[Foundation-l] LA Times article / Advertising in Wikipedia

Nathan nawrich at gmail.com
Mon Mar 10 16:48:26 UTC 2008


FYI. The discussion about advertising will never be completely closed,
expect it to come up again and again. Conservative advertising could easily
be managed through relatively minimal use of Google ads or another ad
server, particularly now that we have a professionalizing staff. Involving
contributors by asking for donations is great - relying on the continued
generosity of these contributors to put the foundation on a sound footing
for the long term is irresponsible.

Nathan

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 12:44 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] LA Times article / Advertising in Wikipedia
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>


You're assuming that there is some connection between editorial control of
articles and the allocation of advertising. There isn't. Take Google ads,
for instance. Even a very conservative use of Google Ads would make
Wikipedia more than enoug to sustain its finances, and would involve zero
risk of an apparent endorsement from Wikimedia in my opinion. We wouldn't be
determining which ads go where, what they say, etc. We're not talking about
interleaving sponsored results in searches, or allowing paid endorsements of
specific articles. There is a wide gulf, and this is a complex issue.
Simplistic approaches and attitudes to this problem, which bears on the
future of this endeavor, should be avoided.

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 12:37 PM, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:

> It would be the end of our commercial and content independence. We
> could not claim to treat subjects without bias (with neutrality) if
> we're accepting $$$ to promote companies on relevant articles.
>
> Even if the ad service (and advertising companies) are treated with
> independence (ignoring threats by those companies to pull out
> advertising money for treating a subject in a particular way), how do
> you think reader impressions will change?
>
> Internet advertising is already too imposing and the popularity of
> anti-advertising tools reflect this. Just because the status quo is to
> be intrusive with advertising, doesn't mean we should follow suit. The
> availibility of these tools creates a disparity between those with the
> technical know-how to remove ads from their browsing, and those who
> don't.
>
> --
> Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
>
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