[Foundation-l] Fundraising and site notice

[Michael Snow]

Peter van Londen wrote:

> GerardM and community
>
> I do agree with your view. I also think that lack of funds is a serious
> issue and I don't thank the opposition to have achieved not doing more
> matching donations this fundraiser.
>
> I do disagree with you that there is no serious alternative. There is 
> and it
> is brought up in a separate thread by Teun Spaans (
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-January/026545.html). 
>
> It is a separate project aimed at publishing fanstuff with adds (which is
> now part a popular part of every Wikipedia), so that the other 
> projects can
> do without adds and we still have money to fund all projects and indeed
> expand on some further ideas.
>
> I don't understand that not more persons seem to be willing to judge 
> on this
> idea? I don't care if thorough consideration will have a negative 
> outcome,
> if there would be enough reason no to have a Fanpedia, but it is an
> alternative!! And until know it seems to be discarded. Please think 
> about it
> and comment on that idea, it is worth considering. It seems that Wikia is
> doing good with this way of funding.

Well, the original suggestion didn't seem to think that the "fanstuff" 
is currently being discarded, it indicated that a lot of what we 
currently have is "fancruft" and could be moved elsewhere with ads 
placed on it. But either way, all this does is get into the problem that 
one person's junk is another person's treasure. Imagine how this could 
skew an Articles for Deletion process - not only is this stuff we need 
to get rid of, we're passing up an opportunity to make money off of it.

Taken to its logical conclusion, the consequence of this idea is that 
Wikimedia projects *should* have advertising, and that the advertising 
should be used specifically to improve the content. And a very simple 
solution presents itself. Anything that is tagged as being disputed, 
controversial, needing cleanup, unsourced, original research, vanity, or 
a host of other problems - using one of the many such templates on the 
English Wikipedia, for example - automatically gets advertising space 
added along with the tag. (I'd even include libelous and 
copyright-infringing material, except that making money directly from 
illegal content would significantly change the potential for liability.) 
Furthermore, we no longer need to worry about advertising compromising 
the quality of our content, because we're only putting it in places 
where it's already compromised.

Once the content is fully compliant with our policies, the advertising 
is then removed. The absence of advertising would be the indication that 
the quality has been reviewed and meets our standards. In fact, we can 
even stop trying to come up with the long-awaited revision-flagging 
feature, since we'd already have solved the problem it's designed to 
address.

Turning garbage into gold has been a fantasy since the alchemists. 
There's a reason it's a fantasy.

--Michael Snow