> Wikipedia and alleged conflicts of interest are not known to be handled with practicality - or clarity.
In a large organization/community, bad apples are unavoidable. What matters is how the organization/community deals with such cases as they come along. If what the article says about this rogue trustee is true, then he needs to be fired, and fired hard, to send a message to the rest of the organization and its many international branches.
I can understand why Wikipedia the project generally does not want to make top-down changes, but Wikimedia the foundation needs strong leadership in order to avoid corruption among its ranks. With great power comes great responsibility, and it cannot be denied that Wiki[pm]edia has gained great power in today's world, whether intended or not. There must be rules. Those rules must be written down and enforced consistently. Yes, that will lead to bureaucracy, but bureaucracy tends to become necessary when your organization reaches a certain level of complexity.
I'm not sure who (if anyone) is in charge of granting and revoking "Residence" status, but that person needs to be dealt with, too, and swiftly, and harshly, if the allegations have merit. "Paid PR" is a vague concept, but openly advertising profit-motivated wiki-editing services is clearly unacceptable by the cultural standards of Wikipedia. If the community can demonstrate that it can enforce discipline even upon its most highly esteemed members, there is no reason to suppose that this incident will be a net loss for Wiki[pm]edia in the long term.
Fortunately, it shouldn't be too difficult to find out who made which edits.
I'm not sure who (if anyone) is in charge of granting and revoking "Residence" status, but that person needs to be dealt with, too, and swiftly, and harshly, if the allegations have merit
So that'd be an employee of the Derby Museum and Art Gallery and of the Online Computer Library Center.
You've been mislead by poor reporting on Violet Blue's part as to the nature of Wikipedians in Residence.
Sorry, that was phrased badly. I meant that the community should punish the person who was granted the Residence status and misused it, not the person (or group) that granted it.
But that is fixing the symptom, not curing the disease. Throwing out the guy that manipulates Wikipedia for personal gains stops him, but not any of his peers that are also subverting the project. It is very unlikely that not a lot of governments and corporations have realized how hugely important Wikipedia has become. Therefore I don't think this guy was alone. In the future, people astro turfing Wikipedia will be more careful to avoid being caught but they wont at all disappear.
Curing the disease on a "not-for profit" enterprise requires not just rules and regulations, but someone responsible for oversight. In effect, more bureaucracy.
Money can only corrupt an organization whose purpose is not to make money.
If you throw out all paid edits, the customer might find all that is left of their Wikipedia entry is nasty stuff. That could be a big discouragement right there.
Wikipedia's own transparency is the best cure for corruption. Anyone can run data analysis on contributors to look for suspicious patterns. May be with a high profile "scandal" like this one more people will try it.
In a large organization/community, bad apples are unavoidable. What matters is how the organization/community deals with such cases as they come along. If what the article says about this rogue trustee is true, then he needs to be fired, and fired hard, to send a message to the rest of the organization and its many international branches.
I can understand why Wikipedia the project generally does not want to make top-down changes, but Wikimedia the foundation needs strong leadership in order to avoid corruption among its ranks. With great power comes great responsibility, and it cannot be denied that Wiki[pm]edia has gained great power in today's world, whether intended or not. There must be rules. Those rules must be written down and enforced consistently. Yes, that will lead to bureaucracy, but bureaucracy tends to become necessary when your organization reaches a certain level of complexity.
I'm not sure who (if anyone) is in charge of granting and revoking "Residence" status, but that person needs to be dealt with, too, and swiftly, and harshly, if the allegations have merit. "Paid PR" is a vague concept, but openly advertising profit-motivated wiki-editing services is clearly unacceptable by the cultural standards of Wikipedia. If the community can demonstrate that it can enforce discipline even upon its most highly esteemed members, there is no reason to suppose that this incident will be a net loss for Wiki[pm]edia in the long term.
Fortunately, it shouldn't be too difficult to find out who made which edits.