On Mar 4, 2007, at 13:38, Delirium wrote:
I don't think our situation is particular similar to journalists'. We are not doing original research, and we are not writing bylined articles. We summarize sources neutrally, post it publicly, and other people edit our work mercilessly at the slightest hint of a problem with it.
More similar, I think, would be to compare historians who write works on commission. These are generally paid for by an interested party, but with the money given up front with the understanding that they're commissioning an independent historical analysis that will not necessarily show them in a positive light. Several German banks commissioned historical works about their activities during World War II, and the resulting works were not generally very positive. I don't recall any objections to the funding there---that it was a bank commissioning its own history---and in fact generally people thought the banks *should* be the ones paying for the research. Now add onto that an additional layer of safety, where the work now gets edited by hundreds of other completely unrelated people after being written.
-Mark
I have to agree with this analysis. I've heard it said that it takes about 50 hours to write a featured article. Most people are not willing to spend 50 hours writing something for which they will get no recognition, which will become a huge pain in the rear to maintain if they so choose, for which they will spend countless hours appeasing the whims of a random group of people who have taken it upon themselves to decide what is brilliant and what is not, and which will be immediately set loose upon the masses to be mangled and changed. However, if someone is compensated for those 50 hours they spend, they might do it. I don't see this as a conflict of interest, I see it as incentive. Of course there may not be that much to write about companies, but when faced with having a stub for an article because nobody is interested in the topic, what is the company to do? I don't see anything wrong with paying someone to raise an article to featured status with the terms of payment being that the community agrees that it is neutral, comprehensive, and brilliantly written and not the payer liking what they see. I really do have a hard time seeing any such articles making it to featured status any other way, for that matter. Because who honestly wants to spend their volunteer free time on something as boring as company history, policy, and organization. Or whatever boring topic you choose. So in short, I think there is a way to do paid editing, which will not taint the wikipedia, we just haven't stumbled on it yet. Although I think I'd be extremely jealous of the people who get paid for their editing time when mine is as free as everyone else's. But it's for the good of the encyclopedia.... right? Maybe...