Quoting Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
By a foundation sponsored process, no less:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Greenspun_illustration_projec...
Since this is just for illustrated content I'm not terribly worried. The main reason as I see it that we found on paying people to edit is because a) it can lead to conflicts of interest if you are being payed to edit about the entity you are payed by and b) it ruins our Tom Sawyer approach to get so many editors. If we start paying some people to whitewash the fence, whitewashing looks a lot less fun.