The Rise of Paid Wikipedia Consulting

jfruh writes "Roger Bamkin is a director at Wikimedia UK; he also is on retainer for the government of the British territory of Gibraltar, and has nominated and approved Gibraltar-related articles for the "Did You Know" box on the Wikipedia front page. Maximilian Klein runs a business called UntrikiWiki, and advertises his services by saying "A positive Wikipedia article is invaluable SEO." Are such users violating the spirit of what Wikipedia is about? Or should we trust that the wisdom of crowds will offset obvious shilling?"

Do you think

[kiriath]

That this is the first time in history you have been able to pay to have the 'history books' 'doctored'?

Difference between adding and subtracting

[gman003]

There's a difference between "promoting the good" and "hiding the bad".

You want to edit your country's (or corporation's, or religion's, or even your own personal) article to add sections about the lovely lakes, the wonderful telephone system, the many interesting furry animals, including the majestic moose, go right ahead. Obviously, you can't just make shit up (fact: Tuvalu is the world leader in nuclear fusion research[citation needed]), but there's nothing wrong with adding facts to the article. And yes, if you go completely overboard with it, writing a novel's worth of praise for the architecture, the geological features, the thriving and innovative independent film industry, it's going to get trimmed down even if it's completely unbiased (more so if it is).

But if you try to hide the undesirable things that are true, you can fuck right the hell off. If there's something about you that you don't want people to know, you probably shouldn't be doing it (doesn't apply *as* much to personal articles - it still applies in many cases, but not in many others). If you don't want people to find out about your ruthless secret police, or your massive sex trafficking biz, or your widespread pollution, you should try stopping those things rather than pay someone to edit Wikipedia to hide those facts. Because not only will editing Wikipedia *not* *work* (people will revert it right back), but it will add "tried to hide the truth from the Internet" to your list of crimes. Which is a pretty shameful, both in "you did something bad" and in "you did something bad that was petty and ultimately meaningless" - it makes you both evil, and a pretty low class of evil at that.

Both

[Bob9113]

Are such users violating the spirit of what Wikipedia is about? Or should we trust that the wisdom of crowds will offset obvious shilling?

Both. Wikipedia is not a paid content service, paid content is a clear violation. The wisdom of the crowds is now, has always been, and will always be a critical line of defense against disinformation. The conflict between well-informed citizens and those who would distort information has been going on for millennia. There's a whole lot of fancy new weapons in the game, but it's the same game.

Here's one of the most fundamental rules of dynamically unstable systems with lots of new weapons: Arm yourself or be subjugated. If you believe in truth, justice, and The American Way(*), detecting and outing shills is a fine way to serve your fellow man. Say what you will of human nature -- maybe we're all for sale, but the bad guys can't afford to buy us all. The not-paid-off people massively outnumber the shills. And if they do find a way to buy us all off, we can totally throw a rager with the money.

* in the starry-eyed Superman sense, not necessarily the current observed sense

Re:hahaha

[kelemvor4]

Wikipedia: for editors with no life and paid shills. I'll stick to Encyclopedia Britannica thank you very much.

Because Britannica has more content than the world's largest encyclopedia and you can be certain nobody is paying them, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_comparisons [wikipedia.org]

Re:It'll just be a rip off

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are we assuming that someone being paid to author something well, or clean up articles, must necessarily be in the business of lying?

It's entirely possible that the guy just gets paid to know what will and won't likely be removed. He'd know you have to cite sources, and can't just make shit up. He knows that garbage is going to get removed and the remaining edits will be suspect. He can also probably put together a readable sentence.

So, so long as they're working within the framework of rules... I don't see a problem at all. If they become a problem, it'll get dealt with.

Politicians, too

[edibobb]

Political parties have been paying consultants to write and maintain positive Wikipedia entries on their minor politicians for years. [citation needed]