Microsoft quarrels with Wikipedia
Microsoft has problems with Wikipedia. As it became known, one of Microsoft employees tried to pay for the services of an Australian blogger to make changes to the “wiki articles”.
Wikipedia is known primarily for the fact that anyone, even unregistered ones, can write and edit articles in it. However, the policy of the Wikimedia Foundation - the organization financing the world-famous online encyclopedia - is to stay away from corporate wars and not to give people affiliated with commercial structures to influence the content of the articles.
One of Microsoft employees, Doug Mahugh, turned to Rick Jelliffe, an employee of the Australian company Topologi, with a request to correct incorrect (according to Doug) data contained in articles on Open XML. A Microsoft representative also suggested to Jelliff to pay for the time spent on correcting the materials.
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As Doug explained in comments on Slashdot.org, the material on Open XML contains a lot of biased information, so Microsoft is interested in making the article more neutral.
Microsoft spokesman Catherine Brooker (Catherine Brooker) explained that, according to the company, the article was written by people associated with IBM, supporting the open-source format. Her words are quoted by the Australian newspaper The Age. The involvement of a third-party expert was necessary in order for him to independently determine whether changes should be made. The parties did not agree on the amount of the transaction, no money was given to Rick Jellyff; the only clear agreement was that Microsoft would not check the text of the corrections before it was written to the article. Brooker also said that Microsoft had never attracted experts and its own employees to "influence Wikipedia."
Rick Jellyff in his blog called the terms of the transaction quite fair and not violating the principles of Wikipedia. He identified himself as "an ardent proponent of open standards, not a partisan of Microsoft." After this blog post, he refuses to comment on the situation, does not respond to phone calls and emails.
Nevertheless, this situation caused a heated discussion. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, says that he is extremely upset by this Microsoft approach. Wales believes that it would be more appropriate to create a separate web page on which the company would state its position on these articles; Links to this page should be placed on the discussion pages of articles. “This is a much better, honest and truthful way,” he says.
One of the important questions that arise in this situation is how correctly to pay the authors of Wikipedia articles? Volunteers, as well as “purchased” authors, are affiliated, just not with the “customer”, but with their convictions, stereotypes, standards.
To make money on Wikipedia, MyWikiBiz was created - a service that offered to write articles about various companies for a fee ranging from $ 49 to $ 99. Its creator, Stephen Koch, says : “It’s strange that an article about Pokemon is 1200 words, and an article about a company belonging to the Fortune 500 sometimes doesn’t even have 100 words.”
Koch researched Wikipedia a long time ago and discovered a phenomenal thing: there are specific discussions on the Reward Board wiki. Some people (not necessarily registered, that is, anonymous) are willing to pay to ensure that a particular article has been improved and become a “better” (featured article). For example, one of the anonymous offers offers $ 55 for ensuring that this status is given to an article about Lithuania.
Immediately after the opening of MyWikiBiz, the online encyclopedia service account was blocked, and in a telephone conversation Jimmy Wales called this service “inconsistent with the Wikipedia mission.”
In an interview, Jimmy Wales said that he was well aware of the state of things: yes, some users secretly do what the creators of MyWikiBiz tried to do openly. Nevertheless, this is not a reason to resist the penetration of PR into “Wikipedia territory”.
Wikipedia is known primarily for the fact that anyone, even unregistered ones, can write and edit articles in it. However, the policy of the Wikimedia Foundation - the organization financing the world-famous online encyclopedia - is to stay away from corporate wars and not to give people affiliated with commercial structures to influence the content of the articles.
One of Microsoft employees, Doug Mahugh, turned to Rick Jelliffe, an employee of the Australian company Topologi, with a request to correct incorrect (according to Doug) data contained in articles on Open XML. A Microsoft representative also suggested to Jelliff to pay for the time spent on correcting the materials.
')
As Doug explained in comments on Slashdot.org, the material on Open XML contains a lot of biased information, so Microsoft is interested in making the article more neutral.
Microsoft spokesman Catherine Brooker (Catherine Brooker) explained that, according to the company, the article was written by people associated with IBM, supporting the open-source format. Her words are quoted by the Australian newspaper The Age. The involvement of a third-party expert was necessary in order for him to independently determine whether changes should be made. The parties did not agree on the amount of the transaction, no money was given to Rick Jellyff; the only clear agreement was that Microsoft would not check the text of the corrections before it was written to the article. Brooker also said that Microsoft had never attracted experts and its own employees to "influence Wikipedia."
Rick Jellyff in his blog called the terms of the transaction quite fair and not violating the principles of Wikipedia. He identified himself as "an ardent proponent of open standards, not a partisan of Microsoft." After this blog post, he refuses to comment on the situation, does not respond to phone calls and emails.
Nevertheless, this situation caused a heated discussion. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, says that he is extremely upset by this Microsoft approach. Wales believes that it would be more appropriate to create a separate web page on which the company would state its position on these articles; Links to this page should be placed on the discussion pages of articles. “This is a much better, honest and truthful way,” he says.
One of the important questions that arise in this situation is how correctly to pay the authors of Wikipedia articles? Volunteers, as well as “purchased” authors, are affiliated, just not with the “customer”, but with their convictions, stereotypes, standards.
To make money on Wikipedia, MyWikiBiz was created - a service that offered to write articles about various companies for a fee ranging from $ 49 to $ 99. Its creator, Stephen Koch, says : “It’s strange that an article about Pokemon is 1200 words, and an article about a company belonging to the Fortune 500 sometimes doesn’t even have 100 words.”
Koch researched Wikipedia a long time ago and discovered a phenomenal thing: there are specific discussions on the Reward Board wiki. Some people (not necessarily registered, that is, anonymous) are willing to pay to ensure that a particular article has been improved and become a “better” (featured article). For example, one of the anonymous offers offers $ 55 for ensuring that this status is given to an article about Lithuania.
Immediately after the opening of MyWikiBiz, the online encyclopedia service account was blocked, and in a telephone conversation Jimmy Wales called this service “inconsistent with the Wikipedia mission.”
In an interview, Jimmy Wales said that he was well aware of the state of things: yes, some users secretly do what the creators of MyWikiBiz tried to do openly. Nevertheless, this is not a reason to resist the penetration of PR into “Wikipedia territory”.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/4997/
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