[Foundation-l] Advertisements?

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Please define "financial trouble". Given that the dollar is taking a nose
dive and given that this is affecting the value of the cash reserves as they
exist, we can talk of trouble. Given that the budget for 2008 is not
covered, we can talk of trouble. Given that there are many things that we
want developed but do not get either finished or started, we can talk of
trouble. Given that there are several content projects that we want to give
a bigger profile but do not have the means to make this happen, we can talk
of trouble. When you think that sacking staff or not taking up the
opportunities that exist is "the usual shoestring" then I consider that
trouble.

Please define "our core principles". There are people vehemently against
advertisements and there are many people cowered into silence. What has
always been said and this is a good thing is that if it is not necessary to
have advertisements, we will not. Equating no advertisements with core
principles is ludicrous; it means that others may make money from our effort
and we do not make the money we need for the activities we have planned, the
costs that we incur...

Please define "our" in "our values". Please understand that I do not want
advertisements either however, this *has *to be weighed as one issue with
the other issues. When advertisements are considered the single most
important issue and all other issues are considered of less relevance, then
I absolutely cannot consider it a value that is ours. Read what the WMF aims
to do, read what Wikipedia aims to do. We are about bringing knowledge to
the people of this world. That is our aim, our values can only be the ones
that make this possible.
Thanks,
     GerardM

On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 8:39 AM, effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Ah, here the big question comes up :) What should be determining our
> choice
> for ads or not... Just a few options:
>
> 1) Financial trouble
> 2) Our core principles
> 3) Our values
> 4) Because the community favors it over donations
> 5) Because the visitors favor it over donations
>
> Of course there are many more, but my stake here is actually that *first*
> we
> should discuss 1), 2) and 3), probably too 4) and then we go to 5). If
> there
> are financial trouble, there is little choice, and we'll *have* to,
> whether
> we like or not. If there are no trouble, but the usual shoestring, then we
> should see what our core principles and values have to say about it.
> Finally, I think that in this case, the opinion of the community is at
> least
> as important as the opinion of the visitors.
>
> I think both opinions will be measured in the UNU research? And as there
> seem to be no threatening financial problems right now, 2) and 3) are left
> in the open :)
>
> BR, Lodewijk
>
> 2008/3/18, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>:
> >
> > On 17/03/2008, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > > Brian wrote:
> > >  > Asking if advertisements should be shown on Wikipedia on a website
> > that is
> > >  > currently showing them an advertisement is obviously not a good
> > design
> > >  > methodology :)
> > >
> > >
> > > Yes, and facebook users are not representative of the people we care
> > >  about (i.e. everyone) in some other important ways too... they tend
> to
> > >  be college kids in the US.
> >
> >
> > It might be worth paying for a professional polling company to do a
> > proper survey - I'm not sure what those kind of things cost, but I'm
> > sure the information would be very enlightening.
> >
> >
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