Monday, 24 July 2023

Wikipedia comes to ChatGPT!

By ChatGPT - Own work, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/134063547
We've learnt that AI is using Wikipedia information even though it is not disclosing it (linking back to Wikipedia). 

Wikimedia has recently developed a dedicated plugin (in beta phase) for ChatGPT, which users of the paid version can use.

It retrieves its information from different language Wikipedias and also links to the articles it uses.

With the plugin, the AI is likely to
a) be less hallucinatory
b) provide up-to-date information, as Wikipedia is constantly being updated

As a non-English Wikipedia editor I find it very interesting that if a lot of people would start to adopt only Wikipedia based AI models in large numbers, that could reduce the importance of the English Wikipedia which is now the most important Wikipedia of all. 

Last week I learnt from New York Times that the active editors in English Wikipedia are male (80 percent of them). From the editors based in US 75 percent are white. 

Already now AI is using information from all languages which is giving more visibility to non-English content. I salute this as it gives us a broader view of things. 

Since we have learned that Wikimedia content is easily accessible and free, I think this AI bot should also be brought to Wikimedia's own platforms. Perhaps that day is yet to come.

Meanwhile I will keep an eye on the situation!
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Wednesday, 31 August 2022

Why was I banned in English Wikipedia?


The last few days I have been staring into the distance. "Mum got fired from Wikipedia," my child explained to another. What on earth?

Over the weekend, I got banned from the English Wikipedia, which means that I am not allowed to edit there anymore, create new articles, edit existing articles or even their talk pages (where discussions on the topic take place). My user page was destroyed, as was my sandbox. The reason for this was "my incompetence in editing and they way I am pettifogging. It clear they have no interest in listening to valid criticism". (In other language versions, I am allowed to work as usual.)


The rocky road of a paid Wikipedian

I started making paid edits to Wikipedia back in 2010, four years before Wikipedia made rules for it. Over the years, I have attended several international Wikimedia events and talked about my work with Wikimedia activists. They say I'm a rarity, and over the years I've only come across one other paid updater in the English Wikipedia.

You can hear me and my acquaintance William (Bill) Beutler talking about paid editing on a Wikipedia themed podcast.

Beutler and his company do not update Wikipedia articles themselves, but started a decade ago, under pressure, to use the so-called AfC and ER processes, which I describe elsewhere. These processes often involve months of waiting.

While the AfC process has been proposed as mandatory for all Wikipedia editors balancing their interests, no formal decision has been taken. 

This is something I have argued repeatedly: since I had been editing Wikipedia long before they made rules for paid editing and felt that I am able to edit (in Finnish Wikipedia, some of the articles I have edited have even been highlighted as promising articles), I did not want to move to a slower way, which I felt was a waste of time for me, my clients and volunteers alike.

I interpret the recent charge of pettifogging is related to my persistence in insisting on editing Wikipedia articles in the article namespace, despite all the "recommendations" from the opponents of paid editors.

Over the years, I have had various conflicts with volunteer wikipedians. The worst of these so far occurred last year, when a user decided to "shame tag" all the articles I had edited in the English Wikipedia. I could not understand why he was allowed to do so, even though the instructions said that 

if you place this tag, you should promptly start a discussion on the article's talk page to explain why you tagged the article.

(This did not happen.)


This incident was very emotional for me then, so this time I will try to be a little tougher, despite the fact that the punishment I received is much harsher now.

Why was I banned?


The incidents started on Thursday, when I did an article for my client. A user who had previously complained about my editing noticed this and added two tags to the article:
1) the article contains undisclosed paid edit (even though I had disclosed in TWO places)
2) the article should be speed-deleted, because of its spammy language

I went on article to tell why not to speed-delete it:

If a subject is notable and the content could plausibly be replaced with text written from a neutral point of view, this is preferable to deletion.

So articles about notable topics should not be deleted if, for example, the promotional content can be easily removed, and in this case the article could have had the words or phrases that made it promotional removed, or it could have been moved to the AfC drafts where I could have continued working on it. My argument was not heeded and the article was deleted by an acquaintance of the previous user. They started talking about how I should be banned for not using the AfC process like "everyone else" who does paid editing. They had another concern too:

"It seems to me that User:Jjanhone may be making a tidy little living out of editing Wikipedia"

I told I'm ready to start using AfC process.

The threat of a ban was so serious that I also started a discussion on the administrators' notice board. Users who had argued with me about the removed article rushed to the scene.

In the following discussion the user who recommended banning told::

The reason I suggested for banning Jjanhone - it's a combination of everything, leading ultimately to severe incompetence on her part which volunteer editors are spending their valuable time cleaning up. The fact that she's paid certainly compounds that but this would be a significant issue, with the same outcome even if she weren't. PICKLEDICAE🥒 14:23, 27 August 2022 (UTC)


So he claimed that I would have been banned even though I was not a paid editor.

I see.

A) If I had been a volunteer, in my spare time, there is no way I would have been able to edit as much as I have now.
B) I would also have had no reason to assert my right to edit in the article namespace, it would have been my self-evident right.
C) Since my edits would have lacked the mandatory tags of paid editing, there would have been little attention paid to me or my edits


Despite his claim, however, he started the debate by pinging the opponents of paid updates that he knew.

Also pinging those involved in the last few discussion: @Athaenara:, @Deepfriedokra:, @Beyond My Ken:, @Blablubbs:, @GeneralNotability:, @Joe Roe:. Sorry if I missed anyone. PICKLEDICAE🥒 17:57, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

As they voted against me while I slept, the result was already pretty clear by the time Friday morning dawned in Finland. To make the case even difficult for me, I was also banned by user Athaenara during the night, even before the final banning decision had been made (it takes 24 hours), so there was no way I could defend myself in the debate, let alone correct the false claims made in it. Originally, I was also accused of copyright infringement, but this charge was dropped, thanks to Zache, who defended me in the debate.


Against, Jjanhone has been transparent on her paid editing and easily well enough if the paid editing is allowed all. [...] (I think that the COI presented was not problematic as presented but needed some actions, copyright violations presented were close paraphrasing of short texts or not even that) [...] However, it is not much else that the editor can do than start discussions that are felt as disruptive and Wikilawyering. --Zache (talk) 10:23, 26 August 2022 (UTC)


Thanks for striking it. About the rest, I think that situation is more complex than just pettifogging and incompetence. [...] Paid editing, however, is complex least to say and I agree that if one does paid editing then it is the writer's responsibility not to leave articles to be fixed by volunteers. If the editor fails to do so then the community has the right to limit the editing. However, A permanent full CBAN feels like the wrong tool in this case when the editor is a good faith editor and personally I would just give a topic ban not to do paid editing in enwiki. Ban could be reconsidered after two years if the user has proven that the editor can write proper articles. etc. -- Zache (talk) 19:27, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

So Zache was against a total ban, which he and a couple of other wikipedists considered a very harsh punishment.

  • While the conclusion here is foregone, the ban seems entirely punitive. A block from main space would be enough to reduce wasted volunteer time while also forcing her to go through the requested methods to edit as a paid contributor (edit requests on talk page and AFC). Isabelle 🏳‍🌈 23:23, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I second this notion. It would have been enough to block her from creating or editing mainspace articles. JIP | Talk 03:06, 27 August 2022 (UTC)


On my own discussion page, I expressed the wish that I could continue my work by using the AfC and ER processes, but my request was ignored - you can't do it properly anyway, you've had enough time already.  

Am I incompetent then?

Let's see what this competence means.

What is meant by "Competence is required"?

Basically, we presume that people who contribute to the English-language Wikipedia have the following competencies:

  • the ability to read and write English well enough to avoid introducing incomprehensible text into articles and to communicate effectively.
  • the ability to read sources and assess their reliability. Editors should familiarize themselves with Wikipedia's guidance on identifying reliable sources and be able to decide when sources are, and are not, suitable for citing in articles.
  • the ability to communicate with other editors and abide by consensus.
  • the ability to understand their own abilities and competencies, and avoid editing in areas where their lack of skill and/or knowledge causes them to create significant errors for others to clean up.


1. I think my language skills are at a sufficient level for Wikipedia. I'm not a native speaker, but I got "A" (in Finland it is L for laudatur) from my final exam and used it as my working language for 11 years in Nokia and then elsewhere. However, since I write about my clients' professions, the articles have special vocabulary that I have been helped with. After the ban, I discovered that I had not correctly identified the people involved in translating the articles. This was perhaps an even bigger setback for me than the ban itself, because where the ban decision felt a little arbitrary to me, I was, for example, accused of things for which I had already been punished and alleged to have made the same mistakes again, without evidence. However, I consoled myself that this was not even mentioned in the instructions for translating Wikipedia articles - I had managed to invent a new way of using Wikipedia, a way that had not occurred to others. There you go again, a pioneer in this area too.

2. The sources - yes, I believe I am very familiar with them. In English Wikipedia I mainly use well-known Finnish media sources and avoid using my clients' websites as sources almost to the last.

3. Quite a tough requirement indeed - to reach a consensus with people who are fundamentally opposed to your work, paid Wikipedia editing.

4. In the articles I have written about my clients, the facts have been correct. I have done my work independently, using reliable sources, and they have corrected the terminology and ensured that I have interpreted the sources I have used correctly (yes, even quality journals can have errors and things may have changed since the articles were published). Yes, now that I think about it, my content differs in one important way from the content produced by volunteers: we all use reputable sources, but I also ask the subjects of articles to check for any errors of fact or interpretation - as a proper journalist should do.

I have occasionally been criticised for the neutrality or impartiality of my articles, for example, but I have not paid much attention to the matter, because the appropriate remarks are lost in the basic complaints. Is this another one of those who object to paid updates in general, or did he also have a valid point of feedback.  

As I only have a limited amount of time, I may not have the time or the inclination to explain all the aspects of the issue, which may be obvious to an enthusiast who has been following the issue for a longer period of time. The language and structure of the articles could be refined endlessly, and better sources sought to replace non-neutral ones. But if different users join their forces, some really great articles can be produced! That's what Wikipedia is at its best!

What am I doing next?


Getting banned was of course a devastating setback, but very quickly I started to see new opportunities. I'm lucky to have a lot of supportive people around me who gave me the belief that I'll get through this and "you'll find something else".

I still have something to contribute to the English Wikipedia, one way or another! 

I am not allowed to edit in English Wikipedia but I can teach it to others. (I'm still allowed to edit in Finnish Wikipedia as well as on other languages.) Perhaps the time freed up from editing the encyclopaedia will eventually lead to more and more people contributing relevant content.


In defending me, Zache came to share his thoughts on what I have done for the Wikimedia community:

[...] Jjanhonen has been editing for 14 years and at that time she has organized workshops, written articles about Wikimedia for newspapers, volunteered in Wikimedia events, been active in social media communication of Finnish Wikimedia groups, etc. As long as I have known her (I met her first time 2013 on Open Knowledge Foundation's tour when she did a Wikipedia presentation) she has been an open data and open source enthusiast. She has also been very open that would try to earn living from it. I think that she is genuinely trying to figure out what the best practices would be. [...] -- Zache (talk) 19:27, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for this! The Wikimedia community has become very important to me over the years. My personal Wikimedia missions include not only bringing information about Finnish issues to the world through the English Wikipedia, but also adding experts to Wiki(m/p)edia.

This is also the underlying reason why I am now, so soon after what happened, going public with my ban: I am concerned about the future of the English Wikipedia and I want the general public to understand how the most important (like most read, the one with most articles) Wikipedia in the world works. So do me a favour and educate yourself by reading another one of my blog posts. 

PS. If you have any ideas on how I could use my skills from English Wikipedia to a greater extent, I'm all ears.


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English Wikipedia's fight against paid edits

You probably read Wikipedia a lot. But do you have the faintest idea how it works and what the rules are, for example, for paid edits? Well, let me tell you something!

Wikipedia is a product of the margins

 on niin pieni, että esimerkiksi Georgiassa, jonka väkiluku on vähän alle 4 miljoonaa olisi 19 enkkupediaa muokkaavaa henkilöä. Lukijoita enkkupedialla sen sijaan riittää, maapallon ihmisistä noin 10 prosenttia lukee sitä kuukausittain.

The number of volunteers who actively update Wikipedia is quite small in Finland and the world, they are a fringe group. Last month, for example, only about 500 people, or about 0.01% of the population, edited Wikipedia more than 5 times in Finnish. So if you know 10 000 Finns, you know maybe one wikipedist. Of the world's population, so few people edit Wikipedia that it is even harder to grasp. The ratio is so small that in Georgia, for example, with a population of just under 4 million, there would be 19 people editing English Wikipedia. But the encyclopaedia has a large readership, with around 10% of the world's people reading it every month.

Of course, there are even fewer paid editors in the world. Among a small group of people, they are a kind of pioneers, lacking not only a role model but also a peer network, people with whom they can discuss their work. 

Wikipediassa maksettuihin muokkauksiin suhtaudutaan usein epäluuloisesti, eikä ihme, perustuuhan Wikipedia nimenomaan vapaaehtoisuuteen. Ammatikseen Wikipediaa päivittävällä on vääjäämättä ristiriitoja ympäröivän yhteisön kanssa, välillä enemmän, välillä vähemmän. Paljon vaikuttaa se, miten hyvin hän onnistuu omaksumaan yhteisön normit ja toimintatavat. Hän on kuitenkin aina tikku muiden lihassa, se, jonka tekemisistä etsitään virheitä ja jolta oikeastaan vaaditaan virheettömyyttä. 

Wikipedians are often suspicious of paid editing, and no wonder, since Wikipedia is based on voluntary contributions. Anyone who updates Wikipedia for a living will inevitably have conflicts with the surrounding community, sometimes more, sometimes less. Much depends on how well he or she manages to assimilate the community's norms and practices. But they are always the stick in the mud, their actions are sought out for mistakes or actually they are required to be flawless. 

Wikipedia's rules for hidden advertising

In 2014, Wikipedia introduced rules for paid updates. The rules stipulate that they must be reported, and unannounced edits (hidden advertising) were since then strictly forbidden.

Undeclared COI (Conflict of Interest) edits were also banned: for example, you cannot edit your relative's or friend's article without telling them.

Some COI editors are paid for their work (they are called paid editors), which can be a salary or a commission, even a bottle of wine. Some have a simple conflict of interest - you want a page about your mother or your sports club to be factual.

Editors with a COI, including paid editors, are expected to disclose it whenever they seek to change an affected article's content. Anyone editing for pay must disclose who is paying them, who the client is, and any other relevant affiliation; this is a requirement of the Wikimedia Foundation. COI editors are strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly, and can propose changes on article talk pages instead.

Paid Wikipedians who follow these rules are called White hat paid editors. Their edits are monitored very closely. They are expected to be near-perfect: since they are paid for their work, they should know Wikipedia's guidelines and processes by heart (which, by the way, is plenty). They should produce text that volunteers do not have to waste their time correcting. Since few people can do this, white hats are "strongly advised" to stay out of the article namespace (the mainspace, i.e. the Wikipedia that the average Internet user reads) and to use other methods of editing, such as AfC and ER processes.


"There was a proposal a couple years ago to require the use of AfC for COI editors here that was never "officially" closed."


What are AfC and ER-processes then?

AfC means Article for Creation. 

The Articles for Creation (AfC) process is designed to assist any editor in creating a new page as a draft article, which they can work on and submit for review and feedback when ready. The AfC process must be used by non-registered users and by those who do not yet have sufficient editing experience because these groups of editors are not permitted to create articles directly in Wikipedia's mainspace. The AfC process should also be used by anyone with a conflict of interest.

White hats and other users with a conflict of interest should therefore preferably submit article proposals (drafts) through the AfC process. 

Currently, there are nearly 2400 drafts waiting for evaluation. How long will this review process take? Well hard to say, it's a bit of a crapshoot, but according to this statistic there are currently no drafts more than 5 months old:



So, if the choice is between doing the article now or putting it on hold, which can easily take months, which would you choose if you had the freedom to choose?


ER, Edit request

Edit requests are requests for edits to be made to a page where editors cannot or should not make the proposed edits themselves. Requests should be accompanied by a clear and specific description of the requested change, and consensus should be obtained before requesting changes that are likely to be controversial. ... Clarity in edit requests is important, and providing the new sentences or code in your request, if possible, will expedite the process.
ER requests are thus made for Wikipedia articles already in the article namespace, which white hats (or other users with a conflict of interest) should preferably not edit themselves.

The amount of ERs is at the moment 230:
106 was made in May,
30 in June,
43 in July and
51 in August.

I repeat: if the choice is between editing a Wikipedia article right away or making a request for it and putting it in a queue that could easily take months, which would you choose?

Would you perhaps be prepared to invoke time and time again sections that say, yes, this is not recommended, but hey, it is still allowed?

Note: the AfC or ER processes described above are not used, for example, in the Finnish Wikipedia!  

White hats on English Wikipedia

John Broughton who has written a Wikipedia guide book maintains a list of white hat editors which contains only 7 account at the moment. Seven! Out of 38K active editors a month. I went to research what they have been doing lately.

I found out that the way I've been editing differs a lot from the others. The amount of my edits this year is way bigger and unlike others, I was editing in the mainspace.

User:BC1278 (Ed Sussman) 
Live edits 5,450 (86.4%), Deleted edits 860 (13.6%), Total edits 6,310
participated in a client-related deletion discussion and one other discussion in May
in April, created a draft which has not yet been put to AfC vote and updated an ER request which was rejected for a second time

User:CorporateM (David King)
Live edits 33,602 (83.5%), Deleted edits 6,644 (16.5%), Total edits 40,246
edited an article for a customer in August
the previous edits were in September (edit in the main space) and July (edit in the mainspace and ER request) of last year

User:Mr RD
Live edits 3,019 (72.2%), Deleted edits 1,160 (27.8%), Total edits 4,179
made updates to articles related to India in November-December 2021. I don't know if these were paid updates or not.

User:Birulik - Anna (Anya) Biriukova
Live edits 69 (82.1%), Deleted edits 15 (17.9%), Total edits 84
made three Russia-related updates last year

User:Jjanhone (Johanna Janhonen) 
Live edits 3,802 (98.6%), Deleted edits 55 (1.4%), Total edits 3,857 (luvut ennen bänniä)
more than 300 edits in the article namespace in customer articles this year


User:WWB Too (William Beutler) 
Live edits 4,035 (98.8%), Deleted edits 47 (1.2%), Total edits 4,082
Beutler and other employees of his company do not edit in Wikipedia's article namespace
last had a discussion about customer articles in August. 

User:16912 Rhiannon (työskentelee Beutlerille)
Live edits 2,430 (98.6%), Deleted edits 35 (1.4%), Total edits 2,465
not edits in article namespace
in April-July, two client-related discussions and the creation of one draft

Over the years, the following accounts have been removed from this list

 

Former employees of Beutler:
 ChrisPond, has not edited since 2014 
Morzabeth, no edits since 2014
Heatherer, no edits since 2017

Accounts that have not been edited for years:
Manoillon_(Pro), only edits (2) in 2016
Wicodric, no edits since 2016
Fbell74, no edits since 2017
Pplc, no edits since 2018


Banned accounts:

Nmwalsh, banned in 2017, because of sock puppets
I'm_Tony_Ahn, banned in 2018


So is it true that only one account currently makes paid updates to the article namespace on behalf of its clients without using the AfC and ER/CR processes?

 

No. It's time to introduce more terms.

Black hats and sock puppets


White hats, i.e. accounts that make paid updates and follow the rules, i.e. are open about their activities and customers, are under strong pressure to use the processes described above. These processes are, in my view, laborious, slow and also insecure - where, for example, it takes several people to vote to remove an article, the AfC and ER decision can be made by any volunteer on the spot, alone.

This makes it much easier to act in a blacked-out way, i.e. to make paid updates secretly, without being notified. Of course, such users will be hunted down, but if they are skilled, they can make their updates quickly in the article namespace without anyone interfering.

I was talking to a British black hat last week. He said:

Firstly, if you’re doing it properly your paid editing should be undetectable and you should be having more off-wiki fights with clients than on-wiki fights with other Wikipedians. That’s all there is to it. 

Sometimes (or probably most of the time) black hats have several parallel accounts, called sock puppets. For example, one account is used to create a draft (new users cannot contribute to the article namespace) and another account is used to approve it. From time to time, so-called sock puppet factories are revealed, where there may be dozens of accounts cross-editing articles started by each other.

Over the years, I have also been asked to join Indian, Indian-African and American black hat companies, which I have naturally refused, because the way they operate does not fit my morals. There are also black hats working in Finnish companies. I think there are black people all over the world, you can find them on Upwork, for example.

During the weekend I got banned on English Wikipedia.

Zache defended me in the debate and at the same time gave his own view on how paid editors are treated in the English Wikipedia:

Against, Jjanhone has been transparent on her paid editing and easily well enough if the paid editing is allowed all. The negative side is that if you do so then you will be targeted by DIE-SPAMMER-DIE style editors and articles are flood flagged with Cleanup-PR and other problem templates without any actual review with the only reason that it was edited by a paid editor. [...] Also, a paid editor cannot remove those templates then the editor is required to ask for input from other users. However, it is not much else that the editor can do than start discussions that are felt as disruptive and Wikilawyering. --Zache (talk) 10:23, 26 August 2022 (UTC)


If the comment went over the top, I'll translate: if you report your paid edits, you will attract a bunch of volunteer editors who will make your work as difficult as possible, for example by adding tags to your articles warning "this article contains paid updates, so it may contain problematic content". They may contain, and they may not contain. Taggers do not always justify what is wrong with the article, and are not keen to improve the article themselves so that the tag can be removed. Paid editors are not allowed to remove such a warning themselves, but are forced to start discussions, which can then be interpreted as a petty invocation of wiki rules. 


Why Wikipedia needs paid editors?

The Wikimedia movement wants to get more contributors from different areas of expertise. (Of course, not all Wikipedians need new people in their sandbox.) Over the past year, I have trained companies, museums, organisations and libraries, among others, in paid editing of Wikipedia. So the guidelines on paid editing are not just for employees of companies, but for anyone who spends their time doing it. If Wikipedia is edited only in one's spare time, and on topics that happen to be of interest at that time, many important issues will be left out of Wikipedia. 

Wikipedia volunteers make big choices when deciding which things deserve or do not deserve to be seen. If the crowd is skewed in one way or another (e.g. an over-representation of male/college-educated/English-speaking editors), Wikipedia does not tell the whole truth about the world.

Despite these biases, Wikipedia is trusted and its content is used by services such as Google, Amazon, Meta and Apple. It would be in everyone's interest if more pairs of eyes could ensure that the information is correct. Not everyone necessarily has the time to do this in their free time, so why not edit Wikipedia during working hours, if it suits the employer. And why not - visibility on Wikipedia usually pays off for the employer too.


The future of Wikipedia


Internet giants are already exploiting Wikipedia's data and they have every right to do so - anyone can exploit content produced by volunteers, including commercially, as long as they use the original licences. Eight years ago, Wikipedia decided that paid edits were allowed, as long as they were reported, but from my viewpoint the English Wikipedia has failed to build a workable way for paid and volunteer editors to work side by side.
 
What happens when one of these giants figures out that they could build a more workable system? A system that would welcome all editors, with, for example, has employees to ensure that the work of any serious editor is not unnecessarily hampered. Such a system could, for example, put Wikipedia's fifth pillar first:

Wikipedia has policies and guidelines, but they are not carved in stone; their content and interpretation can evolve over time. The principles and spirit matter more than literal wording, and sometimes improving Wikipedia requires making exceptions. Be bold, but not reckless, in updating articles. And do not agonize over making mistakes.
 PS. The translation was made using the free version of https://www.deepl.com. Thank you!
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Monday, 30 March 2020

Why am I paid for updating Wikipedia for my customers

People are often surprised when they hear that I edit Wikipedia for money.

Why are your customers paying you for Wikipedia updates even if they could do it themselves?


Well maybe the reasons are the same that makes you use the services of a dentist, a lawyer, a builder, a graphic artist or a hairdresser: a professional's job is different from an amateur's job, things are done faster, the end result looks better and the things are done properly at once. There are no "bombs" left under the surface that you might be afraid to detonate later.

Most of the Wikipedia readers are unaware of the practices involved in content production. Topics must be relevant, things must be presented in a neutral and reliable way using good sources, and copyrights must not be infringed. And you must declare the updates you are doing related to your own work (or e.g. people near you) as any kind of advertising is forbidden.

And while anyone can update Wikipedia, new users are inherently suspicious and their updates are monitored with particular care. For example, in English Wikipedia, new Wikipedians cannot create new articles, but the articles they create have to go through a special approval process, which can take months.

And since new users are not yet familiar with Wikipedia's policies, their creations are likely to get rejected.


And if a new user does not give up right away, but tries, tries and tries and makes different kinds of mistakes, the end result may be as drastic that the subject of the article is locked so that only the administrators can write about it! There are quite a few admins on Wikipedia and the likelihood that one of them is interested about the same subject than you is low.

I am not an admin user but I do have a long history of publishing new articles in English Wikipedia so I can skip the draft process.

So seek the help of a professional sooner rather than later!

If I need to start a project by explaining the mistakes made by previous editors it is not a good starting point for me either. And sometimes, when the mess has already been a big one, I've refused to even try as I have a reputation I need to maintain. A paid editor cannot make big mistakes, otherwise his or hers career is over. Mine has lasted for more than a decade now and I'm not willing to stop!

I've done over 12,200 edits on Wikimedia projects, mainly on Finnish Wikipedia but also on English Wikipedia. If you'd like to ask my opinion about your project, do not hesitate to contact me!


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Friday, 4 January 2019

The best 9 of Instagram as an analysis tool

It's been a while since I've blogged here but I am starting again - I need a placeholder for the microblogging posts I do on my Instagram account.

My intention is to tell there more and more stories on Instagram with #kolmesarja hashtags. It means "series of three" and I've been doing those since I started using Instagram in 2013.  Three is a magigal number in Instagram (there's 3 pictures on each row) but also in story telling: stories have 3 parts: the beginning, the middle part and the end.

So let's see what kind of stories I am able to tell here.

The first post is about the best 9 site which is a great and simple tool for analysing not only your own content but also the content your competitors produce.




It gives you ideasabout how you could improve your Instagram feed.

Next I am sharing the results from three business accounts I am updating.

1. CMADFI account





CMADFI is an event that I am organizing for the 8th time now. I brought the CMAD (=community manager appreciation day) idea to Finland. The first two events were organized by a reasearch project of Tampere Technical university I was part of. We were studying how companies were using social media for innovating with their customers and that's something that belongs to community manager's duties. So it was easy to convince the group our project should host an event dedicated for community managers. Since the project ended I've been organizing the event through my own company. It is a great task for this small company (=me only) but I've got help from great people and companies. :)

I have defined visual identity for my company on Instagram and I did have some sort of idea for @CMADFI too but it was based on a Japanese application that changed which meant also that I lost most of the elements I had used earlier.

Two years ago the feed looked like this


I had also used Lo-Fi filter for the pictures but now that Instagram removed the frames I gave up this theme and have not found a new way yet. As there will be quest posters on that account in the future too I am wondering if I just allow them to post what ever they want. The pictures with Lo-Fi filter were posted by me, the others by Karri Anttila from Lvngroom company. Lvngroom is one of the companies that are organizing the CMAD event - their role is to capture the event in photos. When you organize an event, you need to name some one do the photographing - otherwise you wake up and realize you do not have enough good photos, only some random shots.


2. Piilotettuaarre account





And this is what my company account @piilotettuaarre's best9 looks like. As you notice I've used the Lo-Fi filter here too. I used it in all of my accounts which made it easy for me to repost the pictures to other accounts and created some sort of recognizable element for me. Instagram removed the ability to add frames to its' filters in December and at first I was really confused about the reasons for removing and and also angry about how Instagram was about to break my perfect feeds with the change. But then I recreated the borders with Gimp and added them to Canva and voilá - my feed looks still coherent. And the bonus is that now that everyone isn't able to use the frames anymore my frames are more mine than they were before.

This is how @piilotettuaarre looked like in November. Note the symmetry:
there's one column with black & white pictures and every ninth pic was a selfie
or a challenge picture. And there were also bitmoji pics on the feed.


If I could choose I would be a cartoon character on Internet but as an entrepreneur I need to show my face. Last year I started a serie where I posted my own face nearly weekly. At first it felt awkward but then I got used to it and now I think this photo is just a characterized version of me. That's called personal branding dude! And looks like people really like to see my face as there are so many of them in the top9. :)

The idea of my company account is to inspire my followers so that's why I repost a lot. The white photos are mine and the others are regrammed. I have created an own filter for my regrams: #piilotettuaarrehyväksyy (aka Hidden treasure approves).

And note that I only post good examples as I don't want to shame anyone. :)

3. Jjanhone account





The last example here is my own personal account, @jjanhone.

Last year was one big test on the account. Each month since February had its' own visual theme.


February was a pastel month and the first month when there was the same font on each photo I posted:



March was a black and white month. I also had some fun doodling:




In April I participated "April love" challenge and had Mr Sandman as the main character of each picture:




In May I created the biggest puzzle I had ever created:




and in June I played with rainbow titles:




in July I played with the shape of Finland:



and in August I used one certain filter of Sketch application:




September was a Snapchat month - I really like using its' Bitmoji stickers:




In October I visited Sweden and had my Playmobil assistant in each photo:




In November I played with blue dots and Queen lyrics in honor of the Bohemian Rhapsody movie. Oh boy, it was fun!




In December I posted my own version of advent calendar - only 12 days, inspired by the song 12 days of Christmas.




After that I started a completely new feed that is based on the series of three. It was inspired by the results of #best9. My followers liked the rainbow text banners, seeing familiar characters on my photos. I also learnt that I should take more photos from museums and sunrises.




So while last year was one big test of different visual styles this year I will concentrate on stories.

What did you learn from your #top9? You can find it from https://2017bestnine.com .


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