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Should Wikipedia run ads that ask for money, or ads that make money?

aaronklein.com

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Re: Should Wikipedia run ads that ask for money, or ads that make money?

#21

Post by JonnieCache »

jaylevitt wrote: post #18
JonnieCache wrote: post #9

One of the best things about wikipedia, some might argue the best thing, is that it is free from all the conflicts of interest invited in by money changing hands in exchange for services. This applies to all free culture, including the OSS world. It would be a tragedy to change it. (Obviously in the OSS world, people do pay for services, but the important thing is you can always choose not to. Just as you can choose…

I don't know Wikipedia's donor requirements; how do they avoid that same conflict of interest via donations? Is there some maximum donation per individual, reporting requirement, etc. that prevents corruption any more than using an automated ad network like AdSense would?

I suppose you're right, but the psychology of donations versus purchases is very powerful. Plus there's the issue of customer vs. product that someone else mentioned.

Re: Should Wikipedia run ads that ask for money, or ads that make money?

#22

Post by dextorious »

JonnieCache wrote: post #9

One of the best things about wikipedia, some might argue the best thing, is that it is free from all the conflicts of interest invited in by money changing hands in exchange for services. This applies to all free culture, including the OSS world. It would be a tragedy to change it. (Obviously in the OSS world, people do pay for services, but the important thing is you can always choose not to. Just as you can choose…

"""One of the best things about wikipedia, some might argue the best thing, is that it is free from all the conflicts of interest invited in by money changing hands in exchange for services."""

As an organization, maybe, as an encyclopedia, not so true.

For one, we have a lot of examples of people working within companies to add content that they like. A lot where exposed, but others surely are not.

Especially in non technical issues (politics, history, etc), I find Wikipedia to be an assortment of western media biases. It's only natural, of course, given the majority of content editors origin, training, the selection bias inherent in wanting to contribute to such an effort, etc. I wouldn't give it any more worth on such subjects than I give to the CIA World Factbook.

Re: Should Wikipedia run ads that ask for money, or ads that make money?

#24

Post by austenallred »

I disagree with others making the conflict of interest argument. I don't see how it would create a conflict of interest if they applied a hands-off, self-serve (call it laissez-faire if you must) advertising strategy -- in fact this would create much less of a conflict of interest than accepting direct donors.

But that point is moot. The true risk you run is alienating contributors. The beautiy of Wikipedia is that they have (almost) completely eliminated the influence that Wikipedia itself has on the content. It set up the rules and lets the crowd do the work, and lets the crowd be incentivized by the contribution it is making to society, like most other crowd sourced projects. It has created (or is striving to create) an autonomous encyclopedia.

If Wikipedia were to have ads, even if it weren't a for-profit company, it feels like contributors should receive something in return, a la BleacherReport.

Bottom line: It's not about conflict of interest, if Wikipedia accepts advertising it starts to feel like a business, and the incentive of contributors to keep contributing is greatly lessened.

Re: Should Wikipedia run ads that ask for money, or ads that make money?

#25

Post by tuppy »

spodek wrote: post #20

Reminds me of a time I saw Craig of Craig's List on a forum in the mid 2000s. People asked him why he didn't put ads on the Craigs List. With negligible effort his company could profit hugely. He politely pointed out that most of the companies that tried to maximize profit that way went bankrupt in the recession. Meanwhile his company was chugging along, free to do what it wanted, delivering a product its customers l…

This argument doesn't make sense since Craigslist is already a vehicle for advertisement. People pay for advertisements placed on Craigslist. They don't pay their operating costs through donations, they pay by having people give them money to provide a service (in this case, advertising).

Re: Should Wikipedia run ads that ask for money, or ads that make money?

#26

Post by phamilton »

aorshan wrote: post #17

You can't run ads that make money while at the same time expect people to believe you are completely impartial.

Google did it. Aside fom the normal skeptics, your average person trusts the organic results to be truly organic.

Re: Should Wikipedia run ads that ask for money, or ads that make money?

#27

Post by JustinSeriously »

I've always wondered why Wikipedia doesn't include affiliate links to Amazon on all their book and movie articles.

I think their current logic is that affiliate links force them to choose which online store they want to support, which is something they appear loath to do.

Look at the page they send you too when you do try to buy a book in an article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0802130984 . It's so large and completist that it has two tables of contents, and it's so obsessively non-preferential that it does a good job of hiding the one amazon.com link that most people are probably looking for.

Personally, I've bought 100s of books and DVDs after reading their Wikipedia articles, and I'd be happy to let the WikiMedia Foundation get my affiliate dollars.

Re: Should Wikipedia run ads that ask for money, or ads that make money?

#28

Post by spodek »

tuppy wrote: post #25
spodek wrote: post #20

Reminds me of a time I saw Craig of Craig's List on a forum in the mid 2000s. People asked him why he didn't put ads on the Craigs List. With negligible effort his company could profit hugely. He politely pointed out that most of the companies that tried to maximize profit that way went bankrupt in the recession. Meanwhile his company was chugging along, free to do what it wanted, delivering a product its customers l…

This argument doesn't make sense since Craigslist is already a vehicle for advertisement. People pay for advertisements placed on Craigslist. They don't pay their operating costs through donations, they pay by having people give them money to provide a service (in this case, advertising).

Argument?

I said it reminded me of something and described it.

Anyway, try looking for similarities. Anyone can find differences between things, but what do we learn from that? We already know no two things are perfectly identical.

I find we learn more from similarities in things we expect to be different.

Re: Should Wikipedia run ads that ask for money, or ads that make money?

#29

Post by neilk »

This FAQ is linked in the comments of the OP, but I thought it bears rereading. It's not just conflict of interest, it's also privacy, and the fact that the community just plain doesn't want advertising. In fact, Spanish Wikipedia already forked once, out of concerns that Wikipedia would become too commercial.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/FAQ/en#Why_doesn.27t_Wik...

It's true that other projects manage to combine collaboration with some traditional revenue sources such as advertising. But, rightly or wrongly, this is the community's choice, and it seems to be how the general public feels about the site too. There's something about a mission to promote knowledge that people want to keep mentally, physically apart from commerce. A friend of mine (non-techie, non-wikipedian) describes Wikipedia as a "sacred space".

Finally, and this is my own take on it, I think there's something valuable about having the reader community take ownership in something, rather than just be eyeballs to be packaged.

Disclaimer, I work for the WMF, although not on fundraising.

Re: Should Wikipedia run ads that ask for money, or ads that make money?

#30

Post by Geee »

JustinSeriously wrote: post #27

I've always wondered why Wikipedia doesn't include affiliate links to Amazon on all their book and movie articles. I think their current logic is that affiliate links force them to choose which online store they want to support, which is something they appear loath to do. Look at the page they send you too when you do try to buy a book in an article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0802130984 . It's…

The point is that the information about the book might not be completely objective when money is involved. It's that tiny bit of bias that might get injected in the article, by someone who is affiliated, be it Amazon employee or someone from Wikimedia. When this might not be a real issue, no one can be sure, and the trust in absolute objectivity is lost.
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