I see several issues/concerns re sponsoring pages.

Firstly it is a form of advertising, even if we don't name the sponsor on the page (and there will be pressure to do so) then we will have headlines along the lines of car maker x launches new "peregrine" car - sponsors Wikipedia page on Peregine Falcon. A large enough part of the community don't want to accept advertising, such a large part that any advertising however disguised as "sponsorship" is going to be more trouble than its worth.

Secondly there is the argument that sponsorship could help by funding the buying of sources. We already have microgrants available to help here, why do we also need sponsorship?

Thirdly there is the vexed issue of paid editing, here the important thing is to avoid COI. At Wikimania in Gdansk Google's charity arm presented a relatively uncontentious program they had run to translate medical articles from English into various South Asian languages.

Fourthly you can expect news stories along the lines of "travel company Y stops sponsoring Wikipedia articles on resorts X and Z, starts sponsoring articles on resorts A and B as it moves out of Country Q and expands offer in Country C".

My concern if you approach these via sponsorship is that you then have to have a whole new bureaucracy around who is an acceptable sponsor, and whoever seeks to control that has an impossible task as the sponsors may not disclose their plans in advance (hypothetical example, a computer game manufacturer known for science fiction themed games sponsors some unrelated articles re Roman history and the Magonid dynasty, they then get a lot of free publicity as the games press correctly speculates that they are going to launch a "swords and sandals" type game based on the Punic Wars.

So in my opinion best to not allow sponsorship of articles.

WSC

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Message: 1 Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:04:35 -0700 From: Mono monomium@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page" Message-ID: < CAD6tHrU9DQS4bykOFq6gniwEC3d2UZN1Bj1b2KCOm+MvvsRwFg@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

How so?

On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 5:58 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com

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wrote:

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On Mar 30, 2013 12:55 AM, "Mono" monomium@gmail.com wrote:

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Yes, but it might be nice if we could let people pay trusted editors to improve articles (without a COI and with a NPOV) that normally wouldn't

get

...

attention.

Would that be nice? I think that would be very harmful... _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

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Message: 2 Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2013 02:08:45 +0100 From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page" Message-ID: <CALTQccfVk7ABPZmeAC5K23XFa_kmO== DH1H5o1iJfu4++YtNcg@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

On Mar 30, 2013 1:04 AM, "Mono" monomium@gmail.com wrote:

...

How so?

It would be completely against our culture. Wikipedia is a volunteer written encyclopedia.

You would end up with a two-tier system of paid editors and unpaid editors. There would inevitably be a lot of conflict between those groups. The whole concept would be extremely divisive.

Message: 4 Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2013 01:29:33 +0000 From: Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page" Message-ID: <CAKO2H7_PR2CKzF= ZvAy7_fSLhuhz-d19Q8kUYfX3P6sC0HdKCw@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

It's a weird dichotomy.

I've spent several hundred quid on source material for my current topic area. I could easily have spent several grand.

Paid editing is a major issue, because it conflicts with our culture

But if someone were able to buy my sources then it would be of huge benefit.

And, controversially, if someone could fund me one day a week to write these articles I could likely expand from one GA per month to covering this entire field in GAs in a year.

Without that it will take me a good five years

I've come recently to see that funding article work is not inherently an awful thing. But it needs to be done with extreme care to protect our ideals and neutrality. And that is a HARD problem.

Tom

On Saturday, March 30, 2013, Thomas Dalton wrote:

...

On Mar 30, 2013 1:04 AM, "Mono" <monomium@gmail.com javascript:;>

wrote:

...

...

How so?

It would be completely against our culture. Wikipedia is a volunteer written encyclopedia.

You would end up with a two-tier system of paid editors and unpaid

editors.

...

There would inevitably be a lot of conflict between those groups. The

whole

...

concept would be extremely divisive. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Message: 7 Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:23:22 +0200 From: Strainu strainu10@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page" Message-ID: <CAC9meRLKPB5iX6MFqU-ZGUQQZwCGMDT= AUoKaLzGWLgAZOqPnw@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

Guys, I think you're reading more into it than it is. When you're adopting an animal you don't get to decide what and how much it gets to eat. Similarly adopting a wiki page wouldn't mean you pay for having a say on the content. At the bottom end of the reward scale you could get a badge you could put on YOUR website, without having your name on Wikipedia at all.

I'm not necessarely in favour of this idea but i wanted to see if it's been discussed before. I guess that if it has, people havebeen confusing this idea with paid editing.