As you'll recall, a certain Mr. Gregory Kohs of our acquaintance successfully demonstrated recently that paid WP editing on behalf of companies, done in an ostensibly "above-board" fashion, is nothing more than a one-way ticket to Bansville. Presumably, then, the way to get paid for editing WP is to simply not let on.

So I was a little surprised to see this earlier today - it was just posted four days ago:

http://trevorcook.typepad.com/weblog/2006/...omment-62035628


And at second blush, they'd probably find the "Blockuser" link and click on it. Even more interesting:

I even asked Greg about this earlier today in a PM - at the risk of offending him - and he swears he has nothing to do with it. (Luckily, Greg doesn't seem so easily offended!)

The thing is, normally I wouldn't put too much stock in something like this, but this comment is exceptionally well-written. There isn't a single spelling or grammatical error, and to be honest, it looks like something I might have written myself, seeing as how the only thing that surpasses my awesome writing ability is my even-more-awesome modesty about it.

Still, I'm surprised someone like that would risk commenting on anyone's blog site at all... Maybe he's getting a little too cocky for his own good!

I don't think anyone is going to pay anybody to edit, beyond a few suckers at the start. A typical transaction would look like this:

Alice: "I'll pay you $100 to make me look good at Wikipedia. Here are the, um, facts."
Bob: (a bit later) "As you can see, I'm done. My check, please."
Alice: (On the phone a few minutes later, after Bob has left the building) "It seems someone has reverted you. I want my money back."

But I like the way Mercenary Wikipedian is trying to use the warm-and-fuzzy anti-credentialist argument from WP against WP. Charles Matthews (and no doubt the rest of them) dismiss MW, but in the only they can: on pragmatic grounds. A shocking failure to complete the argument!

Obviously, if you pay someone you want an aggressive editor who can make his or her flannel stick. Such people do exist.

I beg to differ. If I was in this business (which I'm not), I know a number of large companies and organizations who would pay to have someone patrol their entry over the course of a year or more, ensuring no one added overly negative information to it. Unless you're Dow Chemical or Halliburton, there are usually very few "reliable secondary sources" on all but the top tier of American corporations, making the job easy.

You assume that the job is adding positive material, but removing negative material is probably both far more valuable and far easier. Take, for example, PETA, which SlimVirgin relentlessy patrols. This is a group that has been under investigation by the FBI for years as (at least) encouraging domestic terrorism. Yet aside from a minor mention of that well-documented fact, the article has no "Criticism" section, and in general praises PETA with the occasional faint damn. Compare this with another of Slim's fave's "Huntingdon Life Sciences", which is an attack piece about their animal research practices, and says nothing about the rest of their business.

A careful and skilled editor can skew an article way off the norm, postive or negative, given time and finesse, neither of which our own Mr. Kohs seemed to have.

Gomi, is that an insult or a compliment to me? I'll be the first to admit that my indignation at being banned for doing something that (a) had no prohibition against it when I started, and (b) was later within the "concordat" that Jimbo designed for me, led to my complete abandonment of my normal level of finesse and diplomacy. As for time? I dunno. Wikipedia Review is a "project" of mine, not a "career", so time would be a limited resource within that framework. So, you're probably right on both counts. This Mr. Kohs lacked both time and finesse.

Our Mercenary Wikipedian has posted a couple of essays (woah, I almost typed "essjays" there) on the WikiEN-l mailing list. They can be found here and here. Well worth a careful read.

I'll take as a compliment Somey's suspicion that such well-written logical prose might be me in disguise. Thanks, Somey!

And, I'll close by saying taiwopanfob couldn't be more wrong about paid-editing not being a long-term viable profit source. I have my own multiple sources of proof, but to protect those who are profitably editing, I'll keep them confidential. Their clients are certainly not "suckers", at least as far as I've read about them in the Wall Street Journal, on Amazon.com, and in FDA clinical trial reports.

Respectfully (?),

Greg

SlimVirgin gets her way because she has a gun and friends who can provide cover fire. If we provide similar power to this hypothetical paid editor, then you'll get no argument from me. But I don't expect this sort of user to exist any time soon, and these clients you speak of will quickly clue in that it's easier and much faster to pick apart Wikipedia's content generation model than it is to try and subvert it.

It is the responsibility of a professional public relations firm to provide reputation management for their clients.
And done so only in the most honest, truthful and objective manner.

Encyclopædia Britannica http://www.britannica.com pays its professional editors.
Why should Wikipedia be anything different - if one truly cares for and desire to have real facts and professionalism rather than amatuer, harmful gossip and rumor?

The remark made above regarding Wikipedia user SlimVirgin is so very true.
She gets direct support by members of Wikipedia management who are paid employees.
So who really is pushing the pen here?
Jimbo Wales and Danny Wool make a huge profit through Wikipedia gossip / entertainment and when it serves them they turn to "volunteers" to keep their overhead down. Playing on the many egos of such users as Slimvirgin and Woggly to get the results they desire.

Bottom line - Wikipedia and its sister for profit companies are businesses with people who invest thousands of dollars for a return.
Wikipedia is not the American Cancer Association whose efforts are true and good.
Though Wikipedia has become sort of a media cancer in itself, harming many innocents such as USA TODAY editorial page editor John Seigenthaler.

Does the management of Wikipedia want professional PR firms editing Wikipedia?
For sure, as long as those edits are within the bounds set by WP policies and guidelines--that is, they are not POV-pushing, spam, or anything else that contravenes the explicit community standards laid forth in the "canon" of Wiki-law.

Just as Google works with SEO companies, Wikipedia will work with PR firms as long as they keep Wikipedia in the news - and to make good money off its student, unemployed or retired volunteers who will continue supplying work to the professionals.

Wikipedia is about money.
Wales even describes himself as such "an American Internet entrepreneur."
Talk of "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing" is the best spin I have witnessed since the invention of the "Pet Rock.

No. What they are doing is making money.
Wikia Inc. is simply using the branding off Wikipedia to make millions for Wales & Co.

This is exactly what I meant, and I apologize for saying it in a curt and somewhat rude way. I was not making an observation about you personally. But you undertook to operate entirely in the open, and it resulted in the proverbial excrement-storm and got you banned. You attempted to engage the Wikipedia machine as though it were rational, and learned to your harm that it was not.

Those who cannot be connected from their promotional websites to their editing personae, run well-managed stables of socks with which to edit, don't engage the Wikipedia political structure, and patrol existing articles rather than write them from scratch -- they effectively game the Wikipedia system and get away with it.

To your credit, you tried to be honest and upfront, and I sadly presume that you learned from that mistake.

Greg, we have much in common.
Much to discuss!
Please shoot me an email to marketing @ israelpr.com

Best wishes,
Joel Leyden
www.EbizMarketSolutions.com