[Foundation-l] This is not an Advertisement

[The Cunctator]

So does Wikipedia.

On 12/29/06, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> wrote:
> You missed Brion's point. It doesn't matter if it's actually an ad.
>
> Besides, your definition of ad labels almost all forms of sponsorship
> and underwriting "advertising."
>
> Bruno Martelli wrote:
> > Hi everyone.
> >
> > I have read Brion Vibber's long message yesterday. I appreciated the
> > frankness of the message: however, I have a different opinion, and I would
> > like to explain that below.
> >
> > His analysis could maybe (roughly) summarized as follows: "we need the
> > money, we really need it, we understand that a little adv is annoying, but
> > it's really tiny, it's not exactly advertising, and it's only for one
> > day".
> >
> > 1) A company pays and gets some webspace with its name and
> > hopefully a logo in it. This is proper 100% advertising. The same one
> > which every big company does every day all over the world on TV, web,
> > magazines, etc.
> >
> > 2) The icon is thin, should we deduce that the advertising is just
> > tiny and harmless? When measuring the impact of it, one should look at
> > all parameters: the adv is tiny on
> > each page, little in time (1 day), but really enormous in number
> > of web pages (some millions: every page on every project!). Summing all
> > up, it is a huge advertising campaign, reaching many thousands of
> > people.
> >
> > 3) Reaching many thousands of people (editors and readers) with a little
> > annoying message. That is what it is, concretely. There is a name for
> > things like that, which everyone knows and detests: it's "spam". Don't we
> > all detest spam? I think so, there should be no need of discussion about
> > that.
> >
> > 4) For this simple reason I disagree with the choice of the WMF of putting
> > name and logo of a donating company on each page. We editors do our little
> > constant work everyday against self-promotion on the encyclopedia. We say
> > "no" to unknown artists, tourist agencies, little companies who simply try
> > to write few lines about themselves on a single page. Recently, a message
> > (was it from the WMF?) was written in order to wake the troops: "we
> > are losing the battle against self-promotion!". In the meanwhile, we see
> > a big company spammed *everywhere*... One could argue that promotion
> > "inside" the encyclopedia is different from "outside", but the web page is
> > the same.
> >
> > 5) We need the money. Ok, but how much? Of course I have no idea of the
> > answer. My humble opinion is however that we shouldn't spread names and
> > logos all over the encyclopedia. Donations from big companies have to
> > be encouraged, but they should be thanked in a single appropriate page,
> > not in the main namespace. Of course we will get less money from each of
> > them, but we could stress this fact when asking for funds: "following our
> > policies, we have no ads: please be generous". Some very well known NG
> > Organizations apply this policy since years, and they are still alive and
> > in good health.
> >
> > A thing is maybe worth saying to avoid misunderstandings. I know
> > what the GFDL says, I am not by far "anti-commercial" or whatever like. I
> > am happy that more people earn some money thanks to our work: this kind of
> > license is simply magic.
> >
> > That's all.
> >   best,
> >
> >  Bruno Martelli AKA Ylebru (from it:wiki)
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
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