I am speaking here only in a "Devil's Advocate" capacity since I oppose
putting ads in Wikipedia. I just think our continued refusal to run ads
should be on the best possible arguments.
Oldak Quill wrote:
Even if the ad service (and advertising companies) are
treated with
independence (ignoring threats by those companies to pull out
advertising money for treating a subject in a particular way), how do
you think reader impressions will change?
First I think it safe to say that companies would not make such threats.
I have been working with internet advertising for many years and
particularly for the kinds of ads we are talking about (text ads from
google adsense), I have never heard one word from an advertiser about
anything. Even for largest display style ads, I have not seen that kind
of disrespect for a publisher. It just really is not the major issue
most people think it is.
Having said that, the issue of public perception is absolutely vital,
and you do make a perfectly good point.
This is one reason to have the advertising be only in the search results
page... to maintain that firewall between content and advertising.
Internet advertising is already too imposing and the
popularity of
anti-advertising tools reflect this. Just because the status quo is to
be intrusive with advertising, doesn't mean we should follow suit. The
availibility of these tools creates a disparity between those with the
technical know-how to remove ads from their browsing, and those who
don't.
We could institute a very very simple one-click opt-out. "Click to turn
off ads". You click it, and there you go, ads are gone. Cookie set for
10 years.
--Jimbo