Corruption in Wikiland? Paid PR scandal erupts at Wikipedia

[n2doc]

Concerned Wikipedians raised the alarm Monday that two trusted men -- one a trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation UK, the other a respected Wikipedian In Residence -- are allegedly editing Wikipedia pages and facilitating front-page placement for their pay-for-play, publicity-seeking clients.

Jimmy Wales is not pleased.

It began this week when an interesting discussion started on the DYK ("Did You Know&quot discussion page.

Roger Bamkin, trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation UK, whose LinkedIn page describes him as a high-return-earning PR consultant, appeared to be using Wikipedia's main page "Did You Know" feature and the resources of Wikipedia's GLAM WikiProject (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) initiative to pimp his client's project. Bamkin's current client is the country of Gibraltar.

In August, Gibraltar was featured as a Wikipedia DYK front page feature an astonishing seventeen times - that's an unusual frequency of every 2-3 days.

more
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57514677-93/corruption-in-wikiland-paid-pr-scandal-erupts-at-wikipedia/

[begin_within]

1. Ah, Wikipedia... the world's most trusted and popular source of misinformation...

Ha ha ha! Does anyone actually take Wikipedia, Snopes and Google seriously?

[jberryhill]

2. As opposed to what?

While it is nice to believe that one has access to some kind of infallible source of information, the point of critical thinking is the ability to weigh, compare, and decide between competing sources of information.

How "Google" fits into the group of three you mentioned is, however, something of a mystery.

[begin_within]

6. Google distorts its results to "fit" the user

Try typing a search on your own computer, and look at the results you get. Go to a library and type the same search... you'll get a completely different set of results...

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. A few years ago a study was made of the accuracy of wikipedia

compared to encyclopedia brittanica. Wikipedia won by a small margin.

With Wikipedia, you can check all the source material and edit the entry if it is incomplete.

I don't trust any source of info 100%, but there are far worse sources than wikipedia.

[jsr]

3. Wow

[Starry Messenger]

4. Wikipedia is useless.

I use it like a dictionary, for word meanings and references. But for research, it is horribly slanted by anyone with an agenda.

[FSogol]

5. Wiki: Good if you want info on Battlestar Galacticia or Doctor Who, Bad for everything else.

[Starry Messenger]

7. I think those shows have their own wikis, lol.

I've seen wikipedia articles that quote entirely from right-wing sources and the discussion pages are a mess because no one will cop to POV.

[Jim Lane]

9. As a Wikipedian, I'm biased, but I think it has great value.

Yes, some pages are slanted by people with an agenda. For the highest-profile pages, though, with many editors, there's the factor of competing agendas. I've often edited Wikipedia to include information I learned on DU, and there are also right-wingers who include facts that put their side in a good light.

It does seem at times that the right-wingers are more active. It's a shame that, with a widely read source that's not dependent on corporate sponsorship or ad dollars, we don't have more progressive volunteers editing there to root out the right-wing bias.

[Spazito]

10. Wiki is good for non-political geographical information...

other than that, it is not reliable to use as a primary source, imo. I think of it, for some things, as a starting point not an end point.