Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free • Hacker News Board

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#41

Post by InclinedPlane » Sun, Jan 02, 2011, 12:38 AM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #24

citricsquid wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Budget PDF for 2011: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/dd/2010-1... (Page 24 for pie chart comparison) Summary: They want to expand, a lot, almost every sector has more than doubled in allocated budget from 09-10s budget

Thanks! So they spent nearly $9M in salaries vs $2M for bandwidth, $1M in travel expenses, $2M in office rent/furniture/meetings https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikime... 2010 Wikipedia Spending, in USD, in thousands 8,972 Salaries and wages 1,837 Internet hosting 3,270 Capital expenditures 483 Donation processing fees, charitable registrations 2,274 External contractors 864 Travel for staff, Bo…

This data is concerning to me, here's why:

First, most of the value of wikipedia comes from random users. Second, we've seen a pattern of Wales and wikipedia administration not understanding where the value of wikipedia comes from. Third, we've seen a pattern of policies and practices that are actively hostile to the users and usages that are wikipedia's bedrock (deletionism, edit wars, unnecessarily tight permissions for article creation etc.)

And then we have wikipedia's budget priorities, which indicate that Wales et al seem to value creating cushy jobs for people who don't add much to wikipedia much more than just keeping the site running for as long as possible, by a ratio of around 10:1 (roughly).

In short, the people who run wikipedia don't seem to care or value the source of content on the site nor the continued operation of the site very much. Instead they seem to care about extracting money by effectively holding huge amounts of content that they did not create hostage.

I love wikipedia, it's a great site and potentially very positively disruptive to traditional norms in human society, culture, and education. Yet increasingly I am driven toward the conclusion that the people who run it are not in any sense good people and are holding it back as much as they are keeping it running.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#42

Post by InclinedPlane » Sun, Jan 02, 2011, 12:42 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #11

chaosmachine wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could definitely make a killing with just a single AdSense block at the bottom of every article. Maybe even just the top 1000 articles. Instead, we get places like Answers.com mass-duplicating Wikipedia content and slapping big image ads on it.

One of the things people are worried about with that it would allow something close to paid additions/rebuttals to Wikipedia articles, at least if ad buyers were good enough at the AdSense targeting. The goal is to have a neutral article that covers all viewpoints fairly, but then you'd have this little box where whoever pays the most money would get the opportunity to insert a link to their take on the subject.

Exactly. Or to put a finer point on it: there becomes a much greater pressure to insert ads as content.

Why pay for an ad sense spot if you can just insert your own ad into the relevant wiki article?

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#43

Post by alextgordon » Sun, Jan 02, 2011, 1:00 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #37

StavrosK wrote: post #3

Great, now how much more money do they need to buy the disk space necessary to stop deletionism?

There are tens of great arguments you could have made against deletionism, why make a bullshit one? You know it's not about the disk space --- though presumably not all of the 16 people who modded you up know that as well.

You have captured the spirit of deletionism perfectly. There is nothing wrong with the comment. Quite the opposite: it was witty, hence the upvotes and it's position at the top of the page.

Deletionists feel they can approach perfection by mechanically removing content according to some standard, even when readers are finding it useful or enjoyable.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#44

Post by tptacek » Sun, Jan 02, 2011, 1:02 AM UTC

alextgordon wrote: post #43

tptacek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tens of great arguments you could have made against deletionism, why make a bullshit one? You know it's not about the disk space --- though presumably not all of the 16 people who modded you up know that as well.

You have captured the spirit of deletionism perfectly. There is nothing wrong with the comment. Quite the opposite: it was witty, hence the upvotes and it's position at the top of the page. Deletionists feel they can approach perfection by mechanically removing content according to some standard, even when readers are finding it useful or enjoyable.

One person's wit is another person's snark. On HN, either is fine if accompanied by content. Stavros' comment not only didn't have content, it had anti- content; WP's notability requirements are not a space-saving mechanism (surely they could save more space by getting rid one of of the several tens of thousands of War and Peace's worth of words in the Wikipedia: namespace.)

The (most commonly expressed) logic behind deletionism is that WP occupies a privileged place on the web and thus the onus is on the project to have content be verifiable, so that people can't stuff totally bogus topics at the tops of Google searches. The project can't verify content for non-notable subjects.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#45

Post by jws » Sun, Jan 02, 2011, 1:05 AM UTC

iwwr wrote: post #39

chaosmachine wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could definitely make a killing with just a single AdSense block at the bottom of every article. Maybe even just the top 1000 articles. Instead, we get places like Answers.com mass-duplicating Wikipedia content and slapping big image ads on it.

Once they allow ad revenue to flow in, they will become dependent on it.

I disagree. I think the initial landrush of ads would allow them to set up a trust to fund them in perpetuity.

One year of ads. An eternity of freedom.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#46

Post by cmod » Sun, Jan 02, 2011, 1:05 AM UTC

slig wrote: post #12

StavrosK wrote: post #3

Great, now how much more money do they need to buy the disk space necessary to stop deletionism?

All the editing history is archived, right?

Slightly tangential but James Bridle's printing of an article's history is an interesting kind of archiving: http://booktwo.org/notebook/wikipedia-historiography/

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#47

Post by tokenadult » Sun, Jan 02, 2011, 1:21 AM UTC

redthrowaway wrote: post #14

chaosmachine wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could definitely make a killing with just a single AdSense block at the bottom of every article. Maybe even just the top 1000 articles. Instead, we get places like Answers.com mass-duplicating Wikipedia content and slapping big image ads on it.

The express purpose is to remain neutral and to avoid conflicts of interest. They're not in it to make money. Wikipedia isn't in the Answers.com business, and doesn't particularly want to be.

The express purpose is to remain neutral and to avoid conflicts of interest.

How well do you think Wikipedia is doing at that? (I ask as a new Wikipedian, registered and actively editing only for about a half year, who has seen many very controversial articles that are anything but neutral in point of view, ads or no ads.)

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#48

Post by sdghjtykty » Sun, Jan 02, 2011, 1:23 AM UTC

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Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#49

Post by iwwr » Sun, Jan 02, 2011, 1:25 AM UTC

jws wrote: post #45

iwwr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once they allow ad revenue to flow in, they will become dependent on it.

I disagree. I think the initial landrush of ads would allow them to set up a trust to fund them in perpetuity. One year of ads. An eternity of freedom.

It would also make them unresponsive to their community (assuming the really off-the-wall idea of 'perpetuity').

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#50

Post by coderdude » Sun, Jan 02, 2011, 1:30 AM UTC

d2viant wrote: post #18

I've always thought Google should just buy them. If you're going to index the worlds information, this is a good start. Google has the resources and power to make sure it remains alive and well.

I don't think you deserved the many downvotes you received. It's not like you were trolling. People here just downvote things they disagree with. Personally, I think Google should donate a decent amount to WP because Freebase relies on it. Without WP, Freebase would have been useless. (Disclaimer: I have no idea if Google actually donated.)