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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep. After 48K and five days, nobody has offered a single reason this policy proposal should be deleted; instead, nearly every "delete" comment has instead offered a reason that the proposal should be rejected. Wikipedia talk:Now Hiring is the place to debate the appropriateness of accepting this proposal. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:03, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is an obvious keep, but this reason for closing is completely invalid. You don't get to throw out people's votes as a closer because you personally disagree with them, and had this been close, this would have been grounds to throw out the whole result. Ambi 07:37, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a democracy. A Man In Black's reason is perfectly valid. Jon Harald Søby 09:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is based on consensus. The consensus here was to keep for a variety of reasons. The consensus here was not to all make a bunch of comments so A Man in Black can ignore it all and decide his own outcome. Please leave things alone when you have no idea what you're talking about. Ambi 10:13, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
u 1st d00d cookiecaper (talk / contribs) 20:30, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think that comment speaks for itself. Ambi 00:59, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Now Hiring

[edit]

The idea of paying individual editors has been discussed at length, primarily on Wikipedia talk:Bounty board. My impression is that there was consensus at that stage that it was a very bad idea (no votes were ever taken, so I couldn't say that it was 75-80% consensus, but that was the way things were generally pointing). I won't rehash all the arguments set out there - have a look and make your own mind up. OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 08:42, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As nominator, I move to speedily close this MFD, as the page has now been rewritten as a proposed policy, and in its current form, MFD is clearly inappropriate. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 15:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This is a reasonable motivation for doing work on Wikipedia; we shouldn't attempt to deny people this -- if we do it will hinder, somewhat, our goal of building a free encyclopedia. Moreover, there is no way for us to stop people arranging financial payment off-site, and it's much better if we could monitor it on-site instead. — Matt Crypto 08:49, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. There's nothing wrong with someone getting paid for contributions that someone else is willing to pay for. If this flies, I believe it'll draw in high-quality contributions at an exponential rate. cookiecaper (talk / contribs) 08:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This would lead to bias being introduced. There's a risk people with an agenda, will pay people to do their bidding. -Rob 08:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • And this money would be wasted as these edits would be removed just the same as if they had been completed for free. Admins bribed not to take action should be banned, but I don't think many people will be advertising dubious activities like that on the page anyway. cookiecaper (talk / contribs) 09:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Quite. "There's a risk people with an agenda, will pay people to do their bidding." — this is a risk with or without this page. Wikipedia mechanisms are quite robust against POV pushers, regardless of motivation. We deal daily with people with strong views on religion, politics, ethics etc, yet we cope well -- and believe me, people get more passionate about these things than any financial pressure could induce. Obviously we would want to police the bounties here, but 99% of these are going to be things like "bounty for creation of a diagram to illustrate such-and-such an article", or "find a source for this fact" etc. This would be beneficial. — Matt Crypto 10:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm not sure the content could easily be removed. When somebody, who doesn't care about Wikipedia, is acting alone, to promote themselves, it's easy for the community remove the content. Often advertisers "dump and run", as it's not worth their time to defend content (and they don't know how). But, through hiring multiple knowledgeable/experienced editors, an advertiser could acheive signficant results. A particular worrysome thing, would be AFD's for sponsored articles. Some of the sponsor/editor relationships could (privately) turn into sponsor/voter relationships. -Rob 22:02, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete: Wikipedia shouldn't be used for financial gain.--cj | talk 09:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why not? The GFDL is perfectly friendly to commercial uses. If Wikipedia shouldn't be used to make money, shouldn't the license reflect that? And shouldn't someone inform Wikia, Inc.? cookiecaper (talk / contribs) 09:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Wikipedia is a non-profit project, done by volunteers trying to spread knowledge. Wikia is a for-profit project, aiming to make money. Perhaps the latter (or a fork) would be more suited for your goals. Ambi 09:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Why is it necessary that this be done completely by volunteers? I think our goals of giving knowledge to everyone and "the spirit of the project" are much better served by paying for quality articles than by imposing arbitrary restrictions unprecedented in other free projects that we really have no power to enforce anyway. cookiecaper (talk / contribs) 09:12, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Kill it with fire. This goes completely against the spirit of the project. Ambi 09:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Die, die, die wikipedia is free - you want to do financial transactions for personal gain, do it elsewhere. Besides the only request looks like solicitation for dodgy photos. NO. --Doc ask? 09:14, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per User:Matt Crypto. I disagree with User:Doc glasgow that this will make Wikipedia non-free. This does not affect the ability of anyone to view the site for free. No-one has ever been able to tell someone else to do something for free, and this doesn't change that, either. It is common in the community for people to be paid to write GPL software; if someone wants to pay someone to do something and give it back to the community, it is as good as if they did it themselves, and the same applies here. The only issue is if people pay for others to break policy. In this case, we ideally want to sanction both the payer and the doer, and this will be easier, not harder, if the transaction occurs on Wikipedia rather than elsewhere.— Preceding unsigned comment added by A1kmm (talk • contribs) 18:58, 18 April 2006
  • Keep I remain thoroughly unconvinced that this will be a bad thing. Tuf-Kat 10:54, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete per Rob and Doc, hate the idea. Editors should be motivated by altruism, not financial gain — if someone is not willing to do it for free, I don't want to see them do it for money. Tijuana Brass 10:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC) As other editors are pointing out, this needs to be debated elsewhere rather than through a MfD. Changing my vote to keeping this page, so as to go through the proper channels, etc. Tijuana Brass¡Épa!-E@ 00:53, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • OK, but why should you get to demand the motivations of other editors? If it aids Wikipedia, then I'm sorry, but your preferences about the motivations of others take second priority. Remember, people don't edit Wikipedia out of pure altruism anyway. By your argument, we should delete barnstars, brag lists on user pages, WikiMoney, etc: anything that might possibly reward a contributor in some way! It is good to motivate people to assist our project using every mechanism at our disposal, providing that it doesn't damage the project. And bounties would not. — Matt Crypto 11:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • For starters, because it's what I believe, and I see this as a vote largely over ideology (as opposed to an NPOV issue, for example). You're making an equally subjective claim, after all, that not allowing this would somehow "hinder" the development of articles. I don't this aiding Wikipedia, but rather pushing it towards a for-profit venture and inviting bias. You're absolutely right in saying that altruism is not always the motivation — when you come down to it, we all have selfish reasons at one point or another — but scrapping a difficult goal just because not everyone cares to strive for it misses the point. And comparing money to barnstars is apples and oranges; it's nice to have my boss tell me that I did a good job and give me a gold star, but it's not gonna replace a paycheck. Tijuana Brass 11:14, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm making a pragmatic argument, not ideological: motivating people to write for Wikipedia helps us with our stated goal. Small amounts of money (and yes, Wikipedia will never be someone's workplace) will help motivate people. You're saying that, ideologically, we all should be contributing to Wikipedia for absolutely no selfish reason whatsoever. Again, to strive for your difficult goal would include scrapping barnstars and such. — Matt Crypto 11:24, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Sorry, I can't agree with that. I don't think you'll find anybody who will honestly say that they're editing to get barnstars. Tijuana Brass 11:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • I think you'd find that nobody would be editing Wikipedia solely to gain bounties, either. But barnstars go against your philosophy of absolute altruism. Also, note that in 2005 the Wikimedia Foundation employed up to four people part time and full time[2]. Wikipedia does not dictate that all contributions to the project must be without reward. We are certainly under no obligation to reward people, but if some people actually want to reward others for doing such-and-such a job, it seems very wrong, and moreover actually harmful (pragmatically), to deny them a place on the site to do so. — Matt Crypto 11:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • Ah, but barnstars are awarded after the fact; were I to propose a reward of a barnstar in exchange for an edit, that would be a different story. Thanking a person is quite different than offering compensation in exchange for a service. In any case, we're straying from the point; I'm not saying that anyone here is going to have a perfect philanthropic ethic, just that it should be the aim, and a pay-for-edit system would undermine that. The case of the Wikimedia Found. employing a staff is a different issue as well; it's a necessity to do so for the project to survive, in the same sense that computers, bandwidth, etc. need to be paid for... just like the overhead of any other non-profit organization. Tijuana Brass 11:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Regarding Wikipedia as a workplace: I see some problems associated with that, but if it happens and the encyclopedia is going stronger because of it, more power to whoever's making their living editing Wikipedia. cookiecaper (talk / contribs) 13:09, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Then maybe Wikia or another pay-for-authorship website would be better suited for those people — one of the things that makes Wikipedia unique (and powerful) is its free nature, both in the sense of reading and motivation for editors. It sounds like you're encouraging a commercial aspect to it. Tijuana Brass 18:46, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The German edition has been doing this since last July without their Wikipedia spirit being zapped: de:Wikipedia:Auftragsarbeiten. View a translation to get a feel for what this would be like in practice: [3] — Matt Crypto 11:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete If anyone is willing to make a site dedicated to an "article marketplace", no problem, but I disagree with this being something "officially sanctioned" by Wikimedia. bogdan 11:39, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep the page but continue discussion about its usage.--Eloquence* 12:20, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Matt & Eloquence - while I'm not sure I'd be a strong proponent of the idea, I don't think that it has been adequately discussed. Guettarda 12:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This is not the place. Make a proposal, then implement it. - FrancisTyers 12:43, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Unless there is some serious evidence that this is a problem I can see no reason to axe it on principal. If you don't like it, ignore it. Wikipedia already uses rather complex systems of "credit" to encourage editing and I see no reason to reject this one out of hand. --Fastfission 12:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Can you go into more detail on those systems and how they compare to monetary compensation? Tijuana Brass 12:46, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Wikipedia:WikiMoney was very similar to monetary compensation, and has fallen into disuse not because it was controversial, but more because WikiMoney isn't particularly compelling ;-) — Matt Crypto 12:51, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Heh, so much for my avarice. Perhaps its to our collective credit (pun not intended). Were there any others? As it stands, it's just an example of previous failures to use outside incentives for editing. Tijuana Brass 12:55, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • I'm speaking pretty generally. We have all sorts of little ways which have been implemented to give people credit and incentive for adding content (barnstars, featured articles, featured pictures, admin status, little thanks, etc.) As for their effect in comparison with some scheme which involves monetary compensation, I don't know -- I don't think we have enough data on the effects of the latter scheme to make any good conclusions in this case. Hence my argument that we should only "kill it with fire" if it turns out to be a problem. --Fastfission 02:05, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This would be an absolute disaster and should not be contemplated. Wikipedia would become a tool of special interest groups and many good editors would leave. It would completely destroy the project. I have never seen any proposal which could do nearly so much harm. EB should send all its staff here to vote keep.CalJW 13:05, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Um. Can you elaborate on how this would "completely destroy" the project? For example, one wonders whether such "absolute disaster" has befallen the German Wikipedia, which has had such a system since last July?. Before now, I was under the illusion that the German Wikipedia does a lot better than the English edition in many areas. Look, obviously, no bounties would be tolerated if they urged or hinted for people to contravene policy (e.g., "ten quid if you sneak in a pro-Bush slant to this article" etc). — Matt Crypto 13:16, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, harmless and could be a fun way to motivate people through some competition and interaction. On de:Wikipedia:Auftragsarbeiten there are also offers of the type "If you manage to get XY featured, I will contribute three articles to topic Z", which doesn't seem to be bad for the encyclopedia. Kusma (討論) 13:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. I have no idea yet whether this would be a bad idea or not but we don't delete failed policy proposals. We tag them as rejected, historical or one of the other tags. Until they've been decided, though, they should be tagged as proposed. I see no reason why this policy proposal should be treated differently. Rossami (talk) 13:42, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, nominators already have enough invested in the FAC process. Their incentive ought to be creating the best possible article, not raising something to featured status and getting paid. Christopher Parham (talk) 13:47, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why do they have to be exclusive? An editor who wants to create the best possible article would be better able to do so if at least a little fraction of his time with substantiated by money. If you don't want people with impure motivations to claim your bounty, state that it's only open to editors of that WikiProject or whatever. But there's no reason that someone who wants the best article or wants to do their best work can't get a little money for the time they'll be spending. cookiecaper (talk / contribs) 13:52, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • They aren't exclusive, they are merely different, but we would prefer that everyone edit with our actual goal in mind. Among other things, when bounties aren't paid editors who don't get their money are likely to get rather annoyed, wheras someone who's editing on a purely volunteer basis is unlikely to get angry in that fashion. But as someone who participates in FAC a more important issue is that nominators who are intent on getting an article to FA status, rather than making it the best it can be, act in an enormously more confrontational fashion which is detrimental to the FA process. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:41, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Keep It does not make sense to delete this page as a way to settle a policy dispute. Discussion about the policy should occur on the talk page. Discussion not deletion is the "Wikipedia way" to resolve all types of disputes. FloNight talk 14:04, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • This page was necessary because some editors were purpoting that there was already consensus to justify blanking the page and creating a redirect to WP:BOUNTY. I agree that that idea has been shown to be inaccurate by this page. I'm indifferent on whether this discussion should continue here, but I'm glad it's gone this far because now we have something to point to when editors come in and try to impose their censorship without process. cookiecaper (talk / contribs) 14:09, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • One could argue that this page was actually necessary because the page had been created as policy without any prior discussion. Nevertheless, and at the risk of bungeeing discussion backwards and forwards, as the nominator of this I'm happy for discussion to continue on the talk page. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 15:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OpenToppedBus, I think moving the discussion is the best way to go, too. The Mfd brought extra attention to page so it was a good thing. : ) FloNight talk 18:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per Rossami. I'm ambivalent about the project, but this should be archived, whether successful or not - not deleted. Johnleemk | Talk 14:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or Merge with WP:BOUNTY. Werdna648T/C\@ 14:43, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. There's nothing wrong with the page. --Jannex 14:53, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, I agree with Johnleemk that this should be archived at the very least to retain the result of any discussions on the subject, but as long as it results in quality articles that follow policy, I see nothing wrong with financial incentives. Let's try it before we trash it. Besides, I find putting this on MfD to force a decision wholly inappropriate. Take a straw poll first and publish the fact you're doing so on the mailing list and the signpost. Don't try to hide it from the people who don't always frequent MfD. - Mgm|(talk) 15:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Johnleemk. Reject the policy perhaps, but I don't see any compelling reason to delete the proposal. --W.marsh 17:02, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Burn and salt the earth. This has been shot down before. --Carnildo 17:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. If you oppose the proposal, discuss it on the talk page. If it fails, put a {{rejected}} tag on it. Either way, deletion is inappropriate. TacoDeposit 17:54, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Doc and Ambi. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 18:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep — This is not the place to reject policy. Do that on the talk page. —BorgHunter ubx (talk) 18:31, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep — While there is a very pervasive "money is evil" element on the internet, that doesn't mean those who believe that are automatically correct. This type of bounty could do wonderful things in improving the content, and doesn't remove the fact that notability and NPOV are still required for the articles that are edited or created under the scope of this. --Kickstart70-T-C 18:39, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep and rename. I'm not sure it will be very successful, but nothing about it is against what we are building. The content will still be free and subject to the same policies. Nothing that can be done with this can't be done without it. Money is a motivator, and if it motivates very high quality content then so be it. Now if it starts to distort the process with paid band/people advertising we'll have to get a little more forceful applying WP:V, WP:NOR, etc, but I'm confident that can be dealt with. And I especially agree that the answer is not to delete the proposal, but to oppose the policy, etc. - Taxman Talk 19:49, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I'm indifferent to the idea, but it should be dealt with at the relevant talk page, not at MfD. JoshuaZ 20:13, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's being dealt with here because this was recommended on the talk page where people were (ironically enough considering your above comments) refusing to deal with this. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 21:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep. Will hasten the development of material, and really pisses off the socialists. — Phil Welch (t) (c) 20:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC) Also follows best practices established by Deutsche Wikipedia, Wikimedia's flagship project. — Phil Welch (t) (c) 21:15, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • It'll only hasten the development of material that interested parties have the money to pay for. That's just going to further support the criticism that Wikipedia isn't able to be objective. Tijuana Brass 21:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • As long as that material is verifiable, NPOV, and so forth, we don't care where it came from. If people pay for material that isn't verifiable, NPOV, and so forth, they'll think again about wasting their money as soon as that material is deleted. — Phil Welch (t) (c) 22:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Are you saying that if someone can check the changes made by a paid editor to find that they're WP:V, NPOV, etc., then it's a good idea? In other words, if somebody does the same exact work for no pay to verify what a paid editor did? Seems redundant, but maybe I didn't catch your point. On another note, what's the guarantee that the bidder (or purchasing party, or whatever) is going to be satisfied with the work that an editor performs? I can see plenty of disagreements rising over conflicting opinions of "when the job is done," resulting in POV pushing and non-payment issues. eBay-esque scamming coming to Wikipedia is a chilling concept. Tijuana Brass 01:16, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Wouldn't you be monitoring the paid changes? You seem quite concerned about it. I will too if I have time. And if you didn't have the time, you could pay someone to monitor the paid changes! — Phil Welch (t) (c) 03:02, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Hi, I'm Mathias Schindler from the German Wikipedia. We have had similar discussions like this one here when de:Wikipedia:Auftragsarbeiten started. So far, our worst fears did not appear. Quite frankly, Auftragsarbeiten is just a small puzzle piece in the quest to motivate people to contribute to Wikipedia. I have had many talks about this feature and my main argument is that such as page only increases the transparency and effectiveness of the concept of "A pays B that B improves Wikipedia". Deleting the page would not prevent someone to hire a person that edits to wikipedia. However, Auftragsarbeiten/Now Hiring cannot overrule basic principles of Wikipedia, such as the free license or the NPOV. The most succesfull part of Auftragsarbeiten was the "Tit for Tet" aspect: Please write me an article about topic A and you can afterwards order me to write another article about topic B. Most of the times, it's wikipedians who hire other wikipedians rather than a company that spends 200 bucks to get someone clean up their own article. You may want to specifiy the terms and conditions of Now Hiring. You may want to depreciate "real money" in exchange for goods and services (I wouldn't mind). Please ensure that the condition which triggers the reward is in the hand of wikipedians (you may achieve this by defining "good articles" or "featured articles" as the goal. Deleting this page would not be a wise decision. You can email email me at mathias.schindler@wikimedia.de in case you could not understand me (English is not my mother tongue, sorry). -- 84.176.208.26 20:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The possibility of "hiring" that you mentioned is exactly the concern; this isn't a question of returning favors, it's of cash/material incentives. It's a very different thing. When editors are bought, NPOV is thrown to the wind. Look at what it does for politics. Tijuana Brass 21:46, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't politics. Of course, paying admins for ignoring all rules, the Arbcom for coming to a crtain decision or a bunch of people for notvoting one way or another in a policy discussion/AfD/FAC/whatever would be extremely harmful, but I guess (err, hope, but if our admins were indeed that corrupt the page in question would be the least of our problems) someone trying that on-wiki would have to pay a lot of admins a surreal lot of money to get out of a swift permablock. If you want to compare this to anything in real life, it would be more like paying the editors of a newspaper for favorable reporting, which is regrettable but acceptable if it's not done sneakily. -- grm_wnr Esc 17:36, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Extreme Delete An absolutely bad idea due to teh fact that Wikipedians should be motivated by the will to make a good encyclopedia not by the urge to get money for it and paying contributors is very unwiki and has been unthought of since the days when Larry Sanger was paid to work on Wikipedia (which quickly ended when he stopped getting paid and felt that it wasn't worth his time to continue for free) so I strongly oppose this. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 21:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's a valid reason to oppose the proposal but what does it have to do with deleting the page? I've personally thought some proposals that have popped up over time have been pretty dumb, but what's the harm in keeping them around for future reference? --W.marsh 22:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Because if you read the talk page you'll see that it isn't being billed as a proposal it's being billed as a noticeboard and the reasoning is being stated that as such it can't be rejected like a proposal and can only be MFD'ed. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 01:09, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per BorgHunter. Naconkantari e|t||c|m 22:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per PhilWelch (damn, never thought I'd be saying that). Pissing off socialists is a good thing. Besides, if you hold editors' motives to be more important than the quality of their contributions, well, that's just megalomania. Kurt Weber 23:29, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • weak keep. See what happens, revisit it in say 6 months. Devote some attention to accounting and disclosure. Midgley 23:30, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep with strings attached: Which this is a good idea, since it adds "extra motivation", we have to set up some rules to prevent misuse. First off, any sort of listing for violating policy on any page would be immediately delisted, and all people involved blocked. How can we tell? If they really, really insist that the world was created by Larry Sanger in 1798 as an alternative to WikiPlanet. Well, you get what I mean. What I'm saying is, the hiring board can only be used for good and provable things, like promoting an article to featured status. Also, it should be stated that the page is not necessarily sanctioned by Wikimedia (unless it actually becomes sanctioned by Wikimedia). Simply, rules that get resolved with consensus should be strictly enforced. This page is a good idea, but should only be used for good. Use for evil should have dire consequences. —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 23:47, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep; you don't reject proposed policies by deleting them, you mark them as Rejected. If this is rejected, of course. Fair go and all that. Alphax τεχ 05:08, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Delete. Using an wikipedia page to commit financial transactions will make Wikimedia vulnarable to lawsuits from disgruntled parties. They may not win the case, but we will end up spending valuable money hiring lawyears and whatnot. Loom91 05:13, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • If it's kept, rename. "Now hiring" is misleading and we already get enough emails from people asking for jobs on Wikipedia without this adding to the confusion. Angela. 05:17, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, and continue discussion there. This isn't such a terrible idea that the page should be deleted before the proposal has been properly aired. --kingboyk 05:48, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Gamaliel 06:07, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Matt. Even trivial amounts of money can help motivate people. Amazon.com pays people a penny for answering questions that require minutes of research (Mechanical Turk) and they have no lack of contributors. Haukur 08:56, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete If you have to pay to have it done, it's called work. Goes against the philosophy of the project. It's Ok to make money with the outcome as per GFDL but not with the project itself. And yes, given enough money, it will violate NPOV. User:Ejrrjs says What? 16:09, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep it where we can see it. And this is so not against the no-restrictions-whatsoever-not-even-against-commercial-use spirit of this project (which I faintly disagree with, but that's beside the point - deleting this because we're so idealistic is just hipocritical. I have much less issues with someone getting paid to write a featured article than with not getting paid for writing content for Google ad farms). And the "slippery slope" argument that this is dangerous to NPOV is just naive - if anyone is hired to do biased editing via this page, we can slap them around with a clue-by-four. The real danger is off-wiki, and it's there whether we have this little flea market or not. I don't exactly like the idea of this, but there's no real point in specifically disallowing it. -- grm_wnr Esc 16:42, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep There is absolutely nothing wrong with discussing a proposal, especially one adapted from a sister 'pedia. Rename is also a good idea, per Angela. Xoloz 16:56, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Terrible idea, but kill it in discussion, not on MFD. -Colin Kimbrell 17:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Just not suitable for such a project. Ian13/talk 20:52, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. If people want to pay others to follow Wikipedia rules and help us build this great resource, let 'em pay. If their for-hire editors break the rules, we'll ban them just like we ban anyone else. They'll have a strong incentive not to get banned since they won't get paid if they don't get the work done. Johntex\talk 00:59, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This questionable attempt to sell Wikipedia out betrays narrow —but predictable— ideological predispositions, strikingly so. They are likely to succeed in this (& other) commercialization attempt(s), and the project will be worse off for it. Paint me naïve, but I did see it coming. El_C 02:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy delete This is not an article, it's an attempt to make Wikipedia policy by unilaterally putting up a page. Wikipedia is not an employment agency or job board, even if the jobs advertised are Wikipedia-related. I oppose this entire concept. A page like this should not be made without at minimum a prior RFC, and maybe a decision at the WMF board level. Otherwise we might as well start putting up "computers for sale" pages and expecting those to go through AfD prior to removal. Note that I don't oppose paying people to write for Wikipedia and I'd be willing to donate funds for that purpose, but it should be done through full-time employment with the WMF, the same way that the FSF has hired programmers to work on the GNU project. Phr 08:52, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, rename, mark it as "not officially sanctioned" and whatever. It's not illegal, it pisses off the commies, and it's a HELL OF A LOT MORE MOTIVATING than "Monopoly money" if you will. — Apr. 20, '06 [09:41] <freakofnurxture|talk>
    • I piss you off merely by existing, freak. Poor and/or rich you. ;) That's a long sig, btw. Sorry, A LONG SIG. Anyway, looking forward to the advertisment initiative next. Money, money, money, money, money. If you will. It's a freakountry. El_C 11:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • You're right, I do need the money. If only I could get paid for it, Wikipedia could be the first job I ever actually enjoyed. — Apr. 20, '06 [12:24] <freakofnurxture|talk>
        • Your financial dependency on your new employer, say Exxon, would be reflected in the pov you already have. That is why they'll choose to hire you, on Wikipedia. The less critical, more sympathetic the pov, the more cash. El_C 12:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Perhaps, but they can hire a person to edit Wikipedia for them now and there is nothing we can do to stop it. The page under discussion wouldn't be for things like that - it would be stuff like: "I'd really like to know more about the Orkneys. If you improve the article to featured standard I'll toss 25 euros your way." Some people like that sort of stuff. I was playing poker the other night with a few blokes at work and they insisted that it wasn't any fun unless it was with real money. I don't personally like gambling but they only wanted the buy-in set at ten quid. If that makes the game more fun for other people then I don't mind. Likewise I don't see any harm in little bounties for wanted Wikipedia work. For some people it can function as a fun extra confirmation that someone finds their work on a particular article especially worthwhile. I resent the "pissing off the socialists" part, though :) Haukur 13:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Don't forget the commies! Well, while it might end up being mostly innocent, some person looking for information, unlike Google Answers, information on the article namspace — so what about when it's not innocent? True, those who monopolize wealth can try (& may right now be) hiring someone off-wiki, but this legitimates the for-money exchange for those hired by them on Wikipedia, and it provides ready-made established editors. I'm not complaining because I might be excluded from the cash, on the contrary, I'm sure there can be plenty of opportunities for the knowledge I possess, if not on African history or revolutionary this or that, than let's say relatively uncontroversial entries pertaining to Jewish or Israeli history and so on. El_C 13:55, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. — Apr. 20, '06 [13:22] <freakofnurxture|talk>
  • Keep. Although this needs a lot more work and various legalistic disclaimers (e.g., all transactions are solely the business of those involved), the principle is sound. Paid-for articles will not make the rest of Wikipedia any less free. They are subject to the same policies as are all other articles. If it works, we'll get some more good content, as people are unlikely to pay for crap. If it doesn't, no harm done. Procedurally, I can see no grounds for deletion. That the nominator disagrees with the idea of this WikiProject (which is what it should be, not policy), is not grounds for deletion. Sandstein 10:36, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This should be discussed on the proposal's talk page and, if rejected, the {{rejected}} template added. There's no need to delete it, although I would support a rename. --Optichan 14:04, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep of the page. In its present form, at least, it is a proposal. It is controversial and being discussed. Don't circumvent that by deleting it. Martinp 14:11, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. It's a proposal (which I'll inveigh against, but that's a different issue.) Herostratus 21:42, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This is an extremely bad proposal and I imagine/hope that it will fail since it goes completely against the philosophy of wikipedia. However, since it is a proposal, it shouldn't be deleted by MfD. DarthVader 00:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. If this has in fact been implemented in the German Wikipedia as stated, then that's a strong argument against simply killing it. Per Sandstein, no grounds for deletion. -- Curps 07:32, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep — "This is not the place to reject policy" but kill the policy of course. - the.crazy.russian τ ç ë 17:29, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - If this proposal is rejected, still keep it for history. Computerjoe's talk 18:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep - This proposal doesn't break any rules, so there's no reason to delete it. By all means we could reject it, and mark it as such. But if you really want to delete it, I think you're going to need to get consensus for a "Wikipedia does not condone paying editors" policy first. There are no grounds on which this should be deleted via MfD at present. Stevage 20:23, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Stevage. This proposal may be evil but that's no reason to take it offstage and beat it with a lead pipe. Better to beat it out in public with your fists and leave it as an example to others. John Reid 22:49, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, let it be, if it's a bad policy it'll probably be rejected anyway. Stifle (talk) 23:02, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete An outright assault on Wikipedia's core characteristics. Sumahoy 03:31, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep People have worked on the Linux and BSD kernels for money, and this is no different. However i would think that a) the contract should NOT involve Wikipedia. ( ie, only between the bidder and the author ) and b) the content the said author enters should carry no more weigh than any other edits. Besides this is a proposal and it should not be deleted. Rejected maybe, but not deleted. --2mcmGespräch 09:24, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I don't see why we can't have this - of course why someone would want to pay money for something that people do for free anyway is beyond me, but I don't see why we should delete it. Anything that encourages people to make decent (ie non-vandalism, non-POV pushing) edits is good for Wikipedia. Cynical 22:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Goes against the spirit of Wikipedia. (^'-')^ Covington 03:51, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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