[Wikipedia-l] public service ads in Wikipedia?

[Mark Williamson]

That's very pompous of you, Daniel.

If I recall correctly, when a similar advertising debate occurred some
time back, there was a major fork (monolingual) which now houses a
substantial number of articles and users, and although that debate
passed is still separate and competes for attention and visits with
the corresponding Wikipedia.

To assume that forks will not attract any people is very naïve. We
should always tread carefully, and try not to move into any territory
that is liable to get many people up in arms and wanting to fork (ie,
adding ads).

Mark

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 18:45:43 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer
<maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> > Wikipedia material is GFDL. Wikimedia Foundation can and should employ
> > whatever fundraising methods it thinks are optimal.  Anybody who doesn't
> > like the methods still gets to use the product on their own fork.  Free as
> > in speech.
> 
> This is not going to be an issue so long as donations of both money and hosting
> keep us running. So far this has been the case - it just looks like we will
> have to pay more attention to grants and hosting offers in the future than we
> have been.
> 
> In fact one of the most remarkable things about Wikipedia and her sister
> projects is the fact that they *fully* exist due to the good will and
> generosity of the people who use them and the people who just admire them.
> 
> But yes - the choice between Wikipedia with ads and no Wikipedia is a
> no-brainer for everybody except for the most ardent anti-capitalistic zealots.
> Making that choice, however, does not at all seem to be something we need worry
> about in the foreseeable future.
> 
> -- mav (just talking for himself - as always unless stated otherwise)
> 
> 
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