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Right. Obviously, there are (a very small number of) people who try to abuse Wikipedia for their own gain. They are almost always identified quickly, and dealt
by p-e-w 4y ago
Right. Obviously, there are (a very small number of) people who try to abuse Wikipedia for their own gain. They are almost always identified quickly, and dealt with accordingly.
But they are not the ones who "built Wikipedia". The ones that did never made a dime. If someone sticks an advertising poster to the front door of a human rights advocacy group's headquarters during the night, and the poster is removed the next morning, the fact that it hung there for a few hours says absolutely nothing about the organization or the people who work for it.
I see articles like the one you linked to, which try to extract sensationalist value out of such non-events, as part of a deliberate smear campaign against Wikipedia. The idea is to create the impression that Wikipedia has been infiltrated by political and commercial interests, which is absolute hogwash. This smear campaign has been going on for many, many years, and I've just learned to ignore such claims entirely, since I've convinced myself long ago that they are without any merit.
- DMell 4y agoFor clarity, that wasn’t my intention even of the slightest.