[Foundation-l] Advertisement

[Teun Spaans]

In addition to Jeroens post, I agree with him that a borderline seems to
have been crossed. We never mentioned the name of any other company on the
top of any page. I regret this form of advertisement, but wont cancel my
contribution, like many others. The borderline between sponsorship and
advertisement is razorthin, especially with virgin unite, which is viewed by
some as an advertisement agency for the company.

I wonder:
1) Did the foundation decide themselves to reward virgin unite with this
banner, or was this a (politely worded request) from virgin unite?
2) Have there been any donations by other companies of the same order of
magnitude?
3) If so, wouldnt it be fair if we offer these other companies a banner for
a day, on our own initiative? I also think of yahoo and kennisnet, who are
supporting us heavily with servers and bandwidth.
4) The example of virgin unite will invite other charities and companies to
also barter for a banner - or more. Did the foundation board write up for
themselves any guidelines how far they want to go in the matter of
sponsoring and advertisement (remember that sponsoring is just a form of
advertisement)
5) Could the board please communicate all decisions which are sensitive
among the wikipedians, timely to all relevent mailinglists?
6) Has there ever been an open call to all wikipedians to provide
suggestions to the foundationboard of ways to receive money?

teun