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Microsoft vs. Wikipedia
Yesterday’s The Globe and Mail had a brief (but very interesting) article about Microsoft offering to pay a blogger to modify technical articles about the company on Wikipedia. Although anyone can contribute to the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia’s group of volunteer writers and editors block anyone perceived as having a conflict of interest from contributing biased information. So as the article states, paying for coverage in Wikipedia is not tolerated. The article goes on to describe Microsoft’s response to the “online scandal.”
Check out Rex Hammock’s commentary. He raises some good questions on the proper protocol for companies to have a dialogue on collaborative websites like wikipedia.
And Mathew Ingram of the Globe and Mail is tracing the discussion plus responding to whether the Wikipedia process is “broken” over on his blog.
Thanks Steven and Connie for pointing these out!