Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:05, 3 April 2018

MyWikiBiz is a wiki directory that allows people and enterprises to write about themselves. The brand began as a service creating Misplaced Pages articles for paying corporations and has grown over the years, recently becoming dormant.

History

Kohs and his sister started the MyWikiBiz venture in July 2006, as a paid editing service, writing content for inclusion in Misplaced Pages and other community-edited sites. Kohs charged between $49 and $99 USD for articles. At the time, though it was widely known that Misplaced Pages was used by corporations and public relations firms, such contributions were often hidden, only to be discovered later. Misplaced Pages co-founder Jimmy Wales expressed opposition to the idea of a paid editing service.

A few days after MyWikiBiz was launched, the site's user account was blocked by Wales on the grounds of "paid editing on behalf of customers". It was one of the few such blocks personally by Wales in Misplaced Pages's history. Wales viewed the problem as one of "conflict of interest and the appearance of impropriety arising from editors being paid to write by the subjects of the articles". He and Kohs reached an agreement, under which Kohs could create "Misplaced Pages-like" articles on his site and that they could then be "scraped" to Misplaced Pages by Misplaced Pages editors. The agreement soon unraveled, and Kohs was blocked from editing Misplaced Pages.

In his book The Future of the Internet – And How to Stop It, Jonathan Zittrain said that Wales believed that MyWikiBiz had been "spamming Misplaced Pages with corporate advertisements rather than 'neutral point of view' articles", but also that MyWikiBiz persuaded some Wikipedians to lower objections to an article merely because of its source.

The Chronicle of Higher Education said "it's hard to feel too bad for MyWikiBiz," and that "if the encyclopedia is serious about gaining acceptance from academe, surely it has a vested interest in dissuading companies from paying to improve their presence on the site."

In late October 2006, Kohs formed a partnership to promote and market a wiki-based directory at Centiare.com, after which Kohs moved its contents to MyWikiBiz.com.

References

1. "Mywikibiz.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
2. ^ Read, Brock (2007-01-24). "Misplaced Pages Blocks a Pay-for-Play Scheme". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2008-08-27.
3. ^ Bergstein, Brian (2007-01-24). "Idea of paid entries roils Misplaced Pages". MSNBC/Associated Press. Retrieved 2008-08-20.
4. Peer, Mathias (2006-08-24). "Misplaced Pages-Artikel, die man kaufen kann (Misplaced Pages articles that you can buy)". Die Welt (in German). Retrieved 2008-08-20.
5. Noisette, Thierry (2006-08-11). "Misplaced Pages, nouvel enjeu de relations publiques (Misplaced Pages, a new issue of public relations)" (in French). ZDNet. Retrieved 2008-08-27.
6. ^ Zittrain, Jonathan (2008). The Future of the Internet – And How to Stop It. Yale University Press. p. 140. ISBN 0-300-12487-2. Archived from the original on 8 April 2008.
7. "Centiare on the heels of Misplaced Pages". press release. 2007-01-05. Retrieved 2008-08-20.
8. Sebastian Ryszard Kruk; Bill McDaniel; W. William D. McDaniel, eds. (2008). Semantic Digital Libraries. Springer. p. 58. Retrieved June 3, 2013.

• Internet companies of the United States
• Commerce websites
• 2006 establishments in Pennsylvania
• American companies established in 2006
• Privately held companies based in Pennsylvania
• Companies based in Chester County, Pennsylvania
• Misplaced Pages controversies