- Doc James, who is currently a community elected member of the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees, originally wrote this op-ed in February 2015. The issue of paid editing is as prominent as ever. Some of the company names have changed, some haven't. -S
A few months ago, now-banned editor FergusM1970 linked to an attack page he had one of his friends write about me. In turn, this page linked to Fergus' Twitter and Elance accounts—the latter a privately owned clearing house for employers to post jobs, search for freelance professionals, and solicit proposals. It was there that I discovered one of the darker sides of Wikipedia.
On Elance, hundreds of posted jobs offer money to edit Wikipedia. Companies like the now-former Wiki-PR, which was involved in a paid advocacy scandal that encompassed hundreds to thousands of Wikipedia accounts and pages, will pay for articles about specific individuals and entities. Others ask to add links to drive traffic to other websites, and yet others are jobs to remove negative content. These jobs appear to be thriving, with tens of thousands of dollars changing hands each month.
With a little bit of looking around, it's fairly easy to determine which account wrote what content and for how much. A number of patterns became clear. Most individuals are undeclared paid editors. Many use a single sockpuppet for one or two jobs and then move on to the next account. One editor stated that they are an experienced Wikipedia administrator. Some were better at hiding their activities than others, with certain editors responsible for a trail of blocked accounts. Elance is just one of many e-commerce sites through which this sort of business is being transacted.
I've been grappling with a couple of questions since:
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