[WikiEN-l] Advertising on Wikipedia

[Steve Summit]

Anthony wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 6:59 PM, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com>wrote:
>> But the community would rip itself apart and a large portion of those
>> involved would leave, forking and never coming back.
>
> I think there's a very good chance that you're right, but this strikes me
> as so incredibly irrational that I have trouble accepting that it's the
> only possible scenario.

You're entitled to your POV, but please don't make it sound as if
those who don't share it are irrational.

The reason people hate ads is that they would make our content
non-free.  Instead of saying, "here's some stuff we give you
altruistically, out of the goodness of our hearts, use it however
you wish", we'd be saying, "here's some stuff you can have, but
only if you look at this ad first."  It doesn't matter how
tasteful or unobtrusive or hideable an ad is; the very fact that
it's there fundamentally changes the nature of the transaction.