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Microsoft PR Paying to "Correct" Wikipedia
Unpaid Schill writes "Over on the O'Reilly Network, there's an interesting piece about how Microsoft tried to hire people to contribute to Wikipedia. Not wanting to do the edits directly, they were looking for an intermediary to make edits and corrections favorable to them. Why? According to the article, it was apparently both to let people know that Microsoft will not 'enable death squads with their UUIDs' and also to fight the growing consensus that OOXML contains a useless pile of legacy crap which is unfit for standardization."
This is not new behavior. Remember when Microsoft tried to hire "individuals" to perform "grassroots" work including writing letters to the Department of Justice and letters to the editors of papers around the country concerning the anti-trust trial? Look, I have friends at Microsoft and there are truly some brilliant folks up there, but what the hell is the marketing department doing? Are they *that* ethically challenged? Or is it that they are *that* desperate to be cool and loved? How about a policy of honesty and if there is something that you want, then why not have your Microsoft PR department make the edits? Is that too obvious? It would certainly present other ethical dilemmas, but at least it would be more honest than hiring supposed "impartial" third parties to do your work for you.
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That would be because respondants have had over 4 years to respond to the OASIS specification. Since it's already a standard that has been reviewed by the industry, the ISO committee can choose to adopt it on a fast-track as a way of putting their own stamp of approval on it.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
... if the average Wikipedia author is as biased as this article summary. "Corrections favorable to them?" Corrections are corrections! In TFA, you'll see that there are errors in the OOXML article (as there are in many of them) and Microsoft enlisted a pretty unbiased guy to find them. If anything, one would expect him to be biased against OOXML and for ODF considering that only free time has kept him from contributing to ODF.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Unlike Microsoft, Apple has an entire army of iZealots who work for free. No wiki or message board stands untouched by their version of iTruth!
...was ticking along one day, and I realized wikipedia is not going anywhere, and that corporate entities are going to want to have a very "respectable" write-up just to maintain image, to play up positives and downplay negatives. And so I envisioned this pitch: "Ensure your wikipedia entry is acceptable and not compromised by rumour and hearsay by subscribing to my service for $29,99 a month. My team of wikipedia nerds will ensure the integrity of your company's entry is maintained to the highest possible manner in accordance with veritable truth. For an extra $50 a month this truth can be considered as flexible as a gymnast."
>>It doesn't matter. What they're doing is underhanded and shady.
Howso? From TFA:
"I think I'll accept it: FUD enrages me and MS certainly are not hiring me to add any pro-MS FUD, just to correct any errors I see."
Wow -- that sounds shady AND underhanded. No wait -- not even close. He admits he's been hired, AND he is only going to correct errors. Wow. Sounds EVIL.
>>1. There is public information Microsoft doesn't like.
No, this is public MIS-information that Microsoft doesn't like on a PUBLIC forum. They have every right to correct those errors, but they've gone one step further and hired a third party to examine the validity of the articles and correct any errors he finds.
I'm no fan of the corporation either, but oversimplifications of history accomplish nothing.
The function of the corporations in early American society was a matter of heated dispute. As of 1780 there were only 7 chartered business corporations in the United States. That number increased dramatically after the turn of the 19th century once the courts and legislatures recognized the legitimacy of private, for-private corporate entities. Ambivalence about the role of the corporation in early American law resulted from tension between those who insisted that corporations serve the public interest and those who believed that the public interest was inherently served by the chartering of private corporations and the creation of wealth that would presumably result therefrom.
On the one side of the debate were anti-mercantilists, Jeffersonian Republicans and artisans who believed variously that corporations were monopolistic in nature; that they the accumulation of vast quantities of capital in private hands characteristic of the corporate form was inconsistent with the civic virtues of a democratic republic exemplified in the American Revolution and would undermine democratic republicanism; and that corporations could be used to dominate markets, driving down the cost of production and thereby reducing demand for artisinal goods. On the other side were those who believed that corporations were a matter of necessity in order to promote the aggregation and investment of capital. In a society of relatively equal wealth distribution, as in the early years of the republic, capital must be drawn from large numbers of small investor/share-holders rather than from individual financiers or aristocrats as could be done in Europe. The structure of the corporation and its ability to centralize management and control represented the most efficient means of operating investments and therefore of developing the American economy, proponents argued.
While demands that corporate charters be granted only in the public interest, and that liability extend to shareholders were common in the early law of corporations, these rules which seemed rooted in longstanding English mistrust of the anti-social corporate form yielded to the demands of the market and of laissez-faire capitalists. These historical developments represent another unfortunate triumph of utilitarianism over tradition in American law.
Okay, I think I'm probably more qualified than most people to comment on the state of Wikipedia's Microsoft articles, considering that I've personally started a couple dozen articles on Windows-related stuff, and I have more than 1,000 Microsoft-related articles on my watchlist. I work a bunch on Mac OS X articles, too... I don't really consider operating systems to be a worthy subject of religious advocacy; they make for a great hobby, sure, but that's about it. All I care about is making sure that the subjects are presented accurately and without bias in either direction.
Wikipedia articles are edited by people from Microsoft on a regular basis. Most of the time it's simple stuff, like fixing spelling mistakes, updating links, and putting some newly published information in about future releases. (This is one example of an MS employee edit to the Office Open XML article. Pretty harmless.) It's quite rare that someone at Microsoft adds in unabashed "pro-Microsoft" stuff, and when they do, I or other interested editors remove it entirely or tone it down. But, I have yet to see any kind of co-ordinated efforts to astroturf Microsoft Wikipedia articles... if anything, it's just individuals who are proud of their work and want to write about it... you can tell, it doesn't have that shiny PR veneer on it. I've had to remind a few Microsoft employees to stay within the encyclopedia's neutrality and verifiability policies, but it never turns out to be a problem; almost everyone who's new to editing Wikipedia needs to learn that.
Frankly, I see far more crap by juvenile pro-Apple zealots, like redirecting the Windows Vista article to Mac OS X and other such time-wasting noise. That's a reflection of the kind of uphill battle Wikipedia has to fight against vandalism.
Shit, after 7,000+ edits to Microsoft-related articles, maybe Microsoft should be offering to pay me to keep Wikipedia clean of anti-Microsoft crap, since I assuredly work harder at it than some dude with an O'Reilley blog. I wouldn't take their money for it though... or if I did, I'd make a public display of donating it all to the Wikimedia Foundation. They need the money more than I do.
If Microsoft wants to pay someone to write more into the OOXML articles, that's fine, I don't care -- but there's no damned way they're getting material inappropriate for Wikipedia past me & the other regulars. You can be sure of that.
The premise of this thread is a lie. Nobody ever contacted Rick and asked him to "make edits and corrections favorable to" Microsoft. Also, nobody from Microsoft PR contacted him. I am the person who contacted Rick, and I am a technical evangelist specializing in the Open XML file formats. And here is what I asked Rick to do:
"Wikipedia has an entry on Open XML that has a lot of slanted language, and we'd like for them to make it more objective but we feel that it would be best if a non-Microsoft person were the source of any corrections ... Would you have any interest or availability to do some of this kind of work? Your reputation as a leading voice in the XML community would carry a lot of credibility, so your name came up in a discussion of the Wikipedia situation today."
... feel free to state your own opinion."
"Feel free to say anything at all on your blog about the process, about our communication with you on matters related to Open XML, or anything else. We don't need to "approve" anything you have to say, our goal is simply to get more informed voices into the debate
I understand and accept that longwinded discussions of lies and their theoretical ramifications is a fascinating hobby for some, but since it's 100% my own personal actions that you're talking about, I just want to be very clear: the premise of this thread is a lie. Wikipedia's definition of "Microsoft (sic) Office Open XML" is not fact-based, and I think it would be a good thing if there were more participation by persons like Rick who are knowledgeable and interested in the actual facts of file formats, and less participation (or at least less influence) by those with specific agendas based on specific corporate interests.
Call Microsoft evil if you must, but in this case it's Doug Mahugh you're talking about. PR didn't know I contacted Rick. Hell, my own manager didn't know, although it seems likely he knows by now. You're talking about my actions alone, so I think my opinion is relevant. And in my opinion, the premise of this thread is a lie.
- Doug