On 1/26/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond(a)internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
I had an off-wiki conversation with someone about a
similar issue earlier,
so it's interesting that it comes up again here. At the end of the day,
shouldn't we worry more about the quality of the contributions in terms of
benefit to the encyclopedia (even the poorly written ones) as opposed to
who's contributing it?
Yes. Quality of contribution should not be determined by who is
contributing. This is not a new stance; this has been a rule of thumb
since the first trolls were allowed to stay and continue editing.
If paying someone $100 to add information to a
stubby, but necessary, article improves the quality of the encyclopedia,
why are we standing in the way?
I don't know. Something about it feeling wrong, driving people from
writing about what is important to writing about what is supported by
patrons. I do think that edits themselves should be allowed or not
based on their quality -- something that would rule out many would-be
paid contributions.
SJ