[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia public relations

[Ray Saintonge]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Chuck Smith wrote:
>
>>I was thinking the other day that the goals of
>>Wikipedia are in line with those of Unesco and I was
>>wondering if we could somehow try to become officially
>>connected with Unesco to gain a better reputation.
>>
>My primary concern is that our independence is very likely to be
>hampered by any such association.  I'm not sure what you have in mind
>by our being 'officially connected', but I certainly can't envision
>that we could become entangled with the UN and retain our neutrality.
>
The strings attached may be more like a load of spaghetti.

>>We might also be able to get significant financial grants from them
>>in this way.
>>
>I have a general philosophical disagreement with our purely volunteer
>effort being corrupted with money taken by force, which is what UN
>money would be.  I am not a complete hardliner about this, but I am
>not particularly eager to do anything of the sort except possibly as a
>very last resort.
>
There are enough arguments to make us suspicious of this kind of funding 
source, without even getting into the issue of how thay get *their* 
funding.  I tend to look at some of these sources as some kind of 
corporate welfare that perpetuates "corporate welfare bums".

>>I know people are going to yell at me, but I think Google AdSense
>>would produce an incredible amount of money for the project.  We
>>could show them to anonymous users and people who log in could turn
>>them off if they wanted.  Well anyway, it's just a suggestion, don't
>>bite my head off.
>>
>I know that not many people share my curious political views, but to
>me, it's much worse to seek money from governments, i.e. to ask them
>to take money by force from others, than it is to accept advertising
>money.
>
"Curious" political views are essential, no matter where they fall in 
terms of traditional political spectra.  Similarly, Wikipedia does well 
to accomodate and document offbeat views without taking sides.

Volunteer organizations change when they have government funding.  There 
may be no explicit strings, but that does not protect from the implicit 
unspoken ones.  When I'm travelling by car I make a point of visiting 
small local museums.  There's a big difference between museums that are 
government controlled or operated, and locally controlled museums.  Last 
summer I visited museums in Ludington, Mich. and Hardin, Mont.  The only 
significant government support that they had was property tax 
concessions from local governments.  Hardin didn't even charge an 
admission fee.  Both were excellent facilities.  

Government facilities often have an air of advanced sterility.  This 
diminishes when municipal operations are based in small towns.  Many 
volunteer operation have a cluttered appearance, and seem sorely lacking 
in expertise.  They leave you with the feeling that you just want to 
pitch in and help even though you're a thousand miles from home. 
 There's a lesson to be drawn from this kind of situation.

>However, it is not clear to me that ads would produce "an incredible
>amount of money".  I should look at the traffic and make an estimate,
>just so we have some awareness of what we're giving up.
>
Exactly.  If we have objective measures that show us that it doesn't 
provide any significant resources, then we don't even need to go into 
great detail about the more complicated social and moral arguments.  If 
there is no benefit, we don't need the cost.

Ec

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