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

[Brian]

I have to be honest about one thing related to this topic. I have always
thought it would be harmless to include Google ads on Wikipedia's internal
search engine. There is such a small amount of content there - titles, not
even snippets - that it seems impossible that it could be perceived as a
tacit endorsement of any topic or a compromise of our values. An explicit
and obvious notice could explain as much. The money raised could be used to
further our goals, to spread knowledge throughout the world.

We now know exactly how many page views Special:Search is getting. If you
haven't seen this number yet, close your eyes and make a guess as to how
many page views it got this
February<http://stats.grok.se/en/200802/Special:Search>.


Here's the answer:* Four hundred and seventy one million. *It was viewed 290
million times in December, 466 million times in January, and it's already
been viewed 100+ million times this month.

It's clear that the Wikimedia Foundation could earn millions of dollars
without ever showing an advertisement on a Wikipedia article.

It might not be good for the Foundation to have such a large injection of
cash so quickly. As long as we continue to sustain ourselves based on
donations alone, I am against showing ads. But if we are ever short on cash,
I am in 100% in favor of turning on Google ads on Special:Search for a month
instead of a fundraiser for a quick injection of money to keep the project
going to meet our long term, world wide goal of spreading knowledge