[Foundation-l] Re: Benefits of advertising (was Re: Our exponentially increasing costs)

[Anthere]

Tim Starling wrote:

> Neil Harris wrote:
> 
>>Hmm. 2500 hits/sec * 86400 secs/day * $1 CPM = $216,000 / _day_, or
>>$78,000,000+/year. Have you considered that the Wikimedia foundation
>>board might be aware of this, and that its decision not to put up
>>advertising might be a principled decision, rather than motivated by
>>"fear of money"?
> 
> 
> We don't have 2500 hits/sec, we have 2500 requests/sec, i.e. including
> images, stylesheets, etc. The difference is roughly a factor of 3. The
> income would thus be closer to $26M.
> 
> By these figures, we could cover our current operating costs by putting
> ads on the site for two weeks per year. I'm not sure if it's a good idea
> though.
> 
> Like Jimbo, I think distribution of Wikipedia around the world,
> especially offline distribution to poorer countries, should be our top
> priority. But Wikimedia lacks the infrastructure for such hands-on work.
> It also lacks the moral high ground in the eyes of funding agencies,
> because its focus to date has been to provide a service for relatively
> wealthy Internet users. Our donors give money out of reciprocity, not
> out of compassion for those less well-off.
> 
> There are other organisations who have been distributing information and
> technology to developing countries for many years, and these
> organisations are often well-funded and have a well-established HR
> infrastructure. For my part, I've been working with WiderNet, which is
> entirely capable of delivering Wikipedia to African universities in the
> next 6 months, without funding from us. Andy Rabagliati periodically
> updates installations of Wikipedia in secondary schools in South Africa.
> All we have to do is provide a free encyclopedia for these people to
> distribute, and they will distribute it.
> 
> It's true that they could probably distribute it to more places in less
> time if we gave them millions of dollars, and we could probably raise
> that sort of money by advertising. But we would have to make it *very*
> clear to readers and editors that the ads are to support such activities.
> 
> It's possible to display advertising and keep the moral high ground,
> thehungersite.com is a good example of that. But the connection between
> the advertising and the charitable goal has to be eminently clear.
> Editors who are thinking of leaving in a huff have to know that it is
> the poor children in Africa who will suffer if they do. The Board would
> have to have a well-documented plan for the immediate distribution of
> the funds that are collected, and that plan would need to be advertised
> relentlessly.
> 
> The Answers.com deal, on the other hand, is just a recipe for offence.
> The benefit is unknown and will probably be small. The Board has agreed
> to it in secret, apparently to repay favours such as the Wikimania
> sponsorship. They've given a single organisation preferential treatment,
> which brings their motives into question: are they doing this to help
> Wikipedia or Answers.com?


Since you are mentionning the Board here, I am clearly included. I will 
not speak for the other board members here, but only for me though.

I consider your comment being an accusation of corruption.

I do not think you have any basis, as far as I am concerned, for making 
such a public accusation. Unless you can provide a good argument to 
support it and explain how I could in any sens benefit of the current 
deal, I will kindly ask you to provide public apologies for this comment 
I consider defaming.




> That's why I join the chorus of editors in asking the Board to withdraw
> from this deal. If we are going to have advertising, it needs to be done
> with extreme sensitivity to the sensibilities of the community. Claiming
> that it's not advertising most certainly doesn't help -- even if the
> Board believes that line, the community certainly doesn't.
> 
> I don't believe that we need to have advertising to keep the site
> running. We can still go a long way by pressing our readers to donate
> more money, and by making better use of strings-free hardware donation
> offers such as the Google deal. Some people have expressed reservations
> against "begging", but it's generally seen as a more acceptable activity
> than advertising.
> 
> If the Board wants to perform "special projects" such as offline
> distribution, these projects first have to be rigorously justified to
> the community. Supporting them by advertising can only be considered
> after the community has been convinced of their benefit.
> 
> -- Tim Starling


All your other comments are yours and I see no problem with them.