Filed under: Internet, Web services, Microsoft
Microsoft tried to buy Wikipedia love
Is there something in Wikipedia you don't like? Here's a warning: Don't try to hire someone to "fix" it. Microsoft is making headlines down under for breaking one of the cardinal rules of the unspoken and sometimes unclear Wikipedia code of ethics. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, "Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer - Rick Jelliffe, who is chief technical officer of Sydney computing company Topologi, based in Pyrmont - 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 document format'' and a rival put forward by Microsoft."
Apparently irked at "slanted language" used to describe Microsoft's kinda-open-but-not-really document format, Open Document format expert Doug Mahugh contacted the CTO of an Australian consulting company to punch up the tone of the Wikipedia article in exchange for a few bucks. Anyone care to start the Wiki article entitled "How not to handle Wiki Public Relations"?
Get a WordPress.com Blog
With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mark said 1:37PM on 1-24-2007
Altough it was an admittedly dumb idea on the part of MS to try this sort of a stunt, I can't help but agree with them in that the Wiki articles are rather... "slanted" to say the least. Just compare the two articles and judge for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMA_Office_Open_XML
- that's OOXML (Microsoft's offering)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
- that's ODF (Sun's offering)
Reply
Mark said 2:21PM on 1-24-2007
Your comments: Altough it was an admittedly dumb idea on the part of MS to try thissort of a stunt, I can't help but agree with them in that the Wikiarticles are rather... "slanted" to say the least. Just compare thetwo articles and judge for yourself:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMA_Office_Open_XML- that's OOXML(Microsoft's offering)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument-that's ODF (Sun's offering)
and here's an article that compares them and is fairly impartial: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenDocument_and_Microsoft_Office_Open_XML_formats
Reply
glacia said 2:38PM on 1-24-2007
Stupid, but they did approach Wikipedia first to point out what they believed were errors about their own format. I'm not saying Wikipedia should have made the changes word for word as MS wanted it but at least look at it.
Reply
Engaged said 3:00PM on 1-24-2007
Normally I would say screw MS but I have to reluctantly side with them on this. The CNN article is a little more informative.
MS told Wikipedia several times about the errors and were told no because it was a conflict of interest. So they went to an outside expert and asked him to do it and apparently no money changed hands and the agreement was that MS would not review what he wrote.
Wikipedia is far from the accuracy maven it tries to portray itself as. They've had some pretty obvious factually wrong and biased stuff on their site sometimes for months before it gets caught.
Reply
Internet Esquire said 5:43PM on 1-24-2007
As I wrote in a recent blog post, I've never understood the logic behind Wikipedia's conflict of interest rules, and this particular incident is reminiscent of the sort of humbug that one would expect from the faithful members of the Inner Party at ODP/dMOZ. Sure, there's a potential conflict of interest when someone is paid to contribute content to a website that is built primarily by volunteers, but it's rather naive for Wikipedians to assume that this sort of thing doesn't happen all the time. Indeed, the articles that Jelliffe was supposed to review and edit were allegedly written by people working for IBM.
Reply
Internet Esquire said 5:46PM on 1-24-2007
Hmmm, . . . I guess HTML tags don't work. Here's the URL for my blog post on the matter: http://blog.xodp.org/2007/01/this-wikipedia-article-brought-to-you.html
Reply
yessindeed said 6:13PM on 1-24-2007
"Indeed, the articles that Jelliffe was supposed to review and edit were allegedly written by people working for IBM."
I read that also in a less biased outlet however since IBM has 'refused to comment' I decided not to pass it on.
Reply