[WikiEN-l] Almeda University paying for positive Wikipedia edits

[William Pietri]

Hi, Ray. You were speaking about groups,  and I'm not sure to what 
extent you see me as in the groups. But the same issues have come up on 
the proposal talk page, so I'll take the opportunity to make my position 
clear.

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> What really bothers me is the desire of some to keep such a 
> tight control over the process.  They appear frighteningly intent on 
> rooting out every bit that they consider to be against the rules.  

In my case, this is not puritanism or process wonkery. It's pragmatic. 
Journalists have a carefully evolved code of ethics around conflict of 
interest, and careful mechanisms to separate funding from conflict of 
interest. I believe we need roughly the same code and equivalent 
mechanisms, and for basically the same reasons.


> [...] Sometimes these people who 
> take strong anti-corporate, anti-commercial attitudes strike me as 
> though they just haven't thought things through, and I end up defending 
> corporations. :-[

For the record, I am neither anti-corporate nor anti-commercial. I've 
been in business for myself for a decade, and a large fraction of my 
family runs or has run their own businesses. I make most of my money 
producing intellectual property for pay, and a portion of that is 
writing for pay. I have also written for paid publication, and I'm sure 
I'll do more. I think writing for pay is great. I think people should be 
able to write on Wikipedia for pay -- as long as that money goes through 
the Foundation in a way that creates a Chinese wall.

I think we are people who are trying to serve the public. We need to be 
fair, and we need to be seen as fair. Professionals who depend on that 
all have rules about who they can take money from. Journalists, who we 
are most akin to, have very strict rules. We ignore their example at our 
peril.

William

-- 
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri