What to do if you want to collect money for the repair of "The failure", and only Wikipedia is at hand

The dream of any PR specialist and marketer is to post an article about his company on Wikipedia, because this is both credibility and high search results, and therefore more attention from potential customers.

But writing an article on Wikipedia is only half the battle, you also need to prevent its deletion, which is not easy if you are a small startup or novice blogger.
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Wikipedia requirements are clear - this is a network encyclopedia, for it the uniqueness of the material is important, and most importantly - its importance for the wiki community, so if you are not referred to on a “meaningful” website, then the information about your company or person is not needed for the encyclopedia.

Here is what is written about it in the Wikipedia rules:

“The subject is significant if it is described by multiple non-trivial publications of authoritative and independent sources. All objects must have the minimum level of significance required for an article about them to be included in Wikipedia. This requirement includes the need for a sufficient number of sources for writing a verifiable and encyclopedic article. An article that does not meet the criteria of significance may be set for deletion. ”

Most of the little-known companies, after deleting information about them from Wikipedia, begin to restore the page in the same form or start endless disputes, thereby only worsening the situation and attracting the wrath of the wiki community.

But if there is demand, there will be supply.

Therefore, some PR agencies offer services for creating and maintaining articles on Wikipedia, the most honest ones write: we will write unique material about your company, format it for the required format, check it for the requirements for Wikipedia articles, and wait for it to be checked and published.

On the PR market, you can’t live honestly for a long time, because Wikipedia’s terms do not allow hiding information about affiliation when a member gets rewarded for his contribution to the encyclopedia, and paid edits in articles to promote companies, products and services in the vast majority of projects categorically not welcome or even lead to blocking accounts.

Such clarifications in the terms of use were made in 2013 after a scandal with the American company Wiki-PR, which put this type of business on stream.

It all started when information about the services provided by Wiki-PR was leaked to the press. During the investigation, it turned out that the company's employees placed custom articles about their clients' business on various resources, and then referred to them in Wikipedia, thus creating the appearance of significance. There were not too many sites with custom-made materials, but links to them showed up in various wiki articles.

As a result of the investigation, an official letter was sent to the company with a request to stop violations, and 250 accounts of its employees were permanently blocked.

What exactly Wiki-PR has achieved is its own fame. This incident has been honored with an entire Wikipedia article. Wiki-PR exists to this day, but now positions itself as a consulting company that helps its clients find a common language with the wiki community.
However, Wiki-PR had many followers. Including in our country.

For example, the resource wikiadm.org, on the main page of which it is explicitly stated that they write articles for Wikipedia on a reimbursable basis.

They do not hesitate to declare that among their employees there are Wikipedia administrators:

“We have been successfully creating articles on Wikipedia for over nine years. Our team consists of resource administrators, patrols and just editors who know how to write an article directly for Wikipedia. Almost everyone is involved in the work on the order: the editors completely write and format the article, the patrols put a tick confirming that the article complies with all the rules of the encyclopedia, and the administrators do not allow others to delete the article. Together we made tens of thousands of edits, wrote hundreds of articles, and yet none have yet been deleted. ”

The fact that such activity directly violates the conditions of use of Wikipedia, they are naturally modestly silent.

And here is the case when they are represented not just by administrators, but by Wikipedia itself, or rather by its business division: wikipedia.msk.ru. The signatures of its employees are: WIKIPEDIA FOR BUSINESS.

What will Wikipedia tell us about this? That it is a non-profit organization and does not have any business units.

“Wikimedia projects are edited and supported by tens of thousands of volunteers who do not receive payment for their work. Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects operate in a non-profit organization mode - and this is the only case of the presence of a non-profit organization among the most visited sites in the world. ”

This means that people offering services on behalf of: wikipedia.msk.ru deliberately provide false information to potential customers, posing as representatives of a non-existent organization, and also illegally use a registered trademark of a non-profit organization.

Let's try to figure out who is behind this business.

The resource itself is not of particular interest, it is redirected to Wikipedia, but the mail server is actively used for sending emails to potential customers.
So we received a letter from alex@wikipedia.msk.ru from a certain Alexei Borodin, who introduced himself as deputy editor-in-chief of the non-existent organization WIKIPEDIA FOR BUSINESS and offered to post an article on Wikipedia for a modest 9000 rubles. At the same time, Alexey said that the article will be protected from edits by third parties, and its removal will be possible only at the request of the customer.

We expressed interest, after which Alex sent us the details for a bank transfer.

It was proposed to transfer money to the account of a company registered in the autumn of 2018. Among the activities of the organization were: the activities of advertising agencies; advice on business and management; renting and managing your own or leased residential real estate; provision of services in the field of accounting, financial audit, tax consulting; and even taxi activities.
The legal address is an apartment in Domodedovo near Moscow.

A bit strange for Wikipedia, is not it?

A quick search in the network showed that the general director of this LLC apparently does not have a direct relationship to the financial and economic activities of the company. Well, on the face signs of a one-day firm.

Meanwhile, Alexey continued to send us letters, persistently persuading him to pay for services as soon as possible. At the same time, he resorted to the argument "if you do not pay now, the offer will become unavailable", which is so fond of using, for example, fraudulent online stores.

We decided to dig deeper and see who, besides Alexei, uses mail in the domain wikipedia.msk.ru. It quickly turned out that we are not alone. Our partners also received suggestions for posting articles on Wikipedia. Only here they came from the address gleb@wikipedia.msk.ru and were signed by the name of the chief editor of WIKIPEDIA FOR BUSINESS Gleb Arkhangelsky.

We did not find out whether the chief editor Gleb Arkhangelsky is related to time management guru Gleb Arkhangelsky.



But, as you can see, this question torments not only us.

What conclusion can be drawn from this story? Rogues, hiding behind big names, enough at all times. Before you accept a tempting offer and trust a representative of a large international organization, you should carefully check your counterparty. Indeed, in this case, you risk not only money, your reputation is at stake, and it is much more difficult to restore it than to write an article for Wikipedia.

We were asked to comment on our mini-investigation by Vitaly Andreev, a leading expert analyst at Infosecurit company. He agreed with our conclusions:

“The situation is pretty standard. Every day, hundreds of domain names that are consonant with the names of well-known brands are registered online. They can be used in various fraudulent schemes, to create phishing resources or, as in this case, to carry out mailings.

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