[WikiEN-l] Corporate Donors - Status?
Oldak Quill
oldakquill at gmail.com
Tue Mar 13 18:05:12 UTC 2007
On 13/03/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/13/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Would an unpaid editor on the Wikipedia think "gosh, I should lie on
> > > Google's wikipedia page because they are one of dozens (hundreds?
> > > thousands?) of companies that have donated to the foundation."
> >
> > No, I wouldn't expect many editors to make a conscious decision to lie
> > on a corporate article, but our preferences and likes do manifest in
> > our editing.
>
> It could go either way. I remember thinking when looking at the
> [[Virgin United]] article last time that I would find it somewhat mean
> to be as hard-nosed towards their article as I might normally be. But
> I'm sure that other editors would be the opposite, perversely
> insisting on sources for *everything*, bringing up any dirt they can
> find, to challenge the notion that the company is getting a free ride
> on us.
>
> Come to think of it, the second way of thinking is more likely to
> prevail. A lot of our editors fiercely defend democracy, independence,
> freedom...
You're probably right - but what about the 20% who aren't committed
enough to Wikipedia's policy to reason in this way?
Still, bias influences and exterts in unexpected ways.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
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