Paid editing, opinions on paid editing Options

[ebc123]

To state my opinion up front, what does it matter if you are paid to write about a person or organization or whatever and you follow the conflict of interest, neutral point-of-view, etc. guidelines, include most if not all the necessary references and basically produce an average to above average encyclopedic page?

For one thing there are many notable people out there who likely will never have a page written about them unless someone else takes the initiative to contact them or if they decide to contact someone to do it for them. I mean, it's nice and all to donate your time but unfortunately in this world the bills arrive every month. Again if you're able to be up front with a client and spell out the Wiki ground rules and from there produce a quality piece, what does it matter that you were paid?

For another thing it stands to reason that many if not most pages on Wikipedia are originally created and subsequently edited by people who have some abiding (some may say "slanted") interest in the topic. Why else bother with the effort?

So there's that. I'm wondering as far as paid editing what other people have to say. In addition to the above comments namely:

1. If you submit to Wikipedia's encouragement to divulge your paid arrangement, are you forever and automatically tagged with a "conflict of interest" heading?

2. If you divulge your paid status, are you now basically chum for other editors to tear your piece apart no matter how well it conforms to style and substance?

Thank you for any thoughts on this.

[thekohser]

Well, it looks like the Squeaker has finally been indefinitely blocked by Black Kite.

Meanwhile, Jimbo in his ever-familiar way of waffling on everything, speaks out about paid editing.

Everything clear?

[Somey]

Well, it looks like the Squeaker has finally been indefinitely blocked by Black Kite.

It's the end of an era... (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

Meanwhile, Jimbo in his ever-familiar way of waffling on everything, speaks out about paid editing.

Everything clear?

What he seems to be saying is that rewards should only be offered for articles related to (ideally, non-specific) topic areas, as opposed to specific individual persons or (worse) companies.

On the one hand this is stupid, because an "encyclopedia" shouldn't discriminate against specific entities merely because they might want to be written about. Like it or not, some people might very well want to read stuff about the entities in question, and if those entities are foolish enough to want to have WP articles about themselves, that's their funeral. On the other hand, Jimbo is essentially forced to say this because this is how activist Wikipedians define the site's "integrity" - anti-commercialism appears to be more important to many of them than content in general, and certainly more important than content about things they despise or, at best, don't care about.

It's easy to perceive this as basic hypocrisy, but in fact it's a kind of spoil-sport politics, with Jimbo trying to use the issue as a way to keep himself involved as a kind of high arbiter - or "spiritual leader," if you will. We know he doesn't care about the fact that people are making money writing articles. He probably understands that Wikipedia's definition of "COI" is ludicrously idiosyncratic, but likely doesn't care about that either. What he does care about is to ensure that the people who don't like the idea of anyone else making money at article-writing are exposed to it as little as possible.

[thekohser]

What he seems to be saying is that rewards should only be offered for articles related to (ideally, non-specific) topic areas, as opposed to specific individual persons or (worse) companies.

Jimbo was most clear that the Reward Board request for article content about dANN was "absolutely inappropriate".

But, then, do you notice that Jimbo doesn't so much as lift a finger to bring his displeasure to the attention of the guy who posted that request on Reward Board?

Maybe it's because that guy looks like he would whup that sh*t out of Jimbo.