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

[Milos Rancic]

There are two different "ownerships" in relation to WM projects:

- Community owns content.
- WMF owns servers.

Relation between community and WMF is a different question. However,
there is an obvious distinction between people who are taking care
about content and people who are taking care about paying bills.

As a community member, I *want* to be asked about content-related
matters (like licenses are; for which I am *not* asked); but I really
don't care how WMF would raise money while it is reasonable and
according to some basic ethics (don't take willingly money from weapon
traders, militaries, terrorists...). And even Wikia-like ads are
reasonable enough.

I am sure that WMF would spend money for much better goals if it gets
more money than it is needed servers. I would really like to see WMF
as a donor to OLPC or some similar project; or even to see WMF as an
organization which acts as a protector of other free knowledge and
free software projects. Actually, I think that this is an important
responsibility of WMF because it is able to get a lot of money.

At the other side, I really don't like the idea of separating projects
in such matters because of "cultural differences". Cultural
differences may change approach to some cultural matters (which are
content- and community-structure-based), but not to the matters which
are of common interest.

If there is some common interest at all. But, this is a different,
much more important question for all of us.

On 3/12/08, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
>  When you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation, you donate to the Foundation,
>  not to an individual project. When you compare the different projects, you
>  will have to agree that not much has been done for the "other" projects.
>  There are clear ideas on how the software could be improved and when funding
>  is available it would be possible to do so. When you look at Alexa for
>  Wiktionary, you will see that it is doing really well. A lot of revenue can
>  be had by the Wiktionary projects alone.
>
>  When you bank on the fact that the world will not end (it will not and at
>  most some people will suffer from withdrawal symptoms) the automatism
>  whereby you want to take what is not yours is funny. Now when the WMF states
>  that they are not equipped to take targeted money, that would be a different
>  story because that would be a practical issue.
>
>  When you bank on the fact that "other projects might be willing to give it a
>  chance too", you have to appreciate that with increased revenues it will
>  become possible to start work on all the projects that we dream about. When
>  we adopt advertisements, we will change our budget and we will want to
>  continue to do the things once started. Remember, it is not a zero sum game.
>  With more money we are able to do more and only when you consider a few
>  single language projects can it be argued that we already do "enough".
>  Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
>  On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 12:13 AM, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com>
>  wrote:
>
>
>  > On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 7:00 PM, Gerard Meijssen
>  > <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > > Hoi,
>  > >  It is not exactly a non-zero sum game. When a projects decides to have
>  > >  adverts, does this mean that projects without adverts will benefit from
>  > this
>  > >  as well? Will the benefits be allocated to things that benefit a
>  > project
>  > >  that accepts ads?
>  >
>  > I wouldn't expect this, no. This would be like saying that my donation
>  > money should go to benefit Wikibooks only, not Wikipedia. Revenues, be
>  > they from donations or otherwise, should go to benefit the entire
>  > foundation. Of course, if only a handful of very small projects join
>  > the effort, there will be no net revenues to speak of. I'm banking on
>  > the idea that when one project adopts advertisements, and the world
>  > does not end, that other projects might be willing to give them a
>  > chance too.
>  >
>  > >  The good news is that with the professionalisation of
>  > >  our Foundation the potential for more successful fund raising is
>  > increasing.
>  > >  We just have to wait and see to what extend this will suffice to
>  > prevent the
>  > >  need for advertising.
>  >
>  > I agree. Let's see how the next year goes in terms of fundraising. No
>  > sense panicking just because Sue hasn't turned water into money in the
>  > past two months. If this next year doesnt go much more smoothly then
>  > this past year, I would like to think that people would seriously
>  > consider alternatives (advertisements are certainly not the only
>  > possible alternative, and might very well be the worst).
>  >
>  > --Andrew Whitworth
>  >
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