Wikipedia:Paid editing (guideline)

See also: Wikipedia:Paid editing/Alternative text

Note: This page is not a Wikipedia policy or guideline. It is an attempt to summarize existing policies and guidelines that relate to the general topic of paid editing.

Paid editing, or editing Wikipedia articles in return for material reward or compensation of any kind, raises a number of concerns.

Wikipedia's slogan is "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." The notion of paid writers conjures a conundrum: on one hand, if "anyone can edit," it stands to reason that even those paid are included under that umbrella, provided that they follow basic ground rules; on the other hand, the concept of paid editors strains on the freedom of Wikipedia's stakeholders; perhaps most significantly, the ability of its readers to find content that is neutral and thorough.

Wikipedia's policies on Neutral Point of View (NPOV) and What Wikipedia is Not as well as our guidelines on Conflict of Interest (COI) and Spamming provide good background on the core issues that impact paid editing.

Background

Paid editing is a topic that continues to be the subject of many strongly divided discussions, particularly an extensive Requests for comment at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Paid editing in June 2009. Some users support forbidding paid editing altogether, based on the belief that it invites biased contributions and creates more work for the project than it saves. Other users feel that some forms of paid editing have always taken place and remain acceptable if the contributions align with policies and guidelines on content and contributing.

Advice

This section summarizes the most salient points that commonly occur with paid editing issues and how to address problems: If you are engaging in paid editing or dealing with what may be a paid editing situation, please keep the following advice in mind:

• Any form of advocacy is forbidden by WP:NPOV. Paid advocacy, which is any contribution or edit to Wikipedia content that advocates for your employer's point of view, or is likely to benefit your employer's business interests, is considered to be an especially egregious form of advocacy. Significant information and widely held opinions that are documented in reliable sources that are contrary to your employer's point of view or business interests must be included.
• There is no existing policy that explicitly forbids paid editing, but the guideline on conflicts of interest (COI) must be observed at all times. Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest. Paid editing is not COI by default. However when someone is being compensated, the integrity of the work, including the likelihood the content remains neutral toward those who are doing the compensating, is reasonably considered to be compromised.
• Paid editors should create a user account with Wikipedia, and retain this user account over time, even if not all their editing is received positively. This helps you to build an accurate professional reputation, and helps other Wikipedia contributors to scrutinize your contributions.
• Your contributions will be edited mercilessly, sometimes very quickly. Make sure your employer(s) understand this in advance. If you create an article that is not in compliance with Wikipedia's policies on notability and reliable sourcing it will likely be deleted. Do not game the system to prevent this.
• Using administrator tools or participating in policy discussions for compensation of any kind is strictly forbidden. This is essential to maintain the integrity of our community and consensus building. It is okay to share your viewpoint regarding content that you have contributed, but keep Wikipedia's larger goals in mind when doing so.
• Do not copy material from your employer's website or publications, unless they have donated the material as described at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. Simply telling you that you can use it is not sufficient to comply with Wikipedia's legal requirements.
• Do not submit to Wikipedia any newly written materials that are a work for hire with copyright owned by the person or company paying you, unless that copyright owner has specifically granted permission for the material to be released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and that grant is confirmed through the OTRS process. This issue can apply to independent contractors, as well as to employees, and the legal issue will also vary by jurisdiction.

If you are uncertain about whether your contribution is appropriate, you can begin by creating the article as a user subpage. To do this, visit your user page and then add to the URL a slash ("/") followed by the name of the subpage. You can then request feedback on your subpage from more experienced users before using the "Move" feature to move it to its correct title.

See also

• Boilerplate request for permission
• Closeted, referring to editors who remain in the closet as being a paid editor
• Conflict of interest#Financial
• Confirmation of permission
• Copyright issues - undigested talk on this topic
• Copyright owners who submitted their own work to Wikipedia
• Copyrights
• Countering systemic bias
• Economic inequality

External links

• Wikimediafoundation.org fundraising