[WikiEN-l] Is editing for payment a fundamentally problematic conflict of interest?

[Keitei]

On Mar 4, 2007, at 13:38, Delirium wrote:

> I don't think our situation is particular similar to journalists'.  We
> are not doing original research, and we are not writing bylined
> articles.  We summarize sources neutrally, post it publicly, and other
> people edit our work mercilessly at the slightest hint of a problem  
> with it.
>
> More similar, I think, would be to compare historians who write  
> works on
> commission.  These are generally paid for by an interested party, but
> with the money given up front with the understanding that they're
> commissioning an independent historical analysis that will not
> necessarily show them in a positive light.  Several German banks
> commissioned historical works about their activities during World War
> II, and the resulting works were not generally very positive.  I don't
> recall any objections to the funding there---that it was a bank
> commissioning its own history---and in fact generally people  
> thought the
> banks *should* be the ones paying for the research.  Now add onto that
> an additional layer of safety, where the work now gets edited by
> hundreds of other completely unrelated people after being written.
>
> -Mark

I have to agree with this analysis. I've heard it said that it takes  
about 50 hours to write a featured article. Most people are not  
willing to spend 50 hours writing something for which they will get  
no recognition, which will become a huge pain in the rear to maintain  
if they so choose, for which they will spend countless hours  
appeasing the whims of a random group of people who have taken it  
upon themselves to decide what is brilliant and what is not, and  
which will be immediately set loose upon the masses to be mangled and  
changed. However, if someone is compensated for those 50 hours they  
spend, they might do it. I don't see this as a conflict of interest,  
I see it as incentive. Of course there may not be that much to write  
about companies, but when faced with having a stub for an article  
because nobody is interested in the topic, what is the company to do?
I don't see anything wrong with paying someone to raise an article to  
featured status with the terms of payment being that the community  
agrees that it is neutral, comprehensive, and brilliantly written and  
not the payer liking what they see. I really do have a hard time  
seeing any such articles making it to featured status any other way,  
for that matter. Because who honestly wants to spend their volunteer  
free time on something as boring as company history, policy, and  
organization. Or whatever boring topic you choose.
So in short, I think there is a way to do paid editing, which will  
not taint the wikipedia, we just haven't stumbled on it yet. Although  
I think I'd be extremely jealous of the people who get paid for their  
editing time when mine is as free as everyone else's. But it's for  
the good of the encyclopedia.... right?
Maybe...