On August 31, 2015, the

English Wikipedia The English Wikipedia is, along with the Simple English Wikipedia, one of two English-language editions of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was founded on January 15, 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition, and, as of , has the most arti ...

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...

discovered 381 sockpuppet accounts operating an undisclosed paid editing ring. Participants in the ring

extorted Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...

money from mid-sized businesses who had articles about themselves rejected by the encyclopedia's "Articles for Creation" process, in which drafts are submitted for approval to experienced editors. The ring was nicknamed "Operation Orangemoody" after the first account uncovered in the sockpuppet investigation and was Wikipedia's biggest

conflict-of-interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...

scandal as of June 2021, exceeding the scope of the

Wiki-PR editing of Wikipedia Wiki-PR is a consulting firm that formerly marketed the ability to edit Wikipedia by "...directly edit ngyour page using our network of established Wikipedia editors and admin . It received media attention in 2013 after a sockpuppet investiga ...

incident in which approximately 250 sockpuppets were found and blocked in 2013. The story was reported by many English language and non-English language news sources, including '' Komsomolskaya Pravda'', ''

Le Temps ''Le Temps'' ( literally "The Time") is a Swiss French-language daily newspaper published in Berliner format in Geneva by Le Temps SA. It is the sole nationwide French-language non-specialised daily newspaper of Switzerland. Since 2021, it has ...

'', ''

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

'' and '' Die Zeit''. The editing was described by various media as "black hat" editors (''

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately $ ...

''), "dishonest editing" (''

PC World ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tech ...

''), "extortion" (''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San ...

''), a "blackmail scam" (''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

''), and an "extensive cybercrime syndicate" (''

ThinkProgress ''ThinkProgress'' was an American progressive news website that was active from 2005 to 2019. It was a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAP Action), a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization. Found ...

'').

History

In 2015,

administrators Administrator or admin may refer to: Job roles Computing and internet * Database administrator, a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database * Forum administrator, one who oversees discussions on an Internet forum * ...

of the

blocked 381 accounts, many of them suspected of being sockpuppets of the same group of people, after a two-month investigation launched by Wikipedia editors. More than 200 Wikipedia articles created from the accounts were deleted. Wikipedia's resulting investigation, named "Orangemoody" after the first account uncovered, found that sockpuppets had searched the site for deleted or rejected articles about businesses and individuals. Many of the articles had been deleted because of excessive promotional content. The editors, some posing as

Wikipedia administrators On Wikipedia, trusted users may be appointed as administrators (also referred to as admins, sysops or janitors), following a successful request for adminship. Currently, there are administrators on the English Wikipedia. Administrators have ad ...

, would then extort payment from the businesses to publish and protect the articles. Besides businesses, individuals were targeted, including Cuban musician Dayramir González. The scammers themselves may have been involved in the deletion of some articles.

References

External links

* {{Wikipedia, state=collapsed Corporate scandals Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia Internet fraud Public relations Wikipedia reliability