The idea behind Wikipedia is to be made by users. With our time, and our money. It's good to know that it doesn't just run with content from other users like me (and mine), but also their money (and mine).
I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.
21–30 of 71 posts
Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.
#22"We don’t run ads because doing so would sacrifice our independence. The site is not and should never be a propaganda tool." I really don't understand wikipedia's continued hesitation to accept advertising--nor the argument that it would sacrifice their independence--anyone can edit it already, so I question whether sponsorship needs to have any impact on article content whatsoever. What's the problem with having a b…
They could probably get a small income by taking personal message ads, for example, a small blurb in honor of someone's late father or congratulating a friend on the birth of a child.
Charge, say, $50 or $100 to reduce nuisance ads and pranks. Careful design of a form for purchasing these ads, rather than using freeform text, would help cut down on the potential for controversy over content.
These would be non-commercial, so that wouldn't be an issue. They'd be small, so any one ad buyer would be unlikely to wield much influence. Most ads would have little or nothing to do with any content in Wikipedia, so skewing of related pages shouldn't be an issue.
Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.
#23"We don’t run ads because doing so would sacrifice our independence. The site is not and should never be a propaganda tool." I really don't understand wikipedia's continued hesitation to accept advertising--nor the argument that it would sacrifice their independence--anyone can edit it already, so I question whether sponsorship needs to have any impact on article content whatsoever. What's the problem with having a b…
so, this is just hypothetical, but lets say McDonald's ends up having some major scandal (say, like Enron, but not so bad that they go out of business), this scandal ends up being well known and there's a Wikipedia article written about it, as there is for the Enron scandal (Google "Enron Scandal wiki" to check for yourself). So, don't you think maybe McDonald's would put a little pressure on Wikipedia to censor or r…
I don't think the presence of advertising makes Wikipedia any more subject to the influence of commercial institutions.
How exactly do you 'put a little pressure on Wikipedia' as an advertiser? It's a hive of independent contributors who, overwhelmingly, draw no money from the Foundation. Very few care at all about advertiser-friendliness.
Any communication to any particular editor suggesting warmer-treatment-for-money risks a big backlash, and provides little assurance of warmer coverage.
On the other hand, even without advertising, big interests can and do try to massage their Wikipedia entries indirectly. If they have a legal case against content, they can and do threaten legal action – again, no advertising link required.
There may be good reasons for excluding advertising. Since an important core of contributors hate the idea advertising, simply keeping them happy may be a good enough reason, and as long as annual donation drives generate plenty of money, why not?
But I don't see where advertising would add new motivations or mechanisms for commercial entities to meddle in article content, especially if proper care were taken to separate and automate ad functions.
Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.
#24There are several great organizations that have no way to make money, so they rely on donations. Wikipedia isn't in that situation. They could sell ads that were clearly marked as such. A simple small text ad on each page would give them more money than they would ever need. They're costs seem to be low enough and the value of ad space is high enough that they wouldn't have to put up with anyone trying to extort them…
Wikipedia has enough problems with spam etc. now. I can't imagine how the dynamic would be altered if ad sales folks figured out some angle to game things.
Are you suggesting that they should do inside sales (with some sort of chinese wall); or use an ad sale agency? Would I be able to bid on specific wikipedia pages and keywords, or would it be random pages? What if I put a deceptive add on a page that was sensitive politically, in an attempt to bait people with an interest in a certain topic into some sort of targeted phising or malware attack?
I'm not familiar with web ad sales at all, is there a general rule of thumb for commoditization of traffic? Function(Unique visitors, page views, ??? ) = $x
Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.
#25Brilliant headline.
But man, I would love to help Wikipedia optimize their campaign.
I know they work on CRO internally but on this page, for instance, I see 30%+ sitting on the table with:
a) Fix the headline - Wikimedia's headline is "From Wikipedia programmer Brandon Harris". The OP in this thread fixed by taking the very compelling first line "I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary." Still needs an action for scanners (80% of your readers).
b) Call to Action Needs to be More Obvious - The call to action doesn't appear as a link in the copy, users will miss the box on top right. Eye @ end of article flows to the "give monthly" link. The box at the top right falls into the deadzone of visual attention. An arrow would be cheesy, but effective, as would hyperlinks in the text w/strong call to action text.
c) Edit the Copy & Formatting - The copy concept is outstanding. The formatting and paragraph structure needs to be edited down. The old "If I'd had more time i would have written you a shorter letter" - eg word economy. Could be as powerful or more-so with moderate editing. Needs sub-headlines, just something like "How can you help?" lets scanners quickly read the headline, first paragraph and jump right into donate mode.
d) Humanize Brandon - Get a picture of Brandon on there for goodness sakes. Humanizing the page with an actual image almost always works.
e) Fix Your CC Page - The click through to the donate page is bizarrely formatted with the form on the far right. Why introduce more ad-copy when somebody has indicated they want to donate? Reduce friction, don't introduce more. Better yet partner w/Amazon or somebody to process donations that's trusted and makes payments absurdly easy (PayPal doesn't count)
f) Leverage the Exit Action - I get that Wikipedia is a foundation but hit some of the basic fun commerce drivers like a little javascript exit pop like "Want to help but don't have the cash? Donate 60 seconds instead." and drive to a simple FB / Twitter screen to have people push to social on the drive.
g) Tweak your Buttons - These buttons feel like government issue desks. You might argue that this helps give them credibility as a charity to look a little off-the-shelf, but that is one of the most basic things to tweak. Build a button people can't resist rolling over, and they'll click it more and take more actions. Period.
I love Wikipedia, I want to help. Who do I go bother?
If anybody from Wikipedia is out there I am raising my hand, I want to donate time and expertise. Contact me via profile.
Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
so, this is just hypothetical, but lets say McDonald's ends up having some major scandal (say, like Enron, but not so bad that they go out of business), this scandal ends up being well known and there's a Wikipedia article written about it, as there is for the Enron scandal (Google "Enron Scandal wiki" to check for yourself). So, don't you think maybe McDonald's would put a little pressure on Wikipedia to censor or r…
I don't think the presence of advertising makes Wikipedia any more subject to the influence of commercial institutions. How exactly do you 'put a little pressure on Wikipedia' as an advertiser? It's a hive of independent contributors who, overwhelmingly, draw no money from the Foundation. Very few care at all about advertiser-friendliness. Any communication to any particular editor suggesting warmer-treatment-for-mon…
I've worked for companies where one client has an inordinate amount of influence over the company, why... because they are the biggest client, they represent a significant percentage of the company's revenue. Market forces inevitably can create situations where a particular client is "really good" for a company, they may pay more than other companies would, etc and, if this client is lost (or even just reduces the business they give the company) serious consequences can result including laying people off, etc. Of course Wikipedia can avoid this, at least initially, by not relying on one company, going through an ad-broker, etc but its possible that at some point a situation can arise where they are faced with a dilemma (and this would probably be years into the future after an infusion of money has inevitably re-shaped the organization to some degree) where a decision has to be made to either lose a client (advertising customer) or bend to pressure from them to censor or delete something... I'm just speculating here but past experiences of mine lead me to believe something like this could occur as companies bend to pressure from their clients all the time.
Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
so, this is just hypothetical, but lets say McDonald's ends up having some major scandal (say, like Enron, but not so bad that they go out of business), this scandal ends up being well known and there's a Wikipedia article written about it, as there is for the Enron scandal (Google "Enron Scandal wiki" to check for yourself). So, don't you think maybe McDonald's would put a little pressure on Wikipedia to censor or r…
I don't think the presence of advertising makes Wikipedia any more subject to the influence of commercial institutions. How exactly do you 'put a little pressure on Wikipedia' as an advertiser? It's a hive of independent contributors who, overwhelmingly, draw no money from the Foundation. Very few care at all about advertiser-friendliness. Any communication to any particular editor suggesting warmer-treatment-for-mon…
With all the dollars at play, I reckon there could be unforeseen ways to game the system. Maybe some "Enron" type will scrutinize every wikipedia bureaucratic procedure and term and condition of how the ad sales works and run some arbitarge keyword games that would distort the content in an ultimately un-usefull-to-the-user but profitable-for-the-gamer way.
I also worry about the increased tracking on politically sensitive pages or controversial topics.
Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.
#28Brilliant headline. But man, I would love to help Wikipedia optimize their campaign. I know they work on CRO internally but on this page, for instance, I see 30%+ sitting on the table with: a) Fix the headline - Wikimedia's headline is "From Wikipedia programmer Brandon Harris". The OP in this thread fixed by taking the very compelling first line "I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary." Still needs an…
On point d, if you go to Wikipedia proper you will possibly get a banner with Brandon's face which is a link to this article. I doubt they were intending this to be linked directly, so you might want to take a look at the banner also.
Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.
#29Well, a little bit of self-glorification is okay... But seriously, is it wikipedia that's giving people access to knowledge or is it google (and other search engines)? Without google, I'd guess wikipedia would get a fraction of the traffic it gets now. There is no use building a massive repository of knowledge if no one can navigate it easily.
There's no use building a content indexer if there's no content to index.
Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.
#30"We don’t run ads because doing so would sacrifice our independence. The site is not and should never be a propaganda tool." I really don't understand wikipedia's continued hesitation to accept advertising--nor the argument that it would sacrifice their independence--anyone can edit it already, so I question whether sponsorship needs to have any impact on article content whatsoever. What's the problem with having a b…
They could probably get a small income by taking personal message ads, for example, a small blurb in honor of someone's late father or congratulating a friend on the birth of a child. Charge, say, $50 or $100 to reduce nuisance ads and pranks. Careful design of a form for purchasing these ads, rather than using freeform text, would help cut down on the potential for controversy over content. These would be non-commer…
I don't really understand this idea. If you want a reasonable probability of your friend/family stumbling upon your ad, you'd have to be running it for probably about 10% of pageviews. In which case you'd only be running 10 at a time, charging $50 or $100 per...what? Week? That would be that insignificant of a revenue stream.