User talk:AG at OnlyFans/OnlyFans draft

Notes on changes in the draft

Hello editors, about a year ago Bilorv posed a question about the organization of the article. I agreed then that it could be stronger and have finally been able to put together an alternate version that I think flows much better.

For the most part, I've retained the meaning of the content and sentence structure where I could. I also made a diff so editors can easily compare my version to the old version. Broadly throughout the article, I've converted it to British grammar the whole way through since OnlyFans is a British company. Of note, in order to post the draft I also had to remove the links to onlyfans.com in the infobox and External links section as Wikipedia has blocked links to OnlyFans.

Here's a rundown of the changes I've made in each section:

Infobox

• I changed the infobox template to Infobox company. I think at this point that is more appropriate than Infobox website, as the article discusses more than just the website itself.
• As Infobox company has some other fields in it, I updated those accordingly, including Type (privately held), Key people (supercedes old CEO field), Area served (global), Services (adding OFTV), Genre (listed as video on demand), Founding location (London), Number of employees (~1,000), HQ country (United Kingdom), changed Industry from "tech" to "Internet" and "video hosting service", removed the month the company was founded as that is not stated in reliable sources, and tweaked the caption for the login page screenshot.

Introduction

• I combined the first two paragraphs, attempting to streamline how that information is presented without losing the general meaning
• I updated the current subscriber numbers
• I removed the paragraph about the criticism of how OnlyFans has handled CSAM. I don't feel that is an accurate representation of what sources actually say about the subject and I don't think it really meets the spirit of MOS:LEAD, particularly where MOS:LEAD says:
  • As in the body of the article itself, the emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources.
• However, I understand that this is a bold move and so welcome other thoughts on the topic. Happy to discuss this further

Company overview

• I created this section after seeing similar sections in other company articles
• I collected relevant information about the current leadership of OnlyFans, its revenue and user numbers, and other similar operational details here
• All of this information is already in the article
• Of note, information about Leonid Radvinsky's dividends would probably go here. I removed this sentence entirely from this draft, as I don't think it is encyclopedic content. I did this with the earnings of a few creators as well. Happy to discuss this point further as well!
• I also moved the content from the current Demographics section here

History/Founding and early years

• I've reworded the opening sentence to be more concise
• I've removed some incorrect information about the founding – Tim Stokely was the sole founder
• I've removed the quote from Guy Stokely. I did not feel that quote aided in reader understanding of OnlyFans and was not encyclopedic
• I cut the roles of Guy and Thomas Stokely, as that also felt like another case of WP:NOTEVERYTHING
• I removed the "Ukrainian-American" descriptor of Radvinsky here, as that seemed unnecessary given Radvinsky has his own Wikipedia page in keeping with the summary style guideline
• I removed the quote about "being a hive of pornography" as that did not seem to meet neutral point of view guidelines to me
• I moved content about Australian wildfire fundraising and an alleged hack from the Criticism section to this section as well
  • Moving the hack information here was based on my reading of the Criticism section essay
  • Moving the fundraising and hack information here made the most sense to me chronologically
  • I also tweaked the sentence about the wildfire fundraising slightly to ensure it accurately reflects what was written in the cited sources

History/Growth

• I paraphrased an unnecessary mini-quotation in the opening sentence and further tied growth to the pandemic as is discussed in the cited sources
• Added a statistic to demonstrate the increase in growth with something more tangible
• Updated statistic from Stokely to accurately reflect what was published in the cited source
• Removed the mention of Demon Time partnership because I wasn't sure the Complex article met reliable sourcing guidelines
• Moved information about VAT here from Criticism per WP:NOCRIT and rewrote that content to better reflect what was written in the cited source and ensure it was neutral in tone
• Added a timestamp to 85 million user benchmark
• Moved information about Cardi B and Bella Thorne lower and tied it to other celebrities joining the platform
• Trimmed content on Bella Thorne joining the platform and reworded the response to Thorne joining the platform to more accurately reflect what was stated in the cited source
• Moved content about Bhad Bhabie immediately after content about Thorne
  • I retained the content about criticism of her subscribers given her youth at the time (rewording it slightly to flow a bit better), but I wonder if that's appropriate for the OnlyFans article? That seems more relevant to the Bhad Bhabie article, but I'll defer to the thoughts of other editors here

History/Content diversification

• I added this subsection as a response to Bilorv suggesting a section on SFW initiatives
• I moved March 2021 subscriber information, the OFTV launch, Creative Fund, Sims family, and Whitney Cummings content, changing some verb tenses slightly to reflect production of shows from those deals happening
• Moved content about the planned porn ban here and summarized it now that the news about it has settled and we know the end result
  • I removed the bit about Fansly as MEL Magazine isn't considered a reliable source and the content is not actually relevant to OnlyFans
  • I also tweaked some of the wording here to make it clear the cause of the planned ban and removed the reporting on the early speculation as that no longer felt necessary to me based on WP:SUMMARY STYLE and WP:NOTEVERYTHING
  • Moving this here also supports the move toward WP:NOCRIT
• Moved content about Amrapali Gan taking over as CEO here
• Moved content about the challenges of paying creators in Belarus and Russia here per WP:NOCRIT and removed the last sentence in that section, as the pause was resolved quickly. I'm open to further discussion on this point!
• Moved content about OnlyFans being named a co-defendant in a lawsuit here and trimmed it slightly per WP:NOCRIT. Also added a sentence here about the case being dismissed.

Criticism

• I've removed this section entirely and distributed its content around the article in what I believe to be the most appropriate places
• The exception to this is the removal of the content cited to Forensic News. I don't believe this outlet meets the guidelines for a reliable source and could not find what it reported on anywhere else. The second sentence is also not about OnlyFans

Safety

• I created this section to collect all the information about user and creator safety in one place
• I moved content from the Concerns about child sexual abuse material subsection here
• I condensed some of the material about the BBC reporting here to try to make the content more neutral and ensure due weight was being placed on it, but I'm happy to have further discussions on this point
• I removed the content about the number of instances, and replaced it with more specifics from the transparency report and reported on by Gizmodo
  • I think this makes it clearer what OnlyFans was doing with regard to creator and child safety, but as always I'm open to further discussion!
• I moved the content about the age verification process here, and added further content about its reported effectiveness
• Changed wording of how OnlyFans works with exploitation agencies and added content about OnlyFans being praised by Ofcom and its partnership with StopNCII.org

Creators

• This is another new section. Rather than have many proseline sentences like, "In (year), (notable person) joined OnlyFans," I thought it would be better to include a short list here.
• Would editors be interested in a separate list of notable creators? I could try to put something together if so

Recognition

• This is another new section and its based on other company articles I've seen
• Here I've just collected some of the awards OnlyFans has received over the years in a way I hope is neutral

See also

• I replaced Pornhub with GoFundMe as I think that is a more relevant connection to OnlyFans than Pornhub

References

• Throughout the article, I have revisited every source, reworking all sources to ensure links work and the date format is correct
• I have also removed approximately 40 extraneous and/or unreliable sources

Well, that's a lot! This was a big undertaking and there is a lot here. I'm happy to discuss any of these points further. Thanks for reading! AG at OnlyFans (talk) 18:20, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

This has taken me a few days to get to because I knew it would take me a couple of hours and it's unpaid labour on the basis of a company's PR team.

I have gone through every paragraph of this draft and compared it to the content it is based on in the current version of the article. In almost every case I preferred the current version over the draft. I find the draft to have serious neutrality issues in diminishing associations with sex work, criticisms about CSAM and anything that could cast a bad light on the company. As one of many examples, compare:

OnlyFans was founded in 2016 by Tim Stokely as a means for creators to monetize content on their social media feeds. (draft summary)

Soon after [working for the soft-care site GlamGirls], Mr. Stokely founded a site called Customs4U, which Ms. Harwood said, lightheartedly ... was like OnlyFans in beta ... The pitch was to offer horny guys the ability to become their own directors, ordering specially made videos from their favorite models ... Then Mr. Stokely had his light bulb moment: Why not find a way for influencers to directly monetize their content. (New York Times source)

The removal of half of the reference list is not desirable; I think the vast majority of initial sources are generally reliable and will not be removing them.

Such is the issue with this draft that I have not been able to implement much of its prose directly; instead I have used it as an initial basis on which to restructure the article. I think this restructure (while still leaving room for improvement) manages to sort content by theme and improve navigability and readability.

Unfortunately the way in which I have made these changes may leave poorly formatted references and American English in the article.

I have read through each bullet point and can respond in detail to a small number if any of my responses are not clear from the changes I have made to the article, but responding to each would be very time-consuming. — Bilorv (talk) 22:35, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

@Bilorv: Thank you so much for taking the time to review this! I think many of the changes you made make perfect sense. I'm going to take a little time to review the changes you made and I may be back with some questions. Thanks again! AG at OnlyFans (talk) 22:13, 11 September 2023 (UTC)