[WikiEN-l] MyWikiBiz

[Jimmy Wales]

I just got off the phone with MyWikiBiz and reached what I think is a 
very favorable agreement about this sort of thing.

The big problem with paid editing on wikipedia is NOT that someone is 
getting paid to write, but rather that this causes a rather obvious 
conflict of interest and appearance of impropriety.  This was my 
problem, and they immediately saw why this was not in our interest or 
theirs.

Rather, what we brainstormed about as a nice mutually beneficial ground 
would be for them to charge customers for writing high quality NPOV 
articles about their companies, with sources and verifiability, but for 
them to work with well known and respected wikipedians who are NOT being 
financially compensated to actually enter the articles into Wikipedia 
upon their own independent judgment.  This will avoid, for MyWikiBiz, a 
lot of sad fighting with us which is likely to be ugly and unproductive 
all around.

This preserves our independence as a volunteer editing body, while at 
the same time supporting the creation of high quality NPOV content.  I 
am very pleased with this idea.--~~~~