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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?

#51

Post by cyrus_ »

executive wrote: post #49
neilk wrote: post #29

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 comb…

except they are running ads right now.. of an ugly guy's face

You may substitute "commercial ad" every time you see the word "ad" in discussion about this, if you'd like to be picky.

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

#52

Post by charliesome »

wycats wrote: post #50
charliesome wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OSS world isn't free from conflict of interest either - just look at the Merb vs. Rails thing a couple of years ago.

As someone who was involved in that, I'm genuinely interested in what you mean.

Apparently EngineYard was pressured behind the scenes into merging Merb with Rails because they didn't want to lose their status as an 'official' Rails host.

You're probably in the best position to shed some light on this, since everything I know about it is hearsay.

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

#53

Post by mc32 »

dextorious wrote: post #22
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…

>I find Wikipedia to be an assortment of western media biases.

That you find that I won't contest. I'd point out that one might also see local biases in non-western language wikipedia articles. So to me, that point is kind of tangential. I'd rather say that everything has some inherent bias, rather than couching it as wikipedia having an especially (western) bias, as if other sources could be bias-free.

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

#54

Post by larrys »

There is another issue here as well that isn't being considered.

If you look at the 2010 Financial Report that lists contributors there are a few foundations that give wikimedia more than 1 million. And there are 6 that give between 100,000 and 999,999. And then even more that give other varying amounts. As well as obviously individuals.

That's money that isn't going to other non-profits and potentially non-profits that wouldn't be able to sell advertising and raise money that way. They can only rely on donations and foundation money to support their cause.

https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports#2011....

(pdf:) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/common/4/48/WMF_AR11_...

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

#55

Post by naz »

baddox wrote: post #46
jaylevitt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As far as I know, donators don't get any special treatment, and there aren't any conditional donations (e.g. I'll donate if you delete this article), so why would donations cause a conflict of interests?

Say if Facebook donates a million dollars a year, Wikipedia would be incentivized to treat Facebook favorably.

Obviously this doesn't happen, but that is one of their arguments against advertising.

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

#56

Post by dextorious »

mc32 wrote: post #53
dextorious wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"""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…

>I find Wikipedia to be an assortment of western media biases. That you find that I won't contest. I'd point out that one might also see local biases in non-western language wikipedia articles. So to me, that point is kind of tangential. I'd rather say that everything has some inherent bias, rather than couching it as wikipedia having an especially (western) bias, as if other sources could be bias-free.

I agree, that everything has some inherent bias, the problem I see is that Wikipedia is often taken as the "gospel", from both western and a lot of non-western residents, and because of it's status as a "world-wide, collaborative, encyclopedia" it's assumed that it is unbiased --while people treat other sources with more caution.

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

#57

Post by dextorious »

decklin wrote: post #34

Capitalism won, try it. I don't think this is true here at all. The obvious real-world analogy is news. I would much rather listen to NPR or the BBC than watch CNN or a local broadcast station -- I don't care if the latter has "won" by making money, I care about the quality and editorial independence of the content.

Also, "won", how? Because of the failed soviet states? How about the much winning near socialist Norway/Sweden/Denmark and Finland? How about China?

And what does it mean, "it won"? Does it mean it's better? We had kings and despots for 1000s of years. Yet we still progressed towards something different (and/or better). The same could happen with capitalism or everything.

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

#58

Post by wisty »

cyrus_ wrote: post #51
executive wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except they are running ads right now.. of an ugly guy's face

You may substitute "commercial ad" every time you see the word "ad" in discussion about this, if you'd like to be picky.

I HATE non-commercialism. It's like saying that a charitable hospital can ask for money, but can't run a cake-stall to raise it. Charities end up spending a huge amount of money soliciting donations. Wikipedia's lucky, because they can nag everyone on the internet for essentially no fee, and even partly deny service (by offering a gimped service). The Red Cross can't give disaster victims a nag message before helping and hope to make any more money, nor can they do it with a good conscience; so they have to spend all their money asking for donations from rich people who don't currently need their help.

It can go too far the other way, though. I heard that some of the "Pink" products gave a fixed fee to breast cancer, so buying their stuff wouldn't give any money. Others gave a tiny portion.

I'll concede that it's a good model for wikipedia - spend nothing, and nag users for donations. But it's not a great model in general. But it only works as a replacement for micropayments, and that's where unobtrusive advertising works better.

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

#59

Post by wpietri »

baddox wrote: post #46
jaylevitt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As far as I know, donators don't get any special treatment, and there aren't any conditional donations (e.g. I'll donate if you delete this article), so why would donations cause a conflict of interests?

It is a very common problem in ad-supported content businesses. Reputable newspapers and magazines work hard to make sure advertising doesn't influence content but it's always a struggle.

For example, suppose that Coke buys $10m of ads a year. It's small money to Coke (with a $1.6bn ad budget) but that's 60% of Wikipedia's annual revenue. Then suppose that there's a press furor over the "Criticisms of Coca Cola article" and Coke threatens to withdraw their ads. It would be impossible for Wikipedia to be perfectly chill about maybe having to fire half their staff.

It might even be less direct than that. Might people make more content that garners high-paying ads, even if the quality is low? Could editors be tempted to make the content less accessible (or harder to tell apart from the ads) if that gets more click-throughs?

Accepting ads mean there is always a conflict of interest between getting paid and serving readers. Even if Wikipedians make the right decision 100% of the time, readers will still be more suspicious, and that's the last thing Wikipedia needs.

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

#60

Post by wpietri »

phamilton wrote: post #26
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.

Google is very unusual as ad-supported businesses go.

Most ads are distractions from content. At Google, because you are actively looking for something, people are much happier to get ads. Especially relevant ones, which Google has invested a zillion dollars in being able to do well. Google also has incredible power to shape the market, so they can get away with forcing ads to be in a form that users like, rather than one that advertisers love.

Google has a further advantage: people generally trust them, even thought they don't know how things work. The general public is much more skeptical of Wikipedia, partly because it's so open.

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