Ray Saintonge wrote:
It is not a simple matter that editing for money is
wrong. What is
wrong is editing to impose a particular point of view, or to insure a
favorable article for the paying company. How we treat biased editing
should have no connection with the payment arrangements between the
company and the editor. Biased editing is wrong whether or not the
person is being paid.
This is true, but paid editing opens up a can of worms that I don't
think we have near the resources to deal with. In the US, PR is a $4
billion industry, growing at 9% annually. And that's a tiny fraction of
the $500 billion that will be spent on advertising and marketing this
year in the US.
I know many editors feel like we are an unstoppable legion, and when I
look at what has been accomplished, I feel that way too. But I think we
would be wise to avoid assuming that we can overmatch that kind of
money. Indeed, the decision to turn on nofollow is an admission that we
can't even keep out those bottom-feeders of the marketing world, the
link spammers.
In the Almeda case, would the edits somehow have
been any better if they were by an unpaid person?
I'm sure there will be fewer of them.
It is the very rare editor who will turn up daily to push for POV
distortion. But as anybody who has ever talked to a telemarketer knows,
people will do all sorts of things for money that they would never do on
their own. Suddenly they're "just doing their job". Sure, it makes them
miserable, and it makes the people they deal with miserable. But when
you're two months behind on the car payment and your kid needs new
shoes, you can learn to live with that.
We do not need those people editing on Wikipedia.
It discourages people from
declaring their conflicts, and has them looking for ways to circumvent
Wikipedia policy.
Any scrutiny at all does that. By making it clear that reputable editors
and reputable companies should stay well away from conflict-of-interest
for-pay editing, I believe many fewer people will even try, keeping the
number of bad edits that slip through lower than if we have a gray area.
In the long run there is benefit to be derived from
paid editing. Take
this example which may be more suited to Wikibooks. [...]
If I thought we were lacking for edits on topics of commercial interest,
I'd find this more persuasive. But I don't think our coverage of, say,
companies or products or bands is lacking in raw contributions.
Wikibooks is welcome to make up their own rules, naturally.
There is no benefit to be derived for anyone from
maintaining perpetual
confrontation with the for-profit sector.
I don't think we need to make it a perpetual confrontation.
If we tell people paid editing is forbidden, most people will get this.
PR people already get that with journalists just fine. Lobbyists and
political contributors get it less, but I think that's precisely because
the fuzzier rules allow plenty of room for the amoral or cash-hungry to
justify it to themselves. Continuously arguing with full-time paid PR
people over exactly how distorted they can get away with being, that's
perpetual confrontation.
William
--
William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri