[Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page"

[Peter Southwood]

Why would anyone want to sponsor a page?
What would they get out of it?
Cheers,
Peter
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jane Darnell" <jane023 at gmail.com>
To: <cfranklin at halonetwork.net>; "Wikimedia Mailing List" 
<wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2013 11:46 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Adopt a page"


> 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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