For those who didn't care to follow the link, the cited Dilbert cartoon goes as follows:
Writer: "I hope you don't expect me to write a favorable article about your company just because you bought me drinks."
Dogbert: "No, I expect you to publish my press release and act like you wrote it."
Dogbert: "You can work or you can get drunk, but the pay is exactly the same."
That is all very cute, but one ought to remember that what we are talking about here is a publishing medium where someone's credibility is _entirely_ dependent on the community's perceptions of their work. If, by community standards, an editor is making contributions that are unconstructive (i.e. against policy), there is no defense. Vandals, POV-pushers, and the like can and are rebuked, temporarily blocked, or banned.
As I mentioned before, a paid Wikipedian is basically capitalizing on his or her established trust in the community. Any switch to abusive edits that fail to follow policy will quickly lose him his accumulated social equity and thus hurt his bottom line. On the other hand, someone who is paid to write a new article about a truly notable topic or to clean-up an existing, sub-par article is both working towards making Wikipedia better and would be satisfying the client's demand. Surely the members of this list would not argue that business (or charitable) interests and Wikipedia interests can _never_ coincide, right? Where they _do_ coincide, why not let them subsidize the expansion/improvement of the encyclopedia?
Assuming that the status quo (one that is hostile to sponsored work) is maintained, how does this better enable editors to critically examine contributors than an open system? Are such restrictions about punishing those who would dare to profit from something that they love (Wikipedia), or are they about making it easier to review questionable contributions? I would say that the latter is what we should be going for, and full disclosure, not persecution, is what will enable that.
As WP:AUTO suggests, it is _difficult_ but _not_impossible_ for individuals to write about themselves in a neutral fashion. In my paid work, I am certainly aware that my clients might want to aggrandize their reputation, but I always work from my own sources. That is, when I take a job, I start from scratch, just like I would with any other topic that I was researching for Wikipedia. I google them, review the results for notable sources that seem useful, and I start working on the article, eventually finding enough sources to construct something that answers the questions that the initial research raised in my mind. I always include any notable criticisms that I can find, and this raises some clients' eyebrows. Their reactions are easily answered, though. I just tell them, "Look, I am willing to write something that conforms to Wikipedia policy and accurately represents the verifiable information available about your organization, all in a neatly formatted article. That is what makes my services valuable, because that means the article won't get immediately deleted as spam."
If companies want to hire POV warriors or spammers, by all means let's announce to the world that those companies are assailing the great resource that is Wikipedia. Such news would surely be viewed in the same light as if they had hired vandals to go spray-paint a competitor's office with nasty comments. I doubt most companies would care to generate such publicity. So long as paid contributors stick to notable, verifiable information, cite their sources, and maintain an NPOV while using the encyclopedic voice, though, I don't understand what the problem is.
MW
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 20:24:46 +0000 From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally problematic conflict of interests? To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
http://www.comics.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20070222.html (spotted by Anthere)
- d.
_________________________________________________________________ Play Flexicon: the crossword game that feeds your brain. PLAY now for FREE. http://zone.msn.com/en/flexicon/default.htm?icid=flexicon_hmtagline