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

[Tim Starling]

Anthere wrote:
>> 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.

Sorry, by "apparently" I only meant that that is the way it appears that
way to the most extreme members of the community, I don't hold such
views myself. I was only trying to explain why I think this deal has met
such strong opposition, especially on the wiki. It was wild speculation
in any case, my apologies.

Jimmy Wales wrote
> "apparently to repay favours such as the Wikimania sponsorship" -
> absolutely false.
> 
> "a single organization preferential treatment" - absolutely false.
> 
> I'm so shocked by these remarks, that I'm going to do something fairly
> rare for me and ask for a public apology.

Fair enough, it was ill-considered.


>>> 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.
> 
> 
> Then as a longstanding member of the community with a good reputation, I
> ask for your help in explaining to them how it is *not* advertising.  In
> order to do that, you'll have to stop spinning wild accusations first
> and ask some basic questions about the deal until you understand it.

I'll come back to this in a later post.

-- Tim Starling