Five years ago, Wikipedia would not allow PR people to edit or change anything on the site because they found too many of our peers were editing things to be company-friendly and full of controlled messages.

So they banned us.

More recently they changed the rules to allow us back on, with the policy around conflict of interest pretty darn clear:

• All users must disclose their conflict of interest, not edit from anonymous accounts with fake identities.
• You may use one account per person.
• You must allow the community to edit your work.
• Maintain a hands-off policy on controversial content.

And then along came Bell Pottinger, a PR firm with offices in the U.S. and the U.K.  (more…)