On 12/03/07, Jason Calacanis jason@calacanis.com wrote:
There are no conflicts--none.
It would be a HUGE leap for someone to think that a donation to a non-profit from a corporation would give them the ability to trump a encyclopedia edited by *consensus* by *volunteers* -- most of whom are anonymous.
I think it's far easier to influence an encyclopaedia edited by volunteers using big money donations than traditional encyclopaedias.
Would an unpaid editor on the Wikipedia think "gosh, I should lie on Google's wikipedia page because they are one of dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of companies that have donated to the foundation."
No, I wouldn't expect many editors to make a conscious decision to lie on a corporate article, but our preferences and likes do manifest in our editing.
Furthermore, for this theory to work it would require that the thousands of other editors think EXACTLY the same way and would not revert the biased revisions.
It doesn't take thousands of editors to bias an article.
You're always going to have a contingent of conspiracy theorists out there who think Wikipedia (or any other organization with any level of success) is in on the take. It's the reward you get for being successful at what you do. :-)
I don't think we can't base our fund raising behavior on the conspiracy theories of a the few (and in some cases insane).
I don't think it helps to assume that anyone who believes that corporate donation would bias Wikipedia's coverage of that corporation also believes that "Wikipedia is in on the take". Bias works more subtly than that. After all, it is a serious problem now despite our thousands of well-intentioned editors.
It seems insidious to dismiss anyone who holds this viewpoint as "conspiracy theorists... (and in some cases insane)".