Good
The journalists in the Guardian Newspaper's Money section should now do the same.
The Wikimedia Foundation has changed its terms of use to insist that anyone paid to edit Wikipedia articles discloses their affiliation Section 4 of the terms of use, Refraining from Certain Activities, now includes a sub-section titled “Paid contributions without disclosure” that includes the following language: “ … you …
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Amazon have a similar problem with "paid" reviews.
For example, a certain technical book publisher with a reputation for producing dozens of poorly edited books each month send out emails offering electronic copies if the recipient agrees to post glowing reviews of them on Amazon.
Not that Amazon themselves are much better, with members of their official books-for-reviews programme posting five star recommendations of books on topics they clearly know bugger all about.
> A friend of mine had a devil of a job getting Amazon to remove a negative review of a book they were listing but which wasn't going to physically exist for at least 12 months.
That must have been a really awful book if the audience saw it coming from that far. :-)
Seriously though, was the review consistent with the (eventual) content of the book? Or more like someone reviewing the wrong item: "0/5: The coffee made by this product was shit, and it came with the wrong plug."
I've seen the same thing on Amazon with DVD and Blu-ray reviews of movies that include an Ultraviolet-only digital copy. When someone complains that they don't like UV or would like to see an iTunes digital copy also included there's a large number of people that slam the complaints and promote all the wonders of UV and attack Apple and iTunes. The comments also get a lot of votes as being helpful.
At first I just assumed it was mostly rabid Apple haters but I see the same sort of wording on the different comments under different usernames on different reviews. Also any suggestions that both UV and iTunes digital copies be included are treated as an attack on UV.
Wiki finally removed a Warmist editor that spiked thousand of edits, and barred hundreds of qualified commenters, after years of documented misconduct.
Any serious researcher now knows to double VET any Wiki sourced information.
Wiki has the "reputation" that they have earned.