Steve Bennett wrote:
On 3/12/07, William Pietri william@scissor.com wrote:
This sort of willful refusal to understand what we are trying to do is a bad enough problem now when we have to beat back each individual partisan. Unless we make it clear that any sort of paid conflict-of-interest editing is strictly forbidden, we will open a door to endless trouble. Spam email was a problem when people did it
Well, I don't agree with the logical connection you're making there. Would outlawing transparent, regulated, paid Wikipedia editing have any effect on this kind of insidious behaviour? I don't see why it should. Quite clearly, Almeda was attempting to work behind closed doors here. They also knew that what they wanted to do would not be tolerated. How would any rule or policy against paid editing have had any effect at all?
Yes, it would have a big effect.
The problem here is that any rules we create to filter the good conflict-of-interest edits from the bad ones will have to be subtle, requiring balanced judgment. For many people though, if their income depends on having warped judgment, they will have it all the live-long day. Self-deception isn't just a universal human flaw. In many industries, it's a vital resource.
A rule against paid conflict-of-interest editing means that we can explain very clearly why something isn't allowed. We can have a nice FAQ, a clear WP:NOPAY redirect, a simple decision flow chart. We can explain it to the media, to editors, to companies. We can make it an electric fence that people fear to touch.
By doing that we eliminate the vast amount of Wikilawyering that will go on. We keep out all of the starving writers and underpaid English majors who might be fooled by the self-justification of an Almeda University, or the PR machine of a tobacco company. And most importantly, we prevent the emergence of a cottage industry that specializes in slipping things past us.
If we make a clear, impossible-to-misunderstand rule, then we will still have problems. But if there is ambiguity or room for doubt, we increase our problems tenfold. Or if the rise of spam in other media is any parallel, much more than that.
William