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Let’s Talk about the North Face Defacing Wikipedia
- eindiran 7y agoVery disappointing that they did this. Apparently AdAge posted a video bragging about what they did, which is how Wikipedia caught on. https://adage.com/creativity/work/north-face-top-imagens/2174261 https://adage.com/creativity/work/north-face-top-imagens/217... Warning: page requires Javascript and even with an adblocker, it connects to nearly 30 tracking and ad domains.
- ziddoap 7y ago>Warning: page requires Javascript and even with an adblocker, it connects to nearly 30 tracking and ad domains. Color me not surprised. Shady in one area, shady in other areas. Thanks for the heads up.
- smsm42 7y agoTBH, most major companies, especially media ones, do this nowdays. I was used to be surprised when adblocker counts 20+ blocked entities on the page (and that's not counting second and third level ones that would be loaded by blocked ones!) but now it's just routine.
- PhantomGremlin 7y agoWarning: page requires Javascript and even with an adblocker, it connects to nearly 30 tracking and ad domains. I use Firefox + NoScript + JavaScript disabled by default. The page was very readable as soon as I did: View -> Page Style -> No Style. That's a simple workaround for many sites. And it doesn't pull in any ad trackers either. Granted, the formatting isn't the prettiest. Here's the start of the article: The North Face used Wikipedia to climb to the top of Google search results Campaign from Leo Burnett Tailor Made updated photos with images of brand, raises flags with Wikipedia editors for violating user terms By Ann-Christine Diaz Published On May 28, 2019
- eindiran 7y agoThat's a very useful tip. I use Firefox + NoScript + JS disabled by default as well, and have made my peace with lots of sites being unreadable if I don't temporarily disable NoScript for that site, but the No Style trick is a game changer.
- shermozle 7y agoThe thing is, they probably would've got away with it except for the triumphal video talking about it!
- quxbar 7y agoI am a very big purchaser of frivolous outdoor clothing and gear, REI is like a candy store to me. I will be boycotting The North Face for at least one year starting today, because this is so obviously unethical. Can't wait to score some Patagonia gear for summer hiking :)
- duplicitous 7y agoAnd now, they get even MORE publicity, because the discussion is going viral. (proof: we're talking about it) It all got taken down, and now the one time bump only tightens restrictions on it ever happening again, so they get the bump in recognition, and no one else gets to do it themselves. They get the double whammy of setting a precident, burning brand recognition into a narrative. And it was a delegated action, thus not only is all publicity good publicity, but they get to pass the buck and blame an agency for acting like a loose cannon. Whoopsie daisy!
- TheNorthFace 7y agoI, for one, think this was a perfectly normal contribution to an open and globally accessible knowlege base.
- dannykwells 7y agoDisgusting. To extent I can will transition out of NF gear. Will share broadly to encourage others to do so.
- the-north-face 7y agoOur photos were released under the creative commons license, so it's fair game.
- Timothycquinn 7y agoThanks for the info. Now know to steer clear of NF.
- heraclius 7y agoI hope that the terms can be re-written to impose some sort of liability on anyone who tries this sort of thing. The only disincentive is the wrath of editors and the foundation, which, frankly, doesn’t amount to much.
- Joakal 7y agoThey will add the usual to the company wikipedia page: "Wikipedia articles got manipulated for commercial promotion... etc." And link to the articles.
- mjevans 7y agoThey should require two things. 1) Label accounts with conflicts of interest if necessary. Personal accounts that are only personal (and never used in an official capacity for any other organization or entity). "Professional" accounts for which one or more professional entities (potential conflicts of interest) are disclosed. 2) All work should be submitted to the public domain, or as close to the public domain as possible; and any fair use material clearly marked as such and why. (I believe they already require this, I'm just not a Wikipedia contributor so I've not read their specific guidelines.)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ignoranceprior 7y agoYour suggestions are already reflected in the existing Wikimedia Foundation TOU: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use/en https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use/en 1) It already prohibits paid editing without disclosure. (ctrl-F "Paid contributions without disclosure" in link above) 2) Wikimedia projects require that almost all content be licensed under a free license (ctrl-F "Licensing of Content" in link above). Specifically, text is usually dual licensed under CC BY-SA and GFDL. Wikimedia Commons allows images under any free license. (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing) Exceptions are allowed for fair use content, which needs explicit justification and may only be used sparingly (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-free_content_cri... for the English Wikipedia's rules, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non-free_content https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non-free_content for other WMF wikis).
- 5etho 7y agoHow about banning north face from having site on wiki... Or just having this article in it
- jolmg 7y agoThat would go against Wikipedia's mission. I think referencing this event in their article as they've done is the correct response. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-of-interest_editing_on_Wikipedia#The_North_Face https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-of-interest_editing... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_North_Face#Controversies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_North_Face#Controversies
- 5etho 7y agowell, you're totally correct, just write this comment based on frustration :)
- eljimmy 7y agoMan, that's really disappointing to read. I'm a fan of North Face gear. With that said, this will definitely push me towards their competitors like Patagonia and Arcteryx. No doubt that there will be some sort of apology incoming from the CEO, but in reality the damage has been done.
- mdolon 7y agoSorry to hear that. I can't speak about Arcteryx but I've been a long time customer of Patagonia and have only the absolute best things to say about them. Their products are expensive but they back them with lifetime guarantees. I had a $400 Gore-tex jacket that after two years of use, started letting water in at the seams. I took it to a Patagonia store and told the clerk, who gave me a free bottle of a liquid wash that helps restore water repellency. When that didn't work, I returned to the store and the clerk apologized, took the jacket and told me to grab a new one off the shelf. I've had other friends get replacement gear years down the road, and have also had down jackets get repaired by them for free after regular wear and tear. It's those little things, along with their support for environmental causes, that have made me a lifelong customer.
- blacksmith_tb 7y agoI tend to think well of both Arcteryx and Patagonia, but I'd also say that their initial solve of using a DWR replenisher[1] for a jacket that was leaking at the seams feels like a fairly lukewarm example of customer service (then again, some places might have sold you the bottle too...) 1: https://www.backcountry.com/explore/dwr-decoded https://www.backcountry.com/explore/dwr-decoded
- bradstewart 7y agoArcteryx has phenomenal customer service as well. They mailed me a new jacket in the middle of trip (picked it up at a Chilean post office as we moved to a new mountain), and let me mail the original leaking one back a month later.
- glup 7y agoThe AdAge video is completely infuriating — it has this completely triumphalist tone celebrating the "cleverness" of the marketing campaign. As if it were a "hack" rather than an unethical and distasteful idea unbefitting an ad agency. North Face would do well to part with Leo Burnett Tailor Made.
- mindgam3 7y ago"paying absolutely while collaborating with wikipedia" Collaborating my ass. Not to give these guys a pass, at all — this is some seriously skeezy marketing — but I think this underscores a deeper issue of paid accounts on Wikipedia, which is totally a thing as I found out recently. Apparently there people, or maybe a whole ecosystem, who are essentially lobbyists who get paid to edit Wikipedia pages, and that's okay, as long as they mark that they're a paid account, or something. I guess if you follow Wikipedia's rules for paid accounts, it's okay to update pages in favor of your brand?
- proxygeek 7y agoDidn't even know paid accounts are a thing at Wikipedia! Wow...
- geezerjay 7y agoWikipedia is routinely manipulated to promote corporations and individuals. It's no surprise that some of the people engaged in this sort of practice are paid to work exclusively. In fact, I peronally know a case where congress promoters had among their marketing strategy creating and maintaining wikipedia pages that helped them promote their event.
- Piskvorrr 7y agoThe name is rather unfortunate, even misleading - there is not a paid account in the sense "you pay Wikipedia to get perks"; rather "a third-party company pays you to edit Wikipedia in their favour".
- pergadad 7y ago
- vr46 7y agoLet’s also talk about how terrible their clothes are, from material to construction, and mainly exist as some kind of pyramid sandwich-board scheme to sell more clothes rather than protect wearers from the elements.
- village-idiot 7y agoNorth face is two companies under one logo. One is a hardcore mountaineering company, who makes equipment where the owner dies if it fails. Their tents and sleeping bags can be found in the most inhospitable places on earth, including Everest. The other makes fleece for college students.
- orliesaurus 7y agoFunny that now someone can update the North Face wiki entry with the "Wikipedia Incident" paragraph...hahahah death by a thousand cuts? Edit: lol already live [1][2] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-of-interest_editing_on_Wikipedia#The_North_Face https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-of-interest_editing... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_North_Face#Controversies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_North_Face#Controversies
- village-idiot 7y agoIt turns out that Wikipedia is a really bad organization to piss off.
- ignoranceprior 7y agoHere you can see some of the images they uploaded: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:The_North_Face_Wikipedia_advertising_campaign https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:The_North_Face_W... There are at least two ongoing community discussions about the incident: - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_uploaded_by_User:Fhpatucci https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#User_Gmortaia_vandalizing_pages_with_guerrilla_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_no...
- the_north_face 7y agoBut why wouldn't you want to look at such nice photos?
- iso-8859-1 7y agoThis account made the edit removing the image in the Wikimedia Foundation blog post: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Adamjonnes80 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Adamjonn...
- chaostheory 7y agoMost of the pictures are fine i.e. you can't really see the North Face logos. A few of them though are just really terrible and don't belong on Wikipedia.
- ignoranceprior 7y agoA few of the images don't even contain the logo at all (AFAICT). Maybe those were uploaded as distractions so it didn't look like a single-purpose advertising account.
- RobLach 7y agoThat’s exactly it
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- busymom0 7y agoI am really curious why would they even try this type of stunt? Like what were they trying to prove?
- EForEndeavour 7y agoFree advertising, not just for The North Face, but for the ad agency, Leo Burnett Tailor Made, who I'd never heard of before. I hate them both now, but the fact remains that they've forced their names into my awareness, and that alone will attract work from large, out-of-touch companies.
- ngngngng 7y agoWikimedia is right. We should be angry. And I am. I'll never buy anything North Face as a result of this.
- chungy 7y agoThe saddest part is that their photos could have easily just been used in an innocuous ad campaign, showing wonderful photos and making sure their products are in it. Manipulating Wikipedia for the goal, is the opposite of wonderful, it is distasteful. :/
- rsweeney21 7y agoThis has to be one of the worst marketing ideas ever conceived of. What consumer, in their right mind, would admire their efforts to put their brand on wikimedia images? This is exactly how you should not do marketing.
- Piskvorrr 7y agoUnless...unless this is a meta-advertisement - I would imagine this intent: "Look, everybody is talking about our agency, see how good we are? [Never mind that we achieved this by vandalizing Wikipedia and by making our client look bad]"
- codedokode 7y agoThis is just vandalism. It is like painting your ad illegally on the walls of buildings and boasting that you invented a "smart trick" to get your ad placed for free.
- bjourne 7y agoMaybe Wikimedia will lambaste the Israeli Ministry of Foreign and Strategic Affairs for also "defacing" Wikipedia? That is, "unethically manipulating" (Wikimedia's words) the site to provide a Zionist friendly narrative of the conflict with the Palestinians. https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-partisans-work-censor-internet/ https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-partisans-work-censor... Of course this wont happen since the site's founder Jimmy Wales recently won a $1 million Israeli prize and is not a neutral voice himself. https://mondoweiss.net/2018/08/wikipedia-suggests-antisemite/ https://mondoweiss.net/2018/08/wikipedia-suggests-antisemite... State actors and corporations have been infiltrating Wikipedia for ages. That Wikimedia pretends it doesn't happen and that this The North Face incident was unheard of is just dumbfounding. Paid editing is everywhere on Wikipedia, believing otherwise is very naive. https://wikipedia.fivefilters.org/agenda.html https://wikipedia.fivefilters.org/agenda.html
- smsm42 7y agoOf course, we can't discuss North Face behavior without getting to the topic of The Joos and their attempts to take over the world with their dirty money. And of course since Israel recognized the achievement of Wales - who btw has zero control over Wikipedia content - he is forever tainted and everything he does is now part of the Jooish Conspiracy. Shameful. > Paid editing is everywhere on Wikipedia, believing otherwise is very naive If you spent about 10 minutes researching the topic, you'd know Wikipedia community knows that, and has specific disclosure rules, templates and requirements for acknowledging and disclosing paid editing and conflict of interest. Nobody pretends it does not exist. Undisclosed paid editing (known in Wikipedia community as UPE - use this to look it up) is what is prohibited and would get one banned.
- bjourne 7y agoYup, I think state-sponsored editing of Wikipedia is shameful. "In 2008 the pro-Israel activist group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) launched a campaign to alter Wikipedia articles to support the Israeli side of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The campaign suggested that pro-Israeli editors should pretend to be interested in other topics until elected as administrators. Once administrators they were to misuse their administrative powers to suppress pro-Palestinian editors and support pro-Israel editors.[59] Some members of this conspiracy were banned by Wikipedia administrators.[60] In 2010 two pro-settler Israeli groups, Yesha Council and Israel Sheli, launched courses to instruct pro-Israel editors on how to use Wikipedia to promote Israel's point of view. A prize was to be given to the editor who inserted the most pro-Israel changes.[61]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-of-interest_editing_on_Wikipedia#Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-of-interest_editing_o... "“Students work in four teams: Content, Wikipedia, Monitoring and New Media,” according to the program description. It details the responsibilities for each team: The content team is responsible for creating original content in a news format. The monitoring team is responsible for “monitoring efforts while reporting and removing anti-Semitic [sic] content from social networks in a variety of languages.” (The program conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism; see below.) The New Media team is responsible for social media channels, “including Facebook accounts in English, French and Portuguese, Twitter, YouTube channels, and so on.” The Wikipedia team is “responsible for writing new entries and translating them into languages that operate in the program, updating the values of current and relevant information, tracking and preventing bias in the program’s areas of activity.”" https://mediareviewnet.com/2018/03/how-israel-and-its-partisans-work-to-censor-the-internet/ https://mediareviewnet.com/2018/03/how-israel-and-its-partis... Can't this be discussed without you invoking antisemitic tropes? If you think these efforts have ceased because they happened a long time ago, then I have a bridge to sell you. The only thing that has changed is that they have become more covert. Possibly other state-sponsored actors have also infiltrated Wikipedia so it is not just about Israel.
- erikpukinskis 7y agoI’m obviously not in line with the tenor of this thread, but I really don’t think it’s a big deal. People make edits. Other people revert them. The outrage here seems silly. “Defacing” is hyperbole. I remember when Hacker News was politically against the idea that Terms of Service were in any way binding.
- hnzix 7y agoI'm going to spraypaint my corporate logo on the local community center. The volunteers that work there will remove it. The outrage here seems silly!
- erikpukinskis 7y agoSpray painting is another thing people get very upset about which I don’t think is a big deal.
- smsm42 7y agoHave you ever owned a house? Would you be ok with everybody drawing on it whatever they'd like, including things you personally hate?
- erikpukinskis 7y agoProbably yes, if I lived in a dense city it would fine. I can’t imagine what someone would paint that would be so bad. If I really disliked it I could paint over it. Who is the homeowner in the Wikipedia analogy though?
- smsm42 7y ago> I can’t imagine what someone would paint that would be so bad. You are either exceptionally tolerant, or have rather restricted imagination. > Who is the homeowner in the Wikipedia analogy though? The community of Wikipedia editors.
- 7y ago
- JaceLightning 7y agoWhat about the South face-defacing Wikipedia?
- DanBC 7y agoDoes North Face understand the image licencing here? I can take every single one of their photos and caption it "North Face sucks, buy Patagonia" or whatever I like, and then republish it, and NF can't do anything about it so long as I give attribution.
- thrillgore 7y agoThe North Face has a storied history of abusing every law or process in the books to "defend" its brand, and this is just a continuation of it. They also make utter crap for consumers. I've been happier with Arcteryx or REI's own brand of apparel.