Just a quick question.
Isn't it the case that Google Adsense (and similar programs) basically cut the tie between specific advertisers and specific publications? As I understand it, the ads are dynamically generated by Google--neither the advertiser nor the website owner have much say in placement, nor do the advertiser or website owner have any contact with one another.
If this is so, it's pretty hard for me to understand how putting Adsense ads on Wikipedia pages could ever lead to any of the editorial-influence scenarios being described here. Adsense makes the "wall" between editorial and advertising that stronger than it already is (and I work for a magazine where it is very strong without Adsense).
Best,
Marshall Poe, Ph.D. The Atlantic Monthly 600 New Hampshire Ave. NW Washington, DC 20037 202-266-6511 mpoe@theatlantic.com -----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Chris Jenkinson Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 12:21 PM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Answers.com and Wikimedia Foundation to Form NewPartnership
GerardM wrote:
As you assume that it is enough to have your own point of view and do not need to consider what others say and as you do not bring alternatives that addresses the negative side-effects of your stance. I fail to see what principles you are referring to; the primary goal is to bring good NPOV Free information to all people in all
languages.. What are you referring to?
I don't assume that at all; I would be interested to know how you came by that assumption (because it is absolutely wrong). The principles I am referring to are the exact same as you have said there - free access to uninfluenced information.
Why does it not apply to corporations and, why have all individuals the moral high ground ? From my perspective organisations including corporations can do good and I hate the idea that every cooperation needs to be considered evil.
It doesn't apply to corporations because corporations are legal entities whose reason for existence is to deliver profit to shareholders. By definition, they are not required to "do good".
I don't think every corporation is evil or should be considered evil, and I never said that. Of course corporations can do good, they aren't required to - which is exactly why we shouldn't assume that they are in existence to "do good".
This is why the Board needs to explain why the partnership is good for the continued existence of the various projects.
You have to assure that you do not become beholden to one source of
revenue.
So let us have many corporate sponsors. Let us have many organisational sponsors. Let us get loaded with money, let us be able to do good, the good that we do not do because of lack of funds.
Yes, let's - but let's not compromise on our core beliefs.
The project as far as I am concerned is not Wikipedia. We are bigger than that. Please read what I say; I am an admin NOT a Wikipedia
admin.
I still have no idea what you are talking about here. Could you try rephrasing it in a different way?
We disagree strongly. I try to explain why removing these links wrong and you do not want to know. The lack of revenue will disproportially hurt projects other than the English Wikipedia. You must be an en.wikipediaadmin, I do not see andy consideration for the other projects or languages.
Yes, I am an admin on the English language Wikipedia, but that's not relevant. I would be making the same points if it were a different language Wikipedia or one of the other projects (in any language).
I fail to see how your stance helps us get information that is NPOV, free and available in all languages to all people of this world. I only see that your stance prevents us from getting aditional funds.
Funds that are needed.
My stance is that we shouldn't compromise on our key beliefs - free access to information which is not influenced by individuals, governments or corporations. If we have to scale back our operations or reject some funding because it might affect this in some way, then so be it. Money is not our goal here.
It is cheap to only consider your POV and not consider the
implications.
Money is needed and money from *MANY* sources prevents us from becoming reliant on any one of them. Your argument that the consequences of your POV are for someone else is inconsiderate.
I don't have the legal skills nor financial skills to budget for an organisation like this. It's not inconsiderate for me to constructively criticise the Board or the Foundation. It's not only inconsiderate but socially negligent of me not to.
You have read the arguments why this partnership is a good move. You do not accept these arguments, it does not mean that it was not explained to you and it does not mean that the reasons are not valid. It only shows that you disagree.
I have heard some arguments regarding this partnership, but not all, and not all the arguments are complete. I agree with some of what I have heard, disagree with other bits, and believe there is more information on this to come - as with anything. Please don't tell me what I do or do not believe, and let me be the judge of what I think is valid.
Chris _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Poe, Marshall wrote:
Just a quick question.
Isn't it the case that Google Adsense (and similar programs) basically cut the tie between specific advertisers and specific publications? As I understand it, the ads are dynamically generated by Google--neither the advertiser nor the website owner have much say in placement, nor do the advertiser or website owner have any contact with one another.
If this is so, it's pretty hard for me to understand how putting Adsense ads on Wikipedia pages could ever lead to any of the editorial-influence scenarios being described here. Adsense makes the "wall" between editorial and advertising that stronger than it already is (and I work for a magazine where it is very strong without Adsense).
Best,
Marshall Poe, Ph.D. The Atlantic Monthly
I think that's all 100% correct. There are a number of different issues associated with partnerships, advertising, and so on, but one area which I think is really a red herring is the idea that advertisers might be able to influence Wikipedia content.
There are other reasons to be worried about ads, but with programs like AdSense, and with Wiki editing, it's essentially impossible for there to be influence.
--Jimbo
On 24/10/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
There are other reasons to be worried about ads
With people saying they could lead to an income of $26m a year, or pay for all of our normal hosting costs in a fortnight, I'd like to know what these other reasons are!
Dan
With people saying they could lead to an income of $26m a year, or pay for all of our normal hosting costs in a fortnight, I'd like to know what these other reasons are!
It's purely speculation to imagine the income would be that high. From my experience with Wikicities, $26m seems an exaggeration. Also, would the number of people visiting stay as high if we had ads? Would there still be the same level of motivation to use Wikipedia.org as opposed to a much faster loading mirror?
The threats of forking and boycotts over the last day highlight one of the biggest reasons for not doing this, or certainly for not rushing into it - Wikipedia.org would be nothing without the community behind it. Would they still be behind it if AdSense was used on the site? Even if for just two weeks a year? Would we be jeopardising our non-profit status? What effect would turning Wikimedia into something commercial have on the project? Would it make people less likely to donate / less likely to use Wikipedia / less likely to edit?
We also need to bear in mind that covering the basic costs is only the beginning. Our goal, of providing free knowledge to every person on the planet, is a much larger aim than buying servers for Wikipedia, and 2 weeks AdSense isn't going to cover it. Would those 2 weeks prevent us getting the grants, donations, corporate sponsorship, and volunteer effort, needed to attain those wider goals?
These are more questions than reasons at this stage, but the fact that so many questions exist is a reason in itself not to even consider this until they can be answered.
Angela.
On 10/24/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
With people saying they could lead to an income of $26m a year, or pay for all of our normal hosting costs in a fortnight, I'd like to know what these other reasons are!
It's purely speculation to imagine the income would be that high. From my experience with Wikicities, $26m seems an exaggeration. Also, would the number of people visiting stay as high if we had ads? Would there still be the same level of motivation to use Wikipedia.orghttp://Wikipedia.orgas opposed to a much faster loading mirror?
Wikicities certainly doesn't have the quality content that Wikipedia has.
From my experience running a mirror site of Wikipedia, I'd say it's a good
ballpark estimate. I'll also say this: my CPM rate is more significantly higher than the $1 in the ballpark estimate. I'd be more specific, but that'd violate the terms of service of Google Adsense. Granted, Wikipedia is going to have a different traffic profile from a mirror, but still, we're talking about a lot of money.
The threats of forking and boycotts over the last day highlight one of
the biggest reasons for not doing this, or certainly for not rushing into it - Wikipedia.org http://Wikipedia.org would be nothing without the community behind it. Would they still be behind it if AdSense was used on the site? Even if for just two weeks a year? Would we be jeopardising our non-profit status? What effect would turning Wikimedia into something commercial have on the project? Would it make people less likely to donate / less likely to use Wikipedia / less likely to edit?
If the ad revenue were kept to solely paying for the maintenance of the website, and regular donations and grants were used for everything else, then you wouldn't be jeopardising non-profit status and furthermore you wouldn't even be taxed on the earnings, because the website upkeep would be deductible against it. The potential problem would come into place if you want to go beyond that, but I don't see how that's any different whether you're doing the ads yourself or you're doing them through a partnership with someone else.
We also need to bear in mind that covering the basic costs is only the
beginning. Our goal, of providing free knowledge to every person on the planet, is a much larger aim than buying servers for Wikipedia, and 2 weeks AdSense isn't going to cover it. Would those 2 weeks prevent us getting the grants, donations, corporate sponsorship, and volunteer effort, needed to attain those wider goals?
Seems to me the answer to all these concerns is that it'd help us get grants and donations, because those grants and donations would be going toward new projects as opposed to maintaining the status quo. I think a lot of donators are more likely to donate to a company that's willing to help itself. Would you donate to a bum who refuses to get a job? I wouldn't. Most of this could be avoided by simply making the ads opt-in, anyway.
These are more questions than reasons at this stage, but the fact that
so many questions exist is a reason in itself not to even consider this until they can be answered.
Angela.
Most of the questions are hypotheticals, and can't be answered with any amount of certainty until it's actually tried.
Gah, I'm finding all this really weird.
1. We need money for servers and bandwidth 2. Currently, it comes from donations but people seem to be saying that's not sustainable 3. We've had a few big donations, but they could be time-limited (will Yahoo want their servers back?) and they don't happen often 4. One proposal is a small link to a small tool which probably won't generate much money, so is no solution by itself 5. There's a few other ideas which show promise, but not a lot in terms of delivering hard cash 6. Adsense could give us stacks of cash
Surely there's only a handful of logical conclusions here:
1. We stay with just donations (small private and few large coporate ones) and the site slowly bogs down as traffic demand outstrips server supply 2. We try more small stuff like the Amazon and the forthcoming 1-Click experiments, but let's be honest unless WP is plastered in them they'll never make much of a difference 3. We eventually accept a small amount of Adsense (or Adsense-syle) advertising on the site, which will most likely pay for what we need.
Dan
On 10/24/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
Gah, I'm finding all this really weird.
- We need money for servers and bandwidth
- Currently, it comes from donations but people seem to be saying
that's not sustainable 3. We've had a few big donations, but they could be time-limited (will Yahoo want their servers back?) and they don't happen often 4. One proposal is a small link to a small tool which probably won't generate much money, so is no solution by itself 5. There's a few other ideas which show promise, but not a lot in terms of delivering hard cash 6. Adsense could give us stacks of cash
Surely there's only a handful of logical conclusions here:
- We stay with just donations (small private and few large coporate
ones) and the site slowly bogs down as traffic demand outstrips server supply 2. We try more small stuff like the Amazon and the forthcoming 1-Click experiments, but let's be honest unless WP is plastered in them they'll never make much of a difference 3. We eventually accept a small amount of Adsense (or Adsense-syle) advertising on the site, which will most likely pay for what we need.
Dan
I'd add 4) We build a system which automatically scales along with the demand, such as a P2P system based on something like BitTorrent. And I'd subtract 1 and 2 for the reasons you've essentially given (we don't want WP pastered in small stuff, and we don't want the site to bog down).
On 10/24/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
Surely there's only a handful of logical conclusions here:
- We stay with just donations (small private and few large coporate
ones) and the site slowly bogs down as traffic demand outstrips server supply 2. We try more small stuff like the Amazon and the forthcoming 1-Click experiments, but let's be honest unless WP is plastered in them they'll never make much of a difference 3. We eventually accept a small amount of Adsense (or Adsense-syle) advertising on the site, which will most likely pay for what we need.
Obviously you're highlighting 3 there, and the obvious corollary to all three is that a bunch of editors and readers will pack their bags and leave. If the stacks of money is better than editors and readers, then the foundations should go for it. And don't for a second think that it will be one or two, many people are opposed to this, and a tidy sum have already left just because of the *possibility*.
-- Dori
"If the stacks of money is better than editors and readers, then the foundations should go for it."
Without stacks of money, there will be no editors or readers. Without the generous donations of Jimbo and Bomis (who made their money off of - get this - advertising), there would be no Wikipedia.
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.
On 10/24/05, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
"If the stacks of money is better than editors and readers, then the foundations should go for it."
Without stacks of money, there will be no editors or readers. Without the generous donations of Jimbo and Bomis (who made their money off of - get this - advertising), there would be no Wikipedia.
There wouldn't be a Wikipedia without editors either.
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.
Yes, and for the life of me I can't understand why you don't have a successful fork and community. Advertising - check, Not afraid to get rid of whiny editors - check
-- Dori
On 10/24/05, Dori slowpoke@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/24/05, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
"If the stacks of money is better than editors and readers, then the foundations should go for it."
Without stacks of money, there will be no editors or readers. Without
the
generous donations of Jimbo and Bomis (who made their money off of - get this - advertising), there would be no Wikipedia.
There wouldn't be a Wikipedia without editors either.
You're not claiming that having advertising is going to cause *all* editors to leave, are you?
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.
Yes, and for the life of me I can't understand why you don't have a successful fork and community. Advertising - check, Not afraid to get rid of whiny editors - check
I'm really not sure what you're getting at there. Are you saying if I got rid of the ads on McFly I'd have a successful fork? If so, remind me to laugh my ass off. (BTW, since adding the ads my readership has gone up, not down).
--
Dori
Anthony
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 10/24/05, Dori slowpoke@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/24/05, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
"If the stacks of money is better than editors and readers, then the foundations should go for it."
Without stacks of money, there will be no editors or readers. Without
the
generous donations of Jimbo and Bomis (who made their money off of - get this - advertising), there would be no Wikipedia.
There wouldn't be a Wikipedia without editors either.
You're not claiming that having advertising is going to cause *all* editors to leave, are you?
No, we are not claiming that having advertising is going to cause all editors to leave, but it will be the creative ones who stick their necks out, are bold, and make things happen. In any project, company, or community for that matter, the creative ones are only about 1%, and it is often very difficult to tell just who those very creative ones are. They are the ones that make a group grow and propser instead of die and fall apart. An effort to do advertising like this is going to drive away that precious 1%, and you won't even notice that they are gone because for a short time edits will actually go up and it will appear as though everything is just fine. But the creative ones will be gone and Wikipedia will be a dying project afterward.
You don't even have to believe me on this point, but it is a warning to not take the general opinions of the community for granted. It is a hard task to try and balance the wants and needs of a community of volunteers in particular, and aristiocratic governace of such communities just lead to their eventual demise.
Having been driven away from other communities for other silly reasons, I don't see any reason why Wikipedia or the Wikimedia group of projects is going to be any different in this respect.
Wikipedia is currently on a "bubble" of growth, but eventually that is going to burst because there are only so many people in the world who are capable of adding encyclopedic article entries and have the drive to do some basic research to put the information in. When this limit is reached, Wikipedia will mature and either collapse or turn into a stable project. Leadership principles right now are going to determine just how that is going to happen. As far as the cost of the servers is concerned, that will also be an interesting thing to see. At what point does this exponential growth on the part of adding servers to the database level out?
As far as fundraising is concerned, usage growth is your friend in that as well. Wikipedia in particular has become a very valuable resource for a great many things, and if there is demand that means there are also people willing to pay for it. The trick is to find out how to get those people to chip in a couple of bucks to keep these projects going. By going the route of advertising, the few bucks will instead come from corporate sponsors rather than from readers/editors directly, but the participants will eventually be paying anyway in one way or another.
I honestly don't know the solution to this, but I think we can be creative. I also fail to see why seeking advertising is an issue right now as each time we go on a fund raising drive we tend to exceed the fundraising goal very quickly, indeed with a strong tendancy to cut the fundraising drive once the monetary goal has been reached. This last fundraising drive sputtered in the end with seeming fits of starting and stopping going all over the place, and frankly confusion as to even if the Foundation needed the money at all. Consistancy on the part of the fundraising activities, and good P.R. campaigns for an "annual" fundraiser that could be announced through more conventional media outlets may also be useful. I'm just suggesting that we can be creative on how the money can be obtained for a project like this, and resorting to advertising is not necessary. It won't necessarily be easy to come up with the ideas, however.
You're not claiming that having advertising is going to cause *all*
editors
to leave, are you?
No, we are not claiming that having advertising is going to cause all editors to leave, but it will be the creative ones who stick their necks out, are bold, and make things happen. In any project, company, or community for that matter, the creative ones are only about 1%, and it is often very difficult to tell just who those very creative ones are. They are the ones that make a group grow and propser instead of die and fall apart. An effort to do advertising like this is going to drive away that precious 1%, and you won't even notice that they are gone because for a short time edits will actually go up and it will appear as though everything is just fine. But the creative ones will be gone and Wikipedia will be a dying project afterward.
So you think all the creative ones are going to be gone? I still doubt it. It doesn't make any sense to me. Why would someone leave a project because it tries to make enough money to sustain itself? Should I have quit the volunteer fire department when we ran comedy night and charged admission, or when we *gasp* handed out newsletters which local businesses paid money to be listed in?
Non-profit organizations need to make money to survive, and sponsorship is a good way to do so, especially when the sponsorships can be done in a way that is tasteful. No one is talking about pop-unders or BFAs or anything like that. The way I picture it it'd be targetted text ads on the bottom of the articles, which could be turned off by simply clicking on a link saying "turn off ads". They probably wouldn't even have to run all the time, just during the times when we'd run ads anyway, ads which say "click here to donate". If it'd please people more we could even make it even more clear that it's a sponsorship and just put a link at the bottom of the page which says "this page request brought to you by [whoever]".
I really have a hard time understanding where people opposing this are coming from. Cynically I'd say maybe you want something for nothing, but I'd rather give you the benefit of the doubt and think that you'd rather donate money every three months than view a few text ads. I don't know, I don't have money to spend on servers, especially when there are corporations who will gladly pay for those servers for me in return for an acknowledgement of their support.
You don't even have to believe me on this point, but it is a warning to
not take the general opinions of the community for granted. It is a hard task to try and balance the wants and needs of a community of volunteers in particular, and aristiocratic governace of such communities just lead to their eventual demise.
You don't have to warn me of anything. I have no power in Wikipedia. I'm just wondering how many people actually would leave, and trying to figure out why in the world they'd do so.
By going the route of advertising, the few bucks will instead come from corporate sponsors rather than from readers/editors directly
Actually, if we wanted, we could sell the ads only to readers/editors of the site.
Anthony
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
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
That discussion already occured amongst ourselves some months ago, and the conclusion of the discussion is currently visible (or... rather... not visible precisely) on the website.
Ant
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.
On 10/25/05, Robert Scott Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
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.comhttp://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.
As much as you are entitled to an opinion, Anthony and Mark have an equal right to their opinion. They do not expect people to leave in the first place over having ads or not. To their opinion extremely few people would walk away and these are in his opinion extremist that we may be better of without. Now by painting the other party as having an anti community attitude is over the top.
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.
Right, so is vilifying others.
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?
Suggesting that other technical models may be considered is nice. It is not something that is easily done and, it ignores the amount of work done to make it as scalable as it is today. Moving to another architecture is also made more problematic because we are growing as much as before and it is not trivial to move to a different architecture. P2P is nice but how are we going to ensure that we have the data in the first place, how do you ensure that little used data does not disapear ? We will still need our data stored somewhere. P2P works nice for popular content.. we have a lot of content that is not.
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.
What if a cooperation wants to donate EUR 200.000,- ?? Is this money suspect because it is too much or are you afraid that they want something from us ?? In what way is it in principal different from money that we get through advertising ??
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 http://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.comhttp://Answers.comis 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?
Given the GFDL license, there are all those mirrors that make money off our content. Is this not worse ?? Is it not better to make the money ourselves so that we can pay our own way ?? Why is it "dark" if you can make money from our content; it is legal !! Why is it bad if a FRIENDLY organisation like answers.com http://answers.com makes money and why is it acceptable if another company does it??
The question of what the "end result" of having more money will be ?? We can print books and give them away. We can print DVD's and give them away. We can pay to have content and give it away. There is no end to what we could do if we had the will and the resources.
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.
Nobody wants people and particularly editors to go away. Do not even suggest that. And do not use it as an argument why having more money is bad. We can use money to fulfill our aim: bringing information that is free and NPOV to all people in all languages.
Thanks, GerardM
GerardM wrote:
On 10/25/05, Robert Scott Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
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 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.
Nobody wants people and particularly editors to go away. Do not even suggest that. And do not use it as an argument why having more money is bad. We can use money to fulfill our aim: bringing information that is free and NPOV to all people in all languages.
Thanks, GerardM
Read what I was replying to. Telling editors to leave and never come back was precisely the intent of the message, unless there is something here I don't understand. I am suggesting that if this is handled in the wrong way that people will leave, and it will create wounds that will take a long time to heal here. Clearly this whole episode was mishandled, and I'm trying to find a solution to the problem that can heal all of the hurt feelings.
Some people will take offense at just about any action, and I understand that too. This will be an "excuse" for them to leave although if you really cornered those editors who will leave as to why they stopped contributing, this whole ad controversy will only be a very minor part of other issues they are dealing with.
On 10/25/05, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
As much as you are entitled to an opinion, Anthony and Mark have an equal right to their opinion. They do not expect people to leave in the first place over having ads or not. To their opinion extremely few people would walk away and these are in his opinion extremist that we may be better of without. Now by painting the other party as having an anti community attitude is over the top.
The statement I made about being better off without those people was ill-conceived. It was a gut reaction to some statements by Dori that I think were over the top. If someone comes to a conclusion after some consideration and discussion that they'd rather not participate in Wikipedia if it engages in advertising, that's too bad. At the same time, I find it hard to see why someone would rationally come to this conclusion. And I find it even harder to see why someone would leave just because the possibility of advertising is raised. I've always been of the opinion that if we ever have ads they should be easy to turn off, both by editors and casual readers. I could even see an argument that editors should have them turned off by default. What I probably find the hardest to understand is why we can't just implement a trial of opt-in ads, which would only displayed to those who turn them on. If the calculations of some of us are right, only 5% of Wikipedians would have to turn them on to pay for the entire site. But some of the extremists would leave over even that, and I find that very hard to fathom.
Suggesting that other technical models may be considered is nice. It is not something that is easily done and, it ignores the amount of work done to make it as scalable as it is today. Moving to another architecture is also made more problematic because we are growing as much as before and it is not trivial to move to a different architecture. P2P is nice but how are we going to ensure that we have the data in the first place, how do you ensure that little used data does not disapear ? We will still need our data stored somewhere. P2P works nice for popular content.. we have a lot of content that is not.
I think P2P is a promising solution for the future. It probably wouldn't be pure P2P though, it its simplest form you'd use P2P to replace the squids, and the rest would stay as is. You could pull out more and more of the infrastructure though, to the point where maybe a dozen database servers would be all that Wikipedia had to run. One major issue would be that content would have to be signed, and most (or all) browsers wouldn't support that without downloading some sort of plugin. I think it'd work, but we'd need a backup plan, and donations probably aren't going to cut it.
GerardM wrote:
On 10/25/05, Robert Scott Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
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.comhttp://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.
As much as you are entitled to an opinion, Anthony and Mark have an equal right to their opinion. They do not expect people to leave in the first place over having ads or not. To their opinion extremely few people would walk away and these are in his opinion extremist that we may be better of without. Now by painting the other party as having an anti community attitude is over the top.
To be clear, I was actually responding to Anthony's message by taking the opposite view---I'm quite anti-advertisements. He suggested that only a few people would leave if we put ads on, and we'd be better off without them anyway. I was saying that there's an easy way to find out, but I doubt the board will do it---perhaps what I should have added explicitly is that they won't do that because they're smart enough not to (even if they thought it was a good idea, which they almost certainly don't). I do think quite a lot of good editors would leave if GoogleAds were put on Wikipedia, and not just a few extremists that we'd be better off without.
-Mark
On 10/25/05, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
To be clear, I was actually responding to Anthony's message by taking the opposite view---I'm quite anti-advertisements. He suggested that only a few people would leave if we put ads on, and we'd be better off without them anyway. I was saying that there's an easy way to find out, but I doubt the board will do it---perhaps what I should have added explicitly is that they won't do that because they're smart enough not to (even if they thought it was a good idea, which they almost certainly don't). I do think quite a lot of good editors would leave if GoogleAds were put on Wikipedia, and not just a few extremists that we'd be better off without.
-Mark
No, you're right. Apparently a poll was done at Wikimania and 2/3 of people were against it and 1/3 said they'd leave. So yeah, there's one good argument not to have ads, I guess. I just can't figure out what any of the other ones are. It's also not clear what percentage of those who would leave would be willing to stay under certain circumstances. Ads for just non-logged in users? Opt-out ads? Opt-in ads? The choices are a lot broader than just ads or no ads. Anthony
On 24/10/05, Dori slowpoke@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/24/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
Surely there's only a handful of logical conclusions here:
- We stay with just donations (small private and few large coporate
ones) and the site slowly bogs down as traffic demand outstrips server supply 2. We try more small stuff like the Amazon and the forthcoming 1-Click experiments, but let's be honest unless WP is plastered in them they'll never make much of a difference 3. We eventually accept a small amount of Adsense (or Adsense-syle) advertising on the site, which will most likely pay for what we need.
Obviously you're highlighting 3 there, and the obvious corollary to all three is that a bunch of editors and readers will pack their bags and leave. If the stacks of money is better than editors and readers, then the foundations should go for it. And don't for a second think that it will be one or two, many people are opposed to this, and a tidy sum have already left just because of the *possibility*.
There are hundreds - probably thousands - of editors active every day. If a few choose to flounce off - as is so fashionable on WP - then sod them! Most of them will slowly crawl back anyway.
If the choice is between a site with (Adsense) adverts, and no site at all (which is the choice it *WILL* come down to), then I'd rather have a site!
Plus with a few mill coming in a year, we'd actually be able to get a lot closer to the goal of distributing knowledge to everyone, not least as Wikimedia would be able to afford to PAY people to make these dreams happen .
Dan
Dan Grey wrote:
On 24/10/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
There are other reasons to be worried about ads
With people saying they could lead to an income of $26m a year, or pay for all of our normal hosting costs in a fortnight, I'd like to know what these other reasons are!
Well, I think that's an overestimate. I don't think it's any more than $12m a year *yawn*. ;-)
--Jimbo
On 10/24/05, Poe, Marshall MPoe@theatlantic.com wrote:
Isn't it the case that Google Adsense (and similar programs) basically cut the tie between specific advertisers and specific publications?
This isn't relevant to the current Answers.com proposal since no AdSense ads will be on Wikipedia. However, the assumption that AdSense cuts the ties in this way is not entirely correct, since the website with ads can choose to block ads from any particular URL, and the advertiser can choose not to appear on any particular site. Therefore, it is still possible for a company to decide not to advertise on a site anymore, but Google would endeavor to fill the gap with an alternative ad, albeit one with a potentially lower cost-per-click.
If this is so, it's pretty hard for me to understand how putting Adsense ads on Wikipedia pages could ever lead to any of the editorial-influence scenarios being described here.
In a scenario which is hard to imagine ever occurring on Wikipedia, the influence could come from the fact that AdSense relies on context, and particular keywords on a page will lead to higher-revenue-generating ads. So, attempts to drop phrases like "credit repair" into articles could lead to greater revenues and might encourage some to insert an odd sort of influence on the content for this purpose. It would, of course, be violating Google's terms of service and not something I would recommend doing. :)
Angela -- Angela Beesley Moderator of SEM 2.0
Angela wrote:
In a scenario which is hard to imagine ever occurring on Wikipedia, the influence could come from the fact that AdSense relies on context, and particular keywords on a page will lead to higher-revenue-generating ads. So, attempts to drop phrases like "credit repair" into articles could lead to greater revenues and might encourage some to insert an odd sort of influence on the content for this purpose. It would, of course, be violating Google's terms of service and not something I would recommend doing. :)
AdSense-style ads would also lead to the potentially undesirable scenario where companies (or individuals) would be able to buy text on a particular Wikipedia article's page, for example to refute it or point to an advocacy page attacking the viewpoints the article summarizes. There's no way to do this directly, but some trial-and-error playing with keywords could allow an advertiser to,. with high probability, get their ads to appear on specific Wikipedia pages in that manner.
-Mark
On 10/24/05, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Angela wrote:
In a scenario which is hard to imagine ever occurring on Wikipedia, the influence could come from the fact that AdSense relies on context, and particular keywords on a page will lead to higher-revenue-generating ads. So, attempts to drop phrases like "credit repair" into articles could lead to greater revenues and might encourage some to insert an odd sort of influence on the content for this purpose. It would, of course, be violating Google's terms of service and not something I would recommend doing. :)
AdSense-style ads would also lead to the potentially undesirable scenario where companies (or individuals) would be able to buy text on a particular Wikipedia article's page, for example to refute it or point to an advocacy page attacking the viewpoints the article summarizes. There's no way to do this directly, but some trial-and-error playing with keywords could allow an advertiser to,. with high probability, get their ads to appear on specific Wikipedia pages in that manner.
-Mark
I can't actually think of a situation where that would be a bad thing, even if I add in the types of ads which Google isn't going to allow anyway (like a pro-Nazi page being advertised on a Wikipedia page on Nazism). But maybe that's just because I believe the best way to fight speech is with speech, a position which not everyone agrees with. If Nazis (or any POV pushers) want to give us money to help spread factual neutral information, that's fine with me. I did just think of another potential problem with Google Adsense in particular, though. It may provide incentive for certain people to insert certain keywords into random articles to draw competitors away from the pages they want to advertise on (and thus lower the cost to appear on those articles). I'm not sure if it'd work or not, though. Anthony
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