George Herbert wrote:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 8:11 PM, Geoffrey Plourde geo.plrd@yahoo.com wrote:
No what is wrong with wikipedia brand dog food (provided that we receive a cut?)?
See standard discussion of whether we want to accept advertising onsite. Same general logic.
Of course, Wikipedia brand dog food is a pretty far-fetched idea, and as such might not provide the most interesting thought experiment for us to feel our way forward to an understanding of the values that we want to uphold. No one is likely to want to do Wikipedia brand dog food in the first place, and the puzzlement that consumers would feel over what it is about ("the dog food that anyone can edit"? "Imagine a world in which every single dog on the planet..." :-)) would be substantial.
Tougher calls and more interesting thought experiments might involve products that people might actually be interested in making and selling (perhaps even successfully!).
(I am just randomly brainstorming to pose a few interesting challenges.)
1. Wikipedia books - these have been done in Germany with some success, but imagine this being done on a massive scale, hiring some people in the community, but also being done in part by people we never met.
2. Wikipedia television quiz program - with some sort of wiki flair and with educational segments about our projects and goals in the developing world... but what if the program *itself* isn't freely licensed? (That's part of the thought experiment.)
3. Wikipedia series of documentaries - like National Geographic programs - these are to be produced in the old fashioned way, with large budgets, and will be run on television (perhaps on a pay channel like HBO) and then subsequently revenues are expected from DVD sales. There is no community collaborative production. But the end product will be proprietary for 5 years and then released under a free license.
--Jimbo