[Foundation-l] Advertisements?

Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
Wed Mar 19 10:43:18 UTC 2008


Hoi,
We do not write articles about our advertisers. We do not even write well
about our major sponsors. If anything the
Kennisnet<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennisnet>article is out dated
and it does not even inform substantially what it is
that they do. Now I am not going to improve the article, it is just that I
want to point out that this is not what we do. Given the English wikipedia
community stance on self promotion, do you really believe that an article
that is more then the NPOV about an advertisement has a chance? Do you think
that anyone in his right mind expects this to happen?

With advertisements you do not sell to the highest bidder. The most you do
is provide a segregated platform, indicated as such, where a commercial
message will be available. The other part is separate and is independent in
its message. When this is not be the case, it is time to fork.

The WMF has in the past indicated that they were not considering
advertisements, that they would not absolutely rule it out because it may
become necessary in the future. What we can do is be plain in not wanting
advertisements. What we can do is consider under what circumstances
advertisements need to be considered. What we can do is consider what
advertisements should look like when we are to have them. What we can
consider is what we could do when more money is available. These are all
different issues and they should be treated as such.

I disagree that the WMF should bring information slowly. Because this
attitude maintains the digital divide as it exists today. In languages like
English, German, Dutch there is a wealth of information available. All the
Wikipedia information is available for these languages in other sources as
well. I am not so convinced that for a language like Bengali or Telugu we
have the same luxury. Mind you imho Bengali and Telugu are doing really
well.

When the "children in Africa" are mentioned, I am happy to tell you that the
OLPC is working hard to give these kids (also in Asia, South America and the
US) their own computer. It is for this reason, among many others, that we
have to have information available for these kids now because they are
learning now.

There is a lot that you can do with a little money and a lot of effort. We
are good at a lot of effort, we often do not have the little money to
leverage our lot of effort. We need to invest where our money does the most
good. I invest in making the localisation of MediaWiki more relevant and why
I actively support Betawiki. The only language that does not need to do
anything for its localisation is English. You may infer from this why you do
not see Americans or Britons on Betawiki. People who have English as their
first language do not appreciate how easy things are for them.

Thanks,
    GerardM



On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 7:22 AM, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I don't know what the community as a whole really thinks, but I think
> >  your view that clearly labeled and distinguished advertisements are
> >  fundemental breach of NPOV is absurd.  I trust in the basic
> intelligence of
> >  our readers to be able to distinguish between a clearly labeled ad and
> our
> >  actual content.  Do you consider the NYTimes (and essentially every
> other
> >  newspaper and magazine) to be fundementally biased simply because they
> carry
> >  ads?
>
> Actually, yes. I am rather suspicious of such publications when they
> run stories about their major advertisers. One also wonders what they
> choose -not- to run about them. If there were a newspaper which did
> not use ads, I would read it any day over the ones that do, for the
> exact reason of lack of potential bias (and actual bias, in giving
> part of their space to someone to promote themself). If we sold ads,
> we would be doing the same thing; namely, allowing self-promotion on
> part of our site in exchange for money. We have, historically, totally
> disallowed self-promotion in article space (or other areas such as
> Special:Search commonly viewed by readers), and should continue to
> strictly forbid it.
>
> As to labelling and distinguishing, I wouldn't find part of an article
> acceptable if it were blatant self-promotion, even if it were labelled
> "Blatant self-promotion". When a reader views or searches for an
> article, there should be -no self promotion- anywhere on the reader's
> screen. Period, end of the story. Anything else violates NPOV.
> Labelled POV is still POV.
>
> >
> >  IF ads are ever added to Wikipedia, then I for one would stick with the
> site
> >  that would be expected to have tens of millions of dollars for further
> >  development rather than clinging to an idealistic, but ultimately
> >  self-destructive, fork.
>
> Wikipedia/Wikimedia itself was initially an idealistic but ultimately
> unrealistic and self-destructive project. It has survived and
> prospered on the sweat of dedicated contributors who agree with its
> ideals (and many of whom disagree with the sale of those ideals to the
> highest bidder), legions of readers who find it a valuable resource
> due to exactly the same, and donations. It has never had large amounts
> of cash. It has been successful in spite of, or perhaps even because
> of, that lack.
>
> >
> >  -Robert Rohde
> >
> >  PS. I'm not saying ads are the only solution, but I consider them an
> >  entirely reasonable option.
>
> For some websites, sure they are. For this one, it's one of the most
> divisive and destructive things we could do to the project. I would
> urge you to learn from the experience of the Spanish Wikipedia. It
> took them years to recover from that. You know as well as I do that
> ads on the English Wikipedia (which I'm most familiar with, so I use
> it as an example) would cause drama beyond belief and contributors to
> leave in hordes. This is not for no good reason, -Wikipedia should not
> have ads-. Ever. The only thing I would come back to do is vote every
> board member who even makes a peep about instituting or keeping the
> ads out on their ass, and vote for everyone who advocates getting rid
> of them. And I am by no means alone in this view.
>
> The reason this project is worth anything at all, monetarily or
> otherwise, is because of the volunteers who worked to build it. Even
> setting aside the ethical question of alienating and ignoring the
> wishes of a large percentage of those, there is the practical
> question--we can always hold a fund drive, or at the worst slash
> costs, and things would keep kicking along, but could Wikimedia
> survive a mass exodus and major forking across the board? Maybe, but
> I'd like to not find out.
>
> I am not heartened by the silence of most of the Foundation board
> members. I would very much like to hear a resounding "ABSOLUTELY NOT",
> or at the very least "We considered the option but have already
> rejected it." I find the quiet on this issue to be worrisome. Our
> current Board is composed of some pretty smart people, but it would
> still be good to hear definitively that they do not intend to do this.
> And of course, if such an option is under ANY amount of consideration,
> the Board certainly must be aware that it would be most unwise to even
> begin deliberation on such a question without first seeking community
> input.
>
> P.S. Spare us the "children in Africa" bit. (That applies to everyone
> who is directly or indirectly using it.) It is Wikimedia's job to make
> knowledge available to the world, but better to fulfill that mission
> slowly and surely than never at all, by killing the project or
> tainting it with (real or perceived) bias. It's a despicable rhetoric
> tactic to make one's opponent appear as though (s)he is "against
> helping the poor (insert sympathetic cause here)", when in reality
> that's tangential to the discussion at best.
>
> --
> Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.
>
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