The discussion on the proposed amendment is now closed [1) and it is up to the Board will review the community comments. And with almost 5,000 edits in the discussion - with more than 2,000 editors and 320,000 words in various languages and with very different opinions on the subject, it will be a challenge for the Board to come to a common standpoint if it as all is possible
Stephen LePorte writes: /The !vote is one strong indicator of the importance of addressing this topic/, in which I fully agree
I would like suggest that the issue of paid editors should become one area to look when we start the work with the next version of our strategy plan
In our last strategy it stated "more editors" which in reality became about the same number but where a few became semi-professional who make an increasing percentage of all edits. And I believe we should instead of "more editors" had stated "more, better articles with higher quality" and then been more open to means to reach that goal (where more editors could had been one mean)
In the same way I would like something like "more, better articles with higher quality" to be a goal for next five year strategy plan and where paid edits could be one mean to reach that goal, but which then need to be supported with proper guidelines recommendations etc.
Personally I am a bit concerned that we introduce more and more elaborate rules for qualified editing at the same time the base technique is getting more complicated (wikidata is great but it puts higher demand on skill for editors). I do not see that this trend necessary means higher treshhold for new beginner, as other tools like visual editors make it easier to start. But I do beleive the treshhold to become a qualified a "semi-professional editor" IS becoming higher. And perhaps the receipt for last five years - more semiprofessional - is not a viable option for next five years
Anders
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment