Wikipedia:Identifying blatant advertising

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Blatant paid advertisement for a notable cleaning product

Wikipedia is a popular and unique website due to its

verifiable
to everyone.

To easily combat the creation of blatant advertisements, any editor can tag the page for

good faith
attempts to write content that need to be improved, rewritten, or re-worded.

The ability to properly and consistently identify pages that constitute blatant advertising require experience and knowledge of the kind of behaviors, article content, and other signs to look out for as "giveaways". As a recent changes patroller, this is a very important skill to understand and become proficient with. Improperly tagging articles for speedy deletion as blatant advertising not only takes times away from

administrators
who have to review and decline the deletions, it can also drive new editors away from Wikipedia if they believe that their time and hard work spent writing an article was simply tagged as an "advertisement" with a notice left on their talk page, and without any sort of offer of assistance or feedback given to them to help them learn the rules and improve their writing. Knowing the difference between blatant advertising and a good faith creation that needs improvement, as well as the proper and consistent tagging of articles and pages for speedy deletion – will keep blatant advertising off of Wikipedia, and provide opportunities for new editors to expand their skills and become long-term contributors to the project.

Identifying blatant advertising

An important part of identifying pages or articles that are blatant advertising is to understand what blatant advertising is. Blatant advertising is an article or a page that's created, worded, and designed for the sole and intentional purpose of selling or promoting an idea, product, or service. The most common advertising that you'll find when patrolling new page feeds are pages created on behalf of an organization or company and with the purpose of selling a product, good, or service that it provides. While blatant advertising is usually created on behalf of companies and organizations, they can also apply to pages about people, websites, or the service or product as well. Examples include the creation of an article or page advertising someone's domain or website, or the creation of a page about a person that advertises their skills or job experience.

Advertising is not limited to only the article space. They are also frequently created on the creators' own user and user talk pages, and (occasionally) in other namespaces as well.

Typical signs of blatant advertising

The list below describes the different usernames, locations, page or article content, and use of wording – that is typically associated with the creation of blatant advertising. Meeting one of the signs listed below does not mean that the page constitutes advertising. However, pages or articles that unambiguously contain content or behaviors that are listed on multiple items below will guide you with using common sense and establishing the likelihood that the page is eligible to be tagged for speedy deletion as blatant advertising.

Behalf of a company or organization

Blatant paid advertisement from a notable company

Blatant advertising on behalf of a company or organization will typically contain some or all of the following traits:

Behalf of a product, item, good, or service

Blatant paid advertisement for a product

Blatant advertising on behalf of a product, item, good, or service offered will typically contain some or all of the following traits:

  • It is created by an account with a username that matches the article title of the product, or a username representing the company that it is attempting to advertise the product on behalf of, and violates Wikipedia's
    username policy
    as a promotional username, or a username that implies shared use, or a position in a company or organization. (e.g. "CompanyName Marketing", "CompanyName Relations", or just "CompanyName"). However, as noted above, this alone is not sufficient to label a page blatant advertising.
  • It is created as a complete article that is either perfectly formatted to Wikipedia's
    manual of style
    by an inexperienced user in one edit, or is formatted consistently throughout but in a different manner or using a different style, language, or code - almost as if the user copied the entire text from somewhere else and pasted it into the edit window.
  • It refers to the company, organization, or the creator of the product or service in the first-person ("We are a company based out of Chicago", "Our products are electronics and medical supplies")
  • It describes the consumers of the product or service in the second person ("Acme Treadmills helps you to stay fit")
  • It positively describes the product or service and why it's important for people to know about or to purchase, enroll, join, or obtain it.
  • It speaks of the product's reputation in regards to originality, age, dependability, and customer satisfaction ("The original", "Number-one selling", "Highest rated")
  • It compares the product or service to those offered by others and describes this product's superiority or their competitions' product's inferiority.
  • It mentions notable people and claim that they purchase or use the product regularly.
  • It provides external URLs to the product's homepage, websites that promote and sell the product, or links to where to purchase or obtain it.
  • It lists or mentions all of the countries or locations that they provide or ship this products or services to.
  • Trademark or registered trademark symbols follow the company's name and/or their products.
  • The company's name, key personnel and/or products are repeatedly emphasized by styling, including the inappropriate use of bold or italic type, external links, or capital letters.
  • Its reception section is a bullet list of taglines and quotes praising the product followed by bylines to supposedly give it credit.
  • Name-dropping endorsements from media companies, associated companies, partners, people
  • It has section headers typical of a product brochure Q&A "What is (product)?" or "Why use (product)?". It has a "Press" section highlighting the popular positive press it has received.
  • The content was copied, superficially rewritten or closely paraphrased, in whole or part, from the company's website or social media profiles.
  • It contains a call to action, for example "download now", "request a demo" or "like Acme Treadmills on Facebook".

Behalf of a person

Blatant paid advertisement for a notable person

Blatant advertising on behalf of a person will typically contain some or all of the following traits:

  • It is created by an account with a username that matches the article title (the person's name). However, the mere fact that a page is an autobiography is not, by itself, sufficient to label it blatant advertising; blatant advertising almost always exhibits at least one (usually several) of the signs listed below. Consider tagging the page with {{autobiography}} and warning the creator with {{Uw-autobiography}} if an autobiography is not blatant advertising.
  • Basic puffery:
    • It (especially its opening sentence) is full of
      WP:PEACOCK
      phrases such as "award-winning", "acclaimed", or "legendary" that aren't backed up by further content (e.g., an unusually impressive list of awards received).
    • Name-dropping of more famous people, groups, media.
    • The person's name, their employers and/or their creative works are repeatedly emphasized by styling, including the inappropriate use of bold or italic type, external links, or capital letters.
  • Hyping through inappropriate detail:
    • It describes the person's life history and past in unusually positive ways, e.g., the person's youth and upbringing, unique talents they had as children or adolescents, "natural ability" and how their skills were developed quickly, or their intelligence and education.
    • It describes this person's educational career in-depth, typically including all of their qualifications, certificates, deeds, awards, etc., earned rather than focusing on the most important points.
    • It describes this person's professional career or relevant experience in-depth, typically by listing each of the person's held roles, positions, job titles, elected seats, etc., along with their responsibilities, accomplishments, and skills needed, and the date in which the person held the job.
    • It describes the subject's personal life in detail (e.g., family, volunteer work, beliefs, views, public image, donations to charities, etc.), when the subject is not notable for their personal life.
  • Trying to get a job:
    • The page content is formatted, styled, organized, or worded like a job résumé/CV.
    • It includes the person's short-term goals or desired objectives that they're seeking, worded similarly to that of a résumé/CV, such as "Experienced professional seeking to utilize in-depth knowledge of industry in a position at a large company with room for advancement".
    • It advertises the person's skills and experience and the work, projects, services, or leadership they would add to a group or team, usually for prospective employers, managers, or prospective customers or clients.
    • It emphasizes intangible qualities that might be desired by employers (e.g., "He has over 30 years' experience") instead of simple facts (e.g., "He started selling widgets in 1992").
    • It provides their full personal contact information so that interested parties they're seeking to connect with can contact them.
  • On the wrong website:
    • The content was copied, superficially rewritten or closely paraphrased, in whole or part, from the person's website, their employer's website, the social media profiles of either or any equivalent promotional biography.
    • It contains a call to action, for example, like John Doe on Facebook.

Copyright and promotional text

It is common for employees to reuse previously published marketing materials when creating articles about their employer on Wikipedia. Wikipedia's terms of use do not allow this unless it is explicitly published under a

Like resume
}} to alert others.

What is not blatant advertising

The following are not by themselves sufficient to label something blatant advertising:

What to do with blatant advertising

  • If the subject is likely notable:
    • Boldly reduce the article to a stub that contains only encyclopedic content: "Big Business, Inc. is the largest widget manufacturer in Indiana. It was founded in 1969 and is best known for its blue-green widgets.[1]"
    • Boldly merge and redirect the article to a larger subject (e.g., Big Business (widget manufacturer)widget)
    • Revert to a prior, less promotional version of the article.
    • If it's a newly created article, consider moving it to draft so it can be developed there. (
      WP:DRAFTIFY
      )
  • If the subject is likely non-notable:
    • If no reasonable person could disagree that the entire page is an advertisement, tag it with {{
      db-advertising
      }}
    • If reasonable people might have different opinions about it, then tag instead with {{
      subst:prod}} or send it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion
      .

See also