Jimbo's beef with paid editing, Why does he have it? Options

[that one guy]

Sort of a tangential topic from the timidguy case, which seems to be an issue of paid editing and Jimbo's ever lasting hate of it. I know we had the Kohs issue in the past but what's his issue with paid editing?

[timbo]

The answer to the "Why not have paid editors?" question, of course, is that paid editors skew content. They pump up their clients and would quickly, it is not difficult to imagine, slag off on their competitors. I think this is a very logical, sensible reason to keep paid flacks out...

Can paid editors produce good content? Sure. Just like paid lobbyists can produce good legislation...


t

This post has been edited by timbo: Wed 4th January 2012, 8:37am

[thekohser]

They pump up their clients and would quickly, it is not difficult to imagine, slag off on their competitors. I think this is a very logical, sensible reason to keep paid flacks out...

Whew... good thing the unpaid religious, political, and ideological zealots who have taken over Wikipedia would never do that!

[Maunus]

Paid editing is against all of the principles that wikipedia should be based on. It circumvents the meaning of WP:CONSENSUS, WP:COI, WP:NOTABILITY off the bat.

It is a non-argument to compare with POV pushers and other agenda driven editors - because they are not a priori identifiable as such. It is like asking "should we allow tedentious editing?" the answer has to be no.

Other than that I find it ethically and morally questionable. And it shows what I see as a basic failure to understand what it is that could be good about wikipedia.

[dogbiscuit]

Paid editing is against all of the principles that wikipedia should be based on. It circumvents the meaning of WP:CONSENSUS, WP:COI, WP:NOTABILITY off the bat.

Then again the application of Wikipedia policies by its editors circumvent the process of developing a reliable encyclopedia so it isn't necessarily a problem. After all, what is so bad about Encyclopedia Britannica - fundamentally paid editing.

If I am paid to spend my time developing articles on London Landmarks, does that really circumvent any policy at all? Seems like you are trotting out the CoolAid without applying any thought. For example, a paid editor is much less likely to fight consensus because he is not going to have a budget to spend 12+ hours a day nitpicking and crafting pointless battles over trivial articles.

It seems to me that Wiki UK Ltd has a project to create a whole raft of paid editors in several different ways - sponsorship, jobs for the boys and so on - so the Wiki bureaucracy is woefully confused about keeping the project pure.

Anyhow, I think in the past it has been established that there are plenty of Wikipedia battle grounds where there is some form of sponsorship going on, e.g. the Israel/Palestine conflict, and then there was the whole Overstock thing where someone was not paid to edit, but saw that influencing Wikipedia a means to profit in the real world.

There is only one argument that Wikipedia can legitimately use and that is "Why should someone get paid for what others are doing for free?". I am sure Jimbo fears it, not because of content, because Jinbo does not give a toss about it, but because it could be the straw that causes a significant disillusionment amongst editors.