A new proposal, called thepaid editor job board, started byCookiecaper earlier this week has generated a firestorm of controversy. The proposal, originally namedWikipedia:Now Hiring, operates on a similar principle toWikipedia:Bounty Board. However, unlike the Bounty Board, the paid editor job board would pay individual editors for specific Wikipedia contributions, instead of giving a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation.
Many users are vehemently opposed to the proposal. "This is completely against the spirit of the project," statesAmbi. Others, though, say that it will lead to more articles being brought tofeatured article status. "People work on Wikipedia for all sorts of reasons, and money could be one of those motivations," notesMatt Crypto.
Matt Crypto, among others, also reasoned that this would not be the first time that people have been paid for contributing to Wikipedia.Larry Sanger, once editor-in-chief ofNupedia, was effectively a paid contributor to Wikipedia, where he acted as "chief organizer".
The proposed page to post possible editing jobs wasnominated for deletion on 23 April. The result was to keep the page; in closing the debate,A Man In Black observed that "nearly every 'delete' comment has instead offered a reason that the proposal should berejected." Discussion about the proposal is still taking place on thetalk page.
A proposal of the same nature last July on the German Wikipedia garnered some attention as well (seearchived story). The response at the time was fairly similar, to the extent of both proposals surviving attempts to delete the page amid considerable criticism of the idea.
