Wikipedia talk:Reward board/FAQ

What problem does this solve?

This will help solve the basic problem of Wikipedia: it isn't done yet.

In particular, it could be used to help combat systemic bias. Bounties could be set to encourage work in areas that Wikipedia currently covers poorly: African topics, for example. Another suggestion is that it could provide incentives to reduce the large article maintenance backlog.

It also solves another problem: Wikipedians need money. More to the point, many Wikipedians pay for books and other information resources simply to perform research for Wikipedia. Reimbursing their costs will only make this easier for a large number of Wikipedians. WP:JOB could also be used as an avenue to purchase professional photography of article subjects to be released under GFDL, reducing or perhaps eliminating our reliance upon fair use.

What postings would be allowed?

This is currently under discussion, but soliciting any violation of policy (see the first objection) would of course be disallowed.

How long may challenges remain open?

Challenges may remain open for at most one year. After expiration, the challenge will be moved to expired requests; however, the challenge may be reposted with a new expiration.

How would payment be enforced?

Payment is at the sole discretion of the poster and this should be looked at more as an entry to a contest than a guaranteed trade.

Does this have precedent?

Yes. The German Wikipedia has something exactly like this currently in place at de:Wikipedia:Auftragsarbeiten.

Won't WP:JOB open up Wikipedia for corporate-sponsored POV editing?

The fact is, Wikipedia is already vulnerable to sponsored POV editing. As Wikipedia:Requests for comment/United States Congress shows us, even congressional staffers in the United States federal government have spent time "on the job" trying to skew Wikipedia.

But, supposing that WP:JOB was active, wouldn't it be used by corporations to skew editing? Again, this is unlikely. If someone posted "Make the article Microsoft more favorable to the company" with a bounty of $1,000, the bounty itself would be delisted and countless Wikipedians would take action to protect the article against POV-skewing. If the bounty ever was paid, it would be wasted money, as the "favorable" version would quickly be reverted and the editor who took the bounty would face immediate action—even a block or a ban. It seems so much easier for someone working in Microsoft's PR department to be assigned this task without us ever being the wiser, and this is without doubt the route that our hypothetical Microsoft would take.

There's a related issue: what if the bounty was to "Bring the Microsoft article to featured article status", again with Microsoft overtly or covertly sponsoring the bounty. There's two possibilities: either the paid-for Microsoft article would meet FA standards on its own merits (in which case, the hypothetical Microsoft would have in fact helped us) or the paid-for Microsoft article would be biased. If the article itself is biased, then a large number of Wikipedia editors would oppose its nomination on this basis, and mark the page itself as {{pov}}, again derailing the FA nomination. Even in this case it would be better for Microsoft to hire PR staff instead of posting here.

Shouldn't editors contribute out of altruism, instead of monetary gain?

Wikipedians contribute for a variety of reasons, ranging from pure altruism to logorrhea to enjoyment of the work itself. What's ultimately important is the goal—to write a free, open-content enyclopedia—not the private motivations of the contributors.

Isn't this against the spirit of open source / free content?

Ask the Linux community. Many programmers have been paid to work on the Linux kernel by corporate employers, and the Free Software Foundation has hired full-time employees to work on GNU projects. Bounty boards are also employed in open source software for bug fixes and feature requests[1]. Even Wikipedia has had a paid contributor—our former editor in chief Larry Sanger, who was an employee of Jimmy Wales assigned full-time to Wikipedia until 2002. If, as a matter of principle, we cannot accept paid contributions, then we ought to take a close look at his edits as well as all otherwise acceptably licensed photographs from paid photographers (such as those taken by NASA researchers and released into the public domain).