[Foundation-l] 300 Euro for excellent Articles: an experiment

[Gerard Meijssen]

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> 
>In a message dated 8/18/2005 5:48:41 AM Eastern Daylight Time,  
>sabine_cretella at yahoo.it writes:
>
>When  talking about contents we can also think about companies that maybe 
>would  feature an article paying it ... why not? It is a contribution as 
>well and  we can get things done. And why not say: if you want this 
>article to be  translated you also have to give something of something 
>that is important  to other projects? Example: I have an article 
>translated into English (and  really this is not "so much needed") - in 
>addition to that I pay for  another article in any of the languages that 
>are "important to develop" -  so everyone is happy.
>
>
>
>
>
>Sure it is a contribution, but what would that do to our credibility.  Having 
>companies pay for articles, especially feature articles, raises the  question 
>of whether they are simply advertising pieces in the guise of  articles, or 
>genuine NPOV coverage. If a company pays us to write or  feature an article, 
>does that mean that we are beholden to them to provide their  POV as well? What 
>about if a political or religious group tries to do the same  thing? To what 
>degree will corporate or other moneys be used as leverage  against NPOV.  
> 
>I am confident that the community will reject this idea.
> 
>Danny
>
Hoi,
When an article from the German Wikipedia is translated for money by a 
professional translator, in what way would this article be of less 
quality or of a lesser reputation than the orignial
article in German? When an article is translated there can be no doubt 
that the only thing you might want to improve on a translation is some 
localization where applicable or whatever an editor deems necessary to 
improve an article. When good articles are translated by good 
translators the result will be good. Certainly good enough for further 
work by a community that has proven that it can do just that and 
certainly better than not having information on a topic.

There have been organisations that threatened to come to Wikipedia in 
numbers.. This was met with efficient dispatch when they started to 
praise their wares or sing their message. I do not think payed 
translations and payed content can be rejected by the community because 
there is nothing in our charter that says that good information cannot 
be payed for. It is also very much against the ethical underpinnings of 
our license. What is there to fear but fear itself ?

Thanks,
    GerardM