Microsoft and Wikipedia — not what you think

Published 1/24/07

So here comes the hyperbole and incorrect information. The thread on Slashdot is titled, “Microsoft PR Paying to “Correct” Wikipedia” and says in part that Microsoft was “looking for an intermediary to make edits and corrections favorable to them” and would pay for this.

Trouble is, that’s not exactly true. But who needs truth when it’s easier to get worked up over the (false) idea that Microsoft was paying someone to change Wikipedia entries for them?

Lost in the noise, sadly, is the comment from Microsoft’s Doug Mahugh, the guy– who, incidentally, doesn’t work for the PR department — who made the request of Rick Jelliffe. he explains what actually happened:

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 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 … feel free to state your own opinion.”

And yet the headlines come, like this one from The Age: “Microsoft ‘tried to doctor Wikipedia‘”.

Soon, alas, this will enter the popular lexicon as truth, and you’ll see articles talking about “the time Microsoft tried to pay someone to edit Wikipedia.” [sigh]

The Fray

3 responses (add yours)

GaryL says:

It is a conflict of interest and against wikipedia rules. No one should be allowed to pay someone to make corrections to a wikipedia topic. But, it is happening and will continue. Good thing about wikipedia is that anyone can edit pages. So even if someone was paid to make changes to a wikipedia topic and show a slant it can be “corrected”.

January 26th, 2007 at 10:22 AM

gnomic says:

I didn’t see anything about being paid to make a correction. Perhaps this implied by the term “work” but I’ve been asked vendors to correct misinformation before - no one has ever offered to pay me. Sometimes I’ve done it, other times I’ve declined becuase I think the information was accurate or at least not inaccurate based on publicly availible information. I won’t make statements based on “inside information.” If a company wants to correct misinformation, they can go on the record publicly. but if its incorrect or misleading, thier is a professional obligation to correct the problem - although not all problems are serious. And some things are simply a matter of opinion (PC or MAC). Everyone is entitled to thier opinion. But if someone said that PCs can’t have more than 640K or that Macs are less scceptible to viruses, I’d probably correct them.

January 26th, 2007 at 3:18 PM

Leland says:

Why is this even news? Every time a paid PR person, political staffer, talent manager or what ever makes an entry or edit on Wikipedia on behalf of their client, they are being paid to do so.

You can’t tell me these fine folks didn’t have a clue this was going on. There is no way they are that naive, is there?

January 27th, 2007 at 12:29 PM