[Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea

[MZMcBride]

Liam Wyatt wrote:
> Whilst I don't support or advocate for Wikimedia projects including
> advertising, I would like to ask a hypothetical question. Would people's
> opinions towards ads would be different if google's ads were to be
> incorporated ONLY on the Search page:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search in the whitespace on the right.
> 
> This is by far the most popular individual page
> http://wikistics.falsikon.de/2009/wikipedia/en/ and ads there would be able
> to be served in a way that is both relevant to the end-user (based on the
> term being searched for) and yet without having to "sell out" our article
> pages. On the other hand it would mean we could no longer say "we have zero
> ads" and it would create a lot of angry Wikimedians (possibly me included)
> making the "slippery slope" argument.

Careful there.

A lot of people (and scripts) go through "Special:Search" because it follows
links much better. For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=mw:MediaWiki works
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mw:MediaWiki doesn't work

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=wikia:un:UN:N works
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wikia:un:UN:N doesn't work

As far as I'm aware, this is the only reliable way currently (and for the
past few years) to resolve interwiki prefixes in an automated and accurate
way. I can't say for sure, but I have a strong feeling that this is the
reason that "Special:Search" gets so many hits. "Special:Search" also likely
gets a hit when the "go" button (or just the return key now) is used. All of
these people wouldn't be seeing the page either. So your primary audience
would be people searching on Wikipedia for a topic that doesn't currently
have an article or a redirect. Given that a another sizable percentage of
views comes from search engine results, the pool of actual views you're
talking about becomes even smaller.

The evidence is bolstered by another redirect page ("Special:Random") having
so many hits according to the data you linked to. It's not even possible to
view that page in any meaningful sense. Put some ads there and I doubt you'd
hear many complaints, but you'd be getting millions of "views" each month.
;-)

Calling "Special:Search" the most popular page (or basing fundraising
theories on it) is dangerous and often misleading work.

MZMcBride