[Foundation-l] Answers.com and Wikimedia Foundation to Form New Partnership

[Delphine Ménard]

On 10/23/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> > > > Promoting a company or product in return for payment is advertising,
> > > > pretty much by definition...
> > >
> > > A link to a tool is not advertising. It is a link to a tool.
> > >
> > > -- mav
> >
> > No, it's a paid link (or sponsored as Google might call it) to a tool,
> > and a tool that could be used to snoop on people too.
>
> Explain, exactly, how this snooping would occur?

As I understand it:

The link will link to a software download (or to a page where you can
download the software). You have to download the software, install it
on your computer and use it, before any "snooping" of any kind would
occur. It is not the downloading of the software that will bring
money, it is the use of the tool. If you are against it, please, don't
download it. So I agree with mav. A link to a tool, is a link to a
tool. Not advertising as such.

Now, we can argue that putting the link to the tool is advertising.
Why not. But then, so are the thousands of external links on
Wikipedia, since they generate traffic to websites which might even
have google ads on them. Oh my! OK, let's say the link is advertising,
and it's BAD. But again, as I understand it, the page won't be
protected, nor the link anchored by any funky trick into the page. So
you can remove it. I will be more than happy to put it back, because I
believe, for the reasons mav raises, that we need to find other ways
to get money.

May I remind you that Mozilla or Opera (now free thanks to a Google
deal) actually fund themselves that way? Through tools/deals with such
companies. I personally I'm not sure the Tool page is the best place
to be "prominent" on Wikipedia so it's not like we're having a site
notice with their name on it. As was pointed out by many people on
this thread, Answers.com is aware of what Wikipedia is all about, and
of what our community is all about. They made Wikimania possible, and
were even there. Not hiding in a corner, not trying to show off as the
sponsors, but sitting down to lunch with us and listening to us,
trying to understand us.


> We can't expect reader donations to carry us indefinitely. We need to diversify
> our income sources. Partnerships like this, along with other funding strategies
> such as grants, are needed to ensure we stay in the black.
>
> BTW, do you have a few extra million dollars laying around to pay for servers
> next year? And what about the special projects we would like to fund but can't?

Calm down mav, calm down. ;-)

Cheers,

Delphine
--
~notafish