The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit which owns Wikipedia, has apparently terminated an employee who was engaged in editing for pay. The issue of editing for pay has been a hot topic among Wikipedia editors, and it resulted in hundreds of account terminations a few months ago.
The employee, Sarah Stierch, was a "program evaluation coordinator" who was often quoted by journalists writing about Wikipedia, especially on the topic of how to get more women participating as editors. She was hired by the foundation in April 2013, where she was one of about 180 employees. Before that she had a paid fellowship at the foundation, where she did things like oversee an "edit-a-thon" in which editors worked to create new articles on under-recognized female historical figures.
Wikimedia's Senior Director of Programs, Frank Schulenberg, wrote a message on a public Wikipedia mailing list last night explaining why Stierch and the foundation had parted ways. It read:
The Wikimedia Foundation has recently learned that Sarah has been editing Wikipedia on behalf of paying clients, as recently as a few weeks ago. She did that even though it is widely known that paid editing is frowned upon by many in the editing community and by the Wikimedia Foundation.
The Wikimedia Foundation values Sarah a great deal. She has been an active Wikipedian since 2006... She is a good friend of many of us.
Everybody makes mistakes, and I would like to believe that the Wikimedia movement is a place of forgiveness and compassion. And so I ask you to respect Sarah's privacy at what is surely a difficult time for her and to join me in wishing her every future success.
In a blog post following the October account purge, foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner denounced the spread of "paid advocacy editing," a kind of "promotional" content that is "clearly problematic" and a "black hat practice" in the eyes of the foundation.
Stierch's dismissal came after a screenshot of her freelancing work was published to the "wikimedia-l" mailing list. The screenshot indicates she accepted $300 for working on a "Wikipedia Page for Individual" in December 2013.
Wikimedia spokesperson Jay Walsh declined to say more about Stierch's specific situation but did reiterate that the foundation takes a dim view of paid editing.
"There's a historical resistance towards it from early days within the project," said Walsh. "Wikipedia is a volunteer project written by people who were unpaid to support free knowledge by giving their work freely to the project."
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that owns Wikipedia, one of the most heavily trafficked websites in the world, as well as other community-driven projects like Wikinews, Wiktionary, and Wikimedia Commons. The foundation is based in San Francisco and has about 180 employees.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who was alerted to the accusations about Stierch on his own Wikipedia user page, declined to comment on personnel matters. Wales did say that he "very very strongly condemn[s] such editing, and this is no exception."
An e-mail sent to Stierch through her personal website yielded only an "out of office" response. Stierch didn't respond to the incident on her Wikipedia user page or on Twitter, where she has continued to be active.
A screenshot leads to a public debate
The suggestion that Stierch may have done editing for pay was first noted by Tomasz Kozlowski, a Wikimedia Commons contributor who also maintains a blog that is sometimes critical of the Wikimedia Foundation.
"Paid editing thrives in the heart of Wikipedia," wrote Kozlowski. "It defies belief that Sarah would be oblivious to these issues and how they are perceived by the wider community... it can only be guessed for which article she was compensated."
The accusations were accompanied by a screenshot of Stierch's account on oDesk, a freelance writing site where she maintained an account. In an interview with Ars, Kozlowski said he was sent the screenshot by a fellow Wikipedian whom he had agreed to keep anonymous.
Kozlowski said he hasn't made up his mind on the issue of paid editing. "I haven't really thought about it much, because it concerns a project [English-language Wikipedia] I'm not active on," he said. "I just pointed out the hypocrisy. All that news about the scandal, and then a few months later, a Wikimedia Foundation employee engages in paid editing."
It isn't clear which pages were edited for pay. In his blog post, Kozlowski speculates about three different possibilities, all edited by Stierch under her own account.
Most responses to the news have been sympathetic to Stierch, including those from the users who publicized her paid editing in the first place.
"I'm not that happy about her being let go," said Kozlowski. "I don't think this was a fire-able offense, to be honest. For a very long time the foundation claimed that what their employees do in their free time isn't necessarily relevant to their job."
"I reckon it's total bollocks," said Scott Bibby, the sometimes-banned Australian Wikipedia user who published the accusations to the widely read Wikimedia-L mailing list. "I want the community to tackle this issue head on and deal with it. It doesn't require people being fired."
"I hope she will remain part of the Wikimedia community," wrote one user in a thread responding to Schulenberg's post. "It is extremely sad to lose one of our best and brightest," wrote another. "Was there no other way?? Was this even considered??"
At the top, support for a "bright line"
The idea of accepting money for edits isn't universally condemned among Wikipedia editors. Some activities, like "sockpuppetry"—the creation of multiple fake accounts in order to skew Wikipedia—are barred by the terms of use. But some cultural and academic workers are paid to write on Wikipedia as part of their jobs, a relatively uncontroversial practice. Some Wikipedians have argued that more types of paid editing should be allowed.
Founder Jimmy Wales has long advocated for a "bright line rule" that paid advocates shouldn't ever edit a Wikipedia page, instead limiting their comments to the "talk" page of an article.
In a 2012 interview with The Signpost, Wikipedia's in-house publication, Wales explained his point of view. "From the beginning, it was something I thought we should pay attention to and prevent to the maximum extent possible... It was obvious even then that there are some people who are willing to act immorally... If you're a PR professional editing on behalf of your client, then hiding behind the excuse that you're only making NPOV [neutral point-of-view] edits doesn't cut it with me at all."
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