The revision history is interesting to look through as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Galloway&o...
Many of Cross's revisions seem to revolve around removing unreliable sources (such as RT and Sputnik), integrating edits such that the verbiage flows better, and so forth. I can't find any edits that he's performed that were out of line.
It's also not especially interesting to have a high number of edits. For example, of Cross's most recent 50 edits, the vast majority are to a single article (which is not the George Galloway biography): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Philip_C...
The more I look into this, the more convinced I am that the bad actor isn't this guy, it's the Russian propaganda network who are mad that he's getting in the way of them using Wikipedia as an outlet.
Moreover, wikipedia doesn't ban RT as a source and correctly argues that biased sources can be legitimate if they are correct in context.
It seems these days that simply being an anti-establishment politician of any stripe instantly attracts accusations of Russian conspiracy theories. It's weird.
Maybe they're going for a "boy who cried wolf" dynamic.
A stipend for the editor is small change to some of the financial types.
I don't have a particularly conspiratorial mind and I prefer coincidence until conspiracy becomes the simpler explanation. Just so it's clear we're not entering the unfundable fantasy realm, PR firms can easily afford a competitive salary for a Wikipedia editor just from one or two clients. As can think-tanks.
I can see how I'd set up and scale up such an operation. I'd keep the one editor to one account for reasons above. I'd probably have them be more like a newspaper editor -- they keep a consistent style across the edits. I'd offload the real work to researchers who dig up sources and to write the bits they want inserted and removed.
Look at the first edits by this account: they're on Jazz musicians and politics, and the political stuff isn't too biased. Eventually the cover of Jazz edits decreases. Maybe he started out as a Wikipedia editor and enjoyed writing so got picked up by one of the many many think-tanks that pay journalism money for advancing what will make their sponsors money. Maybe he's an internet sock-puppet. Snowden revealed that the UK has a unit that engages in such activities. [0]
This very site has not been immune from individuals who work for a very-well-funded, highly-litigious, politically-motivated organization posting op-eds that masquerade as thought-provoking articles. Sometimes they make the front page.
It so happens that one of the few handles that only post articles from there are paid to do so and have re-used a handle that as far as I could tell was only used to ask questions about lipstick on Reddit. It was also her real name and she was confirmed as head of social media at the organisation. This was easy to catch, because the only stuff they posted was from one domain.
Perhaps this is an individual living off passive income with a lot of time on their hands and nothing more they want to do. But perhaps this is somebody being funded for doing what they do.
I am reminded of Poul-Henning Kamp's talk "Operation Orchestra" at Fosdem 2014, in which he humorously outlines how entrenched interests could invade or could have invaded open source [1]
[0] https://theintercept.com/2015/06/22/controversial-gchq-unit-...
(This is not something I lack knowledge of as a formerly prolific editor of UK politics articles. I reckon at least a quarter of MPs have had their articles edited by themselves or their campaign staff, usually in a very unsophisticated and obvious manner. One obscure elected Member of Parliament's biography appeared to have been mostly written, in good faith, by their partner, and that text was up there for a very long time...)
The irony is that some the figures complaining about User:PhilipCross openly take money for regularly appearing on Russian state media, and yet I still believe their politics isn't shaped by financial incentives.
Because they are openly taking money. If User:PhilipCross is then it is most certainly not transparent.
Almost everybody you see on TV is being paid by somebody. There is a particularly grating employee of the Institute for Economic Affairs regularly appearing on the UK state and corporate media to talk liberating the taxpayer of the NHS. She's presumably not being paid by the BBC or Sky News, but she is being paid for appearing there by interests that would benefit from what she is advocating.
In this way, we see that the majority people providing their time on TV have an agenda. We don't naturally expect the same of Wikipedia editors, but maybe we should.
There are several types of organizations with a big budget whose job it is to influence public discourse. It wouldn't surprise me if some of them were found to be in control of an editor's account in some way. The easiest way is probably to hire one, but seeing accounts are bought and sold on pretty much every other online service the possibility is there.
You just have to be very careful not to burn them. Sloppiness would probably look like editors working exactly the same hours every day for a decade without ever tiring, vacationing or being sick.