On Wed, 2009-11-04 at 00:07 +0100, Milos Rancic wrote:
Today I've noticed creation of the account on sr.wn which means "Jobs Serbia". It is obviously that it is an account from some portal which is used for job advertisement. Instantly I've got an idea: to offer to that portal to make one page per day for linking the job offerings. It is useful and it is relevant to many Wikinews readers, as well as it may make Wikinews more relevant to its readers.
But, I've started to think further... To allow original advertisements or to require linking to a relevant site? For some time I was thinking that it is better not to allow original content related to advertisement, but, after all, I think that it is about wiki and wiki should allow that. At last, advertisement is the part of almost all daily newspapers and why not to put it on Wikinews, too?
Further, advertisement may be about a lot of fields, not just about jobs. It may be about housing, cars, whatever...
So, the question is where to stop? At the beginning and not do that at all or to allow every [legal] advertisement? Or something between?
At one side, it is not so relevant at the English language area: there is Craigslist for that. In many other language areas such portals don't exist and they don't have a lot of chances for success because there are not enough of users who would be willing to use one specialized site for that kind of advertisement.
At the other side, it is relevant as a concept for en.wn and other Wikinews editions. If it becomes successful as a model, it may bring new quality and many more users.
You may guess that I am very interested for that idea :) However, I think that it is very possible that I am inside of a small minority. Tell me what do you think about that and, more important, which problems may we have? (BTW, yes, it is about spreading free information and I don't think that it is against WMF's goals.)
It is an interesting idea, but would be pretty much against policy in terms of putting it in the main namespace. Really, I don't think any of the WN projects have the resources or knowledge to manage advertising job vacancies. You could end up directing people to fishing expeditions where their personal data is harvested for identity fraud.
So, I'd say, not in line with project or WMF principles. Cannot be effectively policed. Should not be done.