Matt Brown writes:

Missing one important proviso: public relations workers are quite welcome to edit wikipedia in a personal capacity. What has been prohibited is editing Wikipedia on behalf of a paying client.

Again, see the case of [[Arch Coal]]. Nobody paid or received any compensation for the authorship of that article. Still, Jimmy Wales deleted it and banned the original author.

The more excuses and explanations that the community comes up with, the more obvious it is that you're avoiding the real issue. Wikipedia unilaterally has chosen to discriminate against non-volunteer activity in the article space, despite the fact that the credentials and income sources of 99% of editors are never questioned or verified. Only those who state that they are being paid are excluded. I would argue that if you looked at the original authors of the New Pages in Wikipedia, 90% had some financial or career "conflict of interest" that could be found if everyone was exposed to a background check.

People who have never purchased or sold a pet skunk are unlikely to start an article about [[Pet skunks]]. They don't seem to get banned, though.