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Thursday, January 25, 2007

 

Microsoft v. Wikipedia

Wikipedia is not happy with Microsoft after Microsoft offered to pay Australian blogger, Rick Jelliffe, to 'correct inaccuracies' on Wikipedia pages relating to Microsoft Office Open XML. It has been reported that Microsoft asked Jelliffe to disclose the deal on his blog.

On his blog, Jelliffe states:

"I think I’ll accept it: FUD enrages me and MS certainly are not hiring me to add any pro-MS FUD, just to correct any errors I see."

Why is Microsoft doing this?
"Brooker said Microsoft had gotten nowhere in trying to flag the purported mistakes to Wikipedia's volunteer editors, so it sought an independent expert who could determine whether changes were necessary and enter them on Wikipedia." [SMH]
Is Microsoft doing the wrong thing? Well it seems the issue is neutrality which is one of the 'five pillars' of Wikipedia. Is there going to be a conflict of interest now Jelliffe is on the payroll? Considering the transparency and the amount of media attention this story is getting I am sure the ever vigilant Wikipedia editors will be all over any changes that are remotely slanted in Microsoft's favour.

Microsoft paying an impartial expert to edit Wikipedia pages is ok because:

Microsoft paying an impartial expert to edit Wikipedia pages is not ok because:

I am inclined to wait and see what happens before throwing up my arms in disgust.

In the meantime, enjoy the lovely cartoon from xkcd.

(Pictured: "The Problem with Wikipedia", Randall Munroe - via his excellent webcomic xkcd, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 license)

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