Hugh Pickens writes "The Register reports that a longtime Wikipedia admin has been caught offering to edit the online encyclopedia in exchange for cash. Someone noticed a post to an online job marketplace where he was advertising his services: 'Besides technical writing, I also am an accomplished senior Wikipedia administrator with several featured articles to my name,' read the post, which has since been changed. 'If you need a good profile on Wikipedia, I can help you out there too through my rich experience.' Wikipedia promptly opened a discussion page to try to reach consensus on the community view of 'paid editing.' So far opinion seems to be divided between those who say it's ok as long as full disclosure is made and 'edits are compliant with WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:BLP, WP:N,' and others who believe that paid editing automatically creates a conflict of interest. Back in 2006, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales shot down a company known as MyWikiBiz, which promised that you could 'author your legacy on the Internet.' The company subsequently had to reinvent itself with no reference to Wikipedia. 'It is not ok with me that anyone ever set up a service selling their services as a Wikipedia editor, administrator, bureaucrat, etc., I will personally block any cases that I am shown,' wrote Wales."
The problem is, you can't argue for market forces when the market is against it. Its like trying to market ham at a kosher deli, they aren't going to want it, and no matter how many times you want to "let the free market decide" they simply don't want it. Same with Wikipedia, the market (Wikipedia) is opposed to paid editing of articles.
Can we pay the Wikipedia editors to stop editing articles? Having some moron keep changing verifiable factual information back to something that's flat out wrong over and over gets really tiresome after several years. IMO half those people shouldn't be allowed near the thing.
There is an interesting topic on how one "leading Wikipedia" David Shankbone Miller got paid by the Israeli government and given all sorts of professional advantages, such as introductions famous authors and Shimon Peres, in an attempt to curry favor with the Wikipedia camp.
Just like Wikipedia discourages people to make edits of a person's own article for themselves, this should also be discouraged. Once you receive money for edits you've made, you're no longer an uninterested third party and have a biased voice. There's no way to enforce this so Wikipedia will have to just continue accepting/rejecting edits based inherently on the edit and what bias it itself may hold.
How many people would support The Church of Scientology paying people to edit and publish stories on Wikipedia?
It's that sort of reasoning that gets us ridiculous laws regarding child porn (like kids sexting eachother being charged as sex offenders). If you imagine the worst possible scum when making laws, you get stupidly over-broad laws.
If a person is skilled at writing, it seems reasonable for that person to make a living at writing. It seems that there is a huge bias against people making a living, although we do celebrate the super-rich.
Of course, if the guy who owns the site makes paid copy against the rules, that's his prerogative because its his site. But this isn't a moral issue -- it's an ownership issue.
How many stupid things did you do as a teenager? I mean little meaningless things -- imagine your life if you got busted for one of the frequent lapses in intelligence that plague teenagers, but instead of some slap on the wrist commensurate with the misdeed, you had to walk around the rest of your life with the equivalent of a scarlet letter, shunned, unable to get good work, and reviled by everyone who assume because of that scarlet letter, that you did something really really nasty. That's an utterly random result that makes people disrespect the law and start thinking revolutionary or counter-cultural ideas. It is in no way an actual deterrent and serves instead to undermine government. If we had a law that said the police can shoot dead every 10th speeder they catch, it might be a deterrent. Enough laws like that though, and you can expect violent resistance.
We all have to deal with the things we did when we are young all our lives, unless we move outside of the area that knows about it (possibly including leaving the country if we committed a felony and were tried as an adult, which is JUST WRONG... err, sorry for the diversion. Don't worry, I don't have any felonies on my record at any age.) Once upon a time you'd grow up and die in the same village, at least now you can move out of town. You know the joke, right? "You see that bridge over there? I built that
Charging children with crimes like these is outrageous. That would be like charging them with copyright violations and slapping them with huge fines for downloading music they did not pay for. Oh, wait...
How about the fact that the age of consent is below 18 in most states, meaning that while it's legal for teenagers to engage in all sorts of sexual activity, a girl taking a picture in her underwear can land her in prison for 10 years with a permanent registration as a danger to children?
If you don't see anything wrong with that, you need your vision checked.
If it complies with all the rules, then even with the CoS behind the guy, I have no issues. It's when it doesn't comply with the rules that I have issues with it.
Do you really believe that a company would hire a Wikipedia admin to wedge an article about said company onto Wikipedia because said company was looking for a NEUTRAL point of view?
Is that because there just aren't enough decent writers out there? Or that those other decent writers want way too much money?
Or is it because those companies believe that an admin would have the best chance of getting a biased story posted?
I honestly don't believe that any contributor posts with a neutral point of view actually. That a person gets paid, just makes their biases more obvious. However, again, it ultimately comes down to whether he's obeying the rules or not, not his lack of neutrality.
I honestly don't believe that any contributor posts with a neutral point of view actually.
A NPOV is the author trying to present information in the best interests of the typical reader. The author is human, has incomplete information and so cannot be completely unbiased but nonetheless they make a best effort.
That a person gets paid, just makes their biases more obvious.
A non-NPOV is the author trying to present information in the best interests of the writer. They are trying to manipulate the reader into making irrational judgments based on incomplete and biased information in favour of the writer, not the reader. The author is not making a best effort for the reader at all.
I know which I'd prefer.
---
An unobtrusive ad is a non-functional ad. It is a non-sustainable business model.
The point of wikipedia is that, as anyone can edit it, the non-neutral point of view is easily fixed by.
On the other hand, if you buy an editor, which is someone who has the power to block edits and has the power of perceived authority given by the common user of wikipedia. That means that if some organization pays an editor to edit someone, that organization is counting on the power granted to that editor to make their piece of propaganda be edit-proof by any common user who sees through the bullshit and takes it upon himself to fix that crap. After all, those organizations are only starting to talk about paying off editors after their less expensive paid astroturfers stopped being efficient.
How many people would support paying history gradschool students to work on WikiProject: Russian History [wikipedia.org]?
It's perfectly possible to be unbiased and paid for your work. I don't see why they need a new policy to deal with this - their regular NPOV policies are fine.
The facts still have to check out. It's just the slant of the article. Choice of words when describing stuff, etc.
But I've never found Wikipedia to be that unbiased, especially when it comes to topics that are still debated.
Ex: It may report a hardware device as vaporware, and state that the company creating it has a cult following that aggressively promote the devices, despite there being no evidence the device will ever exist.
Then once the device is released, it gets updated to a different slant.
Any person with substantial knowledge on a topic, particularly one that isn't well known, is bound to have bias in some form. Unless the thing is a spec sheet, expect bias somewhere. Its simply human nature. For example, if the device was simply vaporware, many people will think it undeserving of an article, on the other hand if there is a strong following for the device, well, perhaps it warrants a second look. Especially on Wikipedia where policy seems to be "delete all content".
Wikipedia has grown to be the biggest encyclopedia in the world without paying anybody. I don't see why they should start now. We all contribute to Wikipedia and expect nothing in return. That's how we pay for the articles - with our kindness.
That's not quite how corporations pay for their articles.
Oh sure, that's who I'm talking about. People paid to manipulate wikipedia in the interest of a corporation./sarcasm
I'm talking about the average wikinerd, who spends his or her spare time compiling huge lists, writing articles on even the most obscure relics from pop culture, and editing every little misspelling and fuck-you they see. The ones with user pages littered with barnstars and embarrassing userboxes detailing their interest in siberian huskies and stamp collecting. Your meat and potatoes wikipedian. They don't do it for money. They do it for the love of wikipedia. They are fucking hardcore!
Copyright. Yeah. That would work. You could keep other people from diluting your work by using the protection afforded by copyright laws. That would be great. Thank goodness that we have copyright! That way, people who want to protect the integrity of their work have the legal authority to do so!
Copyright. Yeah. That would work. You could keep other people from diluting your work by using the protection afforded by copyright laws. That would be great. Thank goodness that we have copyright! That way, people who want to protect the integrity of their work have the legal authority to do so!
You mean do copyright right? Rather than copyright-as-an-anti-distribution tool?
Somehow, I think it's true; more and more people understand that you can use Wikipedia at the same time as questioning it. Many people have learned how to question all media (the problems of Wikipedia are the same as those of traditional media, just more obvious). At the same time there's a whole load of anti-wikipedia people who just wanted to destroy. That doesn't seem to have happened.
Youtubes demise? Deleting full episodes, editing comments, deleting controversial videos and muting personal videos.
Wikipedia? Going from a user generated non bias global collaborative encyclopedia to just an encyclopedia.
Once these companies get big enough, the always revert back to standard business models. This however is always completely against what made them so good to begin with, youtube became famous for the very content they now destroy, and pay people to seek out.
Brittanica pays its editors and authors after all. I think if you pay someone to edit articles, it ought to be fine, as long as they are about subjects in which you have no vested interest. Ethically, there wouldn't be a problem there, although there might be some technical issues in actually making sure that that is the case.
I mean, if someone's a good writer/researcher, and someone else wants to sponsor them (pay their bills so they can concentrate on writing/researching), what would be wrong with that?
True but the issue under discussion is precisely having outsider sources pay to write articles. In the vast majority of cases it is companies (the examples given by Ha!) it is companies paying to have articles about themselves or individuals paying to have articles about themselves. Paying in a completely uninterested fashion would not create the same problems. However, it would create other problems completely unrelated. As Lessig discusses in his book Remix, people are often willing to volunteer when no o
Brittanica pays their editors, HOWEVER, Brittanica is a neutral party, so their payment doesn't bias the editor.
There might not be an article in Brittanica about Brittanica itself. However, if there is, you could expect it to be biased in Brittanica's favor, since the editors are paid by Brittanica, they are naturally encouraged to portray their source of $$$ in a positive light, when writing the article.
Microsoft doesn't personally pay the Brittanica editor that rights the article about their compa
Paid editing in inevitable. If you think companies, celebrities, etc aren't having employees routinely edit articles relevant to them you're dreaming. And wikipedia allows anonymous edits. Therefore, it doesn't really matter if it is or isn't allowed. The only question is whether the edits are good contributions or not.
I think there are two types of paid editors, one as an image improver, the other as writing good articles. For example, an "image improver" would be one who goes to a company's page and changes earning reports to make the company seem profitable. Or someone who carefully edits information on the latest politician involved in a scandal. Those type of things should be expressly banned. On the other hand there are some who can focus on writing good articles. For example, an author of, say a band might hire som
Seems to me that if a paid writer edited a page and it conformed to community standards (notariety, neutral POV, sourced, etc.), there wouldn't be a problem. If the writing didn't conform, then it would get rejected by the community, and the writer would likely not get paid. (And if someone wants to pay somebody to make rejected edits to Wikipedia, that's called a fiscal stimulus.)
There are plenty of ways to have a vested interest besides being directly paid, and Wikipedians have been very successful in
Wikipedia has a reward board [wikipedia.org] where people can offer cash or other rewards for articles to be created or (usually) improved to a certain standard. There is also a bounty board [wikipedia.org] to offer donations to the Wikimedia Foundation for similar tasks.
I have personally given $300 to individuals who have worked to raise furry articles [wikipedia.org] to good article status [wikipedia.org]. I see nothing wrong with this. A good article must, by definition [wikipedia.org], be neutral, and if it is not on a notable subject, it is very unlikely to achieve the status. Frankly, given the amount of skill and effort it takes to meet the requirements (I've done it myself, I know how tough it is), $50 an article is cheap.
I have personally given $300 to individuals who have worked to raise furry articles [wikipedia.org] to good article status [wikipedia.org]. I see nothing wrong with this.
Saying that you have a problem with it does nothing for me; someone, without an opinion on the topic, willing to consider both sides of the argument. Bring a bit of signal with that noise, will ya'?
Ever check out the favorite topics and edits of some of the popular wikipedia editors? They have their personal bias's already. Its been biased editing going on since day one. People can say it doesn't happen, but it does. It has a very large group of editors who think alike and push the rules towards their own beliefs and moderate accordingly. They already use the rules to ban or alter topics they have strong opinions about, even though this goes against the rules.
Anytime someone is paid for something there is a slanted "opinion". Pay me enough I'll tell you anything you want to hear, I'll slam any person, or business if the price is right. This is entirely contradictory to the spirit of a wiki.
When I am under contract with a person or corporation to write an article about said person or corporation, I have very, very, very little interest in presenting an "advocacy" position on behalf of that entity. Rather, success is measured in durability within Wikipedia, so my highest priority is...
How do I write (and publish) this article in such a way that it passes WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:RS, and all the other WP:things, while simultaneously NOT DRAWING THE ATTENTION of someone from the WikiHive intent on deleting paid promotional puff pieces?
Guess what? The articles that result are relatively bland, not puff pieces, quite encyclopedic, and (ever since I learned this technique) 100% durable within Wikipedia -- with surprisingly little follow-up maintenance, and likewise lasting appreciation of my clients.
This already happens and inevitably will become more common as Wikipedia's profile rises. WP might as well get out in front of it with policies that make it easier to police and verify.
Currently, PR firms who are hired by companies to raise their profile already add biased, poorly sourced puff pieces to Wikipedia. They are promptly shredded by the community and deleted in nine cases out of ten. They do, however, create a lot of work for Wikipedian volunteers, usually because the PR people in question know websites generally, but nothing about the rules and culture that govern Wikipedia. They also do not generally disclose up front that they have a business relationship with the company they're writing the article about.
There's an argument to be made that there's an advantage to replacing these PR firms with people who are already clued in to Wikipedia's culture and guidelines. They could communicate up front to a client what will and won't fly on WP, and the best way to add verifiable information about the company without running afoul of neutrality and verifiability guidelines. If all these paid editors do on behalf of their employer is add content and provide sources, as long as their work is in accord with policy I don't see a reason to care that they are getting paid.
There are freelance wackos and fanboys that attempt to sabotage or whitewash pages about companies and other institutions as it is. How are paid editors different? At least you could require them to declare their influences. Make stringent requirements about disclosure, and allow paid editors to edit and provide info in talk pages, but not to take any administrative actions on the pages they're paid to edit. Any violation results in a topic ban for that account.
...I suppose on what is really being paid for. Are you paying for someone to spin an article in your favor, or are you simply paying to make sure that the article is well done, well formatted, and grammatically correct. I see no objections to the latter, honestly.
This isn't about Wikipedia hiring editors, but rather companies or groups hiring editors for Wikipedia, sometimes in violation of policies. For example, if GM hired someone to change the article to make it have a positive spin on it.
This isn't about Wikipedia hiring editors, but rather companies or groups hiring editors for Wikipedia, sometimes in violation of policies.
It looks like the person in question has done exactly that. I can't link straight to the page but here is the author's profile [elance.com]. Click on "Web Content (9)". This will show reviews of his work. He was paid $125 for a project titled "Wikipedia submission for my new product [elance.com]". He even got a rating of 4.9 out of 5.0 for the work. He was paid $150 for another project t
Painting the hundreds of thousands of editors and millions of readers as "idiots" may be a little extreme. Some wikipedia pages provide an excellent reference. And especially where readers do not pay for the info that they receive I think we need to relax a bit. In terms of value wikipedia is one of the best deals on the Internet.
How much (Score:5, Funny)
for positive arguments on the consensus reaching page? I need a well-written, convincing opinion advocating in favor of market forces.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How much (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we pay the Wikipedia editors to stop editing articles? Having some moron keep changing verifiable factual information back to something that's flat out wrong over and over gets really tiresome after several years. IMO half those people shouldn't be allowed near the thing.
Parent
Re:How much (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
David Shankbone being paid by Israeli Government (Score:2, Interesting)
There is an interesting topic on how one "leading Wikipedia" David Shankbone Miller got paid by the Israeli government and given all sorts of professional advantages, such as introductions famous authors and Shimon Peres, in an attempt to curry favor with the Wikipedia camp.
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=24358
The big joke is what they got back were pictures of pissing goats and dimly lit gay clubs. Probably not the kid of PR Israel thought they were buying.
By all accounts, this guy had had m
No (Score:4, Insightful)
Good start. But let's boil it down. (Score:4, Interesting)
How many people would support The Church of Scientology paying people to edit and publish stories on Wikipedia?
Still not clear enough?
How many people would support The Church of Scientology paying a Wikipedia ADMIN to edit and publish stories on Wikipedia?
Parent
Re:Good start. But let's boil it down. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's that sort of reasoning that gets us ridiculous laws regarding child porn (like kids sexting eachother being charged as sex offenders). If you imagine the worst possible scum when making laws, you get stupidly over-broad laws.
If a person is skilled at writing, it seems reasonable for that person to make a living at writing. It seems that there is a huge bias against people making a living, although we do celebrate the super-rich.
Of course, if the guy who owns the site makes paid copy against the rules, that's his prerogative because its his site. But this isn't a moral issue -- it's an ownership issue.
Parent
Re:Good start. But let's boil it down. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Good start. But let's boil it down. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We all have to deal with the things we did when we are young all our lives, unless we move outside of the area that knows about it (possibly including leaving the country if we committed a felony and were tried as an adult, which is JUST WRONG... err, sorry for the diversion. Don't worry, I don't have any felonies on my record at any age.) Once upon a time you'd grow up and die in the same village, at least now you can move out of town. You know the joke, right? "You see that bridge over there? I built that
Re:Good start. But let's boil it down. (Score:5, Funny)
Charging children with crimes like these is outrageous. That would be like charging them with copyright violations and slapping them with huge fines for downloading music they did not pay for. Oh, wait...
InnerWeb
Parent
Re:Good start. But let's boil it down. (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the fact that the age of consent is below 18 in most states, meaning that while it's legal for teenagers to engage in all sorts of sexual activity, a girl taking a picture in her underwear can land her in prison for 10 years with a permanent registration as a danger to children?
If you don't see anything wrong with that, you need your vision checked.
Parent
Re:Good start. But let's boil it down. (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Yeah. (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you really believe that a company would hire a Wikipedia admin to wedge an article about said company onto Wikipedia because said company was looking for a NEUTRAL point of view?
Is that because there just aren't enough decent writers out there? Or that those other decent writers want way too much money?
Or is it because those companies believe that an admin would have the best chance of getting a biased story posted?
Parent
Re:Yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
well said, thank you (Score:3, Funny)
so i will send you the $50 we discussed previously via paypal now
Re:Yeah. (Score:5, Interesting)
I honestly don't believe that any contributor posts with a neutral point of view actually.
A NPOV is the author trying to present information in the best interests of the typical reader. The author is human, has incomplete information and so cannot be completely unbiased but nonetheless they make a best effort.
That a person gets paid, just makes their biases more obvious.
A non-NPOV is the author trying to present information in the best interests of the writer. They are trying to manipulate the reader into making irrational judgments based on incomplete and biased information in favour of the writer, not the reader. The author is not making a best effort for the reader at all.
I know which I'd prefer.
---
An unobtrusive ad is a non-functional ad. It is a non-sustainable business model.
Parent
Re:Yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, if you buy an editor, which is someone who has the power to block edits and has the power of perceived authority given by the common user of wikipedia. That means that if some organization pays an editor to edit someone, that organization is counting on the power granted to that editor to make their piece of propaganda be edit-proof by any common user who sees through the bullshit and takes it upon himself to fix that crap. After all, those organizations are only starting to talk about paying off editors after their less expensive paid astroturfers stopped being efficient.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How many people would support paying history gradschool students to work on WikiProject: Russian History [wikipedia.org]?
It's perfectly possible to be unbiased and paid for your work. I don't see why they need a new policy to deal with this - their regular NPOV policies are fine.
Re: (Score:2)
The facts still have to check out. It's just the slant of the article. Choice of words when describing stuff, etc.
But I've never found Wikipedia to be that unbiased, especially when it comes to topics that are still debated.
Ex: It may report a hardware device as vaporware, and state that the company creating it has a cult following that aggressively promote the devices, despite there being no evidence the device will ever exist.
Then once the device is released, it gets updated to a different slant.
Re: (Score:2)
And ruin a good thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And ruin a good thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not quite how corporations pay for their articles.
Oh sure, that's who I'm talking about. People paid to manipulate wikipedia in the interest of a corporation. /sarcasm
I'm talking about the average wikinerd, who spends his or her spare time compiling huge lists, writing articles on even the most obscure relics from pop culture, and editing every little misspelling and fuck-you they see. The ones with user pages littered with barnstars and embarrassing userboxes detailing their interest in siberian huskies and stamp collecting. Your meat and potatoes wikipedian. They don't do it for money. They do it for the love of wikipedia. They are fucking hardcore!
Parent
Imagine . . . How you could protect yourself here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright. Yeah. That would work. You could keep other people from diluting your work by using the protection afforded by copyright laws. That would be great. Thank goodness that we have copyright! That way, people who want to protect the integrity of their work have the legal authority to do so!
Re: (Score:2)
Copyright. Yeah. That would work. You could keep other people from diluting your work by using the protection afforded by copyright laws. That would be great. Thank goodness that we have copyright! That way, people who want to protect the integrity of their work have the legal authority to do so!
You mean do copyright right? Rather than copyright-as-an-anti-distribution tool?
Because someone has to... (Score:3, Interesting)
TELL THE WIKITRUTH [wikitruth.info]
Re:Because someone has to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Interestingly, Wikitruth is now frozen [wikitruth.info], claiming to have won.
Somehow, I think it's true; more and more people understand that you can use Wikipedia at the same time as questioning it. Many people have learned how to question all media (the problems of Wikipedia are the same as those of traditional media, just more obvious). At the same time there's a whole load of anti-wikipedia people who just wanted to destroy. That doesn't seem to have happened.
Parent
Death (Score:2, Insightful)
Youtubes demise? Deleting full episodes, editing comments, deleting controversial videos and muting personal videos.
Wikipedia? Going from a user generated non bias global collaborative encyclopedia to just an encyclopedia.
Once these companies get big enough, the always revert back to standard business models. This however is always completely against what made them so good to begin with, youtube became famous for the very content they now destroy, and pay people to seek out.
Next in line? Google......
They al
Paid editing is a really bad idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not.. necessarily.. bad... (Score:3, Insightful)
Brittanica pays its editors and authors after all. I think if you pay someone to edit articles, it ought to be fine, as long as they are about subjects in which you have no vested interest. Ethically, there wouldn't be a problem there, although there might be some technical issues in actually making sure that that is the case.
I mean, if someone's a good writer/researcher, and someone else wants to sponsor them (pay their bills so they can concentrate on writing/researching), what would be wrong with that?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Brittanica pays their editors, HOWEVER, Brittanica is a neutral party, so their payment doesn't bias the editor.
There might not be an article in Brittanica about Brittanica itself. However, if there is, you could expect it to be biased in Brittanica's favor, since the editors are paid by Brittanica, they are naturally encouraged to portray their source of $$$ in a positive light, when writing the article.
Microsoft doesn't personally pay the Brittanica editor that rights the article about their compa
Re: (Score:2)
Paid editing in inevitable. If you think companies, celebrities, etc aren't having employees routinely edit articles relevant to them you're dreaming. And wikipedia allows anonymous edits. Therefore, it doesn't really matter if it is or isn't allowed. The only question is whether the edits are good contributions or not.
Bad idea, but ... (Score:4, Funny)
Well... (Score:2)
The market should be self-correcting in this case (Score:2)
There are plenty of ways to have a vested interest besides being directly paid, and Wikipedians have been very successful in
I've spent $300 on this already (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I've spent $300 on this already (Score:4, Funny)
I have personally given $300 to individuals who have worked to raise furry articles [wikipedia.org] to good article status [wikipedia.org]. I see nothing wrong with this.
I do.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Saying that you have a problem with it does nothing for me; someone, without an opinion on the topic, willing to consider both sides of the argument. Bring a bit of signal with that noise, will ya'?
They already are biased, might as well get paid. (Score:2)
Ever check out the favorite topics and edits of some of the popular wikipedia editors? They have their personal bias's already. Its been biased editing going on since day one. People can say it doesn't happen, but it does. It has a very large group of editors who think alike and push the rules towards their own beliefs and moderate accordingly. They already use the rules to ban or alter topics they have strong opinions about, even though this goes against the rules.
They might as well, just open the flood
No Debate (Score:2, Insightful)
Anytime someone is paid for something there is a slanted "opinion". Pay me enough I'll tell you anything you want to hear, I'll slam any person, or business if the price is right. This is entirely contradictory to the spirit of a wiki.
And now, a word from MyWikiBiz (Score:5, Interesting)
When I am under contract with a person or corporation to write an article about said person or corporation, I have very, very, very little interest in presenting an "advocacy" position on behalf of that entity. Rather, success is measured in durability within Wikipedia, so my highest priority is...
How do I write (and publish) this article in such a way that it passes WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:RS, and all the other WP:things, while simultaneously NOT DRAWING THE ATTENTION of someone from the WikiHive intent on deleting paid promotional puff pieces?
Guess what? The articles that result are relatively bland, not puff pieces, quite encyclopedic, and (ever since I learned this technique) 100% durable within Wikipedia -- with surprisingly little follow-up maintenance, and likewise lasting appreciation of my clients.
It's inevitable, so manage it (Score:5, Insightful)
This already happens and inevitably will become more common as Wikipedia's profile rises. WP might as well get out in front of it with policies that make it easier to police and verify.
Currently, PR firms who are hired by companies to raise their profile already add biased, poorly sourced puff pieces to Wikipedia. They are promptly shredded by the community and deleted in nine cases out of ten. They do, however, create a lot of work for Wikipedian volunteers, usually because the PR people in question know websites generally, but nothing about the rules and culture that govern Wikipedia. They also do not generally disclose up front that they have a business relationship with the company they're writing the article about.
There's an argument to be made that there's an advantage to replacing these PR firms with people who are already clued in to Wikipedia's culture and guidelines. They could communicate up front to a client what will and won't fly on WP, and the best way to add verifiable information about the company without running afoul of neutrality and verifiability guidelines. If all these paid editors do on behalf of their employer is add content and provide sources, as long as their work is in accord with policy I don't see a reason to care that they are getting paid.
There are freelance wackos and fanboys that attempt to sabotage or whitewash pages about companies and other institutions as it is. How are paid editors different? At least you could require them to declare their influences. Make stringent requirements about disclosure, and allow paid editors to edit and provide info in talk pages, but not to take any administrative actions on the pages they're paid to edit. Any violation results in a topic ban for that account.
It depends... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The author looks like a paid schill (Score:2)
It looks like the person in question has done exactly that. I can't link straight to the page but here is the author's profile [elance.com]. Click on "Web Content (9)". This will show reviews of his work. He was paid $125 for a project titled "Wikipedia submission for my new product [elance.com]". He even got a rating of 4.9 out of 5.0 for the work. He was paid $150 for another project t
Re:what diff ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well that doesn't surprise me. I bet you get paid by the post - you must account for at least 1/3 of the posts here, M(r/s). Coward!