On 31/12/06, Friðrik Bragi Dýrfjörð <dyrfjord(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I haven't fallowed the discussion so I might be
repeating an old idea,
if so just ignore my comment. In any case this is an old idea, this is
a business model you have probably seen before if you are familiar with
The Hunger Site (
thehungersite.com) and The Million Dollar Homepage
(
milliondollarhomepage.com). I was thinking we could have a button on
the fundraising-page that people would be asked to click if they wanted
to support Wikimedia (this is not advertising). Clicking that button
would send you to a side project of the Foundation (hopefully with a
special domain name) which would essentially be a page full of ads like
the Million Dollar Homepage. So in this way we do not advertise on
Wikipedia but instead offer people who whish to support the Foundation
to support us in this way (and in this way make use of our traffic).
It's a good idea, but I don't think this would overcome many of the
problems that placing adverts on Wikimedia projects (esp. Wikipedia)
would have. One of the main reasons I have for opposing advertising is
the bias, or perceived bias, this may introduce. If [Corporation] is
giving us $1 million a year in advertising, how could readers be sure
that Wikipedia's article on [Corporation] was unbiased? I don't think
abstracting the advertising a layer would remove this problem.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill(a)gmail.com)