--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" jwales@wikia.com wrote:

Christopher Mahan wrote:

...

I say the opposite is true. We should have a policy that says:

"It

...

does not matter how much money, content, or goodwill you send our way, we are not putting your logo or anything else in the

wikipedia."

...

Our NPOV policy would prohibit that, now that I think about it.

Nothing about NPOV prohibits us from recognizing people or organizations who help us in an appropriate place in an appropriate and tasteful fashion.

Dang you must be behind on e-mail, I feel for you...

The thing is that once you start, where do you stop?

Xyzzy Corp gives us 15 grand and 5000 images. We put their logo on a page. Then ACME corp says: Hey, we'll give you 25 grand and 8000 images, but we want our logo above Xyzzy's. And if we give you 30 grand, could you please put our logo at the top of the page, a little wider, and maybe for an extra $5K, we can have our animated logo and brand line in Flash?

The difference with advertizing would be what again?

I say: Donate if you like, but no preferrential placement. It's a slippery road because it leads to a race, and the corp with the deepest pockets wins. There are corporations out there drooling to put ads of any sort on Wikipedia, including like those on NPR, which I find distateful at best, such as "Funding for this program provided by AGM, Building a better future through innovation."

The instant we get megacorps on our "list of esteemed partners", we will have a much harder time getting wikipedia accepted as impartial in, shall we say, less capitalistic societies.

If this makes no sense, just ignore it and press delete.

Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/

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