Nonapology
Alexander Pope has been quoted as saying, “At every word a reputation dies.” It’s natural to expect that if something is written about you, it would be in your best interest to ensure it to be accurate and correct. At the same time, what makes the Internet great is its inherent ability to transmit free-form expression across a global network.
What to make, then, of Microsoft’s attempt to pay a blogger to write favorable content on Wikipedia? Since the whole point of Wikipedia is to provide users a content stream free of such conflicts of interest, this has obviously created something of a hissyfit. Microsoft acknowledged that the company approached Rick Jelliffe, described as a “technical standards aficionado,” with a proposal to exchange payment for corrections to what the company felt were technical accuracies in a Wikipedia entry concerning open-source document standards.
It’s an interesting case study. In this age of competitive advantage it makes a lot of sense to prevent your products, words, actions or services from being misrepresented. According to MS spokeswoman Catherine Brooker, the company felt that the content said to be inacurate had been contributed by rivals IBM Corp. After numerous attempts to report these mistakes (in their minds) to Wikipedia’s editors, the company decided to seek an independent editor of their own … something like when you have an article peer reviewed prior to publishing. And while reactions vary from benign to vitriolic (let’s face it, headlines like this really cause MS haters to tingle with effevescent glee), once the technical aspects are removed it’s difficult to see the issue beyond one of simple reputation management.
Anyway, I have two very high-level thoughts regarding this topic. One, If you read Jellife’s own account of the events he makes very clear the level of astonishment he felt when asked to provide this service. He’s hardly an apologist for the Microsoft Empire, as he states below:
The only time I use Microsoft products is on my laptop at home (a present from my dear old Dad), but I need it to run the SynthEdit program for making virtual synthesizers. Oh, I occasionally also use a ten year old Microsoft C++ compiler, to make some DSP filter code: I have released about 80 filters open source this way. I’m not a Microsoft hater at all, its just that I’ve swum in a different stream. …
So I was a little surprised to receive email a couple of days ago from Microsoft saying they wanted to contract someone independent but friendly (me) for a couple of days to provide more balance on Wikipedia concerning ODF/OOXML. I am hardly the poster boy of Microsoft partisanship!
Two, one of the more thoughtful responses came from Rex Hammock, who wonders if it’s time to develop some sort of etiquette to govern how companies may or may not represent themselves in collaborative content environments:
When interpreted as “Microsoft offers cash for Wikipedia edit,” sure, it sounds evil. But if Wikipedia has become the platform of record for web-based knowledge, then having a voice there is going to be a requirement for corporate America. Wikipedia either needs to find an accepted “white hat” way for this to be done directly and transparently (and not some “in the discussions, off the website way), or dark-hat, Rube Goldberg solutions will naturally follow.
Prediction: In the future (like a week from now), in addition to “SEO” (search engine optimization) and “SMO” (social media optimization) expect to see the term “WO” (wikipedia optimization) added to the “lexicon of expertise” of certain online marketing consulting firms.
For even more on the medium’s delights and conundrums, check out Jaron Lanier’s essay describing Wikipedia participation as a collectively dangerous form of “Digital Maoism.” (thanks to Daniel for the link)
August 19th, 2007 at 10:04 am
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