Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 11/26/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Paying people to write articles would be a whole new ballgame, and probably very un-wiki.. There would be no more effective way of creating a class of vested interests with certain visions of how they want the project to look. We all want better coverage, but at what cost?
Don't be so foolish to deny that there are already people being paid to edit...
It would be generally unsound for me to try to prove that something like that doesn't happen, but I am probably safe to say that it doesn't happen on any kind of large public scale. Nevertheless whether something is happening, and the implications of it happening are two separate issues.
The question in my mind is: Will more people be paid to advance the public good in cooperation with the larger community of contributors, or will more people be paid to advance private interests in opposition and through subverison of the communities interests.
Private payments in support of private interests are less dangerous than direct subsidies from Wikimedia. We know they are outsiders. Direct payment can too easily suggest that the payee has the WMF stamp of approval, or somehow states the "official" POV for his selected topics.
Done right, I think such an adventure could do a lot to strengthen our community and leave us better prepared to cope with the results of people paid to edit for less noble goals.
More than likely it will strenghthen the community in opposition to the mercenaries.
At least were we to embark on that particular journey we would do with sensitivity and understanding of the risks. In no way should any such measure be itself used as a mechanism for control. The purpose of paid writers would be .. to write. And any such arrangement should be structured to avoid the creation of such interests. For example, it would be reasonable that you get paid just as equally if the community goes and removes your work.
These would all be important considerations. Preventing the rise of vested and controlling interests would require great insight. Time-limited (perhaps three months), non-renewable contracts could be a factor.
You didn't elaborate much on your position, but I don't buy yet your claim of vested interests. Who cares more about controlling Wikipedia? Some nationalist who spends his every free moment working without pay to shape Wikipedias coverage, or some working person punching a time clock and writing a bunch of material selected by someone else?
Those nationalists are out there where you can watch them. Vested interests are a kind of dependancy relationship. Maintaining the status quo allows them to collect dividends in whatever form may be relevant. A regular paycheque is one form of such dividend. Volunteers can also become dependent on paid staff to carry out certain tasks to the point that some tasks are set-aside because there is paid staff to do them.
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