If you fit either of these descriptions:

1. you are receiving monetary or other benefits or considerations to edit Wikipedia as a representative of an organization (whether directly as an employee or contractor of that organization, or indirectly as an employee or contractor of a firm hired by that organization for public relations purposes); or,

2. you expect to derive monetary or other benefits or considerations from editing Wikipedia; for example, by being the owner, officer or other stakeholder of a company or other organisation about which you are writing;

3. Generally speaking, the Reward Board is an exception as you may derive monetary gain from editing Wikipedia, due to the fact these are usually rewards for featured or good article status; which should not introduce bias. However, be wary of editors asking you to make specific edits or to “clean up a hatchet job” as you may unwarily become their meatpuppet.

then we very strongly encourage you to avoid editing Wikipedia in areas where there is a conflict of interest that would make your edits non-neutral (biased). Wikipedia’s neutral point of view policy states that all articles must represent views fairly and without bias, and conflicts of interest do significantly and negatively affect Wikipedia’s ability to fulfill this requirement. If your financially-motivated edits would be non-neutral, do not post them.

I’m only a sporadic Wikipedia editor, and I have to look up rules piecemeal when I do so, but it strikes me that the better response, if Wikipedia does gain serious political import, is for campaigns to work hand-in-hand with third-party public relations firms, which firms would do the Wikipedia editing. The same edits that State Sen. X can’t do himself can be made (with increasing insulation from objection under Wikipedia’s standards) by his staff, by a PR firm retained by his staff, by his party, and by a PR firm retained by his party.

I recognize there might yet remain troubling agency questions, I’d hazard those concerns would be hard to write specific rules to address.

I could, of course, be wrong about this, and such concerns could already be well-addressed by existing Wikipedia rules and standards. That wouldn’t be the first time my willingness to comment despite being relatively ignorant as to what I’m talking about would’ve gotten me in trouble.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/sanger07/sanger07_index.html

Now if there is a way to fix or ameliorize this, then folks are on to something. Until then, Wikipedia tends to be a good starting point for further research for me, but gospel for unfortunate others.

Still, the idea of “Wikis getting local” is quite awesome.