[WikiEN-l] Advertising on Wikipedia

[Nathan]

Honestly? You can't think if anything the Foundation could do with more
money,
or a more stable stream of income? You think relying on donors, in
perpetuity,
is a sound financial plan? I understand that the staff of the Foundation is
working
hard, both to cultivate new large donors and to develop other possible
sources of
revenue. I'm happy to see that, and think they're doing great work. But the
"other" options are rather limited - a near-invisible ad footprint on en.wp
would
blast any other branding or paid distribution income out of the water. Any
other
method also has to appeal to the commercial interests of some other
organization,
and personally I'd rather see an ad for the International Red Cross on
Wikipedia than
a Wikipedia-brand Monopoly game.

If you are perfectly satisfied with the status quo of the Foundation and
believe
the only growth necessary will occur organically, the problem of long-term
viability still remains. Relying on large donations and community donor
drives
forever is just not rational.

Nathan

On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 3:08 PM, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:

> AGK wrote:
> > Advertising may ultimately be necessary if Wikimedia is to achieve its
> > long-term goals: our current aims are simply not justifiable at the
> > present volume of income, inclusive of any realistic increase.
>
> Somehow, whenever the topic of advertising on Wikipedia is
> discussed, I always miss the description of the goals which are
> financially unsupportable without the kinds of income which can
> only be achieved through advertising.  What are they?  What is
> it that we're failing to do today due to lack of money?
>
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