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Criticism of Jimmy Wales (view source)
Revision as of 15:19, 3 December 2008
, 15:19, 3 December 2008Tolerance of plagiarism and cover-up
==Jeffrey Merkey favors-for-payment allegations==
==Jeffrey Merkey favors-for-payment allegations==
Later in March 2008, it was alleged by [[Jeff V. Merkey|Jeffrey Vernon Merkey]] that Wales had edited Merkey's entry in Wikipedia to make it more "favourable" in return for donations to the Wikimedia Foundation. In May 2006 Wales had erased Merkey's article "because of the unpleasantness of it" and stated "we are nearing a resolution of this longstanding conflict," referring to a dispute between the Wikipedia community and Merkey over the content of the biography. Wales called the allegation that the Wikimedia Foundation had received donations in exchange for this "nonsense."<ref>[http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cashforkindness-scandal-rattles-wikipedia/2008/03/11/1205125911471.html Cash for kindness]</ref> <ref name="bbcpaidediting">{{citeweb|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7291382.stm|title=Wiki boss 'edited for donation'|accessdate=2008-03-12}}</ref>
Later in March 2008, it was alleged by [[Jeff V. Merkey|Jeffrey Vernon Merkey]] that Wales had edited Merkey's entry in Wikipedia to make it more "favourable" in return for donations to the Wikimedia Foundation. In May 2006 Wales had erased Merkey's article "because of the unpleasantness of it" and stated "we are nearing a resolution of this longstanding conflict," referring to a dispute between the Wikipedia community and Merkey over the content of the biography. Wales called the allegation that the Wikimedia Foundation had received donations in exchange for this "nonsense."<ref>[http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cashforkindness-scandal-rattles-wikipedia/2008/03/11/1205125911471.html Cash for kindness]</ref> <ref name="bbcpaidediting">{{citeweb|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7291382.stm|title=Wiki boss 'edited for donation'|accessdate=2008-03-12}}</ref>
==Tolerance of plagiarism==
The original version of any wiki-formatted article about the Arch Coal company was authored in September 2006 by [[Directory:Gregory J. Kohs|Gregory Kohs]] and released under the terms of the GFDL on this website, [[Directory:MyWikiBiz|MyWikiBiz.com]]. It was then scraped by an independent editor into Wikipedia. In October 2006, erroneously thinking that the article was paid for by Arch Coal, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales acted to delete the article from Wikipedia, but the Wikipedia community determined that Wales' action had been unjustified. The article was revised, largely by "User:JzG" (Guy Chapman). However, in January 2008, Kohs demonstrated to Chapman that the article as modified by User:JzG actually plagiarized many aspects of the original. Faced with that evidence, Chapman elected to cover up his misdeed by [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Arch_Coal deleting the original edits] on the Wikipedia site, thus making the provenance of the article appear to have come from Chapman, and not from MyWikiBiz. When Jimmy Wales was notified about this violation of professional ethics and proper GFDL attribution of the edit history, Wales '''very reluctantly''' restored the original edit history, with the childish edit summary, "''might as well restore all of it I suppose''".
===Additional comment===
When in December 2008, Kohs [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arch_Coal&diff=255480884&oldid=255154863 sought to improve] the article about Arch Coal on Wikipedia, his improvements were [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arch_Coal&diff=next&oldid=255480884 reverted back] by a mindless administrator from Belgium. This underscores the true system of editorial control on Wikipedia -- it matters not the '''content''' of one's edits, but rather '''who''' authors the content. (Which, of course, directly contradicts Wikipedia's supposed credo that "anyone can edit".)
==References==
==References==