[WikiEN-l] LA Times article / Advertising in Wikipedia

[Ray Saintonge]

John Vandenberg wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>   
>> jossi fresco wrote:
>>  > In regard to today's article on the Los Angeles Times about Wikipedia and
>>  > funding, I am sure that this has been discussed in the past, but it is not
>>  > about time we look into this dispassionately?
>>  >
>>  > Would it really be the "end of Wikipedia" to have a "Sponsored links"
>>  > section as a subsection of the "External links" section on articles in which
>>  > two or three Google ad words could be placed?
>>
>>  While I continue to oppose advertising in Wikipedia, I do very much
>>  agree with Jossi that having a dispassionate discussion is a good idea.
>>   I always have to say this part lest a news headline result: I am
>>  saying exactly the same things in this email that I have been saying for
>>  years.
>>
>>  A less intrusive concept than Jossi's, even, would be to have "Sponsored
>>  links" off to the right hand side *only on the search results page*.
>>
>>  (Notice that I am personally opposed to this at this time, but that I
>>  think it is a bad thing that we continue to make this decision with
>>  absolutely no data or discussion about how much it would bring in, what
>>  we could realistically accomplish for our charitable goals with the
>>  money, what our readers would think, what we as a community would think,
>>  etc.)
>>     
> An interesting idea put forward by a Wikisourcian is:
>
> If the Wikimedia Foundation ever runs short of cash, I suggest adding
> unobtrusive text-based advertisements to Wikisource, much like
> Uncyclopedia. There is no danger of violating the
> neutral-point-of-view policy because [Wikisource has] none, and links
> to buy still-copyrighted books by the same author could actually be
> useful to readers.
>
> < http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/User:Remember_the_dot >
>
>   
I don't hink it's right to say that NPOV doesn't apply to Wikisource.  
It's more that Wikisource lacks significant situations where NPOV is a 
factor.  The lack of policy reflects that.  Pre-existing texts, the meat 
of Wikisource, say what they say.  Theoretically NPOV could apply to 
Author pages, but even there we tend to limit ourselves to a few bare 
facts and lists of works.  NPOV could apply to annotations, but few 
people have been interested in producing these.

Ec