On 10/03/2008, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote: And in a hypothetical situation where we're dependent on Google ads to stay alive. Google could threaten to withdraw the teet if we don't make-more-friendly one/all the articles relating to Google and their products. Also, Google's AdSense product is always targetted advertising. You read an article about running shoes and, from the context of the article, Google would serve up ads for Nike, Addidas, &c. I don't think it is a simplistic approach to want to avoid commericalising Wikipedia and threatening our neutrality in this way. -- Oldak Quill (oldakquill(a)gmail.com)

On 11/03/2008, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote: How many outsiders seriously think Wikipedia is of better quality because it doesn't have ads like every other site? I hope the idea of a dispassionate discussion can allow me to suggest that 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. The net has come as far as it has because of advertising, not because of fundraising drives. That is a fact, not an NPOV opinion. Peter

On 10/03/2008, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter(a)gmail.com> wrote: Going by the popularity of ad blocking adons for fire fox a fair number -- geni

On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:08:24 +1000, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter(a)gmail.com> wrote: It is certainly why the net is full of crap. I think we aim to do better. -- Brian Salter-Duke b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au [[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia. Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity

On 11/03/2008, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote: It does *wonders* for our public relations being the top-10 site which isn't plastered with ads. Wikipedia gets a LOT of slack for that - highly imperfect, but a non-profit volunteer project that continues to try hard. I fervently hope we can afford to continue this way. - d.

Judson Dunn wrote: The location of Wikimania can't help but be exotic to the vast majority of Wikipedians. Even if it's limited top only Europe and North America one of those will be exotic to the other as well as to residents of all the other continents. Ec

On 3/11/08, Judson Dunn <cohesion(a)sleepyhead.org> wrote: My impression is that Wikimania is pretty well self-funding: part of the bid process is coming up with sponsors to cover the expense of running it. -- Mark [[en:User:Carnildo]]

On 11/03/2008, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think it depends on the type. I happened to visit a certain Wikipedia userpage. the other day, and there was an animated banner ad at the top. Granted, it was a project-oriented one rather than a commercial one. But the fact that it was trying to influence me to join a WikiProject rather than buy a car (The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph) didn't make the ad less distracting. On the other hand I'm now typing this email using a Google interface. There is a series of links to the right of the page, which I never look at. They never blink, never appear in garish colors. But presumably some people click on such links and there are people who are prepared to pay for those links in the expectation that this will happen. So all the problems I'm told will come to Wikipedia with advertising are already there, at least on some pages, and yet there exist commercially run websites that carry advertising that does not intrude upon the reading experience. Advertising should be cautiously considered, I think, as a way of providing Wikipedia with a viable economic model.

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Aude <audevivere(a)gmail.com> wrote: Probably not - nonprofit refers to not having stockholders or owners who benefit from the business. It does not mean that we can't be in business in some sense... The Red Cross does not offer training materials, classes, and such for free. The National Geographic Society runs ads in their "National Geographic" magazine, and the Smithsonian runs ads in their magazines as well. Museums charge admissions and have gift shops, etc, as well as taking donations. Our rationale for avoiding ads (conflict of interest with NPOV) doesn't derive from IRS or other charitable nonprofit organization rules, unless there's something lurking in the rules I'm not aware of. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

The IRS considers advertising to be "unrelated business income", with tax imposed on ad revenue. For non-profits, there is also a limit on how much UBI can be out of total annual, receipts/income (I think 15-20%). As for National Geographic, they have for-profit subsidaries for their television/video/web production and other areas. For their magazine, they make $100 million from advertising (UBI), but $171 million from subscriptions/memberships and other related income sources. I think they have been scrutinized by the IRS for their UBI, but have managed to retain their status. Exceptions to what non-profits can sell include donated items (e.g. thrift shops, used books, ...) and items related to our mission (e.g. mugs and shirts with Wikimedia logo, but other mugs and shirts would be UBI). As for Girl Scout cookies, they are sold entirely by volunteers, which is one factor in their favor. Also, the sales take place only once a year, which is a limit for selling items like this. Another restriction is that cookies cannot be sold online. Importantly, the kids also benefit from building character, teamwork, and the learning experience for the kids. These benefits can be argued as an important part of their mission. With a combination of these factors, I'm sure that's how they can maintain their non-profit status. Recognizing sponsors is okay, such as the Virgin logo. But, again I think there are limits. This would be an area to explore, such as with future fundraisers. Finally, there are limits to how much revenue we really do need for our mission. We are getting by okay on donations, but I would be okay with a logo in the fundraising banner. That's about it, for what I would want. Otherwise, no ads for me. -Aude On 3/10/08, wjhonson(a)aol.com <wjhonson(a)aol.com> wrote: -- Aude

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: Right now there is a link to AdWords as well as a few AdWords optimization services. :) -- Chris Howie http://www.chrishowie.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crazycomputers

I'm going to take a more unusual view about advertising here - Wikipedia is a reference site, people come here looking for information, and if we link over to relevant (and that's the important thing) adverts from each article, we're actually enhancing the service we offer for other users. Going for targetted adverts - there's ways to "buffer" what appears alongside an article and the actual adverts by forming the adverts into, say, a popup window, with a link from the side of the article, or some form of Click to see Relevant Adverts type script and so on. Relevant Adverts are available to our readers, but they don't see them unless they want to see them. This, of course, is going to impact on the ability to earn money, but WMF isn't needing every last penny it can lay it's hands on, a modest income is best, it makes the Foundation look like it's interested in covering it's costs and not grabbing every last penny. The other option is generic adverts, who's particularly bothered if they see an advert for a film, a CD, a mobile phone or a car when they're browsing some non related topic. There's not the same problems with conflict of interest when you're browsing an article on, say, Windows XP, and an advert for a BMW appears. Just my thoughts though.

John Vandenberg wrote: I don't hink it's right to say that NPOV doesn't apply to Wikisource. It's more that Wikisource lacks significant situations where NPOV is a factor. The lack of policy reflects that. Pre-existing texts, the meat of Wikisource, say what they say. Theoretically NPOV could apply to Author pages, but even there we tend to limit ourselves to a few bare facts and lists of works. NPOV could apply to annotations, but few people have been interested in producing these. Ec