----- Original Message ----- From: Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 06:16:47 -0800 To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [associates@amazon.com: Amazon.com Associatesprogram - your application approved]
Karl Eichwalder wrote:
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
We certainly are bringing Amazon no *additional* benefit by linking to them with an associates code.
It seems to me that for Amazon haters, the following ranking makes the most sense...
Don't link to them at all. BEST
Link to them, but make them pay. 2nd BEST
Link to them for free. WORST by FAR
--Jimbo
One should differ between * do not link to booksellers one does not like * do not link to booksellers generally
There has not been one reason given so far why WP should link to booksellers in the first place. WP does not link to Art/Music/Video/Computer/Coin/Stamp/... sellers as well? Maybe the whole "link to seller" idea should be reviewed.
Schewek
b schewek wrote:
There has not been one reason given so far why WP should link to booksellers in the first place.
Well, that's a conversation that we've had more than once, see.
It's clearly useful to many readers. It's not evil to buy books. It's not even evil to sell books.
Let's say we have an article about Stephen King (we do). And an article about one of his books (we do). Why should we not link to a page that lets people know how they can do more research by actually obtaining the book? The user might want to buy it, or borrow it from a library, or read reviews of it, etc.
I've seen arguments that I respect (though I'm ultimately unconvinced) as to why we should not link to Amazon in particular. But I've seen no argument to suggest that linking to booksellers _generally_ is a bad thing. Why should it be?
I suppose some might argue that any form of voluntary exchange, money for books, is immoral. But, I'd like to see it.
WP does not link to Art/Music/Video/Computer/Coin/Stamp/... sellers as well? Maybe the whole "link to seller" idea should be reviewed.
I see no problem with such links, so long as they meet the kind of helpfulness criteria that we use for books. One nice thing about books is that the ISBN does exist as a universal identifier that makes this technically feasible... I don't think such numbers exist for things link Coins, Stamps, etc. (For music and video, perhaps they do?)
Just for the record, after nearly 24 hours with the link on the book sources page, sales and revenue to us are $0.00. It's a bit early to tell, but I think it's fairly clear that this (linking for money) is going to be a complete nonissue anyway.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Just for the record, after nearly 24 hours with the link on the book sources page, sales and revenue to us are $0.00. It's a bit early to tell, but I think it's fairly clear that this (linking for money) is going to be a complete nonissue anyway.
Well, that's not too much surprising, as Amazon only add the money when the products are shipped. So unless someone ordered a book yesterday which shipped immidiatly you cannot see anything yet - only in the traffic list you can see how many orders were created so far.
Jimmy Wales wrote:
b schewek wrote:
There has not been one reason given so far why WP should link to booksellers in the first place.
Well, that's a conversation that we've had more than once, see.
It's clearly useful to many readers. It's not evil to buy books. It's not even evil to sell books.
Let's say we have an article about Stephen King (we do). And an article about one of his books (we do). Why should we not link to a page that lets people know how they can do more research by actually obtaining the book? The user might want to buy it, or borrow it from a library, or read reviews of it, etc.
While I don't oppose linking to booksellers, I'd have to say I'm unconvinced it's really all that useful to our readers. Surely people are aware of the fact that one might want to read books for various reasons, and they likely are even aware of the fact that there are several venues from which books may be acquired: there are libraries, project gutenberg, online bookstores, local bookstores, and so on. I can see the usefulness in linking directly to a free online edition of the book (project gutenberg, etc.), since that allows them to read it with a simple click, but I don't really see the usefulness in linking to online booksellers. There are plenty of things besides books people can purchase online as well, and we don't generally link them.
-Mark
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