For the record, I want to correct misimpressions that may have been inadvertently left by this post. My research for the award-winning NY Times article, “What Broke My Father’s Heart,” took six months, involved numerous peer-reviewed studies from journals like the New England Journal of Medicine, and did not rely on Wikipedia at any time in any way. Research was completed long before the New York Times accepted the piece for publication. As I am sure you are aware, Wikipedia is not considered a valid research source by the fact-checking department of the New York Times, which fact-checks all its articles routinely, including mine. Nobody was ever asked or expected to manufacture sources or backup — none of that was needed nor would it have passed muster at the NY Times. Perhaps new media can be as clueless and as prone to jumping to far fetched conclusions about the inner workings of old media — as vice versa.
The article won the “Science in Society” award from the National Association of Science Writers and was the fourth most accessed NY Times magazine story of 2010. It was expanded into a 2013 book, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” which was named a NY Times Notable Book of the Year, and “best first book” in the Books for a Better Life awards. It is currently (Sept 2014) a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in nonfiction. As an older writer with minimal experience in social media, I was seeking help with updating a single page of my website and promoting what I thought was an important national issue. As a working freelancer on a budget, I offered an unfortunately minimal hourly rate to a college student. At the time, many posts asked students to perform similar work as unpaid internships, and that was not a route I was comfortable taking. No harm was intended, and I’m glad the article was seen by many for what it was – my own thorough and original research.

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=29844

MyWikiBiz!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyWikiBiz

If only someone, somewhere, knew how to find the guy behind MyWikiBiz, Katy’s problems could have been solved. But (as Rose notes above), for $15 an hour, she’s loony tunes.