[Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page"

[Jane Darnell]

As a fundraising tactic, I think this is a good idea, but it is hard
to define and put a price on it. I would guess you would charge more
to sponsor high-profile articles, the way a parks commission can
advertise donor names on park benches, where the more prominently
placed ones get a higher "price". That said, does the sponsorship only
apply to the page in one language? And how long does the sponsorship
stay with the page? Forever? That doesn't seem right. Putting the
sponsor's name visibly on the page can also be confusing, because most
readers will assume sponsor=writer, and this is incorrect. You could
create a donor's list though that links to the pages and have the
sponsor names listed there with the year of their sponsorship, with
each year an update possible with the amount paid (or amount block in
a scheme of bronze, silver, gold). This way high profile pages could
have more sponsors. With the sponsor amounts as a guide, individual
Wikipedia contributors may apply for a mini-grant to cover costs of
source books, etc for future work based on past work in these pages.

2013/3/30, Craig Franklin <cfranklin at halonetwork.net>:
> It comes down to asking what the purpose of the Foundation and a project
> like Wikipedia is.  Is it to produce a free source of knowledge, or is to
> promote volunteerism?  If it's possible to build a better encyclopædia by
> encouraging paid editing or allowing for-profit entities to sponsor a
> particular page, then that's a possibility that we ought to make ourselves
> open to.  Volunteerism, of course, has served the movement well and got us
> to where we find ourselves today, but it is not and should not be
> considered an end unto itself.
>
> Of course, as has been pointed out, there are potential pitfalls with this
> model that have been discussed many times - there are many potential COI
> issues, and paid editing in some areas may discourage unpaid editing in
> others.  However, I think it would be unwise simply to dismiss those sort
> of possibilities out of hand.
>
> Cheers,
> Craig Franklin
>
> On 30 March 2013 11:29, Thomas Morton <morton.thomas at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> It's a weird dichotomy.
>>
>> I've spent several hundred quid on source material for my current topic
>> area. I could easily have spent several grand.
>>
>> Paid editing is a major issue, because it conflicts with our culture
>>
>> But if someone were able to buy my sources then it would be of huge
>> benefit.
>>
>> And, controversially, if someone could fund me one day a week to write
>> these articles I could likely expand from one GA per month to covering
>> this
>> entire field in GAs in a year.
>>
>> Without that it will take me a good five years
>>
>> I've come recently to see that funding article work is not inherently an
>> awful thing. But it needs to be done with extreme care to protect our
>> ideals and neutrality. And that is a HARD problem.
>>
>> Tom
>>
>> On Saturday, March 30, 2013, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>
>> > On Mar 30, 2013 1:04 AM, "Mono" <monomium at gmail.com <javascript:;>>
>> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > How so?
>> >
>> > It would be completely against our culture. Wikipedia is a volunteer
>> > written encyclopedia.
>> >
>> > You would end up with a two-tier system of paid editors and unpaid
>> editors.
>> > There would inevitably be a lot of conflict between those groups. The
>> whole
>> > concept would be extremely divisive.
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