A survey on Special:Search asking readers various questions about their thoughts, feelings and opinions regarding putting adverts on that page could help to clarify this issue. It would need to be carefully designed and well controlled, but it can be done in an unbiased and statistically sound manner. With hundreds of millions of page views a month, we could afford to do iterations of the survey until all parties are satisfied that it is fair, and then discuss the results.
We would also need to anonymously survey active Wikipedia editors separately. Their opinions matter enormously.
Folks seem generally agreeable to an objective, dispassionate analysis. A data driven approach is the best way.
On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 5:08 PM, Peter Ansell ansell.peter@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/03/2008, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Having said that, the issue of public perception is absolutely vital, and you do make a perfectly good point.
the influential editors within wikipedia have a certain viewpoint
which is not representative of the actual readership who don't get involved in this issues.
Peter