[WikiEN-l] Ad-free forever?

[stevertigo]

Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> I'm not here to discuss the wording of the fundraising slogans yet
>> again, but this one screams "legal trouble":
>> Wikipedia. Ad-free forever.
>> [Progress bar] [Donate now button]
>> I'd interpret this as "if we reach $7.5M, Wikipedia will be ad-free
>> forever". I really wish that'd be the case, but if not, people (from
>> simple dudes to legal trolls) might come out of the woodwork screaming
>> fraud.

Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> Strange, I'd interpret it as "Wikipedia will be ad-free forever. Now,
> hand over the cash."
> But afaik the foundation has never said such a thing. The last I heard
> was Jimbo saying "not anytime soon, and only if there is some major
> shift in public opinion".

Well, that's certainly a shift from the "never" position. We really
have to give props to Jimbo for sticking with it so long though. Money
isn't the issue nor the object, and that's the principle that will
endure, regardless.

But, putting the ideas in this thread together with an earlier
discussion about creating an endowment: Ostensibly there is some
validity to the idea that, if people discussed (openly, dammit) how
big exactly a permanent Wikipedia endowment would have to be, and then
asked the community (ie. the people that give Wikipedia its actual
value) for permission to allow ads (small ones, no animation, no
scripting, at the bottom of Wikipedia articles) for a just the
exactly-calculated period of time necessary to create the target
endowment, then people might see that as not violating the principle.

And Wikimedia can do the same if it wants one.

-Stevertigo