[WikiEN-l] Paying students for editing (Split from Fundraiser Quote of the Day)

[David Goodman]

Paying guarantees work will be done, not that the work will be good. Paying
per article in fact invites just the opposite. I would be extremely dubious
of any articles introduced in this manner, no matter what the university,
just as i would of any COI. Being paid to edit is the ultimate in COI. I
would advise WMF to stay as far a way from this as possible.

On Jan 7, 2008 2:56 PM, Ian A Holton <poeloq at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Mon, 2008-01-07 at 19:28 +0000, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> > On 07/01/2008, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Just to outline some other quick issues...
> > >
> > > Paid editors backed by a Foundation initiative inserts a tiered class
> > > of editors, where we haven't had such a thing in the past (debatably).
> >
> > It doesn't need to. There is no reason for paid editors to have any
> > priority over unpaid ones. In fact, I imagine they would be considered
> > a lower tier and would be monitored more closely that other users by
> > the community.
> >
> > > Who would pay for such a thing, even as a project to support
> > > Wikipedia? The money isn't going to WMF, its going to private
> > > individuals to insert content of uncertain quality that may not last
> > > out the day, let alone forever.
> > >
> > > Who determines what type of content gets added? Do they only work on
> > > redlinks? Some of them are fairly obscure for general curriculum
> > > students. Can they edit articles of the sponsoring institution?
> > >
> > > Finally, why would the WMF want to endorse the idea of folks getting
> > > paid for editing? Since no monetary reward comes directly from this
> > > activity, only by skewing the content to the benefit of the sponsoring
> > > institution can an investment be recouped.
> >
> > It wouldn't be an investment, it would be a charitable donation. What
> > content they work on would be determined by the person paying, I
> > guess, although hopefully they would listen to the community for
> > guidance. As for the quality - it's up to the person paying to make
> > sure the people being paid are suitably qualified, that's why I'm
> > suggesting targeting post-grads.
>
> Nathan, you raised some very important points.  I will try and answer
> them as exact as possible in the early stages of my idea:
>
> Why pay people to contribute? Because it guarantees decent work be done
> by somebody and offers an incentive. It also supports students to obtain
> the degrees they are pursuing and therefor helps society in general.
>
> What contents gets added? This depends on many factors. The way I
> imagine it would be as follows: a student of Economics works on
> Economics related articles, a student of Philosophy on Philosophy and so
> on. All other contributions will not be paid for, however I believe they
> will still be made by the editors in question.
>
> Why the WMF would or even should be interested? Because it will benefit
> Wikipedia and that is one of the main objectives of the WMF.
>
> Who would sponsor such editors? This is the tricky one. I think the
> concept of paying editors like it is a job would not work very well, why
> would it? I think the best idea is to reimburse them for their time
> spent on working on related articles. I also believe that one of the
> main objectives would be to gain the support of other charities. For
> example: The (I will make the names up, any existing names are
> coincidence) "Society for Chinese History in the US" has an interest in
> promoting Chinese History, so they could be approached for a donation of
> say $100 that pays some students of Chinese (History) to extend a
> certain amount of articles to a point of acceptability. What is the
> point of acceptability? At least GA quality I would say or a large
> amount of good start class etc.
>
> The main criteria to be eligble for payment would be that all edits are
> conform to existing policy and are of the highest quality in the sense
> that they are well sourced and cited. Language abilities should at least
> be good (wording can always be changed by other editors).
>
> Does this explain a little bit more of what I am imagining could be the
> future?
>
> Regards,
>
> Ian [[User:Poeloq]]
>
>
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-- 
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG