Entrepreneurs Are Paying Wikipedia Editors to Create Profile Pages It's technically against Wikipedia's rules. But that hasn't stopped this underground marketplace from thriving.

Three years after launching an online magazine for young entrepreneurs called Foundr, Nathan Chan decided it needed a Wikipedia page. "Any legitimate brand has one," he says. "All our competitors have pages." There were just two problems. Wikipedia strongly discourages people from creating their own pages. And the site's five-million-plus articles are largely created by 200,000-some volunteer editors, and it's unlikely one of them would suddenly take an interest in a small startup and build a page themselves.

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This spring, Chan posted on Facebook asking if anyone knew of an editor he could hire to create a Wikipedia page. Someone replied with a referral: an experienced editor who builds pages for a fee. Chan got in touch and agreed to pay $1,300 for pages about both himself and his company.