Microsoft caught in Wiki no-no with offer to pay blogger to change entries

Microsoft landed in the Wikipedia doghouse Tuesday after it offered to pay a blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopediasite.

While Wikipedia is known as a site anyone can tweak, founder Jimmy Wales and his cadre of volunteer editors, writers and moderators have blocked public-relations firms, campaign workers and anyone else perceived as having a conflict of interest from posting fluff or slanting entries.

Paying for Wikipedia copy is considered a definite no-no.

"We were very disappointed to hear that Microsoft was taking that approach," Wales said.

Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer and offered to pay him for the time it would take to correct what the company was sure were inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles on an open-source document standard and a rival format put forward by Microsoft.

Spokeswoman Catherine Brooker said she believed the articles were heavily written by people at IBM, a big supporter of the open-source standard.

IBM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brooker said Microsoft had gotten nowhere in trying to flag the purported mistakes to Wikipedia's volunteer editors, so it sought an independent expert who could determine if changes were necessary and enter them on Wikipedia.

She said Microsoft believed that having an independent source would be key in getting the changes to stick — that is, not to have them overruled by other Wikipedia writers.

Brooker said Microsoft and the writer, Rick Jelliffe, had not determined a price and no money had changed hands, but they had agreed the company would not review his writing before submission.

She said Microsoft had never previously hired someone to influence a Wikipedia article.

Jelliffe, who is chief technical officer of a computing company based in Australia, did not return an e-mail seeking comment.

In a blog posting Monday, he described himself as a technical standards aficionado and not a Microsoft partisan.

He said he was surprised Microsoft sought him out, but figured he'd accept the offer to review the articles because it was important technical standards processes were accurately described.

Wales said the proper course would have been for Microsoft to write or commission a "white paper" with its interpretation of the facts, post it to an outside Web site then link to it in the Wikipedia articles' discussion forums.

"It seems like a much better, transparent, straightforward way," Wales said.