Wikipedia honcho caught in scandal quits, defends paid edits

High-placed editors at Wikipedia's U.K. site were caught in a simmering paid-PR scandal. After news broke, one resignation and a little backpedaling has done little to solve the problem.

This past week, Wikipedia was rocked by revelations that high-level editors and the chair trustee of Wikimedia UK were provi... on the Internet's encyclopedia.

At the center of the debacle were Wikimedia UK Chair Roger Bamkin and fellow Wikipedian in Residence Maximillion Klein, who had been openly advertising SEO pay-for-play services for clients on his Web site Untrikiwiki. Klein did not admit to anything, yet quickly removed damning Web site material, and Wikimedia UK Trustee Roger Bamkin -- at the scandal's center -- resigned.

Members of the Wikipedia editing community had been calling out the paid-PR activity, yet were continually shouted down by opposing editors, effectively derailing whistle-blowers' arguments.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57518384-93/wikipedia-honcho-caugh...