Wikipedia talk:Paid editing (guideline)

• Archive of old discussion

Opposition

Per Jimbo, the use of pay for article editing is now specifically barred as a matter of WP policy. Absent any consensus to the contrary, that policy remains in force. Placing any essay of proposed policy into WP-speace is therefore quite unhelpful, as it might lead some to misconstrue the vigor of Jimbo's position. When and if a "paypedia" is established, then such an essay might have some utility. "It is not ok with me that anyone ever set up a service selling their services as a Wikipedia editor, administrator, bureaucrat, etc. I will personally block any cases that I am shown. There are of course some possibly interesting alternatives, not particularly relevant here, but the idea that we should ever accept paid advocates directly editing Wikipedia is not ever going to be ok. Consider this to be policy as of right now." seems on its face to be rather dispositive of the ill-named "paid editing." Collect (talk) 15:55, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. The lengthy discussion at Wikipedia:RFC/PAID certainly showed no consensus for encouraging paid editing, or for a new how-to guidebook for paid editors. This page should be deleted and discussion continued at Wikipedia:RFC/PAID until there is consensus for a change (not likely at this point). Priyanath ^talk 17:13, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Jimbo specifically distinguishes paid advocacy from paid editing, as does this page. This page is intended to represent the status quo, not any change in policy; merely an informational summary of existing policy. If you believe the page misrepresents the status quo in some way, or is not "vigorous" enough, I invite you to modify it. Dcoetzee 17:20, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. Advocacy, paid or otherwise, remains a no-no. However I've see quite a few cases of people whose bosses told them to "fix the slander". I also invite you to consider that forbidding someone to be paid to edit is rather unenforcible unless they tell you or you find out. And even then I think you need to look at it as to what are the actual contributions. If you want to step another bit into the theoretical Wikipedia is quite classist in who even has the opportunity to read, let alone edit. P.S. Dcoetzee, maybe add the bounty board to this mess - I've never liked it as to officially endorse hand-picked articles being rewarded, that seems a tad elitist as well. -- Banjeboi 17:28, 20 June 2009 (UTC)