Wikipedia Compliance Protocols: How Legitimate Agencies Work

What does WP:PAID require?

WP:PAID requires anyone paid to edit Wikipedia to disclose employer, client and affiliation. It is the English-Wikipedia application of the Wikimedia Terms of Use, and the rule in WP:PAID covers an employee editing their own company's page, a freelancer and an agency.

The Terms of Use accept disclosure on the editor's user page, on the article's talk page or in the edit summary. Good practice uses more than one, so a reviewer can find it in a minute. The separate guideline WP:COI treats a paid relationship as a conflict of interest, meaning a connection that could pull an editor toward the subject's interests rather than neutrality. Disclosure does not remove the conflict. It makes it visible so volunteers can weigh the contribution. Our two companion guides cover the detail: WP:COI explained and paid editing and disclosure.

How does the talk-page request process work?

For an existing article, a disclosed editor with a COI proposes the change on the talk page and an independent editor decides whether to make it. Direct edits to the live page are the exception, not the method.

1. Disclose on the talk page. State the paid relationship and the specific change proposed, with sources.
2. Add the edit-request template ({{edit COI}} or {{request edit}}). It places the request in a queue that volunteers monitor.
3. Wait for review. A volunteer judges sourcing and neutrality. Depending on how active the page's watchers are, this takes days or weeks.
4. Implementation by someone else. If accepted, an independent editor makes the edit. That separation between advocacy and article text is the point of the process.

An agency that goes straight to editing a client's article is not following this route, whatever its marketing says about "compliance".

What is AfC and why does it matter for new pages?

Articles for Creation (AfC) is the review queue where an independent reviewer approves or declines a draft before it goes live. Wikipedia asks editors with a COI to use it for new pages, and it is how disclosed paid work reaches the encyclopedia.

The reviewer checks the draft against WP:NCORP, the notability standard for companies and organisations (independent, in-depth, reliable secondary coverage), and the General Notability Guideline. AfC does not promise acceptance: a weak source base gets declined. A page that skips review is more exposed to speedy deletion or an Articles for Deletion (AfD) discussion later, which is a community debate about whether the topic belongs at all. That is why a credible provider checks sources before writing; if they cannot clear WP:NCORP, no prose fixes that. For the history of how this layer developed, see the history of paid editing.

Why is "guaranteed approval" a red flag?

Because Wikipedia articles are approved or declined by unpaid volunteers who have no contract with any agency and no duty to accept anything. No vendor can guarantee that outcome, and WikiBusines never does.

A "100% approval rate" claim either presents a historical average as a promise, or signals that the vendor is not using the reviewed process, which has real rejection points built in. The honest framing is an assessment of source quality plus a defended process if the page is later challenged. Paying for disclosed editing is legal; paying for hidden editing or a promised outcome runs into policy violations and, in documented cases, fraud. The legal side is in is paying for a Wikipedia page legal?.

What does non-compliance look like in practice?

It looks like a network of accounts that never declares payment. The Wikipedia Signpost, the community newspaper, has published investigations of such networks, and administrators with checkuser tools can link accounts; one identified account usually exposes others, with results posted in public sockpuppet investigations. The consequences are blocked accounts, tagged or deleted articles and, for the client, a case file that search engines can index. A representative who tells a client "there will be no mention that it is a paid article" is describing a direct violation of WP:PAID. The cost of choosing "guaranteed" over "disclosed" is paid by the client.

The 7-point compliance checklist

Before hiring any provider, check these seven items; most take under ten minutes.

1. Public disclosure statement. The provider states on its own site that it discloses paid status under WP:PAID and the Terms of Use, not just "we follow guidelines".
2. Talk-page process. It describes edit requests rather than direct edits when a COI exists.
3. Disclosed accounts. The usernames doing the work are identifiable on-wiki as paid and COI-disclosed. The Terms of Use also expect accounts to be named in any public advertisement of paid services.
4. No outcome guarantees. No "100% approval", "guaranteed approval" or "guaranteed AI answers".
5. Notability check before commitment. It assesses sourcing against WP:NCORP first and will say no when sources are thin.
6. Written refund terms. What happens if a page is deleted after publication is documented, not a vague "money-back guarantee".
7. Verifiable company identity. A registered business, named people and an address, not a cluster of interchangeable domains.

Ask for the user-page URL of the editor who will work on your article and look at it yourself.

How does a compliance-first project run?

It runs in four steps, and the independent review in step three is outside the provider's control by design.

1. Notability and source audit. Sources are checked against WP:NCORP before drafting. If the base is thin, the right advice is to build independent coverage first.
2. Disclosed drafting. The draft is written to neutral-tone standards, every claim backed by an independent secondary source, and submitted through AfC.
3. Independent review. The AfC reviewer approves, declines or asks for revisions.
4. Post-publication monitoring. WikiBusines provides 90 days of monitoring and guarantee after publication, with Wikipedia monitoring behind it. If a published page cannot be defended after 3 attempts within that 90-day window, we refund 80%. Terms are published on the guarantees page.

How WikiBusines helps

Paid editing on every WikiBusines project is disclosed on Wikipedia in WikiBusines' name, and we decline work that depends on hiding the relationship. What we offer:

• Notability audit, from €490, credited toward the page if ordered within one month: whether your independent sources would support an article.
• Page creation, from €2,400 for English, 4 to 5 weeks, with 90 days of monitoring and guarantee after publication. Changes to existing pages are €700 to €1,900.
• Annual support, from €720 per year, up to four updates with a 12-month guarantee.

We never guarantee that an article will be published. Start with the free 10-minute assessment: contact us. If the case is unclear, we offer the paid notability audit from €490, credited toward the page if you order it within one month.