On 18/04/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
On Apr 18, 2006, at 8:40 AM, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
You're absolutely right. People on a tight budget like me would be very much interested in financial compensation for certain jobs. As long as it results in articles following policy, I don't see the problem.
My concern is getting Wikipedia written faster and better. If people make money along the way, more power to them. It's worked on Deutsche Wikipedia and it can work here.
If we reject this policy, incidentally, we'd also have to reject all of Larry Sanger's contributions--he was a paid editor-in-chief during his tenure.
I think rejecting any policy on the grounds that it may produce POV edits is flawed. Quite simply, the value of POV edits is not particularly high to anyone, unless they're being paid to maintain them. Any article will, over time, represent the POV of all its contributors, not just one. So, just as one NPOV crimefighter working on a Pokemon fan article (with apologies) will eventually see his work completely eroded, a nefarious POV pusher working on an otherwise neutral article will see his evil deeds go to waste. Wikipedia works because overall most articles have mostly more or less neutral contributors mostly contributing. (I couldn't get any more hedges into that sentence...)
Steve