Somebody added Paul Ryan to Wikipedia's Invertebrates entry

[Jim Lane]

29. You are completely mistaken.

First, as to whether "they themselves do approve," the Wikimedia Foundation has been very concerned about the developing problem of paid editing. You can read the policy on paid-contribution disclosure (including prohibition of editing with a conflict of interest) here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: Paid-contribution_disclosure (except you'll first have to delete the blank space before the word "Paid"; sorry, I can't figure out how to make the link work when it includes a P after a colon so that DU software makes it smiley).

Now, obviously, corporate flacks can and do try to violate the policy, while the Foundation and Wikipedia volunteers try to catch them and block them. I believe that, in this ongoing cat-and-mouse game, each side has had some successes. But what's absolutely clear is that there is no truth to your charge that Wikipedia approves of any takeover.

Second, you assert -- without troubling to provide a shred of evidence -- that these corporate efforts have actually succeeded in taking over Wikipedia. The fact is that, even if a paid corporate shill makes the kind of biased edit you describe, and even if that person is not outed as a paid shill, that's hardly the end of the matter. Wikipedia's strength is the ease with which errors may be corrected. A shill's edit can be reverted by a disinterested editor.

I'll take one example that I know something about personally, because, as an attorney, I represented some of the families whose well water had been poisoned by General Electric. If you go to the Wikipedia article on GE, specifically to the "Environmental record" section, you'll find accounts that are quite damning to the corporation. I haven't participated in editing that article, but I'm sure there are plenty of Wikipedians who have it watchlisted, meaning that they'll be notified of any changes. If GE pays someone to clean up the article to make it "read like PR fluff", one of those unpaid editors will restore the information.

The section on GE's environmental record also includes some things that put the company in a good light, such as its involvement in renewable energy. Does that show there's a problem? No, it's completely proper. Wikipedia is there to provide the information, not to tailor the facts to a preconceived ideology (whether of the left or of the right).

If it's true that GE "agreed to pay a $250 million settlement in connection with claims it polluted the Housatonic River (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) and other sites with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other hazardous substances," and it's also true that GE's "Ecomagination initiative ... resulted in 70 green products being brought to market," then both those facts belong in the Wikipedia article. And there they are.