[Foundation-l] Advertisements?

[Birgitte SB]

--- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 18, 2008 at 9:39 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
> 
> I see several problems with this analysis, but in
> the interest of readability,
> I'll snip and save the bulk of them as a draft for
> later, and concentrate on
> the most significant one:
> 
> If we take it as a given that the moment wikipedia
> succumbs to
> (momentary or long term) financial hardship, it will
> go all supine and
> welcome advertisements in, no questions asked, this
> will merely
> encourage those who for whatever reason (quite
> possibly the noblest of
> reasons - such as wishing to expand our charitable
> mission way
> beyond our original remit) find advertising to be a
> boon to WMF in
> (perhaps subconsciously; unwittingly) overreaching
> its operations.
> 
> 
> 

I wonder how people would feel about limited
advertisements (not in the article space), if all ad
revenue was put towards funding an endowment rather
than the general budget. 

Birgitte SB


      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for last minute shopping deals?  
Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.  http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping