User:Ocaasi/Paid editing on Wikipedia

Paid editing or paid advocacy on Wikipedia involves individuals, political groups, governments, organizations, and corporations editing entries related to their self, causes, or work in the collaborative online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Although these edits include minor grammatical or factual changes, significant media attention has revolved around changes which seek to remove negative information and add positive information. Wikipedia is free for anyone to edit, but maintains a neutrality policy. It's official policy on editors who have a conflict of interest discourages editors from working in areas where they would be intentionally or unintentionally biased. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has argued that editors who have a clear political or financial conflict of interest should not directly edit articles, but instead propose edits indirectly, and seek other editors' feedback.

A number of scandals have revolved upon the revelation of paid editing. In 2006 Wikipedia editor Gregory Kohser, who went by the username "TheKohser" was banned from Wikipedia after he disclosed that he was being paid for some of his work. In 2007 a website called WikiScanner started which allowed one to match the ip addresses of Wikipedia editors with known company and organization offices. Since 2000, when Wikipedia started, it has been revealed or discovered that MyWikiBiz, Microsoft, Fox News, Diebold, the CIA, the Tory Party, Sony, Electronic Arts, Bell Pottinger, Portland Communications, Newt Gingrich, and several other individuals, companies, and politicians have had people from their offices edit their own or related Wikipedia articles.

Several companies exist today which charge for Wikipedia editing. Public relations firms also offer services related to the monitoring and editing of topics on the encyclopedia. As negative press has grown over conflict of interest editing, some public relations professionals have sought to privately and publicly improve the relationship between their industry and Wikipedia, as well as to influence its policies and procedures to be more accommodating of well-intentioned changes. A Facebook group, Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement (CREWE) was started to work on this, and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations has also been involved in efforts with Wikipedia's parent organization, the Wikimedia Foundation.