> 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.
(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.