[Foundation-l] Advertisements?

Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
Tue Mar 18 11:29:56 UTC 2008 

Hoi,
How do you substantiate your assertions? It reads like arguments of faith.
Adds do not say "buy this" when they are so unsophisticated they will not
sell much. You assert that we will lose volunteers. The question you do not
ask is what will balance this loss. The question you do not ask is what the
value is of the contributions when we have more staff. When we had more
staff we could work on things like a GUI for our data, one of the biggest
impediments for the use of our data. We could improve our software and
support the languages that we currently do not support properly.

You speak as if advertisements are fundamentally incompatible with our
mission. For you it is an article of faith. For me advertisements are a
potential way to ensure that we have sufficient money for the budget that
has been approved by our board. I doubt that you have a clue how much more
of an impact we would have when we had substantially more money with the
same frugal outlook on spending.

In my opinion our aim is in bringing information to the people of this
world. We could do much better if we had sufficient funding. This whole
notion that there is fat in our budget is based on what, more faith ?
Thanks,
     GerardM


On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 9:39 AM, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 1:09 AM, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 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.
> >  > >
> >  > >
> >  > > _______________________________________________
> >  > > foundation-l mailing list
> >  > > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >  > > Unsubscribe:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >  > >
> >  > _______________________________________________
> >  > foundation-l mailing list
> >  > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >  > Unsubscribe:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >  >
> >  _______________________________________________
> >  foundation-l mailing list
> >  foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >  Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> And a lack of ads is a core component which makes this possible. NPOV
> is a core principle which makes our mission possible and worthwhile.
> NPOV and ads are fundamentally incompatible. "Buy this!" cannot
> possibly be NPOV.
>
> Skilled volunteer contributors are also necessary for the continuation
> of the project, and many of those will simply refuse to work for a
> commercial project. Number me among those who would walk out the door
> and never look back if ads were added in any but the most dire
> circumstances. By dire circumstances, I mean a choice between "Run ads
> today or shut down the servers tomorrow", and removing them -as soon-
> as financial stability is reached again. I don't mean just not
> covering the budget. Trim fat from the budget first.
>
> You speak as though ads are not fundamentally incompatible with our
> mission (providing accurate, neutral information for free reuse and
> distribution to the world). They are. If they turn out to be the
> lesser of evils at one point (total failure or temporary ads), I'd
> grudgingly accept the ads temporarily, provided a fixed threshold is
> set for when they will be removed, but we're a long way from that
> point.
>
> --
> Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

More information about the foundation-l mailing list