In reality, editing wikis may not be significantly fruitful for editors. If you want to be earning money, for the most part, do not edit wikis. This is a bit of discourse on editing wikis and earning money. There are various free to use and edit wikis that exist on The Internet. Many of these wikis have contributions licensed under an open license. Editing these websites is not a good way to earn money it seems. Editing perhaps most of those free wikis is a sort of volunteering. volunteering is generally not a good way to earn money, for the most part. Therefore, if one has the goal of earning money, one should not edit wikis where one’s own contributions are released under an open license.
One will likely have a better chance of earning money by keeping all rights to one’s own writings. Editing collaborative wikis may benefit society as a whole on the long term. However, volunteering to edit such wikis seems to for the most part be unproductive when attempting to earn money. Therefore, editing such wikis on a volunteer basis seems to seldom benefit the actual editor, other than perhaps some sort of gratification related to altruism performed.
Hopefully more individuals will realize the actual dynamics that go on when editing wikis. Hopefully more individuals that edit wikis will realize that doing so is not profitable, that it is volunteering and that there are likely better ways to spend one’s own time. Hopefully all volunteer editors of wikis will be treated with dignity and respect. It seems that not all editors of wikis are always treated with dignity and respect.
Sometimes, serious contributors to wikis have the contributions deleted. Destroying the generous work of volunteers does not seem to be treating the volunteers with dignity and respect. If nothing else, as long as the contributions to a wiki are not profane, obscene or illegal, volunteers should have their work moved to someplace so that it will be preserved, if it is not in the scope and/or appropriate for a wiki that they have contributed to.
Of course, individuals should be able to choose how they use their own time. However, it might be nice if more individuals become fully aware of the dynamics related to how open licenses and volunteering on wikis truly works. Because of all the aforementioned reasons, editing wikis may not be significantly fruitful for editors.
