Microsoft's pay-to-edit Wikipedia meddling: Wales not amused
Over on Slashdot, an anonymous poster writes:
Link to /. post.[T]here's an interesting piece [by Rick Jeliffe on the O'Reilly Network] about how Microsoft tried to hire people to contribute to Wikipedia. Not wanting to do the edits directly, they were looking for an intermediary to make edits and corrections favorable to them. Why? According to the article, it was apparently both to let people know that Microsoft will not 'enable death squads with their UUIDs' and also to fight the growing consensus that OOXML contains a useless pile of legacy crap which is unfit for standardization."
I asked Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales today how he felt about Microsoft's apparent attempt to manipulate Wikipedia with cash for their own gain.
Mr. Wales shared an email he'd sent to O'Reilly contributor Rick Jeliffe about the matter:
I hope you will publicly reject it as being unethical. Point out to them that people have been banned from Wikipedia permanently for doing what they are asking you to do. We consider it a grave violation of community trust, and Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves for asking.
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