[WikiEN-l] Corporate Donors - Status?

[Bartning at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/11/2007 8:00:16 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
Bartning at aol.com writes:

There's  been a lot of talk about paid editors, but what about conflicts of   
interest with Wikipedia when it accepts donations from  corporations?   
There's 
already belief that the organization  gives large companies a lot of  perks, 
e.g. allowing them to upload  their logo, even mentioning them in an  
article, 
but how do donations  from them influence Wikipedia?



The readers don't hold the purse strings like in a regular encyclopedia,  and 
that's one area where I see a major conflict of interest in the format of  
Wikipedia as a source of information.  There's less incentive to write for  the 
readers, and certainly it's deteriorated as far as I'm concerned.  I'd  say 
that Wikipedia hit its peak sometime ago right now, not that it's  necessarily 
in permanent decline, mind you, but it's going to take taking things  more 
seriously or justice or something to correct the fall right now,  IMHO.
 
Vincent Bartning
<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers free 
email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at 
http://www.aol.com.