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

[Bartning at aol.com]

OK, I hope this indents what I'm quoting and responding to.   Otherwise, it's 
not going to be clear.  I'll also put a more-than sign  at the end of my 
responses.>
 
In a message dated 3/5/2007 2:47:19 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
delirium at hackish.org writes:

This is a pretty vague definition, but yes, it's the sort of thing I  
wouldn't mind seeing expanded.  Note that conflicts of interest can  be 
very subtle, though.  If our article on [[autism]] was edited by  someone 
paid by a company selling autism drugs, that's a pretty clear  conflict 
of interest.  But if it were edited by someone paid by a  non-profit 
group like [[Cure Autism Now]], there would also be potential  conflicts 
of interest; in particular, Cure Autism Now finds views that  autism 
isn't a disease offensive, so would be prone to having those  treated in 
an exclusively negative light if at all.  The mythical  independent 
editor does not really exist; it's more a matter of  degrees.  I happen 
to think that a conscientious editor accepting  money from a source that 
might have a conflict of interest is actually low  on the list of 
problems.  A PhD in CS editing CS-related articles in  which he has 
published extensively is much more in a conflict of interest  (since it 
is the very rare professor who has no bias in the field, or any  interest 
in career advancement), but we actually encourage  that.

Wikipedia suffers with admins.  I notice a new topic on renaming  them 
"janitors," and I plan to review it.  Certainly the poor treatment I  received, 
getting attacked, having double standards, with an unfair   blocking begun by an 
18 y/o senior in high school on a power trip whose  second language is English, 
turns me off and makes me not want to do things  for Wikiipedia.  However, I 
had put good work in an article.
 
There's certainly a problem.  We don't want articles to get worse  rather 
than better do we?  Wikipedia's environment seems to  cause editing for the sake 
of it rather than for truth, and it  encourages changing no matter what the 
cost in some cases, not to mention  there's a lot of unfairness.  In others, 
you'd better not touch a cabal's  work or someone who has an admin's or admins' 
backing, and many do get paid by  corporations which actively involve their 
legal teams.>

However I also think it would be nice if people disclosed the money  they 
accepted---along with disclosing other potential conflicts of  
interest---so articles could be scrutinized appropriately.  We can  never 
actually force that to happen in all cases, but at the moment our  
policies actively discourage it, which hardl

I've been actively avoiding Wikipedia's high placement in search  results 
lately.  In most cases, the work's worth it, but certainly  confusion has gone 
rampant regarding the difference between personal,  unpaid work with 
professional, paid work here.  I don't see what I want  about it either.>
 
Vincent Bartning
UN: John Wallace Rich
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