.

Wikipedia's definition of minor edits is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Minor edit here. Questions about this definition are welcome at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_talk:Minor_edit this talk page.

All editing should be conducted in an open and honest manner. PR professionals should ensure that their user page fully discloses their place of work and a list of their clients. If a PR professional is dealing with a contentious matter in an article page, caution is required. See section 8.8 for more detail.

It is common ground that where PR professionals have a vested interest in an organisation, individual or client, we naturally have a potential conflict of interest. Consequently PR professionals should not remove or add sentences or large ‘chunks’ of content that will change the tone, bias or context of a Wikipedia entry. Again, what does “large chunks of content” mean in practical terms?

If a Wikipedia page is unbalanced and a PR professional wishes to address this, they can engage with the regular contributors on the entry’s talk page. It is here that anyone can make a case for a different point of view to be included. If a request for a different point of view is ignored by Wikipedians on the talk pages, there are ways to progress the issue further. See section 8.

The exception occurs when PR professionals are dealing with obvious vandalism relating to a living person. Wikipedia has clear rules on this subject, and supports PR professionals directly editing the Wikipedia entry to remove the comments.

Wikipedia defines obvious vandalism as “addition, removal, or change of content in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia” and cites examples of typical vandalism as “adding irrelevant obscenities and crude humour to a page, illegitimately blanking pages, and inserting obvious nonsense into a page”.

Further information can be found here

Practical approaches

Whatever the theory, making changes to Wikipedia is an entirely practical matter. A hasty or ill-informed approach isn't the way.

Wikipedia's total "manual" does break the task of adding material right down; but clearly it doesn't define every term, nor does it tell people how to manage each interaction with others. Some matters are tacitly assumed. As background on the site: Wikipedia was founded as a reference site, and before "social media" became a concept in common use. That means that many of the assumptions behind its operation go back quite a way. Without entering into the history of 15 years of wikis, it can be helpful to bear in mind two points:

• Material in Wikipedia articles should be reference-quality information, and nothing else.
• Besides the skills needed to write in that fashion, what is needed to participate successfully in the site is a set of social and collaborative talents.

So remember that Wikipedia is not a social media service, even if its content is user-generated. It is an online encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. It is designed to be starting point for research, not an ending point. It is an online destination where you get a general understanding and an amalgamation of third party credible sources that you can check out further.

Ask for help

For example, it is often missed that it is possible to ask other editors for information, help and advice. A good example would be "where do I go to raise this issue I have?" Another would be to ask how a guideline should be applied in a given case.

Operate within the system

Be honest and open at all times. On the positive side, don't be afraid to "escalate the query". If you post to an article's talk page and nobody responds, there are ways to progress your query further. See example of how to do this in the step-by-step guide in section 8. If Wikipedia editors don't reply to you within a certain time scale (the time scale is dependent on the severity of the issue, the history of the article and the people involved) then take further action. Decide on the course and next step on a case-by-case basis. Whatever route you take, be sure to leave a detailed note on the talk page about edits and route of action. This will save the time of others doing any "audit", and probably your time also.

Be patient and reasonable

Getting changes made for the better in Wikipedia pages is sometimes a lengthy process when you act with the co-operation of the volunteer community. But changes made that way, with well-documented reasoning on the site and proper references, are more likely to be permanent.

Use good judgement

As with most elements of public relations, one size does not fit all. There will undoubtedly be times where you will have to interpret the guidelines and apply the code of conduct principles to real situations with all their complexities. Here you should use good discretion, particularly since Wikipedia is a very online public place.

In these instances, we encourage CIPR members to keep the CIPR’s code of conduct forefront of mind, use common sense and your experience in public relations to make a judgement call, and act accordingly. If you are not an experienced PR professional, please seek help from a senior PR consultant within your organisation or consultancy. Alternatively, please call the CIPR on 020 7631 6900 and they will connect you with another PR professional who will be able to help.

Handle conflict of interest

A perception of conflict of interest is the biggest roadblock. Here Wikipedia works with a clear definition which you can find in the Glossary. In practice this means PR professionals must respect neutrality, and so avoid any suspicion that they are gaming the system.

The Basic Principles of Wikipedia

To engage with the community and edit pages successfully, you must have a decent overview of the site, but also a good understanding of its content principles. A traditional short overview is called the "five pillars".See the page here.

In addition to these pillars, Wikipedia has fundamental principles that govern its content. These are known as neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research. See the essay page here for a quick introduction. It is imperative PR professionals understand fully and can interpret these matters. They are set down in detail on official policy pages that deserve close study.

Below is the Wikipedia’s description of each content principle.

1. Neutral point of view – All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopaedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing significant views fairly, proportionately and without bias.

   Fundamentally, where there is a contentious issue associated with a topic, Wikipedia content should be a good reference for the debate. In a few words, neutrality means this: report the debate, don't take part in it.

2. Verifiability – Material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—meaning, in this context, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true.
3. No original research – Wikipedia does not publish original thought: all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source. Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not clearly advanced by the sources.
   • Wikipedia also states: “These policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles. Because they complement each other, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another. The principles upon which these policy statements are based are not superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus.”

See the page here for more.

Wikipedia works with the concept of "reliable sources". Like talking about "mainstream media", this concept cannot be pinned down completely; and just as news media can get things wrong, reliable is not the same as infallible. For current events the mainstream media are the main reliable published sources, and (for example) most press releases and blogs are not taken as reliable.

A Step-by-Step Guide: How to improve articles

This is a brief step-by-step guide outlining how to improve an article, leading up to "worst case scenarios".

1. First go to the Talk section of the article (tab at the top of a page). "If something's been written about your client, tell them your client has a response, or a response that has been published elsewhere and should be on the site. This is effective almost always," says Jimmy Wales. He adds: "Talk to the community with respect. State your job title, identity, interest and company. Escalate with kindness."
2. See who wrote the article originally and go to their User talk page. Say you have got some tips or suggestions for the article and ask them to have a look. By going to the left-hand sidebar and looking for their list of contributions, you will be able to check if they are still active on the site. If not, this is important to know and to communicate during discussions.
3. If you get no response from the Talk pages, go to a relevant noticeboard. These pages are watched by groups of people with a particular interest: in effect specialists. According to Wales, noticeboard pages are very active and provide help quickly. If you are concerned about an entry for an individual, you can go to the Biography of Living Persons Noticeboard. Or if you want to make changes to a company page, or you think that someone editing the article is biased, it is a good idea ask someone from the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard to have a look.
4. Email info-en@wikimedia.org in any situation where it may be hard to disclose yourself as a PRO on the talk pages, because it might inflame the situation. The mail address leads into what is known as the OTRS system. There are select people who manage this inbox who will act as your advocate within the community and offer advice. When you have a reply, keep the OTRS ticket number for future reference; it will be important if you need to chase up the query.
5. If a subject is controversial, or there are continual 'edit wars' occurring, then you can apply for the page to be protected. There are various stages, from full protection, where only a Wikipedia administrator can make an edit, to semi-protection, where only Wikipedia editors who have been registered on the site for more than four days and have made at least ten edits are allowed to make changes. To apply, ask an administrator, email info-en@wikimedia.org, or go to the biography of living person's page at WP:BLP. But note - you cannot choose which page version is protected.
6. There is a dispute resolution system within Wikipedia, but the best advice, almost always, is to seek informal negotiation or low-level mediation through a third party. "See you in court" in most cases will not help you or a client. The Administrators' Noticeboard can be effective in dealing with obnoxious conduct, but only ever use it if you have a squeaky-clean onsite record.

Dos

Do...

1. Be respectful. Understand the rules of the road. This is one of the basic principles of engaging with social media, and also applies to Wikipedia. Make sure you understand the basics and familiarise yourself with the features and functionalities of Wikipedia. You can visit the talk pages of articles on prominent figures to observe and learn how people interact and how contributors shape an article.
2. Disclose your interests and be transparent at all times. When you join Wikipedia as a PR professional, pick a professional username and be up-front on your talk pages. Write something on your user page about whom you work for and why you have joined the site; include any relevant links to your organisation or your clients. If you have a Wikipedia account that you use on a personal and professional basis then make this clear and outline your personal areas of interests. This is to clarify that edits made to pages relating to your personal interests are not connected to your employer or client.

3. Engage and earn goodwill with the Wikipedian community before you are seen to need it. Another core principle of social media is PR professionals should invest time and effort. Get to know key people within the Wikipedia community. Treat Wikipedia engagement as akin to media/blogger relations.

   Pages of interest to your organisation or client (and Wikipedians who follow those pages) should be identified and contact established from the beginning of a PR campaign. CIPR does not recommend abruptly contacting Wikipedians during a reputational crisis.

   Caveat: If a PR professional does not have time to build a relationship then it can be safer to raise the issue elsewhere and then people who do have a relationship/track record can raise it on Wikipedia.

4. Look at the bigger picture. If a Wikipedia article references a scandal or includes words synonymous with an organisation’s or your client's wider reputation it is likely that there is a need for a wider campaign that clearly addresses the reputational issue at hand.
5. Remember almost all edits on Wikipedia are public, so don't try to hide or spin things that make your client uncomfortable. See below on negatives. Wikipedia does have processes for removing certain types of edits such as defamatory ones. In extreme cases where information should be removed not just from the current page but from the readable history also, you will need to look into the "oversight" process.
6. Remove obvious vandalism about living people. Wikipedia takes vandalism on living people’s pages particularly seriously. If a person's entry has been sabotaged, remove the content and leave a message on the talk page to let Wikipedians know what you've changed and why. See the page here for more.
7. Use your watchlist to track changes on pages you need to follow. An alternative is to apply the "related changes" function to a page listing those articles: in effect an open watchlist. Since an open watchlist is particularly transparent and can be used by others in your organisation, it has some advantages.
8. Add or update facts such as a date, location or numbers. For example, if a company was founded in 1962 but the Wikipedia article stated it was founded into 1965, edit the page directly and change the date. Make sure you reference / cite your edit for contributors to verify the change. If the facts are being disputed in the talk pages, make sure you engage with the contributors before you directly edit the site.
9. Fix grammatical or spelling errors. For example, if your organisation’s name is spelt wrong, correct it.
10. Provide accurate references for information, statement or opinion that is already in the article. Update the page directly. For example, if a Wikipedia article says your company recently won an award for good customer service but it doesn't have a citation, feel free to add in a third party reliable source.
11. Attend a Wikipedia meet-up near you to get to know the community and understand how it works. These events are just social, so leave the business cards at home. And see also #5 under don'ts: you will do best learning some more about how the site works. The list of meet-up events up and down the UK can be found here.
12. Release images. If you'd prefer to have the Wikipedia article of your client illustrated by a good quality and recent photograph, you can release a better quality image? There is some work to do here: you would need to clear the release carefully with your photographer and legal department, given that Wikimedia uses licenses that they may not be familiar with.
13. Promote some volunteer editing at Wikipedia. If you are an agency or otherwise employ PR people give your staff time to write about their interests outside work.

Don'ts

Things to avoid range from infringements of netiquette aspects that may be unfamiliar, through editing that cuts across guidelines and policies, to (at the extreme) contravening the terms of use of the site [1]. Don't be tempted to share your account by giving anyone your password: it's a no-no. Here are pointers to some matters that are most likely to come up.

1. Don't create a Wikipedia entry from scratch for your organisation, your client or an individual that you have a vested interest in. Also, do not create an article relating to a phrase or term coined by your client. If a person, company or concept is of noteworthy significance a member of the Wikipedia community will create a Wikipedia entry. If you would like to bring it to the community's attention, please add it to the articles for creation (a list of articles waiting to be created by Wikipedia) and requested articles (where you ask Wikipedians to create an article on a particular subject or organisation).
2. Don't use Wikipedia to promote or advertise your employer or client. Remember Wikipedia is an online encyclopaedia; it is not your company or client's website. As a rule of thumb, if you wouldn't have submitted it to be included in a hard-copy reference work then don't add it to or suggest a Wikipedian add it to a Wikipedia page.
3. Don't remove negative material (exception: PR professionals can remove material that violates Wikipedia's policy regarding living people). Remember a Wikipedia page aims to present different points of view. See here for further information.

   If a Wikipedian has included a sentence about your organisation or client from a reliable source then you do not have the right to remove it. If you feel your organisation or client is being unfairly represented and the Wikipedia entry fails to be neutral, then raise this point first on the talk page. Seek balance by using the step-by-step process to ask for the inclusion of further material for balance that you can show in good sources.

4. Don't casually copy-and-paste content from another site, even if you manage the other site. There is a correct process of release to go through first.

   See here for further information about copyright and requirements for copying information

5. Don't try to cultivate individual Wikipedians, or intrusively identify the people behind pseudonyms. Wikipedians, unlike journalists and some bloggers, do not operate in a public sphere. The systems and processes of Wikipedia do offer help, and you can access them in a way that Wikipedian volunteers are comfortable with. At an extreme, those who do favours for you can risk being suspected of covertly being a paid editor.
6. Don't overman your Wikipedia effort. Limit the number of people a Wikipedian speaks to. For one thing, having several points of contact for a Wikipedian could be irritating or confusing. Where possible, we suggest restricting the number of people per organisation that maintain a relationship with a Wikipedian. For another, where you are trying to get a consensus on changes, it is not going to help to say your colleague agrees with you.

Next Steps for PR Professionals

Become wiki certified. The CIPR social media panel will be running training workshops to explain and test attendees on Wikipedia best practice. All those who attend and pass the assignment will receive a certificate.

Log all of your Wikipedia activity relating to your employer or client. Just as PR professionals keep a note of journalists they speak to and their areas of interest, PR professionals should keep a log of Wikipedians they’ve spoken to and their areas of interest. It is also best practice in an agency to keep a record of who updated what client page, when, why and what Wikipedian you spoke to. This level of transparency will help highlight bad practice and ensure individuals remain accountable even if they have left an agency.

Keep an eye on CIPR's social media guidelines and updates to the Wikipedia guidelines. The CIPR social media panel will update these guidelines as and when appropriate.

The Glossary

CIPR Code of Conduct

All Members of the CIPR agree to abide by a Code of Professional Conduct.

The Code of Conduct is one means by which the CIPR and its Members fulfil the purpose set out in the Institute’s royal charter: ‘to promote for the public benefit high levels of skill, knowledge, competence, and standards of practice and professional conduct on the part of public relations practitioners’.

Further information about the CIPR Code of Conduct can be found here.

Conflict of Interest

A Wikipedia conflict of interest is an incompatibility between the aim of Wikipedia, which is to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopaedia, and the aims of an individual editor. Conflict of interest editing involves contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups. Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

CREWE (Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement)

A Facebook group started by Phil Gomes, senior vice-president at Edelman Digital, in January 2012. CREWE lobbies for greater involvement by PR professionals on Wikipedia, with the stated goal of maintaining accurate articles about corporations.

To participate in CREWE go to http://www.facebook.com/groups/crewe.group/

Meet-up

Regular (or more spontaneous) face-to-face meetings of Wikipedians take place in cities around the world.

Neutral Point of View

All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopaedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing significant views fairly, proportionately and without bias.

Public Relations

Public relations is about reputation - the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you.

Public relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.

Semi Protection

Semi Protection is a process by which Wikipedia articles can be restricted so that only logged in editors can edit them, and even then not editors with brand new accounts. Typically this is introduced for articles that have experienced high levels of vandalism. As of mid 2012, Wikipedia's articles on Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are both semi-protected. The article on the Deepwater Horizon explosion had to be protected for two weeks during 2010.

Talk Pages

A discussion page which Wikipedia editors and contributors can use to discuss improvements to an article or other Wikipedia page.

Wikimedia

The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is an American non-profit charitable organisation headquartered in the United States. It operates several online collaborative wiki projects, including Wikipedia, collectively called wikimedia. Local chapters, including Wikimedia UK, are self-dependent organisations that share the goals of the Wikimedia Foundation, support the Wikimedian communities on the various wiki projects, including Wikipedia.

Wikipedian

The Wikipedia community is a network of volunteers who make contributions to Wikipedia, members of that community are known as Wikipedians or more generally Wikimedians if they also edit other projects. A division of labour exists whereby certain editors are elected as administrators gaining extra editing facilities in order to better administer wikipedia.

The CIPR welcomes any further glossary items that the Wikipedia community believes will help better inform public relations professionals.