Dear all,
Not sure if this is the place to do this, but it's something I'd like Jim Wales opinion on - and it may provide a bit of respite from the rather fiery stuff about trolls and (shudder) death threats.
I submitted a similar proposal to the Village Pump page, but I didn't get the impression it would meet the right eyes.
Basically I wanted to present an idea for increasing Wikipedia's funding by encouraging people to place more book references at the end of articles.
I understand that there was a controversy about Amazon in the past, but according to...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Book_sources
...Wikipedia earns a commission on people who purchase through...
http://www.priceowl.com/?site=wikipedia
So, it occurred to me that if publicity is given to this it may increase revenue.
This could be done by mentioning it in the style guides and maybe having at is a category within the 'Pages needing attention', ie 'Pages Needing Book References'.
You could be more aggressive about raising revenue this way, ie cutting down the list of links, at the first page I referred to, so it includes ONLY those that give Wikipedia a kick back - but I sense that would be regarded as against the spirit of Wikipedia.
Now, clearly one would only want to encourage references to worthy books. Perhaps this could be done by asking that contributors only list books they have actually read OR are written by the person named in the article title.
Anyway, figured it was an idea that wasn't going to do anybody any good if it just sat here in my head, so there it is.
Bodnotbod.
_________________________________________________________________ Find a cheaper internet access deal - choose one to suit you. http://www.msn.co.uk/internetaccess
Bod NotBod wrote:
Basically I wanted to present an idea for increasing Wikipedia's funding by encouraging people to place more book references at the end of articles.
I understand that there was a controversy about Amazon in the past, but according to...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Book_sources
...Wikipedia earns a commission on people who purchase through...
http://www.priceowl.com/?site=wikipedia
So, it occurred to me that if publicity is given to this it may increase revenue.
Jimbo tried an experiment of this sort some months back, and the commissions produced were negligible to the point of ludicrous. Given the amount of controversy that such an idea would and has generated, it would be pointless to give serious consideration to something that does not provide meaningful benefits.
You could be more aggressive about raising revenue this way, ie cutting down the list of links, at the first page I referred to, so it includes ONLY those that give Wikipedia a kick back - but I sense that would be regarded as against the spirit of Wikipedia.
That sounds like a classic example for the term "conflict-of-interest".
Ec
Books which are useful to our readers are always welcome, IMO.
Very little revenue will come from this in any event, but it is good resource for editors and readers.
Fred
From: "Bod NotBod" bodnotbod@hotmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sun, 09 May 2004 19:49:37 +0100 To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Selling books to increase funding
Dear all,
Not sure if this is the place to do this, but it's something I'd like Jim Wales opinion on - and it may provide a bit of respite from the rather fiery stuff about trolls and (shudder) death threats.
I submitted a similar proposal to the Village Pump page, but I didn't get the impression it would meet the right eyes.
Basically I wanted to present an idea for increasing Wikipedia's funding by encouraging people to place more book references at the end of articles.
I understand that there was a controversy about Amazon in the past, but according to...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Book_sources
...Wikipedia earns a commission on people who purchase through...
http://www.priceowl.com/?site=wikipedia
So, it occurred to me that if publicity is given to this it may increase revenue.
This could be done by mentioning it in the style guides and maybe having at is a category within the 'Pages needing attention', ie 'Pages Needing Book References'.
You could be more aggressive about raising revenue this way, ie cutting down the list of links, at the first page I referred to, so it includes ONLY those that give Wikipedia a kick back - but I sense that would be regarded as against the spirit of Wikipedia.
Now, clearly one would only want to encourage references to worthy books. Perhaps this could be done by asking that contributors only list books they have actually read OR are written by the person named in the article title.
Anyway, figured it was an idea that wasn't going to do anybody any good if it just sat here in my head, so there it is.
Bodnotbod.
Find a cheaper internet access deal - choose one to suit you. http://www.msn.co.uk/internetaccess
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Bod NotBod wrote:
Basically I wanted to present an idea for increasing Wikipedia's funding by encouraging people to place more book references at the end of articles.
I understand that there was a controversy about Amazon in the past, but according to...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Book_sources
...Wikipedia earns a commission on people who purchase through...
Many of us only accepted the existence of Amazon's kickbacks because it wouldn't change our editorial policy. I would certainly be more inclined to terminate the Amazon agreement than to encourage readers to buy books.
If you think we need more books for informational purposes, write that on the proposed policy and to-do pages. There's no need to mention the funding issue.
-- Tim Starling