[Foundation-l] what is partnership ? Advertising in disguise.

[Christopher Mahan]

--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at 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 at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/


		
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