[Foundation-l] A modest proposal: ads on wikipedia.com

[Anthony]

On 4/22/07, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Two comments
>
> The first is that in my opinion, refusing ads is not simply an ethical
> position. My problem with ads is that when they are "google ads" type,
> they decreases if not negate the neutrality of an article. An example I
> always use is the article on tires. If we put an ads of Michelin on the
> tire article, then we can not claim it is neutral anymore (Michelin is
> from my city).
> Whether it is on a .org or a .com will not change that.
> I might at best consider ads on the search pages, though not happily.
> But ads on the articles themselves is really something I am not supporting.
>
If this is done, the .com site should be run independently.  A
separate corporation, with a separate board, a separate set of books,
a separate staff, etc.  The .com site would have no more power than
Answers.com to affect content.

> The second is that to really bring in money, an ads needs to be on a
> "visited" website. Right now, the visited website is the .org. For ads
> (or any commercial feature for that matter) to be successful, we would
> need to orient visitors to be .com rather than to the .org.

There are *already* sites out there which make *a lot* of money using
Wikipedia content.  Wikipedia.com would be at least as successful as
they are, and it'd have one huge advantage - the right to use the
Wikipedia trademark.  Presumably it'd get a pretty sweet live feed
too, but apparently other mirrors already get that.

Anthony