On 1/24/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
You'd think Microsoft would know better than to
think this was a good
idea in the first place, but ah well. We all learn as we go.
I'm curious whether you mean that in terms of public perception, or
whether it would actually work. I sort of feel that for any article
which has not achieved some state of perfection (ie, complete NPOV
coverage), then anyone paying someone to add material is probably not
that harmful. If the article *was* bad, and biased, than the other
side paying someone to "correct the balance" is probably a good thing,
isn't it? Even if they overshoot the mark and make the bias point the
other way, the article probably ends up closer to where we're trying
to get to than it was already.
But I accept that public perception of conflict of interest is a
sensitive issue and shouldn't be treated lightly.
Steve