On 10/25/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On this subject, here is something to think about.
Which is worse in terms of COI risks?
Funded 100% by donations by 50% of the donation money comes from only 1-3 people/groups.
Funded 90% through ads but with no advertiser accounting for more than 1% of the income.
It's a serious and important question.
I would say the former is a more serious COI risk in terms of incentive to compromise our content (though on a very narrow range of content, related to the big-money people/groups), while the latter is a much more serious risk in terms of public perception of COI (with all the negatives that come with that).
I don't think there is significant risk of editors actually tailoring content to drive ad revenue (especially since the per-page revenue numbers would never be made public), but ads are a constant reminder to every reader that there is something commercial going on, even if Wikimedia itself is a non-profit. Most readers would never have any inkling of COI concerns from individual high-value donations.
But I also think that switching to Google search (with ads) would be much less likely to raise red flags with users, compared to article ads. After all, they are used to seeing ads in the context of search; it would all seems part and parcel of using faster and more relevant Google search (and/or MSN or Yahoo! or Ask). Most users sophisicated enough to worry about ads and revenue streams can also appreciate the functional difference between Wikipedia's current search and what an integrated commercial engine could do.
-Sage