On Thursday, January 1, 2004, at 09:55 PM, Delirium wrote:
Just an idea to see what people's views on it would be: I know many people are opposed to ads on Wikipedia, but would those of you opposed to ads in general be more receptive to sponsored bandwidth and/or hardware? For example, a box somewhere that says "bandwidth kindly donated by [donating company]". Yeah, it's an ad of sorts, but it's a little more neutral and matter-of-fact than most ads: it's simply informing people that the bandwidth of the site they're viewing is being provided free of charge by someone. More like the "powered by Apache" logos at the bottom of some sites than like a typical ad, I think.
-Mark
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
I've been reading the list for a few days and I've been hanging out in the irc channel for a while (handles: seanchil, flamingantichimp). I don't know if this makes my opinion worth more or less, but I feel strongly about this, so I want to let my opinion be known. I'm sorry if I'm making enemies here but I hold no grudge against anyone on this issue, no matter the opinion.
I think a lot of people support this project, at least partly, because of the ideals it contains. It's something free, done by the community, upheld by the community and knowledge-driven. I think the server trouble and fundraising emphasizes the second point: upheld by the community.
An Ad-free status gives the authors and wikipedia more power. Maybe nothing would change within the first week, maybe not within the first month, maybe not within in the first year, but is that what this project is about? We need to be planning for the future, just like we are in the purchase of the new equipment. I don't know if the wikipedia will be around when I'm 40 but this is a project that is growing and growing, so who knows?
How might selling ads remove power from authors? Let's say ford decided to purchase an ad on the wikipedia. Now they may have vested interest in making their ford entry more opinionated. Does anyone remember the nasty issue of tires and Ford Explorers a few years back (also; correct me where my facts are wrong, but keep in mind this is just a random example)? When an article is created about that recall, maybe Ford will ask the article to be removed. Of course, we can say now that we will promise tell them to buzz off and remove their ads if they persisted, and I'm sure we probably would. Still, we might become depended upon the income, and, honestly, what is one article in comparison to a few thousand a month in revenue?
Here's another example: on ESPN there was a show called "Playmakers". "Playmakers" was design to show the 'real' side of football, it made some very obvious allusions to the NFL and drew both praise from T.V. critics and sports fans as well as criticism from the NFL. The show's ratings were more then high enough to warrant more seasons. But ESPN (and more so, ESPN's parent company, ABC) has a contract with the NFL to show games. It is being rumored that there won't be a second season because the NFL doesn't want it.
I think the best point, though, in favor of not adopting advertisements, is Why? If there comes a point in time in which we need this money, and donations and the community can no longer uphold us, then we resort to ads. No sooner.
Thanks for those who read it all; just my two cents.
~seanchilders Shut down inhuman boot camps for kids: http://www.petitiononline.com/130662/ (House: iMac DV 400mhz 384 MB (Mac OSX), Titanium Powerbook 800 MHZ (Mac OS X), Titanium Powerbook 500MHZ (Mac OS 9), IBM PL 300 (Linux: Redhat 9), Powermac 9500 (Debian), Powermac 6100 (Mac OS 8.5)