[Wikimedia-l] Paid editing v. paid advocacy (editing)

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,

I want to open up the discussion even wider. The way things are stated is
that paid editing is not acceptable.

This ukase [1] may be considered best practice for the English Wikipedia,
our Wikimedia universe is a bit bigger than that. Wikidata is a completely
different beast with completely different requirements and
aspirations. Wikidata
is "not about facts at all, it is about what sources say".

Consequently as far as I am concerned the en.wp point of view about paid
editing is too narrow. I blogged on this subject [2] and hope you take a
moment to consider the difference between Wikipedia and Wikidata with a
perspective of company involvement in our projects.
Thanks,
     GerardM


[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ukase
[2]
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2014/01/wikidata-interest-by-companies.html


On 11 January 2014 17:58, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:

> Craig Franklin wrote:
> >I think it's actually foolish to try and split hairs over what is
> >acceptable paid editing and what is unacceptable paid editing.  The facts
> >of the matter are that paid editing is taking place right now, and it will
> >continue to take place regardless of whatever "bright lines" are drawn in
> >the sand.  The only question is whether it's done in a covert manner, or a
> >transparent manner.
> >
> >Rather than arguing over the irrelevant question of whether it is
> >desirable to have paid editing or not, we need instead to be talking
> >about how we are going to handle it.  To my view, that should be
> >requiring that anyone editing for money be upfront about their intentions
> >and their edits, and letting the community scrutinise those edits and
> >deal with them just like they'd deal with them if they came from any
> >other editor.
>
> Perhaps you're correct, though I'll note that in the recent oDesk case,
> you had both a real name and photo attached to the activities, along with
> a public profile describing (and rating!) the activities. That seems
> fairly transparent to me, yet it still resulted in an immediate departure.
>
> I expanded <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Paid_editing> from a redirect
> into a stub and created a few additional redirects. It's still a very
> rough draft, but I firmly believe that if there's going to be a "bright
> line" for Wikimedia Foundation employees (and potentially others), it
> should be clearly and explicitly documented.
>
> In the forest, under careful supervision, it may make sense to leave bear
> traps lying around. However in civilized society we really ought to
> minimize potential danger by deactivating any such traps through better
> and clearer information. Posting signs that clearly say "don't enter this
> field because it's full of bear traps" is surely better than simply
> assuming everyone will somehow know that bear traps are a possibility.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>