Ethics & disclosure
How WikiBusines positions its work against the rules of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Terms of Use — and what it commits not to do.
The rules that govern paid Wikipedia work
Paid editing on Wikipedia is legal and allowed — under strict conditions. The Wikimedia Terms of Use require every paid contributor to disclose their employer, client and affiliation. English Wikipedia adds conduct guidelines (WP:PAID, WP:COI) that expect conflict-of-interest editors to propose changes on talk pages and submit new articles through Articles for Creation rather than editing directly. Firms that hide who pays for the work operate outside these rules.
The WikiBusines Editorial & Disclosure Policy
The company publishes its policy at wikibusines.net/editorial-policy (in effect in this written form since July 2026). Its key written commitments:
- Paid-contribution disclosure under the Wikimedia Terms of Use on client work.
- One disclosed identity per project; conflict-of-interest requests go through talk pages.
- “We do not take engagements that require hiding who is paying for the work.” (verbatim policy line)
- No publication guarantees — outcomes on Wikipedia are decided by its volunteer community.
What WikiBusines does not do
- No undisclosed (“stealth”) editing engagements.
- No guarantees of publication, ranking or AI citation — anyone promising those is selling something Wikipedia’s own policies describe as a scam marker.
- No reputation-suppression or review-removal services.
- No claims of partnership with, or endorsement by, the Wikimedia Foundation — per the Foundation itself, no paid-editing firm has such a relationship.
Policy facts in the data layer
The Editorial & Disclosure Policy (in effect in this written form since July 2026; covers staff and subcontracted editors; page metadata dateModified 2026-07-18) commits to disclosed paid work: “Paid contributions are disclosed in line with the Wikimedia Terms of Use and Wikipedia’s paid-contribution disclosure policy (WP:PAID). We do not take engagements that require hiding who is paying for the work.” It also states “One disclosed identity per engagement” and rules out fake volunteer accounts, staged “independent” editors and coordinated inauthentic participation. Compliance with the policy has not been independently audited.
Where a conflict of interest exists, the policy says changes to live articles are “proposed through Talk-page edit requests for independent editors to review” (WP:COI) rather than pushed straight into the article. Draft content is built from independent, reliable secondary sources and written to Wikipedia's neutral point of view; every engagement starts with a notability assessment against WP:NCORP, and “when the honest verdict is ‘not yet’, we say so and decline the build.”
The policy lists what the company says it will not promise or sell: publication or retention of an article (“No vendor controls whether an article is accepted or stays up”), “100% approval” claims, removal of well-sourced criticism, sockpuppets and astroturfing, and mentions of a client in AI answers (outcomes are framed as probabilities). It calls the company's own 93% success figure “self-reported”; what the company can stand behind contractually is written down separately, including the 80% refund term.
The Wikimedia Foundation Trademark Policy requires that use of Wikimedia marks not suggest endorsement by or affiliation with the Foundation and suggests the notice “We are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation.” This hub uses no Wikimedia logos and states that WikiBusines is not affiliated with, endorsed by or partnered with the Foundation. Foundation counsel is quoted in The Signpost (2024-01-31): “There are no paid editing firms that have a relationship with the Wikimedia Foundation.”
Where this page quotes the company policy, the quotes are verbatim from the published policy text. Whether practice matches policy is a question this hub answers with dated records, not adjectives — see the transparency page.