Washington, Nov. 20 (ANI): Wikipedia has sent a cease-and-desist letter to a company called "Wiki-PR," which reportedly sells paid editing services on the well-known online encyclopedia, seeking to stop the service.
On Tuesday, Wkipedia issued the letter to Wiki-PR, demanding that the company immediately halt editing Wikipedia "unless and until it has fully complied with the terms and conditions outlined by the Wikimedia Community.
According to CNET, Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the online encyclopedia, announced last month that it had blocked or banned more than 250 editing accounts as part of an investigation into 'suspicious edits and sockpuppetry' that promoted organizations or products.
The action followed reports of a rise in paid edits linked to Wiki-PR, which bills itself as 'Wikipedia writers for hire'.
Claiming that the activity has continued, the Wikimedia Foundation sent the letter asking the company to cease and desist from further editing the Wikipedia Web site.
The three-page letter sent to Wiki-PR CEO Jordan French indicates that Wikimedia resorted to the action after ongoing discussions failed to resolve the issue to its satisfaction, the report added. (ANI)
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Comments:
Gregory Kohs
November 20, 2013 at 11:09 PM
Every Wikipedia article is "passed off" as an encyclopedia article. The Wikimedia Foundation and Cooley LLP are unwittingly exposing Wikipedia to a credible Section 230 challenge, not to mention a SLAPP counter-action. You can't run a non-profit "charity" that hosts an encyclopedia that "anyone can edit", and then arbitrarily deny access to a class of contributors who are simply fulfilling the mission of the project. Nothing in the 501(c)(3)'s bylaws says that content must be "unpaid".