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I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.

wikimediafoundation.org

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Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.

#31

Post by 6ren »

CharlieA wrote: post #2

"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…

Chomsky argued that media cannot help but be influenced by the source of their bread and butter. He who pays the piper calls the tune. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

Note that Brandon used the term propaganda. Certainly, Wikipedia would be extremely effective as a propaganda tool.

Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.

#32

Post by lukeschlather »

mrsteveman1 wrote: post #12
protomyth wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, how would you have them get paid for your use of their service?

Someone (doctors, lawyers, corporations, someone) with a lot of money is willing to fork it over to Wikipedia for something that isn't available right now, and they should probably figure out what that something is. Begging all the time is a bit silly for the 5th largest site on the internet.

NPR is IMHO the best radio station in the USA, and that's how they get their funding.

If anything I think it may be the other way around - advertising is a stupid way for organizations that need to be unbiased to get their money, begging is the only way to get money with integrity for that sort of organization.

Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.

#33

Post by tikhonj »

Volpe wrote: post #10

Well, 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.

I think you have it backwards--Wikipedia actually faces (in a sense) competition from Google. With Google, I can get my information from millions of disparate sites, each specializing in some niche--if I'm looking to buy a car, I might visit ten or twenty car club websites, for example.

Without Google, there would be no good way to find all of the little, disparate sites. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is an organized, uniform collection of information; finding the right article there is much easier than finding an appropriate fan site or the like.

Google's mission is to "organize the world's information". Wikipedia's mission could just as easily be phrased as "organize the world's notable information"--there is a gigantic overlap between the two.

Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.

#34

Post by gojomo »

devs1010 wrote: post #26
gojomo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bu…

Except: editing is done by an unruly hive. There is no organizational nexus on which to place "comply or we'll withdraw our advertising" pressure. And, any attempt to apply such pressure would quickly trigger its own self-nullification via editor outrage (as with the 'Streisand Effect').

In order for an advertiser to have sinister influence, you'd need to assume a bunch of other changes which weaken Wikipedia's resilience. Advertising could be implemented in a way that helps prevent such weakening-changes from happening. And if any org could pull that off, Wikipedia could.

That said, I still understand why, given their community's biases and their success with donation-drives so far, they have not seriously considered ads in many years. Don't mess with what works is usually a good principle.

Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.

#35

Post by iand »

Every industrialised nation in the world has benefited from the educational value Wikipedia brings. If at their next meeting the G20 countries were to donate a dollar for every schoolchild in their country then Wikipedia would have an endowment that could cover their costs for the long term.

Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.

#36

Post by jwallaceparker »

I don't understand how advertisers would in any way influence the content of Wikipedia.

I would argue that donors wield more control over an organization than advertisers.

Advertisers pay money to an organization and receive ad placement in return.

Donors (especially large ones) pay money to an organization and are more likely to ask for some sort of favor in return.

Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.

#37

Post by jwallaceparker »

markmccraw wrote: post #13

Given that it costs less than $20 million to run Wikipedia (cite: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/ac/FINAL_... ), that seems completely attainable without needing to change the nature of Wikipedia by introducing advertising. A lone rich donor could cover the budget for an entire year, and many people who could afford that wouldn't even be mentioned in Wikipedia, so there would be little opportunity…

> A lone rich donor could cover the budget for an entire year, and many people who could afford that wouldn't even be mentioned in Wikipedia, so there would be little opportunity for any conflict of interest.

Isn't the risk of influence higher if a "lone rich donor" funds Wikipedia rather than hundreds of advertisers?

Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.

#38

Post by jonhendry »

FaceKicker wrote: post #30
jonhendry wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, you'd pay $100, and get it displayed for a day, on, say, the front page of Wikipedia. If you're the only person who bought an ad for that day, you show up for every visitor. If more than one person bought an ad for that day, the ads are rotated. I suppose this could be done for each language.

Perhaps ads could be sold for a day on a specified Wikipedia entry, which would expand the possibility of sales, but also increases the possibility for controversy. (Imagine someone buying a birthday message for Lee Harvey Oswald to be posted on the John F. Kennedy article, or a message honoring Himmler on the Judaism page.)

No guarantee of number of page views or impressions. This wouldn't be a money-maximizing advertising scheme, so regular ad-marketing measures would be irrelevant. Avoiding such things would also keep it informal, which might cut down on "OMG Wikipedia sold out and went corporate!" angst.

It'd just be an additional source of revenue that would avoid entanglement and influence issues. If it was popular, Wikipedia could tune it to raise revenue.

Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.

#39

Post by yread »

I don't understand people moaning about "why don't they show us ads already". I am using wikipedia a lot and I think I got a lot of value from it. Admittedly I was using it more as a student, but now I can afford to give something back for that. I have no problem with donating.

We have ads everywhere, some are scammy some are annoying, advertising companies track us with them. Why would you want to put them on wikipedia when you can prevent that by just sending a couple of bucks?

Re: I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary.

#40

Post by roel_v »

yread wrote: post #39

I don't understand people moaning about "why don't they show us ads already". I am using wikipedia a lot and I think I got a lot of value from it. Admittedly I was using it more as a student, but now I can afford to give something back for that. I have no problem with donating. We have ads everywhere, some are scammy some are annoying, advertising companies track us with them. Why would you want to put them on wikipe…

I guess because most people don't care about some ads left or right (not Bonzi buddy or full-screen 'click to continue', just Adword style).
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