Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia articles contained inaccuracies, that prior efforts to get attention from Wikipedia volunteers had failed, and that Microsoft had agreed that the company would not review Jelliffe's suggested changes. Microsoft also said they had not previously hired anyone to edit Wikipedia. Heated debate resulted after the revelation over whether such practices called Wikipedia's credibility into question. In response to the incident, Jimmy Wales said paying for edits to Wikipedia was against the encyclopedia's spirit. Wales said the better, more transparent choice would have been for Microsoft to produce a white paper on the subject, post it online, and link to it
The Wikipedia Revolution Lih describes the importance of early influences on Wikipedia including Usenet, Hypercard, Slashdot, and MeatballWiki. He also explores the cultural differences found within sister projects such as the German Wikipedia, the Chinese Wikipedia, and the Japanese Wikipedia. The book also covers the Citizendium project, originally a fork of Wikipedia by co-founder Larry Sanger. There is a foreword by Wales, and an afterword partially created by volunteers through an online wiki detailing the problems and opportunities of Wikipedia's future. The Wikipedia Revolution The Wikipedia Revolution: How A Bunch of Nobodies Created The World's Greatest Encyclopedia is a 2009 popular history book