First of all, I want to say that I agree with most everything Erik has written so far, and can't really add to his eloquent explanations. Nevertheless, as someone who was involved from the beginning in these discussions, I want to raise a few points here.
1. The Wikimedia Foundation has grown beyond anyone's wildest expectations in terms of traffic, hits, articles, and projects. We are a top ten website. 2. We are doing this on a shoestring budget, with minimal staff and minimal expenses. 3. We are able to do this because of dedicated volunteers, like everyone writing on this list.
But --
4. The Foundation, which hosts all these projects does not want to be gobbled up by some big corporation, like Youtube was, like Myspace was, or like any other successful website was. We want to maintain our independence. 5. Independence comes at a cost. We have to buy servers, and we have to find the right people to manage all of the other things involved with running a huge foundation. 6. Considering our growth, the base of volunteers does not scale. All the good will in the world does not mean that people can take off exams or their jobs or their families to work 24/7 to keep this thing running. 7. We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the audit, the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is unrealized income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other words it is many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen to avoid ads so that we can maintain our independence.
So where do we get the money to keep this thing afloat?
8. Donations from devoted users. We are grateful for each and every donation, and each and every donation is valuable, whether it is $1 or $100. 9. Unfortunately, however, given our size, this is not enough. Read the financial statements, follow the projections about growth. Compare our budget to the budgets of other comparably-sized websites, or even to websites smaller than us.
Fortunately--
10. There are people out there who want to help us. Some have selfish motives, no doubt, and others have purely altruistic motives. Deal with it. Such is life. 11. When the selfish overwhelms the altruistic, we can say no. The Board has said no--to some very big potential sponsors. 12. When people do help us on our terms, it is only right that we express our gratitude to them. We thank them. The site notice is a means of thanking them. 13. From this perspective, this whole debate is about what is "too much gratitude." That is, in my opinion, unfortunate.
A final statement--
14. To the editors and other contributors--Wikipedia and all the other projects do NOT exist so that a bunch of bored people have some place to play in their leisure time. They exist to spread free knowledge and free culture. Our target audience is not the editor per se, but the user-without-a-user-name who comes to rely on our projects for information, whether its a student, a traveller, or someone with an obscure interest and a passion for learning. As editors and contributors we are serving them, and not being served. That is why we keep all the sites going, no matter how costly it is. And let's be grateful to the groups and organizations that help us meet these costs.
Danny
2006/12/28, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com:
- There are people out there who want to help us. Some have selfish
motives, no doubt, and others have purely altruistic motives. Deal with it. Such is life. 11. When the selfish overwhelms the altruistic, we can say no. The Board has said no--to some very big potential sponsors.
Yesterday, on #wikimedia, some people asked how sponsorpartners are choosen or have been choosen.
The answer we had was that there were to factors used: "1) they have the money" "2) they're nice"
Now, 'cause of "They're nice" is a very, very generic factor, it seems that the only importang thing is that they have the money.
But I'll be happy to understand better which have been the reasons why a company has been choosen, and another not.
daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
- To the editors and other contributors--Wikipedia and all the other
projects do NOT exist so that a bunch of bored people have some place to play in their leisure time. They exist to spread free knowledge and free culture. Our target audience is not the editor per se, but the user-without-a-user-name who comes to rely on our projects for information, whether its a student, a traveller, or someone with an obscure interest and a passion for learning. As editors and contributors we are serving them, and not being served. That is why we keep all the sites going, no matter how costly it is. And let's be grateful to the groups and organizations that help us meet these costs.
Danny
I hope this isn't a prevalent attitude among all board members to slam editor/contributors this hard.
I do agree with the general sentiment that we need to be mindful that there are individuals beyond the active editor/commentator community that typically participates with the creation of Wikimedia content, but at the same time an acknowledgement needs to be made that without the active and contientious maintainance of Wikimedia content the WMF would have nothing to host. Or it would age and "bit rot" away.
Forgetting or trivializing the work of the people who have developed the content will only drive away current and future contributors.
On Thu, 28 Dec 2006, Robert Scott Horning wrote:
daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
- To the editors and other contributors--Wikipedia and all the other
projects do NOT exist so that a bunch of bored people have some place to play in their leisure time. They exist to spread free knowledge and free culture. Our target audience is not the editor per se, but the user-without-a-user-name who comes to rely on our projects for information, whether its a student, a traveller, or someone with an obscure interest and a passion for learning. As editors and contributors we are serving them, and not being served. That is why we keep all the sites going, no matter how costly it is. And let's be grateful to the groups and organizations that help us meet these costs.
Danny
I hope this isn't a prevalent attitude among all board members to slam editor/contributors this hard.
I do agree with the general sentiment that we need to be mindful that there are individuals beyond the active editor/commentator community that typically participates with the creation of Wikimedia content, but at the same time an acknowledgement needs to be made that without the active and contientious maintainance of Wikimedia content the WMF would have nothing to host. Or it would age and "bit rot" away.
Forgetting or trivializing the work of the people who have developed the content will only drive away current and future contributors. -- Robert Scott Horning
Robert, I couldn't agree more. I'm amazed to hear people saying "we're GROWING so fast... it NO LONGER SCALES to support our efforts through our community". To the contrary, that seems like the only long-term scalable solution, and one that the foundation could do more to acknowledge.
It is unintentionally patronizing to say "every donation is appreciated... thank you... but we need more than your small donations can manage", and it is also misguided. Hundreds of millions of dollars are regularly raised for charities and political campaigns through small donations. We have even discussed some of these efforts on this list in recent months.
As to the repeated asides that there are key things that need to be done 'for the good of the project' that the Wikipedia community isn't doing, I would like to see some specifics; a lack of organized priorities among the community is different from a lack of interest, time, or expertise.
SJ
Please, no one is dissing editors, especially of non-WP projects. We are, however, talking about the large numbers which must be of concern to WMF. That means traffic, and that means money.
Based on the financial reality of needing to raise more money, for hardware, software, bandwidth and staffing (in broad strokes), what is the solution to question of financial support? Dig deeper? Blame the community of editors (as opposed to readers) for not donating enough? Get the starving college kid to give $3 instead of $2?
We are a top 10 website running as a non-profit. That itself is extraordinary. Everyone else is for profit. We are unique.
The independence Danny spoke of is real - we are not beholden to any vendor or company. We easily could be, if we chose. To the contrary of the "patronizing" comment, the data show - unequivocally - that the area for WMF to focus to leverage amount per donor and total revenue is on donations greater than $50 USD and up. We will have a full breakdown of the statistics later, but for now, some figures clumped by rough levels of donation:
Donations to WMF from 12/15/06 to 12/28/06:
2 people have given very large gifts ($25,000 and our anonymous matching donor) 49 people have given 500-10,000 USD ($67,594) 739 people have given 100 - 499 USD ($96,222) 1184 people have given 50-99 USD ($68,728) 2346 people have given 25-49 USD ($70,106) 5340 people have given 10-24 USD ($77,189) 4204 people have given 1-9 USD ($19,059) 891 people have given less than 1 USD ($481)
If one day of corporate matching brings us on the order of $60,000 per company, that is an enormous advantage over asking the community for more. Don't you think? If we have a $100,000 per month bandwidth bill later in 2007, it will still need to be paid. I will assume you would rather the projects stay online than die. If we buy another 300 servers, where should the money come from? It seems clear that the reality here is beyond some level of understanding with at least a portion of the people who read this list.
In short - we need the money. The community is who benefits.
On 12/28/06, SJ Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, 28 Dec 2006, Robert Scott Horning wrote:
daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
- To the editors and other contributors--Wikipedia and all the other
projects do NOT exist so that a bunch of bored people have some place
to play in
their leisure time. They exist to spread free knowledge and free
culture. Our
target audience is not the editor per se, but the
user-without-a-user-name who
comes to rely on our projects for information, whether its a student, a traveller, or someone with an obscure interest and a passion for
learning. As
editors and contributors we are serving them, and not being served.
That is why
we keep all the sites going, no matter how costly it is. And let's be grateful to the groups and organizations that help us meet these
costs.
Danny
I hope this isn't a prevalent attitude among all board members to slam editor/contributors this hard.
I do agree with the general sentiment that we need to be mindful that there are individuals beyond the active editor/commentator community that typically participates with the creation of Wikimedia content, but at the same time an acknowledgement needs to be made that without the active and contientious maintainance of Wikimedia content the WMF would have nothing to host. Or it would age and "bit rot" away.
Forgetting or trivializing the work of the people who have developed the content will only drive away current and future contributors. -- Robert Scott Horning
Robert, I couldn't agree more. I'm amazed to hear people saying "we're GROWING so fast... it NO LONGER SCALES to support our efforts through our community". To the contrary, that seems like the only long-term scalable solution, and one that the foundation could do more to acknowledge.
It is unintentionally patronizing to say "every donation is appreciated... thank you... but we need more than your small donations can manage", and it is also misguided. Hundreds of millions of dollars are regularly raised for charities and political campaigns through small donations. We have even discussed some of these efforts on this list in recent months.
As to the repeated asides that there are key things that need to be done 'for the good of the project' that the Wikipedia community isn't doing, I would like to see some specifics; a lack of organized priorities among the community is different from a lack of interest, time, or expertise.
SJ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 28/12/06, Brad Patrick bradp.wmf@gmail.com wrote:
Donations to WMF from 12/15/06 to 12/28/06: 2 people have given very large gifts ($25,000 and our anonymous matching donor) 49 people have given 500-10,000 USD ($67,594) 739 people have given 100 - 499 USD ($96,222) 1184 people have given 50-99 USD ($68,728) 2346 people have given 25-49 USD ($70,106) 5340 people have given 10-24 USD ($77,189) 4204 people have given 1-9 USD ($19,059) 891 people have given less than 1 USD ($481)
Yes. One thing very few people understand about fundraising is that it works on a power law. A graph of donations per donor will show a very few donors donating a substantial fraction of the takings.
And it is *usual* to thank them publicly and not to shy away from or try to play down doing so.
- d.
Exactly.
See: - NPR - PBS - Every museum - Every university
If the WMF had thanked large donors from the beginning, no one would object at all. It's just the nature of the Internet that the WMF has been able to operate on so little money for so long. That's no longer the case with the current size.
Contrary to most people's perceptions, establishing the matching contributions has not been an easy task. So, it's not that the WMF has suddenly decided to "sell out." It just hasn't been necessary or practical to establish matching contributions in the past.
David Strauss
David Gerard wrote:
On 28/12/06, Brad Patrick bradp.wmf@gmail.com wrote:
Donations to WMF from 12/15/06 to 12/28/06: 2 people have given very large gifts ($25,000 and our anonymous matching donor) 49 people have given 500-10,000 USD ($67,594) 739 people have given 100 - 499 USD ($96,222) 1184 people have given 50-99 USD ($68,728) 2346 people have given 25-49 USD ($70,106) 5340 people have given 10-24 USD ($77,189) 4204 people have given 1-9 USD ($19,059) 891 people have given less than 1 USD ($481)
Yes. One thing very few people understand about fundraising is that it works on a power law. A graph of donations per donor will show a very few donors donating a substantial fraction of the takings.
And it is *usual* to thank them publicly and not to shy away from or try to play down doing so.
- d.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Exactly, this is "Virgin Unite has been nice enough to double your donation," not "Check out the V Festival from VIRGIN, Proud Sponsors of the Wikimedia Foundation."
If you don't like it, donate more! The more you donate, the less they have.
On 12/28/06, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
Exactly.
See:
- NPR
- PBS
- Every museum
- Every university
If the WMF had thanked large donors from the beginning, no one would object at all. It's just the nature of the Internet that the WMF has been able to operate on so little money for so long. That's no longer the case with the current size.
Contrary to most people's perceptions, establishing the matching contributions has not been an easy task. So, it's not that the WMF has suddenly decided to "sell out." It just hasn't been necessary or practical to establish matching contributions in the past.
David Strauss
David Gerard wrote:
On 28/12/06, Brad Patrick bradp.wmf@gmail.com wrote:
Donations to WMF from 12/15/06 to 12/28/06: 2 people have given very large gifts ($25,000 and our anonymous
matching
donor) 49 people have given 500-10,000 USD ($67,594) 739 people have given 100 - 499 USD ($96,222) 1184 people have given 50-99 USD ($68,728) 2346 people have given 25-49 USD ($70,106) 5340 people have given 10-24 USD ($77,189) 4204 people have given 1-9 USD ($19,059) 891 people have given less than 1 USD ($481)
Yes. One thing very few people understand about fundraising is that it works on a power law. A graph of donations per donor will show a very few donors donating a substantial fraction of the takings.
And it is *usual* to thank them publicly and not to shy away from or try to play down doing so.
- d.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 12/28/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 28/12/06, Brad Patrick bradp.wmf@gmail.com wrote:
Donations to WMF from 12/15/06 to 12/28/06: 2 people have given very large gifts ($25,000 and our anonymous matching donor) 49 people have given 500-10,000 USD ($67,594) 739 people have given 100 - 499 USD ($96,222) 1184 people have given 50-99 USD ($68,728) 2346 people have given 25-49 USD ($70,106) 5340 people have given 10-24 USD ($77,189) 4204 people have given 1-9 USD ($19,059) 891 people have given less than 1 USD ($481)
Yes. One thing very few people understand about fundraising is that it works on a power law. A graph of donations per donor will show a very few donors donating a substantial fraction of the takings.
And it is *usual* to thank them publicly and not to shy away from or try to play down doing so.
A lot of things are usual. Wikipedia is not one of them.
On 12/28/06, Brad Patrick bradp.wmf@gmail.com wrote:
Based on the financial reality of needing to raise more money, for hardware, software, bandwidth and staffing (in broad strokes), what is the solution to question of financial support? Dig deeper? Blame the community of editors (as opposed to readers) for not donating enough? Get the starving college kid to give $3 instead of $2?
How about getting the starving college kid with the 300 gig hard drive sitting idly on a T1 connection in his dorm to lend some of that spare hardware, software, bandwidth, and staffing directly?
Eh, I shouldn't waste my time mentioning this to you. When the forks start coming, and it looks like that time is getting close, one of them will figure it out.
If one day of corporate matching brings us on the order of $60,000 per company, that is an enormous advantage over asking the community for more. Don't you think?
Eh, right now it's just taking the money from one group of donors instead of another. What would be the enormous advantage would be to not need the money in the first place.
If we have a $100,000 per month bandwidth bill later in 2007, it will still need to be paid.
Is that your current estimate of bandwidth costs?
I will assume you would rather the projects stay online than die.
The projects will stay online no matter what happens to the Wikimedia Foundation.
If we buy another 300 servers, where should the money come from?
You shouldn't buy another 300 servers in the first place.
It seems clear that the reality here is beyond some level of understanding with at least a portion of the people who read this list.
Without access to the proposed budget, yeah, it's hard to know exactly where the money is being wasted.
Anthony
On 12/28/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
How about getting the starving college kid with the 300 gig hard drive sitting idly on a T1 connection in his dorm to lend some of that spare hardware, software, bandwidth, and staffing directly?
[snip]
You shouldn't buy another 300 servers in the first place.
What a great idea. When will you have your implementation of "distributed mediawiki" completed?
On 12/28/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/28/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
How about getting the starving college kid with the 300 gig hard drive sitting idly on a T1 connection in his dorm to lend some of that spare hardware, software, bandwidth, and staffing directly?
[snip]
You shouldn't buy another 300 servers in the first place.
What a great idea. When will you have your implementation of "distributed mediawiki" completed?
It's already completed. I just need you to transfer over the domain names.
I really think that if Wikimedia wants to succeed, it needs to be more distributed.
I wouldn't mind surrendering a few GBs of my computer to help host.
On 12/28/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 12/28/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/28/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
How about getting the starving college kid with the 300 gig hard drive sitting idly on a T1 connection in his dorm to lend some of that spare hardware, software, bandwidth, and staffing directly?
[snip]
You shouldn't buy another 300 servers in the first place.
What a great idea. When will you have your implementation of "distributed mediawiki"
completed?
It's already completed. I just need you to transfer over the domain names. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hi!
I really think that if Wikimedia wants to succeed, it needs to be more distributed. I wouldn't mind surrendering a few GBs of my computer to help host.
If you really want that, we can show how that would work. It is very easy to demonstrate, just add the delay of a minute to every pageload, then add few hundred of broken links, errors, save time of ten minutes, and of course, lost saves.
There're no working models of any distributed collaboration system. Storage is our cheapest part of operation. Efficient st
On 28/12/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 12/28/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/28/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
You shouldn't buy another 300 servers in the first place.
What a great idea. When will you have your implementation of "distributed mediawiki" completed?
It's already completed. I just need you to transfer over the domain names.
whuh??? Project page?
Your post actually started me thinking on this. A Freenet (for encryption and to avoid a [[:en:trusted client]] problem) or BitTorrent (for convenient distribution with a program lots of people have) method of distributing Wikipedia. A peer-to-peer network with WMF as the only body supplying content files. The downsides that spring to mind are (a) doesn't work through any old web browser (this is a big one) (b) trusted client problem (how to ensure rogue clients don't redistribute corrupted content in our name).
- d.
On 12/28/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 28/12/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 12/28/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/28/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
You shouldn't buy another 300 servers in the first place.
What a great idea. When will you have your implementation of "distributed mediawiki" completed?
It's already completed. I just need you to transfer over the domain names.
whuh??? Project page?
Sorry, that was sarcasm :). Seriously though, I understand a distributed mediawiki wouldn't occur overnight, but that's no excuse to just throw up your hands and say "oh well, let's just put up ads and make millions".
Your post actually started me thinking on this. A Freenet (for encryption and to avoid a [[:en:trusted client]] problem) or BitTorrent (for convenient distribution with a program lots of people have) method of distributing Wikipedia. A peer-to-peer network with WMF as the only body supplying content files. The downsides that spring to mind are (a) doesn't work through any old web browser (this is a big one) (b) trusted client problem (how to ensure rogue clients don't redistribute corrupted content in our name).
I was thinking something a la freenet without the anonymity (which is what slows it down), and with digital signatures to ensure content doesn't get corrupted. Wikimedia servers would still have to do a tiny bit of work, basically sign stuff and boostrap the peer lists.
It could be built, and for a lot less than 1.5 million.
Anthony
Hi!
Wikimedia servers would still have to do a tiny bit of work, basically sign stuff and boostrap the peer lists. It could be built, and for a lot less than 1.5 million.
Does anyone talking here about distributed mediawiki has ever realized what tasks are being worked on in our application cluster? Could you please stop speaking bullshit, packed as a "clever stuff", and using foundation-l audience to support you in any way?
Serving a wiki isn't hosting an .iso file, where of course, bandwidth is main cost, and it is easy to offload. ISO files don't change, people don't care about how fast they start getting ISO file, because the transfer is long enough to forget all startup costs. Serving a wiki isn't looking for aliens. If someone turns off the computer, or DSL will go down, aliens won't disappear, now the request will. Nobody really cares about individual packet containing alien information, because it is sent to multiple nodes. Some will reply, some won't. Serving a wiki isn't serving a personal website. It is not single person editing, there's great deal of conflict resolution, possible race conditions, versioning and metadata information. Serving a wiki isn't serving a conventional media website, because it is far more organic in terms of load pattern evolution, or accidental surges. Content formats also come bottom->up, requiring agile development of systems. Serving a wiki means delivering user contributed content thousands collaborated on in few tens of milliseconds. We do succeed this mission and every time we increased responsiveness of the site, we had more users coming.
Please, if you ever again suggest building some distributed wikipedia@home, please please please, do some research. Sure you may look cool and trendy, but... that doesn't help with our goals.
There're no big systems even little bit similar to wikipedia, that are distributed. If you point me to any, I'd gladly review their ideas. Now there are none.
BR,
On 12/28/06, Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com wrote:
There're no big systems even little bit similar to wikipedia, that are distributed. If you point me to any, I'd gladly review their ideas. Now there are none.
Oh well, let's just put up ads and make millions.
(Yes, that was sarcasm. A distributed Wikipedia could be done, and it could be done for less than 1.5 million. That's my belief and I'm sticking with it. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't make it impossible.)
Hi!
(Yes, that was sarcasm. A distributed Wikipedia could be done, and it could be done for less than 1.5 million. That's my belief and I'm sticking with it. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't make it impossible.)
I believe achieving world peace for 1.5 million is quite feasible too. All you have to do is to redefine meanings for 'world' and 'peace' somewhere.
Same with 'distributed Wikipedia'. It is very easy to distribute it. It won't necessarily work as people are used to.
On 12/28/06, Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com wrote:
Hi!
(Yes, that was sarcasm. A distributed Wikipedia could be done, and it could be done for less than 1.5 million. That's my belief and I'm sticking with it. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't make it impossible.)
I believe achieving world peace for 1.5 million is quite feasible too. All you have to do is to redefine meanings for 'world' and 'peace' somewhere.
Fair enough, I'm certainly not in a position to tell you you're wrong.
Same with 'distributed Wikipedia'. It is very easy to distribute it. It won't necessarily work as people are used to.
What about just the images? They take up a lot of storage space, and a lot of bandwidth. How much could be saved just by distributing those?
You seem to be coming at the problem with a defeatist attitude. With that attitude yes, it is impossible.
Anthony
Hi!
What about just the images? They take up a lot of storage space, and a lot of bandwidth. How much could be saved just by distributing those?
'lots of storage space' for images isn't that true, just few terabytes. they're pretty easily cached, and often live outside our datacenter. so, not much could be saved. when we buy servers, we usually end up buying application and db boxen, which are used to produce the dynamic content.
You seem to be coming at the problem with a defeatist attitude. With that attitude yes, it is impossible.
"defeatist" and "realist" don't have that much of differences in letters. maybe I've spent too much time in industry :( I should try some liberal arts, gardening, quantum physics, and then return to systems with fresh insights.
say... we have lots of flowers.... :)
On 12/28/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
(Yes, that was sarcasm. A distributed Wikipedia could be done, and it could be done for less than 1.5 million. That's my belief and I'm sticking with it. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't make it impossible.)
Then don't let those who say it can't be done stop you from doing it. Show us the code.
(although when you have solved the underlying issues, there are folks at major database companies who will likely want to pay you lots to apply your solutions to their database products... and you'll lose interest in this wiki stuff. :) )
On 12/28/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/28/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
(Yes, that was sarcasm. A distributed Wikipedia could be done, and it could be done for less than 1.5 million. That's my belief and I'm sticking with it. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't make it impossible.)
Then don't let those who say it can't be done stop you from doing it.
As I've said, it *will* happen. The forks *will* come, and one of them *will* pick up on the idea. Why don't *I* do it now, today? Well, I don't have anywhere *near* 1.5 million, for starters. I also don't have those all important wikipedia domain names.
Show us the code.
If you're really interested in seeing this achieved, contact me off list. This list isn't really the place to discuss the details, especially as the management of the foundation isn't interested.
(although when you have solved the underlying issues, there are folks at major database companies who will likely want to pay you lots to apply your solutions to their database products... and you'll lose interest in this wiki stuff. :) )
I doubt it.
Anthony
Hi!!!!!!!
As I've said, it *will* happen. The forks *will* come, and one of them *will* pick up on the idea. Why don't *I* do it now, today? Well, I don't have anywhere *near* 1.5 million, for starters. I also don't have those all important wikipedia domain names.
It will be much easier by the time forks will happen. Speed of light will be left behind by then, and efficient coding techniques will allow to write software that will write software that writes software that writes software.
If you're really interested in seeing this achieved, contact me off list. This list isn't really the place to discuss the details, especially as the management of the foundation isn't interested.
We can always move to wikitech-l, which might appear as somewhat more constructive environment, especially when 1.5m is involved.
there are folks at major database companies who will likely want to pay you lots to apply your solutions to their database products... and you'll lose interest in this wiki stuff. :) )
I doubt it.
But they're watching. Always always watching.
Anthony schreef:
On 12/28/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/28/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
(Yes, that was sarcasm. A distributed Wikipedia could be done, and it could be done for less than 1.5 million. That's my belief and I'm sticking with it. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't make it impossible.)
Then don't let those who say it can't be done stop you from doing it.
As I've said, it *will* happen. The forks *will* come, and one of them *will* pick up on the idea. Why don't *I* do it now, today? Well, I don't have anywhere *near* 1.5 million, for starters. I also don't have those all important wikipedia domain names.
Show us the code.
If you're really interested in seeing this achieved, contact me off list. This list isn't really the place to discuss the details, especially as the management of the foundation isn't interested.
Hoi, To help all those that believe like Thomas, I can testify that the Wikimedia Foundation is interested in other ways of providing content. This does include providing information using peer to peer functionality. To me this is very much a long shot. But long shots can become reality the right people are behind them. I have faith in this project, I am not really involved. With P2P we may not need the bigger number of servers as we increasingly do. It is exactly this reason why the WMF is interested .. :)
Thanks, GerardM
On 12/28/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
This list isn't really the place to discuss the details, especially as the management of the foundation isn't interested.
There was a brief P2P media and business hype in 2000-2001. In August 2000 I started infoAnarchy.org, which was one of the leading weblogs on the phenomenon, and reviewed in detail applications such as MNet, Freenet, The Circle, Gnutella(2), giFT, BitTorrent etc. I also co-authored a 90 page business plan on such a P2P venture, which we sadly started pitching shortly after the bubble burst.
I continue to be interested in P2P solutions, but I have seen too many companies in this sector fail, in spite of millions of dollars of VC investment, to believe that money is the solution to decentralizing Wikipedia. These companies were pursuing much more humble ambitions than something as fantastic as a truly P2P WIkipedia.
That said, we need to distinguish different approaches. Decentralizing WP to the extent of using the highly asymmetrical and unpredictable connectivity of everyday users is hopeless. Decentralizing it to make intelligent use of a global network of servers with reasonably high bandwidth and storage and good connectivity is perhaps less so. But the issues of latency and distribution would necessitate quite a lot of rethinking on all levels.
It's a goal worth pursuing, among a hundred others I could list. If someone approaches us with a truly convincing model of how it could work, then I'll be the first person to listen and consider to make it part of our planning. But vague claims about what can be done with money are completely unhelpful. Ideas are worthless without implementation, but the power to implement is worthless without ideas. Presently we have neither.
When it comes to decentralization, the greatest potential for immediate cost savings seems to be in an area which we are currently not even pursuing significantly, i.e. very large files (primarily videos, but also speeches or really high resolution pictures). Here we've got tried and tested technology like BitTorrent that would only need to be integrated better. But if we want to go into large file hosting, we must coordinate this with the Internet Archive, which is leading the global efforts in this area.
I don't see how any talk about P2P has relevance to our fundraising needs for the near future.
On 28/12/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
If you're really interested in seeing this achieved, contact me off list. This list isn't really the place to discuss the details, especially as the management of the foundation isn't interested.
wikitech-l or mediawiki-l, OTOH, are quite definitely the right place. Particularly the latter, which is largely non-WMF posters.
- d.
Stop trolling Anthony my dear.
If (when ?) you are nice, I'll show you where the budget is published (publicly :-)).
Ant
Anthony wrote:
On 12/28/06, Brad Patrick bradp.wmf@gmail.com wrote:
Based on the financial reality of needing to raise more money, for hardware, software, bandwidth and staffing (in broad strokes), what is the solution to question of financial support? Dig deeper? Blame the community of editors (as opposed to readers) for not donating enough? Get the starving college kid to give $3 instead of $2?
How about getting the starving college kid with the 300 gig hard drive sitting idly on a T1 connection in his dorm to lend some of that spare hardware, software, bandwidth, and staffing directly?
Eh, I shouldn't waste my time mentioning this to you. When the forks start coming, and it looks like that time is getting close, one of them will figure it out.
If one day of corporate matching brings us on the order of $60,000 per company, that is an enormous advantage over asking the community for more. Don't you think?
Eh, right now it's just taking the money from one group of donors instead of another. What would be the enormous advantage would be to not need the money in the first place.
If we have a $100,000 per month bandwidth bill later in 2007, it will still need to be paid.
Is that your current estimate of bandwidth costs?
I will assume you would rather the projects stay online than die.
The projects will stay online no matter what happens to the Wikimedia Foundation.
If we buy another 300 servers, where should the money come from?
You shouldn't buy another 300 servers in the first place.
It seems clear that the reality here is beyond some level of understanding with at least a portion of the people who read this list.
Without access to the proposed budget, yeah, it's hard to know exactly where the money is being wasted.
Anthony
On Thu, Dec 28, 2006 at 08:10:22AM -0700, Robert Scott Horning wrote:
daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
- To the editors and other contributors--Wikipedia and all the other
projects do NOT exist so that a bunch of bored people have some place to play in their leisure time. They exist to spread free knowledge and free culture. Our target audience is not the editor per se, but the user-without-a-user-name who comes to rely on our projects for information, whether its a student, a traveller, or someone with an obscure interest and a passion for learning. As editors and contributors we are serving them, and not being served. That is why we keep all the sites going, no matter how costly it is. And let's be grateful to the groups and organizations that help us meet these costs.
Danny
I hope this isn't a prevalent attitude among all board members to slam editor/contributors this hard.
I do agree with the general sentiment that we need to be mindful that there are individuals beyond the active editor/commentator community that typically participates with the creation of Wikimedia content, but at the same time an acknowledgement needs to be made that without the active and contientious maintainance of Wikimedia content the WMF would have nothing to host. Or it would age and "bit rot" away.
Forgetting or trivializing the work of the people who have developed the content will only drive away current and future contributors. -- Robert Scott Horning
That is well said.
Oleg Alexandrov
On 12/28/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
First of all, I want to say that I agree with most everything Erik has written so far, and can't really add to his eloquent explanations. Nevertheless, as someone who was involved from the beginning in these discussions, I want to raise a few points here.
- The Wikimedia Foundation has grown beyond anyone's wildest expectations
in terms of traffic, hits, articles, and projects. We are a top ten website. 2. We are doing this on a shoestring budget, with minimal staff and minimal expenses. 3. We are able to do this because of dedicated volunteers, like everyone writing on this list.
But --
- The Foundation, which hosts all these projects does not want to be
gobbled up by some big corporation, like Youtube was, like Myspace was, or like any other successful website was. We want to maintain our independence. 5. Independence comes at a cost. We have to buy servers, and we have to find the right people to manage all of the other things involved with running a huge foundation. 6. Considering our growth, the base of volunteers does not scale. All the good will in the world does not mean that people can take off exams or their jobs or their families to work 24/7 to keep this thing running. 7. We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the audit, the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is unrealized income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other words it is many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen to avoid ads so that we can maintain our independence.
You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to write that up as a cost.
Hoi, When we were in the porno business we would have the best articles explaining what porno is. It would not be 1.500.000 articles in English, we would not have 312.579 articles with lexical information as on the English language Wiktionary, we might have 1.056.887 media files but really. I am also certain that we would not have you interested in such a resource then again what do I know?
Please use reasonable arguments.
Thanks, GerardM
The Cunctator schreef:
On 12/28/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
First of all, I want to say that I agree with most everything Erik has written so far, and can't really add to his eloquent explanations. Nevertheless, as someone who was involved from the beginning in these discussions, I want to raise a few points here.
- The Wikimedia Foundation has grown beyond anyone's wildest expectations
in terms of traffic, hits, articles, and projects. We are a top ten website. 2. We are doing this on a shoestring budget, with minimal staff and minimal expenses. 3. We are able to do this because of dedicated volunteers, like everyone writing on this list.
But --
- The Foundation, which hosts all these projects does not want to be
gobbled up by some big corporation, like Youtube was, like Myspace was, or like any other successful website was. We want to maintain our independence. 5. Independence comes at a cost. We have to buy servers, and we have to find the right people to manage all of the other things involved with running a huge foundation. 6. Considering our growth, the base of volunteers does not scale. All the good will in the world does not mean that people can take off exams or their jobs or their families to work 24/7 to keep this thing running. 7. We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the audit, the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is unrealized income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other words it is many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen to avoid ads so that we can maintain our independence.
You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to write that up as a cost.
On 12/30/06, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When we were in the porno business we would have the best articles explaining what porno is. It would not be 1.500.000 articles in English, we would not have 312.579 articles with lexical information as on the English language Wiktionary, we might have 1.056.887 media files but really. I am also certain that we would not have you interested in such a resource then again what do I know?
Of course I would be. The internet is for porn, after all.
Please use reasonable arguments.
Your failure to understand the scintillating precision of my arguments is not an indication of any lack of reason on my part.
The Cunctator schreef:
On 12/28/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
First of all, I want to say that I agree with most everything Erik has written so far, and can't really add to his eloquent explanations. Nevertheless, as someone who was involved from the beginning in these discussions, I want to raise a few points here.
- The Wikimedia Foundation has grown beyond anyone's wildest expectations
in terms of traffic, hits, articles, and projects. We are a top ten website. 2. We are doing this on a shoestring budget, with minimal staff and minimal expenses. 3. We are able to do this because of dedicated volunteers, like everyone writing on this list.
But --
- The Foundation, which hosts all these projects does not want to be
gobbled up by some big corporation, like Youtube was, like Myspace was, or like any other successful website was. We want to maintain our independence. 5. Independence comes at a cost. We have to buy servers, and we have to find the right people to manage all of the other things involved with running a huge foundation. 6. Considering our growth, the base of volunteers does not scale. All the good will in the world does not mean that people can take off exams or their jobs or their families to work 24/7 to keep this thing running. 7. We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the audit, the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is unrealized income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other words it is many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen to avoid ads so that we can maintain our independence.
You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to write that up as a cost.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 12/30/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/28/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
- We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the audit,
the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is unrealized income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other words it is many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen to avoid ads so that we can maintain our independence.
You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to write that up as a cost.
The technical term Danny was alluding to but didn't use was [[opportunity cost]].
Michael Noda wrote:
On 12/30/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/28/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
- We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the audit,
the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is unrealized income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other words it is many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen to avoid ads so that we can maintain our independence.
You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to write that up as a cost.
The technical term Danny was alluding to but didn't use was [[opportunity cost]].
And opportunity cost is the measurement we should be using. There's no sense in treating expenditures any differently from unrealized income.
That said, there are other reasons to not have porn ads.
On 12/30/06, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
Michael Noda wrote:
On 12/30/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/28/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
- We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the audit,
the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is unrealized income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other words it is many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen to avoid ads so that we can maintain our independence.
You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to write that up as a cost.
The technical term Danny was alluding to but didn't use was [[opportunity cost]].
And opportunity cost is the measurement we should be using. There's no sense in treating expenditures any differently from unrealized income.
If we were a for-profit entity, I would agree. The purpose of Wikipedia is not to maximize income or profit. All things being equal, more income -> more realization of Wikimedia's goals, but the introduction of ads would not be keeping things equal.
Adding advertisements would fundamentally change the nature of Wikipedia. Additional income to the tune of $60K a day would too; but I believe it would be a hard argument to make that the difference from the increased money would necessarily be fundamentally improving. I rather suspect that one of Wikipedia's core reasons for success has been its minimal reliance on monetary transactions (related to its minimal reliance on experts, minimal reliance on long-term planning, etc.).
That said, there are other reasons to not have porn ads.
There are other reasons not to have any ads. (See above, or think of your own.)
The Cunctator wrote:
On 12/30/06, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
Michael Noda wrote:
On 12/30/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/28/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
- We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the audit,
the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is unrealized income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other words it is many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen to avoid ads so that we can maintain our independence.
You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to write that up as a cost.
The technical term Danny was alluding to but didn't use was [[opportunity cost]].
And opportunity cost is the measurement we should be using. There's no sense in treating expenditures any differently from unrealized income.
If we were a for-profit entity, I would agree. The purpose of Wikipedia is not to maximize income or profit. All things being equal, more income -> more realization of Wikimedia's goals, but the introduction of ads would not be keeping things equal.
Nowhere did I say the goal should be maximizing profit. Nowhere in the concept of opportunity cost is the necessity to maximize profit. Opportunity cost is merely a tool for considering the impact of alternatives. Part of such consideration is that a cost is not inherently different from unrealized income.
Adding advertisements would fundamentally change the nature of Wikipedia. Additional income to the tune of $60K a day would too; but I believe it would be a hard argument to make that the difference from the increased money would necessarily be fundamentally improving. I rather suspect that one of Wikipedia's core reasons for success has been its minimal reliance on monetary transactions (related to its minimal reliance on experts, minimal reliance on long-term planning, etc.).
Such a fundamental change is part of the "cost" consideration for running ads. Opportunity cost isn't about just money. In almost everyone's opinion, the opportunity cost of running full-blown ads is higher than the potential income they would generate.
That said, there are other reasons to not have porn ads.
There are other reasons not to have any ads. (See above, or think of your own.)
Your response is built on your disputed notion of advertising.
On 12/31/06, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
On 12/30/06, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
Michael Noda wrote:
On 12/30/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/28/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
- We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the audit,
the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is unrealized income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other words it is many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen to avoid ads so that we can maintain our independence.
You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to write that up as a cost.
The technical term Danny was alluding to but didn't use was [[opportunity cost]].
And opportunity cost is the measurement we should be using. There's no sense in treating expenditures any differently from unrealized income.
If we were a for-profit entity, I would agree. The purpose of Wikipedia is not to maximize income or profit. All things being equal, more income -> more realization of Wikimedia's goals, but the introduction of ads would not be keeping things equal.
Nowhere did I say the goal should be maximizing profit. Nowhere in the concept of opportunity cost is the necessity to maximize profit. Opportunity cost is merely a tool for considering the impact of alternatives. Part of such consideration is that a cost is not inherently different from unrealized income.
Adding advertisements would fundamentally change the nature of Wikipedia. Additional income to the tune of $60K a day would too; but I believe it would be a hard argument to make that the difference from the increased money would necessarily be fundamentally improving. I rather suspect that one of Wikipedia's core reasons for success has been its minimal reliance on monetary transactions (related to its minimal reliance on experts, minimal reliance on long-term planning, etc.).
Such a fundamental change is part of the "cost" consideration for running ads. Opportunity cost isn't about just money. In almost everyone's opinion, the opportunity cost of running full-blown ads is higher than the potential income they would generate.
That said, there are other reasons to not have porn ads.
There are other reasons not to have any ads. (See above, or think of your own.)
Your response is built on your disputed notion of advertising.
You should tag the article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising) then. I didn't realize there was anything disputed.
The Cunctator wrote:
You should tag the article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising) then. I didn't realize there was anything disputed.
Your wisecracks aren't productively furthering this discussion. It's your interpretation that's disputed, not the article.
David
On 12/31/06, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
You should tag the article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising) then. I didn't realize there was anything disputed.
Your wisecracks aren't productively furthering this discussion. It's your interpretation that's disputed, not the article.
I was quite serious; not making any wisecracks.
You had written:
Your response is built on your disputed notion of advertising.
Okay, what notion are you referring to, and what's the dispute?
On 12/31/06, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
On 12/30/06, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
Michael Noda wrote:
On 12/30/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/28/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
- We are already paying a steep cost. While it doesn't appear in the audit,
the fact that we do not have advertising is costing us. This is unrealized income at a minimum of $60k a day and probably much more. In other words it is many millions a year. Yet, the Board and the community have chosen to avoid ads so that we can maintain our independence.
You have a strange definition of cost. Wikipedia is missing out on tons of money by not being in the porno business. You don't get to write that up as a cost.
The technical term Danny was alluding to but didn't use was [[opportunity cost]].
And opportunity cost is the measurement we should be using. There's no sense in treating expenditures any differently from unrealized income.
If we were a for-profit entity, I would agree. The purpose of Wikipedia is not to maximize income or profit. All things being equal, more income -> more realization of Wikimedia's goals, but the introduction of ads would not be keeping things equal.
Nowhere did I say the goal should be maximizing profit. Nowhere in the concept of opportunity cost is the necessity to maximize profit. Opportunity cost is merely a tool for considering the impact of alternatives. Part of such consideration is that a cost is not inherently different from unrealized income.
Adding advertisements would fundamentally change the nature of Wikipedia. Additional income to the tune of $60K a day would too; but I believe it would be a hard argument to make that the difference from the increased money would necessarily be fundamentally improving. I rather suspect that one of Wikipedia's core reasons for success has been its minimal reliance on monetary transactions (related to its minimal reliance on experts, minimal reliance on long-term planning, etc.).
Such a fundamental change is part of the "cost" consideration for running ads. Opportunity cost isn't about just money. In almost everyone's opinion, the opportunity cost of running full-blown ads is higher than the potential income they would generate.
So, then "opportunity cost" does not equal "unrealized income". "Opportunity cost" equals "unrealized income" minus "unrealized costs". And that means that "expenses" *are* fundamentally different from "unrealized income".
Now, factor in the fact that many "unrealized costs" are completely intangible and can't easily, if at all, be expressed in terms of money, and it makes the whole concept of opportunity costs extremely limited in potential application.
The "minimum of $60k a day" Danny was alluding to is a pure gross income figure. It doesn't reflect any of the costs of that $60k/day - both out of pocket costs as well as costs in terms of lost contributors and lost goodwill. And not even beginning to consider the fact that advertising in ways which don't fall under the "qualified sponsorship" exceptions in the IRS code could cost the Foundation its charititable status.
That said, there are other reasons to not have porn ads.
There are other reasons not to have any ads. (See above, or think of your own.)
Your response is built on your disputed notion of advertising.
Who cares if it falls under some artificial definition of advertising or not? I'm sure you could find 100 dictionary definitions which include what's going on, and 100 other definitions which don't. Answers.com says "A notice, such as a poster or a paid announcement in the print, broadcast, or electronic media, designed to attract public attention or patronage." I'd say sitenotice qualifies under that definition. Whoopdedoo, who cares?
Anthony
Anthony wrote:
Who cares if it falls under some artificial definition of advertising or not? I'm sure you could find 100 dictionary definitions which include what's going on, and 100 other definitions which don't. Answers.com says "A notice, such as a poster or a paid announcement in the print, broadcast, or electronic media, designed to attract public attention or patronage." I'd say sitenotice qualifies under that definition. Whoopdedoo, who cares?
Apparently, you do.
On 12/31/06, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
Who cares if it falls under some artificial definition of advertising or not? I'm sure you could find 100 dictionary definitions which include what's going on, and 100 other definitions which don't. Answers.com says "A notice, such as a poster or a paid announcement in the print, broadcast, or electronic media, designed to attract public attention or patronage." I'd say sitenotice qualifies under that definition. Whoopdedoo, who cares?
Apparently, you do.
Witty retort.
On 31/12/06, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
Who cares if it falls under some artificial definition of advertising or not? I'm sure you could find 100 dictionary definitions which include what's going on, and 100 other definitions which don't. Answers.com says "A notice, such as a poster or a paid announcement in the print, broadcast, or electronic media, designed to attract public attention or patronage." I'd say sitenotice qualifies under that definition. Whoopdedoo, who cares?
Apparently, you do.
I think it's clear that even if someone can mathematically prove that "sponsorship" is technically not identical to "advertising", it looks, walks and quacks enough like it to risk similar objectionableness.
Arguing the definition of the word "advertising" is missing the point of the objection.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 31/12/06, David Strauss david@fourkitchens.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
Who cares if it falls under some artificial definition of advertising or not? I'm sure you could find 100 dictionary definitions which include what's going on, and 100 other definitions which don't. Answers.com says "A notice, such as a poster or a paid announcement in the print, broadcast, or electronic media, designed to attract public attention or patronage." I'd say sitenotice qualifies under that definition. Whoopdedoo, who cares?
Apparently, you do.
I think it's clear that even if someone can mathematically prove that "sponsorship" is technically not identical to "advertising", it looks, walks and quacks enough like it to risk similar objectionableness.
Arguing the definition of the word "advertising" is missing the point of the objection.
That's not what I'm saying. There's a distinction between 1) whether the site notices constitute advertising and 2) whether the foundation should run advertisements.
My positions: 1) The site notices are not advertising because the donors do not control their representation. 2) I don't think the technical status of "advertisement" matters. All that matters is how much income the foundation receives versus how the action affects Wikipedia and other project's effectiveness and perception.
Just because I'm expressing an opinion on #1 doesn't mean I think #2 hinges on it.
David
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