On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
jossi fresco wrote:
In regard to today's article on the Los
Angeles Times about Wikipedia and
funding, I am sure that this has been discussed in the past, but it is not
about time we look into this dispassionately?
Would it really be the "end of Wikipedia" to have a "Sponsored
links"
section as a subsection of the "External links" section on articles in which
two or three Google ad words could be placed?
While I continue to oppose advertising in Wikipedia, I do very much
agree with Jossi that having a dispassionate discussion is a good idea.
I always have to say this part lest a news headline result: I am
saying exactly the same things in this email that I have been saying for
years.
A less intrusive concept than Jossi's, even, would be to have "Sponsored
links" off to the right hand side *only on the search results page*.
(Notice that I am personally opposed to this at this time, but that I
think it is a bad thing that we continue to make this decision with
absolutely no data or discussion about how much it would bring in, what
we could realistically accomplish for our charitable goals with the
money, what our readers would think, what we as a community would think,
etc.)
An interesting idea put forward by a Wikisourcian is:
If the Wikimedia Foundation ever runs short of cash, I suggest adding
unobtrusive text-based advertisements to Wikisource, much like
Uncyclopedia. There is no danger of violating the
neutral-point-of-view policy because [Wikisource has] none, and links
to buy still-copyrighted books by the same author could actually be
useful to readers.
<
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/User:Remember_the_dot >
--
John