Someone wanted pay for Wikipedia edits? Huh?

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Alessandra Kelley

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Got a weird email today. Or rather, my husband did and shrugged and ignored it. Me it has scratching my head.

It was an offer from some enterprising soul to edit his Wikipedia entry for pay.

Doesn't this violate some Wikipedia policy or other? It strikes me as peculiar. At the very least, it seems an unnecessary expenditure.

My husband is a published author with a brief Wikipedia entry. Its brevity does not bother him. He's never much chased after publicity. Frankly, he was simply pleased that someone considered him Wiki-worthy. There's no danger he'd take up any offer like this.

Has anyone else heard of things like this? It strikes me as illogical and less than honest. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, and thousands do for free. Any edits one puts in may be rewritten by someone else at any time. The idea is supposed to be a large community of editors keeping things honest and dealing with things that are organically noteworthy, not paid publicity.

This smacks a little of paying people to review your book. It just seems ... wrong.

Or am I (again) overthinking things?

(After all, my husband has already put it out of his mind ...)
 
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