Delirium wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
I can't for the life of me understand why people "a bunch of editors and readers" would leave over something like this. I also don't think it'd be a bad thing to get rid of the people who think this way.
Well, if the Foundation really wanted to find out, they could issue an ultimatum---we're starting GoogleAds tomorrow, and anyone opposed to advertising on Wikipedia can get out (and good riddance!).
Of course, they are unlikely to do so. =]
-Mark
Attitudes like this are going to destroy the project entirely. I guess you don't care about the fact that your actions are encouraging large scale emmigration from Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, and forking of contents. It doesn't matter if this action with Answer.com was good or bad, an attitude like this where you can good riddance to people who don't agree with you is contrary to what this community has been about.
This whole episode and debate is unfortunately going to leave a lot of embittered people on all sides of the issue, primarily due to the way it was presented in the first place. At this point, that doesn't matter, and all we got now is controversy that perhaps will never go away. Rubbing salt in the wounds and telling people to go away is not going to help.
While the initial presentation may have been flawed, and the "community" feeling like it was ignored (with the huge numbers of e-mails on this list, plus a slashdot story and the rest of the public airing of this issue) this can either be a divisive issue or we can try to come together with compromise solutions to get this to work.
The underlying issue for this whole exchange is that the Foundation needs money in order to operate. In addtion, being one of the top 50 websites on the internet makes advertising revenue something very attractive, particularly given the current commercial climate with most internet websites. What needs to happen is some creative thoughts about how some sort of revenue can help pay for the basic needs of this project, particularly for bandwidth and server costs.
Could other organizational aspects be done? What about P2P distributed models for dealing with content? Other software models for organizing the content? More effecient software algorithms for MediaWiki?
As for financial resources available to the Wikimedia Foundaion, what else could be done. More direct fundraising? A "telethon" or similar media campaign? Foundation grants or other philenthropic charities that could donate for specific projects (like Wikijunior and the Beck Foundation)? A "bookstore" that would sell CD-ROMs and printed books based on contents of Wikimedia projects? All of these and more can be done.
In this case there are many individuals who feel that they have labored hard to create an interesting public resource, only to see a few individuals seemingly make some money off of their volunteer labors, particularly with the cooperation of the "leaders" of this community. That is what is sticking in the craw of those who don't like what is going on here. And a darker side is that if somebody else is making money, why can't I? If Answers.com is going to get that benefit from Wikipedia readers and make a little bit of money, what is going to stop each and every other editor/contributor to Wikipedia to do the same thing with a link on the tools page that would copy what Answers.com is doing? Would that need Foundation approval (getting into cronyism) or can any editor simply put a link in the same place at any time? Do you need to be an admin to make changes there? (more resentment of the "heirarchy" of community leaders by ordinary users.) What about other products/services? What is the "end result" of all this commercial activity with Wikipedia?
I don't have any answers this these questions for the most part, but I have seen them all raised on this mailing list in many different forums. Rather than telling people to "get lost and never come back, we don't need you", it is far better the make the people having complaints to become part of the solution. The decision to have ads on Wikipedia or not is just a small part of much larger issues here, and it never does any good to drive people away... especially people who are genuinely trying to make this a bettter place in the first place. We are not talking about driving away vandals and trolls here, but rather people who have made some significant contributions to this community.