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

[GerardM]

On 10/25/05, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
>
> Delirium wrote:
>
> > Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> >
> >> I can't for the life of me understand why people "a bunch of editors
> and
> >> readers" would leave over something like this. I also don't think
> >> it'd be a
> >> bad thing to get rid of the people who think this way.
> >>
> > Well, if the Foundation really wanted to find out, they could issue an
> > ultimatum---we're starting GoogleAds tomorrow, and anyone opposed to
> > advertising on Wikipedia can get out (and good riddance!).
> >
> > Of course, they are unlikely to do so. =]
> >
> > -Mark
>
> Attitudes like this are going to destroy the project entirely. I guess
> you don't care about the fact that your actions are encouraging large
> scale emmigration from Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, and
> forking of contents. It doesn't matter if this action with Answer.com<http://Answer.com>
> was good or bad, an attitude like this where you can good riddance to
> people who don't agree with you is contrary to what this community has
> been about.


As much as you are entitled to an opinion, Anthony and Mark have an equal
right to their opinion. They do not expect people to leave in the first
place over having ads or not. To their opinion extremely few people would
walk away and these are in his opinion extremist that we may be better of
without. Now by painting the other party as having an anti community
attitude is over the top.

This whole episode and debate is unfortunately going to leave a lot of
> embittered people on all sides of the issue, primarily due to the way it
> was presented in the first place. At this point, that doesn't matter,
> and all we got now is controversy that perhaps will never go away.
> Rubbing salt in the wounds and telling people to go away is not going
> to help.


Right, so is vilifying others.

While the initial presentation may have been flawed, and the "community"
> feeling like it was ignored (with the huge numbers of e-mails on this
> list, plus a slashdot story and the rest of the public airing of this
> issue) this can either be a divisive issue or we can try to come
> together with compromise solutions to get this to work.
>
> The underlying issue for this whole exchange is that the Foundation
> needs money in order to operate. In addtion, being one of the top 50
> websites on the internet makes advertising revenue something very
> attractive, particularly given the current commercial climate with most
> internet websites. What needs to happen is some creative thoughts about
> how some sort of revenue can help pay for the basic needs of this
> project, particularly for bandwidth and server costs.


Could other organizational aspects be done? What about P2P distributed
> models for dealing with content? Other software models for organizing
> the content? More effecient software algorithms for MediaWiki?


Suggesting that other technical models may be considered is nice. It is not
something that is easily done and, it ignores the amount of work done to
make it as scalable as it is today. Moving to another architecture is also
made more problematic because we are growing as much as before and it is not
trivial to move to a different architecture. P2P is nice but how are we
going to ensure that we have the data in the first place, how do you ensure
that little used data does not disapear ? We will still need our data stored
somewhere. P2P works nice for popular content.. we have a lot of content
that is not.

As for financial resources available to the Wikimedia Foundaion, what
> else could be done. More direct fundraising? A "telethon" or similar
> media campaign? Foundation grants or other philenthropic charities that
> could donate for specific projects (like Wikijunior and the Beck
> Foundation)? A "bookstore" that would sell CD-ROMs and printed books
> based on contents of Wikimedia projects? All of these and more can be
> done.


What if a cooperation wants to donate EUR 200.000,- ?? Is this money suspect
because it is too much or are you afraid that they want something from us ??
In what way is it in principal different from money that we get through
advertising ??

In this case there are many individuals who feel that they have labored
> hard to create an interesting public resource, only to see a few
> individuals seemingly make some money off of their volunteer labors,
> particularly with the cooperation of the "leaders" of this community.
> That is what is sticking in the craw of those who don't like what is
> going on here. And a darker side is that if somebody else is making
> money, why can't I? If Answers.com <http://Answers.com> is going to get
> that benefit from
> Wikipedia readers and make a little bit of money, what is going to stop
> each and every other editor/contributor to Wikipedia to do the same
> thing with a link on the tools page that would copy what Answers.com<http://Answers.com>is
> doing? Would that need Foundation approval (getting into cronyism) or
> can any editor simply put a link in the same place at any time? Do you
> need to be an admin to make changes there? (more resentment of the
> "heirarchy" of community leaders by ordinary users.) What about other
> products/services? What is the "end result" of all this commercial
> activity with Wikipedia?


Given the GFDL license, there are all those mirrors that make money off our
content. Is this not worse ?? Is it not better to make the money ourselves
so that we can pay our own way ?? Why is it "dark" if you can make money
from our content; it is legal !! Why is it bad if a FRIENDLY organisation
like answers.com <http://answers.com> makes money and why is it acceptable
if another company does it??

The question of what the "end result" of having more money will be ?? We can
print books and give them away. We can print DVD's and give them away. We
can pay to have content and give it away. There is no end to what we could
do if we had the will and the resources.

I don't have any answers this these questions for the most part, but I
> have seen them all raised on this mailing list in many different forums.
> Rather than telling people to "get lost and never come back, we don't
> need you", it is far better the make the people having complaints to
> become part of the solution. The decision to have ads on Wikipedia or
> not is just a small part of much larger issues here, and it never does
> any good to drive people away... especially people who are genuinely
> trying to make this a bettter place in the first place. We are not
> talking about driving away vandals and trolls here, but rather people
> who have made some significant contributions to this community.


Nobody wants people and particularly editors to go away. Do not even suggest
that. And do not use it as an argument why having more money is bad. We can
use money to fulfill our aim: bringing information that is free and NPOV to
all people in all languages.

Thanks,
GerardM